June 23, 2020

Efforts toward a new Rocky Flats Plant in greater Santa Fe advance; ways to engage

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Dear New Mexico activist leaders –

1. Efforts to build a new Rocky Flats Plant in the greater Santa Fe area advance

Last week the full Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), strongly influenced by Senator Heinrich (Ranking Member, Strategic Forces Subcommittee) in this matter, reported out a draft FY21 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would provide $1.1 billion for plutonium warhead cores ("pits") at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) next fiscal year (i.e. starting October 1).

This is the level the Administration proposed for pit production at LANL, including some of the necessary supporting construction. Heinrich's press release, posted in its entirety without journalistic content as is usual on the Los Alamos Daily Post bulletin board, explains:

Senator Heinrich again supported full funding to secure Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) role as the nation’s Center of Excellence for Plutonium Research. The bill authorizes $1.1 billion for LANL’s ongoing plutonium operations and pit production programs [for fiscal year 2021]. The funding supports personnel, equipment and other activities at LANL to meet pit production requirements by 2026; highlights include, $611 million for plutonium operations, $226 million to support pit production, $30 million to construct new fire-control panels in PF-4, $27 million for fire protection and equipment, power and communications improvements in PF-4, $37 million for a new transuranic liquid waste handling and $169 million for upgrades related to replacing the outdated Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building at LANL.

The SASC likewise endorsed the requested level for warhead activities overall. (Background: "Administration seeks 49% increase in Los Alamos nuclear weapons activities, 33% plus-up for LANL overall," press release of Feb 23, 2020).

This proposed funding authorization triples annual spending on plutonium programs and supporting construction at LANL.

It is also more than twice comparable spending at the other pit production site in South Carolina.

No journalist in northern New Mexico has written about this. No liberal or "progressive" organization, no environmental organization, no church, no political party, no local government, no tribe, no newspaper, are as yet opposing this momentous development.

Have you asked any?

Many liberals and "progressive" Democrats tacitly support a factory at LANL, just as many US corporations profited handsomely from fascism in the 1930s. This tacit support by New Mexico liberals on this issue goes well beyond the support of Senators Domenici and Bingaman, Governor Richardson, and even the early Trump Administration for this mission at LANL. None of these thought LANL was a good place for this dangerous and dirty mission.

The SASC authorization level will likely prevail. It usually does. The Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) had its markup yesterday, passing their draft unanimously without comment or amendment, which is silent on pit production. Last year, the new Democratic majority in the HASC tried to strike a slightly different course than the Senate, focusing pit production at LANL only, amid other tweaks to nuclear programs. They failed. They appear to have given up.

Thanks primarily to the New Mexico delegation, production of at least 80 pits per year (ppy) by 2030 is now a statutory requirement, with TWO sites required to build toward 80+ ppy. LANL is required to undertake "surge" production as soon as possible, at least temporarily taking over all U.S. pit production if the factory in South Carolina is delayed (a near-certainty).

Achieving this pit production goal will be as difficult as it is stupid. As noted on these pages many times before, production at LANL has no engineering merit, as NNSA itself understood just a few years ago. Pit production is not needed at all to maintain all current U.S. weapons for decades. (Forget "pit reuse." Not needed, not really practical: won't happen.) Maintaining existing warheads is not the purpose of pit production -- making new kinds of warheads while enriching contractors is the sole real purpose; the rest are rationalizations.

The House Appropriations Committee may (or may not) try to shave some funding from this plan. Senator Udall can be counted upon to prevent that as best he can. He usually succeeds. Even if appropriations bills are late, NNSA has an extra $8 billion in Weapons Activities funds available to draw upon, so they can get started on October 1 with an increased tempo of activities. No doubt they are gearing up right now.

The chart below shows the site breakdown of "Plutonium Modernization" over the coming years, as presented this past February. This is, basically, preparation for pit production.

This chart does not include the additional $200 to $400 million/year which is flowing to LANL in plutonium-related infrastructure and equipment like those Senator Heinrich mentions. It is these which bring the 2021 tally to $1.1 billion.

Of course it does not include the other elements of the proposed LANL expansion -- all of which concern designing and testing nuclear weapons.

At the Study Group, we have been involved in national discussions with colleagues about pit production. Congress will be finishing its annual "defense" bills soon, given the pandemic -- and upcoming election. Much of our work has to be there.

2. We had a second successful Zoominar on pit production, this time from a more national perspective. A few briefing slides need finishing before they can all be posted.

3. We see little or no prospects for positive results from current liberal, progressive, and radical efforts in New Mexico -- across the board. Many people are being far too gullible. Authority figures are selling fantasies of progress so business as usual can continue in all the important ways. While essentially nobody we know falls for Trump's crude propaganda, it is a quite different story for "progressive" propaganda and the political-social engineering that goes with it. We see political and moral regression, not progress.

The Study Group is not any kind of "antinuclear" organization or a "lab critic," or "watchdog," or any of the other marginalizing, pejorative identities we get stuck with. Most of us have been involved in practical efforts for environmental, economic, and religious renewal for a long time -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not. We have taken the trouble to train ourselves in the sciences, in technology policy, in religion, in sustainability, and in other ways. We set aside lucrative, easy careers to serve the community. We have some experience. I want to speak from that experience now.

I am not just speaking for myself when I say this, but everyone I have spoken to sees political regression, not progress, in the current riots and more broadly, in our communities over the past few years, as well as nationally.

People don't seem to realize how much and in what ways they are being used and are thereby losing, not increasing, their autonomy and personal political power, or how this process is contributing to the loss of democracy. As a society we are losing the plot, the understanding and storyline that will allow us to address our society's and civilization's main challenges.

We are being divided. It's addictive, and it's useful to powerful people and institutions who want to hang onto and increase their already vast power, regardless of its damage to others and the environment.

Nationally, the interlinked political, social, economic -- and, out of the limelight, environmental -- situations in the U.S. are deteriorating fast. Nobody has a monopoly on insights into this complex process of decline. We all need to pay attention.

Most of the commentary we see is incredibly shallow and misleading -- most, not all. By and large, citizens who are really concerned are being encouraged to deny the gravity of our situation -- vis-a-vis climate for example -- and are being sold nice, easy narratives that have nothing to do with reality.

How can any of us navigate such polluted, shallow, waters? Certainly talk alone is too cheap.

We have arranged various ways to engage powerfully on the issue outlined here, the deeper adumbrations of which will be clear to you. Without accounting for especially powerful or limiting circumstances you may have, here is a partial list:

• Support our Call for Sanity not nuclear production (now open to individuals as well as businesses, organizations, and churches). You and your contacts can fill out the on-line version, or print out the web page and mail it in.
  
• If you live in Santa Fe, contact city councilors about supporting the two resolutions:
  
• 1) Requesting a Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for the proposed expansion of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), including the proposed expansion of plutonium missions; and
  
• 2) Prohibiting the City of Santa Fe from entering into any development agreement involving any nuclear weapons agencies or their instrumentalities.
• Write LTEs and op eds -- including in the Los Alamos Reporter, by far the most accurate and up-to-date source for news about Los Alamos.
  
• There are several actions they can take listed on our action sheet from our website here, e.g.
  
• Write or call local officials. Open letters are best. Tell politicians that your support hinges on their strong public support for cutting back the nuclear weapons industry and US military spending, and doing something actually relevant and important with those billions (up-to-date data here). You will find the words. 
• Write or call our congressional delegation
• Write candidates.
  
• Contact your friends.
• Contact newspaper editors asking for more coverage of nuclear and defense issues. The few articles which do appear seldom connect many dots. For example, after many days the Journal did cover the Senate Armed Services markup, but readers are not informed that this bill would use up more half of all discretionary spending, i.e. the spending Congress decides upon. No money for education? Covid response? To read our newspapers, you would think the authorizations Heinrich crows about just appear from thin air.  
  
• Become a sustaining donor of LASG, or make a one-time donation. Visit our contribute page for more information on different ways to contribute.
  
• Get friends to join our national email listserve and/or our New Mexico activists listserve if they are not on them. Instructions are at the top of this email.
  

These are powerful actions because we do them together, around and through a powerful organization. Synergies will occur, as they have in the past. People and information will come forward. Opportunities will appear. It sounds vague because the details are not predictable, but overall this process is as predictable as the sun rising.

As with any worthwhile endeavor, some trust is involved, and some commitment.

I want to stop there. I am not going to send many interesting things which might distract from these central messages.

Stay in touch with each other, stay safe, thank you for your attention, call or write us,

Greg, Trish, Lydia, and gang