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Jay Coghlan, Executive Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, commenting on the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Nuclear Facility in the plutonium production complex at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Scott Kovac, Operations and Research Director, Nuclear Watch New Mexico debunking the argument that the economic impact of the proposed new nuclear facility at Los Alamos is an efficient use of $6 billion.

Rebuttal: NYTimes' "Los Alamos Residents Brace for Layoffs at Lab", 3/3/12

Jay Coghlan provides some critical counterpoints (in italics) to "Los Alamos Residents Brace for Layoffs at Lab", The New York Times.

March 3, 2012
Los Alamos Residents Brace for Layoffs at Lab
By Dan Frosch

Los Alamos, N.M. Sharon Stover remembers the stories her mother used to tell about what life was like when Los Alamos National Laboratory first opened during World War II.
The jobs that flooded this impoverished swath of northern New Mexico, the government men who made the small hilltop town their home, the prideful sense that the secret work being done here would surely keep America's enemies at bay.
Nearly 70 years later, a cloud of uncertainty has drifted in over the hallowed national laboratory, which helped give birth to the Manhattan Project and has been a crucible of the nation's nuclear weapons research and development.
Last month, the Obama administration decided to defer construction of a new plutonium research facility at the laboratory for at least five years because of budget constraints.
On Feb. 21, the lab announced that it would need to lay off up to 11 percent of its 7,600 permanent employees, a target that officials hope can be reached through volunteers. On Thursday, the lab's director, Charles F. McMillan, met with employees to explain the terms of buyouts, which they can apply for beginning Monday.
"We're very worried and concerned about the cuts," said Ms. Stover, the chairwoman of the Los Alamos County Council, whose parents worked at the lab and whose husband is an engineer there. "We were told these missions were key to the defense of our country."
Lab officials said a budget shortfall, coupled with the postponement of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility, a huge project that had been in the planning stages for years, led to the cuts.

The postponement of the CMRR-Nuclear Facility has nothing to do with the number of Lab jobs. In its August 2010 final environmental impact statement for the CMRR-Nuclear Facility the NNSA admitted that despite a ~$5 billion investment the project would create zero new permanent jobs because it would merely relocate existing jobs from older facilities. That review did however predict that an average of 420 temporary construction jobs would be created over nine years, but even then it's not clear how many of these temporary construction jobs would have actually gone to New Mexicans. In any event, the environmental impact statement noted that those temporary jobs "would have little or no noticeable impact on the socioeconomic conditions" of the Los Alamos, Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, and Taos Counties.

The lab's budget for the 2012 fiscal year is $300 million less than the $2.55 billion, mostly in federal money, that it received last fiscal year.

Lab officials claim that the current fiscal year 2012 budget is falling some $300 million below FY 2011, or $2.2 billion vs. $2.5 billion. However, $70 million of that is due to the end of onetime economic stimulus funding for cleanup programs at LANL, which Lab management was fully aware of, and accounts for the already planned end of some 150 jobs. To put the job question in greater perspective, in constant dollars total FY 2010 funding for LANL was $2.31 billion. That is "only" $40 million more than this fiscal year's $2.27 billion, but it included $130 million in stimulus money, hence FY 2012 "regular" spending is still greater than FY 2010. Thus all the recent rhetoric about crippling budget cuts to LANL programs overlooks that the fact that this merely brings current funding back to the then-record breaking level of FY 2010 spending at Los Alamos, which was exceeded only by FY 2011.

"I'm hoping we can do it all as voluntary because it's far less disruptive to the work force," Mr. McMillan said in an interview on Friday. "A lot depends on what happens within the next month." He added: "We are one of the largest employers in the northern part of the state. Inevitably, these kinds of actions do have a ripple effect." In 2008, amid similar budget constraints, 431 workers were let go with buyouts. But this year's cuts will probably run deeper, and Mr. McMillan acknowledged that they would be difficult.

McMillan wears two hats, arguably in a conflict of interests. One hat is as LANL Director, the other is as president of the for-profit limited liability corporation "Los Alamos National Security" (LANS) that runs the Lab, in which the Bechtel Corp. and the University of California are the two dominant partners. The 2008 layoffs occurred in large part to make up for the new for-profit costs. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) awarded LANS $74.2 million for FY 2010, when it employed 14,610 people. This was followed by NNSA awarding LANS $83.7 million in profit for FY 2011, a 13% increase in one year, and 10 times more than what the University of California (UC) use to be awarded when it was LANL's sole nonprofit manager. Why does LANS now need to drop 400-800 employees from its current documented workforce of 11,782, when virtually the same amount of funding employed far more people in FY 2010? There appears to be a pattern, common to today's corporate world, of cutting jobs in order to maximize profits.

In addition to those workers eligible for the buyouts, the lab also employs about 3,500 contractors, students and others. Mr. McMillan said the layoffs were necessary so that Los Alamos, which has shifted its mission from primarily nuclear weapons to national security, could continue its work "10, 20, 50 years from now."

Actual budget numbers show that LANL's public relations claim that it has "shifted its mission from primarily nuclear weapons to national security" is false. Total Lab funding in constant dollars was $2.31 billion in FY 2010, $2.55 billion in FY 2011, and is estimated to be $2.27 billion in FY 2012 (there is little if any economic stimulus money for added cleanup in FY 2012). Of this, appropriations for nuclear weapons programs were $1.42 billion in FY 2010, $1.65 billion in FY 2011, and is estimated to be $1.31 billion in FY 2012. That is 61.5%, 64.7% and 61.7% respectively for each year. Further, these budget numbers are just for core research, testing and production programs for nuclear weapons, and do not reflect that much of LANL's remaining budget indirectly support those programs. In all, LANL has shown great consistency in having its nuclear weapons programs remain its primary focus, in contrast to undefined "national security."

For now, though, the one-two punch of the cuts and the plutonium facility's delay has sowed unease in Los Alamos a true company town where nearly half of the lab's permanent workers live in the area.
"Those early in their career are understandably quite worried," said one longtime employee, who did not wish to be identified because she was considering taking the buyout and did not want to jeopardize her position. "A lot of it is the uncertainty: Where do I stand now? How vulnerable am I?
"This is the first time that Los Alamos is not looked at as one of the best places to work if you are a scientist, career-wise," she said.
Rich Montoya, president of the university professional and technical employees' union at Los Alamos, said that workers who had built their careers and skill sets around the lab's nuclear weapons program were rightfully concerned about their future.
"We've been waiting for this to happen for quite a while," he said.
Meanwhile, New Mexico politicians, who have long sought to shield the lab from downsizing, have reacted strongly to the cuts.
Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat who once represented northern New Mexico as a congressman, said in a statement that he was concerned that the budget would "impact the talent at L.A.N.L. and the vital work being performed there."
A spokesman for Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, said the governor was also worried about the effect on northern New Mexico's economy and believed that the cuts were a byproduct of dysfunction in Washington.

If the politicians are so concerned about jobs they should push for comprehensive cleanup at LANL, which the Lab's own data suggest could create up to a 1,000 high-paying, long-term jobs. Gov. Martinez's administration is granting numerous extensions to a legal Consent Order governing cleanup at LANL, which could otherwise forcefully compel the creation of those many cleanup jobs.

Donald L. Cook, deputy administrator for defense programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said a decision had been made to build a new uranium processing facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in lieu of completing the plutonium facility at Los Alamos for the time being.
"It's really important to understand that we have not canceled the project," Dr. Cook said.
The nuclear security administration oversees Los Alamos, as well two other national laboratories. Dr. Cook said the costs for replacing the existing plutonium facility at Los Alamos had risen substantially during the planning stages.
Around Los Alamos, a town of about 12,000 that overflows with scientists, postdoctoral students and nods to its nuclear past, virtually everyone holds some connection to the lab.
At the Otowi Station book store, where books like "Now It Can Be Told: The Story of the Manhattan Project" fill the shelves, co-owner Peggy Durbin worried about the prospect of losing hundreds of residents.
"What's going to keep people here? It's going to be tough," said Ms. Durbin, who worked at the lab for 22 years as a technical writer and editor. "The lab sniffles, and all of northern New Mexico gets a cold."

Yet despite the vaunted economic presence of the nuclear weapons industry New Mexico has fallen from 37th in per capita income in 1959 to 43rd in 2010. The fact is that Los Alamos County is a highly privileged enclave that does not share its wealth with the rest of New Mexico. Out of 3,142 counties in the USA, Los Alamos is the 2nd richest, has the most millionaires per capita, the very lowest poverty rate, and is tied for lowest unemployment. At the same time, some of the poorest communities in the country live next to Lab boundaries.
Los Alamos County's population is 83.4 percent "white persons, not of Hispanic/Latino origin." However, New Mexico is the only state with a "minority" majority population (54.6 percent Hispanic, Native American, and Other Minorities). The average wage per job in New Mexico was $39,258 in 2010, while the average wage per job in Los Alamos County (nearly two-thirds for nuclear weapons) was $73,629. At the same time, New Mexico has the highest rate of children living in poverty. What exactly does LANL's nuclear weapons programs do for New Mexican children?
- Jay Coghlan, Exec. Dir. Nuclear Watch New Mexico (contact)

Sources:

• LANL funding data are from the DOE's FY 2011 and FY 2012 Congressional Budget Requests "Laboratory Tables" (source), but also include precise estimated amounts for "Work for Others" (~$300 million annually) from LANS' primary contract, Sections B H, p. 9. (source).
• Economic stimulus funding numbers: (source)
• CMRR-NF job data are from NNSA's August 2011 Final EIS, Volume 1, pp. 2-16 & 2-55: (source)
• LANL's 2010 level of employment is from: (source)
• The 2012 level of employment is from "Fast Facts": (source)
• Area G job data are from the Corrective Measures Evaluation Report for Material Disposal Area G, Consolidated Unit 54-013(b)-99 at Technical Area 54, Revision 3, LA-UR-11-4910, LANL, September 2011: (source)