Full Recording: Second Scoping Hearing for NNSA’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Plutonium Pit Production
Operation Crossroads: “The World’s First Nuclear Disaster”
“With Trump back in office, the recurring question of the need for nuclear weapons testing has resurfaced in the national security debate. Project 2025’s directive that the US return to ‘immediate test readiness’ raises further alarm, given the primacy of that document in Trump’s circle. The general uncertainty around current U.S. nuclear posture gives added weight to the historical importance of the atmospheric and underwater nuclear weapons tests conducted on the Bikini Atoll, recounted here by one of the leading advocates for public safety in the nuclear age. —Ed.”
By Robert Alvarez | Washington Spectator, National Security | May 29, 2025, washingtonspectator.com
Beginning in the late 1970’s, I was working for the Environmental Policy Institute around the time when atomic veterans started to descend on the nation’s capital. I would arrange meetings with Congressional offices, and the offices of both the Defense Nuclear Agency and Veterans Affairs, to enable the veterans to share their experiences and seek justice for being sent in harm’s way. About 250,000 soldiers, sailors, Marines, Coast Guard men, and airmen took part in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests from 1945 to 1963.
John Smitherman and Anthony Guarisco were 17- and 18-year-old sailors, respectively, in July of 1946, when they took part in “Operation Crossroads”—the first two nuclear weapons tests following World War II. These tests were conducted on the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands and codenamed “Able” and “Baker.”
As a result of this extraordinary indifference to lethal danger, some 200 U.S. Navy ships were contaminated, and ships carrying radioactive fallout subsequently sailed to home ports in California. These ports are still being cleaned up today, nearly 80 years later. Glenn Seaborg, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission from 1961 to 1971, described the Baker test as “the world’s first nuclear disaster.”
Anthony and John were part of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet involving 40,000 service men and 2,000 civilians. They along with others swam in the heavily contaminated Bikini Lagoon. When I met them in 1980, John was suffering from lymphatic cancer and Anthony from a severe form of spinal arthritis.
In March 1983, Anthony and his wife Mary showed up at my cluttered office and ceremoniously handed me a large stack of documents. They had just visited the UCLA library in Los Angeles and found boxes of forgotten, declassified documents belonging to Dr. Stafford Warren, the chief safety officer during both the Manhattan Project and the 1946 Crossroads tests.
Full Recording: First Scoping Hearing for NNSA’s Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement on Plutonium Pit Production
NEW Report on Plutonium Pit Production from the Union of Concerned Scientists
Today, UCS is releasing a comprehensive report on plutonium pit production. It includes a technical assessment of plutonium aging, a critical look at the weapons programs that new pits are slated for, and suggestions for alternatives, including pit re-use.
The final chapter of the study is on the human and environmental impacts of pit production and is intended as a tool for local advocacy groups to deepen their own work around issues such as the programmatic environmental impact survey that has just kicked off.
Links to the report:
https://www.ucs.org/resources/plutonium-pit-production
Spanish language executive summary:
https://es.ucs.org/recursos/la-produccion-de-nucleos-de-plutonio
Plutonium Pit PEIS Scoping Hearing Presentation: Slides and Recording
Get Prepared: A coalition of advocacy groups, including Union of Concerned Scientists, Tri-Valley CAREs, and NukeWatch New Mexico recently held a training to help participants prepare effective comments.
Watch the recording here
Password: gP=&0LYZ
Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: May 2025
Nuclear Weapons Budget:
• Republicans are pushing for $1 trillion per year for military spending. The fiscal 2026 budget request calls for $892.6 billion in discretionary defense funding — same as FY 2025 (and a cut given inflation). But they are also seeking $119.3 billion through budget “reconciliation.”
• Congressional Budget Office “Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2025 to 2034,” April 2025:
“Costs of Current Plans: If carried out, DoD’s and DOE’s plans to operate, sustain, and modernize current nuclear forces and purchase new forces would cost a total of $946 billion over the 2025–2034 period, or an average of about $95 billion a year, CBO estimates… CBO’s current estimate of costs for the 2025–2034 period is 25 percent (or $190 billion) larger than its 2023 estimate of $756 billion, which covered the 2023–2032 period.” https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-04/61224-NuclearForces.pdf
Separately it was reported that the twelve new Columbia class submarines will cost $12 billion each, three times more than their projected cost in 2010 and is years behind schedule.
Nuclear Weapons Update:
Nuclear weapons and delivery systems would get an added $12.9 billion in the new reconciliation proposal. This includes $2 billion for sea-launched nuclear cruise missiles and $400 million for their warhead.
Accelerating Arms Race
• The current conflict between India and Pakistan is dangerous.
• 4-4-25 ExchangeMonitor: https://www.exchangemonitor.com/wrap-up-russias-modern-arsenal-and-nukes-in-ukraine-deputy-secretary-of-energy-hearing-rubio-japan-and-rok-in-brussels-more/
“Russia’s top commander in Ukraine Gen. Sergei Surovikin discussed using nuclear weapons to prevent Ukraine from advancing into Crimea in the fall of 2022, the New York Times said March 29. The Times cited U.S. intelligence reports…”
Lawsuit Compels Nationwide Public Review of Plutonium Bomb Core Production
AIKEN, S.C. — Today the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous nuclear weapons agency within the Department of Energy, published a formal Notice of Intent in the Federal Register to complete a nationwide “programmatic environmental impact statement” on the expanded production of plutonium “pit” bomb cores. Pits are the essential radioactive triggers of modern nuclear weapons. The NNSA is aggressively seeking their expanded production for new-design nuclear weapons for the new nuclear arms race.
The South Carolina Environmental Law Project (SCELP) successfully represented the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition and Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Savannah River Site Watch and Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment in a legal challenge to NNSA’s attempt to improperly jump start dual site pit production. On September 30, 2024, United States District Court Judge Mary Geiger Lewis ruled that the NNSA had violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to properly consider alternatives before proceeding with its plan to produce at least 30 pits per year at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and at least 50 pits per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
NNSA issues plans to assess pits environmental impact
“This programmatic environmental impact statement that we fought long and hard for empowers citizens to tell policy makers what they think about decisions being made in their name,” Jay Coghlan, from environmentalist group Nuclear Watch New Mexico, said Thursday in a press release by the plaintiffs of the case. “Let them know what you think about the $2 trillion ‘modernization’ program to keep nuclear weapons forever while domestic programs are gutted to pay for tax cuts for the rich.”
By ExchangeMonitor | May 9, 2025 exchangemonitor.com
On the heels of a federal judge’s ruling last fall, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration formally announced plans Friday for a detailed review of environmental impacts of planned plutonium pit production.
DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced in the Federal Register it is kicking off a programmatic environmental impact statement EIS to ensure that large-scale pit production will comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
According to the Federal Register notice, NNSA will hold public meetings and public hearings as part of the process.
Two online public scoping meetings are now scheduled for May 27 and May 28. The May 27 session would commence at 5 p.m. Eastern Time while the May 28 one is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Eastern. Both can be accessed online or by phone. Details can be found in the Federal Register notice.
A federal district judge ruled last September that DOE and NNSA did not adequately analyze the environmental effects of producing the radioactive cores that trigger nuclear weapons in two different states, but declined to put the pit program, including construction of the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility at Aiken, S.C.’s Savannah River Site on hold as a result. In January, the federal government and the plaintiffs, consisting of environmentalists, settled the lawsuit and agreed to leave Los Alamos National Laboratory as the sole pit factory until NNSA completes a nationwide, NEPA-compliant programmatic EIS.Continue reading
US nuclear firm ‘utterly crucial’ to national security expands East Tennessee operations
“Which company produces uranium fuel for U.S. Navy nuclear reactors and manages the only plant where the government disassembles atomic warheads? What about the company helping NASA to develop a nuclear rocket, all while building small modular reactors and developing a pilot plant to restart uranium enrichment for the military?”
By Daniel Dassow, Knoxville News Sentinel | May 5, 2025 newsbreak.com
It’s all the same answer: BWX Technologies , the $2.7 billion juggernaut better known as BWXT has embedded itself in every kind of nuclear project imaginable with a strong and growing presence in East Tennessee, where 1,100 employees at its Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin “downblend” bomb-grade uranium. The facility also creates fuel for the nuclear reactors aboard U.S. Navy submarines and aircraft carriers.
The region is even more important to BWXT after it bought a specialized facility in Jonesborough and 97 acres in Oak Ridge for a centrifuge enrichment project the company says will create hundreds of jobs through millions of dollars in investments.
“We have availed ourselves as a key player in just about every interesting nuclear opportunity that you can think of,” BWXT President and CEO Rex Geveden told Knox News. “We’re all over it.”
BWXT is part of the team led by the Tennessee Valley Authority to build the first small modular nuclear reactors in the U.S. at the federal utility’s Clinch River Nuclear Site in Oak Ridge .
It will manufacture the reactor pressure vessel, the largest component of the 300-megawatt reactor designed by GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy , for small modular reactors in the U.S. and Canada.
Curb the Skyrocketing Cost of U.S. Nuclear Modernization
“Since Russia and the United States agreed 15 years ago to modest nuclear reductions under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), they also have embarked on extraordinarily expensive campaigns to replace and modernize every component of their respective nuclear arsenals to maintain force levels and provide the option to build up.”
By Daryl G. Kimball, Arms Control Today | May 1, 2025 newsbreak.com
At the same time, their leaders have failed to resolve disputes about existing treaties or launch new negotiations to limit or further cut their deadly arsenals below the New START ceiling of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 strategic missiles and bombers each.
In 2018, shortly after he withdrew the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, U.S. President Donald Trump foolishly bragged about the nuclear stockpile that “until people come to their senses, we will build it up. It’s a threat to whoever you want, and it includes China, and it includes Russia, and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game.”
China has responded to U.S. nuclear and conventional military plans by pursuing a buildup of its historically “minimal” nuclear force to ensure that it retains an assured “second strike” capability. Russia has continued to develop new types of intermediate range missiles, as well as some new and exotic strategic systems designed to bypass U.S. missile defense capabilities.
Successive presidential administrations and congresses have failed to seriously consider alternatives that would have reduced costs and still maintained a devastating nuclear force.
Now, the cost of the U.S. nuclear modernization program is skyrocketing even further, siphoning resources from other more pressing human needs and national security priorities.
In April, the Congressional Budget Office issued its latest 10-year cost projection of the departments of Defense and Energy plans to operate, sustain, and modernize existing U.S. nuclear forces and purchase new forces: a total of $946 billion in the 2025-2034 period, or about $95 billion per year.
This new estimate is 25 percent, or $190 billion, greater than the last CBO estimate of $756 billion, which covered the 2023-2032 period. Incredibly, the $946 billion estimate does not include all of the likely cost growth of the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, which the Pentagon acknowledged in July 2024 would cost 81 percent, or $63 billion, more than the program’s baseline estimate of $78 billion, generated in 2020.
Find Out the Facts & Sign the Petition: Why NMED Should Deny LANL’s Request for Tritium Releases
Why NMED Should Deny LANL’s Request for Tritium Releases
The Los Alamos National Laboratory plans to begin large releases of radioactive tritium gas any time after June 2, 2025. The only roadblock to the Lab’s plans is that it needs a “Temporary Authorization” from the New Mexico Environment Department to do so.
Reasons why NMED should deny LANL’s request are:
- The state Environment Department has a duty to protect the New Mexican As it states, “Our mission is to protect and restore the environment and to foster a healthy and prosperous New Mexico for present and future generations.” 1
- Why the rush? LANL explicitly admits there is no urgency. According to the Lab’s publicly-released “Questions and Answers” in response to “What is the urgency for this project?”
“There is no urgency for this project beyond the broader mission goals to reduce onsite waste liabilities.” 2
-
- In addition, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) admits that the end time frame for action is 2028, not 2025.3 Therefore, there is time for deliberate consideration.
- Contrary to NMED’s Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit for LANL, the Lab has not fulfilled its duty to inform the public via NMED of possible alternatives to its planned tritium releases.4 According to Tewa Women United, “LANL has told EPA there are 53 alternatives; that list of alternatives, initially requested in 2022, has not yet been Tewa Women United has repeatedly asked LANL to provide the public with that list.” 5
University of New Mexico to host exhibit on nuclear history, technology, weapons
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) — A provocative international exhibit will open soon at the University of New Mexico. “the bomb” is an immersive, multi-media installation exploring the history, technology, and threat of nuclear weapons.
By Nicole Sanders, KRQE | April 22, 2025 krqe.com
The installation includes an hour-long film projected on 45 screens conveying the hidden chaos and danger of the nuclear age. The experience is coming to UNM from April 30 to May 30. The full schedule at Zimmerman Library is available below:
- Wednesday, April 30
- Friday, May 2, 2025
- Friday, May 9, 2025
- Friday, May 16, 2025
- Friday, May 23, 2025
- Friday, May 30, 2025
Formal Comments on the Draft Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Operation of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
The National Environmental Policy Act requires the Los Alamos National Laboratory to periodically prepare a new “Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Continued Operations.”
Please use NukeWatch NM’s recent extensive comments on the Lab’s new draft SWEIS as a resource and citizens’ guide to Lab issues.
Did you know, for example, that:
• LANL’s nuclear weapons production budget has doubled over the last decade?
• The Lab’s so-called cleanup plan is to “cap and cover” some 200,000 cubic yards of radioactive and toxic waste, leaving them permanently buried as a perpetual threat to groundwater?
• There is a planned intentional release of up to 30,000 curies of radioactive tritium gas, all without a public hearing?
Use our lengthy formal comments as a starting point, toolkit or resource for dissecting ongoing and future issues at LANL!
We encourage you to use our comments to ask for follow-up info, either from us here at NukeWatch or from the Lab, and to demand better accountability and transparency! Use as background or briefing material for local and congressional advocacy.
For example:
- Cite or excerpt our comments in future public processes under the National Environmental Policy Act. For example, we are expecting that a nationwide programmatic environmental impact statement for plutonium “pit” bomb core production will be announced soon, the result of a lawsuit in which NukeWatch led.
- Share with those organizing around stopping expanded plutonium pit production and advocating for genuine radioactive and toxic wastes cleanup.
- Learn about LANL’s proposed electrical transmission line across the environmentally and culturally sensitive Caja del Rio and alternatives that were not considered.
- The National Environmental Policy Act itself is under assault by the Trump Administration. We expect environmental justice and climate change issues to be stripped from LANL’s final Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement. This needs to be resisted!
NukeWatch NM argued that the draft SWEIS should be withdrawn and a new one issued because:
• The NNSA has rigged the draft LANL Site-Wide EIS with three self-serving scenarios:
– Expanded nuclear weapons programs (contradictorily called the “No Action Alternative”).
– Yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs (“Modernized Operations Alternative”).
– Yet far more expanded nuclear weapons programs (“Expanded Operations Alternative”).
• A Reduced Operations Alternative must be included.
• The SWEIS’ fundamental justification for expanded nuclear weapons programs is “deterrence.” But “deterrence” has always included nuclear warfighting capabilities that could end human civilization overnight.
• The SWEIS purports to align with U.S. obligations under the 1970 NonProliferation Treaty. That is demonstrably false.
• Future plutonium pit production is NOT to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, it is for new-design nuclear weapons that could lower confidence in stockpile reliability and/or prompt a return to testing.
• The SWEIS’ No-Action Alternative violates the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
• The legally required programmatic environmental impact statement on pit production should be completed first, followed by the LANL SWEIS.
• Plutonium pit reuse should be analyzed as a credible alternative to pit production.
• A recent proposal for a data center at LANL is not in the SWEIS. It raises huge issues of future water and electrical use, the appropriateness of commercial interests at a federal lab, and the possible fusion of artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons command and control.
• Recent Executive Orders could strip the final SWEIS of environmental justice and climate change analyses. This must have clarification.
• Planned tritium releases should be fully analyzed.
• The Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade should be analyzed will all credible alternatives.
• The proposed BioSafety Level-3 facility must have its own standalone EIS.
• All Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board concerns should be addressed and resolved.
• Genuine comprehensive cleanup should be a preferred alternative.
• A new SWEIS should follow a new overdue Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis.
Nuclear Weapons Issues & The Accelerating Arms Race: April 2025
Nuclear weapons
Air Force Weighs Keeping 1970s-Era Missiles Until 2050
The US Air Force is considering contingency plans that would extend the life of 1970s-era intercontinental ballistic missiles by 11 more years to 2050 if delays continue to plague the new Sentinel models intended to replace them. The current plan is to remove all 400 Minuteman III ICBMs made by Boeing Co. from silos by 2039… The Sentinel was projected last year to be deployed starting in May 2029. The first test flight was once projected for December 2023, but fiscal 2025 budget documents indicated a slip to February 2026.
The estimated cost of the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), originally at ~$110 billion, is now north of $180 billion. And this is before recognition of the immensity of supplying new command and control communications and recent consideration that its hardened silos may have to be replaced. IMHO it’s a propitious time to argue again for eliminating the land-based ICBM leg of the Triad. After all, one of its stated purposes is to act as a “nuclear sponge” for incoming Russian warheads. The odds of that are not zero and may increase if ICBMs are uploaded with multiple warheads after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires in February 2026. More temptation for a preemptive first strike.
Calls to restart nuclear weapons tests stir dismay and debate among scientists
By , Science News | March 27, 2025 sciencenews.org
When the countdown hit zero on September 23, 1992, the desert surface puffed up into the air, as if a giant balloon had inflated it from below.
It wasn’t a balloon. Scientists had exploded a nuclear device hundreds of meters below the Nevada desert, equivalent to thousands of tons of TNT. The ensuing fireball reached pressures and temperatures well beyond those in Earth’s core. Within milliseconds of the detonation, shock waves rammed outward. The rock melted, vaporized and fractured, leaving behind a cavity oozing with liquid radioactive rock that puddled on the cavity’s floor.
As the temperature and pressure abated, rocks collapsed into the cavity. The desert surface slumped, forming a subsidence crater about 3 meters deep and wider than the length of a football field. Unknown to the scientists working on this test, named Divider, it would be the end of the line. Soon after, the United States halted nuclear testing.
Beginning with the first explosive test, known as Trinity, in 1945, more than 2,000 atomic blasts have rattled the globe. Today, that nuclear din has been largely silenced, thanks to the norms set by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, or CTBT, negotiated in the mid-1990s.
Only one nation — North Korea — has conducted a nuclear test this century. But researchers and policy makers are increasingly grappling with the possibility that the fragile quiet will soon be shattered.
Some in the United States have called for resuming testing, including a former national security adviser to President Donald Trump. Officials in the previous Trump administration considered testing, according to a 2020 Washington Post article. And there may be temptation in coming years. The United States is in the midst of a sweeping, decades-long overhaul of its aging nuclear arsenal…
Nuclear Nightmare: Meet America’s New B61-12 Gravity Bomb
What makes the B61-12 particularly impressive is the bomb’s ability to adjust its destructive yield depending on the operational conditions and demands.
By Stavros Atlamazoglou, National Interest | March 26, 2025 nationalinterest.org
Over the past months, the U.S. Air Force added another potent weapon to its arsenal: a new nuclear bomb, having recently completed production at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb achieved full system production recently and is now fully operational. The nuclear bomb is one of the most versatile munitions of its type in the world, and a useful addition to the U.S. military’s nuclear deterrent capabilities.
The B61-12’s Unique Variable Yield Design
Sandia, one of the three main research and development laboratories for nuclear munitions, completed the production of the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb. The nuclear munition is now fully operational.
What makes the B61-12 particularly impressive is the bomb’s ability to adjust its destructive yield depending on the operational conditions and demands. Put simply, the B61-12 is four bombs in one. The nuclear munition can be adjusted to four different yields—0.3, 1.5, 10, or 50 kilotons. The difference in yields means that the B61-12 has tactical, operational, and potentially even strategic utility.
Eight decades of nuclear threats are too much
Santa Fe New Mexican: My View John C. Wester
By, The Santa Fe New Mexican | March 15, 2025 santafenewmexican.com
I am John C. Wester, Archbishop of Santa Fe. I’m speaking on behalf of my archdiocese, and the archbishop of Seattle, the bishop of Hiroshima, and the archbishop of Nagasaki. We take guidance from our Holy Father, Pope Francis, who has declared the very possession of nuclear weapons to be immoral. We pray for his health.
Two years ago, in Nagasaki, on the 78th anniversary of its atomic bombing, we Catholic leaders formally created the Partnership for a World without Nuclear Weapons. Our four dioceses include the birthplace of nuclear weapons, the most deployed weapons in the United States, and the only two cities that to date have suffered atomic bombings. We lend our voices in staunch support of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, at this Third Meeting of State Parties.
In July 2017, the Vatican was the first nation-state to sign and ratify the treaty. We note that the nuclear weapons powers have never honored their long-held obligations, under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enter into serious negotiations leading to global nuclear disarmament.
In contrast, the entry into force of the ban treaty was a great step toward the light of peace. The nuclear armed states have a moral obligation to hear the voices of the majority of the world, and to listen to those who are threatened by annihilation, at the whim of any one of their nine leaders.
The New York Times: DOGE Cuts Reach Key Nuclear Scientists, Bomb Engineers and Safety Experts
“Firings and buyouts hit the top-secret National Nuclear Security Administration amid a major effort to upgrade America’s nuclear arsenal. Critics say it shows the consequences of heedlessly cutting the federal work force.”
“The department has said that most of the fired employees handled administrative and clerical tasks that were not critical to the agency’s operation. But an analysis of the internal documents by The Times, coupled with interviews with 18 current and former agency officials, shows that is not true for the bulk of people who took the buyout,”
BySharon LaFraniere, Minho Kim and Julie Tate, The New York Times | March 17, 2025 nytimes.com
…The Times reports that many had top-secret security clearance, giving them access to information on how nuclear weapons are made.
North Korea vows to ‘strengthen’ nuclear capabilities, rejecting G7 call for denuclearization
“The G7 called on Friday for North Korea to “abandon” its nuclear program.”
By Kevin Shalvey, ABC News | March 17, 2025 abcnews.go.com
LONDON — North Korea on Monday vowed to “steadily update and strengthen” its nuclear capabilities, a firm rejection of the G7’s call for Pyongyang to “abandon” its nuclear ambitions.
The country’s Foreign Ministry said that its “nuclear armed forces will exist forever as a powerful means of justice which defends the sovereignty of the state, territorial integrity and fundamental interests,” according to the Korean Central News Agency, a state-run media outlet.
How nuclear deterrence in Europe may change
“What does nuclear deterrence look like in Europe now that NATO is unsure whether the U.S. will be a committed partner? NPR speaks with Paul Cormarie, analyst with the Rand Corporation.”
By A Martínez, NPR | March 17, 2025 abcnews.go.com
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, says he supports a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine in theory. But he adds that Ukraine would need to accept further conditions before a deal could be finalized. Now, in the interim, European leaders are discussing ways to discourage future Russian aggression. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed using France’s nuclear capabilities as a deterrent to Russian threats. But what does nuclear deterrence look like in Europe if NATO is unsure if the U.S. will be a committed partner?
Hanford nuclear site subcontractor, owner to pay $1.1M for COVID loan fraud
“The money was intended to retain and maintain payroll for Hanford site workers assigned to the nuclear reservation in Eastern Washington and also a few Department of Veterans Affairs workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“Within 48 hours of BNL receiving the Paycheck Protection Program loan at least $453,000 had been spent to pay off Stevenson’s personal and family debts, according to an indictment.
That included $100,000 transferred to Stevenson’s father and $48,600 to a family trust, according to court documents.
Much of the rest of the money was used to pay off credit card debt, according to the indictment.
The federal government later forgave the loan, which cleared it from having to be repaid.
BNL and Stevenson later applied for and received another Paycheck Protection Program loan of nearly $820,000.”
By, The Columbian | March 12, 2025 columbian.com
Mar. 11—A former Hanford nuclear site subcontractor and its owner will pay a total settlement of just over $1.1 million to resolve accusations they defrauded the federal government through a COVID pandemic loan program.
On Wednesday, U.S. Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima sentenced BNL Technical Services, owned by Wilson Pershing Stevenson III, to pay nearly $494,000 restitution to the federal government, as proposed in a settlement agreement.
That is in addition to $611,000 Stevenson, of Nashville, Tenn., already agreed to pay in a civil settlement to resolve his liability in the case.
Nuclear Watch New Mexico and Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester Attend the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons
We had the honor of joining the Archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester, in attending the third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons last week, March 3-7 in New York City. The archbishop gave mass to several different groups (see photos below) and spoke at the UN headquarters as part of Civil Society.
In New York City this week? Join Pax Christi members and friends at Mass with Archbishop John Wester (Santa Fe NM) on Tuesday, March 4, 6 pm, at the Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue at 38th Street. Use this link to RSVP. #TPNW #3MSP #nucleardisarmamentwww.dorothydayguild.org/WesterMass25
— Pax Christi USA (@paxchristiusa.bsky.social) 2025-03-03T16:35:50.942Z
Germany skips UN conference on banning nuclear weapons in New York
“Germany has decided not to take part in a UN conference in New York to review a landmark treaty on nuclear weapons prohibition.”
By dpa International | March 4, 2025 dpa-international.com
“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons dates back to a time before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” the Foreign Office told dpa in Berlin on Tuesday. “The intention and ambition of the treaty no longer reflect the current reality in security policy.”
The treaty was signed in 2017 and came into force in 2021. There are currently 94 signatories and 73 states parties, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
Germany does not possess nuclear weapons but is allied with three nuclear powers in NATO: the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
Berlin is not a signatory to the prohibition treaty, but it participated in previous conferences as observers.
Brief Analysis of Today’s U.S. Supreme Court Oral Arguments on the Illegality of Licensing Radwaste Dumps in TX and NM
Today the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Texas. At issue is whether the NRC exceeded its authority when it approved licenses for proposed “consolidated interim storage facilities” for high-level radioactive waste, and this includes highly irradiated “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants.
Two consolidated interim storage facilities are planned for western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended specifically prohibits private “interim” storage of federal spent nuclear fuel, and disallows the Department of Energy from taking title to the waste unless a permanent geologic repository is licensed, built and opened. The law intended to prevent private “interim” storage of federal radioactive waste because interim storage is much less robust than permanent storage, and would double the risk of accident or attack during transport, since consolidated “interim” storage means the waste has to be moved twice, once to the CISF and again to a permanent repository.
Broken arrows: The hidden secret behind America’s missing nuclear weapons
“Dedicated Navy divers, demolition teams, and high-powered sonar spent weeks searching the ocean floor and came up empty.”
By Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering | March 3, 2025 interestingengineering.com
Throughout history, the idea of misplacing a nuclear weapon may sound like a plot twist in an espionage novel. The United States has experienced more than a handful of such incidents. Known as “Broken Arrows,” these events typically refer to any accidents involving nuclear weapons that do not pose an immediate risk of triggering a nuclear war.
For decades, details remained hidden behind top-secret clearances. However, unclassified records reveal that the U.S. military has had a surprising number of mishaps, with some bombs still unaccounted for to this day.
What are broken arrows?
The Department of Defense defines a “Broken Arrow” as any incident involving a U.S. nuclear weapon or warhead that results in accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft, or loss of the weapon. From 1950 to 1980, official sources cite 32 Broken Arrow incidents, but there may have been more, given the secrecy surrounding nuclear matters.
Christie Brinkley: Don’t let the US resume nuclear weapon tests that ended decades ago
“The United States and other nuclear powers are now moving closer to resuming nuclear weapons tests, decades after testing ended. This highly disturbing trend must be halted.”
By Christie Brinkley Special to The Kansas City Star Miami Herald | March 3, 2025 miamiherald.com
Since the atomic age, 2,056 nuclear weapons have been detonated, 528 of them above the ground. The United States and Soviet Union accounted for about 85% of these tests. The explosive power of atmospheric tests equaled 29,000 Hiroshima bombs. Airborne radioactive fallout circled the globe, re-entered the environment through precipitation, and entered human bodies through food and water.
Cold War bomb testing was part of a massive increase in the number of nuclear weapons, which peaked at more than 60,000. After nuclear war was barely avoided during the Cuban missile crisis, public pressure convinced leaders to ban all above-ground tests in 1963 — a treaty that has never been violated.
The test ban treaty was a huge achievement for peace, beginning eased tensions between nuclear nations. It also was a landmark for public health. A study by St. Louis residents and scientists found an enormous buildup of radioactive strontium-90 levels in baby teeth — 63 times higher in children born in 1963 compared to those born in 1950.
LISTEN LIVE TO U.S. SUPREME COURT ORAL ARGUMENTS ON THE ILLEGALITY OF LICENSING RADWASTE DUMPS IN TX AND NM
“The case pits the nuclear industry’s push for CISFs against the interests of fossil fuel companies which object to high-level radioactive waste dumped in their drilling/fracking areas, the state governments of Texas and New Mexico, which have passed laws prohibiting importation of nuclear waste to their states, and cities along the transport routes which object to it being shipped through their jurisdictions. Their amicus briefs in the case are posted here.”
For immediate release
MEDIA ALERT for Wednesday, March 5, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C.,
WHAT? Wednesday morning, March 5, the United States Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Nuclear Regulatory Commission vs. Texas. At issue in the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the U.S.) proceeding is whether the NRC exceeded its authority when it approved licenses for proposed “consolidated interim storage facilities” for high-level radioactive waste including highly irradiated “spent” fuel from nuclear power plants. Two CISFs are planned for western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as Amended specifically prohibits private “interim” storage of federal spent nuclear fuel, and disallows the Department of Energy from taking title to the waste (which would be necessary for DOE to transport it to CISFs), unless and until a permanent geologic repository is licensed, built and opened to receive the waste. The law intended to prevent private “interim” storage of federal radwaste, which is much less robust than permanent storage, and would double the risk of accident or attack during transport, since consolidated “interim” storage necessitates moving the waste twice, once to the CISF and again to a permanent repository. The NRC approved recent CISF license applications despite the law, saying it anticipated Congress would change it in the future. But the federal Fifth Circuit court ruled that the NRC didn’t have that authority. If the Supreme Court strikes that ruling down, it could open the floodgates for thousands of shipments of spent fuel from nuclear power plants across the US, through many states, to CISFs in Texas and New Mexico.
Expanded Plutonium “Pit” Bomb Production is Immoral – Spend Nuclear Weapons “Modernization” Money Ethically ELSEWHERE
Why the nation’s nuclear waste may eventually be headed to northwest Colorado
Nuclear waste is piling up at power plants around the country, and we have no idea where to put it. Many states are aggressively fighting plans for new storage facilities.
But northwest Colorado is quietly opening the door.
ByScott Franz, Erin O’Toole, Brad Turner | February 22, 2025 kunc.org
KUNC’s investigative reporter Scott Franz recently traveled around rural Colorado talking with people about what nuclear waste storage could do for the local economy – and also interviewing folks who are dead set against that idea.
On this special edition of In The NoCo, we’ve combined all of Scott’s reporting from the past few months into a single episode. You can also see photos and check out more on this investigation.
Arms Control Association – Trump Regains Control Over Nuclear Policy: What’s Next?
It has been barely a month since Inauguration day, but it is apparent that Donald Trump is determined to reshape U.S. foreign policy, radically alter alliance relationships, and upend Washington’s approach toward key adversaries, like Russia, in ways that are not yet clear.
Arms Control Association | February 21, 2025 armscontrol.org
And here at home, Trump’s brash assertion of executive power is putting our nation’s democratic institutions and the rule of domestic law at risk, in part by altering or dismantling key government departments,agencies and functions, all without congressional approval.
All of this makes our mission to provide reliable information and sound policy solutions even more important and difficult.
The Arms Control Association has a clear and focused strategy to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and other WMD. Many of these priorities are outlined in this ACA-organized January 28 communication to all members of Congress that was endorsed by 16 of our partner organizations and leaders.
Like many others, however, we are still sorting out how to adjust to and contend with the post-Inauguration political dynamics.
But we must and we will, because critical, weapons-related security decisions lie ahead:
- So long as Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues, there is still a heightened risk of nuclear weapons use, and there are narrowing prospects for a deal to maintain limits on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals after New START expires in one year.
- Although Trump has decried exorbitant military expenditures, the authors of Project 2025, the 920-page manifesto crafted by the Heritage Foundation and others, want the United States to spend even more than the current $756 billion ten-year price tag for nuclear modernization in order to increase the size and diversity of the U.S. arsenal. China and Russia are watching and will surely respond to any U.S. nuclear buildup.
- Project 2025 also calls for preparing to resume U.S. nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992. Should the United States do so, it would open the door to nuclear testing by other states, unravel the CTBT, and blow apart the global nonproliferation system at a time of increasing nuclear danger.
- Since Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Tehran has expanded its capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material and reduced international inspectors’ access. Trump says he wants a nuclear deal; Iran’s president says he wants a nuclear deal. But time is short. Without a deal to scale back tensions and Iran’s nuclear capacity, we could see renewed international sanctions by October, Iranian withdrawal from the NPT, and/or an attempt by Israel to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.
How exactly the second Trump administration and the new Congress will try to navigate all these nuclear-related challenges ahead is not yet clear — but if Project 2025 becomes the blueprint for U.S. nuclear weapons policy, we are in big trouble.
But, it may also be possible to steer us toward a safer course.
Trump wants to initiate denuclearization talks with Russia and China
On Thursday, President Donald Trump signaled that he wants to engage with Russia and China on denuclearization efforts.
By Erik English, BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS | February 14, 2025 thebulletin.org
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump said from the White House.
“You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons, and China’s building nuclear weapons.” The number of nuclear weapons the United States and Russia can have is established by New START, which expires in 2026. Without a new agreement, nuclear states could begin to build up their arsenals for the first time since the Cold War. “Hopefully, there’ll never be a time when we need those weapons,” Trump said. “That’s going to be a very sad day, that’s going to be probably oblivion.”
Share Your Experiences at Los Alamos National Laboratory
The New York Times would like to hear from you about workplace protocols and safety measures at LANL.
By Alicia Inez Guzmán | Alicia Inez Guzmán is reporting on the nuclear industry in New Mexico as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship – THE NEW YORK TIMES February 11, 2025 nytimes.com
More voices, better journalism. The questionnaire you are reading is just one tool we use to help ensure our work reflects the world we cover. By inviting readers to share their experiences, we get a wide range of views that often lead to a more deeply reported article. We make every effort to contact you before publishing any part of your submission, and your information is secure. Here’s more on how it works and why it’s good for us and you.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has recently embarked on the “new Manhattan Project” — a hiring spree and multibillion dollar expansion to build plutonium bomb cores for nuclear weapons.
The Times is writing about this new mission and how the lab is keeping workers safe, reporting accidents and environmental contamination and making needed upgrades to key facilities, including in Technical Area 55, the heart of bomb core production.
Have you or someone you know worked at TA-55 or another “hot site” and experienced a workplace accident or been exposed to plutonium, beryllium or another radioactive or toxic substance on the job? What safety measures were in place? Were there follow-up health assessments?
Please answer the questions using the form:
LANL Site-Wide EIS Hearings in Santa Fe and Los Alamos Filled with Loud Protest and Vehement Dissent: Nuclear Weapons are IMMORAL
In this Site-Wide EIS we’re given three options: Expanded nuclear weapons programs (hypocritically called the no action alternative), then we’re presented with yet more expanded nuclear weapons programs, and the third alternative is even more expanded nuclear weapons programs. What we really need is a genuine alternative in this Site-Wide, and I hope that citizens will repeatedly bring this up. We need a TRUE ALTERNATIVE in which the US begins to show global leadership towards nuclear disarmament that it promised to in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that should be reflected in the sitewide which shows just passive maintenance of the stockpile. We don’t need Pit Production because it’s for NEW designs – NOT to ensure the safety and reliability of the existing stockpile. The US, for our own national security and global security, we need to lead the world towards global nuclear disarmament – and this Site-Wide EIS does the opposite.
The hearings in Santa Fe and Los Alamos on February 11 and February 13, 2025, respectively, both had virtual participation options. The attendees online and in person were equally vehement in protesting the “rigged game” we’re given with this SWEIS and decrying the fact that there is no alternative besides increased nuclear weapons production.
And read an exceprt from the Archbishop of Santa Fe, John Wester’s comments:
“As we all know, we’re in an accelerating new nuclear arms race that’s made even more dangerous because of artificial intelligence, multiple nuclear actors and hypersonic delivery systems. It’s an already scary situation that has become even scarier, and what concerns me is that Los Alamos and Santa Fe play a key role in naturally fostering and promoting this new nuclear arms race – a race which I believe is an affront to all that is good and holy, all from our perspective that God has placed in us to live in harmony with one another. Nuclear weapons pose one of the greatest threats to that harmony. I think it’s important to know what I’m learning more and more about is that expanded plutonium pit production is not simply to maintain the safety and reliability of our existing so-called deterrence. I think it’s important that people are aware that it’s really for new design nuclear weapons for this new particular armed race. I think it’s important that that people recognize that deterrence is not the way to go. In that light, I would say obviously for me is a Catholic Bishop, Pope Francis I think has really changed the whole moral landscape of looking at nuclear weapons. On the 70th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, Pope Francis declared that the very possession of nuclear weapons is immoral. As Catholics this was an extremely important shift there. The 1983 United states conference of Catholic Bishops did allow for deterrence – it was promoting disarmament but made caveats for deterrence. But Pope Francis has taken that off the table in saying that even possessing nuclear weapons is immoral, it’s unethical. One of the main reasons for this church’s shift on this was that the nuclear weapons powers really have failed in their pledge in 1970 when they joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The TPNW came about because of that failure, and so it seems to me then based on what Pope Francis said, that if possessing nuclear weapons is immoral, then expanding plutonium pit cores and modernizing our weapons systems in order to be more involved in the new nuclear arms race is also immoral. This policy is unethical. Now I want to be careful here, I am not saying that anyone working at Los Alamos or Sandia or Lawrence Livermore in California, I’m not judging them or saying there are immoral – that’s a different matter in one’s conscience. I’m saying that the policy is involved and the Pope said that nuclear weapons themselves are intrinsically immoral. I think that’s an important thing to keep in mind, that that we need to be moving toward disarmament and that if we’re not, if that’s not our trajectory, rather if it’s just to build up our defenses, then that’s an immoral buildup.”
Gearing Up for the Public Hearings on the LANL Draft Sitewide Environmental Impact Statement: Pit Production at LANL
“Nuclear Watch New Mexico hosted a workshop on February 6 on the newly released Draft Sitewide Environmental Impact Statement (SWEIS) for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to present information and elicit discussion on this NEPA process that Jay Coghlan, executive director of Nuke Watch, referred to as a “rigged game” at the beginning of the workshop. What that means will become evident as I review the part of the workshop I attended.”
By Kay Matthews, La Jicarita | February 7, 2025 lajicarita.wordpress.com
Archbishop John Wester, an outspoken critic of nuclear weapons proliferation under the guise of nuclear deterrence instead of disarmament spoke briefly to open the discussion. Quoting Pope Francis, he said, “possessing nuclear weapons is immoral.” He then said, “Pit production is immoral.” His only qualification is that it’s the policy that’s immoral, not the people who promote it. We’ve failed to uphold already existing treaties and failed to implement new ones. He’ll be going to the United Nations in March for a meeting, Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and to Japan in August to meet with his partners in the World Without Nuclear Weapons.
Coghlan explained that next week the Department of Energy (DOE) and the semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will hold public hearings, as required by NEPA, on the LANL SWEIS, in Santa Fe, Española, and Los Alamos. He cautioned that while we should all be “cynical” about the process, we need to go ahead and protest the fact that all three alternatives provided in the SWEIS expand pit production, just at different amounts. The process is rigged because the DOE and NNSA failed to update a 2008 Environmental Impact Statement before pit production began at LANL (the other nuclear facility, the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, is slated to produce 50 pits a year but is completely unprepared for pit production).
The guest speaker was Dylan Spaulding, Senior Scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists…
NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop – February 6, 2025
Full Video Recording: NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
NukeWatch Presentation: Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
|---|---|
|
NukeWatch Los Alamos Lab Site-Wide EIS Workshop |
 |
In Memoriam: Ken Mayers
We here at NukeWatch will dearly miss Ken’s weekly presence at the corner vigil to protest Nuclear Weapons in Santa Fe.
Locally, Ken was co-founder of the Santa Fe Chapter of Veterans for Peace and an active member of Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine. Ken worked with the local chapter of US Combatants for Peace and the Justice Council of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Santa Fe where he was also an enthusiastic baritone and co-founder of the NM Peace Choir.
A Celebration of Ken’s life will be held Friday, April 4 beginning at 12 noon at the corner of Sandoval and West Alameda, (Santa Fe’s weekly vigil to protest Nuclear Weapons), followed by lunch and a hybrid service at the UU Congregation, 107 West Barcelona Street, Santa Fe, NM.
For those wanting to pay tribute to Ken, please consider planting a tree through A Living Tribute (https://shop.alivingtribute.org/) or make a donation in his memory to the Santa Fe Joan Duffy Chapter of Veterans for Peace https://www.vfp-santafe.org/
Ken was a lifelong, passionate defender of peace. Read more:
Nuclear News Archive – 2022
India, Pakistan threatened to unleash missiles at each other: sources
Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan almost went to war. “Diplomatic experts said that the latest crisis underlined the chances of misread signals and unpredictability in the ties between the nuclear-armed rivals, and the huge dangers.”
BY & DRAZEN JORGIC | reuters.com March 16, 2019
NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The sparring between India and Pakistan last month threatened to spiral out of control and only interventions by U.S. officials, including National Security Advisor John Bolton, headed off a bigger conflict, five sources familiar with the events said.
At one stage, India threatened to fire at least six missiles at Pakistan, and Islamabad said it would respond with its own missile strikes “three times over”, according to Western diplomats and government sources in New Delhi, Islamabad and Washington.
Watch incredible restored footage of the first nuclear bomb detonation
Original Trinity Footage restoration includes removing dirt and scratches and minimizing some defects in the processing of the original negative.
On July 16, 1945, US Army detonated the first nuclear weapon in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert. Codenamed Trinity, the test was part of the Manhattan Project. Three weeks later, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the Atom Central page about Trinity:
The bomb was detonated, producing an intense flash and a fireball that expanded to 600 meters in two seconds. The explosive power was equivalent to 18.6 kilotons of TNT. It grew to a height of more than 12 kilometers, boiling up in the shape of a mushroom. Forty seconds later, the blast of air from the bomb reached the observation bunkers, along with a long and deafening roar of sound.
Smith: “Trim Budget Fat in America’s Nuclear Triad”
“I would like to kill the low-yield nuclear weapon program. I don’t think it’s a good idea,”
BY JOE GOULD | defensenews.com
WASHINGTON — A powerful skeptic of U.S. nuclear weapons spending, House Armed Services Committee chairman Adam Smith said Tuesday he was open to cutting back quantities of nuclear arms instead of one leg of the nation’s nuclear triad.
“I think a deterrent policy, having enough nuclear weapons to ensure that nobody launches a nuclear weapon at you because you have sufficient deterrent, I think we can do that with fewer warheads,” Smith said. “I’m not sure whether that means getting rid of one leg of the triad or simply reducing the amount in each leg.”
The comments, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s annual nuclear arms forum, came days after Smith, D-Wash., triggered Republican pushback when he said publicly that the intercontinental ballistic missile leg of the triad is not necessary to deter Russia and China. On Tuesday, Smith seemed to soften on that argument, conceding he believes nuclear weapon systems ought to be modernized but maintaining his stance the U.S. needs fewer nuclear weapons.
Trump budget increases funding for nuclear weapons agency amid new production
BY ARON MEHTA | defensenews.com
WASHINGTON — The National Nuclear Security Administration will receive an 8.3 percent increase over its current budget, with an eye on completing production of a new low-yield nuclear missile this upcoming fiscal year.
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-mco.s3.amazonaws.com/public/26PF65JTNFHVNDRBP5J7OVKX4Q.jpg)
The NNSA, a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy that has oversight on America’s nuclear weapons stockpile, is requiring $16.5 billion in the fiscal 2020 budget, up $1.3 billion from its FY19 total. Weapons-related activities would see an allocation of $12.4 billion, an 11.8 percent increase over how much funding went to that mission in FY19. NNSA’s proposed budget comprises 52 percent of the DOE’s total budget request.
“The President’s budget request reflects the Trump Administration’s strong commitment to ensuring that U.S. nuclear capabilities are second to none,” NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty in a statement. “This vital funding will enable us to continue modernization of the Nuclear Security Enterprise to face 21st century threats.”
DOE reports show WIPP chemical exposure months before workers got sick
Employees fell ill while working both underground and at the service
BY ADRIAN C HEDDEN | Carlsbad Current-Argus
Video by Wochit
Story Highlights
– DOE expressed concerns for WIPP’s airflow months before incidents
– Emplacement and shipments were halted for two weeks in October to address the problem
A federal investigation into operations at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad was announced last month, after workers in the underground and on the surface were allegedly exposed to dangerous chemical and excessive heat.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Enterprise Assessments’ Office of Enforcement announced the investigation on Jan. 29 in a letter to Bruce Covert, president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership – the DOE-hired contractor that oversees daily operations at WIPP.
Eight years have passed since a tsunami smashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan, sparking a meltdown and the worst atomic crisis since Chernobyl. The disaster zone remains a huge building site with the immediate danger cleared but an immensely difficult clean-up job still looming.
BY | phys.org
What is the state of the clean-up?
The clean-up operation is progressing at a painstakingly slow pace. Robotic arms have recently been employed to successfully pick up pebble-sized pieces of radioactive fuel at the bottom of reactor two, one of three that melted down after the 2011 quake and tsunami.
This is the first step to prepare the extremely delicate task of extracting the fuel that will not begin in earnest until 2021 at the earliest, the government and the TEPCO operator have said. Another problem is the fuel pools in reactors one, two and three.
The pool in reactor one is covered in rubble which needs to be removed “with extreme care,” explained Akira Ono, head of the TEPCO subsidiary in charge of decommissioning.
Removing fuel from the pools in reactors one and two will not start until 2023.
For International Women’s Day, here are 7 of history’s greatest women-led protests
Three centuries of female fury over taxes, bread shortages, voting rights and more.
International Women’s Day has been around for more than a century, but it has picked up steam in recent years, thanks to its preeminent hashtagability. What started as socialist demonstrations has now evolved into an official holiday in more than two dozen countries, a United Nations day for women’s rights and world peace, and, well, a marketing opportunity for Barbie dolls, cosmetics and beer (because capitalism).
In honor of the holiday’s more egalitarian roots, here are some regular women in history who gathered together to protest, rebel and, in some cases, riot.
Continue reading
Call to Action: Reauthorize VAWA
Every March, we celebrate Women’s History Month. And today is International Women’s Day, when we recognize the invaluable contributions made by women to every sector of society.
Here in New Mexico, we have a lot to celebrate this International Women’s Day. We have two new congresswomen in Deb Haaland, one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, and Xochitl Torres Small, the first Latina to represent New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District.
There are now 25 women in the U.S. Senate and 102 in the U.S. House of Representatives — both all-time highs. We celebrate this achievement, but we can’t stop until these numbers increase.
Our work is never finished. And that includes reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which is due to expire in the coming months.
VAWA funds new and extended services for victims of domestic violence. It gives law enforcement the tools to identify and prosecute offenders. Its protections for indigenous women are essential in New Mexico.
Without it, many women will have nowhere to turn for help.
This International Women’s Day, we must commit ourselves to reauthorizing VAWA and prioritizing women’s safety. Join me in calling on Congress to do the right thing.
|
Women are at the forefront of the radical campaign for Scottish independence which seeks to break the exploitative British union and free Scotland to pursue a fairer, more just and nuclear weapon free independent nation. Women are the heart of the peace movement from the Greenham Common Peace Camp (1981 — 2000) to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Read Tommy Sheridan’s article outlining the “giant tapestry which represents the progressive role and contribution of women everywhere to our world.”
How Pakistani Women are Using IWD to Push for Peace with India
BY SABRINA TOPPA | vice.com
Photo by Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
“Women would be the worst-off if a war starts between two nuclear-armed nations,”
– Farooq Tariq, a Lahore-based political activist who helped organise the Global Standout for Peace in South Asia last week.
This year, women are taking a central stand against the region’s long history of conflict, militarism, and war, with both the Aurat March and Aurat Azadi March explicitly denouncing the creep towards war, and exhorting the nuclear-armed neighbours to issue a ceasefire in Kashmir. “We push for peace and against the war, the militarisation of our everyday lives, and a rhetoric of jingoism,” read a statement from Aurat March on Wednesday.
Fukushima at 8: Accusations of scientific misconduct concern city in Japan
Eight years after the Fukushima nuclear reactors exploded on Japan’s Northern coast, spewing radioactive particles into the air, across the land, and into the Pacific Ocean, the country continues to struggle with decontamination and relocation efforts. Determining the health impacts resulting from the nuclear disaster has been particularly fraught. For Date City, about 60 km from the ruined Fukushima reactors, and still blanketed by radioactive contamination from the ongoing catastrophe, the struggle for protection of health continues amid accusations of scientific misconduct and betrayal.
Trump is barreling toward war with Iran. Congress must act to stop him.
BY TOM UDALL & RICHARD J DURBIN | washingtonpost.com
Tom Udall, a Democrat, represents New Mexico in the U.S. Senate. Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat, represents Illinois in the U.S. Senate.
Sixteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are again barreling toward another unnecessary conflict in the Middle East based on faulty and misleading logic.
The Trump administration’s Iran policy, built on the ashes of the failed Iraq strategy, is pushing us to take military action aimed at regime change in Tehran. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, and Congress must act urgently to ensure that.
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith Opening Statement
Full Committee Hearing on Outside Perspectives on Nuclear Deterrence (As Prepared)
Video link to Chairman Smith’s opening remarks here: https://armedservices.house.gov/ | March 6, 2019
More than a decade ago in a 2007 op-ed George Schultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn warned that “Unless urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence.” And just last month, Senator Nunn and Secretary Moniz said in a joint op-ed “The US and Russia are sleep-walking toward nuclear disaster.”
“Given the President’s erratic tweets about having “a much bigger and more powerful” nuclear button, we need to ensure that we move away from a button-measuring policy that could devolve into a button-pressing policy.”
Giving the Bomb to Saudi Arabia’s Dr. Strangelove
CARTOON BY MR FISH | truthdig.com
Mr. Fish, also known as Dwayne Booth, is a cartoonist who primarily creates for Truthdig and Harpers.com.
ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES | truthdig.com
Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author.
The most dangerous foreign policy decision of the Trump administration—and I know this is saying a lot—is its decision to share sensitive nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia and authorize U.S. companies to build nuclear reactors in that country.
A nuclearized Saudi Arabia is a grave existential threat to the Middle East and ultimately the United States.
Cold Start: India’s Answer to Pakistan’s Nuclear Bullying
ET ONLINE | economictimes.indiatimes.com
Cold Start is Indian military doctrine aimed at punishing Pakistan without a full-blown nuclear clash.
NEW DELHI: A nuclear strike is always the threat Pakistan holds out against any possible Indian attack. Recently, after India declared it would avenge the Pulwama attack, Pakistan Rail Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad again threatened of a nuclear strike after which “neither the birds would chirp nor the bells would ring in temples”.
But India has an answer to this threat — a Cold Start. It is a war doctrine aimed at punishing Pakistan without a full-blown nuclear clash.
The idea for the Cold Start was fuelled by Operation Parakram, launched after the terror attack on Parliament in December 2001. The operation exposed major operational gaps in India’s offensive power, mainly slow troop mobilisation along the border.Continue reading
John LaForge: Nuclear power can’t survive, much less slow climate disruption
“We still don’t know how to recycle the nuclear waste and we’re 70 years in. We have good engineers in the United States. We spent 18 years and $8 billion building an underground vault in Yucca Mountain to store the waste for 10,000 years, but we can’t use it. It’s already no good because there are cracks in the mountain. But any geologist could have told them we live on tectonic plates and you can’t keep underground vaults secure.”
BY: JOHN LAFORGE | madison.com
Donald Trump: “America will never be a socialist country.”
Too late. We already have socialism for the rich, with the nuclear power industry as a prime example.
On a level playing field, nuclear power would go bust. Those owners get financial supports or subsidies that safe renewables like solar power, geothermal, and wind power don’t get. Two particularly large government handouts keep the reactor business afloat, and without them it would crash overnight.
1) In a free market, the U.S. Price Anderson Act would be repealed. The act provides limited liability insurance to reactor operators in the event of a loss-of-coolant or other radiation catastrophe. The nuclear industry would have to get insurance on the open market like all other industrial operations. This would break their bank, since major insurers would only sell such a policy at astronomical rates, if at all.
2) The U.S. Nuclear Waste Policy Act would also be repealed. NWPA is the government’s pledge to take custody of and assume liability for the industry’s radioactive waste. Without NWPA the industry would have to pay to contain, isolate and manage its waste for the 1-million-year danger period. The long-term cost would zero the industry’s portfolio in a quick “correction.”
Even if the industry retained the above two subsidies, economists say the reactor business is finished. Jeremy Rifkin — the renowned economic and social theorist, author, political adviser to the European Union and heads of state, and author of 20 books — was asked his view of nuclear power at a Wermuth Asset Management global investors’ conference.
Rifkin answered: “Frankly, I think … it’s over. Let me explain why from a business perspective. Nuclear power was pretty well dead-in-the-water in the 1980s, after Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. It had a comeback. The comeback was the industry saying: ‘We are part of the solution for climate change because we don’t emit CO2. It’s polluting, but there’s no CO2.’
“Here’s the issue: Nuclear power right now is 6 percent of energy of the world. There are only 400 nuclear power plants. These are old nuclear power plants. But our scientists tell us [that] to have a minimum impact on climate change — which is the whole rationale for bringing this technology back — nuclear would have to be 20 percent of the energy mix to have the minimum, minimum impact on climate change — not 6 percent of the mix.
“That means we’d have to replace the existing 400 nuclear plants and build 1,600 additional plants. Three nuclear plants have to be built every 30 days for 40 years to get to 20 percent, and by that time climate change will have run its course for us. So I think, from a business point of view, I just don’t see that investment. I’d be surprised if we replace 100 of the 400 existing nuclear plants, which would take us down to 1 or 2 percent of the energy [mix].
Why the collapse of a historic nuclear treaty could lead to a Cold War-like arms race
Russia denies its 9M729 land-based cruise missile violates the key nuclear arms pact. (AP: Pavel Golovkin)
The United States and Russia have ripped up a Cold War-era nuclear missile treaty, leaving analysts fearing a potential arms race with global ramifications.
BY | abc.net.au March 2, 2019
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia was ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the US wanted one, referring to the 1962 standoff that brought the world to the edge of nuclear war.
Decades later, tensions between the two nations are heating up again.
Women marched for Korean reconciliation. Washington is in our way.
BY | washingtonpost.com February 25, 2019
Gloria Steinem and Christine Ahn are founders of Women Cross DMZ , a global movement mobilizing for peace on the Korean Peninsula.
In 2015, we were among 30 women from around the world who came together to cross the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ), the infamous strip of land that has separated North and South Korea since a “temporary” cease-fire halted the Korean War 65 years ago.
We marched to show this anachronistic conflict need no longer separate families, prohibit communication, and provide excuses for land mines, nuclear weapons and an expensive, ongoing U.S. military commitment. Among us were women who had won Nobel Peace Prizes for helping to bring peace to Liberia and Northern Ireland.
Despite criticism that we were naively playing into the sinister plans of one side or the other, we held a peace symposium in Pyongyang with hundreds of North Korean women, and marched with thousands in the capital and in Kaesong. After crossing the DMZ, we walked with thousands of South Korean women along the barbed-wire fence in Paju.
Nuclear safety board still wary of DOE changes
BY MARK OSWALD / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER| abqjournal.com Copyright © 2019 Albuquerque Journal
SANTA FE – At the end of a hourslong meeting in Albuquerque on Thursday night, officials from U.S. Department of Energy agencies had failed to persuade an independent nuclear safety board and a contingent of interested New Mexicans that a DOE rules change won’t restrict efforts to keep the state’s national laboratory sites safe.
Bruce Hamilton, a Republican who chairs the presidentially appointed Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, said DOE officials had continued to downplay the impact of DOE Order 140.1, which last May placed new limits on the board’s 30-year-old oversight role.
“We have repeatedly heard from DOE representatives that they really don’t mean what they wrote (in the rule) or at least that they really don’t intend to follow what they wrote,” said Hamilton. He said this is a “particularly bizarre argument coming out of the nuclear culture that has set the standard for following the written rules to the letter.”
The new rule says the private contractors that manage facilities like the Los Alamos and Sandia national labs can’t respond to DNFSB information requests without notifying or the approval of a DOE liaison and that the weapons facilities can refuse to provide information that is “pre-decisional” or that the DOE determines on its own is not needed by DNFSB inspectors to do their jobs.
Nuclear safety board cites safety concerns in reduced role
Members of the public and a federal nuclear safety board voiced concerns this week that a U.S. Department of Energy order implemented in May excludes some facilities from the board’s oversight, creates obstacles to monitoring worker safety and allows private contractors to shield information from the public.
At a federal hearing on the order Thursday in Albuquerque, federal officials for the national laboratory defended the order, arguing the document has not significantly changed the relationship between the labs and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
But the document outlines unprecedented restrictions on the board’s access to information and oversight of nuclear sites and workers.
Thursday’s hearing was the last of three held to gather public comment on the order, though board member Daniel Santos said he would propose additional field hearings.
About 20 people spoke Thursday, many saying they were concerned in particular that staff of the safety board would no longer have authority to oversee the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, an underground nuclear waste storage site where a multibillion-dollar radiation leak occurred in 2014.
Many said the document should be suspended.
John Heaton, a former state lawmaker and chairman of the Carlsbad mayor’s nuclear task force, told the board, “It would be horrible to lose you.”
The board’s role in overseeing the safety of workers at WIPP was crucial, he said.
“The workers on site are very, very important,” Heaton said. “They are our friends, our neighbors; they are the people we go to church with, that we live with.”
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board was established by Congress in 1988 to provide independent advice to the energy secretary and the president on public health and safety at nuclear facilities. Its inception was largely born out of concern that the Department of Energy was operating with too much autonomy and too little transparency.
The Department of Energy’s Order 140.1 Interface with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is misguided and likely illegal because it acts contrary to the Board’s 1988 enabling legislation. View the Report on Defense Nuclear Facilities Saftey Board Hearing
Putin warns new weapons will point toward U.S. if missiles are deployed in Europe
MOSCOW (Reuters) In his annual address Feb. 19, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned about consequences if the United States deployed missiles in Europe.
BY | washingtonpost.com February 20, 2019
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that his country’s new missiles would point toward the United States if Washington deploys missiles in Europe. Putin emphasized that Russia will only respond if the United States makes the first move, but his remarks were among the strongest yet on a potential new arms race after the countries’ mutual pullout from a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty.
“Let me be loud and clear,” Putin told lawmakers gathered at a historic hall near the Kremlin for an annual address that is akin to the U.S. State of the Union speech.
He continued with a message to Europe, saying Russia would be “forced to create and deploy types of weapons” that can be used against nations that pose “direct threats.” And in a clear reference to the United States, Putin said the Russian missiles also could be trained on where “the centers of decision-making are located.”
Nuclear saber-rattling has become key to the Kremlin’s projection of power both at home and abroad, and could be an attempt to bring Washington to the negotiating table.
I Was a Nuclear Site Guard. My Colleagues Sexually Assaulted Me.
BY JENNIFER GLOVER | nytimes.com
Ms. Glover was a security guard at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site.
The violence and lack of accountability I experienced at such a sensitive location put us all at risk.
The sexual harassment and violence I endured while working as a security guard at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site loops over and over through my mind. I have nightmares about it to this day.
United States Files False Claims Act Lawsuit in Connection With MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility Contract
Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ― Thursday, February 14, 2019
The Department of Justice announced today that the United States has filed suit against CB&I AREVA MOX Services LLC (MOX Services) and Wise Services Inc. under the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Act in connection with a contract between MOX Services and the National Nuclear Security Administration relating to the design and operation of the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the NNSA Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. MOX Services is a South Carolina Limited Liability Corporation with headquarters in Aiken, South Carolina. Wise Services, which subcontracted with MOX Services, is an Ohio corporation with headquarters in Dayton, Ohio.
Under the MOX Contract, MOX Services agreed to design, build, operate (and ultimately decommission) the MFFF. The MFFF is designed to transform weapons-grade plutonium into mixed oxide fuel rods that may be irradiated in commercial nuclear power plants. In performing the MOX Contract, MOX Services entered into a series of subcontracts with Wise Services between 2008 and 2016. Each of these subcontracts provided for Wise Services to supply labor, materials, equipment, and supervision for unplanned construction activities (e.g. general labor, plumbing, electrical, carpentry) deemed necessary to support MOX Services’ efforts at the MFFF.
Watch – A Woman’s Chernobyl Story
Natalia Manzurova is one of few surviving ‘liquidators,’ or nuclear workers sent into deal with the Chernobyl aftermath by the Soviet government. She is now in need of financial help with medical expenses associated with treatment for a brain tumor — the result of her 4.5 years at Chernobyl in the cleanup of the most extensive and tragic nuclear power plant accident in human history.
| Joe Cirincione (@Cirincione) | |
| 2/7/19, 7:50 PM
This is an incredible interview. If you doubted that Bolton was behind the killing of the #INFTreaty , or that Trump has no plan for what to do next, or that we are in a new arms race, just watch @UnderSecT struggle under @nickschifrin honest questioning. |
|
Is the U.S. planning to withdraw from the New START Treaty? "I have no intentions of addressing that today," @UnderSecT tells @nickschifrin. pic.twitter.com/f99pVD2QOE
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) February 7, 2019
Nuke Waste Destined to Remain
BY COLIN DEMAREST | thetandd.com
Aiken Standard: ‘I’m not confident at all’: U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham casts real doubt on Energy Department
GREENVILLE — South Carolina’s senior senator, who often stumps for the Savannah River Site, has little faith in the U.S. Department of Energy’s abilities going forward.
“No, I’m not confident the DOE can do almost anything,” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Monday during a question-and-answer session with reporters. “I’m not confident at all.”
That lack of trust casts a dark shadow over the prospective expansion of plutonium pit production, an enduring weapons mission of which SRS is an integral part, according to a joint recommendation from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Defense.
The Cost to Clean Up America’s Cold War Nuclear Waste Jumps to $377 Billion
The bill for a half century of nuclear weapons production is growing fast.
“The GAO [Government Accountability Office] estimates the EM’s “environmental liability grew by almost $105 billion, from $163 billion to $268 billion.”That’s the equivalent of taking one step forward and then being pushed seven steps back.”
BY | popularmechanics.com February 5, 2019
The United States developed and built tens of thousands of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. A new report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates the total cleanup cost for the radioactive contamination incurred by developing and producing these weapons at a staggering $377 billion, a number that jumped by more than $100 billion in just one year.
Most people think of the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) and think of oil rigs, coal mines, solar energy panels, and wind farms. While the DoE does handle energy production—including nuclear power—it also handles the destructive side of nuclear energy. A large part of the DoE’s portfolio over the past several decades has been the handling of nuclear weapons research, development, and production. The DoE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) is responsible for cleaning up radioactive and hazardous waste left over from nuclear weapons production and energy research at DoE facilities.
In 1967 at the height of the U.S.–Soviet nuclear arms race, the U.S. nuclear stockpile totaled 31,255 weapons of all types. Today, that number stands at just 6,550. Although the U.S. has deactivated and destroyed 25,000 nuclear weapons, their legacy is still very much alive. Nuclear weapons were developed and produced at more than one hundred sites during the Cold War. Cleanup began in 1989, and the Office of Environmental Management has completed cleanup at 91 of 107 nuclear sites, Still, according to the GAO, “but 16 remain, some of which are the most challenging to address.” Those sites include Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Hanford site in Washington, and the Nevada National Security Site.
LANL’s New Director Discusses Changing Culture
BY REBECCA MOSS | santafenewmexican.com
Three months into his tenure as the 12th director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Thomas Mason acknowledged that fixing the lab’s problems is going to take time, and setbacks could prevent Los Alamos from meeting key nuclear production goals.
But Mason said transforming the lab’s culture to one in which success is replicated — department to department, day after day — is the key to long-term success.
“The most important thing is to become more of a learning organization — where we can take practices [that work] and move them from one part of the organization to the next, and we can respond to stuff that happens … in a way that gets better over time,” Mason said in a recent interview.
“It is tricky,” he added. “There are 12,000 people who work at the lab every day.”
Russia Pulls Out of I.N.F. Treaty in ‘Symmetrical’ Response to U.S. Move
BY ANDREW E. KRAMER | nytimes.com February 2, 2019
MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, in a decision that was widely expected, suspended his country’s observance of a key nuclear arms control pact on Saturday in response to a similar move by the United States a day before.
But adding to a sense that the broader architecture of nuclear disarmament has started to unravel, Mr. Putin also said that Russia would build weapons previously banned under the treaty and would no longer initiate talks with the United States on any matters related to nuclear arms control.
The Trump administration withdrew from the treaty, a keystone of the late Cold War disarmament pacts known as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, saying that Russia had been violating it for years. The decision holds the potential to initiate a new arms race, not only with Russia, but also China, which was never a signatory to the 1987 treaty.
The U.S. And Russia Are Stocking Up On Missiles And Nukes For A Different Kind Of War
NPR, February 1, 2019, 6:07 AM ET By GEOFF BRUMFIEL
The true battle over these new weapons may end up in Congress. While Republicans seem ready to back the Trump administration’s request for more battlefield nukes, the newly elected Democratic majority in the House of Representatives seems intent on blocking them.
“We do not view nuclear weapons as a tool in warfare,” Adam Smith, now the Democratic chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a speech in November. “It makes no sense for us to build low-yield nuclear weapons.”
Trump makes it official: The US is pulling out of a Cold War-era nuclear weapons treaty with Russia
The world’s two greatest nuclear powers are set to pull out of a crucial nuclear weapons treaty beginning this weekend. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, prohibits the production or testing of ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of 300 to 3,400 miles.
Trump says the U.S. will withdraw from the INF Treaty on Saturday.
BY AMANDA MACIAS | @amanda_m_macias | cnbc.com February 1, 2019
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin listens while U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Helsinki, Finland.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that the United States is ready to withdraw from a crucial nuclear weapons treaty with Russia on Saturday, a move that has sparked concerns of a budding arms race between the world’s two biggest nuclear powers.
The announcement comes a day after Russia and the United States said that discussions to save the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty had failed.
“Tomorrow, the United States will suspend its obligations under the INF Treaty and begin the process of withdrawing … which will be completed in six months unless Russia comes back into compliance by destroying all of its violating missiles, launchers, and associated equipment,” Trump said in a statement.
MERKLEY, SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO PREVENT NUCLEAR ARMS RACE
merkley.senate.gov Thursday, January 31, 2019 WASHINGTON, D.C.
“There’s a reason that kids today don’t do duck-and-cover drills in schools and that nobody has bomb shelters in their backyards anymore. That reason is because of key agreements like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” said Merkley. “This era of stability is put at great risk by President Trump’s decision to unilaterally pull out of the INF Treaty. This decision ignores all the lessons from the Cold War. There is no doubt that Russia is violating the INF Treaty, but the right path forward is to work to bring them back into compliance, not free them to produce more nuclear weapons. Blowing up the Treaty risks the proliferation of nuclear-capable systems by Russia, threatening Europe and jeopardizing decades of bipartisan efforts to reduce nuclear dangers with Russia.”
“A nuclear arms race would endanger the entire world and threaten every single person in our country, and Congress has a responsibility to ensure that President Trump does not start one. President Trump’s imminent unilateral withdrawal from a bipartisan weapons treaty with Russia, without consulting Congress, would mean the Prevention of Arms Race Act is more important than ever,” said Gillibrand. “A reckless withdrawal would further damage our relationships with our allies, Russia would not be legally constrained from deploying larger numbers of their previously prohibited missiles, and the world would be much less safe. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to prevent a new arms race, and I will continue to do everything I can to keep all Americans safe.”
“Pulling out of the INF Treaty plays squarely into Russia’s hands while undermining America’s security and betraying our NATO allies,” Markey said. “The Trump administration needs to work more closely with our NATO allies to force Russia back into compliance. And as the chance of a confrontation between American and Chinese forces rises the Indo-Pacific, it makes little sense to add further ambiguity over whether U.S. missiles stationed around the region are nuclear-armed. This legislation will help ensure that we don’t match two major adversaries missile-for-missile, trigger a new nuclear arms race, and incur unacceptable amounts of risk in an already tenuous security environment.”
“If Donald Trump walks out of the INF Treaty, he will risk a new destabilizing and costly arms race and antagonize important allies,” said Wyden. “The administration should instead be working with European allies to pressure Russia back into compliance.”
The Senators’ legislation comes in advance of the Trump Administration’s expected action this weekend to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) treaty. The State Department set a February 2, 2019 deadline for Russia to return to compliance with the Treaty after a hasty and un-vetted declaration by President Trump in October that the United States intended to withdraw from the landmark treaty with Russia. The INF was originally signed by President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.
Opponents fight back against WIPP permit change on waste volume tracking, appeal filed
“Scott Kovac of Nuclear Watch New Mexico said the change should not have been approved without an explanation from the DOE about how to address lost space after a contamination incident in 2014 that led to a three-year closure of the facility.”
By Adrian Hedden Carlsbad Current-Argus
Two advocacy groups in New Mexico filed a legal appeal Thursday seeking to undo a New Mexico Environment Department order that allows the Energy Department to change the way it records underground transuranic waste volume at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad.
The Southwest Research and Information Center (SRIC) and Nuclear Watch New Mexico (NWNM) filed their notice of appeal in the New Mexico Court of Appeals to block the modification to WIPP’s state hazardous waste permit.
While it technically takes effect this month, as a practical matter the new counting system won’t be instituted right away because DOE has not drafted its policy on implementation, said SRIC Administrator Don Hancock by email.
A Dec. 21 order from then-state Environment Department Secretary Butch Tongate authorized DOE to stop recording empty spaces between container drums as waste. The order adopted the findings of state Hearing Officer Max Shepherd, who recommended waste volume counted against the disposal cap set by the 1992 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act should cover only the actual waste inside containers.
“The modification is contrary to federal law, changes 20 years of practice in the WIPP Permit and operations, ignores the record in the proceeding including testimony in three days of hearings, and violates the New Mexico-DOE Consultation and Cooperation Agreement,” Hancock said in a press release.
He called on New Mexico’s new governor and environment chief not to back the change in court, but rather overturn it. Given the official implementation date is Jan. 20, any administrative delay or rejection would happen soon, he added.
NV Governor and AG speak against DOE plutonium shipment
See video of news conference by governor & attorney general of Nevada, angry about DOE’s secret shipment of plutonium from SRS to NV, with SRS Watch comments: https://www.kolotv.com/content/news/505096611.html
Filings by State of Nevada in Nevada district court, in plutonium shipment docket (3:18-cv-00569), January 31, 2019:
PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR A TEMPORARY
RESTRAINING ORDER
(REQUEST FOR RULING BY JANUARY 31, 2019)
PLAINTIFF’S STATUS REPORT
PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR A STATUS HEARING
energy.gov | WASHINGTON D.C. – The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) is committed to protecting the health, safety, and security of the public at all of our sites as we conduct our important national security missions. The recent plutonium shipments to the Nevada National Security Site were undertaken to comply with an order issued by the U.S. District Court in South Carolina.
It is inaccurate to state that the Members of the Nevada delegation were not informed of this movement. The Department of Energy was as transparent as operational security would permit. Efforts were made to ensure that Members of Congress representing the states involved were notified of the planned movement ahead of time, as early as August 2018 when NNSA publicly released the plan in a Supplement Analysis. Since then, NNSA confirmed that it was “actively engaged” in removing one metric ton of plutonium from South Carolina to Nevada, Texas, and New Mexico.**
It is also inaccurate to characterize this material as “waste”. This material is essential for maintenance of the U.S. weapons stockpile, and is handled with the highest standards for safety and security. NNSA routinely ships this type of material between its sites as part of our national security missions and has done so safely and securely for decades.
###
**Aiken Standard, “NNSA: Weapons-grade plutonium will be moved out of SC this year, next year” www.aikenstandard.com
Russia & China Will Join Forces on Nuclear Weapons Strategy as U.S. Threatens to Leave Arms Deal
Russia and China are boosting bilateral cooperation on nuclear weapons strategies as they accused the United States of disrupting non-proliferation measures during a high-level meeting of the top five nuclear powers.
BY TOM O’CONNOR | newsweek.com January 30th, 2019
Representatives of the so-called “Nuclear Five” met Wednesday in Beijing, at a time of heightened tensions between the Eastern and Western permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The grouping included China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., signatories of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), a landmark document that sought to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction during a decades-long arms race between Washington and Moscow.
As the White House threatened to scrap another Cold War-era weapons treaty, China and Russia have sought to align their approach in the face of what they considered to be a destabilizing U.S. position.
“Issues of our cooperation and Chinese-Russian and Russian-Chinese coordination will surely be the focus of our attention,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, according to the state-run Tass Russian News Agency. “It is very productive work. In 2016, we approved the statement on strategic stability at the level of the leaders. It is just an example of how Russia and China are registering joint common positions more precisely.”
The U.S. has accused Russia of violating the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which established a mutual ban on ground-launched nuclear and conventional missiles within the ranges of around 310 and 3,420 miles. Washington argues that Russia’s new Novator 9M729 missile violates the treaty, while Moscow claims that the extensive U.S. missile shield in Europe could be used offensively as well, effectively breaching the deal.
Chairman Smith, Senator Warren Introduce Bill Establishing “NO FIRST USE” Policy for Nuclear Weapons
armedservices.house.gov | WASHINGTON DC January 30th, 2019
Today, Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the bicameral No First Use Act, to establish in law that it is the policy of the United States not to use nuclear weapons first.
Today the United States explicitly retains the option to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict, even in response to a non-nuclear attack. The No First Use Act would codify what most Americans already believe—that the United States should never initiate a nuclear war.
“Our current nuclear strategy is not just outdated—it is dangerous,” said the lawmakers in a joint statement. “By making clear that deterrence is the sole purpose of our arsenal, this bill would reduce the chances of a nuclear miscalculation and help us maintain our moral and diplomatic leadership in the world.”
The No First Use Act would strengthen U.S. national security by:
– Reducing the risk of a nuclear miscalculation by an adversary during a crisis
– Strengthening our deterrence and increasing strategic stability by clarifying our declaratory policy
– Preserving the U.S. second-strike capability to retaliate against any nuclear attack on the U.S. or its allies