Sample Comments for the Draft Plutonium Pit Production Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS)
Why should you comment? This process produces valuable information, increases government accountability and transparency, and creates a legal administrative record that has led to important litigation in the past. The Trump administration is severely limiting and removing key opportunities for public comment and objection. Significantly, there is no other legally required opportunity that enables the public to comment on the “modernization” program to keep nuclear weapons forever.
BACKGROUND: The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is aggressively expanding the production of plutonium pits, the radioactive cores or “triggers” of nuclear weapons. The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico has been capable of producing plutonium pits since 1996, and until 2018 production was capped at no more than 20 pits per year. NNSA now plans to produce up to 205 pits every year for the new arms race, with at least 80 pits per year made at LANL and at least 125 per year at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
Grassroots activist organizations Nuclear Watch New Mexico of Santa Fe, NM; Savannah River Site Watch of Columbia, SC; the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition of coastal Georgia, and Tri-Valley CARES of Livermore, CA successfully sued the NNSA over its failure to complete a required nationwide “programmatic environmental impact statement” (PEIS) for its plan to massively expand plutonium pits production. A draft of this PEIS was released in April 2026, kicking off in-person hearings in Livermore, CA, Santa Fe, NM, Aiken, SC, Kansas City, MO, and Washington, DC, as well as a 90-day public comment period ending July 16, 2026. This provides a unique and critical opportunity for public scrutiny of and formal comment on the government’s plans to make new nuclear bombs for a new arms race!
VIEW THE RECORDING: Santa Fe Ecumenical Conversations Towards Nuclear Disarmament at Santa Maria de la Paz Catholic Community – Monday, October 27
Archbishop John C. Wester and NukeWatch New Mexico presented a special evening at Santa Maria de la Paz Catholic Community on Monday, October 27, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. MT. Following a presentation from NukeWatch executive director Jay Coghlan on U.S. nuclear weapons “modernization,” the Archbishop shared reflections from his pastoral letter, Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace, and speak about the importance of dialogue and hope in working toward nuclear disarmament.
View the recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LFmQzMoJds&t=1s
Oppenheimer’s Legacy: South Carolina at the Center of the New Nuclear Arms Race 8/16/23
Learn about the role of the U.S. Department of Energy – and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina particular – in production of plutonium “pits” for new nuclear weapons as a key part of the new nuclear arms race from this August 16, 2023 event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK9YOFoT6r0
Presentation at July 16 Event “A World Without Nuclear Weapons-Reflection to Action: An Interfaith Remembrance of the Trinity Test”
Nuclear Weapons Today – Peril and Promise, with Jay Coghlan and Ralph Hutchison
Nuclear Weapons Today – Peril and Promise, with Jay Coghlan and Ralph Hutchison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0aqUG9hmw&t=15s
Questionable Department of Energy benefits to New Mexico:
• DOE plans to spend $9.4 billion in New Mexico during this fiscal year 2023, 71% for nuclear weapons research and production while much of the rest is for related radioactive waste disposal. This is 10% more than the State’s entire operating budget of $8.5 billion. Forty-one percent of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nation-wide FY 2023 nuclear weapons research and production budget will be spent in the Land of Enchantment alone(1).
• How does this really benefit New Mexicans when the Land of Enchantment:
- Has the third highest rate of poverty (18.2%) after Mississippi and Louisiana(2);
- Is fourth lowest in per capita income in 2022, 3 down from 37th in 1959; and
- Is ranked 46th in best states to live in, according to five criteria (affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life, and safety),4 dead last in quality of education(5) and dead last in quality of life for children?(6)
• At the same time, Los Alamos County is the 11th richest county in the USA(7), has the most millionaires per capita (11.6%)(8), and has been ranked the best county to live in(9). Clearly the economic benefits are for a privileged minority of the New Mexican population.
Plutonium Pit Production Workshop 11/19
https://www.facebook.com/NukeWatch.NM/videos/825812604488302/
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