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| | | published Tuesday, April 06, 2010 | 3439 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
For further information,
Marylia Kelley, Executive Director,
(925) 443-7148
Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, (925) 443-7148
For
immediate release, April 6, 2010
The Obama Administration's New
Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) Elicits Some Cheers, Some Jeers from
Nuclear Bomb Lab Neighbors in Livermore
TRI-VALLEY CAREs' "TOP
LINE" RESPONSE TO THE OBAMA NPR: "First, some cheers," said Tri-Valley
CAREs Executive Director, Marylia Kelley. "The
Obama NPR is mostly
unclassified, while the Bush NPR was inappropriately
shrouded in
secrecy. Further, it is notable that the new NPR opens with a quote from
the President's April 5, 2009 Prague speech in which he committed to
'seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons'."
Kelley
added, "The NPR contains some welcome statements that move the
nation
toward that goal: It forswears new types of nuclear weapons, endorses
further reductions in stockpile numbers, and limits the role of nuclear
weapons in the U.S. security posture. In so doing, it moves away
from
some of the dangerous policies contained in the Bush NPR." Kelley
continued,
"We who live in the shadow of nuclear weapons facilities in
California
applaud these Obama policy initiatives."
"However," Kelley
cautioned, "We must hold Obama accountable and offer
jeers for the
NPR's endorsement of Bush administration initiatives to revitalize and
rebuild the nuclear weapons complex, which we and others have dubbed the
'Bombplex'."
Scott Yundt, the group's Staff Attorney, explained,
"The NPR tries to justify additional funding and 'flexibility' for the
weapons labs, including Livermore, to research and develop what will be
essentially new warheads. Regardless of how the Obama administration
frames this policy, it will be clear to the world that the U.S. is
planning to build up its nuclear weapons complex for decades to come.
This will inhibit the ability of the U.S. to play a leadership role in
moving the world toward the abolition of nuclear weapons."
Yundt
continued, "I am deeply disappointed that the NPR does not do more to
constrain the infrastructure to develop and build new and modified
nuclear weapons. I fear that the facts on the ground in building new
weapons plants, and not the words on paper, will ultimately determine
how the world sees this NPR."
BACKGROUND ON THE NPR: A year has
now passed since President Obama
invigorated peace and disarmament
advocates around the world by declaring
in Prague, "clearly and with
conviction America's commitment to seek the
peace and security of a
world without nuclear weapons."
The administration chose the
anniversary of the President's historic Prague
speech to release the
long awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which will
serve as a
guide for U.S. nuclear weapons policy.
Tri-Valley CAREs' members,
who live around two of the nation's nuclear
weapons facilities, the
Livermore Lab and the Sandia, Livermore Site, worked this past year to
ensure that the "transformational" change enunciated by the President in
Prague would become the centerpiece of his administration's NPR. Our
members' hopes are backed by practical aspirations that by winding down a
reliance on nuclear weapons in our
national security strategy,
Livermore Lab and Sandia, Livermore could focus
their work and
resources on cleaner and greener civilian science missions.
In
the build up to the NPR, the administration had been debating over a
number
of key issues. The one that matters most for the Livermore community
is
the debate over just how far the DOE should be allowed to go in
changing
nuclear warheads in the existing stockpile.
THE
WEAPONS LABS & THE NPR: The weapons lab directors have expressed a
desire
to "replace" existing warheads with newly manufactured, untested
nuclear
components of new and modified design. This strategy would provide
the
weapons labs with little mission change and abundant weapons funding
for
the next 20 years or more.
However, the "replacement" option is
presently unnecessary and could be
scientifically risky, according to
the prominent scientists called the JASON, called upon by Congress last
year to answer the question of whether
the country's existing
methods are sufficient to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear stockpile
into the future.
Moreover, the "replacement" option is
politically undesirable because it
would undermine U.S. efforts to
discourage other countries from seeking
nuclear weapons and hamper
efforts to build support for the nation's wider
nonproliferation
goals. Finally, "replacement" options could mean more
highly
polluting R&D done at Livermore Lab.
The Obama NPR permits
the "replacement option," but does not embrace it. On
page 39, it
says, "The full range of LEP [Life Extension Program] approaches will be
considered: refurbishment of existing warheads, reuse of components
from different warheads, and replacement of nuclear components."
The
NPR report goes on to say, "In any decision to proceed to engineering
development
for warhead LEPs, the United States will give strong preference
to
options for refurbishment or reuse…"
WEAPONS COMPLEX
INFRASTRUCTURE & THE NPR: Dating back to the Bush era, the
Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has
been pressing for a new, rebuilt nuclear weapons complex, which
Tri-Valley CAREs and others have dubbed the "Bombplex." Two prominent
features of the "Bombplex" are a new, oversized and wrongly missioned,
plutonium complex at Los Alamos Lab in NM, called the CMRR, and a new,
oversized, wrongly missioned uranium bomb plant at Y-12 in TN, called
the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF).
According to NNSA, the
CMRR will enable the production of 50 to 80 new-design plutonium pits
per year. Such a capability is only "needed" if the U.S. redesigns its
nuclear weapons, which the President says he will not do and the NPR
does not sanction. (Note: Existing capability at Los
Alamos Lab is
able to produce up to 20 plutonium pits per year for an existing design
already in the arsenal, which is more than sufficient for maintenance to
the standards laid out in the new NPR). NNSA envisions that the UPF
would produce 50 to 80 new "secondaries" (the H-bomb part of a
modern
bomb) each year. Again, this capacity is more than what is needed to
maintain
the existing nuclear weapons stockpile in line with the new NPR.
TRI-VALLEY
CAREs' POSITION: Tri-Valley CAREs opposes Life Extension
Programs
that make changes to the nuclear weapons stockpile beyond what is
required
to maintain the existing safety and reliability of the weapons as they
await dismantlement, pursuant to Article 6 of the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. We further oppose construction of the
CMRR-Nuclear
Facility at Los Alamos and the UPF at Y-12. We call on the
Obama
administration to instead make careful, surgical investments in
infrastructure
only where needed for actual warhead maintenance, for
verifiable,
irreversible dismantlement of weapons, and for responsible
storage
and disposition of nuclear materials.
-- 30 --
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