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| | | published Tuesday, September 27, 2011 | 790 Views :: 0 Comments |
Sept. 20, 2011
By John Fleck
From the Albuquerque Journal
In terms of the size of its budget and actual hands-on work involved, there probably is no more important project to the U.S. nuclear weapons program than refurbishment of the nation’s arsenal of B61 bombs.
Between now and 2016, the National Nuclear Security Administration wants to spend $1.6 billion on the project. And that’s just for design work, much of it at Sandia and Los Alamos labs.
The actual refurbishment doesn’t start until 2017. The total price tag when the work is completed in the early 2020s could be as much as $3.9 billion. Given the track record of the Defense Department and NNSA in predicting budget and schedule for these big “life extension” projects, you would be smart to assume the price tag will be higher and the completion date later.
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| | | published Tuesday, September 13, 2011 | 867 Views :: 0 Comments |
Sep 13, 2011
By John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
A pair of congressmen on the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee, including Albuquerque Democrat Martin Heinrich, are pushing to protect a proposed nuclear weapons budget increase from an increasingly likely Congressional failure to pass a federal budget Oct. 1.
In a letter Monday, Heinrich and Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, asked the Obama administration to declare an "anomaly" for the National Nuclear Security Administration's budget. NNSA is the prime funding source for Los Alamos and Sandia labs here in New Mexico, and the administration is asking for a big budget increase for the agency in the coming year.
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| | | published Friday, September 09, 2011 | 727 Views :: 0 Comments |
Sep 08, 2011
By Nickolas Roth
From the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation's Nukes of Hazard Blog
The search for federal budget savings was apparent as the Senate Appropriations Committee released its version of the fiscal year 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill on September 7. While the Committee recommended $7.19 billion for nuclear weapons programs, approximately $250 million more than the fiscal year 2011 enacted level and over $800 million more than the fiscal year 2010 enacted level, it made major strides in addressing some excessive and wasteful nuclear weapons programs.
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| | | published Friday, September 09, 2011 | 864 Views :: 0 Comments |
By John Fleck and Michael Coleman From the Albuquerque Journal
The U.S. nuclear weapons program appears headed for another budget increase in the coming year, but it will likely be less than the Obama administration had hoped.
A key Senate committee Wednesday signaled what appears to be a bipartisan congressional consensus to put the brakes on the administration’s plans for big increases in coming years.
Members of the Democratic-controlled Senate Appropriations Committee joined their House Republican colleagues in voting to trim the administration’s requested spending hike for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons work, which provides much of the support for spending at two major national labs in New Mexico.
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| | | published Friday, August 19, 2011 | 829 Views :: 0 Comments |
The following letter to the editor was submitted by Hanford Challenge Executive Director Tom Carpenter. Hanford Challenge is an ANA member group and has been instrumental in our work with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
A Letter to the Editor by Tom Carpenter
Published by the Tri-City Herald
Thank you for the Aug. 14 article on the recent round of concerns at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant ("Vit plant mixing system raises safety concerns"). The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which is investigating safety violation allegations made by engineers at the plant, has kept communities and nuclear workers across the country safe for decades.
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| | | published Friday, August 19, 2011 | 969 Views :: 0 Comments |
Friday, Aug. 19, 2011
By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
The Department of Energy has authorized its environmental cleanup contractors at Hanford to lay off up to 1,100 more workers in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
That's in addition to up to 1,985 layoffs already announced this year, the majority of which will be Sept. 29.
Hanford started the year with about 12,000 employees, meaning the potential layoffs announced this year would cut jobs by about a quarter.
That does not include the jobs at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where about 50 jobs are expected to be trimmed from its staff of about 4,470 in Richland.
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| | | published Monday, August 15, 2011 | 847 Views :: 1 Comments |
August 14, 2011
By Frank Munger From the Knoxville News' Atomic City Underground blog
The Department of Energy is apparently on the verge of shifting funds (reported to be $20 million) from the agency's Recovery Act pool of money to build a new security fence at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant. The fence would segregate old, surplus facilities from the highest-security zone at Y-12 and make it easier to bring in workers without top security clearance to do the demolition work.
Michael Koentop, a spokesman in Oak Ridge office, confirmed that the security fence would segregate about 70 acres and include Beta-4 and Alpha-5 -- two of the original Y-12 facilities that also are key areas of mercury contamination, which is a focus of future cleanup efforts. He would not confirm the funding level for the project.
Koentop said the money for the project would come from savings on previous Recovery Act cleanup projects at Y-12.
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| | | published Monday, August 15, 2011 | 1016 Views :: 0 Comments |
Aug 14, 2011
By Rob Pavey
From the Augusta Chronicle
They came, they toiled -- and now most of them are gone.
As the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act enters its final weeks, Savannah River Site's stimulus-funded cleanup projects are winding down.
"They're wrapping up this month, and next month," said Jim Giusti, a Department of Energy spokesman at the site.
The $1.6 billion windfall created or saved about 3,000 jobs and accelerated dozens of projects that might have languished for years before money became available to complete them.
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| | | published Sunday, August 14, 2011 | 1095 Views :: 0 Comments |
August 13, 2011
By Annette Cary
From the Tri-City Herald
The Department of Energy has taken a look at all the environmental cleanup yet to be completed at the Hanford nuclear reservation and come up with a big price tag: $115 billion.
That's what it projects will be required to finish environmental cleanup in about 2060 and then prevent any intrusion into areas, such as landfills holding radioactive waste, until 2090.
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| | | published Thursday, August 11, 2011 | 912 Views :: 0 Comments |
Aug. 10, 2011
By Emily Cadei
From CQ Today Online News
Nuclear weapons upgrades, one of the programs under scrutiny as part of looming defense spending cuts, got a major boost Wednesday with the appointment of Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl to the new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.
The Arizona Republican, a longtime advocate for a robust nuclear arsenal, was one of three GOP senators named to the panel by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky. He has a track record as a champion of funding to upgrade the nuclear stockpile.
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