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| | | published Tuesday, February 02, 2010 | 761 Views :: 0 Comments |
Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010
By Martin Matishak
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON
-- The Obama administration yesterday unveiled a spending plan that
would increase funding for the U.S. National Nuclear Security
Administration to $11.2 billion in the next fiscal year (see GSN, Jan.
29).
The agency, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, would
receive a 13.4-percent budget increase in fiscal 2011 to maintain the
country's nuclear stockpile and conduct nonproliferation activities
around the globe, according to the White House funding request.
More than $7 billion would be devoted beginning Oct. 1 to "weapons
activities," which ensure the safety and performance of the nation's
atomic stockpile. The amount is a $624 million increase from this year.
Another
$2.7 billion would be funneled to the agency's Defense Nuclear
Nonproliferation program, a hike of 25.8 percent above fiscal 2010.
That effort seeks to secure nuclear materials around the globe that
could be used for weapons and convert them for peaceful purposes.
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| | | published Monday, February 01, 2010 | 891 Views :: 1 Comments |
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY
McClatchy Newspapers
Fri, Jan. 29, 2010
The
Obama administration plans to ask Congress to increase spending on the
U.S. nuclear arsenal by more than $5 billion over the next five years
as part of its strategy to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and
eventually rid the world of them.
The administration argues that
the boost is needed to ensure that U.S. warheads remain secure and work
as designed as the arsenal shrinks and ages nearly 18 years into a
moratorium on underground testing and more than two decades after
large-scale warhead production ended.
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| | | published Wednesday, January 27, 2010 | 1552 Views :: 2 Comments |
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability a national network of organizations working to address issues of nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup
http://www.ananuclear.org
for further information, contact:
Nickolas Roth 914-673-6666
Susan Gordon 505-577-8438
or local contacts listed at end of advisory
for immediate release Wednesday, January 27, 2010
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY FY 2011
NUCLEAR WEAPONS BUDGET REQUEST
The FY 2011 budget request will be released on Monday, February 1,
2010. The Obama administration has laid out an aggressive
nonproliferation agenda that includes deep reductions in nuclear
stockpiles, ratification of a nuclear test ban, and decreased
prominence for nuclear weapons in US defense policy. Despite this
agenda, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) budget request will ask
Congress to significantly increase nuclear weapons activities,
including funding for construction of new facilities that will expand
U.S. warhead production capacity. The DOE request will not reflect
recent independent scientific conclusions that existing nuclear weapons
can be reliably maintained for decades under current, well-established
programs.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a
national network representing communities downwind and downstream from
U.S. nuclear weapons facilities, is concerned that increased funding
for nuclear energy and weapons research and production will rob
precious resources for needed environmental cleanup and clean,
sustainable energy solutions.
Items of interest:
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| | | published Monday, January 25, 2010 | 656 Views :: 0 Comments |
Published on National Catholic Reporter
by Joshua J. McElwee
The
Obama administration is moving ahead with the development of new
nuclear weapons components at three key weapons facilities at the same
time it is conducting a sweeping review of U.S. nuclear weapons
policies that could lead to further slashing the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
For
the moment, U.S. nuclear weapons policies appear to be running in
contrary directions, and while some critics of U.S. nuclear policy are
cautiously optimistic, they are also worried President Obama’s nuclear
disarmament vision is not yet being supported by concrete policy
actions.
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| | | published Wednesday, January 06, 2010 | 782 Views :: 0 Comments |
Wall Street Journal Article Makes Ill Advised Recommendations on the Future of Nuclear Weapons
Yesterday,
the Wall Street Journal published an op-ed supporting recommendations
made in a letter sent to the President by 40 Republican Senators and Senator Joe Lieberman. The op-ed supports construction of new
facilities and new warheads. The following is ANA’s analysis of the
letter:
Modernization takes focus away from investments in nuclear weapons complex expertise that actually do need to be made.
- Verification: The national nuclear laboratories can uniquely develop
technologies that will contribute to detecting nuclear tests around the
world and facilitate verification of nuclear weapons reductions under
arms control treaties with Russia.
- Safeguards: The national
laboratories can improve technologies to detect diversion for military
purposes of nuclear power technology or materials in countries without
nuclear weapons.
- Dismantlement: The Labs can increase the rate of
dismantlement (process by which nuclear warheads are removed from the
stockpile, disassembled, and disposed of) to support permanent
reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
- Threat reduction at the
source: Consolidation, reduction and elimination of stockpiles of
nuclear weapon and nuclear weapons-usable materials where these
materials are produced and stored worldwide. Increasing funding for
these efforts advances U.S. ability to reduce and lock down vulnerable
nuclear materials and reduces the risk of nuclear terrorism
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| | | published Monday, November 09, 2009 | 1288 Views :: 0 Comments |
Seventy Nine Truckloads from Huntington’s Nickel Plant Buried
Once Radioactivity Released, You Can’t Put This 'Genie' Back in Bottle; Former Worker Alleges Plutonium Contamination
By Tony Rutherford
Huntingtonnews.net Reporter
Editor’s
Note: Vina Colley, a former worker at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion
Plant, has been one of the most outspoken workers suffering cancer and
other illnesses from their years working at the facility near
Portsmouth, Ohio. Although the interview is in a Q and A format, it
should be noted that Ms. Colley often had to stop speaking to get her
breath. Occasionally, her thoughts were completed by a member of the
clean up panel.
HNN: You worked as an electrician at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant?
VINA COLLEY: As a Second Class Electrician I worked in every building on the plant site and many of the buildings off site.
HNN: Right now, like other employees , you suffer from multiple aliments attributed to your years at the plant.
VINA
COLLEY: I have 57% lung impairment due to the chronic bronchitis. A low
immune system where I had to take gamma glammas? Before. Memory lapses.
Home oxygen. Three tumors, a total hysterectomy and skin cancer.
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| | | published Friday, November 06, 2009 | 2761 Views :: 12 Comments |
Sandia Director Makes $1.7 million
By John Fleck
Thursday, 05 November 2009 19:16
Sandia National Laboratories Director Tom Hunter makes $1.7 million per
year, according to data made public this week.
Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Michael Anastasio makes $800
thousand per year. The numbers became public this week when the labs reported them as one of
the conditions of accepting money under the federal stimulus program.
The compensation triggered outrage from critics of the nuclear weapons
research centers.
Originally Published in the Albuquerque Journal.
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| | | published Friday, October 30, 2009 | 1318 Views :: 3 Comments |
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has again urged the
Department of Energy (DOE) to take immediate action to reduce the risk
of a release of plutonium from a fire at Technical Area 55 at Los
Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) following a seismic event.
http://www.dnfsb.gov/pub_docs/recommendations/lanl/rec_2009_02_la.pdf
This is the latest in a series of letters, reports and recommendations
to DOE about the potential consequences of a release of plutonium from
the Technical Area 55 Plutonium Facility following a seismic event
resulting in a fire. The Board stated that the consequences to people
living downwind and downstream of LANL have been underestimated by 100
times.
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| | | published Tuesday, October 20, 2009 | 1338 Views :: 5 Comments |
NUCLEAR SCARS: TOXIC LEGACY OF THE COLD WAR
Los Angeles Times -- October 20, 2009
By Ralph Vartabedian
Reporting from Fernald Preserve, Ohio
Amid the family farms and rolling terrain of southern Ohio, one hill
stands out for its precise geometry.
The 65-foot-high mound stretching more than half a mile dominates a
tract of northern hardwoods, prairie grasses and swampy ponds, known as
the Fernald Preserve.
Contrary to appearances, there is nothing natural here. The high ground
is filled with radioactive debris, scooped from the soil around a former
uranium foundry that produced crucial parts for the nation's nuclear
weapons program.
Originally published by the Los Angeles Times at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-radiation-fernald20-2009oct20,0,2659447.story
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| | | published Tuesday, October 06, 2009 | 951 Views :: 2 Comments |
Nuclear material stockpile dwindling at Livermore lab
By Suzanne Bohan
Contra Costa Times 10/02/2009
Two-thirds of the plutonium and weapons-grade uranium stored at Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory has been removed, the agency overseeing the
lab announced this week.
The removal of the "special nuclear material" marks a milestone in the
National Nuclear Security Administration's goal of "denuking" the Livermore
lab by 2012, two years ahead of its original target of 2014. To save costs,
the dangerous radioactive materials will be consolidated at five sites -
none in California - down from 10 sites nationwide listed in a 2007
Government Accountability Office report.
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