 |
Complex "Modernization" |
|
 |
|
 |
After our member groups and allies successfully beat back Department of Energy expansion efforts under the banner of “Complex Transformation”, the laboratory directors are back with their revamped plans for “Complex Modernization”.
As part of the negotiations to ratify New Start in late 2010, President Obama promised $85 billion for “Complex Modernization”.
What is all of this money going to get us?
|
 |
| | |
|
Fiscal Year 2011 Performance Evaluation Reports |
|
|
|
|
April 12, 2012
In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by ANA member group Nuclear Watch New Mexico on March 28, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has released the Performance Evaluation Reports for its eight nuclear weapons sites. These reports are the government's scorecard for awarding tens of millions of dollars to nuclear weapons contractors, and were available to the public until 2009. But since that time NNSA has withheld them in a general move toward less contractor accountability.
Click the links below to download the Performance Evaluation Reports for each nuclear weapons site (PDFs) Note: the Sandia National Laboratory report is still undergoing review by the NNSA before it is released. |
|
| | |
|
Nuclear Weapons Sites |
|
|
|
|
View Department of Energy Nuclear Complex Sites in a larger map
This map shows Department of Energy nuclear sites. These sites include active National Nuclear securfity Administration sites, Environmental Management cleanup sites and Legacy Management sites |
|
| | |
| |
|
|
| | | published Wednesday, April 25, 2012 | 300 Views |
April 25, 2012
By Rob Pavey
From the Augusta Chronicle
Rising costs at the mixed oxide fuel plant under construction at Savannah River Site could erode funding reserved for other national defense priorities, according to Congressional budget writers.
“Construction continues to slip behind schedule due to unanticipated complexity of the work, poor contractor performance, delays in procurements, and the inclusion of additional work scope,” said a new draft of the 2013 House Energy & Water Development Appropriations bill, posted Wednesday.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Monday, April 23, 2012 | 353 Views |
The following op-ed was written by ANA board member Ralph Hutchison. Ralph explains the financial and safety reasons why the federal government should stop its rush to build a new uranium processing facility at the Y-12 National Nuclear Security Site.
April 21, 2012
By Ralph Hutchison From the Knoxville News Sentinal
On April 2, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board released highly critical report about the design plans for the Uranium Processing Facility planned for the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons Complex in Oak Ridge. The Safety Board's report, coupled with findings of the General Accounting Office, make a strong case for putting a hold on funding construction of the UPF.
Why should we care? Well, there is a lot of money at stake, for one thing. But some other important things are at stake as well. The Safety Board's report said two things that should give all of us pause.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Wednesday, April 18, 2012 | 460 Views |
For Immediate release: April 18, 2012 Contact: Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, c. 505.920.7118, jay@nukewatch.org Santa Fe, NM – Our colleagues and friends at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) have released an explosive report based on a leaked Department of Defense memo concluding that “The Department of Energy’s network of privately-operated nuclear weapons laboratories are riddled with waste, redundancies and lackluster scientific standards.” POGO also found that “that seven of the top 15 officials at the three DOE nuclear labs make more than $700,000 per year, with one earning $1.7 million—more than the president of the United States and many government executives.” Coincidentally, Nuclear Watch New Mexico had been independently compiling data on the salaries of the three laboratory directors, as presented in the table below. It shows that the salary of the Los Alamos Director has nearly tripled since for-profit management began in June 2006, even as the Lab is cutting some 600 jobs. As seen below, privatization of the nuclear weapons labs’ management contracts has resulted in directors’ salaries far above average in both the federal government and the private sector.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Thursday, April 12, 2012 | 495 Views |
April 12, 2012
In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by ANA member group Nuclear Watch New Mexico on March 28, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has released the Performance Evaluation Reports for its eight nuclear weapons sites. These reports are the government's scorecard for awarding tens of millions of dollars to nuclear weapons contractors, and were available to the public until 2009. But since that time NNSA has withheld them in a general move toward less contractor accountability.
Click the links below to download the Performance Evaluation Reports for each nuclear weapons site (PDFs) Note: the Sandia National Laboratory report is still undergoing review by the NNSA before it is released.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Monday, April 02, 2012 | 531 Views |
The following article quotes Tom Clements, ANA's Nonproliferation Policy Director, discussing cleaning up nuclear waste in South Carolina.
March 29, 2012
By Sammy Fretwell From The State
Two Savannah River Site storage tanks that contained deadly high-level waste have been cleaned out after decades of work, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday.
The cleanup marks the first of underground storage tanks at SRS in 15 years and the first nationally since 2007, said Thomas D’Agostino, a deputy undersecretary with the DOE.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Thursday, March 15, 2012 | 40 Views |
March 15th, 2012
By Bob Schaeffer
Scores of activists from across the nation, along with several Russian environmental counterparts, will present their concerns about U.S. nuclear weapons, cleanup and reactor spending policies in dozens of meetings with leaders of Congress and the Obama Administration from March 19 - 21 as part of ANA’s 24th Annual DC Days.
Also, on Tuesday March 20 at 5:30pm, ANA will host an Awards Reception honoring leaders in the movement for more responsible nuclear policies. Awardees include: U.S. Representatives Loretta Sanchez and Ed Markey, “downwinders” advocate Mary Dickson; and Russian environmental organizer Oleg Bodrov. The event will take place in Rayburn House Office Building Room B339.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Tuesday, February 28, 2012 | 639 Views |
Big rigs with bombs are secretly cruising America's interstates. But how safe are they from terrorists or accidents?
Feb. 15, 2012
By Adam Weinstein From Mother Jones
"Is that it?" My wife leans forward in the passenger seat of our sensible hatchback and points ahead to an 18-wheeler that's hauling ass toward us on a low-country stretch of South Carolina's Highway 125. We've been heading west from I-95 toward the Savannah River Site nuclear facility on the Georgia-South Carolina border, in search of nuke truckers. At first the mysterious big rig resembles a commercial gas tanker, but the cab is pristine-looking and there's a simple blue-on-white license plate: US GOVERNMENT. It blows by too quickly to determine whether it's part of the little-known US fleet tasked with transporting some of the most sensitive cargo in existence
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Friday, February 17, 2012 | 1056 Views |
February 17, 2012
By Michael Coleman and John Fleck From the Albuquerque Journal
WASHINGTON — U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu offered scant hope for a stalled plutonium project at Los Alamos National Laboratory on Thursday, but he did offer some encouragement for those who want to store additional nuclear waste near Carlsbad.
Chu told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the Department of Energy decided to abandon — at least for now — a planned LANL plutonium lab because of budget constraints. However, he said design work at the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility will continue until it is 90 percent complete.
“That’s very prudent because for a number of reasons, before you start construction it is best to have most of it designed,” Chu said at the hearing to examine President Barack Obama’s 2013 DOE budget.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Wednesday, February 15, 2012 | 1417 Views |
In the following op-ed, ANA member Marylia Kelley argues that the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons programs are eating up more than their fair share of the federal budget in austere times.
February 15, 2012
By Marylia Kelley
From the San Francisco Chronicle
While most federal agencies are being placed on an austerity diet, the Obama administration's 2013 budget for nuclear weapons activities is more than last year's appropriation and 20 percent higher than President Reagan's largest nuclear weapons budget at the height of the Cold War, adjusted for inflation. If fully funded, Obama's budget will be the biggest nuclear weapons budget in our nation's history.
President Obama firmly declared "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons" in his 2009 Prague address. The world, including me, cheered. But, Mr. President, this is not a budget that implements our solemn commitment.
|
| read more.. |
|
| | | published Monday, February 13, 2012 | 1571 Views |
for further information, contact: Susan Gordon (505) 473-1670 Katherine Fuchs (202) 544-0217 Tom Clements (803) 834-3084 for immediate release, Monday, February 13,2012
Full Press Release
The Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons spending proposal released today maintains “budget-busting nuclear weapons overkill,” according to an analysis by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA). At the same time, ANA says it under funds some programs to clean up the radioactive and toxic legacy from the Cold War. Despite ending spending for a controversial plutonium production plant, the budget request seeks nearly a third of a billion dollars in additional funding for nuclear weapons programs. Yet, it may not allow DOE to meet all its environmental obligations. ANA praised the decision to defer construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Lab for at least five years. “The runaway costs for an unneeded plutonium bomb plant combined with plans to build it on an earthquake fault line finally forced DOE to stop this facility,” said Susan Gordon, director of ANA. At the same time, she noted, the budget accelerates construction of the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to manufacture other nuclear weapons components. “Instead, the UPF should be downsized and refocused on dismantling warheads and down-blending uranium,” Ms. Gordon explained.
|
| read more.. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
| | | |
|
Our Weapons Experts |
|
|
| | | |
|