Tri-Valley CAREs works to strengthen global security by stopping the development of new nuclear weapons in the US and by promoting the elimination of nuclear weapons globally. Tri-Valley CAREs monitors nuclear weapons and environmental clean-up activities throughout the US nuclear weapons complex, with a special focus on the Lawrence Livermore Lab and surrounding communities.
Tri-Valley CAREs' Staff Attorney Scott Yundt Writes About His Concerns With VP Biden's Speech on Nuclear Weapons Policy
Mar11
Date: March 10, 2010
By: Scott Yundt
Published in: The Valley Times
http://www.contracostatimes.com/letters/ci_14641057?nclick_check=1
Biden's Speech
On Feb. 18, Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech about our nuclear weapons policy. Securing nuclear material around the world, keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, preventing proliferation to non-nuclear weapons states and ratifying important international treaties are all welcome, if obvious, steps in the right direction for world security.
Yet, a $7 billion budget request for the U.S. nuclear weapons complex for fiscal year 2011, $624 million greater than 2010, represents a step in the wrong direction.
It would be hard for some to reconcile this increase with the administration's "commitment to arms reduction," Biden said.
Well, I am among the "some" because new nuclear weapons plants and enhanced nuclear bombs are not my vision for arms reduction. Moreover, the fiscal year 2011 budget request decreases funding for weapon dismantlement, another step backward from real disarmament.
The nuclear weapons budget was already greater than at any time during the Cold War, even adjusted for inflation. Still, Biden said the "neglected" weapons laboratories deserve increased funding for their years of service.
He failed to mention, however, repeated findings of mismanagement, illegal accounting and gross over-budgeting that are all-to-common at the labs.
One step forward, two steps back.
Scott Yundt
Livermore