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.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN THE U.S. DEPT. OF ENERGY FY 2012 NUCLEAR WEAPONS BUDGET REQUEST
Feb15
Release Date:
2-10-11
The Obama Administration's FY 2012 budget request is slated to be released on Monday, February 14, 2011. Despite pledging to reduce the U.S. nuclear stockpile in the recently ratified New START treaty, the Department of Energy (DOE) will likely ask Congress for significantly more funds for nuclear weapons activities, including expanding U.S. warhead production capacity, while nonproliferation programs are allowed to stagnate.
The DOE request will not reflect recent scientific conclusions that existing
nuclear weapons can be reliably maintained for decades under current programs or the President's stated goal of global nuclear weapon reductions.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), a national network representing communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear
facilities, and Tri-Valley CAREs, a Livermore, CA-based organization that has been part of the network since 1989, question whether increased funding for nuclear energy and weapons will divert resources from legally required environmental cleanup and clean, sustainable energy programs.
Here are some key concerns DOE needs to address:
1. What message does increasing nuclear weapons production capacity send to U.S. taxpayers and the rest of the world?
Funding for two facilities - Los Alamos' Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility to increase plutonium pit production capacity and the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 plant near Oak Ridge, TN, designed to expand production of new uranium secondaries for warheads - will likely increase dramatically. Why spend more than $6 billion on each facility? Doesn't requested funding prejudice the Environmental Impact Statement processes currently underway? Shouldn't money be used to expand dismantlement capabilities to meet U.S. obligations under New START and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?
2. Will the budget adequately support nonproliferation programs?
How much of the funding continues to support the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant at the Savannah River Site, which poses a unique proliferation threat as it would introduce nuclear reactor fuel containing weapons-grade plutonium into commerce? Why not increase funds for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which secures fissile materials and returns Highly-Enriched Uranium to the U.S.?
3. Will Life Extension Programs be used to develop new nuclear weapons?
Grassroots advocacy has stymied recent efforts to build new nuclear
weapons systems, so DOE is using Life Extension Programs to tinker with the arsenal's capabilities. Doesn't changing warhead designs under the
Life Extension Programs reduce reliability and show bad faith when
negotiating further nuclear weapons reductions? The first warhead to be
extended under this expanded program will be the B-61, which is currently deployed in Europe, contrary to the wishes of many U.S. allies. Wouldn't reducing the B-61 program save money, address the concerns of allies, and be a show of good faith when engaging in multi-lateral arms reduction negotiations?
3. Will funding requests meet legal obligations for clean-up?
Aren't cleanup programs under-funded and decades from completion? Isn't at least $6.5 billion needed to comply with cleanup agreements in FY 2012? Won't new weapons facilities create more waste and require additional billions in cleanup funds?
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ADVANCE BUDGET NUMBERS (DETAILS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE UNTIL LATER)
Nuclear Weapons Activities - $7.6 billion (another $500 billion increase on top of last year's almost $800 million increase)
Nonproliferation - $2.548 billion (up $440 billion from FY 2010), but
$229 million of that increase looks to be for MOX; Global Threat
Reduction is up $160 million from FY 2010)
Defense Environmental. Cleanup - $5.4 billion (down $958 million from FY 2010, though the actual cut is $495 million if Uranium D&D is excluded). Hanford - $2.275 billion (down $50 million from FY 2010), Vit plant gets $152 million increase over FY 2010;
INL - $127 million (Down $127 million from FY 2010);
NNSA sites (includes Lawrence Livermore) - $423 million (up $110 million from FY 2010); Oak Ridge - $176 million (down $153 million from FY 2010) - doesn't include uranium D&D; SRS - $1.222 billion (down $243 million from FY 2010); WIPP - $230 million (down $6 million from FY 2010)
Legacy Management - $170 million (down $22 million from FY 2010)
Yucca Mountain - $0
Nuclear Energy - $825 million (down $64 million from FY 2010). Small Modular Reactors included for the first time at $67 million. AFCI/GNEP - $154 million (up $19 million from FY 2010).
Non-Defense EM - $247 million (down $132 million from FY 2010) $125 million of the reduction is small sites (Moab, Brookhaven)
Uranium D&D - $504 million (down $254 million from FY 2010)
Loan guarantees - $54.5 billion (up $18.5 billion)