Press Room

ADMINISTRATION BUDGET PLAN CONTRADICTS OBAMA PLEDGE

TVC Administrator — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:59:08 -0500

Livermore, CA- The Administration’s budget, released today, contradicts President Obama’s pledge to reduce the nuclear weapons threat by working toward their elimination, according to a national network of groups in communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear sites. Instead, the spending plan boosts funding for nuclear weapons production facilities by $625 million from last year.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) said that the Obama budget includes large increases for a new plutonium production facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico and for a new highly enriched uranium production facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, each estimated to cost about $3 billion. The budget also fails to list a new privately financed $700 million plant, which will produce nonnuclear components for nuclear weapons in Kansas City, Missouri."

The Administration has argued that the massive increases in nuclear weapons proposed in this budget are necessary to maintain a robust nuclear deterrent,” said Jay Coghlan, Director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, an ANA member group. “This is simply not true. The United States currently has a stockpile of 10,000 warheads that are certified as reliable. The new production facilities proposed in this budget will allow the Department of Energy to introduce untested nuclear weapons designs into the previously reliable nuclear stockpile.”

"The plan described in this budget is not about maintaining a reliable nuclear stockpile. It is a multi-billion dollar ‘radioactive pork’ construction plan that will reconstitute the nation’s ability to produce new nuclear warheads,” said Ralph Hutchison, Coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance. “Building new nuclear weapons production facilities makes no sense as the U.S. prepares to participate in this spring’s nuclear NonProliferation Treaty Review Conference, where it will try to persuade other nations to reduce arsenal sizes."

"We do applaud the budget’s increased funding to secure nuclear materials and support for international nonproliferation treaties, and regulatory controls,” said Alliance for Nuclear Accountability's Program Director Nick Roth. “However, the threats from nuclear weapons include the environmental and health damage to U.S. communities that hosted weapons production facilities over the past 65 years. Yet the budget for the Department of Energy’s Environmental Management budget was reduced nearly $80 million."

"This budget request, if approved, dims our hopes that we will see eventual clean up of the toxic and radioactive mess created around the country by years of nuclear weapons development, dims our hopes of nuclear disarmament and peace in the foreseeable future and dims the world’s hopes that the US would follow its international treaty obligations with respect to nuclear weapons," said Scott Yundt, staff attorney at Tri-Valley CARES in Livermore, California.

Local Contacts

Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment (CAREs)

Livermore, CA - (925) 443-7148

Tri-Valley CAREs

What to Look for in the U.S. Dept. of Energy FY 2011 Budget Request--Coming out on Monday 2-1-10

TVC Administrator — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:21:32 -0500

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:

The nuclear weapons activities budget will have a significant increase. DOE will ask for a $700 million (10%) increase in weapons activities. According to a recent administration internal memo, the Department of Defense has agreed to contribute $145 million of this increase for nuclear weapons surveillance. There will be significant increases for science and engineering campaigns.

There will be significant budget increases for construction of new U.S. nuclear weapons production facilities. Despite the groundbreaking report from the JASON group of scientists that plutonium pits last a century or more, funding for Los Alamos’s Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility for direct support of plutonium pit production will likely dramatically increase from last year’s $95 million. Similarly, the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 production plant near Oak Ridge, TN, designed for expanded production of new uranium “secondaries” for warheads, will see a big increase in funding. Instead of new production facilities, money is needed to support expanding dismantlement capabilities in light of a pending agreement with Russia to cut the existing stockpile.

The nuclear nonproliferation budget will increase, but not all of it is for nonproliferation. The Administration will ask for a 26% increase in spending for nuclear nonproliferation programs. A large part of the funding in this category continues to be the mixed oxide fuel (MOX) plant at the Savannah River Site, a facility that poses a unique proliferation threat as it would introduce nuclear reactor fuel containing weapons-grade plutonium into commerce. Increases in the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which includes securing fissile materials, and returning Highly-Enriched Uranium to the U.S., would be welcomed.

Funding for all Life Extension Programs, including the B-61 nuclear gravity bomb, is likely to increase significantly. Facing stiff opposition to programs for newly designed warheads like the Reliable Replacement Warhead, Congress authorized the stockpile management program. This program could be used to create new or significantly modified nuclear warhead designs within existing Life Extension Programs. The first warhead to be extended under this program will be the B-61, which is currently deployed in Europe. The Life Extension Program for the B-61 has been controversial because many European nations have indicated they no longer want the warheads in their countries.

Funding for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) will not decrease, despite construction being declared complete. Expect the budget detail to show significant construction and development activities continuing into FY2011. Additionally, expect that "ignition" at the NIF will be further redefined to the much lower bar of "ignition experiments" -- and expect the ignition experiments to be delayed to the late FY2011/FY2012 timeframe, despite the fact that ignition had been promised originally in 2003. The budget numbers do not present complete costs according to a DOE internal report stating that at least 20% of NIF’s total costs have been hidden in other programs.

Funding will likely be provided to address long-standing Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) safety concerns at Los Alamos, which lab managers have yet to adequately address. DNFSB continues to report major deficiencies at the Plutonium Facility with regard to possible seismic accidents. The Board stated that LANL's planned seismic upgrades rely inappropriately on safety systems that will not be implemented for many years and are not sufficient to adequately address the potential seismic accident scenarios.

Funding for the new Kansas City Plant will be omitted from the budget due to an accounting gimmick. In 2010 DOE plans to break ground on a new privately financed weapons production facility for non-nuclear components of nuclear warheads. This unneeded facility will cost taxpayers at least $1.2 billion in off-budget lease payments over the next 20 years.

Funding for nuclear weapons cleanup will be insufficient to meet legally required environmental obligations. Despite receiving $6 billion in ARRA funding, the Environmental Management program is still decades behind in meeting its obligations and billions of dollars short of the estimated $200 billion needed.

Will the Environmental Management (EM) budget request contain performance metrics for base funding and ARRA money? Performance metrics for base funding have been previously included in the annual budget request. The ARRA funds and performance metrics should also be included for the new request so that Congress and the public can understand the required funding and performance metrics for all of EM’s work. This is consistent with the transparency and accountability commitments made by the Obama Administration.

Hanford High-Level Waste Tanks are still leaking and under funded. DOE is seeking to extend the deadlines for emptying Hanford's Single Shell Tanks by 22 years to the year 2040. DOE claims that retrieval of these wastes is a top priority, yet is not matching rhetoric with funding to complete the task earlier.

With Yucca Mountain declared “dead”, will funding be terminated? President Obama has promised to terminate Yucca Mountain as a geologic repository for high-level nuclear waste. White House Budget Director, Peter Orszag proposed cutting $46 million from Yucca funding, Energy Secretary Chu wrote back opposing this cut. DOE continues to push for R&D into reprocessing of commercial reactor fuel, a process that poses a proliferation risk as it would separate plutonium and magnifies the nuclear waste problem with numerous new liquid and solid waste streams.

Local Contacts
Scott Yundt, Staff Attorney, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment
Livermore, CA – (925) 443-7148

Tri-Valley CAREs

LIVERMORE LAB 'ENRON ACCOUNTING' HIDES CONTROVERSIAL MEGA-LASER'S TRUE COSTS

TVC Administrator — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:07:37 -0500

LIVERMORE – An internal U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) study details how managers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) shifted costs to understate total spending on the controversial National Ignition Facility (NIF) mega-laser. The previously secret document, released today by the nuclear watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs, pegs the current hidden costs of NIF at $80 million annually.

"Livermore Lab is systematically disguising the true costs of the NIF," charged Tri-Valley CAREs' executive director, Marylia Kelley. "When calculated over the life of the project, these hidden costs total more than $2 billion." Kelley continued, "This illegal scheme circumvents the United States Congress, which sets NIF's budget each year, and violates our nation's most basic federal contracting laws."

According to the report by the DOE National Nuclear Security Administration Office of Field Financial Management (OFFM), Livermore Lab’s practice of assigning NIF overhead expenses to other Lab programs violates Public Law 100-679 Cost Accounting Standards (CAS). This law is an integral part of the structure set up to regulate government contracts.

Some of the NIF fee reductions date back to 2001. The OFFM investigators noted that the misleading cost accounting, "materially misstates the actual costs by LLNL for the NIF/National Ignition Campaign... and may result in an undercapitalization of the NIF/NIC's total project costs."

The NIF is being shielded by Lab management from paying its share of three distinct overhead costs, the General & Administrative (G&A) cost, the Site Support Rate, and the Management Fee rate, according to the review.

The $80 million that is being sloughed off onto other Livermore Lab projects represents nearly 20% of NIF’s annual budget. And, NIF represents around 25% of the entire LLNL budget. “Any way you slice it, this is a major financial scandal.” Kelley commented.

The mega-laser has long been plagued by controversy. Ten years ago, Tri-Valley CAREs broke the story that Livermore Lab was covering up the fact NIF construction was behind schedule and over budget. The NIF had been slated for completion by 2002 at an estimated cost of $1 billion. More than $5 billion has been spent to date. And, NIF's ignition experiments have been pushed back nearly a decade, to the fiscal year 2011-2012 timeframe.

According to the OFFM, Livermore Lab management set up a special pool for NIF and NIF-related activities called the “Self-Constructed Asset Pool,” or SCAP. The investigators charge that the SCAP is out of compliance with the law. The review further states: “Use of the noncompliant SCAP results in inequitable distribution of costs and, in many cases, completely exempts the NIF/NIC from its fair share of G&A and Site Support Overhead costs. LLNL’s other programs continue to subsidize… through higher indirect cost allocations.”

The internal review shows that the SCAP for NIF has a special G&A overhead rate of 3.9%. Other projects pay a G&A rate of 29.3% in order to compensate for NIF’s discount. The investigators calculated that the G&A rate overall for NNSA and Work for Others projects at the Lab would fall by 6.4% (to 22.9%) if NIF were simply paying its legally required share.

Lab management set up a second noncompliant rate reduction for NIF for its site support costs. As with the G&A, NIF does not pay the standard rate. It has a specially reduced SCAP site support rate. The investigators write that: “From OFFM’s perspective, LLNL’s labor, fringe, and other direct costs making up the SCAP’s Overhead base are no different or diverse in relation to any other Laboratory program. Therefore, there is no apparent justification for applying a reduced site support overhead rate…”

The third category in which NIF enjoys a reduction in costs is through a special SCAP Management Fee. According to the OFFM, this offers NIF “extraordinary special treatment” leading to “higher fee rates” for other programs. Investigators placed a $60 million estimate on the sloughed off Management Fees alone -- $20 million for fees shunted to other projects in past years and an additional $40 million that will be dodged by NIF in the coming years.

The report reveals that the OFFM and the NNSA Livermore Site Office Contracting Officer had previously told Livermore Lab management to stop this practice. According to the internal review: “LLNL has had ample time to incorporate the Lab’s full fee rate into the National Ignition Campaign as recommended by OFFM and ordered by the LSO CO, but so far has refused to do so.”

The investigators conclude the review with cease and desist language for all three of the categories in which the NIF is gleaning illegal benefits that serve to mask its real costs.

The OFFM investigators were on-site in at LLNL in September 2009. The internal review is dated October 2009. Its cover letter demonstrates that the Lab’s deceptive practices were continuing into November 2009.

Kelley concluded, “Tri-Valley CAREs calls on the White House Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office and our members of Congress to investigate this financial scandal and to hold Livermore Lab management fully accountable for the laws that have been violated.”

A copy of the internal review is available from Tri-Valley CAREs on request. Phone us at (925) 443-7148 or email marylia@trivalleycares.org.

Tri-Valley CAREs

Livermore Group Files Motion to Stop Further Operation of a Biological Weapons Research Lab at LLNL

TVC Administrator — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:30:40 -0400

LIVERMORE - This morning, Livermore based non-profit Tri-Valley CAREs filed a motion for summary judgment in the Northern District of California under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) aiming to stop the operation of a bio-warfare agent research facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) main site in Livermore, California. The Dept. of Energy (DOE) began conducting experiments on January 25, 2008 on the basis of a faulty, unsupported "finding of no significant impact" (FONSI) without conducting a legally adequate environmental review and public comment process.

LLNL BSL-3 Facility

The Motion describes details of the LLNL BSL-3 facility that Tri-Valley CAREs obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. Biological research projects are conducted “involving indigenous or exotic agents which may cause serious or potentially lethal or debilitating effects on humans, plants, and animal hosts...” In addition, the LLNL BSL-3 facility has the capacity to culture life-threatening bioagents including, but not limited to, the select agents anthrax, plague, botulism, Valley Fever, Brucellosis, tularemia, and Q Fever. The facility may contain a significant amount of such material that, if released as the result of an intentional act, could have a catastrophic impact on public health.

Legal Background

Tri-Valley CAREs has pressed for a full environmental review for the Livermore Lab BSL-3 facility since it was proposed in 2002. In December 2002, NNSA issued the Final Environmental Assessment (“FEA”) and FONSI for the BSL-3 facility, which authorized construction and operation of the facility. On September 16, 2003, Tri-Valley CAREs filed a lawsuit in federal district court in San Francisco challenging the adequacy of the FEA and FONSI for the LLNL BSL-3 facility. Surprisingly, the Court found the FEA and FONSI to be adequate.

However, on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that LLNL had to go back and analyze the health and environmental impacts of a terrorist attack on the Livermore BSL-3, which it utterly had failed to do. In response to the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, on January 25, 2008, Defendants simultaneously issued a Final Revised Environmental Assessment (“FREA”) and the Revised FONSI for the BSL-3 facility, again determining that a full EIS was not required.

Violations

The 2008 FREA, however, is both incomplete and misleading, and was not circulated for comment, in violation of the law. Additionally, it came to light that in August-September 2005, while the first lawsuit filed by Tri-Valley CAREs was pending in the Ninth Circuit, LLNL was responsible for an anthrax release. However, Defendants failed to disclose important details about the LLNL anthrax release in the January 2008 FREA. Further, the information that Defendants did disclose in the FREA was not made available to public officials and citizens before the BSL-3 facility became operational, in violation of NEPA.

In another incident which reflects on security and management issues at LLNL, inspectors from Center for Disease Control discovered on August 30, 2005 that LLNL had been conducting “restricted experiments,” in violation of the select agent regulations. LLNL failed to disclose that they had been conducting these “restricted experiments,” and that they had been substantially fined for doing so.

Continued Inadequacy of Analysis of Catastrophic Event

Further, the large inventory of multiple bio-weapon agents, the presence of genetically modified variants, and the fact that some of the pathogens have been put into just the right form to be effectively spread via an airborne release, all serve to make the Livermore BSL-3 a potential magnet for terrorism from either an internal or external source. As stated, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered LLNL to do a more thorough review of this terrorist threat in the revised environmental review. However, LLNL flaunted both science and the law to again reach a conclusion that because terrorists could obtain some pathogens from the environment, the Livermore BSL-3 would not be "an attractive target" for terrorism. Therefore, no further analysis was needed, stated LLNL. As noted, Tri-Valley CAREs' lawsuit asks the Court to set aside LLNL’s unsupported conclusion and compel them to conduct a more rigorous analysis.

Relief Requested

Because LLNL deliberately withheld important information from the public in violation of NEPA, LLNL must further revise the document and make it available to public officials and citizens for comment. Tri-Valley CAREs seeks an order from the court that vacates the FREA and FONSI for the LLNL BSL-3 facility, directs LLNL to complete an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) (or, alternatively, an adequate EA), and enjoins continued operation of the facility until such time as Defendants comply with the mandatory requirements of NEPA.

Tri-Valley CAREs

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More Than 300 Groups Ask Senate for Stronger Climate Bill

TVC Administrator — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:01:07 -0400

Broad Alliance Expresses Concern With House Legislation and Demands Improvements

WASHINGTON -- A broad coalition of more than 300 faith, human-rights, social justice, and environmental groups sent a letter to U.S. senators today calling for energy and climate legislation that is much stronger than the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House of Representatives June 26. That bill contained massive giveaways to polluting special interests and would fail to ensure a rapid transition to clean energy.

The groups plan to hand deliver the letter to senators' state offices next week as part of a larger, grassroots mobilization demonstrating far-reaching support for bold leadership in the fight to solve the climate crisis.

In the letter, the groups express "profound concern" about the House bill and ask senators to usher in "the transformational change and greenhouse emissions reductions required to avert catastrophic climate impacts." The letter calls for legislation that:

Reduces atmospheric CO2 concentrations to a safe level of below 350 parts per million;
Maintains existing Clean Air Act protections against global warming pollution;
Minimizes the use of offsets and other loopholes;
Protects vulnerable populations and communities;
Promotes abundant clean energy;
Eliminates polluter giveaways; and
Adheres to preexisting U.S. commitments to the rest of the world.

Comments from a few groups that signed the letter follow:

"We haven't yet seen the bold leadership from Congress that's required to solve the climate crisis," said Church World Service Director of Education and Advocacy Rajyashri Waghray. "We're sending this letter to demonstrate broad grassroots support for such leadership."

"We have to have a stronger climate bill than the watered-down version that passed the House," said San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society Conservation Chair Drew Feldmann.

"We're organizing on the ground, in communities around/throughout the country, to mobilize the everyday people who will feel climate impacts, and to defeat the entrenched, polluting special interests in Washington and pass a truly strong bill in the Senate," said Appalachian Voices Legislative Associate J.W. Randolph.

"The everyday people of America have been left out of the climate debate. We are building a grassroots movement that reflects the diversity of America, to mobilize everyday people who are experiencing the affects of climate change. We aim to defeat entrenched fossil fuel polluting special interests in Washington and pass a truly strong climate bill," said Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

"There's an impressive breadth of groups on this letter, and it demonstrates that the status quo isn't acceptable. Congress must pass a bill that actually gives us a fighting chance of avoiding runaway global warming. There's no other option," said Tyson Slocum, who directs Public Citizen's energy program.

Other organizations signing the letter include the Center for Biological Diversity, Center on Race Poverty and the Environment, Central California Environmental Justice Network, Corporate Ethics International, CREDO, Communities for a Better Environment, Franciscan Sisters of Mary, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends of the Earth, Global Exchange, Greenpeace, International Rivers, Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility United Church of Christ, Rainforest Action Network, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, and many others.

Tri-Valley CAREs

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WMD: We Must Disarm: Get it Right by 2020

TVC Administrator — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:22:05 -0400

Thursday, August 6, 2009 - Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemoration and Protest
7:30 a.m. at the Livermore Lab, corner of Vasco Rd. and Patterson Pass Rd.
March to the West Gate at 8:45 a.m.

Livermore, CA - Thursday, August 6, the 64th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, communities of conscience will gather at the gates of Livermore Lab to commemorate victims of nuclear carnage and call for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.

Peace, environmental, and social justice activists will gather at the corner of Vasco Road and Patterson Pass Road in Livermore with the urgent appeal, “We Must Disarm.”

The commemoration will begin at 7:30 a.m. with music, followed by remarks by Marylia Kelley, Livermore resident and executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, and Andrew Lichterman, longtime abolitionist and attorney with Western States Legal Foundation. At 8:45 a.m. participants will march to the West Gate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to issue their demand for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. It is anticipated that some people will risk arrest with non-violent acts of witness.

“It’s imperative that we gather at Livermore Lab,” explains Adrian Drummond-Cole, organizer with Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs, “Many of the nuclear weapons in the United States arsenal were designed in Livermore, so nuclear abolition has to begin here.”

This year, organizers join with the Mayors for Peace, an association of 2,963 mayors in 134 countries " 146 in the U.S. " to call for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020.

“We are in good company,” says Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the Oakland-based Western States Legal Foundation and North American Coordinator of Mayors for Peace. “In 2003, Mayors for Peace, led by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, launched its ‘2020 Vision Campaign’ for the global elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2020. Their call has been taken up by a growing international campaign that is gaining momentum. This June, the prestigious U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously adopted a resolution which ‘calls on President Obama to announce at the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference the initiation of good faith multilateral negotiations on an international agreement to abolish nuclear weapons by the year 2020’.”

“We applaud President Obama for committing the US to achieving a nuclear weapons free world in his April 5, 2009 speech from Prague,” says Cara Bautista, Peace Action West’s Deputy Political Director. “We now have to move beyond words to action. The Obama administration is conducting a review that will set US nuclear weapons policies for the next decade. He must make steps toward global disarmament a central part of his review.”

The commemoration is cosponsored by American Friends Service Committee, Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC, Livermore Conversion Project, Peace Action West, Tri-Valley CAREs, Western States Legal Foundation, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Driving directions: Take I-580, exit south at Vasco Road and park at Patterson Pass Rd.

More information: www.trivalleycares.org

Tri-Valley CAREs

National Ignition Facility Ceremony Masks Serious Technical, Scientific, Environmental and Nuclear Weapons Policy Questions

TVC Administrator — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:54:37 -0400

Who: Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
What: NIF Truth Telling Exhibit with 7 ft. x 4 ft. NIF poster and "evidence table" with government and other documents on NIF's weapons applications, plutonium use, technical problems and other key facts not being told at the official NIF ceremony.
When: 9 AM - 2 PM, Friday, May 29, 2009
Where: Lawrence Livermore National Lab, corner of Vasco Rd. & Patterson Pass Rd.
Why: The National Ignition Facility mega-laser is $4 billion over its original budget, construction is 9 years behind schedule, its "firm" date for thermonuclear ignition is once again fading into a more distant horizon, its actual mission to advance nuclear weapons design is being downplayed, and the controversial decision to use weapons-grade plutonium in NIF is being ignored -- as are the myriad still-unresolved technical problems that make NIF "ignition" dubious at best. Moreover, according its fiscal year 2010 budget request, the claim of NIF "completion" may be in the eye of the beholder.

********

Marylia Kelley said today: “Tri-Valley CAREs has been tracking the National Ignition Facility since it was proposed in 1992. NIF was conceived and budgeted as a nuclear weapons design project, and it remains so today. In 2005, the Dept. of Energy expanded NIF’s weapons mission with a decision to add plutonium and other fissile materials into NIF experiments. The decision ran counter to DOE’s pledge not to use plutonium in NIF. The DOE has also decided to produce both the fusion and plutonium targets in Livermore, reneging on a separate promise to the community that the deuterium-tritium (radioactive hydrogen) fuel would be loaded at a more remote location due to the emissions. The history of NIF is a history of broken promises and deception. This remains true today regarding NIF’s purpose, radioactive wastes and emissions " and its scientific readiness. Tri-Valley CAREs undertook a detailed analysis of NIF’s technical problems in 2001 " many of them remain unresolved today.” (See www.trivalleycares.org and our evidence table on Friday.)

Dr. Stephen Bodner noted: “Construction projects are generally measured by three variables: time, cost, and ultimate performance. The NIF has failed on all three. The performance failure is easily documented from Livermore's own publications. The question now is, do they get away with it?”

According to Christopher Paine: "This celebration is a travesty and a farce, and I'm sorry to see the Secretary of Energy lend his prestige to this colossal misallocation of DOE's taxpayer [monies]. In reality, the NIF Project remains where it has always been -- a speculative gamble when it comes to the achievement of its primary mission-- fusion ignition"at least seven years behind schedule, obscenely expensive for what it can actually deliver for either energy research or weapons stockpile reliability, and vastly over-budget when numerous hidden and 'off-loaded' ignition program costs are considered. The whole project is an object lesson in how not to do either stockpile stewardship or big science."

Luciana Messina stated: [The fiscal Year 2010 budget request] “sounds like the activity of developing the software for the laser and target diagnostic systems has only just begun. I am most concerned about this [following] statement taken in conjunction with the increase in funding to $72 Million: ‘This subprogram also supports the installation qualification of the cryogenic target system, the assembly and testing of the opposed port shroud remover, the first set of continuous phase plates, user optics, and the installation qualification of both the tritium handling system and personnel and environmental…’

“If by 2010, ‘complete fabrication of cryogenics and diagnostics equipment to support ignition experiments on the NIF’ (p. 219) is to be achieved, the installation qualification (testing) of the target system and the tritium handling system, including hardware and software, should have been completed by now.”

“My conclusion is: With one year remaining, there is only time left to resolve the issues generated by the formal reviews of the qualification (acceptance) testing. The budget increase would indicate a large number of review findings remain to be resolved and that a significant amount of software design and implementation (and its cost) will be hidden under software "maintenance". Major issues not previously addressed in years of software requirements and design will be characterized as minor software implementation flaws. Software and its costs are the largest component of safety-critical, real time systems on the NIF, the public has seen neither yet.”

Les Miklosy said about NIF control software: “[The 2010 budget request] mentions several components of the integrated computer control system (ICCS) that I worked on. [It] refers to the database that defines the configuration of the NIF system during an experiment. The database was not in good shape in 2003 when Luciana worked with it, and it appears to be incomplete today as well. The diagnostics component and the experimental campaign management software sound like two more elements that were not addressed until very late in this project. I suspect they did not specify these components early on and now they will spend millions more to integrate these three components into the existing ICCS… The purpose of NIF continually changes to justify it's further funding despite not meeting any criteria for success.”

-- 30 --

Tri-Valley CAREs

Livermore Lab Caught Conducting Illegal Restricted Bio-Experiments

TVC Administrator — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:16:57 -0400

Tri-Valley CAREs recently received documents that the group had long been seeking under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regarding Livermore Lab’s biological agent programs.

The records we received show that Livermore Lab violated federal regulations by conducting “restricted experiments” without the proper approval. These illegal experiments were discovered during an inspection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August 2005. However, the information was not made public until now.

“The Department of Energy and Livermore Lab withheld these documents until Tri-Valley CAREs filed federal litigation under FOIA to obtain them,” explained Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director. “This is a stunning example of the government covering up unclassified information because it is embarrassing. As a result, the public is denied knowledge to which it is entitled, and community health and safety are degraded.”

Restricted experiments are experiments utilizing recombinant DNA that involve the deliberate transfer of a drug resistance trait to select agents that are not known to acquire the trait naturally. Select agents, which include anthrax and plague, are biological agents and toxins having the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety.

Because of the dangers involved in transferring drug resistance to select agents, restricted experiments require approval from the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Livermore Lab did not have that approval, but ran the experiments anyway.

After discovering the illegal restricted experiments, the CDC required Livermore Lab to destroy the research samples. Otherwise, the Lab may have lost CDC’s authorization for its select agent program

These experiments were conducted around the time of an anthrax release caused by Livermore Lab in August-September 2005. The anthrax incident led to the exposure of five individuals and resulted in a $450,000 fine against the Lab. The anthrax release also laid bare a variety of errors and deficiencies within the Livermore Lab’s select agent program, including in the Lab’s response to the mishap.

It is notable that the relevant details of the 2005 anthrax accident were kept from the public at the time, just as happened with the illegal experiments that are coming to light today. In both instances, Tri-Valley CAREs used FOIA to uncover information that the public had a right to know all along.

“Taken together, the illegal restricted experiments and the anthrax release demonstrate that there are serious problems with Livermore Lab’s select agent program,” Kelley stated.

At the time of the violations, the Lab was only operating a Biosafety Level 2 research laboratory. Since then, the Lab has opened a Biosafety Level 3 facility, which allows researchers to work with additional types of select agents that may cause serious or potentially lethal diseases, and in greater quantities (up to 50 liters).

The Lab’s planned BSL-3 activities include aerosolizing (spraying) pathogens such as plague, tularemia and Q fever, in addition to anthrax. Moreover, government documents disclose that planned experiments in the BSL-3 include genetic modification and potentially novel manipulation of viruses, prions and other agents.

According to Kelley, Livermore Lab’s expanding biological warfare research program is a legitimate community concern. She asks, “If the Lab broke the law in the past and did not tell the public the truth, what is protecting the public today?”

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Tri-Valley CAREs

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Livermore Lab Watchdogs Head to Washington, D.C. to Press Policymakers for Major Changes at Livermore Lab

TVC Administrator — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:59:49 -0400

A seven-member team from the Livermore, CA-based Tri-Valley CAREs will visit Washington, DC from April 26 through 29 to meet with members of Congress and Obama Administration officials to press for more funding for radioactive waste cleanup at nuclear weapons facilities. The increased spending would be offset by cuts in weapons programs and reactor subsidies.

The Tri-Valley CAREs delegation will be working with colleagues from more than a dozen other states who are participating in the 21st annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) "DC Days." The activists will meet with Senators and Representatives from California, leaders of congressional committees that oversee nuclear issues, and key staff at the Department of Energy and other federal agencies.

Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director, said, “The 2008 elections created a major opportunity to redirect U.S. nuclear policy by voting in a new administration and Congress. Our elected officials need to make protecting the environment and public health the top priorities for the Department of Energy rather than promoting dangerous, costly schemes for additional nuclear weapons projects.”

The Tri-Valley CAREs team includes:
• The group’s Board Treasurer, Janis Kate Turner, whose neighborhood sits atop the off-site contaminated groundwater plume emanating from the Livermore Lab main site.
• Scott Yundt, former legal intern at Tri-Valley CAREs, now a local attorney and Board Member.
• The group’s Staff Attorney and facilitator for the Livermore Lab and Sandia, Livermore Site sick workers’ support group, Robert Schwartz.
• Janine Carmona, the group’s Outreach Director and student action coordinator.
• Tri-Valley CAREs’ Program Associate and webmaster, Adrian Drummond-Cole.
• Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director, and, like Janis, a long-time neighbor of Livermore Lab.
• Recently retired head of “Directed Stockpile Work” at Livermore Lab, and volunteer technical advisor to the group, Roger Logan.

Scott Yundt explained, “I’m going to Washington, DC this year to change U.S. nuclear weapons policy and demand a “green lab” in Livermore.”

Janis Kate Turner said, “In addition to Congress and other agencies, I will meet with EPA officials and ask them to keep the pressure on Livermore Lab to clean up its toxic and radioactive pollution, including the contaminated groundwater plume that is moving westward through my neighborhood.”

Marylia Kelley added, “Tri-Valley CAREs nominated EPA Region 9 Superfund Remedial Project Manager, Kathy Setian, for a national ANA award this year for her exemplary efforts to force DOE and Livermore Lab to comply with the Superfund Law. I am happy to report that ANA has selected Kathy to receive an award.” (Details on the ANA Awards Ceremony and other DC Days events are below.)

Tri-Valley CAREs is a 26-year old nuclear weapons watchdog organization based in Livermore, California with a membership of more than 5,000 in Livermore, Tracy, and surrounding communities impacted by Livermore Lab operations. Tri-Valley CAREs has been a member group of ANA since 1989.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is a two-decade old network of several dozen local, regional and national organizations representing the concerns of communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons production and radioactive waste disposal sites.

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- a briefing kit on current nuclear weapons issues is available on request.
- the ANA media advisory detailing the network’s press conference on Monday, April 26 and Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, April 27 follows.

for further information:
Robert Schaeffer, (239) 395-6773, cell: (239) 699-0468

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
* * * M E D I A A D V I S O R Y * * *

WHAT: News briefing on the Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Budget from the perspective of communities located in the shadows of U.S. nuclear weapons and radioactive waste sites
WHEN: Monday, April 27, 2009 - - 10:00am
WHERE: Room 628 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC
WHO: Leaders of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) a national network of organizations representing the concerns of people living downwind and downstream from DOE nuclear research, testing, production and waste disposal facilities
WHY: Scores of activists from across the nation 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 April 27 - 29 as part of ANA’s 21st Annual DC Days.
* * *
Also, on Tuesday, April 28 at 6:00pm, ANA will host an Awards Reception honoring leaders in the movement for more responsible U.S. nuclear policies. Awardees include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Colorado investigative journalist Laura Frank, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 project manager Kathy Setian, and Georgia environmental attorney Larry Sanders. The event will take place in Room B-340 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

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Tri-Valley CAREs

Transforming the U.S. Strategic Posture and Weapons Complex For Transition to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

TVC Administrator — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:39:28 -0400

The report, summary, and map are all embargoed until after their public release on Wednesday, April 8, at 11 AM EST.

Washington, DC - - The Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network, a collaboration of six national and regional groups, today released a major study advocating a total stockpile of 500 nuclear warheads and a weapons complex downsized from eight sites to three. The network consists of the national organizations the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Project On Government Oversight (POGO); Nuclear Watch New Mexico, near the Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs; Tri-Valley CAREs, near the Lawrence Livermore National Lab; the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, near the Kansas City Plant (KCP); and JustPeace of Texas, near the Pantex Plant.

President Barack Obama has declared that a nuclear weapons-free world is a long-term national goal. Our report outlines how that vision can begin to be concretely carried out in the near-term, including numerous recommendations for the Administration's pending Nuclear Posture Review. The study integrates nuclear weapons doctrine, strategic force structure and the supporting complex, and forges a path forward. Our resulting plan would truly transform and downsize the nuclear weapons complex, in marked contrast to the National Nuclear Security Administration's plan for so-called Complex Transformation under the Bush Administration.

The study's lead author, Dr. Robert Civiak, a physicist and former OMB budget examiner for DOE nuclear weapons programs, commented, "As a matter of overriding policy, the United States should view its strategic force for one purpose and one purpose only" to deter the use of nuclear weapons by others until the world is free of nuclear weapons. The Department of Defense and NNSA should structure U.S. nuclear forces and the weapons complex accordingly."

Christopher Paine, Director of NRDC's Nuclear Program added, "The U.S. government has wasted hundreds of billions in the 20 years since the Cold War ended maintaining nuclear forces and a make-work weapons laboratory complex far larger than needed just for deterrence. The United States should move swiftly to reduce its current stockpile by a factor of ten, to 500 warheads, as an interim step toward the goal of global, verifiable nuclear disarmament. It follows that a much smaller weapons complex can adequately maintain this minimal deterrent stockpile. We specifically recommend that NNSA adopt a "curatorship" approach that emphasizes changing existing weapons as little as possible, and refrains from introducing new military capabilities through mislabeled ‘Life Extension Programs' for warheads."

Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs observed, "This is the plan that the Bush NNSA should have proposed for "Complex Transformation" - but did not. The agency's plan is dead on arrival in the Obama Administration, while our plan sets a reasonable path for 21st Century security on which the U.S. can and should embark. Our plan takes the Lawrence Livermore Lab out of NNSA nuclear weapons programs and directs it toward the energy, environmental and global climate change research that our country so desperately needs. It also ends NNSA control of the Sandia Lab in California and the Nevada Test Site by 2012, and ends weapons work at the Kansas City Plant by 2015. As the arsenal is reduced toward 500 warheads, the Savannah River Site and then Y-12 would also cease to be part of the weapons complex."

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch NM declared, "We believe that already existing capabilities at three sites can more than adequately maintain a 500-warhead stockpile as an interim step toward a nuclear weapons-free world. These remaining sites would be: The Los Alamos Lab for nuclear components curatorship, Sandia-New Mexico for non-nuclear components curatorship, and the Pantex Plant for accelerated dismantlements and storage of plutonium pit "triggers" while they await final disposal. Given a 500-warhead stockpile maintained through curatorship, residual activities should result in no net increase in nuclear weapons work or funding at any of the three remaining sites other than dismantlements."

Anne Suellentrop of PSR-Kansas City noted, "Historically the Kansas City Plant has been responsible for producing or procuring 85% of all nuclear weapons components. Currently the NNSA is scheming to have private developers build and operate a new plant on its behalf. Our plan would cancel this new plant, transfer any needed residual operations elsewhere, and clean up the heavily contaminated old plant so that it can be reused for local economic development. The nuclear weapons complex should be cleaned-up, not built-up!"

Mavis Belisle of JustPeace of Texas noted, "The Pantex Plant has long been the site for final assembly of nuclear weapons, with dismantlements as a secondary mission, often used to just fill in time between production. President Bush's obsolete plans to process a few thousand warheads through Life Extension Programs should be halted pending the required new Nuclear Posture Review. It's time to change priorities and make irreversible dismantlements number one, instead of tying up Pantex facilities in endless improvements of nuclear weapons."

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) focused on the study's security recommendations for the nuclear weapons complex. POGO's Ingrid Drake commented, "The potential impacts of a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons on U.S. soil are too horrific to permit the documented ineffective security at NNSA facilities that has persisted for many years. We specifically recommend that the agency more rapidly reduce the number of places where weapons-grade and weapons-quantities of special nuclear materials (SNM) are stored, especially highly enriched uranium, which is inherently easier to use in an improvised nuclear device. We further recommend that NNSA federalize its protective forces, ending the current hodgepodge of contractors managing security, which is clearly an urgent governmental function."

The Network's report's recommendations would cut NNSA spending on nuclear weapons by $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2010, compared to the recently released budget request of $6.3 billion. By 2020, our recommendations would further reduce NNSA nuclear weapons spending to around 2 billion dollars in FY09 dollars, one-third of what it is today.

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The Network report's summary, full report and map of the current and proposed nuclear weapons complex will be available on the web at www.nukewatch.org and www.trivalleycares.org, and at the 9 AM - 11 AM EST briefing on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC. Teleconference dial-in for the release briefing is available at 641.715.3635, Access Code: 539953#. To accommodate other time zones, an additional teleconference for journalists only will be held at 1:00 P.M. EST, April 8, 2009 at NRDC. Call 1-866.901.2585 (please ask for "nuclear report").

To obtain an advance, embargoed until released PDF of the Network's report, please contact Tri-Valley CAREs, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, NRDC or POGO at the above-listed numbers.

Tri-Valley CAREs

Preview	Attachment	Size
	NWeapPosture=ComplexFNL.pdf	1.39 MB
	StrategicPosture_Summary.pdf	439.44 KB
	NWCCPN_map.pdf	1.4 MB