Upcoming discussion and planning meetings; Heinrich TV ad promoting labs and military

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October 23, 2018

Previous letter (10/16/18): "At the kairos: build hope, not nuclear weapons"

Dear citizen leaders on our New Mexico "short list" --

1. Upcoming discussion and planning meetings at four New Mexico towns and cities: "At the Kairos: Build Hope, Not Nuclear Weapons."

As you all know, our current congressional delegation has been strongly promoting Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for plutonium "pit" production, despite the absence of an adequate facility or viable plan to do so.

The delegation (parroting LANL) wants new underground factories because underground factories don't require (LANL asserts) as many safety systems. Providing earthquake safety for both the public and the workers is probably impossible at LANL's present plutonium complex.

With Trump's announcement this past Saturday that he plans to withdraw from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia (relatively factual NYT article, better than previous days'), continuation of the New START treaty, which expires in less than 3 years, is also very much in doubt. Not just new weapons, but more weapons may be in the cards, which is why setting up round-the-clock "surge" production at LANL, also favored by our delegation, is so important to nuclear hawks despite all the problems and risks. This we had already heard first-hand from Trump's top nuclear weapons official back in July.

The coming midterm elections will at best elect nuclear and defense hawks to our congressional delegation and governor's office.

At the same time, these candidates' stances on crucial environmental issues are also muddled, deceptive, and too timid to matter much, at least so far. The scale and speed of locally-owned investments needed to make a decisive difference in the state's future is on very few political radar screens. While we cannot "make the perfect the enemy of the good," the complacency and ignorance of the state's political class augurs for continued economic decline.

We have to shake up this stagnant situation or face social deterioration as converging crises in climate, economy, and society begin to bite harder.  No matter who is in the White House in 2021 and after, federal funding for non-military priorities will be threatened as federal interest payments rise and planned military procurements mature. Climate change mitigation is not planned by either major national party.

We need a radical change in priorities, starting with our own. We can find joy and camaraderie if we do. 

Meanwhile, local governments and tribes are still officially "on-board," via the Regional Coalition of LANL Communities (RCLC) in supporting LANL. Support for LANL is support for nuclear weapons and support for the anti-human priorities these weapons (and their wastes) embody and imply. Nuclear weapons bring environmental destruction here and human rights violations worldwide. Promoting LANL means promoting high "defense" spending in the face of looming recession, fiscally-starved social, environmental, and green infrastructure programs, and as a result of all this, national decline, with good old New Mexico leading the way down. That's what the RCLC stands for. That's what the local government and tribal leaders who are members are being used for.

Please join in the discussion (~1 hour) and planning (~1 hour) at --

• Monday, Oct 29, Santa Fe, 9:00 - 11:00 am, St. John's United Methodist Church, 1200 Old Pecos Trail (map). We will serve bagels, coffee and tea.
• Monday, Oct 29, Taos, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, Cultural Energy, 112 Civic Plaza Drive (map).
• Tuesday, Oct 30, Albuquerque, 8:00 - 10:00 am, Los Alamos Study Group, 2901 Summit Place NE (map), We will serve breakfast, coffee and tea.
• Tuesday, Oct 30, Jemez Springs, 2:00 - 4:00 pm, Jemez Springs Village Conference Room (map).
  

2. Fundraising and matching grant progress

We are off to a decent start on fall fundraising, with $3,100 received so far (thank you so much!), all of which will be matched 1:1, leaving $1,900 available for matching in that first matching grant of $5,000. Please reach out to your friends on our behalf if you can, not just for financial support but for involvement in other ways.

We are happy to announce that we are also now receiving support for some of our plutonium-related work from Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security. While this is a big help, it does not include most of what we do, or what most needs to be done.

We need to raise money both to continue our current work in 2019 and to increase our visibility, research, writing, web and social media outreach, publications, and consequently our strength and ability to effect major change. We would like to be able to advertise for, and to hire, two additional staff; to bring in visiting interns; and consequently to ramp up our overall level of engagement, including here in New Mexico, with all of you. We find ourselves in a uniquely promising position, with many doors open and outlets asking for copy. We work long hours but there are only so many hours in the day. 

Your contributions can take many forms:

• Matching gifts are obviously very valuable, especially this time of year; some of you might offer such a gift, or ask someone else to;
• Some employers will match their employees' contributions;
• Remember the Study Group in your will and/or estate plans; memorial gifts, or life insurance;
• Donate old cars, boats, or real estate;
• Donate stock (thus avoiding capital gains and the associated taxes);
• Become a sustaining donor to the Study Group and contribute a specified amount each month. Being able to depend on a regular income of a certain amount in sustaining donations each month provides organizations such as ours with a big measure of stability;
• Ask Sunpower by Positive Energy Solar to install a photovoltaic system at your home or business and/or ask a friend or associate to do so. When the project is complete Positive Energy will donate $300 to the Study Group; you must mention our referral when you contract with them; and finally
• You, our loyal friends and members, are the only ones who can reach out to your personal connections and email lists. We do not have your personal connections and contacts. Forward this letter, for example, with your personal note. We have an on-line donation portal through PayPal, or anyone can simply mail a check to our office at: 2901 Summit Place NE, Albuquerque, NM 87106.

Thank you!

You will hear more about strategy in the next Bulletin, which goes to a wider list. We are trying to not repeat too much.

3. Heinrich ad promoting economic myths about NM labs and bases

Candidate Martin Heinrich has an ad out promoting the New Mexico nuclear weapons labs and military bases (as well as himself, which candidates must do). In advance of more detailed comments on the labs, bases, and economic development which are coming as soon as we can get back to them, I (Greg) would like to briefly comment on the economic assertions in that ad.

As you know we have written about this repeatedly in the past (e.g. here).

The most recent year for which we have comprehensive federal spending and tax information is FY2016. In that year New Mexicans paid $12.9 billion (B) in federal taxes ($6,182/capita). The federal government spent $33.0 B in the state ($15,876/person). Net federal spending was $20.2 B ($9,683/person, the most of any state in the US as it always is).

The state's GDP in 2016 was $93.2 B. Net federal spending ($20.2 B) was, just directly and not counting subsequent transactions, 22% of New Mexico's total GDP in FY2016. Or, if you take taxation as a given and look only at gross federal spending, it was 35% of GDP. A whopping fraction.

But only $2.7 B (8%) of that $33.0 B was military. (Heinrich's ad says it's $3.1 B now, in a larger federal spending total we don't have.)

The Department of Energy (DOE) spent $5.0 B in New Mexico that year, 15% of total federal spending. Taken together, 23%, less than one-quarter, of New Mexico's federal spending was at the labs and bases.

Defense spending is concentrated in a few places only: three DOE facilities and four military centers, together located in six counties, with a smattering of spending elsewhere. Taxation meanwhile is everywhere. Most New Mexico counties lose net money in military taxation and spending (older version of same analysis here, pp. 10-11 amid wider discussion). That is, when the portion of federal taxation needed to support the military and nuclear weapons is subtracted from defense spending in that county, the result is a negative number for 21 New Mexico counties. (Unfortunately, detailed county-level data on federal spending is no longer produced.)

Apologies for brevity here. We know there's much more to be said. But long or short, the sum of it all is that military bases and nuclear weapons labs are, for a state like ours with a small population and "thin" economy,  an economic curse, not a boon. Which is what we see all around us.

"Legal corruption" -- the extensive co-optation of most of the state's important civil society institutions, a problem not further discussed in this short note -- is a major factor.

So which are you going to believe -- a political ad or your lying eyes, as the old joke would have it?

The labs' raison d'etre is, we assert, illegitimate. So why should we expect them to be a fount of anything good? Even useful huge facilities can be, in situations like ours, economic "upas trees," sterilizing the ground for other enterprise (Pushkin poem, highly relevant).

In this regard, we recently ran across a 2004 interview we did with Mayor Bob Harvey of Weitakiri, NZ, then a medium-sized city of a couple of hundred thousand persons. In his view, the key to economic development in NM is first to make a commitment to get rid of nuclear weapons.  We can't, in his words, keep investing in "blood and a nightmare" and expect to have positive economic and social development.

Making that switch would set in motion a number of things, he said, changing the attitude of the young people to one of hope and faith in the future, making them more willing to invest in themselves and believe in the society around them. It attracts true "cultural creatives" -- and investment cash.  In Weitakiri, he said, they've made their city an "eco-city," with peace and sustainability as key goals, and are working on reversing sprawl with new urban villages linked with better transport, etc.  The key is the "turning about," the conversion, which replaces a deranged set of values with a human one.  The "amazing grace" -- as in the song, and the story of the song. Nuclear weapons and waste are "anti-enchantment."

Thank you all,

Greg and Trish, for the Study Group