February 11, 2020

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This letter: Do all Democrats and arms control groups want a pit factory at LANL? So far, yes. Don't be a propaganda victim!

Dear New Mexico friends –

I am in Washington, DC and am scrambling between meetings and necessary followup, so this letter must be very brief.

I could tell you how outraged you should be about the proposed nuclear warhead budget. I will do that in a chart. The red dot is the FY21 proposed Weapons Activities budget of NNSA, with its share of administrative costs. The red line below it is what NNSA projected just last year. They won't get all this money of course, but they will likely get much of it.

How did this happen? That is a longer story, one that the Democratic Party as well as Republican hawks have to answer for. Trump's original budget this year lay along that red line, but with an impeachment vote looming, neoconservatives and lab shills sprinkled throughout government sprang their long-prepared plan, catching NNSA staff, DoD, OMB, and the DOE Secretary by surprise. The head of NNSA and her nuclear weapons deputy, working with Republicans whose support Trump needed to survive impeachment, foisted this budget on the president. DoD was outraged -- to the extent it is funded, it will come from their budget. At this point the dissenters (mostly?) have been brought in line. The Borg moves forward. There is much more interesting to tell you about all this, but it is not so important as what I am about to say.

If you read the newspaper you may get the impression that all those who are critical of this massive increase, in which pit production is a large component, are going to oppose pit production, or oppose the dramatic expansion of LANL. They are not. At the moment, every single Democrat in Congress has voted for making LANL a pit factory. They have no problem with LANL expansion. The nuances in Republican positions are less clear, because there have been fewer votes that would expose the differences. Let's put it this way: Congress does engineering poorly. The military is another matter. Some do know.

At the moment, every single arms control organization wants LANL to be a pit factory. At the moment, Democratic-Party-aligned "antinuclear" groups are not really opposing this. Some groups even actively support the LANL-as-pit-factory legislation, and theory. Some see it as a workable compromise. Some see it as a looming failure, whch failure can accomplish what they do not have the moral or political strength to oppose.

For some this is certainly justified. Committee staff and government auditors sometimes say that failure in this program, especially at LANL, is not a matter of if, but when. The most honest and conscientious have said, "I just hope not too many people are hurt." That's an exact quote. I do not fault such people at all. The system back here will spit out any dissenters faster than you can say, um, "Chelsea Manning" or "Tulsi Gabbard."

Newspapers struggle to get articles out on short notice, with very limited information. This morning's articles on the nuclear weapons budget (Journal: President’s budget calls for more spending on nuclear production; New Mexican: Trump proposes 25 percent bump in nuke spending) were good articles, but they do little to inform dissent in an age of pervasive propaganda and influence. I wrote this comment to the New Mexican piece:

It would be great if all these commenters were on the same page, or even singing the same style of music. They are not, not by a long shot. And that is part of the core of the political problem we face. Council for a Livable World supports Democrats, period. Democrats like Martin Heinrich, who have pushed for more nuclear weapons. They pull very close to the opposite direction from the Los Alamos Study Group. Union of Concerned Scientists? They lie between these poles. I will see Stephen Young and others later today or tomorrow here in Washington, where I have come to try and undo some of the damage. We shall see what happens. But beware, New Mexicans! All these parties are comfortable with a plutonium pit factory at LANL. Every single one of them. New Mexicans who care about new priorities must cut through the fog and understand that whatever your opinion may be, your actual power lies in the degree of activity you display with regard to what you can actually change -- which is what happens in the greater Santa Fe area, including Los Alamos. If you want to be more involved, call 505-501-2606 (Lydia Clark) or write me at gmello@lasg.org. We can win. Many factors are lining up to help. But don't be lulled or confused. National-level opinions merely will not avail, unless you are here in Washington as I am, with expert entre to decisionmakers [you can't really be listened to otherwise]. Opinion means little by itself. Local actions, not just opinions, can definitely avail. Crystal clarity is needed, and you can tell the real from the fake resistance in part by whether and how hard the Democrats who have been pushing for pit production are being challenged.

Asking for a nationwide environmental impact statement is quite compatible with, if not -- depending on how it is handled -- helpful toward making LANL to be a pit factory, or with standing aside to let that happen.

Asking for a Site-Wide EIS is far better, because the devil -- to NNSA, that is -- is in the local details. At LANL -- a local EIS is already underway in South Carolina. A SWEIS could bring out a lot of truth, and truth is toxic to nuclear weapons, like sunlight to bacteria.

But any NEPA analysis is very far from a panacea. Much more direct opposition is needed, which is why I stuck our contact information in that comment. Please do call or write us if you want to help.

What the arms control groups and the powerful funders who control matters from oak-paneled boardrooms far away do not yet understand, or perhaps care enough about, is that by greenlighting pit production at LANL they are greenlighting the new weapons they decry. LANL is the pit production bellwether and leading site. Air Force hopes for its new warhead now rest on the hope that LANL will be able to "surge" to produce enough pits to at least get started with warhead production. To this end, a major effort to undercut warhead complex safety is underway.

The key takeaway is that a lot rests on the activity and discernment of New Mexicans. Congress pretty much assumes New Mexicans like being hostage to nuclear weapons, because that's what our congressional delegation tells them, and far too many people are silent.

Greg Mello , for the Study Group