February 8, 2024

Please come if you can to the legislature, Rm 317, TOMORROW 2/9, 8:30 am if you can to oppose HB 117, aimed at generating GRT revenue from plutonium pit production and other plutonium manufacturing

Previous letter (02/05/24): From New Energy Economy: Tell the Governor and the Legislature: New Mexico is not for sale!

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Dear friends --

Apologies for this late notice but if you can, please come to the State Capitol, Room 317, TOMORROW, February 9, at 8:30 am, to oppose House Bill 117.

This bill is currently 6th on the agenda of the House Taxation and Revenue Committee. Citizens and organizations may be allowed to speak to a limited degree, depending on the Chair of the Committee. Any comments allowed will need to be brief.

It is really impossible to tell exactly when this bill will be heard by the Committee.

It is an opportunity to express opposition to pit production to New Mexico lawmakers.

No state law can directly concern itself with nuclear weapons. This proposed law would remove an existing GRT exemption for manufacturing in the case of national laboratories or research facilities owned by the State, specifically referencing plutonium warhead core ("pit") production, the mission of the former Rocky Flats Plant near Denver. Presumably the bill applies to other plutonium manfacturing missions as well.

Some details of this bill and its impact are obscure, in part because the present tax situation for LANL and its subcontractors is obscure. Also, the applicability of existing law is unclear, which has created quite a bit of political turmoil in Los Alamos County, which relies on GRT from LANL -- all of LANL -- to generate an enormous income stream. Absent that income stream, Los Alamos County has proposed increasing GRT in the County to make up for the "loss" -- which is really not a loss but a loss of an expected increase.

What is clear is that if this bill passes, the State's finances will remain enmeshed with the pit production mission. The state, and Los Alamos County, are likely to profit more from pit production than could be the case without this proposed law. Uncertainty would be removed, benefiting Los Alamos County especially.

On its face, the Fiscal Impact Report (FIR) produced for the bill greatly understates the fiscal impact of the present exemption, if that exemption were fully applied to the mission. This may be intentional, because stating the true potential impact of the present GRT exemption could be tantamount to saying the whole pit production is and has been exempt from GRT. Then, if this bill didn't pass, legislative analysts would be on record saying that a large and growing hunk of LANL's spending was, is, and will be untaxable. NNSA's budget request for last fiscal year pegs the future cost of pit production at more than $1 billion per year, on top of the big (line-item) construction projects.

Legislative analysts wrongly state that LANL's pit production mission is "not divertible" to other states. In fact that was precisely what NNSA proposed to do in 2017, and it is what some congressional staff members have told us will eventually happen when LANL's aging plutonium facility becomes (i.e. is recognized as) unworkable for the mission.

This bill, and pit production, have not been subjected to any up-to-date, realistic environmental analysis. At a minimum, this bill should be referred to the House and/or Senate environmental committees prior to floor votes, even if it receives a "do pass" recommendation tomorrow.

By stating overtly that a plutonium pit production industry in northern New Mexico is "not divertible," i.e. inevitable, the legislature places our State's complicity in weapons of mass destruction, and our growing colonial subjugation by the plutonium industry, beyond all moral thought and political opposition.

Only small handbags are allowed in the Capitol during the session. We will have sticky or pinned-on badges available to indicate opposition. I am sure you can also make your own!

Please remember: we citizens are standing up in a righteous cause. We are informed and we are not doing to be doormats or join in craven consent to the nuclear weapons industry.

There are more events coming next week, but more about those later.

Thank you,

Greg, Trish, Bex