February 8, 2024

More ways to testify against HB 117 tonight or tomorrow / Please come to the Santa Fe City Council next Wednesday 2/14/24, at 6 pm

Previous letter (02/08/24): 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

Permalink for this letter. Prior letters to this New-Mexico-oriented list.
***If you have not already done so, please endorse the Call for Sanity not Nuclear Production! Commitment is contagious. Please help us recruit businesses, organizations, and individuals!***
Do your interested New Mexico friends get these updates? Why not forward this letter to them! To subscribe, send a blank email here.
To unsubscribe, send a blank email here. 
Home page; Press releases; Bulletins; Plutonium Pit Production
Our blog: Remember your Humanity. Twitter.
Contribute. Volunteer. Contact Greg or Trish.
Our Ukraine page, updated more or less daily

Dear friends --

First, the Secretary to the Chair of the Taxation and Revenue Committee (Derrick Lente, D-Rio Arriba, Sandoval & San Juan) assured me that citizens will be able to testify in tomorrow's hearing on HB 177 (implied: to some degree).

She also mentioned that citizens could attend and testify virtually. Instructions for doing that are on the agenda, repeated here:

Click this link to join the webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86372062936 (if this link doesn't work use the one at the agenda above.)
Or One tap mobile :
+13462487799,,86372062936# US (Houston)
+16694449171,,86372062936# US
Webinar ID: 863 7206 2936

Because the schedule of events is so unpredictable, affecting both physical and virtual access, a short letter to Chairman Lente (email: derrick.lente@nmlegis.gov) opposing HB 117 would be helpful. Talking points:

• We do not want to further entangle State finances in the nuclear weapons business. 
• We do not want pit production and the Legislature should not want it either. 
• This bill should be referred to at least one environmental committee. It is not too late (although that would kill the bill, which is the idea.) Pit production has irreversible environmental impacts. Collecting even an infinite amount of money won't clean it up.
  
• The analysis provided to the Committee claims that pit production will produce economic development. There is no basis for this claim.
  
• This bill tiptoes around a number of thorny and contentious taxation issues. It should be tabled in lieu of a more comprehensive treatment after more careful study in the future. These issues include:
• How exactly is Triad taxed at present? How are its internal for-profit partners, and its subcontractors taxed? What portion of LANL's GRT is being forgiven under authorized programs in lieu of taxes?
  
• How are these taxes distributed around the counties supporting LANL's employment? Shouldn't Rio Arriba, Santa Fe, Taos, Sandoval, and Bernalillo counties get some of the GRT generated by LANL? There have been bills introduced to re-balance this. The point is that the taxation of our national laboratories is a very big subject, and this bill does little to clarify it.
• What is the actual scope of the "manufacturing" tax basis involved? Is it just the single capital project ("Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project"), which comprises only a minority of the entire project and program, or is it ALL of the manufacturing program? This too is as clear as mud.

It looks to us as if HB 117 is an attempted "fast one" being attempted to clarify the GRT for pit production while "letting the sleeping dogs lie" in the overall LANL taxation issue, so that Los Alamos County can keep on raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, share as little as possible with the rest of northern New Mexico, and avoid raising taxes on its wealthy citizens, who are subsidized by the tremendous tax windfall available from LANL. FYI the Los Alamos school district continues to be subsidized indirectly by federal funds also.

It is possible that in the hearing, the Chair will ask those opposing the bill to stand up, so physical attendance is important. However, we have no clear idea when this bill will come up. Trish has made sticky badges that people can wear ("NO on HB 117 / NO to plutonium pit production") for visual effect, so the Committee members will see that there is opposition even of people can't stay until the bill comes up.

Of note, in the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee, HB 117 was reported out with a "Do Pass" recommendation by narrow margin (5 to 4). Representatives Duncan (R - San Juan), Hernandez (R - Sandoval), Martinez (R - Sandoval), and Mason (R -Chaves, Eddy & Lea) voted against it. That is all the Republicans on that Committee. It would be interesting to talk to them to find out why.

Pit production at Los Alamos has been very much a Democratic Party project. The Democratic Governor, and all the Democrats in our congressional delegation, support it. LANL would not have this mission if senators Heinrich and Udall, supported by the rest of our delegation at the time, had not demanded it in late 2017 and 2018, after NNSA's professional staff signaled that LANL pit production would not be cost-effective or enduring.

Second, please come to the Santa Fe City Council meeting next Wednesday, 2/14/24, at 200 Lincoln Ave. (map) at 6 pm to a) meet about next steps (very important!) and b) at about 7 pm, to show your support for a City resolution opposing all pit production at LANL.

We will meet in the hallway to the immediate west of the council chambers. "Petitions from the Floor," when you can speak if you wish (please do!) is likely to be at approximately 7 pm.

You can call in as well. The Zoom instructions will be available on the meeting agenda, which will be posted here by Monday at the latest. Virtual attendees should use the “Raise Hand” function to be recognized by the Mayor to speak at the appropriate time.

So far we have had an excellent and increasing attendance at City Council hearings, and everyone has spoken eloquently.

Despite this, there is no movement on the Council. A combination of forces has demoralized the Council. Not one single councilor is currently willing to introduce a resolution opposing pit production at LANL.

In our conversations with city councilors, and also from the lips of the Director of LANL himself last week in Washington DC as well as from an earlier LANL presentation, we have learned that LANL is seeking to build a new laboratory campus somewhere in or near South Santa Fe. We don't know much more than this, but we do know there have been literally thousands of emails passing between LANL and the City. We will get them soon. None of the councilors have bothered to tell anyone about this, or bring it up for public discussion.

This new campus is being planned only because of pit production. It enables pit production. Pit production is overwhelming the LANL site as well as local roads and labor markets.

Director Mason also said that new LANL hires are snatching up 40% of the new housing units being built in Santa Fe. He said LANL has hired 5,000 new employees (on a net basis) over the last five years, with more to come (although hiring is slowing). This is not all for the pit mission, but the pit mission is the largest growth area. Affordable housing? Fuhgedaboutit.

Obviously, if LANL can move some work to Santa Fe the number of housing units in Santa Fe occupied by LANL employees will rise. It will also rise because retiring LANL employees (over 35% of LANL employees are eligible for retirement) tend to stay in Los Alamos if they already live there.

The Council, led by the Mayor and his political insider friends and staff, is putting its faith in the growth potential of nuclear weapons. Poor Santa Fe -- so far from God, so close to Los Alamos. Santa Fe is losing its identity, culture, and its livability. LANL is not the only reason but it's a big one.

Progressives on the Council -- if there are any real ones -- are failing to see that dreams of social justice are being sacrificed to the Moloch of militarism -- and in our case, plutonium. What City would embrace that horrible element? Apparently, Santa Fe. Life in the colony.

The Council needs to hear from you about this. We aren't giving up, but we are hearing a peculiar narrative that social, environmental, and economic justice goals can be reconciled with a new nuclear arms race, and the Council needs to understand why this is a mistake.

Please come. To repeat, we are going to unveil and discuss next steps this coming Wednesday at 6 pm, outside the Council chambers.

Thank you, 

Greg