A Nuclear Nightmare in the Making: NATO, Missile Defense and Russian Insecurity, by David Krieger and Steven Starr, January 03, 2012

For the past several years, the US and NATO have been pursuing the deployment of an integrated missile defense system in Western, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, as well as in surrounding waters. The Russians have protested vigorously that the planned system will undermine its nuclear retaliatory potential and thereby its security. The United States, the driving force behind NATO missile defense plans, has repeatedly told the Russian leaders that there is no need to be worried about these deployments since they are designed to counter Iranian missiles rather than Russian ICBMs.

and …

Continued US indifference to Russian security concerns could have dire consequences: a breakdown in US-Russian relations; regression to a new nuclear-armed standoff in Europe; Russian withdrawal from New START; a new nuclear arms race between the two countries; a breakdown of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty leading to new nuclear weapon states; and a higher probability of nuclear weapons use by accident or design. This is a scenario for nuclear disaster, and it is being provoked by US hubris in pursuing missile defenses, a technology that is unlikely ever to be effective, but which Russian leaders must view in terms of a worst-case scenario.

In the event of increased US-Russian tensions, the worst-case scenario from the Russian perspective would be a US first-strike nuclear attack on Russia, taking out most of the Russian nuclear retaliatory capability. The Russians believe the US would be emboldened to make a first-strike attack by having the US-NATO missile defense installations located near the Russian border, which the US could believe capable of shooting down any Russian missiles that survived its first-strike attack.

The path to a US-Russian nuclear war could also begin with a conventional military confrontation via NATO. The expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia has created the potential for a local military conflict with Russia to quickly escalate into a nuclear war. It is now Russian policy to respond with tactical nuclear weapons if faced with overwhelmingly superior conventional forces, such as those of NATO. In the event of war, the “nuclear umbrella” of NATO guarantees that NATO members will be protected by US nuclear weapons that are already forward-based in Europe.

Follow the link to the read all of this excellent article

Nuclear Money Pit

Nuclear Money Pit

America’s atomic arsenal is stuck in the Cold War era.
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | November 29, 2011

These days superpower nuclear-weapons controversies hardly elicit the excitement that once inspired such bumper-sticker slogans as, “you can’t hug children with nuclear arms.” The “no nukes!” movement has gone the way of the Cold War and MTV playing music videos, right?

In the 21st century, the 2002 Treaty of Moscow and 2010’s New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) were supposed set the clock on bilateral warhead reduction, and there are no plans for the production of more nuclear weapons. Pretty cut and dried, one would think. But like everything radiating out of Washington, the atomic drawdown is not what it seems.

Despite a deficit reduction plan to cut $1.2 trillion in federal spending over 10 years and ongoing negotiations by the so-called supercommittee to identify cuts of $1.5 trillion more, members of Congress are pushing an expanded plutonium storage and production assistance facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Critics say the facility is unnecessary, poorly designed, and dangerous—there are fault lines throughout the Los Alamos property—and its cost has ballooned from $375 million in 2001 to an estimated $5.5 billion today.

It hasn’t been built yet—in fact, the designs aren’t even finished after 10 years. But the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) has been soaking up taxpayer money all the same as the scope of the project has metastasized.

“The country doesn’t have money to pour into an unnecessary, giant boondoggle that has grown beyond all original expectations,” charges Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, probably the toughest grassroots opposition the CMRR-NF project faces right now. “When the cost of a facility increases by more than a factor of ten, even as the fundamental purposes are evaporating, it’s important to stop, to pause and to question whether this is the right thing to do.”

There is no doubt that the budget-cutting imperative is clashing with the old way of doing business on Capitol Hill, as pet projects and earmarks come under more scrutiny than ever. Bureaucratic institutions used to getting their way by easing expensive, potentially controversial programs under the radar are finding themselves squarely in critics’ sights.

That includes CMRR-NF, which has never been the subject of a public congressional hearing or passionate floor speech—much less a heated debate on cable TV or talk radio—but has been controversial nonetheless.
“I think the key is, it appears to be a huge waste of money and particularly in our current fiscal situation there is no need to hurry this thing at all,” says Peter Stockton, senior investigator for the Project on Government Oversight, which is currently working on its own CMRR-NF report.

• • •

The mission of National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is a semi-autonomous agency of the U.S. Department of Energy, is to “improve national security through the military application of nuclear energy.” It oversees Los Alamos and is in charge of the CMRR project.

Initially, the NNSA was merely focused on renovating the parts of Los Alamos’s old Chemistry and Metallurgy Research (CMR) building that were outmoded and deteriorating by the late 1990s. Tests had found faults running under the property that could cause dangerous earthquakes.

After President George W. Bush was elected, plans to improve and upgrade salvageable portions of the nearly 60-year-old CMR were scrapped, and NNSA set about designing a “simple” replacement facility with two buildings about a mile away. One, the Radiological Laboratory Utility Office Building, is not controversial and almost complete. The other—the NF in CMRR-NF—is a new nuclear facility that would support Los Alamos’s nuclear-weapons mission, including plutonium storage, and assist in the production of plutonium-based “pits,” the fissile cores of nuclear weapons. This currently takes place at the existing TA-55/PF-4 nuclear facility next to the proposed site.

The nuclear facility, according to its critics, has become a monster. Aside from the runaway cost estimates, according to Mello the envisioned facility would give TA-55/PF-4 the capacity to double the number of pits Los Alamos produces each year and could store up to six metric tons of plutonium, “enough to rebuild the entire U.S. strategic arsenal.” This when there are thousands of pits already in storage and a treaty with the Russians sharply limits the nuclear arsenal.

Even if the increase in pit production were necessary—and as Mello and others point out, with much of the information classified or otherwise unavailable to the public, it is hard to know—the existing lab could be upgraded to carry out Los Alamos’s publicly stated mission to refurbish the current stockpile. NNSA, critics complain, has so far refused to seriously consider any alternative.

“We think there are simpler, cheaper, faster alternatives to accomplishing their stated mission, though their stated missions are aggrandized to begin with,” says Los Alamos Study Group President Peter Neils, who was on Capitol Hill in late October to get the word out about CMRR-NF. He blames the out-of-control designs and spiraling cost on a mix of Cold War ideology, over-reliance on contractors, and the self-sustaining mentality of all bureaucracies.

Simply put, says Mello, “the warhead establishment and the Cold War hawks cannot let go of designing and building new kinds of warheads, to create what they call ‘end-to-end’ work for the weapons complex.”

• • •

As of June, the Federation of American Scientists reports, the U.S. had 1,950 operational strategic nuclear warheads, plus approximately 200 deployed on behalf of allied countries—Belgium, Turkey, Netherlands, Italy and Germany—and 2,850 in reserve. In addition, some 3,500 retired warheads are awaiting dismantlement. This all jibes with numbers issued by the State Department in 2010. START demands that the U.S. bring those deployed numbers down closer to 1,550 by 2018.

At its peak in 1967 during the Cold War, the nuclear stockpile was at 31,225 warheads. America had 22,217 when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. If the Cold War were still on, say critics, we might need additional capacity to build pits. But as it is there are thousands of usable pits already in reserve, and the scientific consensus says the plutonium parts of the pits have a lifespan of at least 100 years. The U.S. arsenal is well stocked in this regard.

The new CMRR-NF would help Los Alamos’s TA-55/PF4 site boost production to a conservative estimate of 125 pits a year on a double shift, according to observers.
This is as outrageous as it is unnecessary, claims Frank von Hippel, a professor and principal investigator at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security, in an affidavit for the Los Alamos Study Group, which is trying to force NNSA’s hand in court.

“There is no anticipated need to produce new pits for U.S. nuclear weapons for several decades,” he writes. The oldest pit produced in the U.S. is 32 years old, he added, noting the current TA-55/PF-4’s production rate of 10 pits per year would be adequate for any replacements necessary during the modernization and maintenance that is already going on under the auspices of NNSA.

Critics say the entire landscape of nuclear-weapons production has changed since CMRR-NF was conceived—all in the direction of reducing the nuclear stockpile—yet every adjustment in the facility’s blueprints has resulted in more capacity to store plutonium and build additional pits.

Most notably, the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a new family of warheads conceived in 2004 and used as a chief justification for modernizing Los Alamos’s nuclear-weapons complex, was defunded by Congress and cancelled by the Obama Administration in 2009.

CMRR-NF “is being built to increase capacity for pit production, even though pit production is not what we need,” the Project on Government Oversight’s Stockton charges. NNSA did not respond to several phone calls for comment on these and other charges lobbed by the opposition.

A three-page “Questions and Answers Regarding the CMRR Project” issued by NNSA before the Reliable Replacement Warhead was canceled maintains that the “primary mission of CMRR will be to support the current nuclear weapons stockpile through surveillance and life-extension programs necessary for the nuclear weapons complex” and “the size of CMRR remains the same.” It blames the soaring expense on poor initial estimates, cost increases in “the construction industry worldwide,” and requirements relating to the seismic risks, nuclear quality assurance, and security. The words “fissile core” or “pit” are never mentioned.

NNSA also contends it has put alternatives up for public comment, most recently when it amended the plans under its Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which the agency says has incorporated “updated seismic safety design information.” (The Los Alamos Study Group disagrees and has filed a second lawsuit against NNSA, contending that it’s relying on outdated feasibility and impact studies, among other charges.)

Critics say that if the new facility’s mission is merely to help maintain the stockpile, the job could be handled at an improved and upgraded TF-22/P4 facility or elsewhere at a fraction of the cost. As for size, Mello says NNSA can longer say the facility is “the same”—the square footage might be, but the installation’s scope has certainly grown since 2001.

• • •

CMRR-NF is not without detractors on Capitol Hill. Over the years, its budget and plans have been questioned for all of the reasons already cited and more. Indeed, today’s fiscal environment has bolstered the criticism, with results that can be seen in competing House and Senate appropriations bills. (Some $450 million has been appropriated to CMRR since 2002.)

Calling it a “cost reduction strategy,” the House in July cut $100 million from NNSA’s $300 million request for CMRR-NF as part of the overall $30.6 billion Fiscal Year 2012 Water and Energy Appropriations package. “The [House and Water and Energy Subcommittee] fully supports the Administration’s plans to modernize the infrastructure, but intends to closely review the funding request for new investment to ensure those plans adhere to good project management practices,” the final bill reads.

By trimming the agency’s request by a third, the House is refusing to provide “the additional funding to support early construction” and would not do so until NNSA resolves “major seismic issues with design” and tames CMRR’s cost.

The Senate subcommittee, too, has expressed concerns. Pointing to the growing expense, its FY 2012 appropriations bill demands NNSA submit a contingency plan that would identify the cost and consequences of delaying the implementation of CMRR, as well as a planned Uranium Processing Facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee—another project that has gone from an estimated $1.5 billion to upwards of $6.5 billion in the last five years. The committee also proposes to cut $60 million from the NNSA’s $300 million request for CMRR, but allows for preliminary “site preparation”—in other words, construction may begin on a project whose designs are not yet finished.

Mello and Neils have tried to convince lawmakers to put a permanent stop to CMRR-NF. It’s a difficult task, they say. Many legislators are hearing about the issue for the first time and might not be willing to plough through intimidating scientific and technical jargon to get at why this project is bad news.
And CMRR-NF already has momentum. Mike Lofgren, who spent 28 years on Capitol Hill as an aide on defense issues for the House and Senate Budget Committees, says this is bureaucracy in action, and anything relating to weapons systems is going to be expensive.

“It doesn’t surprise me that after a requirement has gone away, or the need has been severely curtailed, they would just continue on with this thing,” Lofgren tells TAC. “These projects get front-loaded by optimistic projections of their cost and overstatements of, ‘hey, we really need this thing,’ so you front-load them and politically engineer them by getting the local congressmen all hyped up by saying it’s going to create new jobs.”

When lawmakers start asking whether a particular project is really worth it, the response, Lofgren says, is always, “it’s too early to tell or too late to stop” and the effort will go on until the money is gone, mission accomplished or not. One need look no further than the $65 billion fleet of F-22 Raptors, which was grounded from May to August because of operational problems and has never seen a day of combat.
It’s hard to get a firm handle on how CMRR-NF has come to be apparently unstoppable because no wants to talk—neither the detractors on the Energy and Water Development Subcommittees, nor the project’s proponents, who have long been led by figures like Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.). In fact, reports at the time of Senate negotiations over New START indicate that as Republican Senate whip, Kyl was successful in obtaining additional funds for CMRR-NF in exchange for Senate GOP support for Obama’s treaty with the Russians. Kyl’s office did not return calls for comment.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), known as a longtime supporter of the CMRR project, responded with a statement from the senator that hardly sounded like a ringing endorsement.

“The CMRR is an important project for [Los Alamos National Laboratory] and for New Mexico, but it is also important to be sure environmental and cost issues are fully addressed,” Bingaman said. “My top concern as the project has been developed continues to be safety and security of the proposed facility.”
Contractors, post-Cold War ideologues, and bureaucracy may keep the CMRR-NF project going, but those interests appear to be clashing directly with the forces of fiscal restraint and new environmental concerns. After the earthquake-spawned Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in Japan last spring, fears over seismic hazards at Los Alamos have only grown.

Meanwhile, the Los Alamos Study Group insists its goal is not to stop the U.S. nuclear program, but to make it safer, more efficient and less expensive.

The nuclear-weapons establishment “could do their job more efficiently and more cheaply if they didn’t infuse their work with so much ideology and were just more practical and straightforward,” says Mello. And CMRR-NF is not the only program that might demand additional scrutiny. According to the New York Times, the facility is just one of a host of modernization projects that could cost taxpayers over $600 billion in the next decade.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance reporter and a columnist for Antiwar.com.

These words were projected on the Verizon building in Manhattan last Thursday night as thousands of protesters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. It was created by Mark Read, Max Nova and others, using “bat signal” technology: a large light that projects a silhouette of a bat on a cloud, as in Batman movies or in this case, words, on the smooth surface of part of the Verizon building. The letters were projected a phrase at a time from the apartment across the way of a single mom who agreed to be the source site of the magnificent light show. Max Nova is the son of Boulderites Kenneth
Nova and Wendy Rochman.

The protesters were electrified by it, and now people around the world who are watching it are electrified too.(.http://climate-connections.org/2011/11/21/the-boundless-creativity-of-occupy-wall-street-occupy-earth/)

It is this energetic, creative, determined quality of the Occupy Movement that I give thanks for on this Thanksgiving weekend. The Movement is a fresh wind blowing across this continent and over the planet, joining the Arab Spring and other movements of liberation. It is people realizing that they, we, are capable of changing the money driven power structure that we have into a system that works for people and the earth—not for profit for the few.

The Occupy Movement has been born of the simple belief that humanity could meet our common needs if we didn’t have the choking tentacles of the one percent squeezing profits from the 99% and from the earth.

In a letter to the editor of the Boulder Camera on November 23, Brian Underhill introduced a website (budget-sense.org) that he has created which gives ordinary people the ability to understand and create a US budget themselves, another example of people realizing that we are capable of taking on the task of self- government.

“This is choosing hope over despair,” Mark Read, one of the creators of the NYC light show says. “This is actively and resolutely making that choice. … I know we’re heading into winter in New York, but this feels like springtime.”

Twenty years after the end of the cold war, the United States still has about 2,500 nuclear weapons deployed and 2,600 more as backup. The Obama administration, in an attempt to mollify Congressional Republicans, has also committed to modernizing an already hugely expensive complex of nuclear labs and production facilities. Altogether, these and other nuclear-related programs could cost $600 billion or more over the next decade. The country does not need to maintain this large an arsenal. It should not be spending so much to do it, especially when Congress is considering deep cuts in vital domestic programs.

A war with Russia is now unthinkable, conventional weapons are increasingly capable, and the main nuclear threat comes from Iran and North Korea. To have the credibility to try to contain their ambitions, the United States needs to be weaning itself from its reliance on nuclear weapons. Reducing the number of weapons, scaling back unnecessary modernization programs, and delaying or scrapping plans to replace some delivery systems will save billions and help make the world safer.

•

President Obama can start by speeding up already negotiated reductions in deployed weapons and committing to further cuts, unilaterally if necessary.

Washington and Moscow pledged in the 2010 New Start treaty to reduce their number of deployed long-range nuclear weapons to 1,550 from 2,200 by 2017. But unless something changes, both countries will increase nuclear spending in coming years, as they replace or upgrade aging nuclear production facilities and delivery vehicles — submarines, missiles and bombers. That makes no sense.

The Global Zero campaign believes that as an interim step, the country can go down to 1,000 warheads, deployed and stored, without jeopardizing security. We agree.

President Obama endorses the goal of a nuclear-free world. But he has not gotten very far with his promise to negotiate even deeper reductions with Moscow.

In his push to win votes for the New Start treaty, Mr. Obama gave away far too much to balking Republican senators. He promised to invest an extra $85 billion over 10 years for the nuclear labs to maintain and modernize the arsenal, including overhauling thousands of older bombs that should be retired. He proposed spending $125 billion over the next decade for a new fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, 100 new bombers, a new land-based intercontinental ballistic missile and two other missiles.

Senior military officials acknowledge that hard decisions must be made — including possibly eliminating one leg of the nuclear triad. In July, Gen. James Cartwright, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for a reassessment of where nuclear weapons fit in today’s world.

All Americans need to be part of that discussion, as does the Congressional “supercommittee,” charged with coming up with a plan to reduce the deficit by $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Here are sound cuts for the nuclear budget:

¶Senator Tom Coburn, one of the few Republicans to support nuclear reductions, has called for cutting the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,220, the ballistic missile submarine fleet to 11 from 14, and intercontinental ballistic missiles to 300 from 500. He also favors delaying the purchase of new bombers until the mid 2020s. Total savings, according to Mr. Coburn, would be at least $79 billion over the next decade. It is a smart beginning.

¶Don’t modernize the B61 tactical nuclear bombs in Europe. No one can imagine that the United States would ever use a nuclear weapon on a European battlefield, and Washington is in discussions with NATO to bring them home to be dismantled. If the Europeans want to keep them for political reasons, let them pick up the tab. Savings: $1.6 billion.

¶Halt construction of the new plutonium storage facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Costs have increased tenfold, and there are serious safety questions about the location — along a fault line and near an active volcano. Savings: $2.9 billion.

¶Halt construction of the Energy Department’s Savannah River facility that is supposed to recycle plutonium from dismantled weapons into mox, a fuel for nuclear power plants. The sole customer for the fuel dropped the contract. Savings: $4 billion.

¶Cancel the uranium processing facility in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight says that with $100 million in upgrades, another facility there can do the work. Savings: $6 billion.

¶Down-blend more of the 400 metric tons of highly enriched uranium in United States weapons stocks for sale to nuclear power plants. The administration has neglected this, while investing in programs that increase the life of nuclear warheads. Revenue: $23 billion.

The country will need some number of nuclear weapons for the foreseeable future. And it must ensure that they are safe and reliable. But spending on the arsenal must be rational and consistent with national security goals — not driven by inertia or politics.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 30, 2011

An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly described the positions of the former secretaries of state George Shultz, James Baker and Henry Kissinger. All three have endorsed the eventual goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Mr. Kissinger is not a supporter of the Global Zero campaign. Mr. Shultz and Mr. Baker have participated in Global Zero events, but have not endorsed Global Zero’s call for moving quickly to an interim reduction to 1,000 nuclear warheads.

The world’s nuclear powers are planning to spend hundreds of billions of pounds modernising and upgrading weapons warheads and delivery systems over the next decade, according to an authoritative report published on Monday.

Despite government budget pressures and international rhetoric about disarmament, evidence points to a new and dangerous “era of nuclear weapons”, the report for the British American Security Information Council (Basic) warns. It says the US will spend $700bn (£434bn) on the nuclear weapons industry over the next decade, while Russia will spend at least $70bn on delivery systems alone. Other countries including China, India, Israel, France and Pakistan are expected to devote formidable sums on tactical and strategic missile systems.

For several countries, including Russia, Pakistan, Israel and France, nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence, says the report. In Russia and Pakistan, it warns, nuclear weapons are assigned “war-fighting roles in military planning”

The whole article is worth reading at the link at the top of this post. Here’s the country by country summary

In a country-by-country analysis, the report says:

• The US is planning to spend $700bn on nuclear weapons over the next decade. A further $92bn will be spent on new nuclear warheads and the US also plans to build 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, air-launched nuclear cruise missiles and bombs.

• Russia plans to spend $70bn on improving its strategic nuclear triad (land, sea and air delivery systems) by 2020. It is introducing mobile ICBMs with multiple warheads, and a new generation of nuclear weapons submarines to carry cruise as well as ballistic missiles. There are reports that Russia is also planning a nuclear-capable short-range missile for 10 army brigades over the next decade.

• China is rapidly building up its medium and long-range “road mobile” missile arsenal equipped with multiple warheads. Up to five submarines are under construction capable of launching 36-60 sea-launched ballistic missiles, which could provide a continuous at-sea capability.

• France has just completed deployment of four new submarines equipped with longer-range missiles with a “more robust warhead”. It is also modernising its nuclear bomber fleet.

• Pakistan is extending the range of its Shaheen II missiles, developing nuclear cruise missiles, improving its nuclear weapons design as well as smaller, lighter, warheads. It is also building new plutonium production reactors.

• India is developing new versions of its Agni land-based missiles sufficient to target the whole of Pakistan and large parts of China, including Beijing. It has developed a nuclear ship-launched cruise missile and plans to build five submarines carrying ballistic nuclear missiles.

• Israel is extending its Jericho III missile’s range, and is developing an ICBM capability, expanding its nuclear-tipped cruise missile enabled submarine fleet.

• North Korea unveiled a new Musudan missile in 2010 with a range of up to 2,500 miles and capable of reaching targets in Japan. It successfully tested the Taepodong-2 with a possible range of more than 6,000 miles sufficient to hit half the US mainland. However, the report, says, “it is unclear whether North Korea has yet developed the capability to manufacture nuclear warheads small enough to sit on top of these missiles”.

The Seattle Times does a major piece on the Hanford, WA site.

Department of Energy scientists allege catastrophic mismanagement of the costliest environmental cleanup in world history

and …

Now outrage is brewing at Hanford. Some prominent employees working on the project are blowing the whistle over what they believe to be dismissals of internal scientific assessments, as well as alleged abuses of managerial power that have been called to the attention of the Obama Administration, to no avail. These staffers point to institutional failures within the DOE and Bechtel as toxic as the nuclear waste they’re tasked to clean up, asserting that the DOE lacks critical experts on staff to oversee the project and Bechtel rushed through shoddy design plans in order to pocket some quick cash. The consequences are not only jeopardizing safety and putting the project at risk of failure, they are also likely to cost taxpayers even more money should fatally flawed construction ultimately require a complete overhaul.

“We need alternatives to the current plan right now,” Dr. Donald Alexander, a high-level DOE physical chemist working at Hanford, says in distress. “We need a different design and more options on the table. This appears to be a hard thing for [DOE and Bechtel] management to accept. They have spent years of time and money on a bad design, and it will delay the project even more.”

Follow the link above to read the rest of an excellent article

Lance R. Hughes, b. April 3, 1955; d. October 3, 2011

Lance passed from this world surrounded by close friends who were his family. A native Oklahoman of Muscogee Creek ancestry, Lance was born in Oklahoma City, but lived all over the state as his father worked in the oils fields and the family moved often. He is preceded in death by his beloved mother, Ro Ann Hughes. Lance’s family consists of many friends, colleagues and favorite musicians scattered across the nation. He was the consummate host and chef, known most notably for his deserts. Lance loved his home on Lane Hill and the Barron Fork creek almost as much as he enjoyed his last years in the cabin on Spring and Snake creeks. These hills were his home and the waters his joy.

In the early 1980’s, Lance worked with Wilma Mankiller and Ross Swimmer at the Cherokee Nation, and was responsible for writing the 1985 Cherokee Code of Law and updating it in 2001. For the past five years, Lance worked as a consultant to the Cherokee Nation Health Department. Lance became the executive director of Native Americans for a Clean Environment in 1986. Despite a lack of formal education, Lance was a brilliant strategist, with a gentle voice and easygoing (generally barefooted) manner that masked a steely resolve to get things done. He brought an encyclopedic knowledge to focus on the problems of nuclear pollution and the art of community organizing in an international arena. In 1993, the efforts of the NACE organization shut down 23% of the world’s uranium supply at the notoriously contaminated Kerr McGee facility in Gore, Ok, accomplished much to the tenacious, laser focus of Lance Hughes. He was the recipient of the Joe A. Callaway award for Civic Courage in 1995 for leading the fight, as well as an award from Nuclear Free America in 1997.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations (tax deductable) may be sent to: IEER – Institute for Energy and Environmental Researchat 6935 Laurel Ave., Suite 201, Takoma Park, Maryland, 20912. Condolence cards may be sent to the family at P.O. Box 1735, Locust Grove OK 74352.

A Celebration of Life will be held in a month or so- to be announced far and wide. There is a memorial page on Face Book: Lance Hughes Memorial Page for your notes and celebration announcement.

Memorial Service at the N-8 Minuteman Missile Silo for Sister Jackie Hudson. To understand the parts of the service that are inaudible due to the high winds, here’s the program. Words to the Raging Grannies song, “Out at the Missile Site” can be found here.

Also, the Aug Memorial Service for Sister Jackie Hudson by the Ground Zero Center for Non-Violent Action

In 2002, Sister’s Ardeth Platte and Carol Gilbert joined Sister Jackie Hudson in their non-violent action at the N-8 Minuteman Missile Silo. Today, they sent a message that was read at the beginning of the service and which is found in the program. Both were recently before a judge in TN for sentencing for another non-violent action at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge TN.
Sister Ardeth Platte’s Y-12 Sentencing Statement
Sister Carol Gilbert’s Y-12 Sentencing Statement
The work of preventing a nuclear holocaust continues.

Thanks to Rep. Polis for only CO endorsement!

OUTSIDE ENDORSEMENTS: Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, Americans for Democratic Action, Arms Control Association, Arms and Security Project, Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World, Center for International Policy, Citizen Action New Mexico, Citizens for Global Solutions, Council for a Livable World, Friends Committee on National Legislation, JustPeace, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Nuclear Waste Program, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Peace Action (formerly SANE/Freeze), Peace Action West, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Snake River Alliance, Southwest Research and Information Center, Tri-Valley CAREs, Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Global Engagement Program, WAND, Former UN Ambassador and Deputy National Security Advisor Nancy E. Soderberg, former Congressman Mike Kopetski, former NSC Senior Director Mark Medish, former Congressman Don Fraser

Freeze the Nukes, Fund the Future

Dear Members of the Super Committee:

The Berlin Wall fell.  The Soviet Union crumbled.  The Cold War ended.  Yet 20 years later, we continue to spend over $50 billion a year on the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  This makes no sense.  These funds are a drain on our budget and a disservice to the next generation of Americans.  We are robbing the future to pay for the unneeded weapons of the past.  Now is the time to stop fighting last century’s war.  Now is the time to reset our priorities.  Now is the time to invest in the people and the programs to get America back on track.

The Super Committee is best positioned to cut this outdated radioactive relic.  The Soviets are long gone, yet the stockpiles remain.  The bombs collect dust, yet the bills are with us to this day.  We call on the Super Committee to cut $20 billion a year, or $200 billion over the next ten years, from the U.S. nuclear weapons budget.  This cut will enable us to stay safe without further straining our budget.  This cut will improve our security.  This cut will allow us to continue funding the national defense programs that matter most.

Consider how this savings compares to vital programs on which Americans rely.  We spend approximately $20 billion per year on Pell Grants to help students pay for college.  We spend $5 billion to ensure that Americans do not freeze in their homes during the winter.  We need to freeze our nuclear weapons, and fuel our stalled economy.

The Ploughshares Fund estimates that the U.S. will spend over $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next ten years.  Nuclear weapons and missile defense alone will consume over $500 billion.  We can no longer justify spending at these levels.  We can save hundreds of billions of dollars by restructuring the U.S. nuclear program for the 21^st century.

Our current arsenal totals approximately 5,000 nuclear warheads.  This enormous stockpile will allow us to annihilate our enemies countless times.  At any one time there are up to 12 Trident submarines cruising the world’s seas.  Each submarine carries an estimated 96 nuclear warheads.  Each submarine is capable of destroying all of Russia’s and China’s major cities.  Why then do we need all of these weapons?  There is no good reason.  America no longer needs, and cannot afford, this massive firepower.

The Super Committee should not reduce funding to vital programs relied upon by millions of Americans.  Cut Minuteman missiles.  Do not cut Medicare and Medicaid.  Cut nuclear-armed B-52 and B-2 bombers.  Do not cut Social Security.  Invest in the future, don’t waste money on the past.

We do not need to maintain our current level of nuclear weapons to secure our country.  The President agrees.  The Senate agrees.  The New START treaty will reduce our level of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550.  This is a 25 percent cut from today’s levels.  Fewer nuclear weapons should equal less funding.

We should not cut entitlement programs first.  We should not target our seniors, our children, and our sick first.  Instead we should target outdated and unnecessary nuclear weapons.  Let’s freeze the nukes so we can fund the future.

Sincerely,

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Public Hearing with Beyond Nuclear
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1-877-553-7601 (passcode 5087356)
1-866-741-7099 (passcode 3340595)
1-866-732-2413 (passcode 8181837)
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Webcast at http://video.nrc.gov
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Following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine, the US government permanently closed a US reactor, the graphite-moderated Hanford N-reactor near Richland, Washington. Why? The antiquated reactor too closely resembled the design of the exploded Chernobyl reactor that blanketed much of the northern hemisphere in long-lived radioactive fallout.

Now following Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, more than 6,000 of you have co-petitioned with us to call upon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to “Freeze Our Fukushimas” and shutter dangerously old and deteriorating General Electric Mark I boiling water reactors here in the US similar in design to the Fukushima Dai-ichi units. There, nuclear accidents have closed 24 miles of Japan’s coastline to human habitation and forced hundreds of thousands more Japanese to live in sickening radioactive contamination.

The NRC has scheduled a public hearing to take public comment on requested emergency enforcement actions to suspend operations at these increasingly dangerous Fukushima-style nuclear reactors. Speakers will include Paul Gunter and Kevin Kamps (Beyond Nuclear), Dale Bridenbaugh (former GE engineer), Arnie Gunderson (Fairewinds Associates), Deb Katz (Citizens Awareness Network), Lou Zeller (Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League), Randy Kehler (Safe & Green Campaign), Michael Mariotte (Nuclear Information and Resource Service), Bobbie Paul (Georgia WAND) and more…

You can participate in this public meeting via the toll free telephone bridge lines above, or watch the live webcast from NRC headquarters.

Webcast at http://video.nrc.gov

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Please mark your calendars and help us to mobilize a national campaign to hasten the closure of the most dangerous atomic reactors in America. Invite your friends, colleagues and post on listserves.

Freeze Our Fukushimas!

Thank you for working with us for a nuclear-free world.

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Powerful eye-witness accounts from Japan move audiences in New York and DC

She’d traveled almost 7,000 miles but on September 22 Sachiko Sato found herself just a couple of hundred yards from her Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda of Japan. Seizing the megaphone as she stood at a rally near the UN, she urged him not to abandon Fukushima’s children and to end nuclear power as Noda attended an event across the street. Sato is a natural farmer and mother of four from the devastated Fukushima Prefecture, contaminated with deadly radioactivity from the nuclear disaster that began on March 11, 2011. She was in New York and Washington DC last week with a delegation of Japanese activists, to talk to the public, Congress, Commissioners and staff at the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the press about the reality of life under the metaphorical and actual Fukushima radiation cloud. Describing communities ripped apart, livelihoods crushed and children displaced, the group called for proper evacuation of Fukushima families and support from the world in closing nuclear plants so that their suffering would not be in vain. To hear the delegations’ New York presentation in full, watch the video. (Photo: ©David M. Grossman.) REMINDER: “Freeze Our Fukushimas” National Call In Day to NRC, October 7, 2011  10 AM to 12 Noon EST, Toll free numbers. Support the Beyond Nuclear emergency enforcement petition to suspend operations of all Fukushima-style reactors in the USA. Thanks for taking action. And please also consider making a donation to Beyond Nuclear today. Your support will help us build a grassroots movement to close dangerous nuclear plants and create a safe energy future for our children.

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The Beyond Nuclear Team
www.beyondnuclear.org

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Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Watchdog
Beyond Nuclear
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912
Office: (301) 270-2209 ext. 1
Fax: (301) 270-4000
kevin@beyondnuclear.org
www.beyondnuclear.org

Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.