Trump administration discussed conducting first U.S. nuclear weapon test in decades

As reported by the Washington Post.

The Nevada National Security Site, formerly called the Nevada Test Site, is just 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It is located on Western Shoshone Indian land, as affirmed by the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863, as signed by the U.S. government. The Western Shoshone have led the resistance to nuclear weapons testing, and radioactive waste dumping (Yucca Mountain), on their lands, for many decades.

Despite this highest law of the land, equal in stature to the U.S. Constitution itself, the U.S. has detonated nuclear wepaons there since 1951. For a dozen years, testing took place at the surface, with large-scale radioactive fallout downwind, across North America. This caused large-scale harm to human health and the planet.

After the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty went into effect, the testing moved underground. But the National Security Archives revealed earlier this decade, that around one-third of the underground tests leaked or vented to the atmosphere. This was kept largely secret from the American people, although some leaks were so big, the truth did not take long to come out, despite efforts to keep it secret. In the case of the "Mighty Oak" underground test in April 1986, large-scale hazardous radioactivity releases to the environment took place. The Department of Energy tried to mask its intentional venting releases as having been caused by the Chernobyl nuclear power catastrophe in the U.S.S.R., but Dr. Rosalie Bertell outed the subterfuge.

After a moratorium on full-scale testing was declared in September 1992, sub-critical testing has continued at the NTS/NNSS. Sub-critical testing involves conventional explosives, packed with plutonium. The data from the sub-critical tests is fed into supercomputers; nuclear weapons designs can be "advanced" that way, even without full-scale testing.

In 2006, a very large-scale conventional explosion, codenamed "Divine Strake," was proposed at the NTS/NNSS. The data collected would have been used to "advance" (calibrate) bunker buster nuclear weaponry. The test was a thinly veiled Bush/Cheney administration threat against Iran's nuclear facilities. But an environmental coalition -- including Toledo attorney Terry Lodge, and Michael Keegan of Don't Waste Michigan and Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes -- intervened, successfully challenging the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Agency's plans. The coalition showed that the National Environmental Policy Act had been violated, due to the large environmental and human health impacts downwind, that would be caused by stirring up so much radioactive contamination from past nuclear tests. The "Divine Strake" test in Nevada was cancelled; and everywhere else in the country where DOE/NNSA later attempted to carry out the test, it was also successfully blocked.

Trump Will Withdraw From Open Skies Arms Control Treaty

President Trump’s decision, the third major retreat from arms control agreements, will be viewed as evidence that he also plans an exit from the last major weapons treaty with Russia: New START.

As reported by the New York Times.

The Washington Post has also reported on this story.

Update on May 21, 2020 by admin

See also:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 21, 2020

Contact: Monica Matoush // 202-226-5048

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Smith, Cooper Statement on Trump Administration’s Withdrawal From the Open Skies Treaty

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representatives Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Jim Cooper (D-TN), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, today issued the following statement in response to reports that the Trump Administration plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty:

“The Administration’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Open Skies Treaty is a slap in the face to our allies in Europe, leaves our deployed forces in the region at risk, and is in blatant violation of the law. This decision weakens our national security interests, isolates the United States since the Treaty will continue without us, and abandons a useful tool to hold Russia accountable.

“What’s more, this decision has been made without any consultation with Congress. Not only does the FY20 National Defense Authorization Act require a minimum 120-days’ notification of the withdrawal notice, but also multiple communications from the House Armed Services Committee and other congressional chairmen have gone unanswered.

“The Trump Administration continues to give Russia the upper hand with regards to arms control, which leaves our allies and deployed forces less protected in Europe. Despite the Department of Defense’s rhetoric about the dire need to prepare for ‘great power competition,’ this decision will undoubtedly do the exact opposite, and further fracture our relationships with allies needed to push back against Russian aggression in the region.”

Update on May 27, 2020 by admin

Beyond Nuclear was hosted on "By Any Means Necessary" to discuss this story:

Trump's Open Skies Treaty Pullout May "Spark a New Cold War Arms Race"

In this segment of By Any Means Necessary hosts Sean Blackmon and Jacquie Luqman are joined by Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog at Beyond Nuclear, to talk about President Trump's decision to effectively ax the Open Skies Treaty, what explains Trump's penchant for shredding longstanding nuclear disarmament accords, and why his administration's policies may ignite a new nuclear arms race among dozens of countries currently without them.

Listen to the audio recording, here.

Why so many nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles?

Apocalypse will be highly likely. Artificial intelligence is not going to save us. These weapons need to be outlawed, not produced and purchased en masse.

As reported by Karl Grossman, and published in Nation of Change.

Karl Grossman is a Beyond Nuclear board member, investigative journalist, and long-time watch-dog on nuclear power and nukes/weapons in space.

DOE Repeatedly Asks Safety Board for Time Extensions, Los Alamos Lab Asked for >150 Cleanup Milestone Extensions, But During Pandemic NNSA Rejects NM Senators’ Request for Extension of Public Comment on Plutonium Bomb Core Production

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, May 6, 2020

Contact:   Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch NM, 505.989.7342, jay@nukewatch.org

DOE Repeatedly Asks Safety Board for Time Extensions,
Los Alamos Lab Asked for >150 Cleanup Milestone Extensions,
But During Pandemic NNSA Rejects NM Senators’ Request for Extension of Public Comment on Plutonium Bomb Core Production

Santa Fe, NM – Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), has rejected a request by New Mexico Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich to extend the public comment period on expanded plutonium “pit” bomb core production because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, even in normal times NNSA and its parent Department of Energy routinely ask other government agencies for major time extensions when it comes to cleanup and independent oversight.

The two Senators requested a 45 day comment period extension on behalf of more than 120 organizations and individuals. Before that, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich were among 24 Senators who asked the Office of Management and Budget to extend all federal public comment periods during the coronavirus national emergency.

NNSA’s rejection of their request is an apparent double standard given DOE’s requests for time extensions to respond to nuclear safety recommendations by the independent Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.[1] The Safety Board has long reported on chronic nuclear safety problems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). DOE has sought to kill the messenger by restricting Safety Board access to NNSA nuclear weapons facilities.

Concerning cleanup, the Lab asked the New Mexico Environment Department for more than 150 time extensions for legally required cleanup milestones, which NMED granted. The lack of comprehensive cleanup has caused extensive groundwater contamination, which LANL use to claim was impossible but now threatens the regional aquifer.

In contrast, NNSA has told Senators Udall and Heinrich that the expansion of plutonium pit production at LANL is so vital to national security that the agency cannot wait another 45 days for public comment, even while northern New Mexico is impacted by the pandemic. Lab cleanup has stopped because of coronavirus, but expanded plutonium pit production must go on, which in turn will cause the need for more cleanup. Instead DOE plans to cut cleanup funding by nearly half while LANL’s nuclear weapons production programs are slated for a 33% increase ($2.9 billion in FY 2021).

Concerning NNSA’s claims of national security, it’s important to note that no future pit production is scheduled to maintain the safety and reliability of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile. Instead, future production will be for heavily modified pits for speculative new-design nuclear weapons that can’t be tested because of the global testing moratorium, hence possibly lowering reliability. Alternatively, new modified pits could prompt the U.S. to resume nuclear weapons testing, with severe international proliferation consequences. Independent experts have found that existing plutonium pits last at least a century (the average pit age in the active stockpile is less than 40 years old). More than 15,000 pits are already stored at NNSA’s Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX.

NNSA plans to spend at least $5.8 billion at LANL and $4.6 billion at the Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina over the next decade on construction or upgrades of plutonium pit production facilities. Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), NNSA has released a draft environmental impact statement for pit production at SRS since it is a completely new mission there. But NNSA claims that it is complying with its legal obligations under NEPA for the Los Alamos Lab by relying upon a draft “Supplement Analysis” to an outdated 2008 site-wide environmental impact statement. It is that draft Supplement Analysis that is now up for public comment. NNSA has already “preliminarily” concluded that it will NOT prepare a new site-wide EIS.

In response to earlier requests, the NNSA had extended the comment period on LANL’s Supplement Analysis a mere 15 days to May 8, 2020. But the agency claimed that “a two month extension of the comment period would have a severe adverse impact on the detailed planning and coordination of this effort” to expand plutonium pit production at LANL.[2] That is difficult to believe given NNSA’s chronic track record of massive cost overruns and broken schedules.

For starters, the Department of Energy has been on the Government Accountability Office’s “High Risk List” for project mismanagement for 27 consecutive years. Independent experts have found that most of NNSA’s proposed major projects are canceled outright, but of the few who aren’t “we could find no successful historical major project that both cost more than $700 million and achieved CD-4 [the Critical Decision to begin operations] in less than 16 years.” [3] This is particularly relevant given that NNSA proposes to “repurpose” the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility at SRS for pit production, after that canceled project wasted more than 7 billion taxpayer dollars. Similarly, a major new plutonium facility at LANL was cancelled in 2012 when its projected construction costs exploded ten-fold to $6.5 billion.

Jay Coghlan, Nuclear Watch Director, commented, “The NNSA is essentially telling the public to get lost during this epidemic, we’re ramming through more nuclear weapons. But all the nukes in the world won’t protect us from coronavirus. Citizens should use this unfairly limited public comment opportunity to demand that their taxpayer dollars produce real national security. Masks, ventilators and universal coronavirus testing are needed, not more nukes!”

# # #

Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich extension request to NNSA is available at https://nukewatch.org/senators-letter-to-nnsa-april22/

NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty’s rejection letter to Sen. Tom Udall is available at

https://nukewatch.org/nnsa-to-udall-4-30-20/

NNSA’s March 2020 Draft Supplement Analysis of the 2008 Site-Wide Environmental Impact Statement for the Continued Operation of Los Alamos National Laboratory for Plutonium Operations is available at https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/03/f72/draft-supplement-analysis-eis-0380-sa-06-lanl-pit-production-2020-03.pdf

The deadline for comments is Saturday May 8. Comments can be emailed to lanlsweissa@nnsa.doe.gov, Subject line LANL SWEIS SA comment.

Sample comments by NukeWatch NM are available at www.nukewatch.org

See NukeWatch NM plutonium pit production fact sheet at https://nukewatch.org/plutonium-pit-production-fact-sheet/

This press release is available online at https://nukewatch.org/nnsa-denies-comment-extension-PR-5-5-20/

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[1]     For DOE’s latest request, see Secretary Dan Brouillette to DNFSB Chairman Bruce Hamilton, April 27, 2020, https://nukewatch.org/doe-secretary-brouillette-request-for-extension-to-respond-to-recommendation-2020/

[2]     NNSA letter, April 6, 2020, https://nukewatch.org/nnsa-to-nukewatch-15-day-extension/

[3]     Independent Assessment of the Two-Site Pit Production Decision: Executive Summary, Institute for Independent Analysis, May 2019, https://nukewatch.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/IDA-With-cover-page.pdf

Report backs lawmakers' concerns with U.S.-Saudi talks

As reported by E&E News.