Trump plan moves more funding into weapons programs
Sandia Lab, LANL, WIPP would see boost to update nuke arsenal, cleanup
President Donald Trump has proposed an increase of more than $300 million in federal dollars for the national laboratories, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and other Department of Energy facilities in New Mexico for the 2018 budget year, laying the groundwork for substantially more nuclear weapons work and radioactive waste disposal in the state.
Trump’s proposed budget, which was released Tuesday, also requests a slight increase in environmental cleanup funding at many laboratories, including Los Alamos, which have extensive radioactive and toxic waste stockpiles and contamination resulting from decades of weapons production. Many of the funding increases would come at the expense of Department of Energy’s scientific endeavors, including work in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs.
The overall proposed budget for the Department of Energy is $1.6 billion
less than what was in the 2016 budget year, but the request for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, represents a $1.4 billion increase over 2016 funding levels.
The weapons program increase, if enacted by Congress, would “fulfill the President’s vision of rebuilding and restoring the Nation’s security through robust investments to modernize the nuclear security enterprise,” according to Trump’s budget proposal.
The funding increase also “ensures the reliability of the nuclear stockpile, modernizes the Nation’s aging nuclear infrastructure, addresses nuclear proliferation and radiological threats at home and abroad,” said the budget proposal from the Republican president.
New Mexico’s Democratic senators rejected the budget proposal, with Tom Udall calling it “a disturbing statement of President Trump’s dangerous and cruel priorities.”
Udall, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the proposal would “cannibalize programs that help lower-income and middle-class families” and send “the clean energy jobs of the future abroad.”
Nuclear watchdogs said the proposed heavy investments in weapons would be bad for New Mexico, with an increase of more than 15 percent in weapons production coming at the expense of scientific missions, some reduced by as much as 90 percent from 2016 levels.
“We just see a very clear trend that Los Alamos is just getting into nuclear weapons more and more,” said Jay Coghlan, director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. “Cleanup stays flat, renewables get cut. This is not the kind of thing the serves the citizens of New Mexico that desperately need jobs, a protected environment and new innovation in renewables.”
Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., said the budget proposal was “not without flaw” but was a refreshing attempt at balance, saying, “President Trump’s proposal forces a much-needed conversation on our nation’s spending priorities.
“The framework released by the President today will provide local New Mexico communities with increased educational flexibility, support Los Alamos National Lab, Sandia National Lab, and WIPP, increase our nation’s commitment to combating opioids, and commits to families first by implementing a paid paternal leave policy,” Pearce said in a statement.
Under Trump’s proposed budget, New Mexico would see a $300 million increase in federal funding for Department of Energy facilities in the state over 2016 levels, or a jump from $5.1 billion to $5.4 billion. The 2017 funding levels for New Mexico are $4.8 billion.
Los Alamos National Laboratory would receive $2.2 billion, up slightly from 2017. The lab would see a 3 percent increase in environmental cleanup money, boosting funding to $191 million.
But the budget would reallocate where money at Los Alamos goes. More money would go to production of plutonium pits, or triggers, for nuclear weapons and less for science and renewable energy programs.
Funds would also go to infrastructure improvements, including upgrades to a fire wall at the plutonium facility, PF-4, and $180 million for a replacement chemistry and metallurgy research facility.
The White House requested nearly $2.1 billion for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, an increase from $1.8 billion in each of the 2016 and 2017 budget years.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad would receive an increase of more than $17 million, for a total of $317 million. The additional money would be for “ramping up activities to increase shipments of transuranic waste” to WIPP from around the country, cybersecurity, and operations and maintenance.
The proposed budget also outlines $9 million for diluting 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium and disposing of it at WIPP.
In a teleconference Tuesday, Frank Klotz, deputy secretary of the National Nuclear Security Administration, praised Los Alamos’ production of two test plutonium pits last year.
“We are very happy and impressed with the work Los Alamos has done over the last couple of years to improve its conduct of operations in [the plutonium facility] and to return to full operations there,” he said.
The National Nuclear Security Administration hopes to create as many as 80 pits per year by 2030, but Los Alamos only has the capacity to produce 30 pits.
Safety concerns at the plutonium facility have led the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, an independent advisory board to the president and the Department of Energy, to schedule a hearing in Santa Fe for early June.