Nuclear Funding AccountabilityExcerpts from nirs.org
At a time when Congress is threatening to cut off hundreds of thousands of individuals from their life-lines by making drastic cuts to Medicaid in order to reduce the deficit, here is an opportunity to eliminate some of the pork from the DOE’s Fiscal Year 2006 budget.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) has evaluated and identified seven nuclear weapons and three nuclear energy programs in next year’s budget that are wasteful and warrant cutbacks or elimination of the programs entirely. Proposed cuts would result in immediate savings of over $1.8 billion. Billions more could be cut from the DOE’s budget over the next five years and much of the savings could be applied toward addressing the environmental and potential health effects which result from nuclear weapons production.
It comes as no surprise that I have heard little to nothing about these proposed nuclear weapons programs within the mainstream media. Evidently, our fourth estate has decided that this same issue that permeated our airwaves throughout the 60's and 70's and which threatened not only our national security but our global security, is no longer newsworthy enough to share with the American people.
We still haven’t cleaned up many of the Superfund sites which this Congress has neglected to fully fund, and yet the DOE wants to pile a new mess on top of an old one, but this is one mess you can’t continue to just sweep under the rug.
Congress could save taxpayers nearly a billion dollars by simply agreeing to cuts already made in the House and Senate versions of the FY 2006 Energy & Water spending bill (H.R. 2419). The Chairmen of the Conference Committee have the most power over what cuts or increases survive in the final bill. Call your legislators and urge them to tell the Chairmen to accept the House and Senate funding cuts to nuclear weapons and energy programs while preserving the House increases to environmental cleanup and nuclear warhead dismantlement.
TIMING: Valid for the month of October, 2005.
Differences between the House and Senate versions of the Energy & Water spending bill must be worked out by a joint House-Senate Conference Committee. With the deficit over $330 billion, it is imperative that Congress approve the $1 billion in cuts to nuclear weapons and energy programs that were adopted earlier this year.
Budget cuts that we support include:
* $85 million for the Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative, a dangerous and expensive return to REPROCESSING nuclear waste.
* $74 million from the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository;
* $303 million for plutonium fuel fabrication (MOX), a commercial reactor fuel;
* $7.6 million for a new plutonium bomb plant to mass-produce nuclear bomb triggers;
* $4 million for research into a nuclear bunker buster that has the potential of a million casualties but would be unable to penetrate many of the deepest targets;
* $25 million to increase the readiness to resume underground nuclear testing;
* $146 million for constructing the National Ignition Facility for nuclear weapons research;
Budget increases we support include:
* $115 million to dismantle nuclear warheads as pledged by the President following the Moscow Treaty;
* $190 million to the environmental cleanup budget for sites to adhere to legal obligations for cleanup of contamination from U.S. nuclear weapons production.
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, (202) 544-0217
You can also send a letter to your members of congress by going to the following links:
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has posted the alert on Capwiz (which has already generated over 1,000 messages) at: http://capwiz.com/wagingpeace/mail/oneclick_compose/?alertid=8067771
Working Assets has posted a similar alert on its Act for Change site (which has already generated over 11,650 messages) at http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=19499
A postcard version of the alert is attached, which can be copied, cut and distributed at local events. The alert is posted online at http://www.ananuclear.org/action.html
See ANA’s radioactive pork report at http://www.ananuclear.org/topten2005.html
See sign-on letter from 44 national and local groups to Energy & Water Conferees at http://ananuclear.org/E%26Wletteroct305.html
This Alert originated with:
Jim Bridgman, Program Director
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
322 4th Street, NE, WDC, 20002
202-544-0217 x3
FAX: 202-544-6143
jcbridgman@earthlink.net
www.ananuclear.org
