U.S Nuclear Stockpiles: On the Road to Nowhere?

Today, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) announced in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists its critique of the Department of Energy's plan to transform the U.S. nuclear weapons complexes, and nuclear hazard waste.

 click here Presidential hopeful John McCain pushing for more nuclear power, the fate of nuclear waste and nuclear weapons materials should become center stage.

 

POGO submitted one of the more than 100,000 public comments to the Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (SPEIS). The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) considered four alternatives to transform the U.S. nuclear complex.

 

Nuclear waste and Nuclear weapons will be the long-term legacy of our civilization, activists have noted. It is time to consider POGO's suggestion that pit production be halted completely. The nuclear weapons still being stockpiled are relics of our cold-war past.

POGO stated: “The timing of the NNSA review is odd, as both a new presidential administration and a bipartisan congressional commission will soon be conducting their own reviews of the country's nuclear infrastructure.”

 

POGO urged that Congress wait and consider upcoming “landmark reviews--the next administration's Nuclear Posture Review and a congressionally appointed, bipartisan commission report on the role of nonproliferation programs and missile defenses in U.S. strategic policies, which will be completed by December 1, 2008. “

Also outdating the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review is the mounting chorus for "substantial reductions" in U.S. nuclear forces--see "Toward A Nuclear-Free World," A World Free of Nuclear Weapons, and "What Are Nuclear Weapons For?"

 

POGO showed how nuclear material could be removed much quicker and reduce the risk to the 7 million people who live within a 50-mile radius of the laboratory at risk. Startling, the security is incredibly lax, and tests have shown that mock terrorists are able to steal simulated special nuclear materials and could even detonate an improvised nuclear device on the spot.