Tri-Valley CAREs decries "wrong direction, wrong policy, and wrong priorities," points to escalating nuclear risks for SF Bay Area, Central Valley and NationLivermore – In a Federal Register notice to be published this Friday, the Dept. of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced its final plan to revitalize and rebuild the nuclear weapons complex, at Livermore Lab in California and other sites across the country.

"The government is trying to sell the American people a bill of goods by referring to this plan as a ‘consolidation’ when it is actually a provocative revitalization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex," charged Marylia Kelley, Executive Director of Tri-Valley CAREs and a close neighbor of Livermore Lab.

Bill Hartung's placed this letter in the October 15 New York Times
As “New and Unnecessary” suggests, this is no time to be contemplating the construction of new nuclear weapons.
Not only would making new bombs run against the grain of growing support for a world without nuclear weapons, it would also be enormously costly.
The Department of Energy's current plans entail spending up to $200 billion over the next two decades to sustain an unneeded nuclear weapons complex that would build not only new warheads, but new weapons factories as well.
These funds would be far better spent if they were invested in an area of real national need like the development of clean energy sources.
William D. Hartung, New York, Oct. 13, 2008
The writer is the director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation

Joe Cirincione on WHYY Radio: “Preventing a nuclear 9/11 has got to be the number one national security priority of the next President.” Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund, was interviewed October 20 by WHYY's Marty Ross-Coane. More excerpts:
* * * “I think we're seeing one of the most dramatic national security moments in my lifetime. And it's not about starting a war or ending a war–it's about ending the Cold War posture of nuclear weapons. It's about fundamentally transforming U.S. nuclear weapons policy and with it the nuclear policies of the world.”
* * * “How can we convince other nations not to acquire nuclear weapons if the most powerful military nation the world has ever known–the United States–says that WE need nuclear weapons for our security? It's just not going to work. It's like trying to get your kids to stop smoking when you have a 2 pack-a-day habit. So you have to set the standard. The United States in particular — but with Russia –has to be setting the standard for reducing the political saliency of these weapons, for reducing the military saliency of these weapons.
And there is huge support for this among the retired and active military. Military guys know that these weapons are almost useless — that we're not going to use these weapons except under the most dire circumstances. So there's tremendous support for reducing the number of these weapons, for reducing the cost associated with these weapons — we spend $54 billion a year to maintain our nuclear weapons and nuclear-related weapons — and to use that money for other purposes.
So you see this developing among realists, among the military–a very practical approach to why the United States has to get serious about eliminating nuclear weapons.”
If you'd like, you can download and listen to the whole interview.

Federal agencies charged with evading cleanup of existing site while pursuing illegal "third-party" financing for new bomb plant

Citizens Groups Allege "Sinkhole in a Soybean Field" for Taxpayers

WASHINGTON, DC — In response to a joint refusal by the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to consider the significant environmental impacts of moving a critical nuclear weapon production facility to a new location, yesterday a coalition of environmental and peace organizations asked a federal court in Washington, D.C. to set aside the new plant project and direct the agencies to prepare a new environmental analysis of site-cleanup and relocation alternatives for the existing Kansas City Plant (KCP).

Gwen Ifill asked an odd (but welcome!) question about nuclear weapons in the Vice Presidential debate: “What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?”

The RESPONSES to Ms. Ifill's question were even more odd, and so was the next-day coverage in the Washington Post.

Gov. Sarah Palin: “Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period. . . .Our nuclear weaponry here in the U.S. is used as a deterrent. And that's a safe, stable way to use nuclear weaponry.” hmmmm. I won't elaborate on that.