WASHINGTON — A broad coalition of more than 300 faith, human-rights, social justice, and environmental groups sent a letter to U.S. senators today calling for energy and climate legislation that is much stronger than the Waxman-Markey bill that passed the House of Representatives June 26. That bill contained massive giveaways to polluting special interests and would fail to ensure a rapid transition to clean energy.

The groups plan to hand deliver the letter to senators’ state offices next week as part of a larger, grassroots mobilization demonstrating far-reaching support for bold leadership in the fight to solve the climate crisis.

In the letter, the groups express "profound concern" about the House bill and ask senators to usher in "the transformational change and greenhouse emissions reductions required to avert catastrophic climate impacts." The letter calls for legislation that:

• Reduces atmospheric CO2 concentrations to a safe level of below 350 parts per million;
• Maintains existing Clean Air Act protections against global warming pollution;
• Minimizes the use of offsets and other loopholes;
• Protects vulnerable populations and communities;
• Promotes abundant clean energy;
• Eliminates polluter giveaways; and
• Adheres to preexisting U.S. commitments to the rest of the world.

Comments from a few groups that signed the letter follow:

"We haven’t yet seen the bold leadership from Congress that’s required to solve the climate crisis," said Church World Service Director of Education and Advocacy Rajyashri Waghray. "We’re sending this letter to demonstrate broad grassroots support for such leadership."

"We have to have a stronger climate bill than the watered-down version that passed the House," said San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society Conservation Chair Drew Feldmann.

"We’re organizing on the ground, in communities around/throughout the country, to mobilize the everyday people who will feel climate impacts, and to defeat the entrenched, polluting special interests in Washington and pass a truly strong bill in the Senate," said Appalachian Voices Legislative Associate J.W. Randolph.

"The everyday people of America have been left out of the climate debate. We are building a grassroots movement that reflects the diversity of America, to mobilize everyday people who are experiencing the affects of climate change. We aim to defeat entrenched fossil fuel polluting special interests in Washington and pass a truly strong climate bill," said Tom Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

"There’s an impressive breadth of groups on this letter, and it demonstrates that the status quo isn’t acceptable. Congress must pass a bill that actually gives us a fighting chance of avoiding runaway global warming. There’s no other option," said Tyson Slocum, who directs Public Citizen’s energy program.

Other organizations signing the letter include the Center for Biological Diversity, Center on Race Poverty and the Environment, Central California Environmental Justice Network, Corporate Ethics International, CREDO, Communities for a Better Environment, Franciscan Sisters of Mary, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends of the Earth, Global Exchange, Greenpeace, International Rivers, Network for Environmental & Economic Responsibility United Church of Christ, Rainforest Action Network, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, and many others.

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Marylia Kelley said today: “Tri-Valley CAREs has been tracking the National Ignition Facility since it was proposed in 1992. NIF was conceived and budgeted as a nuclear weapons design project, and it remains so today. In 2005, the Dept. of Energy expanded NIF’s weapons mission with a decision to add plutonium and other fissile materials into NIF experiments. The decision ran counter to DOE’s pledge not to use plutonium in NIF. The DOE has also decided to produce both the fusion and plutonium targets in Livermore, reneging on a separate promise to the community that the deuterium-tritium (radioactive hydrogen) fuel would be loaded at a more remote location due to the emissions. The history of NIF is a history of broken promises and deception. This remains true today regarding NIF’s purpose, radioactive wastes and emissions " and its scientific readiness. Tri-Valley CAREs undertook a detailed analysis of NIF’s technical problems in 2001 " many of them remain unresolved today.” (See www.trivalleycares.org and our evidence table on Friday.)

Dr. Stephen Bodner noted: “Construction projects are generally measured by three variables: time, cost, and ultimate performance. The NIF has failed on all three. The performance failure is easily documented from Livermore’s own publications. The question now is, do they get away with it?”

According to Christopher Paine: "This celebration is a travesty and a farce, and I’m sorry to see the Secretary of Energy lend his prestige to this colossal misallocation of DOE’s taxpayer [monies]. In reality, the NIF Project remains where it has always been — a speculative gamble when it comes to the achievement of its primary mission– fusion ignition"at least seven years behind schedule, obscenely expensive for what it can actually deliver for either energy research or weapons stockpile reliability, and vastly over-budget when numerous hidden and ‘off-loaded’ ignition program costs are considered. The whole project is an object lesson in how not to do either stockpile stewardship or big science."

Luciana Messina stated: [The fiscal Year 2010 budget request] “sounds like the activity of developing the software for the laser and target diagnostic systems has only just begun. I am most concerned about this [following] statement taken in conjunction with the increase in funding to $72 Million: ‘This subprogram also supports the installation qualification of the cryogenic target system, the assembly and testing of the opposed port shroud remover, the first set of continuous phase plates, user optics, and the installation qualification of both the tritium handling system and personnel and environmental…’

“If by 2010, ‘complete fabrication of cryogenics and diagnostics equipment to support ignition experiments on the NIF’ (p. 219) is to be achieved, the installation qualification (testing) of the target system and the tritium handling system, including hardware and software, should have been completed by now.”

“My conclusion is: With one year remaining, there is only time left to resolve the issues generated by the formal reviews of the qualification (acceptance) testing. The budget increase would indicate a large number of review findings remain to be resolved and that a significant amount of software design and implementation (and its cost) will be hidden under software "maintenance". Major issues not previously addressed in years of software requirements and design will be characterized as minor software implementation flaws. Software and its costs are the largest component of safety-critical, real time systems on the NIF, the public has seen neither yet.”

Les Miklosy said about NIF control software: “[The 2010 budget request] mentions several components of the integrated computer control system (ICCS) that I worked on. [It] refers to the database that defines the configuration of the NIF system during an experiment. The database was not in good shape in 2003 when Luciana worked with it, and it appears to be incomplete today as well. The diagnostics component and the experimental campaign management software sound like two more elements that were not addressed until very late in this project. I suspect they did not specify these components early on and now they will spend millions more to integrate these three components into the existing ICCS… The purpose of NIF continually changes to justify it’s further funding despite not meeting any criteria for success.”

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The records we received show that Livermore Lab violated federal regulations by conducting “restricted experiments” without the proper approval. These illegal experiments were discovered during an inspection by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August 2005. However, the information was not made public until now.

“The Department of Energy and Livermore Lab withheld these documents until Tri-Valley CAREs filed federal litigation under FOIA to obtain them,” explained Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director. “This is a stunning example of the government covering up unclassified information because it is embarrassing. As a result, the public is denied knowledge to which it is entitled, and community health and safety are degraded.”

Restricted experiments are experiments utilizing recombinant DNA that involve the deliberate transfer of a drug resistance trait to select agents that are not known to acquire the trait naturally. Select agents, which include anthrax and plague, are biological agents and toxins having the potential to pose a severe threat to public health and safety.

Because of the dangers involved in transferring drug resistance to select agents, restricted experiments require approval from the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Livermore Lab did not have that approval, but ran the experiments anyway.

After discovering the illegal restricted experiments, the CDC required Livermore Lab to destroy the research samples. Otherwise, the Lab may have lost CDC’s authorization for its select agent program

These experiments were conducted around the time of an anthrax release caused by Livermore Lab in August-September 2005. The anthrax incident led to the exposure of five individuals and resulted in a $450,000 fine against the Lab. The anthrax release also laid bare a variety of errors and deficiencies within the Livermore Lab’s select agent program, including in the Lab’s response to the mishap.

It is notable that the relevant details of the 2005 anthrax accident were kept from the public at the time, just as happened with the illegal experiments that are coming to light today. In both instances, Tri-Valley CAREs used FOIA to uncover information that the public had a right to know all along.

“Taken together, the illegal restricted experiments and the anthrax release demonstrate that there are serious problems with Livermore Lab’s select agent program,” Kelley stated.

At the time of the violations, the Lab was only operating a Biosafety Level 2 research laboratory. Since then, the Lab has opened a Biosafety Level 3 facility, which allows researchers to work with additional types of select agents that may cause serious or potentially lethal diseases, and in greater quantities (up to 50 liters).

The Lab’s planned BSL-3 activities include aerosolizing (spraying) pathogens such as plague, tularemia and Q fever, in addition to anthrax. Moreover, government documents disclose that planned experiments in the BSL-3 include genetic modification and potentially novel manipulation of viruses, prions and other agents.

According to Kelley, Livermore Lab’s expanding biological warfare research program is a legitimate community concern. She asks, “If the Lab broke the law in the past and did not tell the public the truth, what is protecting the public today?”

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The Tri-Valley CAREs delegation will be working with colleagues from more than a dozen other states who are participating in the 21st annual Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) “DC Days.”  The activists will meet with Senators and Representatives from California, leaders of congressional committees that oversee nuclear issues, and key staff at the Department of Energy and other federal agencies.

Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director, said, “The 2008 elections created a major opportunity to redirect U.S. nuclear policy by voting in a new administration and Congress. Our elected officials need to make protecting the environment and public health the top priorities for the Department of Energy rather than promoting dangerous, costly schemes for additional nuclear weapons projects.”

The Tri-Valley CAREs team includes:
• The group’s Board Treasurer, Janis Kate Turner, whose neighborhood sits atop the off-site contaminated groundwater plume emanating from the Livermore Lab main site.
• Scott Yundt, former legal intern at Tri-Valley CAREs, now a local attorney and Board Member.
• The group’s Staff Attorney and facilitator for the Livermore Lab and Sandia, Livermore Site sick workers’ support group, Robert Schwartz.
• Janine Carmona, the group’s Outreach Director and student action coordinator.
• Tri-Valley CAREs’ Program  Associate and webmaster, Adrian Drummond-Cole.
• Marylia Kelley, the group’s Executive Director, and, like Janis, a long-time neighbor of Livermore Lab.
• Recently retired head of “Directed Stockpile Work” at Livermore Lab, and volunteer technical advisor to the group, Roger Logan.

Scott Yundt explained, “I’m going to Washington, DC this year to change U.S. nuclear weapons policy and demand a “green lab” in Livermore.”

Janis Kate Turner said, “In addition to Congress and other agencies, I will meet with EPA officials and ask them to keep the pressure on Livermore Lab to clean up its toxic and radioactive pollution, including the contaminated groundwater plume that is moving westward through my neighborhood.”

Marylia Kelley added, “Tri-Valley CAREs nominated EPA Region 9 Superfund Remedial Project Manager, Kathy Setian, for a national ANA award this year for her exemplary efforts to force DOE and Livermore Lab to comply with the Superfund Law. I am happy to report that ANA has selected Kathy to receive an award.” (Details on the ANA Awards Ceremony and other DC Days events are below.)

Tri-Valley CAREs is a 26-year old nuclear weapons watchdog organization based in Livermore, California with a membership of more than 5,000 in Livermore, Tracy, and surrounding communities impacted by Livermore Lab operations. Tri-Valley CAREs has been a member group of ANA since 1989.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is a two-decade old network of several dozen local, regional and national organizations representing the concerns of communities downwind and downstream from U.S. nuclear weapons production and radioactive waste disposal sites.

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- a briefing kit on current nuclear weapons issues is available on request.
- the ANA media advisory detailing the network’s press conference on Monday, April 26 and Awards Ceremony on Tuesday, April 27 follows.

for further information:
Robert Schaeffer, (239) 395-6773, cell: (239) 699-0468

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
* * * M E D I A   A D V I S O R Y * * *

WHAT: News briefing on the Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Budget  from  the perspective of communities located in the shadows of U.S. nuclear weapons and radioactive waste sites
WHEN: Monday, April 27, 2009 – - 10:00am
WHERE: Room 628 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, DC
WHO: Leaders of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) a national network of organizations representing the concerns of people living downwind and downstream from DOE nuclear research, testing, production and waste disposal facilities
WHY: Scores of activists from across the nation will present their concerns about U.S. nuclear weapons, cleanup and reactor spending policies in dozens of meetings with leaders of Congress and the Obama Administration from April 27 – 29 as part of ANA’s 21st Annual DC Days.
*  *  *
Also, on Tuesday, April 28 at 6:00pm, ANA will host an Awards Reception honoring leaders in the movement for more responsible U.S. nuclear policies. Awardees include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Colorado investigative journalist Laura Frank, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 9 project manager Kathy Setian, and Georgia environmental attorney Larry Sanders. The event will take place in Room B-340 of the Rayburn House Office Building.

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Washington, DC – - The Nuclear Weapons Complex Consolidation Policy Network, a collaboration of six national and regional groups, today released a major study advocating a total stockpile of 500 nuclear warheads and a weapons complex downsized from eight sites to three. The network consists of the national organizations the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Project On Government Oversight (POGO); Nuclear Watch New Mexico, near the Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs; Tri-Valley CAREs, near the Lawrence Livermore National Lab; the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, near the Kansas City Plant (KCP); and JustPeace of Texas, near the Pantex Plant.

President Barack Obama has declared that a nuclear weapons-free world is a long-term national goal. Our report outlines how that vision can begin to be concretely carried out in the near-term, including numerous recommendations for the Administration’s pending Nuclear Posture Review. The study integrates nuclear weapons doctrine, strategic force structure and the supporting complex, and forges a path forward. Our resulting plan would truly transform and downsize the nuclear weapons complex, in marked contrast to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan for so-called Complex Transformation under the Bush Administration.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Robert Civiak, a physicist and former OMB budget examiner for DOE nuclear weapons programs, commented, "As a matter of overriding policy, the United States should view its strategic force for one purpose and one purpose only" to deter the use of nuclear weapons by others until the world is free of nuclear weapons. The Department of Defense and NNSA should structure U.S. nuclear forces and the weapons complex accordingly."

Christopher Paine, Director of NRDC’s Nuclear Program added, "The U.S. government has wasted hundreds of billions in the 20 years since the Cold War ended maintaining nuclear forces and a make-work weapons laboratory complex far larger than needed just for deterrence. The United States should move swiftly to reduce its current stockpile by a factor of ten, to 500 warheads, as an interim step toward the goal of global, verifiable nuclear disarmament. It follows that a much smaller weapons complex can adequately maintain this minimal deterrent stockpile. We specifically recommend that NNSA adopt a "curatorship" approach that emphasizes changing existing weapons as little as possible, and refrains from introducing new military capabilities through mislabeled ‘Life Extension Programs’ for warheads."

Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs observed, "This is the plan that the Bush NNSA should have proposed for "Complex Transformation" – but did not. The agency’s plan is dead on arrival in the Obama Administration, while our plan sets a reasonable path for 21st Century security on which the U.S. can and should embark. Our plan takes the Lawrence Livermore Lab out of NNSA nuclear weapons programs and directs it toward the energy, environmental and global climate change research that our country so desperately needs. It also ends NNSA control of the Sandia Lab in California and the Nevada Test Site by 2012, and ends weapons work at the Kansas City Plant by 2015. As the arsenal is reduced toward 500 warheads, the Savannah River Site and then Y-12 would also cease to be part of the weapons complex."

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch NM declared, "We believe that already existing capabilities at three sites can more than adequately maintain a 500-warhead stockpile as an interim step toward a nuclear weapons-free world. These remaining sites would be: The Los Alamos Lab for nuclear components curatorship, Sandia-New Mexico for non-nuclear components curatorship, and the Pantex Plant for accelerated dismantlements and storage of plutonium pit "triggers" while they await final disposal. Given a 500-warhead stockpile maintained through curatorship, residual activities should result in no net increase in nuclear weapons work or funding at any of the three remaining sites other than dismantlements."

Anne Suellentrop of PSR-Kansas City noted, "Historically the Kansas City Plant has been responsible for producing or procuring 85% of all nuclear weapons components. Currently the NNSA is scheming to have private developers build and operate a new plant on its behalf. Our plan would cancel this new plant, transfer any needed residual operations elsewhere, and clean up the heavily contaminated old plant so that it can be reused for local economic development. The nuclear weapons complex should be cleaned-up, not built-up!"

Mavis Belisle of JustPeace of Texas noted, "The Pantex Plant has long been the site for final assembly of nuclear weapons, with dismantlements as a secondary mission, often used to just fill in time between production. President Bush’s obsolete plans to process a few thousand warheads through Life Extension Programs should be halted pending the required new Nuclear Posture Review. It’s time to change priorities and make irreversible dismantlements number one, instead of tying up Pantex facilities in endless improvements of nuclear weapons."

The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) focused on the study’s security recommendations for the nuclear weapons complex. POGO’s Ingrid Drake commented, "The potential impacts of a terrorist attack using nuclear weapons on U.S. soil are too horrific to permit the documented ineffective security at NNSA facilities that has persisted for many years. We specifically recommend that the agency more rapidly reduce the number of places where weapons-grade and weapons-quantities of special nuclear materials (SNM) are stored, especially highly enriched uranium, which is inherently easier to use in an improvised nuclear device. We further recommend that NNSA federalize its protective forces, ending the current hodgepodge of contractors managing security, which is clearly an urgent governmental function."

The Network’s report’s recommendations would cut NNSA spending on nuclear weapons by $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2010, compared to the recently released budget request of $6.3 billion. By 2020, our recommendations would further reduce NNSA nuclear weapons spending to around 2 billion dollars in FY09 dollars, one-third of what it is today.

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The Network report’s summary, full report and map of the current and proposed nuclear weapons complex will be available on the web at www.nukewatch.org and www.trivalleycares.org, and at the 9 AM – 11 AM EST briefing on Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC. Teleconference dial-in for the release briefing is available at 641.715.3635, Access Code: 539953#. To accommodate other time zones, an additional teleconference for journalists only will be held at 1:00 P.M. EST, April 8, 2009 at NRDC. Call 1-866.901.2585 (please ask for "nuclear report").

To obtain an advance, embargoed until released PDF of the Network’s report, please contact Tri-Valley CAREs, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, NRDC or POGO at the above-listed numbers.