Nuclear funding may get big boost

National Catholic Reporter, Feb 10, 1995 by Loren Stein, Arthur Jones

Marylia Kelley believed that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was a benign research facility when she moved next door in the mid-1970s. Over the years, she was alarmed to discover that scientists there were busy developing the MX missile, the neutron bomb and the ground-launched cruise missile.

The facility in Livermore, Calif., also stored enough deadly plutonium to create 90 atomic bombs. Only last year, officials from the Department of Energy rated its plutonium hazard one of the highest in the country.

As cofounder and president of Tri-Valley CAREs, Citizens Against Radioactive Environment, Kelley has worked for 12 years to convert the lab from weapons development to peaceful research. The group's 1,100 member families have a personal stake in demanding that the lab - a Superfund site - devote more than a thin slice of its $1 billion annual budget to cleaning up massive air, soil and groundwater pollution, a byproduct of its nuclear weapons work since 1952.

But the powerful lab, which along with New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory is the brains of the nuclear weapons complex, may see a resurgence of federal funding for expanded nuclear weapons research at the expense of environmental restoration. The Clinton administration, after publicly announcing huge budget cuts in the Department of Energy - including billions in environmental cleanup funds - is reportedly set to boost funding for DOE's nuclear weapons programs by $3 billion over the next five years.

"This is a disaster in the making," says Kelley. "The government is reneging on its commitment to communities across the country to clean up the legacy of the Cold War."

It's politics as usual, says Jacki Cabasso, director of Western States Legal Foundation in Oakland, Calif., an advocacy group that has monitored Lawrence Livermore for more than a decade.

"The U.S. should be recommitting itself to disarmament, but instead we're digging in our heels and committing ourselves to maintaining our nuclear force into the indefinite future," she said. "It's exactly the opposite of what should be happening at exactly the wrong time."

The timing is critical, say antinuclear activists, because the United States is under close scrutiny from other countries as to whether it has lived up to its legal obligations to pursue disarmament under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is up for review and extension this spring. In addition, negotiation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty could be jeopardized. The U.S. commitment to maintaining nuclear superiority would undoubtedly be viewed as hypocritical by the international community.

Advocates interviewed were not surprised by Clinton's apparent about-face. Each expects a steep rise in nuclear weapons spending and had heard, in some form, of the undisclosed funding proposal. Representatives from the Department of Energy, the Office of Management and Budget, Lawrence Livermore and the staff and several members of the Senate Armed Services Committee declined to comment or said they were unaware of any proposed funding increase. The issue has reportedly sparked battles within the Clinton administration, prompting White House insiders to alert nuclear weapons critics and some members of the press, including The Energy Daily, a Washington trade journal. "Everything points in this direction," said Cabasso.

Lee Halterman, aide to Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Calif., the former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, thinks the increase will occur. "Clinton has taken the advice of those who advocate moving further to the right and working cooperatively with the Republican majority rather than staking out a political and policy strategy that articulates the traditional Democratic agenda."

Clinton recently announced his decision to increase defense spending by $25 billion over six years, apparently caving in to requests from Republican leaders for stronger maintenance of military forces, including U.S. nuclear capability.

"We're committed to military and nuclear readiness," said Chris Simko, press secretary to Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

An aide to a ranking Republican senator, who asked not to be identified, said the military's concern is that the United States cannot maintain the existing nuclear weapons stockpile, which they contend has suffered considerable neglect. Specifically, decaying tritium in the missiles must be replenished every few years. The military also fears that without a robust research-and-development infrastructure, future nuclear weapons production will be compromised.

While the money is scheduled to go into weapons research, development and testing and not production, that is "a smokescreen for continued nuclear weapons design," said Chris Zimmer, nuclear disarmament campaigner for Greenpeace in Washington.

Clinton is reacting to the backlash brought on by base closures started by Presidents Reagan and Bush and "a lot of people hammering on him that he's soft on defense," said Saul Bloom, director of the Arms Research Control Center in San Francisco, which studies the effect of the military on the environment, economy and international security. "Clinton is placating large corporations, defense hawks and members of the armed forces. These useless, costly defense programs just create a comfortable life for those on corporate welfare," he said.