Letter to the editor: Nuclear weapons budget needs close scrutiny

While Congress trolls for more government programs to slash, here’s one easy to snag. It’s the $7.5 billion bomb plant that the National Nuclear Security Administration has recently decided to build in Oak Ridge, Tenn. The NNSA first concluded that such a project was not necessary. It was bigger than needed and not (in their words) “environmentally preferable.” Surprisingly then, the final decision of this same administration was to go ahead with a new plant anyway, even though by the government’s own figures a smaller facility would be adequate to meet all mission requirements and modernization of the current facilities could be made for $200 million or less. So, why the bigger bomb plant? It’s a legitimate question that remains unanswered.

If the U.S. wants to maintain a nuclear stockpile of 1,500 warheads, it can certainly do so without a new bomb plant. How many more nuclear bombs do we need to protect ourselves? And how much is the nuclear weapons budget going to go up while essentials such as education, health care, housing assistance, and veterans’ and seniors’ benefits continue to go down?

Ralph Hutchison, a longtime resident of Oak Ridge and advocate for holding the bomb plant to accountability, has stated, “…since the new Uranium Processing Facility was first proposed in 2005, its price tag has gone up 1200%. No, that’s not a typo. The quoted cost in 2005 was $600 million; last year it soared to $6.5 billion; last week it leaped again – to $7.5 billion according to the Army Corp of Engineers.”

Congressional leaders serious about fiscal responsibility ought to take a close look at the nuclear weapons budget and ask themselves why, when the whole country is bracing itself for sacrifice, the NNSA is eager to squander billions on an unnecessary project.

Meanwhile we ought to hold our congressional leaders accountable for reviewing budgets in all areas of government, but most especially in what appears to be the least scrutinized of all — the nuclear weapons budget.

Maris Stella Korb

Fargo

(Korb is director with the Presentation Peace & Justice Center in Fargo)

Tags: opinion, letters, politics, weapons