US Department of Energy
1000 Independent Avenue, SW
Washington, D.C. 20585
By fax: 1-202-586-4403 or 1-202-586-1567
Attention: Bill Richardson, Secretary of Energy
The mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, representing the Japanese citizens who have never forgotten the horror of the atomic bombings of their cities during World War II, once again appealed to you not to go through with this subcritical nuclear test. Unfortunately, you ignored their, and others', pleas when you detonated it.
I am particularly alarmed that you are planning to make this situation worse. At the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, nuclear weaponeers are busy readying yet another subcritical test -- code-named Clarinet -- with plans to detonate it at the Nevada Test Site early in 1999.
Subcritical testing threatens to continue the nuclear arms race into the 21st century and beyond. For example, Russia, too, detonated a subcritical nuclear test in December, thus matching the US tests with a competitive "arms race" response. And, India's government has cited US subcritical nuclear tests as one justification for conducting its own nuclear tests earlier in 1998.
I ask that you stop further subcritical nuclear tests.
The subcritical nuclear testing program, the nuclear fusion-based National Ignition Facility (NIF) and other new weapons projects throughout the US nuclear weapons complex are all pieces of the US "Stockpile Stewardship" program, a $60 billion enterprise to maintain the capability to develop new weapons.
I ask that you constrain the "Stockpile Stewardship" program so that it performs the role it should, that is, to oversee a shrinking nuclear arsenal (at a much reduced, reasonable budget) while the US pursues the goal of abolition of nuclear arms, consistent with its treaty obligations.
The National Ignition Facility, the most expensive element of the "Stockpile Stewardship" program, is now being built at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with an estimated price tag of $5 billion over its lifetime -- excluding the costs for its waste management, decontamination and decommissioning. NIF is not about maintaining the "safety" or the "reliability" of the nuclear stockpile. Rather, NIF would further new nuclear weapons development while robbing funds from needed programs such as DOE cleanup, health studies and civilian science initiatives, now facing severe cutbacks.
I ask that you halt construction of the National Ignition Facility.
The health, safety and even the very survival of future generations will be affected by what you do today to eliminate nuclear weapons and to deal with radioactive wastes already created by DOE's nuclear facilities. Therefore, on behalf of our future children, I ask that you, as our new Secretary of Energy, provide the leadership we need to accomplish the above requests.
Sincerely,
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Send an email message to Secretary Richardson!
This is an alternate address, send it there too! exec-sec-central@hq.doe.gov
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