Action Guide - Complex Transformation Q & A
Feb 1, 2008
Download pdf of this document for easy printing and emailing here.Plans for a New U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex
Q: What is “Complex Transformation”?
A: Complex Transformation is the Bush administration’s plan to overhaul the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The plan includes a new bomb plant that would enable the mass-production of nuclear weapons for the first time in two decades. Complex Transformation would also consolidate weapons-grade nuclear materials (uranium and plutonium) into fewer locations and reduce the Complex footprint. Detailed information can be found at www.fcnl.org/nuclear.
Q: What happened to Complex 2030?
A: Complex Transformation supersedes Complex 2030. In October 2006 the Energy Department introduced Complex 2030, which contained many similarities to and some major differences with Complex Transformation. The bomb plant proposed as part of Complex 2030 was much larger than the one proposed by Complex Transformation and was rejected by Congress in 2007. Complex Transformation was released in January 2008, partially in response to congressional rejection of Complex 2030. The U.S. Department of Energy is a federal agency that maintains the nuclear weapons complex.
Q: What is FCNL’s position on Complex Transformation?
A: Complex Transformation is a comprehensive plan to modernize and consolidate the entire nuclear weapons complex. There are many different components to the plan—some that FCNL supports and others that it does not. FCNL supports consolidating weapons-grade nuclear materials into fewer locations and reducing the Complex footprint. FCNL opposes increasing nuclear weapons production capacity by building a new bomb plant.
Q: What is the “new bomb plant” in the Complex Transformation plan?
A: Complex Transformation proposes expanding and building new nuclear bomb plant facilities at the Los Alamos National Laboratory northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. A major planned building, which would allow for expanded warhead production, has been given the name Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant (CMRR) and would cost over $2 billion. (This is the key facility that FCNL will focus on blocking.) Together the new and updated facilities would have the annual capacity to build up to 80 plutonium pits, the “triggers” of new nuclear warheads. Thus, the proposed bomb plant facilities would enable a sharp increase in U.S. nuclear weapons production capacity. In fact, the United States has built only a handful of pits since 1989, when it closed the Rocky Flats Plant outside Boulder, Colorado.
Q: Didn’t we already defeat the “new nuclear bomb plant”?
A: Yes! In fact, arms control advocates have repeatedly stopped the administration from building nuclear new bomb plants of varying sizes over the years. The bomb plant that was proposed as part of Complex 2030 was officially called the Consolidated Plutonium Center and would have been able to produce 125 to 200 nuclear warheads per year. Congress rejected that plant in 2007.
The latest bomb plant facility, proposed as part of Complex Transformation, is officially called the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement plant (CMRR) and would facilitate the production of up to 80 warheads per year at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Q: How can you oppose the CMRR bomb plant?
A: Express your views on new nuclear weapons directly to the federal government. The Department of Energy (DOE) is required to consider your recommendations on Complex Transformation and the proposed CMRR bomb plant through public hearings and comments. The deadline to submit public comments has passed. Tell your members of Congress that you oppose new nuclear weapons.
