Enchantment State News

The U.S. Department of Energy's preliminary budget for next year would triple the amount of funding allocated to Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL) plutonium operations.

The Energy Department's budget outline shows how President Donald Trump's increase in nuclear weapons spending would impact the Los Alamos site and the Savannah River site in South Carolina. Combined, these two sites are scheduled to make a combined 80 plutonium pits by 2030. 

LANL's budget would increase to $3.4 billion. Plutonium modernization and pit production, a key expense, would include renovation, new construction, personnel instruction and infrastructure improvements.

Anti-nuclear watchdog groups consider this spending out of control. 

“The decisions in Washington can seem very remote and unreal, but this brings Trump’s proposed nuclear weapons spending surge home in a very aggressive and alarming way,” Greg Mello, executive director of the nonprofit Los Alamos Study Group, told the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Senators Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich are in favor of nuclear weapons spending that benefits LANL. 

“Funding for Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories is critical as their employees play an essential role in  America’s national security as well as in the community, and in New Mexico’s economy,” the senators said in a joint statement when Trump released his proposed budget earlier this month. “We will carefully review the White House’s budget request as details become available.”