Board News -

Los Alamos Study Group “Call for Sanity”

At its August meeting the Board of the Unitarian Congregation of Taos voted to
endorse the “Call for Sanity” of the Los Alamos Study Group. The statement reads as
follows:

Further development and manufacturing of nuclear weapons by the United States
undermines the ethical basis of our society, breaks treaties our nation has signed,
wastes our nation’s wealth, and permanently contaminates our environment while
undermining true U.S. national security.

New Mexico’s two nuclear weapons labs lead the world in spending for weapons of
mass destruction. But as the labs have grown, our state’s relative economic standing
has declined and now trails almost all other states. We are consistently ranked at or
near the bottom of all states in overall “child well-being.”

We cannot build our society, nurture our children, inspire our youth, or improve our
communities by investing in apocalyptic nightmares.

At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), plutonium warhead core (“pit”)
production is slated to begin in 2025 and ramp up through the mid-2020s long before
any “need” related to maintaining current US nuclear weapons, at current
deployment levels. LANL’s pit production program is required only for producing
new warheads as soon as possible, not for maintaining any old ones.

We call upon our elected officials to:
• Oppose plutonium warhead core (“pit”) production at LANL first and foremost,
but also elsewhere.
• Oppose the design, testing, and production of new and “upgraded” nuclear
weapons.
• Prioritize removal and disposal of approximately 16,120* drums of legacy
plutonium waste from LANL over production of additional nuclear waste from
nuclear weapons.
• Choose human security, community resilience, and environmental protection
over nuclear weapons production and our bloated military, which (until the
special covid relief acts of 2021 and 2022) consumed two-thirds of federal
discretionary spending. We can no longer delay. We must use every opportunity,
at every level of government, to prioritize human needs, invest in our
communities, and build a more just and sustainable society.