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The Trump administration envisions making at least 80 plutonium pits a year at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to an environmental statement published by the National Nuclear Security Administration. 

The agency released the draft review as the administration looks to modernize and expand the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. The administration requested a budget increase to the NNSA — and budget cuts to efforts to clean up nuclear waste — to maintain and expand its set of nuclear capabilities that “allow the President flexibility to protect the homeland and deter adversaries.”

It also follows a Feb. 11 memo written by David E. Beck, the NNSA’s deputy administrator for defense programs, which advocated for the accelerated development of long-range, nuclear-armed cruise missiles, sea-launched cruise missiles and the B61-13 thermonuclear gravity bomb, among other weapons. 

The NNSA, a semi-autonomous agency in the U.S. Department of Energy, is required by law to produce at least 80 of the pits — radioactive triggers for nuclear weapons — per year. 

In 2021, Nuclear Watch New Mexico and environmental groups sued NNSA, alleging the federal agency needs to prepare what is called a programmatic environmental impact statement for plutonium pit production at LANL as well as at the  Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The parties settled last year. 

NNSA published the notice of intent in May and accepted public comments throughout the year. The statement evaluates the potential impacts of continuous pit production over the next 50 years, through 2075. The draft environmental statement is subject to public review and a 90-day public comment period.

NNSA says it will consider all comments before it issues a record of decision on the matter. 

But some LANL critics say the process holds little weight because the decision over whether and where to expand pit production is in NNSA’s hands. 

“It is mostly a way to talk to each other,” Greg Mello, co-founder of the LANL watchdog Los Alamos Study Group, said about public comment hearings. “NNSA is not really listening. The only oversight that there could be would be in the courts and this has become difficult to arrange.”

Toni Chiri, spokesperson for the NNSA’s Los Alamos field office, did not respond to a request for comment. 

The programmatic environmental impact statement contemplates three scenarios. 

One is a no-action alternative under which NNSA would continue to produce 30 plutonium pits annually at Los Alamos National Laboratory with a “surge capability” to produce up to 80 pits. Under a multi-site alternative, NNSA would produce up to 80 pits per year at LANL and up to 205 pits in South Carolina. Under a single-site alternative, LANL would produce 80 plutonium pits yearly.

NNSA selected a “preferred alternative” — producing pits at facilities in Los Alamos and South Carolina — that it “believes would fulfill its statutory missions and responsibilities, considering economic, environmental, technical and other factors.” 

Consequences of that alternative include transportation of waste and nuclear materials along highways and the generation of more nuclear and hazardous waste, according to the draft review. 

Members of the public can submit comments on the report through July 16. A hearing is scheduled for May 14 at the Santa Fe Farmers Market Institute, 1607 Paseo de Peralta, starting at 5 p.m.

Justin Horwath covers tech and energy for the Journal. He can be reached at jhorwath@abqjournal.com.