July 31, 2003

Dear City Councilor:

During the recent debates over the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the City of XXX has proven itself to be dedicated to the preservation of peace and security worldwide. Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico (NWNM) are asking you to again consider supporting an initiative dedicated to that aim. The Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration has recently proposed to build a "Modern Pit Facility" (MPF) at either Los Alamos National Laboratory (NM), the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (NM), the Pantex Plant (TX), the Savannah River Site (SC) or the Nevada Test Site. The MPF would produce as many as 500 new nuclear weapons per year, which approaches historic Cold War rates. Please see enclosed information.

While your state may not be directly affected by the facility itself, the MPF would have serious global consequences, including:

• Thrusting the American people into an expensive and dangerous new nuclear arms race, costing up to $4.4 billion for MPF construction alone. To the extent that the MPF could prompt a new nuclear arms race, the costs are incalculable.

• Constructing and operating the MPF would violate the spirit of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty's mandate to disarm nuclear stockpiles. It would also contradict the Moscow Treaty, signed by Presidents Bush and Putin this past March, which will reduce the number of nuclear weapons deployed by each country to 2,200 or less.

• Bolstering the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal while the U.S. demands that other countries relinquish their weapons of mass destruction.

• The probable production of nuclear weapons of new designs. This cuts to the heart of a number of crucial nuclear arms control issues, including the future of the global nonproliferation framework and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.