WIPP - Cost to the Nation

Brother, Can you Spare $32 Billion?

Does WIPP effect your community? Consult the Route Map. $29 billion more dollars will be spent if WIPP opens. US Nuclear Weapons policy encourages other nations to continue testing.

The supposed justification for implementing the WIPP program is that the facility is already built.

Taxpayers have shelled out about $3 billion on the project so far, but at least another $29 billion will be spent to fill WIPP. Oddly, the DOE can't find the $420 million needed for cleanup of TA-21 at Los Alamos - just one of an estimated 1,800 sites needing attention there - yet the push to open WIPP is relentless.

Why? To secure a nuclear weapons program into the next century.

Choices must be made. Pork-barrel economics, corporate profits, or the lust for new gadgets should not guide these choices. In proceeding with WIPP, DOE is choosing to support increased nuclear weapons production, while ignoring the human and environmental costs.

Our National Security is Threatening our National Security

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. Politicians announced that the Cold War was over, we were led to expect a "peace dividend." But between 1989 and 1998 the DOE continued to increase nuclear weapons spending significantly. DOE's new "Stockpile Stewardship Program," ostensibly to maintain our aging arsenal, will in fact focus on new design and production weapons technologies - at a cost greater than the original Manhattan Project.

Other nations recognize the true meaning hidden within this misnomer. Several countries have asked for US participation in an effort to find some process that could lead toward elimination of nuclear weapons. In response to our refusal, these nations continue aggressive testing and nuclear weapons development programs.

U.S. nuclear weapons policy that authorizes increasing funds for nuclear weapons production trades new nuclear weapons for school, health care, and environmental cleanup funding. The result is that individual efforts to lead responsible, caring lives are being undercut both at home and abroad by a misguided national nuclear weapons policy.

Consult the WIPP Route Map to see if your community is at risk.