Lois Barber
July 2013 - Last winter, President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to continue investing in the global nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and materials, because "our national security depends on it." His administration’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) has an impressive record of making the world safer—including removal of all weapons grade material from 10 countries since 2009.
But much work remains. “By the National Nuclear Security Administration’s own admission there is more material to remove, reactors to convert and/or shut down, and buildings with radiological and nuclear material to protect,” says Kingston Reif of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Not all vulnerable nuclear material is in safe hands. There are still dozens of research reactors that need to be converted from using weapons-grade uranium. Overall, hundreds of pounds of highly enriched uranium remain unsecured, any 35 pounds of which will make an improvised nuclear bomb.
Yet the Obama administration’s 2014 budget cuts more than $300 million from our nation’s non-proliferation programs. The most consequential cut, $79 million (a 15% reduction from 2013 levels), would come from the Global Threat Reduction Initiative described by Reif as a "core material security program to ensure that terrorists can't get their hands on nuclear weapons usable material". These cuts in funding for GTRI must not be made.
There is reason to think that citizen action can make a difference concerning these cuts. Last year, Obama's budget proposal for GTRI was so low that Congress voted to increase funding by $35 million beyond the administration’s request. We can make the same thing happen this year.
Urge your Representative and Senators to restore the proposed $300 million cut from our nuclear non-proliferation programs in the 2014 budget—especially the $79 million cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Tell them the sooner we lock down all "loose nukes", the safer we'll all be.
- Web: www.senate.gov & www.house.gov
- Tel: 202 224-3121 (Capitol switchboard)
- Mail: Senator or Representative
- (first & last name)
- U.S. Senate
- Washington, D.C. 20510
- or
- U.S. House of Representatives
- Washington, D.C. 20515
- Photo Credit: Untitled (blue towel), Tim Barber, www.tim-barber.com
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