Livermore Blog du Jour

Ho, hum. Another "LLNL-The-Whatever".blogspot.com blog.

No staying power, those Livermorians. We await with anticipation to see how many days this one lasts, whether or not comments will be (dis)allowed, etc...

http://llnlthefinalstory.blogspot.com/

-Gussie

Senators vow action on aid program for nuke workers

Related Stories:

• Senator Ken Salazar's statement about Rocky Flats workers
• Senator Obama Calls on Chao to Support Sick Nuclear Weapons Employees
• Senator Murray rips program for ill workers
• Senator Alexander Urges Compensation For Sick Nuclear Workers
• Senator Reid Fights for Nevada Test Site Workers
• Senator Reid's Statement to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
• Senator Bingaman's Statement on Lab Employee Compensation Program
• Senator Harkin's Statement to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
• Senators slam delays in payments to Cold War-era nuclear workers
• Compensation for atomic workers may get overhaul
• AFL-CIO Statement on Need to Amend the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act
• GAO Report on Energy Employees Compensation: Actions to Promote Contract Oversight, Transparency of Labor's Involvement, and Independence of Advisory Board Could Strengthen Program

Video of the HELP Committee hearing is available here. Fast forward through the first 16 minutes and 50 seconds, it is just a title screen.

By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News
October 24, 2007

WASHINGTON - Members of a power-packed U.S. Senate committee said Tuesday that they would find ways to reform the federal program to compensate ill nuclear weapons workers, including those from Rocky Flats.

A leading national advocate for the workers, Terrie Barrie, of Craig, said she was encouraged by the hearing, the first in a series to be held before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

"The senators were really on top of the problems," Barrie said. "I don't think they were just giving lip service."

Allard leans on official

Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard was one of the toughest questioners during the hearing. He took John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health, to task when Howard suggested that he didn't know what changes might be needed in the law governing the compensation program. NIOSH helps run the program.

With Allard's prodding, Howard touched on what could become the centerpiece of potential reform: setting deadlines for the government to reach conclusions on which workers deserve compensation.

Ill nuclear workers from Rocky Flats and other U.S. weapons production and testing sites wait an average of three years for the government to determine whether contamination likely caused their diseases and whether they should be compensated. One in 10 Rocky Flats workers whose cases eventually qualified for compensation died before their cases were completed, the Rocky Mountain News reported earlier this year.

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program gives $150,000, medical coverage and lost wages to ill workers or their survivors if they can prove a link between the ailments and exposures.

Colorado cases cited

The plight of Rocky Flats workers came up several times as an example of how the program is broken. Rocky Flats workers applied in February 2005 for streamlined compensation, which is available when records are missing or too incomplete to use in figuring out how big a dose of radiation a worker received.

Government scientists took more than 800 days to conclude in June that only a small portion of Rocky Flats workers deserved the streamlined status. The rest must go through the years-long process of proving their individual radiation doses.

"That seems to me like anything but a speedy process," Allard said during the hearing.

Dr. James Melius, a member of a White House advisory board that monitors the program, suggested during the hearing that a deadline could be imposed. Compensation would be automatic for workers with certain illnesses if no decision is made on calculating does or granting streamlined status within a set time.

"They need incentive," Melius said of the program's overseers. "There's no reason dose reconstruction should take more than a year to complete."

Claimants frustrated

Shelby Hallmark, who oversees the program for the U.S. Department of Labor, defended it. Hallmark told lawmakers about two cases this month in which dying claimants were rushed their money just days before they died. But he did acknowledge that most claimants had to wait too long.

"In this arena, we haven't been as successful as we would have liked," he said, adding that he planned to increase staff from 525 full-time positions to nearly 600.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, also testified, criticizing the complexity and lack of quality control in the program he and other lawmakers created to help the ill workers.

"None of us intended the program to be this unforgiving," Reid said.

During the hearing, Malcolm Nelson, one of the program's ombudsmen, testified that claimants are fed up with the program. And Ken Silver, an environmental health professor at East Tennessee State University who has studied ill workers, said the government was overlooking key records that could help prove workers' exposures.

He said several workers who helped push for the program seven years ago still had not been compensated, despite documented exposures, assistance from their congressional representatives and support from nationally known health experts.

Silver asked what has become of hundreds of claimants who did not have access to such help.

After the hearing, Barrie said she hoped the organization she helped found, the Alliance of Nuclear Workers Advocacy Groups, could persuade Congress to take action on reforming the program soon.

"I'm pushing for something now," she said. "After seeing (lawmakers) at the hearing, I don't think it's going to be that difficult."

Seeking solutions

• Tuesday: Lawmakers pledged to find ways to improve the federal program to compensate ill nuclear weapons workers, including those from the now-demolished Rocky Flats plant northwest of Denver. Top suggestions included setting deadlines for decisions that can now drag on for years.

• Next: More hearings are expected. Meanwhile, Rocky Flats workers are trying to appeal a decision that denies automatic compensation for most of them who have or will develop radiation-related cancers.

Safety board makes safety complaints formal

MONITOR STAFF REPORT

A new disagreement has arisen about safety systems at Los Alamos National Laboratory, this one focused on the aging Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility (CMR).

In a letter Tuesday to the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the chairman of a federal safety board wrote, "The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board believes that continued operation of the CMR facility in its current condition poses significant risks to workers and the public."

The warning, calling for a response within 60 days, follows a letter last week that expressed the board's increasing concern about "the overall lack of progress with respect to safety improvements at LANL."

While referencing some positive steps, Chairman A. J Eggenberger added, "However, none of these initiatives are mature, and continued federal and contractor management attention and support are needed to ensure their success."

The Oct. 16 letter was based on results of a DNFSB review of safety systems at the Plutonium Facility, Weapons Engineering Tritium Facility and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility.

The exact nature of the problems cannot be revealed for security reasons, but they are important, said Don Ami, a spokesman for the NNSA in Los Alamos.

The lab has a plan to address the problems and is in the process of hiring more people to put the plan in action, said Donald L. Winchell Jr., who heads the NNSA's Los Alamos site office.

"We will continue to work with the laboratory to ensure speedy action on these important safety initiatives," Winchell said.

The board raised many of the concerns at a public meeting in March 2006, Eggenberger said in the letter.

The report noted two safety system deficiencies in the plutonium facility, one concerning an air system and another a water bath.

The safety board site representative reported in September that some plutonium activities were stopped at the Plutonium Facility pending review of criticality safety. These include concerns that a worst-case scenario might cause an accident in the plutonium storage vaults.

In expressing concerns about the CMR facility, the board noted that LANL had decided to abandon a complete facility upgrade of the building in favor of a brand new replacement facility, which was originally scheduled to be completed in 2010.

Now, the board notes, funding for the replacement "has experienced significant delays, is now nominally projected for completion in 2016 and faces continued susceptibility to year-to-year budgetary uncertainty."

Timely and adequate repairs to the present facility appear to be unlikely and the completion of the replacement uncertain, the safety board concluded, which creates a bind.

"This timetable leaves little time for NNSA to complete any necessary safety system upgrades or identify alternative strategies for meeting national security priorities," Eggenberger wrote in his most recent letter.

Decision Reached to Decide Later

Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:26:00 -0700
To: E-line
From: Public Affairs Office
Subject: DECISION ON LAB'S ANNUAL SALARY INCREASES TO BE DELAYED


E-LINE: DECISION ON LAB'S ANNUAL SALARY INCREASES TO BE DELAYED

Because of uncertainty with the federal budget and increased costs for fiscal year 2008, Director George Miller, with input from senior management, has decided to delay a decision on the implementation of the Lab's annual salary increases.

"I realize that delaying this decision may not be popular," Miller said. "But in light of the continuing resolution situation, we need more financial clarity in order to make an informed decision."

At that point, Lab managers will decide if there will be raises in 2008 and, if implemented, whether the increases will be retroactive back to Oct. 1, 2007.

"We've heard from a number of employees who have suggested we delay the implementation of our raises," Miller said. "In light of our budget uncertainty, I agree with them. It is my hope that this is just a delay, but we will make that decision in a few months."

The federal budget's current Continuing Resolution (CR) expires in mid-November. It is possible there will be another CR.

While LLNL employees have succeeded in "belt-tightening" in the past few years, resulting in substantial savings, the impact of national budget uncertainty, the additional contract costs associated with the management fee, taxes, health care and reduced attrition require that additional aggressive steps be taken.

Each Principal Associate Directorate (PAD) is developing a business plan that identifies scope and items that may need to be reduced or eliminated. LLNL senior management will then review the PAD business plans and prioritized work scope.

Comment of the Week, Wednesday Edition

Among the numerous suggestions that have been made for the challenges LANS needs to address (diversification, bringing overhead costs down, improving efficiency, etc.) I came across this dark little nugget on the A Black Belt in What!?! post:

The main challenge for LANS, given declining NNSA weapons budgets, is how to get rid of excess scientists and engineers.

-Gus

Board finds lab safety deficient

By Wendy Brown | The New Mexican

Some systems intended to keep Los Alamos National Laboratory safer are deficient, according to a government report that provides few specific findings because of security concerns.

A.J. Eggenberger, chairman of the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which reviews safety at the country's nuclear weapons facilities, wrote about the problems in an Oct. 16 letter to Thomas D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, which maintains the safety of the country's nuclear weapons stockpile.

"While it is arguable whether any of the individual system deficiencies identified by the staff constitute an immediate safety concern, their collective importance and widespread nature warrant immediate attention," Eggenberger wrote.

The exact nature of the problems can't be described for security reasons, said Don Ami, a spokesman for the administration in Los Alamos, but they are important. Kevin Roark, a lab spokesman, directed The New Mexican to Ami for comment.

The lab has a plan to address the problems and is in the process of hiring more people to put the plan in action, said Donald L. Winchell, the administration's revitalization manager at the Los Alamos Site Office.

"We will continue to work with the laboratory to ensure speedy action on these important safety initiatives," Winchell said.

Although the safety board would like the administration to take faster action, the board's letter noted that none of their concerns are an immediate safety concern when taken individually, Winchell said.

The board raised many of the concerns at a public meeting in March 2006, Eggenberger's letter says, and the board reiterated them in a February letter to NNSA.

Board staff members wrote a report about the problems after inspecting safety systems in July at the lab's plutonium facility, weapons engineering tritium facility, and the chemistry and metallurgy research facility, the letter says.

The report noted two safety system deficiencies in the plutonium facility, one concerning an air system and another a water bath. The weapons engineering tritium facility had safety system deficiencies with a tritium gas handling system and an inert and oxygen monitoring system, the report said.

And the chemistry and metallurgy research facility had safety system deficiencies with a particular type of seal and a door interlock system, according to the report.

The administration must provide the board with a report and briefing about the actions the administration has taken to fix the problems in 60 days, the letter says.

Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, an Albuquerque-based watchdog group, said the board's safety concerns shouldn't cause hysteria, but they also shouldn't be downplayed.

"The board shouldn't have to keep going over the same serious safety problems over and over again," said Mello. "And these are serious safety problems."

Contact Wendy Brown at 986-3072 or wbrown@sfnewmexican.com.

SAFETY CONCERNS

The federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board says the deficiencies in some of Los Alamos National Laboratory's safety systems include:

• Incomplete or inadequate descriptions of safety functions
• Weak or missing design information
• Failure to verify safety functions through surveillance and testing
• Failure to provide enough maintenance for the systems
• Lack of adequate normal and abnormal operating procedures
• Lack of formal calculations for important operating parameters
• Outdated, and in some cases, inadequate safety bases

A Black Belt in What!?!

An article on page two of the current Los Alamos Newsletter describes Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt candidate training.

Lean Six Sigma integrates elements of the Lab’s Human Performance Improvement and Performance-Based Leadership initiatives to foster a work environment that achieves our Laboratory goals.

One candidate's project in particular caught our eye as having significant potential to "foster a work environment that achieves our Laboratory goals."

• Increasing the number of employee termination departure forms submitted on time, led by Tonya Grace of CAO-PMCI

Look for Tonya to be moving into upper management in the very near future!

Tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy

More contributions from "the best and the brightest", as reported here:

No one at the panel discussion would be taken for a tinfoil-hat-wearing crazy, although among the 40 attendees was Bill Bruno, who wears a silver-coated nylon veil that he maintains shields him from electromagnetic signals. The Los Alamos researcher is among those who have objected to a Wi-Fi system at City Hall and have blocked, so far, such a system from being installed at the Main Library.

--Gussie

DOE Releases Draft General Workforce Restructuring Plan for LLNL

The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration and the Livermore Site Office today posted a draft general workforce restructuring plan for LLNL and is now accepting both public and employee comments.

The plan, consistent with Section 3161 of the National Defense Authorization Act, is required whenever workforce restructuring may occur at a DOE defense nuclear facility. LLNL is the last of the NNSA laboratories and plants to have its plan posted. Both Los Alamos and Sandia posted draft workforce plans earlier this month. Once the public comment period has ended, the draft plan will be finalized. The plan does not address specifics to LLNL, but is designed to generically identify how such a plan might be implemented.

The plan identifies how the Laboratory would mitigate the impact of any potential workforce reductions among contractor employees at the Laboratory as well as on the surrounding community. The plan serves as a guideline tor DOE/NNSA to meet the changing missions and contractor structure at the Laboratory for Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond.

The draft plan is available on the Web at http://www.doeal.gov/WRLLNL/Default.aspx. Public comment on the plan is available through Nov. 5. Comments should be directed to Homer Williamson, Contracting Officer, NNSA Livermore Site Office, P.O. Box 808, L-293, Livermore, CA 94550; e-mail to homer.williamson@oak.doe.gov; or by fax to (925) 423-7668.

Senate HELP Committee Hearing

Committee: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Title: EEOICPA: Is the Program Claimant Friendly for Our Cold War Heroes?
Date: Tuesday, October 23, 10:00 am
Place: Dirksen 430

Witness Testimony

Panel I
The Honorable Harry Reid, Majority Leader of the United States Senate, Washington, DC
Shelby Hallmark, Director, Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, Department of Labor, Washington, DC
Dr. John Howard, Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Washington, DC
Malcolm Nelson, Ombudsman, Energy Employees Compensation Program, Department of Labor, Washington, DC
Panel II
Dr. James Melius, Research Director, Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America, Albany, NY
Dr. Ken Silver, Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN

Dolin discusses Domenici, labs, political climate

CAROL A. CLARK Monitor County Editor

In discussing Sen. Pete Domenici's announcement to retire in 2008, Los Alamos Republican Party Chairman Ron Dolin said his first thought was local. "This has a huge impact," he said. "Throughout his entire career, Sen. Domenici has been behind Los Alamos. He helped diversify the mission of the laboratory and has always believed in the importance of what we did - so with his retirement, we lose the only supporter we had in Washington."

Dolin said, "It's clear from Udall's actions, that he doesn't care about the lab or the workers or even the economy of northern New Mexico. From his powerful position on the House Appropriations Committee, Udall (Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M.) led the effort to cut millions from Los Alamos and Sandia, which could potentially result in over 5,000 job cuts."

Marissa Padilla, Udall's press secretary responded to Dolin's comments during an interview from Washington, D.C., Friday.

"Tom Udall takes great pride in representing Los Alamos National

Laboratory and the facts speak for themselves," Padilla said. "He continues to fight for adequate funding from the Appropriations Committee, while speaking out about what must be done to maintain its future security and permanence. To suggest otherwise is patently false. This year's budget process continues to remind us that the lab will need to diversify its mission in the coming years and the Congressman continues to work with the lab to ensure this happens. Partisan, misinformed rhetoric is counter-productive in achieving these goals, and it is unfortunate that Mr. Dolin has chosen his role as partisan over his role as scientist in advocating for LANL."

Dolin went on to speak about Domenici's accomplishments, which he said include leading the effort to look at alternative forms of energy, help LANL build programs in water conservation, environmental clean-up, weather modeling, and international non-proliferation.

"The senator has done more than just build the economy of northern New Mexico through the labs - he's done a lot to work with the oil industry and the agriculture industry and I think more than any other person, he's tried to bring New Mexico into the future, even though we seem to want to go kicking and screaming."

Dolin praised the Republican senator saying even though he has been one of the most powerful politicians in Washington, and the most powerful in New Mexico, his focus has always been on solving the problems of New Mexico - unlike politicians who go to Washington and "forget about us".

"Now that Sen. Domenici is retiring, we have no advocate left to fight for us," Dolin said. "We already know Udall advocates cutting lab funding and we already know Gov. (Bill) Richardson advocates cutting lab funding in half. There are no state officials stepping up to defend the labs, and much to my dismay, there are no local officials stepping up to defend the lab."

Dolin said a former county councilor shared his feeling that there is a serious "leadership vacuum" in the region. "So who is going to fill this vacuum?" Dolin asked. "One hope is that a Democrat will step up to challenge Udall, and that a candidate with Domenici's insight and wisdom replaces him in Washington, and that our state and local officials wake-up."

On Sept. 21, Dolin co-chaired a non-partisan "Save Our Science" rally on the steps of the state capitol. Congressional delegation representatives and officials from Santa Fe and Espanola, including Mayor Joe Maestas, participated. Los Alamos officials did not attend.

Dolin challenged Udall in 2006. "I ran against Udall because I saw the attack on the labs coming and Domenici's retirement on the horizon, and I worried about who would step in," he said. "I was thinking very locally and I worried then about lab workers, their families, and the economy of northern New Mexico. I hate that all the things I talked about in my campaign came true."

Dolin said congress had a 22 percent approval rating in 2006 and, "seemed more interested in playing political games than solving problems. Their approval rating is now down 11 percent - the lowest in the history of our nation - and they're even more embroiled in partisan pandering."

As an example, Dolin pointed to a recent resolution passed by congress in which he said they wasted time condemning Turkey for something that happened in 1912 instead of solving today's budget problems. Another example is in their elevating all U.S. territory observers to full voting members of congress, which is not only unconstitutional, but will probably lead to the supreme court throwing out all bills passed in the last session, Dolin said adding, "In my opinion, this demonstrates the arrogance of a congress that has lost touch with the people it represents."

The first responsibility of a congressman is to represent his district, even if politicians in Washington believe differently, he said.

"The third congressional representative should be willing to fight to the bitter end for the people he represents," Dolin said. "If you lose, at least you lose nobly and with dignity."

Dolin said he had not planned to run in 2008 because he realized in the last race that ideas and passion are not enough to win an election. While Los Alamos and northern New Mexico are worth fighting for, Dolin said, without substantial funding, a candidate can't get the exposure needed to win. He disclosed that he has been approached by several state and federal Republican officials encouraging him to challenge Udall again.

"I am considering a second run, but it all depends on how the financial piece falls into place," Dolin said. "I plan to finalize my decision by mid-December. If I do run, my message will be very simple - I will ask people, 'Do you know someone whose job got cut because of Udall's bill or are you related to someone whose job was cut because of Udall's bill - if so - why are you voting for Udall'?"

Since the wide press coverage of his "Save Our Science" rally, Dolin is emerging as the spokesman for LANL workers. When word of Domenici's retirement began to circulate, a television station called Dolin and he said asked, "as the spokesman for LANL workers", what will the impact will be.

"We must raise awareness about the importance of the science conducted at Los Alamos," Dolin said. "The jobs of our workers and all northern New Mexico workers whose lives are impacted by LANL depend on it."

By Request: Friday Edition of Comment of the Week

A plea for help came in today in the form of a comment:

Pinky and the Brain, is there any chance we can have a thread about how Lab operations and the technical workforce have been negatively impacted by the Hagengruber mandate? I know that files have been corrupted and permanently ruined, foreign nationals have been excluded from instrumentation, and finally, LANCE's computer system is on the line. Maybe we should discuss?

Now, I realize that I'm not Pinky or the Brain, but the Pink One asked me to help on this; so here's what I suggest: this Hagengruber fellow seems bent on imposing a "one size fits all" solution to desktop computing at LANL. From past experience, I know that the only result from mandating these types of restrictions on an organization's computing infrastructure will have one single effect: a huge loss in productivity.

Now, I suspect Mssr. Hagengruber has received feedback to this effect on his plan. Yet, he still seems committed to imposing his will. I submit, therefore, that his intent is to further damage productivity at LANL. This downside to efficiency loss will be offset by the benefit (his perspective, of course) of him being able to claim to have 'standardized' desktop computing at LANL. 'Standardized' for 'security' reasons.

This post is now open to comments on this subject. The discussion will be more meaningful if someone can first send us a copy of the Hagengruber Manifesto for posting here.

Update, 10/22/2007: The Hagengruber Manifesto (pdf) can be viewed here.

--Gussie

Workforce Restructuring-Comments or Concerns

UPDATE: Thanks to a story by Wendy Brown of the Santa Fe New Mexican we've discovered there is an extra week to comment on the workforce restructuring plan.

Sorry for the mix up....the release on the LASO web site is incorrect.  It was supposed to have been changed Friday.  I am in the process of getting the correct one on the site.  The date for accepting comments is through Oct. 19th.

If I can be of any further assistance please let me know.

Thanx

Bernie

Bernard R. Pleau, Jr.
Mgr. Intergovernmental &
External Relations
Los Alamos Site Office
505-667-6691

The stakeholder comment period on the draft workforce restructuring plan for Los Alamos National Laboratory ends on 12 October 2007. Until that time this post will remain open for comments, which I will email to DOE en masse.

The benefits of voicing your comments and concerns through the blog are:

• everyone else can read them
• DOE will not know your email address

No profanity please!

Shortfall May Slow Cleanup

By Raam Wong
Journal Staff Writer

Proposed budget cuts at Los Alamos National Laboratory are raising the specter of a lab unable to meet its goals in 2008 for cleaning up decades' worth of environmental contamination.

A top lab official spoke about the challenges last week during a conference on Amelia Island, Fla., according to the trade publication Weapons Complex Monitor.

Sue Stiger is quoted as saying that the lab needs $80 million more in 2008 than the $140 million that funded cleanup activities in 2007 or it may not be able to meet its regulatory demands.

"To stay in full compliance, we need the $80 million ... so that certain milestones stay on schedule in the out-years," said Stiger, the lab's associate director for environmental programs, according to the publication.

Spokesmen with the lab and the National Nuclear Security Agency's site office in Los Alamos said it was too early to speculate on what the final 2008 budget might be.

A substantial budget shortfall would likely make it difficult, if not impossible, for the lab to meet its cleanup goals, which are required under a 2005 agreement, or consent order, with the New Mexico Environment Department.

The agreement requires the lab to evaluate and clean up decades' worth of waste by 2015.

Environment Secretary Ron Curry said in a statement Thursday that the agency would ensure that the lab's manager, Los Alamos National Security, carries out the order's provisions.

"We expect LANS to fulfill its commitment to the people of northern New Mexico in eradicating the legacy of contamination at the lab," Curry said. Earlier this year, Curry accused the lab of trying to obstruct the cleanup agreement and the agency has repeatedly fined the lab for violations of the order.

Lab director Michael Anastasio said in August that in its first year of management of the lab, LANS met 103 out of 104 of the agreement's milestones on time.

But the lab's success in meeting its goals in the future appears to be in question as Congress debates LANL's budget for the 2008 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Congress has passed a stop-gap measure to fund the federal government until a final spending bill is passed.

The House of Representatives wants to keep cleanup funding about the same as this year, according to the Weapons Complex Monitor, while substantially cutting the lab's budget overall.

In the Senate, a committee has endorsed a spending measure that includes $222 million for cleanup, $82.5 million above President Bush's request. The two spending measures must still be reconciled.

Stiger, who was appointed to her post in April, made her remarks during a presentation at the Weapons Complex Monitor Decisionmakers' Forum, an annual powwow of federal officials charged with overseeing and cleaning up the Department of Energy's nuclear facilities.

Journal staff writer John Fleck contributed to this report.

Comment of the Week (Thursday Edition)

From the Word from Washington post:

But hey!

You've really gotta admire the way LANS is keeping LANL staff appraised of all the latest RIF developments.

-Gus

Reliable Russian Warhead

Hawkish Putin touts nukes, attacks US

MOSCOW, Oct 18 (AFP) Oct 18, 2007

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday announced "grandiose" military plans, including development of a new nuclear weapon, and attacked US policies in Iraq and Iran.

Putin, who must step down at the end of his second term next year, also said he would back the ruling United Russia party in December parliamentary elections, confirming that he wants to retain major political influence.

In a phone-in broadcast live on state television, Putin told servicemen at the Plesetsk nuclear missile base that Russia would build another nuclear submarine next year and was also planning a "completely new" atomic weapon, about which he did not elaborate.

"We have grandiose plans and they are absolutely realistic," Putin said, speaking hours after the military announced the successful test firing of a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile.

[Read the full story here.]

As old news I would normally not have posted this story, but with Governor Richardson in the news, little else to report today, and so many new blog readers recently... well, here it is.

What Wen Ho Lee case tells us about China's future

Jack Cashill - WorldNetDaily

With the People's Republic of China rattling sabers over the visit of the Dalai Lama, it might pay to re-read the tea leaves of the Wen Ho Lee case and see what they portend for America's future.

A native of Taiwan, Wen Ho Lee had gotten his American citizenship in part, as he himself admits, because it allowed him to seek employment at a national lab. Still, for the 20 years he worked at Los Alamos, Wen Ho Lee seemed very much the "model minority."

He and his Taiwanese wife worked hard, obeyed the law and raised two good kids. In 1999, however, Lee's American idyll came to an indecorous end. The FBI shocked Lee's friends and colleagues when they arrested him on suspicion of espionage.

Notra Trulock, the Department of Energy intelligence chief who helped bring the Lee case to light, admits that even he does not know whether Lee had actually betrayed his country.

"I do know," Trulock elaborates in his fair-minded book, "Code Name Kindred Spirit," "that he was a walking security nightmare who violated every security rule in existence at Los Alamos National Laboratory."

It is possible that Lee was, in fact, a bumbling innocent. Left to his own devices, he might never have dreamed of playing the race card. The Lee that I will be talking about, however, is the politicized Lee that the reader meets in his memoir, "My Country Versus Me."

Given the limitations of Lee's English, co-author Helen Zia almost assuredly drove the content of the book, which oozes anti-American agitprop. This second-generation Chinese-American and first-generation radical feminist lesbian has been at play in the fields of the left since she quit medical school to work as a labor organizer in Detroit.

If Zia's goal were to undercut America and to cause her fellow Asian Americans to question their national identity, she succeeded marvelously.

In fact, Lee first fell afoul of the authorities in 1982 after he called a Taiwanese scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory near San Francisco. Lee had never before talked to this guy. In his book, Lee claims that he called to learn if Livermore had terminated the scientist's employment as he had read and, if so, why.

Lee was unaware that the scientist was under court-ordered FBI surveillance for passing nuclear secrets to Beijing. When the FBI questioned Lee about the call, he denied making it. Later, he would deny the denial. Says Lee obliquely, "I don't agree with the FBI version of the story."

This was the first of perhaps six flaming red flags in Lee's career. What he takes away from this misadventure is this typical bit of ethnic posturing: "I didn't know that the FBI monitored Chinese-American scientists." In truth, the FBI did not profile Chinese, despite the fact that it made sense to do so. The People's Republic was conspicuously targeting Chinese-Americans scientists.

In 1988, a year before the Tiananmen Square massacre, Lee visited Bejing with his wife. While she just happened to be out shopping, two Chinese scientists visited Lee in his hotel room and asked some pointed questions about nuclear warheads. Lee knew that he had an absolute obligation to report such contacts. He did not.

Says Lee unconvincingly, "I was afraid that if I reported their visit, I would be subjected to the kind of FBI questioning I'd received before."

By the late 1990s, senior scientists at Los Alamos had become convinced that the Chinese had acquired – "probably by espionage" – vital data on the W-88 nuclear warhead, the most modern in the U.S. arsenal.

As one might expect – hope, actually – authorities moved to plug the presumed leak at Los Alamos. On an initial list of a dozen possible suspects, six were Chinese in origin, including Wen Ho Lee.

When the FBI asked Lee during a polygraph exam if he had worked on the W-88, he denied it. "With what I now understood," writes Lee later, "my answer might have been 'yes,' but I wondered if it was really a 'yes,' since I didn't know I was working on the W-88."

Young readers should be aware that, in the age of Clinton, answers like this made more sense than they do today.

Whether guilty or not of espionage, Lee clearly deserved the FBI's scrutiny. To be sure, its agents botched the case. Lee ended up in prison, without bail, and was indeed treated badly.

His skilled legal and PR teams quickly turned the imprisonment to his advantage. To arouse public indignation, they portrayed Lee as an "American Dreyfus," a dedicated patriot persecuted only because of his race. This strategy may have frayed the bond between the nation and its citizens of Asian origin, but from Lee's perspective, it worked beautifully.

"Asian American – Arrest me too," read a fairly typical sign, carried in this case by a young woman at a pro-Lee rally. The pressure built as planned. No one likes to be called a racist.

After nine months in prison, Lee was allowed to cop a plea to just one of the 59 counts against him and walk away a martyr, his halo dimmed only by the fact that this all happened on a Democrat watch. Major book deals and lawsuits followed.

The book is dishonest from front cover to back. Lee, for instance, often compares himself to Caucasians who had run afoul of the authorities on security breaches.

"They were all excused," he writes, "because they were assumed to be good Americans." Contemporaries like Aldrich Ames, John Hanssen and Jonathan Pollard might take exception. Dying in prison on spy charges is probably not their idea of being "excused."

Then too, Lee's case is more worrisome than the rest. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic looms as America's most serious potential enemy, and its leaders are not afraid to say so.

In 1996, a Chinese military officer had warned American ambassador Chas Freeman, "If you hit us now, we can hit back. So you will not make those threats [about Taiwan]." The officer then proffered the following not so cryptic caveat, "In the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei."

Stay tuned.

Jack Cashill is an Emmy-award winning independent writer and producer with a Ph.D. in American Studies from Purdue.

Word from Washington

From "Anonymous"

Word from Washington: LANS plan rejected. So no announcements today.

Gov. ignores lab questions

http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2007/10/16/headline_news/news01.txt

CAROL A. CLARK Monitor County Editor

SANTA FE-At a reception Monday for women voters, presidential candidate Bill Richardson avoided questions about the precarious situation facing Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

Questions have lingered since Richardson, in his role as New Mexico governor, sent a letter to eight Senate and House Appropriations Committee members Sept. 26 speaking out against a proposed 3.2-percent cut in the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which funds LANL and Sandia National Laboratories. The following day in New Hampshire, in his role as a presidential candidate, Richardson issued a proposal calling for a 53-percent cut to the NNSA portion of the budget.

With budget uncertainties threatening job cuts for laboratory employees and adversely affecting the townsite, Richardson missed an opportunity to clarify his position and reassure the people of Los Alamos.

Following complaints to Katie Roberts, deputy communications director for the Richardson campaign, she offered to e-mail a response on behalf of Richardson. Her response was not received by press time.

[...]

Heard in the Hallways Today

From one of our loyal readers...

Here are a couple things overheard in the corridors:

1. There will be news to the workforce on Wednesday, 17th of October.
2. Involuntary notices will be handed out in early December, probably 3rd of December.