Undermining Safety to Prioritize Production

On By Martin PfeifferIn Nuclear Tech & Productions Complex, Trump Regime, OOOPS and Safety

Opening and Reminder:
Trump Regime is an Existential Threat

There is no national security (inter alia) so long as we leave Donald Trump et al in power. All analysis and discussion needs to start with that acknowledgment because we can’t act as though the current moment is normal or inconsequential or explainable by rational policy and state interest processes. Things are not normal and Trump et al Regime is daily violating law, constitution, policy, and common human decency. In addition, Trump demonstrates distorted thinking marked by motivated thinking, hallucination, lying, or detachment from reality. All of this waves arms will only get worse the longer we leave the Trump et al Regime in power.

The National Nuclear Security Administration’s “Nuclear Security Enterprise” facilities in 2020 (from Nuclear Matters Handbook 2020 [Revised], Figure 5.1). This only shows NNSA sites note all Department of Energy sites; this matters in part because DoE Environmental Management–not NNSA–has responsibility for waste, facility and environmental remediation. Thus this table does not include the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant which is absolutely necessary to current plans for USA nuclear weapons complex and production growth.

Undermining Safety to Prioritize Production

There’s NO TIME for safety oversight!

The Department of Energy (DoE) is interfering with congressionally mandated activities (violating federal law) of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) (Lee 2026b, 2026c). In particular, DoE has revoked DNFSB access to information and activities; ignored DNFSB reporting requirements and communications; and violated prior agreements about access and information management with DNFSB (DNFSB & DOE 2022a, 2022b; Lee 2026a, 2026b, 2026c). At this point the DNFSB has, in bland bureaucratic language, accused (correctly) the Department of Energy of willfully misinterpreting and violating federal law and of directing its employees to do the same:

“the Board recently became aware of the March 10, 2026, DOE senior leadership memorandum, entitled Clarifying Instructions Regarding Interface with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (Enclosure D). The Board is concerned that certain assertions and directions in this memorandum are inconsistent with the AEA (Enclosure C) and that it has been cited by DOE personnel as a basis for additional limits to existing Board access and a lack of response to new access requests” (Lee 2026b, 2).

NB The DoE Memo is *bonkers* and is attachment 4 (Lee 2026b, D1-D6).

Statements by DoE officials and site contractors have repeatedly emphasized that nuclear weapons production is the current and overriding priority: “NNSA will no longer be defined solely as a scientific stewardship organization, but an organization focused on weapons production” (Wright 2026) (see also Beck 2026; Pfeiffer 2026a & 2026b). Most frequently this overwhelming urgency of USA nuclear weapons production is justified through reference to Chinese increases in capability and deployed warheads; two-near-peer nuclear deterrence and war scenarios; and ostensible enhancements to USA power through “nuclear dominance” (Beck 2026; McNamee 2023; Miller 2023).

“Urgency. Deterrence. Production”: A post from the contractor running the Y-12 (HEU & lithium & thermonuclear secondaries) that pithily highlights the current priorities and pressures of the USA nuclear weapons complex as set by the Trump Regime and Department of Energy (Y-12 2026).

The DoE Memo

DoE’s recent “mem[o] for field officers” (Lee 2026c) gestures at a security-caused-state-of-exception when it argues that “DOE and NNSA have a broader public health, safety, and security mission than that delegated to the DNFSB by Congress” (p. D-5). On that basis it accuses the DNFSB of “attempted exercise of excluded functions” especially regarding “the safety of atomic weapons” (pp. D-3, D-4, & D-5). The memo gives a tendentious misinterpretation of applicable statute–and existing DNFSB-DoE memos of understanding–and then instructs employees that it is “mandatory” to restrict DNFSB access and activities to a strict interpretation of that tendentious misinterpretation of applicable statute: “Adherence to the legal framework governing the DOE-DNFSB relationship is mandatory. Activities outside the Board’s statutory limit are not authorized” (pp. D-4 & D-5). Employees are told they can ignore “real-time directions” on safety from the DNFSB and that they “shall not provide predecisional or other draft copies of standards” to the DNFSB (p. D-4). In other words, the DoE/NNSA are violating laws and agreements and ordering employees to circumscribe access and information given to the DNFSB.

Conclusion

Caption: Table “Volumes of Wastes and Other Byproducts generated by Nuclear Weapons Production Activities During the Cold War” (DoE 1995, 25).

Congress, belatedly, established the Defense Nuclear Facilities Board in 1988 because it (extremely correctly) perceived that the Department of Energy’s prioritization of nuclear weapons production put workers, the public, and the environment at risk (FRD 2009). Only after the Cold War ended were the USA public–and to an extent, lawmakers–informed of the incredible scope of nuclear weapons complex associated human exposure, environmental contamination and damage, accidents, and risky practices (DoE 1995, 1997; FRD 2009). Remediation of Hanford, for example, has been predicted to take an at least an additional 40 years and hundreds of billions of dollars (GAO 2024). Now, and again by claiming existential threats, the Trump Regime is “seeking widespread revisions to nuclear safety capabilities” (Lee 2026b, 1) while illegally thwarting mandated safety oversight. The most likely result is more of the dirty and injurious past along with increased risk that an OOPS will make a single-source-point-of-failure facility unusable.

From (DOE 1995, 65): “The sealed door to an “infinity room” at Rocky Flats. More than 20 such rooms have been contaminated by releases during plutonium operations at the site. The rooms are called “infinity rooms” because the rates of alpha radiation are too high for standard monitoring equipment to measure. The radioactivity in these rooms is nearly 25,000 times natural background. Building 776/777, Rocky Flats Plant, Colorado. March 18, 1994.

Works Cited

Beck, David E. 2026. “Responsive Today, Dominant Tomorrow: Enhancing American Nuclear Dominance with Cover Memo.” Memo and Attachment. Los Alamos Study Group, February 11. https://osf.io/kfqrw. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://lasg.org/MPF2/documents/NNSA-DavidEBeck-TransformationObjectives_11Feb2026.pdf.

DNFSB (Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board), and DOE (Department of Energy). 2022a. “Memorandum of Understanding Betweeen the U.S. Department of Energy and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.” Memo of Understanding. Defense Nuclear Facilities Board, February 17. https://osf.io/46sfd/files/tzdxu. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/document/25226/DNFSB-DOE%20MOU%2002.17.2022.pdf.

DNFSB (Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board), and DOE (Department of Energy). 2022b. “Supplementary Agreement for Memorandum of Understanding Between the U.S. Department of Energy and the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.” Memo of Understanding. Defense Nuclear Facilities Board, June. https://osf.io/8q2yg. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.dnfsb.gov/sites/default/files/document/25776/MOU%20Supplementary%20Agreement%20Final%20May%2027.2022.pdf.

DOE (Department of Energy). 1995. Closing the Circle on Splitting the Atom: The Environmental Legacy of Nuclear Weapons Production in the United States and What the Department of Energy Is Doing About It. DOE/EM-0266. Office of Environmental Management, US Department of Energy. https://osf.io/8t54j. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f8/Closing_the_Circle_Report.pdf.

DOE (Department of Energy). 1997. Linking Legacies: Connecting the Cold War Nuclear Weapons Production Processes to the Their Environmental Consequences. DOE/EM-0319. Office of Environmental Management, US Department of Energy. https://osf.io/7mre5. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f8/Linking_Legacies.pdf.

GAO (Government Accountability Office), Gene. 2024. Hanford Cleanup: DOE Should Validate Its Analysis of HighLevel Waste Treatment Alternatives. GAO-23-106093. Government Accountability Office. https://osf.io/46sfd/files/53h9u. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106093.

Lee, Patricia L. 2026a. “DoE Information Reviews.” Letter to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, July 24. https://osf.io/ve8mh. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.dnfsb.gov/content/doe-information-reviews.

Lee, Patricia L. 2026. “Midcycle Open DOE Deliverables.” Letter to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, April 29. https://osf.io/46sfd/files/ex3vu. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.dnfsb.gov/content/midcycle-open-doe-deliverables.

Lee, Patricia L. 2026c. Report to Congress Regarding Access Denials. Report and Cover Letter. Biannual Report to Congress on Access Denial. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. https://osf.io/46sfd/files/8yejk. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.dnfsb.gov/content/july-2026-report-congress-re-access-denials.

McNamee, Bernared L. 2023. “Department of Energy and Related Commissions.” In Mandate for Leadership, the Conservative Promise: Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves. Heritage Foundation. https://osf.io/jcefq, pp. 363–417. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive.

Miller, Christopher. 2023. “Department of Defense.” In Mandate for Leadership, the Conservative Promise: Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project, edited by Paul Dans and Steven Groves. Heritage Foundation. https://osf.io/jcefq, pp. 91–132. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive.

Wright, Christopher. 2026. “Testimony of Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright of the United States Department of Energy before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services.” Congressional Testimony. Senate Committee on Armed Services, May 13. https://osf.io/vn5m9. Pfeiffer Nuclear Weapons and National Security Archive. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wright_opening_statement.pdf.

Y-12 (Y-12 National Security Complex). 2026. Urgency. Deterrence. Production…. Facebook. July 24. https://www.facebook.com/y12nsc/posts/urgency-deterrence-production-how-y-12-is-delivering-for-the-national-nuclear-se/1481179947385104/.

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