[CPEO-MEF] NIF sign-on letter! Please sign!

[marylia@earthlink.net]

Dear colleagues:

Below is a letter we are asking your organization to sign. It requests that
the National Ignition Facility, a new nuclear weapons facility under
construction at Livermore Lab, be cancelled. Please contact us with your
sign-on before April 18, 2001. We need your name, your title (if
applicable), your group's name, and your group's address. You may sign on
by hitting the reply button or by sending a fresh email to
marylia@earthlink.net, by phone at (925) 443-7148, by fax at (925) 443-0177
or by "snail mail" to Tri-Valley CAREs 2582 Old First Street, Livermore, CA
94550. We are looking for both national groups and local groups across the
U.S.

The letter will go to the President, the Department of Energy and elected
officials. Your help is needed and appreciated. Thank you to those who have
already signed-on!!! As always, sorry for cross-postings. Here is the
letter...

April XX, 2001

To:     The President of the United States, George W. Bush
        The Secretary of Energy of the United States, Spencer Abraham
        The Members of the United States Senate
        The Members of the United States House of Representatives

Dear Mr. President, Mr. Secretary and Members of Congress:

We are a broad-based network of _______# of taxpayer, nuclear "watchdog,"
environmental and other public interest groups that have signed this letter
expressly to support the recommendation made in the recently-released
"Green Scissors 2001" report to terminate funding for the Department of
Energy's National Ignition Facility (NIF).

"Green Scissors 2001," is a national study outlining 74 programs that, if
cut, would save taxpayers more than $55 billion and protect our
environment.

One of the key recommendations of this report is that the NIF mega-laser
should be cut and its construction terminated. "Relying on existing
laboratory capabilities rather than wastefully expensive new facilities
would save taxpayers approximately $10 billion over the 30-year lifetime of
the project," states the NIF recommendation in "Green Scissors 2001."

"Green Scissors 2001" finds that NIF should be canceled for the following
reasons:

*       NIF burns billions of taxpayer dollars on an experimental program
that continues to be plagued  with cost, schedule and technical problems;

*       NIF will create radioactive wastes;

*       Livermore Laboratory, where NIF is under construction, is already a
Superfund site requiring priority clean-up - not more waste;

*       NIF offers no commercial use;

*       NIF is the most expensive element of DOE's "Stockpile Stewardship"
program and the least relevant to maintenance of the existing
arsenal; and,

*       NIF undermines U.S. nonproliferation goals.

The recommendation for NIF taken from "Green Scissors 2001" is enclosed for
your reference, and the full report is available on the web at
www.greenscissors.org.

Prudent spending of our tax dollars, care and concern for our environment
and wise decision-making  for our future all necessitate the immediate
termination of the NIF project at the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. We urge you to cut NIF now, before even more monies are wasted.


Respectfully,

Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
Livermore, CA

YOUR NAME, TITLE, ORGANIZATION'S NAME AND LOCATION GO HERE.
PLEASE LET US KNOW YOUR GROUP CAN SIGN THE LETTER . THE DEADLINE FOR
SIGN-ONS IS APRIL 18, 2001. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.

end of letter

Marylia Kelley
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94550

<http://www.igc.org/tvc/> - is our web site, please visit us there!

(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax

Working for peace, justice and a healthy environment since 1983, Tri-Valley
CAREs has been a member of the nation-wide Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability in the U.S. since 1989, and is a co-founding member of the
Abolition 2000 global network for the elimination of nuclear weapons, the
U.S. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Back From the Brink
campaign to get nuclear weapons taken off hair-trigger alert.



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