Labs
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Congress overrides presidential veto
Congress voted last night to override President Bush's veto of a bill that would have prevented a cut in the amount Medicare pays doctors. In the House, Tom Udall and Heather Wilson voted to override the veto; Steve Pearce did not vote, but a spokesman said this morning that he would have voted with his colleagues. In the Senate, Jeff Bingaman voted to override the President's veto, but Pete Domenici voted against it. As the Washington Post blogged last night, the override required the cooperation of many Republican legislators, despite the Administration's efforts to keep them in line.
PNM announced yesterday that gas bills are going to be significantly higher this winter. As the Journal points out, PNM is prohibited from making a profit on the cost of gas; they make money on the transmission of the gas.
McCain talks wilderness, economy, immigration
McCain granted an approximately 25-minute interview today to five New Mexico reporters -- including NMI's Heath Haussamen -- who rode with him on the Straight Talk Express, his campaign bus, from the Albuquerque International Airport to a campaign fundraiser at the Hilton Albuquerque.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Domenici opposes immunity takeaway proposal
Pete Domenici disagrees "wholeheartedly" with an amendment in the FISA bill that would preclude retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies who allowed the U.S. government to use their infrastructure to spy on phone conversations of U.S. citizens. In a conversation with New Mexico radio reporters yesterday, he replied to a question by Elaine Baumgartel of KUNM that he was sure the bill would pass with the retroactive immunity provision intact, because the only reason the companies were involved in the first place was because the United States government asked for their help.
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development yesterday finalized its Fiscal Year 2009 funding proposal for the Army Corps of Engineers, plus the Departments of Interior and Energy. Chaired by Dem. Senator Bryan Dorgin, the bill increases funding overall by $2.4 billion over Fiscal Year 2008, which is $1.9 billion over the Bush administrations request. The Los Alamos Monitor reports that the bill would "restore" cuts to Los Alamos Lab funding cut in the House bill, specifically for LANL's Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility, plus $145 million for pit manufacturing that was unfunded by the House.
An Albuquerque City Hall transportation task force heard from a consultant yesterday that the most feasible part of Central for a street car project would be between Downtown and San Mateo, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
NM solicits perceptions of Los Alamos from those who live nearby
The State of New Mexico has organized "listening sessions" to evaluate the issues and perceptions of residents who live near Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Notice of these sessions appeared a week after an AP story reported northern New Mexico resident's concern over the U.S. Department of Energy proposal to increase plutonium pit production at the nuclear weapons lab by over 800%. Plutonium pits are the core of nuclear warheads.
Shadow over solar
Large-scale solar power plants -- ideally suited for states like New Mexico -- are "straining to burst onto the Southwest utility scene," in the words of one expert testifying at a U.S. Senate hearing on solar energy Wednesday. But without an immediate eight-year extension of the 30 percent federal investment tax credit, the concentrating solar power industry, or CSP, will be "stopped dead in its tracks."
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: The fight over food, pollution and plutonium pits
The Associated Press reported over the weekend about the opposing viewpoints regarding a Department of Energy proposal that would expand the making of plutonium pits, which are the core of nuclear weapons, from just a few to 80 per year at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Albuquerque Police Department's party patrol got taken to task, after the ABQ Journal looked at the 70% dismissal rate in 2007 of "refusing to obey" arrests in the city. In other ABQ metro news, City Hall and Bernalillo County have teamed up to create a Climate Task Force.
The Sandia Ranger District of the Cibola National Forest has essentially been shut-down due to fire danger, as of today.
Udall votes against lab cuts
Rep. Tom Udall on Wednesday voted against a spending bill that would significantly cut Los Alamos National Laboratory's budget and halt plutonium pit production at the lab. Over Udall's objection, the House Appropriations Committee passed the measure on a voice vote, and it will now head to the House floor.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Proposed nuke funding cuts for LANL
In the news today, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee has recommended in a report that funds be slashed for a $1.29 billion nuclear warhead program at LANL, according to the Albuquerque Journal.
In Albuquerque, City Councilor Debbie O'Malley has sharply criticized Mayor Martin Chavez for thwarting the council's wishes by cutting a deal for a balloon landing site just before the council would have taken that power for itself, according to Albuquerque Journal.
Domenici asks Bush for help on nuke, lab funding (updated)
With an important vote on U.S. nuclear weapons funding looming, U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is asking President Bush to pressure Congress to fund a new generation of nuclear warheads.
The House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up a funding measure Wednesday that would leave out funding for the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead and make cuts to other weapons programs.
Udall's new ad may stoke controversy
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Tom Udall will begin airing a new television ad on Wednesday highlighting his work for Cannon Air Force Base and Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The ad will be controversial because Udall has been attacked for supporting cuts last year at the lab. Udall has said the labs need to shift their focus from nuclear weapons to energy independence and global warming, and his vote was an attempt to push the lab in that direction. He said that will ensure the future sustainability of the lab.
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Hit list raises concern
Not surprisingly, a report of a Mexican drug cartel hit list was the most e-mailed story for the Las Cruces Sun News this morning. The Luna County Sheriff would not divulge the names of the 15 to 20 people on the list, but they are said to be current or former residents of Doña Ana, Luna and El Paso counties and from as far away as Albuquerque, among other locations, the Sun News reports.
Meanwhile, Thomason Hospital in El Paso is back to normal after nearly two weeks in lockdown to protect a Mexican police official and his deputy assistant, both of whom had been brought in for treatment of gunshot wounds, the paper reports. The officers suffered the gunshot wounds in Nuevo Casas Grandes, about 150 miles southwest of El Paso in Chihuahua state.
Northern New Mexico community leaders attending a briefing and rare tour at Los Alamos National Laboratory this week were assured "we're going to be here for a while," the Los Alamos Monitor reports.
House committee wants nuke cuts
A House subcommittee has voted for a modest cut to the U.S. nuclear weapons budget, which funds thousands of jobs at New Mexico's national laboratories.
The House Energy and Water Development Subcommittee cut $100 million -- or 1.6 percent -- from this year's budget. The Bush Administration has asked for an increase in weapons funding, but as the Albuquerque Journal reported this morning, lawmakers said the nation's nuclear weapons program lacks the focus and direction to make that committment:
King to sign shield law letter
State Attorney General Gary King will be signing a letter of support for a federal shield law for journalists this week.
If 36 state attorneys general sign on, the National Association of Attorneys General has said it will officially support the legislation at the national level, and possibly break a logjam in the U.S. Senate on S. 2035, the Free Flow of Information Act.
Tough times for Los Alamos housing
Communities all over New Mexico are facing a tough real estate market, but perhaps none have it tougher than Los Alamos, a company town whose fortunes are tied closely to those of the federally funded Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Los Alamos Monitor is reporting that "the largest property foreclosure in the history of Los Alamos is underway," and the owner of the 132-unit apartment complex is blaming job cuts and other cutbacks at LANL, which employees about 10,000 people.
LANL to house world's fastest supercomputer
Beep. Beep. Make way for Roadrunner -- the world's fastest computer. The U.S. Department of Energy announced today that the IBM-built machine, which will be housed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, has broken the petaflop barrier. That's geek speak for the number of calculations the computer's processors are capable of performing -- 1,000 trillion operations per second in the case of Roadrunner. In today's news release, the Energy Department described it this way:
To put this into perspective, if each of the 6 billion people on earth had a hand calculator and worked together on a calculation 24 hours per day, 365 days a year, it would take 46 years to do what Roadrunner would do in one day.
New nuke design down, but not out
Los Alamos voters may have heavily favored Republican U.S. Senate candidate Heather Wilson in Tuesday’s primary, but the statewide winner, Steve Pearce, is a key congressional ally to a controversial nuclear weapons program that "would mean plenty of high-end jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory," Politico.com is reporting.
Report questions LANL nuke production
Political change isn't the only challenge New Mexico's national labs are facing. Federal investigators released a report Monday underscoring the uncertain future of Los Alamos National Laboratory's nuclear weapons mission.
The General Accountability Office concluded that that the National Nuclear Security Administration has significantly underestimated the cost of producing plutonium bomb cores at the lab and that NNSA's long-term strategy for pit production is in "a state of flux." GAO investigators also found that LANL lacks adequate lab, storage and waste handling facilities to expand its pit production capability "for the foreseeable future."
Nuclear uncertainty
Nuclear policy experts and arms control advocates are closely watching the state's congressional elections, which will reshape the state's congressional delegation in the absence of retiring U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici -- a man who some think has helped influence the country's nuclear weapons policy through his years of tenacious support for Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.
Pearce Nuke Funding Measures Go Down
The Arms Control Wonk notes today that Rep. Steve Pearce's last ditch effort to restore some funding for a new nuclear warhead design has failed. Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico's southern congressoinal district, had introduced an amendment to the FY 2009 National Defense Authorization Act that would have restored $10 million for the Reliable Replacment Warhead (RRW).
TODAY'S TOP STORIES: Illegals' fine
A top executive at a Roswell aircraft painting company and his firm, Dean Baldwin Painting, have agreed to pay a combined total of $550,000 imposed by a federal court in Albuquerque and the U.S. Department of Labor for knowingly employing and accepting falsified documents from illegal immigrants, the Roswell Daily Record reports.
On a split vote, the Public Regulation Commission gave electric utility PNM the $63 million in increases the company said it needed over the next year, which, when coupled with a 6.4 percent increase approved last month, will raise customers' electric bills by about 15.4 percent, the Albuquerque Journal reports.
Student members of the Clovis High School yearbook staff are on the defense after being criticized by a Christian group for running profiles and pictures of gay student couples, the Clovis News Journal reports.
The Los Alamos Monitor reports that the birthplace of the atomic bomb continues to lead the nation in its per-capita population of affluent Americans, according to a Nielsen study released this week.