Here's what New Mexico will get out of the $883 billion federal defense bill
President Joe Biden on Friday signed an about $883.7 billion federal defense funding bill into law.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) included dollars for several facilities in New Mexico: national labs, military bases and the nation’s only underground repository for nuclear waste.
Notably, a portion of the Senate version to expand federal reparations to New Mexicans impacted by nuclear weapons testing was removed as the bill passed the House and Senate and was signed into law by Biden on Dec. 22.
Here’s what New Mexico facilities got out of the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2024.
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National labs and nuclear
The bill authorized $276 million for environmental cleanup work at Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories.
Los Alamos is a key component in a multi-facility program to dilute about 34 metric tons of surplus, weapons-grade plutonium and dispose of it at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant repository near Carlsbad.
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
The NDAA will provide $464 million to operate WIPP, along with $44.4 million to continue a rebuild of the underground ventilation system and $50 million for construction of a new utility shaft.
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Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos will get $1.79 billion to fund its ongoing research and development work, at the lab where nuclear weapons are developed and where the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to increase production of plutonium pits, the triggers of nuclear warheads, through the next decade.
Language was also added in the bill to require the NNSA to report to Congress on efforts to improve transportation at the lab.
Sandia National Laboratory
The Albuquerque-based lab will get a portion of the NDAA’s $24 billion to fund the NNSA’s budget. This will include Sandia’s engineering and science programs.
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Military sites
About $20.2 million will go to the Department of Defense’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program.
The REPI program is used by Cannon Air Force Base in Curry County, White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces and Alamogordo and Melrose Air Range near Floyd.
The program is intended to protect military installations and their testing and training missions from extreme weather and encroachment.
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White Sands Missile Range
The missile range will get $5.5 million to build a full-service laboratory enclosure, and an operations facility at the High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility.
Cannon Air Force Base
The base will get $5 million through the NDAA to build a new satellite fire station.
New Mexico Army National Guard
Another $11 million will be appropriated to the New Mexico Army National Guard to build a vehicle maintenance shop in Rio Rancho.
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Nuclear testing reparations denied in bill’s final version
New Mexicans fighting to be included in federal reparations for the impacts of nuclear testing where dealt a blow after the Senate version of the NDAA saw language removed.
Before being altered, the bill expanded the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to recognize New Mexican “downwinders” or residents that suffered health problems connected to the 1945 nuclear bomb test at the Trinity Site.
This was the first nuclear bomb detonation in U.S. history, a test of the weapon used in World War II on Japan.
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In the decades since, residents of rural communities like Tularosa and Carrizozo said their families suffered health problems and cancers associated with the blast but were not provided federal reparations through the RECA program as were uranium miners and downwinders in other states impacted by the Nevada Test Site.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) co-sponsored a bill earlier this year to extend the lifetime of RECA, which could sunset next year without action, and expand the program for New Mexican downwinders.
He said the bill’s removal from the NDAA was a “disappointment” and failed to provide justice to his state.
“Generations of New Mexicans and their families have gotten sick and died from the radiation exposure and the lasting impacts of the Trinity Test,” Lujan said in a statement. “For New Mexico to have been ground zero for the first nuclear weapon – and left out of the original RECA program – is an injustice.”
Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Los Alamos, Sandia labs and nuke waste site get federal funds in bill
