Letter to Chuck Hagel, Secretary of Defense - Follow Law, Halt Environmental Study of ICBM Silos

Letter

Dear Secretary Hagel:

We write to make very clear our strenuous opposition to any attempt by the Department of Defense to circumvent existing law to proceed with an Environmental Impact Study or an Environmental Assessment on the elimination of Minuteman III silos. If the Defense Department is in fact pursuing such a course, we demand the legal justification for how it could so directly contradict the letter of the law and the repeatedly stated will of Congress.

As explicitly stated in Section 8128 of H.R. 3547, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, which was signed into law on January 17, 2014:

None of the funds available to the Department of Defense shall be used to conduct any environmental impact analysis related to Minuteman III silos that contain a missile as of the date of the enactment of this Act.

In addition to compromising the most stabilizing and visible constant in our nuclear posture, it would directly represent a breach of faith. And any attempts to move forward with such an environmental study would greatly undermine the historically constructive and cooperative nature of our working relationship.

Given the gravity of the issue, we request an immediate response to this letter, and an assurance that such an unnecessary and seemingly illegal move will not be carried out.