The federal agency that oversees U.S. atomic research and bomb-making has signed off on the first planning and design phase for a multibillion-dollar project to manufacture vital elements for the nation’s nuclear arsenal

Associated Press — The Biden government seems to be picking up where former President Donald Trump left as the national agency that oversees U.S. atomic research and bomb-making has approved the very first design phase for a multibillion-dollar project to manufacture key elements for the country’s nuclear arsenal.

The National Nuclear Security Administration in a decision announced Wednesday stated that construction and planning will cost upwards of $4 billion initially.

The agency did not articulate what precisely that money could be spent nor does it include the cost of different trainings that would be required for Los Alamos National Laboratory to begin generating 30 plutonium cores per year.

The drive to restart production of the atomic triggers has spanned several presidential administrations, together with supporters claiming that the U.S. should ensure the stability and dependence of its arsenal contributed growing global security issues. The atomic agency also has stated most of the cores in the stockpile back to the 1970s and 1980s.

Democratic members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation have affirmed production at Los Alamos due to the billions of dollars in federal funding and thousands of jobs which are at stake.

However, watchdog groups have been sounding alarms over the potential for much more security and safety lapses in the northern New Mexico laboratory and the possibility of environmental contamination.

Another concern is the nuclear waste that would be generated by the work.

Watchdog groups have said that the price estimate outlined by the agency in its conclusion is about double the projections created just last year.

Greg Mello using the Los Alamos Study Group stated the ballooning budget and doubt over whether the laboratory can satisfy the national government’s mandated production schedule”throw further doubt on the wisdom of proceeding with industrial pit production” at Los Alamos.

“LANL’s centers are just too old and fundamentally dangerous, its place overly impractical,” he said. “Even with a smaller stockpile, LANL couldn’t undertake this assignment successfully.”

Some groups have threatened to sue the U.S. Energy Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, saying a more comprehensive review ought to have been completed on the plans to create plutonium cores Los Alamos and at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. They assert that nearby communities have been saddled with legacy contamination from previous defense function.

Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico known as the national government’s plans”provocative and unnecessary,” saying more manufacturing is going to cause more waste and help to fuel a new arms race.

The nuclear agency in a statement said it expects to set cost and schedule baselines in 2023 as part of this continuing process. It also intends to keep on reviewing the project”to improve the fidelity” of price and timeline estimates.