Answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Searchlight: Much of your work involves analyzing past and potential future harms of nuclear fallout. Given Trump’s pick to run the Department of Energy — Chris Wright, CEO of fracking juggernaut Liberty Energy — what do you foresee in terms of policy protections for the environment and vulnerable communities who work in or live near nuclear facilities?

Sébastien Philippe: I am very concerned about the possible erosion of environmental norms and protections in the next four years. There is a strong narrative coming out of this election that to maintain American dominance in the world and unleash its innovation and manufacturing power, the red tape must go and regulatory frameworks must be reformed or scrapped altogether.

For communities living near nuclear facilities, this could mean less transparency about what is happening in their backyard and relaxed safety standards. With increased pressure on the nuclear enterprise to meet production targets, this could also significantly raise the risks of nuclear accidents.

As a scientist, I’m also worried about agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency being defunded or reshaped. I am afraid this will have long-term consequences for the U.S. population and ecosystems. I’m saying this because the nuclear sector is not the only one we should be concerned about, but it’s an area where accidents have long and lasting environmental impacts.

As for the future head of the DOE, he seems to have little to no experience with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, that’s the lion’s share of the DOE budget and its primary mission. He comes from an industry that has had a very negative impact on the environment: water and land pollution and land degradation, to state the obvious.

Searchlight: Do you foresee a resurgence in uranium mining and milling? 

Philippe: One of the dominant factors shaping extractive policies in the next four years will be the competition and confrontation between the U.S. and China. We are expecting new U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. As a result, China is putting more and more restrictions on U.S. access to critical materials. This will affect supply chains for U.S.-manufactured cars, batteries, computer chips, but also nuclear fuel and uranium that are needed for new nuclear developments.

China has a lot of uranium needs and there is a geopolitical realignment of all the countries that are producing uranium. There are issues with getting uranium from Russia or from Central Asia or from Africa. One could foresee the new administration making the case, from a national security point of view, to expand mining drastically in the U.S.

In some sense, this process already started under Biden, but it will likely accelerate or cross new, visible thresholds. And of course, mining, no matter what you are extracting, involves the destruction of ecosystems, because you’re literally removing stuff from the ground in a way that is irreversible. For uranium mining, you’re digging or you’re injecting liquid mixtures with acids that are seeping into different underground layers and can contaminate groundwater. And then you have tailings accumulating in ponds and the ponds can themselves breach. These things can take forever to clean up. 

Searchlight: We know the story of contamination at Rocky Flats, America’s Cold War plutonium pit factory. Obviously, the output will be far less this time, but does that example give us a good working template for what could happen at LANL or SRS?

Philippe: Every site that has been involved in nuclear weapons production in the United States has experienced significant radiological and other types of long-term pollution. Some sites have been closed for good, like Rocky Flats. Some are reopening or being repurposed. Most have been turned into Superfund sites and are still undergoing cleanup at very high costs and with no end in sight.

I am afraid mounting pressure to produce more nuclear weapons will trump our environmental concerns about current and future production sites. Depending on who is in charge, how workers are treated and what the expectations and production targets are, you will have more opportunities for accidents. Most safety events are small and typically contained, but there is always a risk for a spark to turn into something bigger.

There have been major accidents in the past at the Rocky Flats Plant. Major fires have spread plutonium offsite. We must remember that Rocky Flats was raided by the FBI and the EPA and eventually shut down for repeated violations of environmental laws.

Right now, renewed pit production in New Mexico and South Carolina is supposed to happen in the 2030s, but there are voices asking for this timeline to accelerate. The question is: What actions will the Trump administration take in the next four years — possibly unraveling regulatory frameworks, lowering environmental or safety standards and putting pressure on national laboratories to meet plutonium pit quotas — that will increase the likelihood of accidents in the future?

Searchlight: What do you foresee for New Mexicans in the next four years?

Philippe: New Mexicans are citizens of a nuclear state. New Mexico is one of the largest storage places of nuclear weapons in the world. It is where new nuclear weapons are designed. It is now being turned into a nuclear bomb factory. In the next four years, New Mexicans will likely be called to support a new buildup of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. And that comes with the risks that are associated with it, whether it is the risk of radiological exposure for workers; slow, creeping and inevitable environmental contamination; or the risks of larger accidents with significant public health consequences.

In the broader realm of nuclear deterrence, it is also a place that would be heavily targeted should a nuclear war break out. Finally, it is a place where community groups have long played the role of nuclear watchdogs. 

New Mexico is a place of many possible nuclear futures.