Seventy-nine Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Protestant groups have joined together to reject administration plans to reactivate the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure and build new nuclear bomb plant facilities, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) have announced.

In a formal letter to the Energy Department, religious organizations from across the country called instead for the United States to end new nuclear weapons production and commit to multilateral disarmament.

"We call on our political leaders to show the moral and political courage necessary to bring about a shift in our nations nuclear weapons posture. Today we have a historic opportunity to begin the journey out from under the shadow of nuclear weapons," stressed the religious groups.

The letter was submitted to the Energy Department as part of a public comment period required to assess the environmental impact of Complex Transformation, the proposed plan to rebuild the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The centerpiece of this proposal is a new nuclear weapons facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, located 25 miles northwest of Santa Fe, NM.

The new bomb plant facility would enable the mass production of plutonium pits, the primary detonators in modern nuclear weapons.

The statements signers expressed concern that the new and upgraded facilities would be used in the development of a new generation of nuclear warheads, despite the moral and legal obligations of the United States to reduce its weapons arsenal.