House Subcommittee Bombs “Bunker Buster” Funding

A House Appropriations subcommittee yesterday rejected the Bush administration’s request for $27.6 million to research nuclear “bunker buster” warheads, USA Today reported (see GSN, May 19).

The administration can still seek to restore the funding in the full House and the Senate, which is scheduled to vote on a similar cut Tuesday.

The panel also cut $9 million for nuclear weapons design research and $30 million for shortening the time needed to prepare a nuclear test (Diamond/Squitieri, USA Today/Yahoo!News, June 10).

Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson (R-Ohio) said the National Nuclear Security Administration should complete a review of current systems prior to embarking on new initiatives, the Associated Press reported.

“We put the brakes on a number of new nuclear weapons initiatives,” Hobson said. “The NNSA needs to take a timeout on new initiatives until it completes a review of its weapons complex in relation to security needs, budget constraints and a (recently completed) new stockpile plan,” he added (H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press/Fox News, June 9).

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