|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
Lawmakers Agree on Nuclear Weapons Funding
The U.S. nuclear weapons budget for fiscal 2006 has tentatively been set at $6.4 billion, a 1.6 percent increase over this year’s budget, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 8). Negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives have backed that spending amount, which still must be approved by both legislative bodies and by President George W. Bush. “I believe we have come up with a package that will maintain key lab missions without personnel or facility disruptions,” Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) said in a statement. Although the budget essentially remains constant after taking into account inflation, some critics said the United States is still overspending on nuclear weapons development. “This country still spends nearly 50 percent above the Cold War average for nuclear weapons research, development, testing and production,” said Jay Coghlan, head of the private watchdog group Nuclear Watch of New Mexico (Fleck/Coleman, Albuquerque Journal/RedNova.com, Nov. 8). Congressional conference committee members also tagged $327 million in fiscal 2006 spending for a superlaser project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the San Francisco Chronicle reported today (see GSN, Sept. 14).. The amount is $10 million short of the $337 million the Bush administration sought for the project, known as the National Ignition Facility. Domenici, however, remained doubtful of the project’s viability. “Although we’ve settled on continuing construction at NIF, I remain skeptical that [the Energy Department] will be able to deliver on its promises regarding schedule, cost and scientific capability regarding NIF,” Domenici said in a prepared statement. More than $3 billion has been spent to date on the project, which was initially projected to cost less than $2 billion, according to the Chronicle. It is hoped that the project will be able to use lasers to model nuclear explosions, voiding the need to conduct actual weapons detonation tests (Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 9).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
