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Labs’ Report Calls for Nuke Program Changes
A report by the U.S. nuclear laboratories states that the cost of maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal is greater than the available budget and keeping old warheads is forcing the United States to retain an unnecessarily large atomic stockpile, the Albuquerque Journal reported yesterday (see GSN, May 10). The findings of the report, authored by scientists from the Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories, echo concerns raised in a House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee report released last month. The House report calls for a reorganization of the nuclear weapons infrastructure. Both reports say it is impossible to maintain the Cold War nuclear arsenal by replacing parts as needed, according to the Journal. Maintenance of these weapons is possible “only at significantly increasing costs,” the laboratories’ report states. The “Stockpile Stewardship” program “merely preserve(s) nuclear weapons with outdated technology and a ponderous and expensive enterprise required to support old technology,” according to the laboratories’ report. Maintenance of older weapons forces the United States to “retain a relatively large number of reserve weapons to ensure against contingencies,” the report states. The House subcommittee report, directed by Representative David Hobson (R-Ohio) and included in the proposed 2006 Energy Department budget report, calls on the laboratories to design a “Reliable Replacement Warhead … designed for ease of manufacturing, maintenance, dismantlement and certification without nuclear testing.” To achieve this goal, the report recommends: reduction of spending on upkeep of current weapons; an increase in spending for the Reliable Replacement Warhead; a reduction on spending for potential underground testing in Nevada; a reduction in spending for nuclear weapons supercomputers; elimination of funding for a factory slated to produce plutonium nuclear weapon cores; and the delay of funds for a new Los Alamos plutonium laboratory until the United States has a better idea of the design of new warheads (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, June 14).
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