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Earth Penetrator Plan Hits Another Snag By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate’s Defense Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday provided no funding for the controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator feasibility study, another setback in the Bush administration’s uncertain effort to resume the program (see GSN, July 22). The full Appropriations Committee is scheduled to consider the $440 billion fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill on Wednesday. The Senate could vote on the bill next week. The House did not fund the study in its version of the defense bill. It instead approved $4 million for studying a conventional penetrator option. The Senate Appropriations Committee and the full Senate did approve this year the $4 million the administration requested in an Energy Department appropriations bill for study of the nuclear penetrator. The corresponding House bill, though, does not include the funding and differences in the two versions await resolution. “I think the issue is still in the balance for the nuclear bunker buster. The final outcome probably depends on the Energy appropriations bill,” said John Isaacs, president of the Council of a Livable World arms control organization. The appropriations bills are expected to be completed and voted on in the next few weeks. Opposition led by House appropriators last year denied funding for the program for fiscal 2005, which ends Sept. 30. That froze work toward conducting a major field test of the modified nuclear weapon shell, and a dummy warhead, to see if it could ram a warhead deeper into the ground before successful ignition than is possible with an existing penetrator. Were funding to resume, the test could occur in fiscal 2006 and the study could be completed by the end of fiscal 2007, according to an Energy Department statement quoted in a Congressional Research Service analysis published in August. After that, defense officials might decide whether to try to fully develop and build the new weapon. If Congress approves funding only for a conventional bunker buster study in fiscal 2006, that still could lead to the planned field test with the same modified shell and provide information about a potential nuclear penetrator. The House Armed Services Committee in a report this year said the results of the test would be applicable to various types of penetrators, the Congressional Research Service analysis noted. The Senate defense appropriations bill does contain the full $7.8 billion requested by the administration for the Missile Defense Agency. It also adds $200 million for “testing and enhancements of the Ground-Based Midcourse [Defense] program,” according to a committee press release. The House, in its fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill, approved an extra $100 million to conduct an operationally realistic intercept test of the system “as soon as practicable.” The Missile Defense Agency recently indicated it would not conduct such a test at least until summer 2006 (see GSN, Sept. 8).
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