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Lawmaker Warns Against Developing New U.S. Nukes By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — A key U.S. congressman, who led successful opposition to the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program last year, yesterday sharply warned the Bush administration against any ambitions to build new nuclear weapons capabilities through its Reliable Replacement Warhead program (see GSN, March 2). “This is not an opportunity to run off and develop a whole bunch of new capabilities and new weapons. This is a way to redo the weapon capability that we have and maybe make them more reliable, make them better mission capable,” said Representative Dave Hobson (R-Ohio), chairing a hearing of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development and Related Activities Subcommittee. The Bush administration has described the Reliable Replacement Warhead program as an effort to develop new nuclear weapons and components to replace components of the existing arsenal, with the purposes of increasing U.S. nuclear weapons reliability, speed of manufacture, serviceability and security, and improving the weapons complex so new weapons could be more quickly developed for new missions. The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study was intended to determine whether existing nuclear weapons could be modified for greater reliability of exploding after slamming into hard earth in order to destroy deeply buried, hardened facilities. The Energy Department formally canceled that program last month, after Hobson led congressional efforts for two consecutive fiscal years to deny it any funding, according to a congressional report (see GSN, March 24). Hobson applauded the administration’s decision this year, under pressure from Congress, to terminate the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator feasibility study. “NNSA and DOD took the first steps towards transforming the weapons complex this winter by finally working with the Congress to terminate the nuclear ‘bunker buster’ proposal. I think DOE and DOD, the Congress, the American people, and frankly, the world, are better off because of this policy change,” he said. While the Reliable Replacement Warhead program should be permitted to produce “enhanced capability,” Hobson said, “I don’t want any misunderstandings as to media coverage of these things, and … sometimes within the department, people hear only what they want to hear. … We’re not going out and expanding a whole new world of nuclear weapons as we get in[to] this Reliable Replacement Warhead situation.” Testifying before the committee, National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks responded by “stressing that [the] reliable replacement concept envisions the same military capabilities on the same delivery systems, holding at risk the same targets. And it’s not the beginning of a new round of new weapons.” Critics have said the program could produce new weapons capabilities and have noted it is intended to help facilitate changes to the U.S. nuclear weapons complex that would enable it to more rapidly design, develop and produce new weapons types if a decision were made to do so. Two other congressmen at the hearing noted a chart sent by Brooks’ agency to the committee shows much of the current nuclear stockpile would be reduced and replaced by reliable replacement warheads. Separately, Hobson criticized the U.S. nuclear weapons complex for “resistance to change,” in particular; to implementing the recommendations of an Energy Department nuclear weapons infrastructure task force. The Secretary of Energy Advisory Board in July 2005 called for the immediate design of a Reliable Replacement Warhead, building a consolidated nuclear weapons production facility housing key nuclear weapons components, and more aggressive dismantlement of the Cold War stockpile. “I’ve been very disappointed by the apparent disinterest of the NNSA in implementing the recommendations,” Hobson said. “The current complex, in my opinion, is too large for any conceivable future need, and much too inefficient to be maintained, given shrinking federal resources,” he also said. Brooks said his agency is working on a “vision of the future nuclear weapons complex,” which he said would draw “heavily, though not completely,” on the task force recommendations, and which would be presented at a later hearing. Brooks said he believes a new capability would be needed in the future for mass production of plutonium cores for nuclear weapons, “to include the ability to produce pits both for reliable replacement of warheads and because of the as-yet not fully understood consequences of pit aging.” Critics recently have argued a new production capability is not needed, citing yet-unpublished work by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers suggesting plutonium pits should be reliable for decades longer than the previously thought 45 to 60 years. Brooks has said previously the government has not yet reached a conclusion on plutonium pit aging. Hobson also criticized the administration for not heeding congressional direction in the fiscal 2006 energy and water appropriations conference report on a funding increase for the Y-12 nuclear weapons production plant. He urged the administration to “fulfill the will of Congress after Congress fulfills its constitutional duty by passing a budget.” “This year the Department of Energy seems to have decided to follow what I think is a very dangerous path of ignoring or maliciously complying with congressional direction in the fiscal year 2006 bill. And I will promise you all that is a very short-sighted and possibly disastrous policy to follow,” he said. “And I expect the department to implement the programs and execute the budget in a way that reflects the law and the congressional intent, because if you read the Constitution, it doesn’t give the departments the ability to violate the law or the intent of the law. And if this Congress has to start going after people, we will,” he said. Brooks told the committee, “We’re committed to carrying out the will of the Congress. It happens from time to time that individual decisions, when they are added together, don’t fit, and that [in] time we try to make them fit, and clearly in this case that’s what we’re trying to do. I think that I am committed to continue to work with you and with the committee on the specifics, and I also look forward to working with the committee staff to avoid the situation in the past — or in the future.”
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