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U.S. Response I: Energy Department to Seek 30 Percent Increase in Nonproliferation Funds By Bryan Bender The Bush administration’s fiscal 2004 budget submission, to be delivered to Congress Monday, will request more than $1.3 billion for nuclear nonproliferation programs, Abraham told a luncheon hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see GSN, Jan. 22). The department last year requested a little over $1 billion, he said. “This unprecedented level of funding comes just months after our successful effort to establish the G-8’s [Group of Eight] Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction,” Abraham said (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2002). He said the budget request, combined with the G-8 pledge to add $20 billion for nonproliferation programs during the next 10 years, demonstrates “how far this nation is prepared to go individually and collectively to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and materials.” The United States has already pledged to fund half of the G-8 program. Beefing Up Current Efforts and Initiating New Ones Some of the new budget resources for the coming year will be used to begin securing nearly all of the estimated 600 metric tons of nuclear weapons-usable materials remaining in Russia, a priority Abraham said he hopes to complete during the next few years, “in many cases ahead of previous schedules.” The increased funding will also help secure an additional 18 sites in Russia housing dangerous radiological materials, collect 225 orphaned or surplus radioactive materials in the former Soviet Union, and boost U.S. funding for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s nuclear safeguards efforts by 17 percent, Abraham said (see GSN, Oct. 23, 2002). The United States will cosponsor an international conference on securing radiological materials along with the IAEA in March in Vienna (see GSN, Nov. 14, 2002). In the new budget, $110 million will also be used to help spot nuclear proliferation by developing technologies for long-range detection and by improving the ability to identify the origin of nuclear weapons and materials after they might be confiscated or used, Abraham said. “We will also continue to refine our ability to detect illicit trafficking of nuclear materials at our own borders, and be looking at ways to make those borders even more secure,” Abraham said (see GSN, Oct. 21, 2002). Meanwhile, a new Energy program will seek to prevent “export control failures” by anticipating where WMD technologies are most vulnerable to theft or illicit transfer, he said. Russia Top Priority, But Expansion Necessary Abraham said Russian stocks of nuclear weapons and materials remain the top priority. With fiscal 2004 funding, the United States plans to begin building facilities for disposing of surplus plutonium from Russian weapons, working to shut down Russia’s plutonium reactors, and implementing a “modest new program” to purchase additional Russian uranium derived from nuclear weapons for use in a strategic U.S. reserve (see GSN, Oct. 4, 2002). In addition, the department hopes to fund efforts to improve security at Russian nuclear sites — including disposing of 1,200 Russian naval warheads — and to strengthen Russian border security. “The United States and Russia have taken major steps to secure Russian materials, but there is much more to be done,” Abraham said. Beyond Russia, Abraham said the department would seek to help strengthen regional nuclear security in the Middle East and Asia, through venues such as the Cooperative Monitoring Center at Sandia National Laboratory, which is responsible for understanding the evolving threat and reducing the incentives for states, such as North Korea, to acquire weapons of mass destruction. The new budget reflects Bush’s comments in Tuesday’s State of the Union address to Congress. “Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the greatest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons,” Bush said. “These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.” “We are strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world,” Bush added. “We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.” The new Energy budget “signals our intention to lead as we move ahead with this long, complex and costly process” of reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction, Abraham said today. He said the budget priorities reflect the “10 principles” of nuclear and radiological security that he outlined last fall (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002).
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