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United States: Senate Committee Approves Bush Nuclear Weapons Objectives By David Ruppe The marked-up bill, the largest ever, will now go before the full Senate for consideration. The House Armed Services Committee is expected to complete its companion bill next week and approve similar, if not the same, measures (see GSN, May 8). Last year, Democrats, who then controlled the Senate, blocked a number of similar measures proposed by the Bush administration. Now Republicans control both houses, and the recent committee actions suggest that most, if not all, of the Bush administration’s nuclear weapons-related requests will prevail. “The president got most of what he wanted,” said Steve LaMontagne, a research analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, noting that two measures approved by the Senate committee related to U.S. aid for nuclear and chemical weapons elimination abroad could conflict with language in the House bill. Repeal of Low-Yield Nuke Ban In perhaps the most controversial of the nuclear weapons-related measures, the Senate committee authorized a repeal to a 1994 ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons. The Bush administration has sought the repeal so it can explore designing new weapons to use against facilities containing chemical and biological agents, as well as deeply buried, hardened targets. Critics have charged such activity would undermine international nuclear nonproliferation efforts and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (see related GSN story, today). A House Armed Services subcommittee also approved the repeal this week, but the full committee may agree to some limitations under a compromise now under negotiation with the ban’s original co-author, Representative John Spratt (R-S.C.). The Senate committee also authorized $15 million to continue a feasibility study on a system called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (see GSN, March 7) and $6 million for the Advanced Concepts Initiative, which aims at improving earth-penetrating weapons. Testing Readiness The Senate committee also approved an Energy Department request to reduce the time it would take to prepare for a nuclear weapon test from 32 months to 18 months. Analysts say the move suggests the administration might be contemplating testing new nuclear weapons. Bush administration officials, however, have said there are no plans to resume testing and that shortening the test readiness time is only a contingency measure. The United States has observed a moratorium on nuclear testing since 1992. Critics say the move could undermine international efforts to discourage nuclear testing that is banned by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — a measure that has not yet entered into force, and one that President George W. Bush has indicated he will not ratify. Cooperative Threat Reduction The Senate committee also approved two measures related to threat reduction aid outside of the United States — items that apparently do not appear in the House bill. A waiver authorizing funding for chemical weapons destruction in the former Soviet Union garnered a one-year extension. The waiver, which was approved last year, would allow fiscal 2004 funding to be spent on the Russian chemical weapons demilitarization program at Shchuchye in the event that Russia does not meet six conditions required in another U.S. law (see GSN, Jan. 15). Experts say the president is unlikely to certify that Russia has met all of the conditions — which include facilitating U.S. verification of destruction activities there and complying with all relevant arms control agreements — and so, without the waiver, chemical weapons destruction activities at Shchuchye would end when fiscal 2003 money runs out. Last year’s extension was fought and defeated by Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who now chairs the House Armed Services Committee. The waiver was not included in the 2004 bill introduced by Hunter. The Senate committee also approved an administration request to allow allocating a portion of the $450 million Defense Department Cooperative Threat Reduction programs to be spent outside the former Soviet Union. Similar legislation also was opposed by Hunter last year and does not appear in the House bill, although a separate bill introduced this year in the House would give the Energy Department such authority.
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