Committee Directs RNEP Research to Resume

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Setting the stage for a congressional showdown later this year, a key Senate committee yesterday approved $4 million requested by the Bush administration to test the feasibility of developing a new earth-penetrating nuclear weapon (see GSN, June 15).

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the money for the Air Force to conduct the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study as part of the fiscal 2006 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.

In report language accompanying the bill, it said that while the Air Force would be responsible for the study, actual field-testing should be conducted at an Energy Department National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory.

“The NNSA-DOD teams will conduct B83 impact studies and analyze test data. Sandia National [Laboratories] is the site of the RNEP tests and the laboratory possesses a unique set of capabilities to conduct the test on a qualified test track where they are able to design and produce necessary instrumentation,” the Senate committee report says.

The language proposes to bypass an effort by certain House legislators to block for the second year in a row funding for the Energy Department study, this year by allowing only for study of conventional penetrator options by the Air Force. 

The House Appropriations Committee, in a report last month accompanying its fiscal 2006 Energy and Water Appropriation bill, urged there be no funding for the RNEP study or for earth-penetration testing by an Energy Department national laboratory.

“It is the understanding of the committee that, instead of conducting an RNEP study at a DOE national laboratory, the Department of Defense will conduct a non-nuclear penetrator study at a Department of Defense facility,” it said.

The House so far has not approved appropriations for the nuclear study either by the Energy Department or the Air Force. However, an attempted amendment to add the money to the House fiscal 2006 defense appropriations bill could happen next week and that bill could be quickly approved. 

Meanwhile, the House’s fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill authorizes the Air Force to resume the study while the Senate version authorizes the Energy Department to restart work.

Congress last year omitted all funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, following the lead of Representative Dave Hobson (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee. 

Critics have charged the program undermines U.S. efforts to halt international nuclear proliferation and that the battlefield weapon would not be usable because of inevitably large surface destruction and radioactive fallout. The Bush administration has argued the proposed new capability could give it a more effective weapon for destroying deeply buried facilities.

This year, Hobson and House Armed Services Committee Democrats negotiated with that committee’s Republicans a deal to provide $4 million to the Air Force for earth penetration evaluation, which would to allow a key field test to occur.  

Democrats have insisted that the so-called “sled test,” which involves slamming the penetrator’s hard metal shell into a huge block of concrete, not be used to determine the feasibility of a nuclear penetrator. Transferring responsibility for the test to the Air Force, they reasoned, would accomplish that because the Air Force has no expertise in developing nuclear weapons (see GSN, May 23).

Republicans, on the other hand, insisted the deal would allow resumed study of the nuclear option. The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday argued the nuclear earth penetrator testing should resume, and do so at Sandia. 

“There are no other facilities aside from Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where the test data can be readily used to validate computer models that require terra-scale computers to model the data,” it said.

The field test would cost twice as much were it to occur at another facility, the committee said.

“The committee urges the [Energy] Department to quickly complete the testing and opposes the department moving this test to any other facility, as it would be a waste of taxpayer resources,” it said.

“The congressional committees are deeply divided on whether to continue to pursue feasibility testing of RNEP,” said Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball.

“I think this means that [Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairman Pete] Domenici (R-N.M.) and Hobson are on a collision course in conference,” he said, referring to the meeting where House and Senate leaders resolve bill differences.

Were the anticipated new earth penetration capability determined feasible, the Bush administration by law would need the approval of Congress to begin advanced development and production of the weapon.

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