Energy Department Formally Ends Effort to Develop New Type of Earth-Penetrating Nuclear Warhead

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Energy Department’s Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program was recently declared “closed out,” according to a February U.S. Congressional Research Service report posted on the Internet (see GSN, Jan. 27).

Congress rejected the Energy Department’s request for $4 million in the present fiscal year to continue a feasibility study of the weapon and an Air Force request for $4.5 million to study integrating it onto the B-2 bomber. Lawmakers instead directed $4 million toward Air Force research on an earth-penetrating weapon.

The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study, led by the Air Force but funded and implemented by the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, was intended to assess whether a more reliable nuclear weapon could be developed for use against facilities deeply buried under hard earth.

The National Nuclear Security Administration made no explicit requests for RNEP funding in its proposed fiscal 2007 budget, and the agency “stated in February 2006 it has closed out the project,” the Feb. 21 report says.

With the NNSA side of the earth-penetrator project shut down, it says, “this report will not be updated further.”

Reflecting that Congress had blocked funding for the program in fiscal 2005, “NNSA stated in January 2006 that it disbanded the RNEP teams in March 2005,” it says.

There have, nevertheless, been indications the administration may try to revive the program in the future.

An Air Force official suggested in December that the study of an ostensibly conventional penetrator by the service would provide information for an RNEP feasibility decision in the future, according to a news report (see GSN, Jan. 3).

Further, while the National Nuclear Security Administration has said a planned key “sled test” of the penetrator’s shell would not be allowed at its previously planned location of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the Defense Department could use the facility’s equipment and “expertise” to conduct the test elsewhere if it chooses to do so.

The Congressional Research Service report concludes by “clarifying several points that were at issue in earlier [congressional] debates on RNEP,” which it says, “may help focus any future debate.”

Those points are:

— There is no formal military requirement for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator;

— There is considerable interest by the Defense Department and the armed services in learning, through the proposed penetrator study, whether the weapon is feasible;

— The possible conversion of a B83 nuclear bomb to an earth penetrator would not involve changing the yield of the weapon;

— The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator — and probably any other nuclear earth penetrator — would not penetrate the ground deeply enough to contain fallout. Use of the weapon would therefore cause a “huge” amount of fallout and destruction; and

— As the penetrator, if it is deployed, would be a nuclear weapon, a presidential decision to use it would be very difficult.

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