New Warhead Faces Uncertain Path Forward in Congress

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Having announced a design for the nation’s first new nuclear weapon in decades, the Bush administration must now prepare to fight for the Reliable Replacement Warhead on Capitol Hill (see GSN, March 2).

Discussion of the controversial program is all but assured Wednesday when Gen. James Cartwright, head of U.S. Strategic Command, appears before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Subcommittee Chairwoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) said Friday’s announcement of an initial design “is only an early step in what will be a long evaluation process.”

“We will further examine the proposed path forward on RRW, through hearings that start next week with an appearance by General Cartwright before our subcommittee,” she said in a joint statement Friday with ranking panel Republican Terry Everett (Ala.).

Officials from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Defense Department last week tapped a team from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to lead the effort to replace the W-76 submarine-launched warhead with a new design.

The decision of the Livermore design over an entry from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was made primarily because the California design draws on nuclear elements that had previously undergone underground explosive testing, officials said.

That means the Livermore design would be able to enter the nation’s nuclear stockpile without nuclear testing, acting NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino said Friday.  That the Livermore entry was more closely linked to previous testing makes officials more confident in the ability to certify the design without ever detonating it, he said.

Concerns about testing were and remain central in the debate over the Reliable Replacement Warhead program.  If approved by Congress, the program could result in the eventual replacement of the entire U.S. stock of aging nuclear warheads with weapons officials say would be easier and safer to maintain.

Some experts have argued that the program, which would see a more than threefold increase in funding to $88 million through the president’s proposed fiscal 2008 budget, could not produce an acceptable warhead without testing (see GSN, Feb. 6).  That could pose a problem with Congress, where the program faces a potentially rocky path forward.

Tauscher supports the effort but has said if the new warheads require testing she would see no alternative but to pull funding from the program.

The United States has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee Chairman Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), whose panel oversees funding of nuclear weapons facilities, has criticized the lack of a coherent policy supporting the RRW program.  He has called for a comprehensive outline describing the mission and size of stockpile necessary for the nation’s strategic nuclear goals and has also called for hearings on the program.

“This announcement puts the cart before the horse,” he said in a statement Friday.  “Although a lot of time and energy went in (to) determining a winning design for a new nuclear warhead, there appears to have been little thought given to the question of why the United States needs to build new nuclear warheads at this time.”

While Lawrence Livermore is set to lead development of the nuclear components of the new design, scientists from Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico would be in charge of the weapon’s non-nuclear parts.  Cost estimates for the new weapons, along with engineering and production plans, are scheduled to be developed over the next year and then presented to Congress.

There are features of the Los Alamos design that NNSA officials called “highly innovative” and will be developed in parallel with the Livermore design program.  Elements from the New Mexico facility’s entry might be incorporated into the new warhead intended to be fitted on the Navy’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

The announcement was originally expected in January.  It was delayed in part by concerns from the Navy, which will oversee the RRW project team, over funding control of the project, officials said.

Officials within the U.S. nuclear complex argue that the program is needed to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation’s stockpile despite the arsenal being certified as safe and reliable each year.  The current Stockpile Stewardship Program results in minor alterations to the warheads that over time could require a return to underground testing to ensure their continued viability, official say.

In justifying the program, officials say the new warheads would incorporate more modern parts and simplify stockpile maintenance.  The new weapons would also incorporate insensitive high explosives and more sophisticated safeguards, making them less vulnerable to accidents or possible detonation by terrorists.

Rather than representing an increase in the number of nuclear weapons maintained by the United States, officials argue that the RRW program would allow the nation to eventually decrease its atomic arsenal.  The sheer size of the current arsenal, which was maintained as a hedge against a possible failure of weapons, could be reduced as more robust warheads are brought online, according to officials.

The Moscow Treaty requires the United States and Russia to both reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, called the RRW program unnecessary.  “The existing stockpile is reliable,” he said.

If the administration is truly concerned about reducing the size of the stockpile, its options include reassessing the role of the arsenal and the current set of targets, Kimball said.  With its huge arsenal of warheads, the United States is still postured to fight the Cold War, he noted.  “I don’t think these arguments add up under closer examination.”

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