Senate Lawmakers Reject New U.S. Warhead

A U.S. Senate panel this week rejected a Bush administration effort to develop a new nuclear warhead while supporting more funding for nuclear laboratory activities than House lawmakers approved earlier this year, the Albuquerque Journal reported (see GSN, May 23).

The Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee zeroed a $10 million administration request for the Reliable Replacement Warhead, reaffirming last year’s congressional rejection of the program.  Warhead advocates have argued that the new design would enable the United States to decrease its nuclear arsenal more rapidly because the nation would need a smaller reserve stockpile if there were greater confidence in those warheads (see GSN, March 6).

Critics, however, have questioned both the need for new weapons and the effect such a program would have on other nations’ nuclear ambitions (see GSN, Feb. 14).  U.S. House appropriators also zeroed the administration request earlier this year (see GSN, June 26).

The Senate subcommittee did support more funds for the nation’s nuclear laboratories, setting up a conflict with House lawmakers later this year.

The House has eliminated a request for a new plutonium laboratory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, but the Senate subcommittee provided $125 million.  In addition, the House rejected a request for funds to ramp up a facility to build the plutonium cores of nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, while the Senate subcommittee provided $145 million, the Journal reported.

Overall, the subcommittee approved nearly $600 million for nuclear weapon programs and $300 million for weapon maintenance, according to the Journal.

“I think we’re going to come out all right,” said Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), working on his final Energy Department funding bill before retiring.  “The House obviously has taken a different approach, and that’s their prerogative.  But we’re in great shape coming out of (the Senate).”

Subcommittee Chairman Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) expressed hope that the final congressional bill would keep the higher funding levels for the laboratories.

“They are America’s jewels, they are the seat bed of new science, new inquiry, new discovery and new research,” he said.  “At some point, we’ll need to develop some kind of stabilization plan for funding these national jewels” (Coleman/Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, July 9).

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