by Noah Shachtman
Wired
It ain't dead, yet. But the Bush administration's push to research and develop new nuclear weapons could be on the verge of collapse, after a key Congressional leader moved on Wednesday to eliminate funding for the atomic arms projects.
Ohio Republican Rep. David Hobson, who chairs the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, wiped out $96 million in nuclear projects from the government's budget for next year -- including funds for researching nuclear "bunker-buster" bombs and low-yield, "mini-nuke" weapons. Hobson also snapped the purse strings of projects to build thousands more plutonium hearts for nuclear weapons and to fast-track atomic testing.
Just last week, the Department of Energy submitted a plan to pare thousands of weapons from America's existing nuclear arsenal. But, despite the proposal, much of the country's nuclear arms budget is still at "Cold War" levels, Hobson complained in a statement. The Energy Department "needs to take a 'time-out' on new initiatives until it completes a review of its weapons complex in relation to security needs, budget constraints and this new stockpile plan."
Anti-nuclear activists were giddy after Hobson's stand. Two weeks ago, the full House of Representatives narrowly defeated an amendment to take away the money for researching the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" -- a weapon designed to burrow deep into the ground before unleashing a nuclear hell-storm in underground bunkers. Taken together, activists said they believe the maneuvers forecast a gloomy future for a new atomic arsenal.
"With so little enthusiasm for research, there's not going to be any chance for developing and deploying new nuclear weapons," " said Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
But the nuclear weapons budget still has a long way to go before Hobson's cuts are made final. And there are powerful members of Congress -- including Republican New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici -- who have been successful at preserving atomic funds.
"An extremely significant line in the sand has been drawn, courtesy of Mr. Hobson," said Jay Coughlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. "But these are just cuts marked up by a subcommittee -- albeit a very powerful subcommittee. Let's see how it survives the entire appropriations process."
Hobson has had a contentious history with the Energy Department's atomic overseers. Last year, he pared back proposed funding for some weapons research programs. For others, he withheld funds until the Bush administration came up with a plan to shrink the country's nuclear weapons stockpile. That road map -- to halve the American arsenal by 2012 -- was submitted last week.
"After several years of frustration, we finally put a fence around some of (Energy Department's) advanced concepts funding and said that it would not be available until the department delivered a revised stockpile plan," Hobson said in a statement. "I admit that we held a DOE program hostage until they produced this revised stockpile plan, and you know what? -- the power of the purse does work!"
Now, Hobson is going several steps further. He has taken away all the money for a plant to make nuclear weapons' plutonium cores, and for researching so-called "mini-nukes" -- low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons with less than a third of the destructive power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Energy Department did not respond to requests to comment. But Hobson's efforts are potentially bad news for the department's nuclear weapons facilities, like Los Alamos National Laboratory. After the House lifted a ban on low-yield research last year, National Nuclear Security Administrator Linton Brooks told lab chiefs in a memo (PDF) that, "We should not fail to take advantage of this opportunity. I expect your design teams to engage fully."
Wired
It ain't dead, yet. But the Bush administration's push to research and develop new nuclear weapons could be on the verge of collapse, after a key Congressional leader moved on Wednesday to eliminate funding for the atomic arms projects.
Ohio Republican Rep. David Hobson, who chairs the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, wiped out $96 million in nuclear projects from the government's budget for next year -- including funds for researching nuclear "bunker-buster" bombs and low-yield, "mini-nuke" weapons. Hobson also snapped the purse strings of projects to build thousands more plutonium hearts for nuclear weapons and to fast-track atomic testing.
Just last week, the Department of Energy submitted a plan to pare thousands of weapons from America's existing nuclear arsenal. But, despite the proposal, much of the country's nuclear arms budget is still at "Cold War" levels, Hobson complained in a statement. The Energy Department "needs to take a 'time-out' on new initiatives until it completes a review of its weapons complex in relation to security needs, budget constraints and this new stockpile plan."
Anti-nuclear activists were giddy after Hobson's stand. Two weeks ago, the full House of Representatives narrowly defeated an amendment to take away the money for researching the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator" -- a weapon designed to burrow deep into the ground before unleashing a nuclear hell-storm in underground bunkers. Taken together, activists said they believe the maneuvers forecast a gloomy future for a new atomic arsenal.
"With so little enthusiasm for research, there's not going to be any chance for developing and deploying new nuclear weapons," " said Stephen Young, a senior analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
But the nuclear weapons budget still has a long way to go before Hobson's cuts are made final. And there are powerful members of Congress -- including Republican New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici -- who have been successful at preserving atomic funds.
"An extremely significant line in the sand has been drawn, courtesy of Mr. Hobson," said Jay Coughlan, executive director of Nuclear Watch of New Mexico. "But these are just cuts marked up by a subcommittee -- albeit a very powerful subcommittee. Let's see how it survives the entire appropriations process."
Hobson has had a contentious history with the Energy Department's atomic overseers. Last year, he pared back proposed funding for some weapons research programs. For others, he withheld funds until the Bush administration came up with a plan to shrink the country's nuclear weapons stockpile. That road map -- to halve the American arsenal by 2012 -- was submitted last week.
"After several years of frustration, we finally put a fence around some of (Energy Department's) advanced concepts funding and said that it would not be available until the department delivered a revised stockpile plan," Hobson said in a statement. "I admit that we held a DOE program hostage until they produced this revised stockpile plan, and you know what? -- the power of the purse does work!"
Now, Hobson is going several steps further. He has taken away all the money for a plant to make nuclear weapons' plutonium cores, and for researching so-called "mini-nukes" -- low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons with less than a third of the destructive power of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Energy Department did not respond to requests to comment. But Hobson's efforts are potentially bad news for the department's nuclear weapons facilities, like Los Alamos National Laboratory. After the House lifted a ban on low-yield research last year, National Nuclear Security Administrator Linton Brooks told lab chiefs in a memo (PDF) that, "We should not fail to take advantage of this opportunity. I expect your design teams to engage fully."
