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to News But for the second year in a row, the anti-nuclear-weapons coalition has more than a prayer in its fight against the administration, the national laboratories and the New Mexico congressional delegation. Ultimately, the next administration will decide the fate of the program that upgrades existing nuclear weapons without the need for further nuclear testing. This year, the coalition’s outlook is not good. “My intention would be to provide no funding,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee. But killing government programs of this kind is about as difficult as getting rid of nuclear waste. Even though leading appropriators oppose the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, it retains widespread support among lawmakers for strategic and parochial reasons. The program is projected to cost up to $100 billion. And as much as the administration lays out arguments about updating the nation’s nuclear arsenal, the program would certainly provide future work for scientists at national laboratories in California and New Mexico that have already seen budget cuts. Key support has come from Republican Sens. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Jeff Sessions of Alabama. They back the National Nuclear Security Administration’s view, seeing the Reliable Replacement Warhead program as an upgrade to current programs that extend the life of nuclear weapons. The new program would be cheaper to maintain as well as smaller and safer than the current stockpile of nuclear weapons that degrade over time. Refreshing the nuclear arsenal would also bolster the nation’s effort to deter attacks, advocates say. In New Mexico, the program would mean plenty of high-end jobs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Republican Rep. Steve Pearce failed to restore funding on the House side for design plans cut from the defense authorization bill last month, citing work force concerns in a floor statement. “I would note that $10 million, the amount that is designated for the RRW, is just enough to keep the doors open — that once we allow this team of experts to dissipate, once these people are hired away, then we will never build another team,” Pearce said. Pearce’s staff is working directly with Los Alamos and other national laboratories to impress upon the rest of Congress that the Reliable Replacement Warhead program represents the future for maintaining the nation’s strategic nuclear deterrence. The national labs do have ties to corporations. For example, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is managed by Bechtel National Inc., the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Co., the Washington division of URS Corp. and Battelle Memorial Institute. But, according to one lobbyist, the companies try to stay out of policy debates as hot as the one over the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. In the past, the program enjoyed bipartisan support. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), whose district includes Livermore and Sandia national laboratories, initially backed the program. This year, Tauscher diverted $10 million for design work on the program to address technical questions raised by an outside review of the program. Support among appropriators deteriorated last year, even among the program’s initial backers. The program was first pitched in 2005 as a fairly
innocuous study to Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), then-chairman of
the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee. Hobson,
who helped move the program forward, was chagrined to learn the
administration’s plans for the program were far more extensive
than he had been led to believe. In addition to credibility concerns, the administration’s technical arguments about how rapidly a replacement is required were undercut by a third-party scientific review mandated by Congress that found the stockpile was not degrading as rapidly as initially projected. Its technical findings fueled more congressional opposition last year. And this year, the administration scaled back its own expectations for progress on the program, whittling its main budget request. The National Nuclear Security Administration is keen to fight any further budget cuts, said spokesman John Broehm. “As far as we’re concerned,” he said, “we absolutely need to move forward to improve security features on the warhead.” NNSA Director Tom D’Agostino recently told lawmakers that despite the third-party study, the way that “other exotic materials” age is not well-understood. “The metallurgical and chemical issues we face with our aging warheads continue to be a technical challenge for our best scientists, and the risk of catastrophic technical failure occurring as our warheads age cannot be ruled out absolutely,” D’Agostino said. “The one certainty we do know is that warhead certification in the absence of testing will become more difficult, especially as life extensions and component aging move the warhead further away from originally tested designs.” Dorgan, though, cites the findings of the third-party scientific study as one reason why the nation has time to chart a new course for its nuclear arsenal, rather than rush to fund the Reliable Replacement Warhead. He also opposes the program for other reasons, including its potential cost, which comes at a time when the administration recommends shutting down water programs. Rather than starting a new nuclear program, the nation should be sending a message of nuclear arms reduction, says Dorgan. That’s a viewpoint shared by the Council for a Livable World and other arms-control groups, as well as the Union of Concerned Scientists, among others. Opponents of the program see the Reliable Replacement Warhead as the start of a new nuclear weapon. Their strategy has been to chip away at funding and to delay it, with an eye toward a gradual decline in the nuclear arsenal and a shift of funds away from nuclear weapons research. “We’ll talk about total disarmament once we’re closer,” said Devin Helfrich, a lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Founded by Quakers, the Friends Committee is fighting on the grass-roots level, targeting Dorgan with letter-writing campaigns and visits to his state. Without a $10 million request for design work on the Reliable Replacement Warhead program this year, restarting it will fall to the next administration, which is expected to undertake a new review of the nation’s nuclear posture. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) addressed nuclear issues in a policy speech last week, but his comments left the door wide open on the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser for the senator’s presidential campaign, said last week that McCain would not specifically address the warhead program. Any new nuclear weapon would need to meet criteria including being key to deterrence, enabling reductions in the arsenal and furthering global nuclear security goals, he said. According to the Council for a Livable World, which keeps tabs on what the presidential candidates have said about nuclear weapons, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has co-sponsored legislation to block funding for the warhead program until the defense secretary reviews U.S. nuclear strategy. And Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has said he does not support a “premature decision” on the warhead program. With those caveats in mind, nuclear weapons foes believe that the death of the warhead program, or a successor effort, is not a done deal. “I would bet the next administration would not restart the Reliable Placement Warhead, but I wouldn’t bet my house on it,” said Stephen Young, a lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. |
