Nuclear Bunker Buster Revived in Budget

Even though lawmakers axed such funding last year, the Bush administration is pushing Congress to support a $4 million Department of Energy study for enabling nuclear warheads to penetrate deeper underground before exploding. The Air Force is also asking for $4.5 million in the Pentagon’s latest budget request to help conduct the study.

The research request came as part of the $6.6 billion fiscal year 2006 request for the weapons activities of the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). All told, President George W. Bush requested $9.4 billion for NNSA, which is $233 million higher than current spending. In addition to its weapons activities, NNSA is seeking $786 million to power the nuclear navy and $1.6 billion for securing and disposing of nuclear materials worldwide.

NNSA is asking that $2 billion, or nearly one-third of its weapons funds, be set aside for certifying and sustaining existing warheads without nuclear testing, which the United States halted in 1992. Efforts to extend the service lives of three warhead types—B61, W76, and W80—total $348 million in the latest budget request, while $35 million is slated for retiring and dismantling excess warheads. The latter figure equals current funding despite an administration announcement last June to almost halve by 2012 the total stockpile, which exceeds 10,000 warheads. (See ACT, July/August 2004.) This suggests the proposed reductions are being held off until later.

Administration officials argue that full implementation of the reduction plan must proceed in tandem with a renewal of the nuclear weapons complex. That way, warhead production can be restarted if necessary due to unforeseen technical problems in existing warheads or the emergence of a new threat.

One element in establishing this “responsive” infrastructure is decreasing the time it would take to resume nuclear testing. The administration is seeking $25 million to ensure that a test could take place within 18 months of a decision to do so. When the Bush administration took office, this time span stood at 24-36 months.

The administration is also asking for nearly $7.7 million—$125 million is envisioned over the next five years—to continue advancing plans for a Modern Pit Facility to build new warhead cores, known as pits, to replace those whose plutonium has degraded over time. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman testified Feb. 15 to the Senate Armed Services Committee that his department is figuring the facility will eventually need to churn out 125 pits per year based on an estimated 60-year lifespan for each device. Prior projections for an annual production capacity of up to 450 pits were sharply criticized by legislators as excessive.

Another initiative attracting attention is the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, for which the administration is seeking $9 million. Contrary to congressional understanding last year, The New York Times reported Feb. 7 that the program entails designing new warheads rather than refurbishing existing ones. Bodman refuted this description, stating, “[I]t’s a matter of maintaining what we have and not, I think as some have suggested, creating something.” A NNSA spokesperson gave Arms Control Today Feb. 18 a fuller description, saying the program’s “focus is to extend the life of those military capabilities provided by existing warheads, not develop new warhead types with new or different military missions.”

Yet, few of the nuclear-weapon projects are likely to generate as much debate as the proposed exploration of improving U.S. capabilities to strike deeply buried targets with a modified nuclear warhead, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), or “nuclear bunker buster.”

Led by David Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, Congress last year denied the administration’s $27.6 million RNEP request. (See ACT, December 2004.) In a Feb. 3 speech in Washington, Hobson justified the cut on the basis that “nobody has come in to me yet and convinced me that [the RNEP] is scientifically possible” or identified a military mission for it.

Still, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld urged the Energy Department in a Jan. 10 memo to restore RNEP funding to its budget. The Pentagon also decided to seek complementary funding for the first time.

Air Force Chief of Staff General John Jumper testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 10 that his service would use the money to investigate how to deliver RNEP from a B-2 bomber. “No modifications or any cutting of metal is in this,” Jumper said.

The NNSA spokesperson said the Air Force funds, if approved, would go toward “developing specific military requirements for the warhead, for the navigation kit, and for the interfaces between the warhead, the navigation kit, and the aircraft.” The spokesperson added that, due to the congressional budget cuts last year, the RNEP study, if resumed, would only look at modifications to the B83 warhead and not also the B61 as originally planned.

At a Feb. 16 House Armed Services Committee hearing, Rumsfeld asserted the funding was needed because “countries all across the globe are putting things underground and we have no capability, conventional or nuclear, to deal with the issue.” General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added, “Our combatant commander that is charged by this nation to worry about countering…deeply buried targets certainly thinks there’s a need for this study.”

Democrats remain unpersuaded. Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said Feb. 15, “The most serious issue facing the [Energy] Department, this Congress, and the nation, however, is the apparent obsession that this administration has with new nuclear weapons.” Many Democrats contend research into new nuclear weapons undercuts U.S. diplomacy to stop other countries from acquiring similar arms.

Many Republican lawmakers appear to be rallying behind the administration’s request. Senator John Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, described the RNEP and the Reliable Replacement Warhead programs Feb. 15 as “essential, prudent, and necessary.”

However, Hobson indicated in his Feb. 3 speech that his RNEP opposition would remain until convinced otherwise. But he urged the ensuing discussion to be a “thoughtful and open debate on the role of nuclear weapons” rather than focused on “isolated projects.” Hobson observed, “We spend over $6.5 billion a year babysitting an arsenal of nuclear weapons.”