Sen. Dorgan on Funding for Complex 2030 and RRW

Below is a constituent response letter from Sen. Byron Dorgan, chairman of the key Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, regarding funding for Complex 2030 and the Reliable Replacement Warhead program.

In the letter, Dorgan expresses skepticism that RRW will receive funding next year when a decision is expected to be made about whether to authorize activities beyond the 2A research phase. This contrasts sharply with recent statements made by Thomas D'Agostino, deputy administrator for Defense Programs within the National Nuclear Security Administration.

According to Defense Daily (subscription required), D'Agostino said last week that (despite recent cuts in the Senate and being zeroed out in the House) he is still confident that RRW will receive funding from Congress in FY '08 once key lawmakers who have been critical of the project have a better understanding of its importance via classified briefings that he is hosting.

Optimistic or just plain naïve?

July 3, 2007

Dear [Constituent],

Thank you for contacting me about the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program as well as Complex 2030. We have just completed writing the Appropriation Subcommittee bill that contains these issues, and as chairman of the committee, I have zeroed out funding for Complex 2030. I do not support funding for that proposal.

In addition, I decreased by 20 percent the President's request for the RRW program. My intent is to allow them to continue research through what is called, "Phase 2A," following which there must be an authorization of that program. I believe that next year there will be no funding for that program unless it is authorized, and frankly I have grave doubts about whether it should be authorized. I believe it causes very serious questions about our commitment to nonproliferation if we are in the business of building new nuclear weapons through the RRW program.

This country needs to have a national discussion, and to make a decision, about what will be the role of nuclear weapons in our future. How many nuclear weapons do we need? How much of a reduction of nuclear weapons can be made? What kind of nuclear weapons should exist, and how will we meet our commitment under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty to reach zero nuclear weapons at some point in the future?

The United States is the nuclear superpower that has a responsibility to provide leadership in nonproliferation issues. We must stop the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent terrorists form acquiring them. That is why this debate about the RRW program is so critical. We need to take seriously our responsibility to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists. We also need to be sending the message to the world that we are serious about reducing the number of nuclear weapons. Thank you for sending me your thoughts. I hope this information is helpful.

Sincerely,

Byron L. Dorgan
U.S. Senator

Nuclear Programs Language from Report on Senate FY2008 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill

Last week the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its markup of the FY2008 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, which I already wrote about in detail here.

The Committee has released its report on the bill, which explains in detail its funding decisions for each program. Below is the report’s language for two of the biggest nuclear weapons programs, the Reliable Replacement Warhead and Complex 2030, which together seek to design a new generation of nuclear weapons and build the infrastructure to support subsequent production of these new warheads. I have highlighted some of the key statements from the Committee.


RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD

The Committee is divided on the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, but unified in its desire to review and discuss our national strategic defense policy and the role of nuclear weapons in the post-cold war and post-September 11th world. The President requested $88,000,000 for the RRW program and the bill will provide funding of $66,000,000. This is the amount required to complete phase 2a, design definition and cost studies, of the RRW research and planning outline. Following the completion of phase 2a, Congress will have to authorize any continuation of the RRW program.

To clarify, "phase 2a" is fancy jargon for saying that the funding can only be used for research and design. The RRW program cannot go into production or deployment if the funding is restricted to phase 2a activities.

The information developed from phase 2a will be helpful in assessing the role RRW might play in the reliability, safety, and nonproliferation areas of the nuclear weapon arsenal, but the information alone will not be enough upon which to base a decision on it construction or deployment. Congress should have a more vigorous analysis and debate of our national strategic defense policy prior to deciding whether to continue or terminate RRW development.

Specifically, we need to decide the type and size of our future inventory of nuclear weapons. We have thousands of warheads. Under treaties we have committed to substantial reductions and eventual elimination of nuclear warheads. We must decide the methodology of meeting those obligations and over what time. In the meantime, we also have to determine how we maintain the warheads we decide we must keep. Do we continue the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which has been used for many years to maintain our nuclear deterrence, or do we develop the RRW program to replace the current nuclear warheads with new ones?

These are important questions that must be answered before we decide whether to continue with or terminate the RRW program. Some of these answers will be influenced by how long the current nuclear warheads can be maintained in the Stockpile Stewardship Program without degradation. New evidence suggests that the life of those warheads is decades longer than previously estimated. The future funding requirements for a new RRW program will also have to be weighed against and compared to the costs of the Life Extension Program within the Stockpile Stewardship Program.

We should also consider what impact the RRW program would have on international nonproliferation efforts. The United States is engaged around the world on trying to halt the spread of nuclear weapon capability and we must consider the role of RRW in those efforts. These are among the most important issues policy makers will face in the months and years ahead. The question of whether the RRW program should be continued must be based on accurate information and thorough debate.

The Committee favors the development of a bipartisan commission created by the Congress to evaluate and make recommendations on the role of nuclear weapons in our future strategic posture. That commission should engage the administration, the Congress and the best minds in the public and private sector to evaluate the future role of nuclear weapons as a part of our defense and strategic policies. That Commission report can form the basis of information and advice from which the President and the Congress can make decisions about the future of RRW and other weapons programs.

So, the Senate bill allocated $66 million for the RRW program, which is significantly more than the House version of the bill—the House allotted ZERO dollars for RRW. However, both the House and Senate agree that nuclear weapons programs will not be expanded until there is a serious discussion about the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy. Furthermore, the Senate emphasized that future nuclear programs must help the U.S. fulfill its treaty obligations to reduce and eventually eliminate its nuclear weapons arsenal.


COMPLEX 2030

Complex 2030 is a comprehensive plan to update, reorganize, and rebuild the nuclear weapons complex. Both the House and Senate have expressed deep skepticism about he program.

The Committee rejects the Department's premature deployment of the NNSA Complex 2030 consolidation effort. This plan was based on the adoption and deployment of the Reliable Replacement Warhead systems. The Government Accountability Office found this proposal to be lacking critical details about the size and military mission of the RRW system, which of course would dictate the size and makeup of the future stockpile including the necessity for a new pit manufacturing capability.

The Committee has previously canceled the Modern Pit Facility, because the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Nuclear Weapons Council and the Department of Defense were unable to make a compelling case for a significantly larger pit manufacturing need. The Committee has not provided any funding for the Consolidated Pit Center for the very same reason.

For as much thought as the Department has given to supporting Complex 2030 and its deployment, the Committee is concerned about sustaining the science capability at the laboratories and ensuring a balanced program that continues to make critical investment in improving the scientific mission. For example, the NNSA has established a preeminent capability in super computing to simulate warhead reliability without underground testing. However, the Department has no plans to advance the field of high performance computing, but instead proposes to reduce computing capacity within the laboratory system. This, however, doesn't mean that the NNSA doesn't have plans to purchase additional platforms in the future, but it is unclear what is driving these decisions. The Committee is frustrated by the lack of planning to ensure that the laboratory mission is not compromised.

The Committee directs the Department to provide a comprehensive computing proposal that involves the input from the weapons laboratories that includes a long term strategy to maintain the necessary simulation capabilities within the complex and to drive innovation and competition for technology and performance. The Committee is also frustrated with the lack of scientific development vision for the labs. The NNSA has focused on its transformational plan, based on the RRW systems, but appears to have given little thought to the scientific path forward.

The Committee directs the Department, drawing on the resources within NNSA and the Office of Science, to provide to the Committee a research and development plan that addresses unresolved physics and materials questions that win support national security mission as well as contributed to improving our energy independence, nonproliferation mission and to support biomedical applications. This plan should explore technology options that can be deployed and provide an added capability to our R&D program to update the scientific capabilities at each of the laboratories.

Senate Approves Markup on Energy and Water Appropriations

The Senate approved its markup of the FY2008 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill today. Overall the bill is good, but not great for the non-proliferation agenda, as it leaves a lot of work to be done for arms control advocates as we move into the next stages of the budget process.

BIG CUTS EXPECTED ACROSS THE BOARD IN JOINT CONFERENCE COMMITTEE

The Senate Energy and Water bill provides a total of $32.27 billion, which is $1.8 billion over President Bush’s request and $2 billion over funding for FY2007. As I mentioned earlier, Bush has threatened to veto the energy bill unless spending is lowered significantly. The House version of the bill also came out of its Appropriations Committee at about $1.1 billion over the president’s request.

Between President Bush’s veto threat and calls from the political right within the committees for increased fiscal responsibility, we can expect a lot of cuts across the board in the Joint Conference Committee once the House and Senate finalize their appropriations numbers.

SENATE OFFERING MORE MONEY FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS THAN HOUSE

$6.49 billion is allotted for weapons activities, which is $22 million less than the budget request, but $231 million over current levels. This is much more than the $5.879 billion for weapons activities currently allotted by the House.

Here are some current House Appropriations and the Senate Appropriations numbers side by side, followed by a bit of analysis on each line:

	House	Senate
Total Nuclear Weapons	$5.88 bil.	$6.49 bil.
Reliable Replacement Warhead	$0	$66 mil.
Plutonium Pit Manufacturing	$150 mil.	$256.3 mil.
Consolidated Plutonium Center	$0	$0
Non-proliferation	$1.809 bil.	$1.87 bil.

RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for non-proliferation advocates is the Senate committee’s decision to provide funds for the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons through a program called the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). While $22.7 million was cut from the program, the Senate decided to maintain $66 million for “stage 2a” activities (stage 2a means the funding can only be used for research and design, but not for the actual production of new nuclear weapons, yet).

While a cut is good, it is not enough. The remaining $66 million for RRW is a lot more money than the ZERO dollars allotted by the House. According to the Committee Report that accompanied the House’s version of the bill, it zeroed out funds for RRW because:

… it is premature to continue design activities for a new nuclear warhead until a revised U.S. nuclear weapons strategy is developed that describes the long term nuclear stockpile requirements and demonstrates how a new nuclear warhead is necessary to address specific U.S. national security requirements and nuclear nonproliferation requirements.

In other words, the House decided that it will no longer throw money blindly toward misguided nuclear programs until there is a serious debate about the U.S. nuclear posture and the role of nuclear weapons in the 21^st century.

At this point it is likely that RRW funding will stay at $66 million in the Senate, ZERO for the House, and there will be a fight in the Joint Conference Committee to come up with a final number. While the high Senate number makes it less likely, the ultimate funding for RRW may yet end up at zero if the looming presidential veto threat creates pressure to cut spending across all government programs.

PLUTONIUM PIT MANUFACTURING

The Senate allotted $256.4 million for plutonium pit manufacturing, 171% of the funding provided by the House. The Los Alamos National Laboratories are throwing a party to celebrate the first plutonium pit certified for the nuclear stockpile since the prior plutonium pit facility at Rocky Flats in Colorado was closed in 1989 -- this and the dangers associated with pit production are discussed in an excellent article you can find at Nukes on a Blog.

CONSOLIDATED PLUTONIUM CENTER

Good news came as the Senate chose to completely zero out funding to build a Consolidated Plutonium Center. All four committees, the Senate and House Authorization and the Senate and House Appropriation Committees, have zeroed funding for the new “bomplex”, indicating a strong resistance to the administration’s vision of building a new nuclear weapons complex under the so-called Complex 2030 Program.

NONPROLIFERATION

The Senate markup offers $1.87 billion for nonproliferation activities, which is $200 million more than the presidential request and $54 million over current year levels. It is also about $69 million more than offered by the House

John Edwards Aspires for a Nuclear Free World

John Edwards won some fans in the arms control community this week. During a Q&A session at the Council on Foreign Relations, the presidential candidate said he does not support building new nuclear weapons and wants to see a nuclear weapons free world. This is in stark contrast to the Bush administration, which is pushing for the development of new nuclear weapons through the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program and Complex 2030.

Here is what Edwards said:

... we should aspire to a nuclear-free world. I agree with that. Now, there are a lot of steps that have to go between here and there. Some of them are pretty obvious, which is America should not be building new nuclear weapons. And then I think America should be doing things like leading an international effort to close the holes in the NPT. There are clearly serious flaws in the NPT.

As I reported here, the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee axed all funding for the RRW program last week. The Senate is next to look at RRW in June, and is expected to increase funding beyond the requested $88.8 million.

We, your faithful bloggers, will continue to provide in-depth analysis on the national security positions of the candidates as we move toward the 2008 elections. Stay tuned.