When House and Senate conferees sit down in coming weeks to resolve
differences in the $400.5 billion National Defense Authorization Act
for FY 2004 there will be many points to resolve. Although some
provisions of this massive bill will be changed, there is unlikely to
be significant alteration to several controversial provisions
regarding research on new types of nuclear weapons or in nuclear
weapons test site preparations.
Both the House and Senate have approved their versions of the defense
authorization bill. There was little disagreement about the overall
spending level, which is a bit more than the Bush Administration's
request (with actual funding yet to be determined in the
appropriations bill.) Controversy this year centered more on policy
provisions within the legislation, among them three requests by the
Administration relating to nuclear weapons.
The nuclear weapons provisions of the two bills, H.R. 1588 and S.
1050, largely reflect the Administration's recommendations in three
areas:
1. Repeal of the prohibition on research on nuclear weapons with
yields of less than five kilotons:
The House bill repeals the statutory prohibition on low-yield nuclear
weapons development contained in the FY 1994 authorization law. The
committee report cited the need for weapons laboratory personnel to
actually exercise the design process, the pending retirement of
weapons testing personnel, the need for the National Nuclear Security
Administration (NNSA) to "understand 'the art of the possible,'"
by
potential adversaries, and the committee's contention that "the
present Cold War stockpile may not meet future technical requirements
for a credible strategic deterrent." It is important to note that
the accompanying House report states, "The committee observes that
before any advanced concept enters engineering development (phase
3/6.3), and prototype hardware is fabricated, NNSA requires the
formal approval of the Nuclear Weapons Council and a budget
authorization from Congress." During House floor consideration
of
this bill Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) offered an amendment to transfer
the $21 million authorized for this low-yield weapons research ($6
million) and for an earth penetrating weapon ($15 million) (see
below) to conventional weapons research. This amendment was
rejected on a largely party line vote of 199-226. The Senate killed
an amendment offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to prohibit
R&D on low-yield nuclear weapons. After a series of votes, the
Senate agreed to an amendment requiring explicit congressional
approval for work on the new nuclear low yield weapon to go beyond
the research stage into development. The provision agreed to by the
Senate states: "The Secretary of Energy may not commence the
engineering development phase, or any subsequent phase, of a low-
yield nuclear weapon unless specifically authorized by Congress."
Testing, acquisition or deployment of a low-yield nuclear weapon is
not authorized by the Senate bill. This weapon would have an
explosive force of about one-third of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
2. Research on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator:
The Administration requested $15 million to modify existing nuclear
weapons for deeper penetration into the ground to destroy underground
enemy bunkers. The House rejected an amendment to transfer these
funds to conventional weapons research under the Tauscher amendment
cited above. In the Senate, Byron Dorgan (D-ND) offered an
amendment to prohibit the use of funds for the Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator. This amendment was killed by a vote of 56-41. The
destructive power of this weapon would be ten times that of the
Hiroshima bomb.
3. Nuclear Test Site Readiness:
Both the House and Senate bills require the Secretary of Energy to
achieve and maintain a readiness posture of 18 months for the
resumption of underground nuclear tests. Current testing readiness
is three years. No amendments were offered on the House or Senate
floor regarding this provision. The United States has observed a
testing moratorium since 1992. In 1999, the Senate rejected a
nuclear test ban treaty.
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