[ RadSafe ] News Article: Rep. David Hobson on Administration's Nuclear Weapons Initiatives

[John Jacobus]

As noted below . . .

"Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department
of Energy has ever articulated to me a specific
military requirement for a nuclear earth penetrator.
At DoD's urging, I even spent an entire day at Offutt
Air Force Base getting briefed by STRATCOM, but I was
never told of any specific military mission requiring
the nuclear bunker buster.
. . .
". . . What is needed, and what is absent to date, is
leadership and fresh thinking for the 21 st Century
regarding nuclear security and the future of the U.S.
stockpile."


--------------------------------
FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science
Policy News Number 38: March 24, 2005

Rep. David Hobson on Administration's Nuclear Weapons
Initiatives

Rep. David Hobson (R-OH) will play a very important
role in crafting the congressional response to the
Bush Administration's FY 2006 request for the National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).  As chairman
of the House Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Subcommittee, Hobson has a key role in
writing the ultimate funding bill for NNSA.  Last
year, his subcommittee decided against funding several
controversial nuclear weapons initiatives, and his
subcommittee's recommendations later prevailed despite
opposition in the Senate and from the Bush
Administration (see
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/082.html and
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2004/154.html.)

The Administration seeks FY 2006 funding for the
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), the Modern Pit
Facility, Nevada Test Site Readiness Enhancement, and
a variant of the Advanced Weapons Concepts program.
See FYI #37 at http://www.aip.org/fyi/2005/037.html
regarding a recent hearing on these initiatives.

A speech Hobson delivered last month before the Arms
Control Association provides insight into his approach
on these controversial issues.  Selections of his
speech on RNEP, weapons concepts, and a Modern Pit
Facility follow; the full text of Hobson's remarks can
be read at
http://www.armscontrol.org/events/20050203_hobson_text.asp
which include his thinking on the new Stockpile Plan.

"My primary message to you today is that the time has
come for a thoughtful and open debate on the role of
nuclear weapons in our country's national security
strategy. There still is a basic set of questions that
need to be addressed:

"How large a stockpile should we maintain?
Should we have a set of older weapons with many
spares, or should we have a smaller stockpile of more
modern weapons?  What design and manufacturing
capabilities do we need to maintain the DOE nuclear
weapons complex, and where should these capabilities
be located?  Is this the best use of our limited
financial resources for national defense?"

"I have been advocating for the past two years that we
must get beyond that Cold War legacy to a new strategy
that makes sense for the future. . . . Until we have a
real debate and develop a comprehensive plan for the
U.S. nuclear stockpile and the DOE weapons complex, we
are left arguing over isolated projects such as the
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator or the 'RNEP study'.

"I am happy to describe how we dealt with those high
profile projects last year, but remember that these
are peripheral issues, and we have yet to address the
more fundamental questions about our nuclear
stockpile."

ROBUST NUCLEAR EARTH PENETRATOR:  "With our FY 2005
[Energy and Water Development]  bill, I feel like we
had some success putting the weapons program of the
NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) on a
better path. Obviously, the activity that attracted
the most attention was the RNEP study, also known as
the 'nuclear bunker buster.' In the FY 2005 bill,
Congress zeroed out the funding request for the RNEP
study, primarily because of the lack of any
programmatic justification for such an effort.

"Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department
of Energy has ever articulated to me a specific
military requirement for a nuclear earth penetrator.
At DoD's urging, I even spent an entire day at Offutt
Air Force Base getting briefed by STRATCOM, but I was
never told of any specific military mission requiring
the nuclear bunker buster.

"The Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex
has so many fundamental management problems that have
not received sufficient Federal oversight that it
troubles me deeply that Congressional opposition to
RNEP generate so much attention. The development of
new weapons for ill-defined future requirements is not
what the Nation needs at this time. What is needed,
and what is absent to date, is leadership and fresh
thinking for the 21 st Century regarding nuclear
security and the future of the U.S. stockpile."

ADVANCED WEAPONS CONCEPT/RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD:
 "One other change we made last year was to zero out
the Advanced Concepts Initiative and redirect the
funding for weapons design work into a new effort
called a Reliable Replacement Warhead to improve the
reliability and longevity of existing weapons and
their components.

"Part of the Department's rationale for the Advanced
Concepts proposal was to challenge the skills of the
existing group of weapons designers and provide
opportunities for the younger generation of designers
to conduct design work and thereby maintain a skilled
cadre at the national labs.

"The Reliable Replacement Warhead concept will provide
the research and engineering problems necessary to
challenge the workforce while at the same time
refurbishing some existing weapons in the stockpile
without developing a new weapon that would require
underground testing to verify the design. A more
robust replacement warhead, from a reliability
standpoint, will provide the stockpile hedge that is
currently provided by retaining thousands of
unnecessary warheads."

MODERN PIT FACILITY:  "In the FY 2005 bill, Congress
rolled back the large request for the Modern Pit
Facility until the Department of Energy completes the
studies that will determine how big the production
capacity will have to be to maintain the stockpile.
Until we have that information, it is premature to
design and site a pit facility. I do not oppose the
eventual design and construction of a pit facility.
However, at this stage in the process, my concern and
responsibility is to provide sufficient oversight to
ensure the American taxpayers their money is being
well spent.

"DOE initially proposed a pit facility with a Cold War
production capacity of 450 pits per year ignoring the
Stockpile reductions decided by the President. I felt
that made no sense and argued for a go-slow approach
on this new multi-billion construction project until
the Department completes the science experiments on
plutonium aging to determine the actual production
capacity needed to support the long-term size of the
stockpile. The FY 2005 bill provides $7 million to
continue a conceptual design effort and the only
prohibition concerning the modern pit facility is on
designating a specific construction site during fiscal
year 2005."

###############
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi at aip.org    http://www.aip.org/gov
(301) 209-3094
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+++++++++++++++++++
"Embarrassed, obscure and feeble sentences are generally, if not always, the result of embarrassed, obscure and feeble thought."
Hugh Blair, 1783

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird at yahoo.com

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