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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation The US Nuclear Weapons Stockpile: Congressional Testimony by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, March 20'Statement of Spencer Abraham, Secretary, US Department of Energy, Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, March 20, 2003'; US Department of Energy website, http://www.energy.gov. Introduction... The President's FY 2004 Budget of $23.4 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) continues the Administration's commitment to ensure national defense and safeguard the Nation's energy security through advances in science and technology, as well as fulfill our obligation as environmental stewards to surrounding communities. ... Of the total FY 2004 budget request of $23.4 billion, approximately 71 percent of the total Department of Energy budget, or $16.6 billion, is for the Department's Defense programs within the jurisdiction of this Committee. Within the $16.6 billion budget, $8.8 billion is to support activities in the National Nuclear Security Administration, $6.8 billion to fund the environmental cleanup activities, $430 million to fund the Defense Nuclear Waste Fund, and $522.7 million to fund Other Defense Activities. This budget request reflects and addresses the critical challenges we face today and will continue to face in the coming decades. I have charted a course for the Department that emphasizes DOE's critical contributions to our Nation's national security and provides forward-reaching solutions to America's energy problems. These priorities as they relate to this Committee's jurisdiction are to:
The FY 2004 Budget is focused to deliver on these priorities. As part of the Department's Strategic Planning process these priorities translate into six overlapping departmental goals that form our core mission of National Security. All of the Department's planning and budgeting for FY 2004 drives toward these six goals:
National Nuclear Security AdministrationThe Department of Energy, through the National Nuclear Security Administration, preserves US national security by ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of our Nation's nuclear deterrent, working to reduce the global danger from the proliferation of nuclear materials and other weapons of mass destruction, and providing technical expertise in advancing Homeland Security. The FY 2004 budget request for NNSA is $8.8 billion, a $925 million increase above the FY 2003 budget request, and includes:
The Administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) set the current national nuclear weapons policy reflected in the Department's FY 2004 budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The NPR calls for the NNSA to maintain the viability of the Nation's nuclear weapons capability without the use of underground testing; develop a stockpile surveillance and engineering base; refurbish and extend the lives of selected warheads; and maintain a science and technology base, including responsive facilities and infrastructure, needed to ensure the safety and reliability of the Nation's nuclear weapon stockpile. ... Weapons Activities: One of my most important responsibility as Secretary of Energy is to certify to the President the safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile. Our nuclear weapons capability protected the nation and helped us to win the 50-year Cold War. Today it continues to be a key strategic component of our Nation's security posture. Our challenge today is large and complex: we must maintain the safety; security; reliability; and effectiveness of our aging nuclear weapons stockpile without resort to underground testing. We must also provide a manufacturing base for the production of a replacement weapon if the need should arise. Our FY 2004 Budget proposes $6.4 billion for the Weapons Activities program, which also includes funding for safeguards and security for NNSA sites and for rebuilding our national security infrastructure. For the last seven years, the Stockpile Stewardship program has allowed the Secretaries of Energy and Defense to certify to the President that (1) the Nation's nuclear weapons stockpile is safe, secure and reliable and (2) that there is no need to resume underground testing. To ensure that the existing stockpile continues to meet it's military requirements, the NNSA also has a comprehensive refurbishment program known as stockpile life extension. It is presently working on 4 warhead types in the enduring stockpile - the W87, W76, B61, and the W80. This program designs, builds, tests and installs new subsystems and components thereby extending the operational service life for these warheads for some 30 years. NNSA is also restoring the full suite of manufacturing capabilities needed to respond to any stockpile contingency. NNSA is installing an interim pit production capability at Los Alamos. Later this year Los Alamos will deliver a W88 pit that will meet all quality manufacturing requirements for use in the stockpile. This will be the first pit made by the United States since the shutdown of Rocky Flats in 1989. NNSA has begun work on design and siting for a modern pit facility that will be capable of manufacturing all pit types for the current stockpile and any new requirements, should they arise. To complete the materials supply story, NNSA will begin producing new tritium for the stockpile by irradiation of tritium producing rods in a TVA reactor this fall. We are also investing in the leading edge scientific and engineering tools required to support the stockpile now and into the future. Three areas deserve special mention. First, with the advanced scientific computing initiative (ASCI), NNSA is working with U.S computer manufacturers to acquire the world's fastest and most capable computers to address nuclear weapons performance issues that several years ago were impossible to solve. Second, the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrotest Facility at Los Alamos is providing Acat-scan-like@ images of weapons implosion processes. This test bed provides critical data to validate the ASCI codes. Third, later this year, the world's most powerful laser, the National Ignition Facility, will begin to carry out experiments at the Lawrence Livermore national laboratory in support of the nuclear weapons stockpile. As the Nuclear Posture Review highlighted, the threats we face today are dramatically different from those we faced a few years ago. To ensure that future American presidents have deterrence options to deal with these threats, we have a modest Advanced Concepts program ($21m) underway. $15 million will be allocated to the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). This program will examine whether or not two existing warheads in the stockpile B the B61 and the B83 B can be sufficiently hardened through case modifications and other work to allow the weapons to survive penetration into various geologies, with high reliability, before detonating. The remaining funds will be divided between the weapons laboratories for studies of other advanced concepts work. DOE supports about $1 billion annually for ongoing operation of NNSA facilities at the government-owned, contractor operated, national laboratories, production plants, and test site. In addition, $273 million is requested in FY 2004 for eight new construction starts and 12 ongoing construction projects. The Facilities and Infrastructure Recapitalization Program ($265 million) is responsive to the Nuclear Posture Review infrastructure guidance, and is in its third year to restore, rebuild and revitalize the physical infrastructure of the nuclear weapons complex that has deteriorated and is in immediate need of attention. This program is tightly structured to address highest priority needs, to eliminate deferred maintenance requirements, and eliminate excess space in all nuclear weapons complex facilities. Our responsibilities also encompass security for the nuclear weapons complex. In the past year, we have placed the highest priority on addressing urgent, emergent concerns about the safeguards and security posture of our nationwide complex of facilities and transportation systems following the events of September 11, 2001. In addition to increasing our protective forces, enhancing training, and upgrading equipment, we will begin a modest R&D effort to try to improve the effectiveness of technologies for physical and cyber security. We also upgraded our emergency response assets, which are available to be deployed in emergencies around the world. Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation: America's safety must be our paramount concern. Presidents Bush and Putin have agreed to an unprecedented level of bilateral cooperation to control the proliferation of nuclear materials. The President's FY 2004 budget request of $1.3 billion for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation reflects the Administration's full commitment to reducing the global nuclear danger and participating in the Global Partnership to sustain nuclear nonproliferation initiatives in the former Soviet Union. This request supports Departmental programs to (1) enhance US capability to detect nuclear weapons proliferation, (2) prevent and reverse proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), (3) protect or eliminate weapons and weapons-usable nuclear material and/or infrastructure, and redirect excess foreign weapons expertise to civilian enterprises, and (4) reduce the risk of accidents in nuclear fuel cycle facilities worldwide. The FY 2004 funding level for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation reflects a 30% increase over the FY 2003 request of $1 billion. The increase provides for the start of construction of a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility in the US and US efforts to assist Russia with the start of construction of an industrial scale MOX fuel fabrication facility. In addition to MOX construction activities, the request of $657 million for Fissile Material Disposition supports completion of design activities for the pit disassembly and conversion facility and continuation of the US "off-spec" HEU blend-down project. Additionally, the request includes $30 million to implement a new program to accelerate nuclear materials disposition efforts in support of the 2002 G8 Summit initiatives to purchase Russian highly enriched uranium (HEU) above the amounts in the 1993 US/Russia HEU Purchase Agreement. The United States is currently in the process of drafting agreements with Russia for the purchase of highly enriched uranium from Russia to supply selected US research and test reactors and for the purchase of downblended Russian HEU for a low-enriched uranium (LEU) stockpile in Russia. The FY 2004 request also provides $40 million for the Russian Transition Initiative (RTI) to reduce the migration risk of nuclear and WMD expertise in the former Soviet Union. The RTI partners former Soviet weapons scientists with US industry partners on projects selected for their commercial potential, while also assisting the Russians in downsizing their nuclear weapons complex and opening the closed nuclear cities to commercial ventures. RTI has garnered over $125 million in matching resources from US industry partners, which amounts to $3 in private sector funds for every $2 in US Government funding. In addition, private investment funding has contributed over $90 million to further augment its technology commercialization efforts. The FY 2004 request also includes $50 million to assist the Russian Federation to cease its production of weapons-grade plutonium by providing replacement power production capacity. In FY 2003, responsibility for the program was transferred from the Department of Defense to the Department of Energy. Agreements were recently signed with the Russian Federation, allowing work to be initialized on this program. The request includes $204 million to support the research, development, testing, and evaluation of nuclear proliferation detection technologies for agencies responsible for monitoring proliferation and combating terrorism. A request of $226 million for the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program (MPC&A) will continue to improve the security of weapons-usable nuclear material and weapons in Russia, and secure materials that could be used in radiological dispersion devices (dirty bombs). Specifically, the Department is working to secure approximately 600 metric tons of fissile materials and thousands of warheads. The program provides for security of trucks and railcars transporting nuclear weapons-usable materials and consolidates nuclear material at fewer locations in order to reduce vulnerability from theft and sabotage. In FY 2004, cooperation will expand to include Russian strategic rocket forces. Additionally, the MPC&A request supports efforts to install radiation detection equipment at borders of Russia and the former Soviet Union in order to prevent nuclear smuggling and illicit trafficking. The Nonproliferation and International Security request of $102 million supports US efforts to control exports of items and technology that aid in the development of WMD, implement international safeguards in conjunction with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and explore and implement innovative approaches to improve regional security. In addition, the FY 2004 request includes an increase for development and delivery of tools to meet requirements to detect, understand, and verify dismantlement of clandestine nuclear programs. ... © 2003 The Acronym Institute. |