DOE 06 Budget

Nuclear Weapons, Environmental Management and Waste Disposal in the Energy Department's FY06 Budget Request

Funding for nuclear weapons should be reduced, but it goes up to $6.63 billion in FY06, a $46.7 million increase from the prior year. This level is more than one and a half times the amount the U.S. spent on average during the Cold War and is wholly unnecessary to preserving the safety of the nation's nuclear arsenal.

Funding for environmental cleanup and waste management should be maintained, but it is cut $548 million dollars, a 7.8 percent drop from the prior year. The Department of Energy (DOE) has abandoned its earlier commitment to transfer resources from closure sites to those awaiting closure in favor of cutting funding and accelerating DOE out of the cleanup business. The largest cuts are at the most contaminated sites -- Hanford and Savannah River -- where essential water resources are threatened.

Funding for environmental cleanup and waste management at seven weapons sites should be maintained, but is cut by about $18 million, a more than 9 percent drop. In addition, a new Office of Environmental Projects and Operations in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the semi-autonomous body within the DOE is responsible for nuclear weapons, would take over those sites. NNSA should pay for cleanup of newly generated wastes but the Office of Environmental Management (EM) should maintain responsibility for cleanup as the office with developed expertise, the single point of contact within DOE on cleanup, and because EM's culture of secrecy is less severe than NNSA's.

Funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator should be eliminated, but the request includes $8.5 million for the program, $4 million through the NNSA and $4.5 million through the Air Force for drop tests. Congress zeroed out funding for this project in FY05 and the Pentagon has yet to issue a military requirement for the weapon. The RNEP is not a low-yield nuclear weapon and will cause massive collateral damage. Pushing new nuclear weapons undermines our nonproliferation objectives.

Funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead is $9.35 million and should be canceled. This new project aims to produce a new design warhead with a longer shelf-life without testing. ANA and other arms control groups are concerned this new weapon could lead to new missions, expanded production, and a return to full-scale testing. Further, it signals to the world that the U.S. never intends to honor its obligation under the NonProliferation Treaty to eventually disarm its nuclear stockpile.

Funding for warhead dismantlement should be bolstered but NNSA requests only $35.2 million for the Retired Warhead Stockpile Systems account and fails to report that Congress awarded $75 million for dismantlement in FY05, showing only $35 million allocated for the present fiscal year. NNSA budget projections for dismantlement show a steady decline over the next five years, rather than ramping up to meet the requirements under the Moscow Treaty.

Funding should be cut for Life Extension Programs ($348 million) and Stockpile Systems ($311.8 million), the programs that upgrade and modernize warheads. Instead, the priority should be on dismantlement which is crowded out by Life Extension programs performed at the same facilities at Pantex, near Amarillo, Texas and Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

Funding should be struck for the Modern Pit Facility (MPF), a new nuclear bomb plant for which NNSA requests $7.6 million for in FY06. This is an increase above the $7 million awarded after Congress cut the Administration's $30 million request in FY05. NNSA wants to spend $125.7 million on the MPF over the next five years. A new bomb plant is unnecessary as the arsenal continues to be certfied as safe and reliable. Building a new bomb plant for mass production of existing pits and future new-design pits undermines our nonproliferation objectives.

The $25 million requested to enhance the readiness of the Nevada Test Site to conduct underground nuclear testing within 18 months should be canceled. Last year Congress rejected the NNSA's effort to shorten the lead time in which to return to full-scale testing from 24 months to 18. The U.S. should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty rather than accelerating the momentum towards resuming testing and undermining global nonproliferation norms.

Tritium production in Tennessee's Watts Bar commercial nuclear power plant should stop and the $87.6 million for producing tritium and maintaining the current tritium inventory should be cut. This is an increase from FY05's level of $79.1 million and is unneeded given the dramatic reduction in tritium production at Watts Bar. Future reductions to actively deployed nuclear weapons will both lower the overall need for tritium and offer opportunities to recycle existing tritium from retired weapons. Producing weapons grade materials in a commercial reactor is hypocritical given our firm opposition to this activity in other nations.

Funding for the construction of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is $141.9 million and should be cut. This level is an increase from $129 million the prior year and adds to the $4 plus billion cost overrun of the project. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where NIF is based, wants to perform additional plutonium experiments not in the NIF baseline, an added provocative mission which Congress should debate.

DOE's request of $651.4 million for Yucca Mountain should be cut. The request includes $351.4 million through the defense nuclear waste disposal account and another $300 million through the nuclear waste disposal account. This represents an increase of $79 million over FY05, but a lower amount than was requested in FY05 due to legal battles over institutional controls and a delay in the license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). DOE hopes to submit its license application to the NRC by December.

Funding should be cut for NNSA's FY06 request of $338.6 million for the MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility and $24 million for the Plutonium Disassembly and Conversion Facility. This request comes despite over $700 million remaining unspent from prior years due to delays in starting construction of these projects over disputes with Russia over liability issues in the plutonium disposition program there. Meanwhile, DOE's Environmental Management program includes $10 million for the initial conception design of a new Plutonium Disposition Facility to enable the immobilization of plutonium stored at Savannah River Site that cannot be converted into mixed oxide fuel.