Posted on 07/01/2005 6:35:28 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Senate OKs Continued Study of Nuclear Arms
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jul 1,12:47 AM ET
Research into the feasibility of a bunker-busting nuclear weapon would be kept alive under legislation the Senate passed early Friday.
The research was approved as part of a $31.2 billion spending bill for energy and water projects. The bill also includes funds for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, though not as much as President Bush requested.
The bill passed 92-3 after a debate over whether to spend $4 million for research into the bunker buster nuclear warhead, which would be aimed at penetrating underground enemy bunkers.
The House measure contains no funds for the bunker buster, officially called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Critics say the weapon is unworkable and that the development of a new nuclear weapon would be the wrong signal for the United States to send to countries such as North Korea while trying to persuade them to shelve their weapons programs.
"A bunker buster cannot penetrate into the Earth deeply enough to avoid massive casualties and the spewing of millions of cubic feet of radioactive materials into the atmosphere," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.
Supporters of the weapon won a 53-43 vote. They said its funding was only for a feasibility study to see whether a new, sufficiently-hardened casing can be developed for existing warheads to see whether it could penetrate the earth sufficiently to destroy reinforced underground bunkers.
The underlying Senate measure provides $1.5 billion more than both Bush's request and a version that passed the House last month. Even so, the chamber declined to fully fund Bush's $651 million request for the troubled Yucca Mountain facility, freezing spending for it at $577 million. The Senate also repelled a House effort to establish temporary storage sites as a backup to Yucca Mountain.
Instead, the Senate would funnel $5.3 billion into the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for waterways and flood control projects, providing almost $1 billion more than Bush asked for.
And Energy Department nuclear research labs located in the home state of Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting record), R-N.M., would get an impressive boost as well.
The Senate did meet Bush's request for $339 million for a new plant at the federal Savannah River complex in South Carolina to produce mixed-oxide fuel. The new facility is a key part of the Bush administration's effort to safeguard the tons of excess weapons-grade plutonium held by both the United States and Russia and reduce the risks of the material being obtained by terrorists or a rogue state.
The House bill provided just $35 million for the mixed-oxide plant.
The Senate also rebuffed a House effort to establish temporary storage sites as a backup to Yucca Mountain.
The House called on the Energy Department to produce a plan for aboveground storage for spent reactor fuel from commercial nuclear power plants within four months at one or more federal sites. It also set October 2006 as the date to begin accepting waste and provided $10 million for the program.
Some lawmakers worry that temporary storage could become permanent and the House plan alarmed lawmakers representing sites such as the Hanford complex in Washington state that were mentioned in a report accompanying the House bill.
Yucca Mountain, approved by Bush in 2002, is planned as a national repository for 77,000 tons of defense and commercial nuclear waste, to be buried for 10,000 years and beyond in the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. A string of recent setbacks has put the program in doubt.
The Yucca Mountain facility is now projected not to be finished until 2012 and could be delayed further.
I think "We're building a weapon which can nuke your ass no matter how deep in the ground you build your bunker" is exactly the kind of message we need to send to North Korea.
While I don't agree with everything President Bush does (or doesn't do) his flashes of common sense are wonderful to behold. Of COURSE we need bunker busters. Of COURSE we need to stop farting around with Yucca and get it rolling (Arizona's own "Big Dig"). Of COURSE we need more nuclear power plants and alternatives to imported oil.
Less weather dependent.
An ideal device would have nuclear detonation not from a spherically compressed ("point") source but from a non-spherical, shaped charge source. Would be fun to watch, from a safe distance.
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