Thursday
Jul172008
Cold War nuclear facilities hammered and sickled out
Thursday, July 17, 2008 at 11:56AM
The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces held a hearing to consider the National Nuclear Security Administration’s plan for modernizing the nuclear weapons complex. Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) said the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which maintains the nation’s nuclear weapons, is very successful, but its maintenance is scarcely considered. She said that as facilities of the Manhattan Project era crumble, America’s nuclear policies require updating.
Thomas D’Agostino, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security at the National Nuclear Security Administration said the U.S. is the only nuclear-armed state that is not modernizing its facilities. He said the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile was reduced by half during the Bush administration, so facilities need to be modernized and streamlined. He said a single planned facility in Tennessee would replace several aging Cold War era buildings. He said outdated facilities that handle Uranium and Plutonium pose safety concerns and are very expensive to maintain due to their large sizes. The NNSA plans to build new facilities to reduce square footage and increase efficiency.
Thomas D’Agostino, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security at the National Nuclear Security Administration said the U.S. is the only nuclear-armed state that is not modernizing its facilities. He said the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile was reduced by half during the Bush administration, so facilities need to be modernized and streamlined. He said a single planned facility in Tennessee would replace several aging Cold War era buildings. He said outdated facilities that handle Uranium and Plutonium pose safety concerns and are very expensive to maintain due to their large sizes. The NNSA plans to build new facilities to reduce square footage and increase efficiency.
Report: U.S. Losing Leadership In 21st Century Science And Technology
The United States is facing the risk of losing ground on the science and technology field if no adequate funding are given to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and to the laboratories, according to a report by the Stimson Center’s Task Force. Entitled “Leveraging the Nuclear Weapons Laboratories for 21st Century Security”, the report shows that a more successful cooperation needs to be sought between bureaucratic entities and the laboratories dealing with nuclear technology.
“If the entities that are intended to make strategic investments have to stand in line, you are not going to get where you need to go,” said Dr.Elizabeth Turpen, co-Director of the Cooperative Nonproliferation Program at the Stimson Center.
But, Turpen said, this collaboration can not occur while significant declines in the Defense Department funding limit growth.
“The relationship between the Department of Energy (DoE), NNSA and the labs is pretty fractured, if not completely broken... Laboratories definitely feel like they are not part of the decision making progress” and that will “impact their future,” said Turpen.
The lack of funding will ultimately result in the “potential for cascading unintended consequences to the detriment of U.S. national security,” Turpen said.
The report proposed the establishment of a “new and fully autonomous agency with multiple financial sponsors to provide broad national security, science and technology mechanisms and oversight to achieve the envisioned transformation,” which will make the agency less a victim of bureaucratic authority and having a more direct link with the laboratories.