Nuclear Weapons Research

I posted last year on the push to create low-yield nuclear weapons. It's not 
necessary to read those old posts; they weren't that enlightening.  The gist 
of the deal was that we authorized monies to buy radioactive fuels from former 
Soviet Union states and spanked other countries (like Brazil, 
Iraq, Iran, etc.) for having, wanting, or even allegedly wanting to have 
nuclear capabilities while we looked into getting back into the nuclear arms 
race.



A snippet from H.R. 1588, the Defense Authorization Act of FY 2004:

SEC. 3116. REPEAL OF PROHIBITION ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-YIELD 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

(a) REPEAL- Section 3136 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 
Year 1994 (Public Law 103-160; 107 Stat. 1946; 42 U.S.C. 2121 note) is 
repealed.

(b) CONSTRUCTION- Nothing in the repeal made by subsection (a) shall be 
construed as authorizing the testing, acquisition, or deployment of a low-
yield nuclear weapon.

(c) LIMITATION- The Secretary of Energy may not commence the engineering 
development phase, or any subsequent phase, of a low-yield nuclear weapon 
unless specifically authorized by Congress.

(d) REPORT- (1) Not later than March 1, 2004 , the Secretary of State, the 
Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy shall jointly submit to 
Congress a report assessing whether or not the repeal of section 3136 of the 
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 will affect the 
ability of the United States to achieve its nonproliferation objectives and 
whether or not any changes in programs and activities would be required to 
achieve those objectives.

(2) The report shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a 
classified annex if necessary.

SEC. 3117. REQUIREMENT FOR SPECIFIC AUTHORIZATION OF CONGRESS FOR COMMENCEMENT 
OF ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT PHASE OR SUBSEQUENT PHASE OF ROBUST NUCLEAR EARTH 
PENETRATOR.

The Secretary of Energy may not commence the engineering development phase 
(phase 6.3) of the nuclear weapons development process, or any subsequent 
phase, of a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator weapon unless specifically 
authorized by Congress.


However, it seems the Congress is intent on moving forward with development of 
these weapons, no matter how limiting the above language seems.

Ted Kennedy and Diane Feinstein tried to bring forth an amendment to eliminate 
the funding currently allocated to studying the development of mini-nukes ($9 
million) and the RNEP aka "bunker-busters" ($27 million) in this year's 
Defense Authorization Act.  The amendment was voted down, 42 - 55.  I was 
surprised to find both Jim Jeffords and Pat Leahy were clearly marked Not 
Voting.  

A statement made by Kennedy about these funds can be found in the 
Congressional Record, as well as at http://kennedy.senate.gov.  I can't find 
the actual numbers given by Kennedy in the bill, S. 2400, on thomas, but maybe 
the most recent version isn't up, or it's part of an amendment. still digging, 
still parsing.

-c

--
Scorpio: (Oct. 24—Nov. 21)
You claim that you never asked for this crap, but there's your signature, 
plain as day, on all the crap-request forms.

- The Onion

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