Nuclear ‘Bunker-Busters’ Get Busted in The Senate

On October 25, Senator Pete Domenici [R-NM] revealed that funding slated for a study looking into the creation of earth-penetrating nuclear weapons was cut from the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (H.R.2419). The Bush Administration had requested $4 million for a nuclear “bunker-buster” study in their FY06 budget request, but objections from opponents of new nuclear weapons research and concerns over the mounting budget deficit appear to have overcome Administration pressure for the initiative.

The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) study, first floated as an idea in 2002, focused on developing a new nuclear weapon that would penetrate deep into the earth before detonating. Administration officials and other supporters of the program argued that they needed a tactical nuclear weapon to destroy buried targets, like underground bunkers. Opponents of the bunker-buster point out, however, that the proposed weapon, more than 70 times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, would cause unprecedented collateral damage and could, depending on its yield and location, cause up to one million casualties. Further, they insist that researching new nuclear weapons would undercut U.S. efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons abroad.

Exploratory funding for potential RNEP designs has been included, in one form or another, in appropriations legislation for every year since 2002. Each year, however, opponents in Congress have managed to remove funding for the bunker-busters. In 2004, for example, $27.5 million was successfully deleted from the FY05 Appropriations Bill, despite emphatic claims from the Bush administration that the design project was merely a research study. In January of this year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent a memo to Spencer Abraham, then the Energy Secretary, which stated that the 2006 appropriations should include the funding necessary to continue the bunker-buster project.

Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS) has opposed the creation of new nuclear weapons including the ‘bunker-buster’ project and we enthusiastically applaud those in Congress who helped defeat the RNEP study. We urge the Administration and Congress to continue to seek out alternative security tactics that reinforce and support U.S. nonproliferation policies.


Updated October 28, 2005