Administration Seeks Money for New Nuclear Weapons (2/4/2008)
Rebuffed by Congress in 2007, Administration continues to pursue funding for
Reliable Replacement Warhead in FY09 budget
For immediate release - February 4, 2008
While much of the world is working toward nuclear disarmament, the Bush Administration this week asked Congress to fund the first new U.S. nuclear weapons in two decades and requested additional funding to build a new nuclear bomb making plant. The president’s annual budget, released Monday, requested $10 million for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program and $100 million to begin construction on a new plutonium pit facility.
"This administration just doesn’t seem to get the message. Congress and the people of this country do not want these new weapons,” said Devin Helfrich, a lobbyist on nuclear disarmament for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, the Quaker peace lobby that helped lead lobbying efforts to defeat the RRW program in Congress.
“The arms control community has consistently opposed these nuclear weapons as immoral, unnecessary, and inconsistent with U.S. international commitments to work toward universal disarmament.” Helfrich added. Last year, Congress zeroed out funding for the RRW program and refused to provide any support for building a previously proposed mega-scale nuclear bomb plant. Yet the administration is again requesting funding for RRW and a new bomb plant.
The RRW program, which is described by supporters as part of a broader modernization plan for the U.S. nuclear infrastructure, consisted of a series of new warheads designed to replace the current U.S. nuclear arsenal in phases. The administration request for $100 million to build a new facility to manufacture the plutonium pits, or triggers used in nuclear weapons, is a scaled down version of the larger proposal for a new bomb plant that was defeated in Congress last year.
The request for new money to build nuclear weapons comes less than a month after former Secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz joined former Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense William Perry in calling for the U.S. to work toward “the goal of a world free of nuclear weapon.”
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The Friends Committee on National Legislation, the oldest registered religious lobby in Washington, is a non-partisan Quaker lobby in the public interest. FCNL works with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people from every state in the U.S. to advocate for social and economic justice, peace, and good government. For more information: http://www.fcnl.org
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