New Nuclear Warhead Deemed Dead
Senate Will Not Fund the Reliable Replacement Warhead
For immediate release - July 10, 2008
Washington, DC…Today the Senate administered the last rites for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). The Senate Appropriations Committee passed an annual spending bill that rejected all funding for the new weapon.
The Senate's decision today marks the second year in a row that congressional appropriators have denied funding for the controversial program, and arms control advocates see little opportunity to restore money for the warhead during this abbreviated election year.
"This seals RRW's fate," said Devin Helfrich, a lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. "Congress is on record for the second consecutive year firmly rejecting RRW. We don't see the next administration trying to revive this discredited program."
The weapons program was eliminated over strong objections from the retiring senior senator from New Mexico, Pete Domenici, who had been the warhead's most powerful congressional advocate.
Today's Senate action marks the culmination of a tumultuous career for RRW. A congressionally conceived program, RRW was proposed by Rep. David Hobson (OH) in 2004. Initially, Congress was supportive of the program, but after funding RRW for 3 years, legislators, including Hobson, became wary of the Energy Department's intentions for the new warhead. Hobson believes that the administration steered RRW away from its beginnings as a very limited program and a vehicle for stockpile reductions and transformed it into a plan to revamp the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.
Legislators have also cited the lack of a comprehensive U.S. nuclear weapons strategy on which to base future stockpile decisions as a reason for ending RRW.
Proponents of RRW argue that an aging nuclear arsenal requires new warheads, which would replace most of the existing arsenal. Opponents of the program fear that new nuclear weapons development could increase pressure for the United States to resume underground nuclear testing, encourage an arms race, and damage the ability of the United States to dissuade other nations from developing nuclear weapons.
For more on FCNL’s nuclear disarmament program, see www.fcnl.org/nuclear.
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The Friends Committee on National Legislation, the oldest registered religious lobby in Washington, is a nonpartisan 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, visit http://www.fcnl.org.
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