Thursday, November 06, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Negotiators OK funds for test site

WASHINGTON -- House and Senate negotiators on Wednesday approved $24.9 million next year to shorten the time required to prepare the Nevada Test Site for underground nuclear tests.

But instead of reducing the preparation time to 18 months, as the Bush administration had asked, lawmakers required test readiness to take at least two years. The current preparation time is two to three years.

"Eighteen months is an arbitrary goal, and we don't see any reason to go below 24 months," said a staffer for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who was one of the negotiators. "The administration still needs to show us it can be ready to test in two years instead of two to three years."

The $24.9 million sum is substantially higher than $15 million approved in September by the Senate in its version of an annual energy and water spending bill. The House version of the bill did not include any money to improve nuclear test readiness.

The agreement to include the higher amount requested by the White House is unusual because House and Senate negotiators often split the difference in their versions of the bill.

The negotiated version of the bill is expected to be approved by the full House and Senate and signed into law by President Bush before Congress adjourns this year.

A marginal increase in jobs at the test site might result from the test readiness funding, the Reid staffer said.

Despite lowering the time needed to prepare for a resumption of nuclear tests in Nevada, the administration does not intend to end the nation's 11-year testing moratorium, according to Anson Franklin, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration which runs the test site.

"We absolutely do not plan to resume testing unless we discover a problem in the nuclear weapons stockpile that cannot not be fixed by other means," Franklin said.

The last nuclear explosion at the test site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, occurred Sept. 23, 1992.

Another provision in the bill would provide $7.5 million, which was half the Bush administration's request, for the development of robust nuclear earth penetrator warheads or bunker busters. The testing of bunker busters could occur at the test site.

Bunker busters would not be a new nuclear weapon, according to Franklin. "These are existing bombs that could be modified to improve earthly penetration," Franklin said.