Intensive Pressure on Congress Helped Stop Initial Funding for Complex 2030

Reprinted from Friends Committee on National Legislation:

House Rejects New Nuclear Bomb Plant: Senate Needs to Follow Suit

House Rejects New Nuclear Bomb Plant
Senate Needs to Follow Suit

May 2, 2007

Today the House subcommittee that authorizes nuclear weapons programs zeroed-out an initial administration request for funding to build a new nuclear bomb plant .

This past February, President Bush requested $25 million to begin planning a new multi-billion dollar nuclear warhead-producing plant. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA), chair of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, reported today that her subcommittee’s bill deleted all of the requested $25 million for the new nuclear bomb-making facility. The bill also cut funding for the so-called “Reliable Replacement Warhead” (RRW), the proposed new nuclear warhead. These two cuts had bipartisan support on the subcommittee.

The RRW program’s funding was cut by over one-third, from $119 million to $74 million. In addition, funding for missile defense was cut by $764 million, from $8.9 billion to $8.1 billion. Rep. Tauscher’s subcommittee will submit its portion of the defense authorization bill to the full Armed Services Committee on May 9.

The subcommittee’s unanimous decision represents a victory for the arms control community and those who believe that these nuclear weapons programs are dangerous and unnecessary. But this victory is not complete. The Senate must maintain the House’s rejection of the new nuclear bomb plant and go a step further by eliminating the RRW. May and June represent the decision-making time for Congress on these issues. FCNL will be lobbying on Capitol Hill and urging constituents to contact their Senators to keep up the pressure on these issues. Let’s stop these ill-founded programs before they gain momentum, and begin the long-overdue debate of how to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely from our planet.

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