Senate rejects bid to slow time frame for nuke tests

Suzanne Struglinski

Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2003 | 9:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON-- The Senate rejected an amendment Tuesday that would have stopped funding for nuclear weapons tests and trigger construction at the Nevada Test Site.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., wanted to prohibit any spending that would accelerate nuclear test readiness at the Nevada Test Site to anything less than two years. The proposal would also have put a one-year hold on site selection for the Energy Department's Modern Pit Facility, a new construction site for plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., did not support the amendment, based on his support for military preparedness, said Jack Finn, Ensign's spokesman. Ensign believes Congress needs to do whatever it can to protect the country and that the amendment was contrary to those goals.

Those in favor of the amendment argued the administration was trying to create more nuclear weapons.

"I don't believe in developing new nuclear weapons," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who supported the amendment. "I simply could not look my grandchildren in the face."

Reid said with nuclear problems in Iran, India or China, he saw no reason to being to develop more here. "We have enough," he said.

Nuclear bomb tests in the United States have been banned since 1992, after the last full-scale underground experiment at the Nevada Test Site on Sept. 23, 1992. The Bush administration has sought to increase the test readiness time frame to 18 months from the time of notification.

Reid said he does support shortening that time frame for readiness at the Test Site but still supported the amendment since he objected to development of new nuclear weapons.

The Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is one of five possible sites for the $4 billion facility. If the department decides to move forward with the project, site selection is set to take place in March 2004 with production stating in 2018.

Reid said it would be a long shot if the Test Site was selected, and questioned if that was something that state would even want to do.

In the meantime, the National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office will be conducting a subcritical plutonium experiment about 960 feet below ground at the Nevada Test Site's U1a Complex about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Subcritical experiments examine the behavior of plutonium when it is subjected to chemical high explosives.

In these types of experiments no critical mass is formed so no self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction can occur, thus there is no nuclear explosion, administration officials said.

To date, 19 subcritical experiments have been conducted at Nevada Test Site. The nation's most recent subcritical experiment was conducted by the Los Alamos National Laboratory at the Nevada Test Site on Sept. 26, 2002. The most recent subcritical experiment conducted at the Nevada Test Site was on June 7, 2002.

The tests are conducted in an underground lab of horizontal tunnels with small excavated experiment alcoves at the base of vertical shaft.