Stop Funding for New Nuclear Weapons Research

July 18, 2005

 Issue:

In May and in June, we sent alerts regarding this matter. This alert updates current Congressional action this week and requests your continued advocacy.

The Administration has renewed its request for funding of research on new, earth penetrating nuclear weapons that Congress denied last year. The request was for $8.5 million for 2006 and even more for 2007. The Department of Energy's budget proposal includes $4 million for research on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) in fiscal year 2006 and projects $14 million for it in 2007. The Department of Defense's budget request includes $4.5 million for the RNEP project in fiscal year 2006 and forecasts spending $3.5 million in 2007.

 

The funding request is currently limited to research, but it is part of a nuclear strategy that envisions the use of nuclear weapons against chemical and biological weapons or to destroy deeply buried bunkers. In order to prepare for developing new nuclear weapons, the Administration is also seeking to make it easier to resume nuclear testing.

 

In The Harvest of Justice is Sown in Peace (1993), the U.S. Bishops articulate two principles of just war teaching that have profound implications for nuclear weapons:

Noncombatant Immunity: Civilians may not be the object of direct attack, and military personnel must take due care to avoid and minimize indirect harm to civilians.

Proportionality: In the conduct of hostilities, efforts must be made to attain military objectives with no more force than is militarily necessary and to avoid disproportionate collateral damage to civilian life and property.

 

In light of this teaching the USCCB position is as follows: The new weapons would erode the fragile barrier against nuclear use because they are part of a strategy that contemplates first use of nuclear weapons and their use against non-nuclear threats. Smaller, more "usable" nuclear weapons would not be discriminate or proportionate in any meaningful sense. A recent study on the “Effects of Nuclear Earth Penetrator and Other Weapons” by the National Research Council concluded that “the weapons cannot penetrate to depths required for total containment” and would result in “casualties” that range from “hundreds” to “more than a million” people.

 

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is a serious problem; research on new, “more usable” nuclear weapons will only undermine the credibility of U.S. efforts to address it. Mutual restraint, international cooperation, and leadership by example are called for, not the proliferation of our own weapons of mass destruction.

 

The United States retains a nuclear arsenal that far exceeds anything necessary to deter existing or foreseeable nuclear threats. The moral task today is to proceed with deeper cuts and ultimately to ban nuclear weapons entirely, not to begin research on new ones.

 

Funding for research on new nuclear weapons and efforts to make it easier to rapidly resume nuclear testing would move the United States further from the urgent task of ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban, an essential step in stopping nuclear proliferation and moving toward progressive nuclear disarmament.

 

For more information on the USCCB’s positions on nuclear weapons, visit this website: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/nwgeneral.htm.

 

Action Requested:

Here is where this issue stands in Congress:

In the Senate:  On Thursday, July 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee will vote on       S. 1042, the FY06 Defense Appropriations bill, one of two possible funding vehicles for the nuclear bunker buster.  Votes by the full Senate will follow, so the following actions are requested:

§       Ask your Senators to oppose funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator program in the FY06 Defense Appropriations bill and support amendments that would delete such funding. 

§       If your Senator is on the Senate Appropriations Committee please call before Thursday  (please refer to the list below).

§       If your Senator is not on the Appropriations Committee please begin calling on Thursday and thereafter to express your views.

 

Senators can be reached by dialing the Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

 

Further Information: Stephen Colecchi 202-541-3196 (t); 202-541-3339 (f); scolecchi@usccb.org

 

Senate Appropriations Committee Members

 

Thad Cochran, Mississippi (Chairman)

Ted Stevens, Alaska

Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania

Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico

Christopher S. Bond, Missouri

Mitch McConnell, Kentucky

Conrad Burns, Montana

Richard C. Shelby, Alabama

Judd Gregg, New Hampshire

Robert F. Bennett, Utah

Larry E. Craig, Idaho

Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas

Mike DeWine, Ohio

Sam Brownback, Kansas

Wayne Allard, Colorado

Robert Byrd, West Virginia (Ranking Dem.)

Daniel K. Inouye, Hawaii

Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont

Tom Harkin, Iowa

Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland

Harry Reid, Nevada

Herb Kohl, Wisconsin

Patty Murray, Washington

Byron L. Dorgan, North Dakota

Dianne Feinstein, California

Richard J. Durbin, Illinois

Tim Johnson, South Dakota

Mary L. Landrieu, Louisiana

 

 

Dan Misleh
Director of Diocesan Relations
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, NE
Washington, DC  20017
202-541-3195
Fax: 202-541-3339
E-mail: dmisleh@usccb.org
www.usccb.org/sdwp