REPORT RECOMMENDS MAJOR CUTS TO NUCLEAR MODERNIZATION PLANS

The Obama Administration should drastically scale back its plans to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons complex and arsenal and scuttle plans to build major facilities and pursue a new warhead modernization strategy, according to a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists. The recommendations in the 81-page report, “Making Smart Security Choices,” would mark a stark reversal from many of the Administration’s policies, including its plans to build a new Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The report, which was released last week, suggests that the Administration should reanalyze its needs to produce new canned subassemblies—one of the primary missions of UPF—to see whether the facility is truly needed. Y-12 “may have more capacity than needed to produce new canned subassemblies,” the report suggests. One of the drivers for new canned subassemblies could be the Administration’s “3+2” strategy to modernize the nation’s nuclear arsenal, which would rely on two air-launched nuclear weapons and three interoperable warheads. According to the report, the strategy could create political and diplomatic problems for the Administration—the UCS report suggests it could be interpreted internationally as building new warheads—as well as technical issues. “The NNSA can vouch for the safety and reliability of currently deployed or refurbished warheads, but the same level of confidence may not be possible if the agency makes substantial modifications,” said former White House Office of Science and Technology Policy official Steve Fetter, one of the report’s co-authors.