This week, President-elect Obama is expected to appoint a Secretary for the Department of Energy (DOE). This person will need some serious muscle: in addition to the enormous task of shifting the bureaucracy's entrenched focus away from nuclear weapons production toward the renewable energy priorities of the Obama Administration, they will also need to hold accountable the contractors who conduct 90 percent of the agency's work.
Additionally, with a seat on the Nuclear Weapons Council, the Secretary will have to stand up against the well-organized offensive for the Bush Administration's failed Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. As Walter Pincus reported in the Washington Post last week, U.S. Strategic Commander Air Force Gen. Kevin P. Chilton is calling for a rush to develop and produce RRW because of alleged surety problems--a topic of serious controversy within the nuclear scientific community. Also, in the January/February edition of Foreign Affairs, Sec. of Defense Robert Gates again heralded RRW, without addressing the fact that RRW's test pedigree will be much less extensive than that of the existing stockpile.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), Chair of the House Armed Services subcommittee on Strategic Forces, appears to be in lock-step with Chilton. Because RRW has gotten a bad name, Tauscher is promoting the idea of renaming RRW to avoid all the opposition it has garnered in Congress and among the public. She has even started re-framing RRW to make it more palatable to the Congress by saying it will help with nonproliferation efforts. Hmmm. Does it slice toast too?
POGO is skeptical of the rush to spend billions and billions of dollars, not only on the RRW program but also on the related buildings in the complex that will come along with it, before we have evidence that we need it. If the original argument for RRW was a based on surety, then why not fix the surety concerns through the Life Extension Program (LEP), which existing warheads are already undergoing? Why would Tauscher push for a solution when her Commission of the Strategic Posture of the United States has not even submitted a preliminary report on its findings? And why push for a solution prior to the new administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, which is due in December 2009?
We've seen this game before: a major boondoggle that morphs into a new mission after it doesn't get the necessary political support to survive. The Superconducting Supercollider comes to mind. Don't forget, there are a lot of people who stand to make a lot of money off of RRW and the creation of a new mission for the nuclear weapons complex. The fact that it is a program in search of a mission is the first sign we don't need it.
Unfortunately, Rep. David Hobson (R-OH), one of the few Members of Congress who asked tough questions about the need for RRW, has retired. Luckily, his House Appropriations Committee colleague, Chair Pete Visclosky (D-IN), is equally skeptical that RRW is a necessary investment.
No matter who the DOE Secretary will be, POGO will continue to question whether we need RRW, especially at a time when federal funds are getting harder and harder to come by.
-- Ingrid Drake
Ingrid,
Can you tell your readers how the RRW has "failed?" To date all that has happened is that a Phase 1 design, largely based on a previously tested LLNL weapon, has been approved and chosen by DOE. No failure there.
If you mean to suggest that a funding cut is a "failure" of the RRW, then you should make that clear.
BTW, "surety concerns" are not the only benefit of the RRW over current designs. You should look into them and enlighten your readers.
Posted by: Bates Estabrooks | Dec 09, 2008 at 02:33 PM