A Department of Energy (DOE) task force report slams as "neither robust nor agile" the government's ongoing effort to certify aging bombs as reliable. The report, approved by the energy secretary's advisory committee last week, calls for new weapons that would be cheap to build, long-lasting, and hard to steal--without resuming nuclear testing.
DOE lawyers pushed the department's advisory committee to endorse the report last week rather than simply pass it on, according to chair Peter McPherson, former Michigan State University head. But one committee member, physics Nobelist Burton Richter of Stanford University, warned that building new bombs could geopolitically "stir up some kind of a hornets' nest." Voting unanimously to approve "the thrust of the report," committee members noted that they "did not have sufficient time to consider" some issues. Congress is expected to triple funding for a current preliminary design project, and the report is seen as aiding backers of new weapons.
