The President's Budget for a Nuclear Weapon-Free World

Following is an excerpt from President Obama's 2010 federal budget, released today.

TERMINATION: RELIABLE REPLACEMENT WARHEAD

Department of Energy
The Administration proposes to cancel development of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) -- a new design warhead intended to replace the current inventory of nuclear weapons -- because it is not consistent with Presidential commitments to move towards a nuclear-free world.

Justification: Development of RRW was scheduled to require $60 million between 2009 and 2014 to complete both design work and analysis for a new family of nuclear warheads. The 2009 request for the program went unfunded by Congress. Terminating RRW is consistent with Congressional priorities and the Administration's commitment to move toward a nuclear-free world. In recent studies, the National Academy of Sciences, the Government Accountability Office, and other prominent groups have concluded that the current stockpile will remain reliable for an extended period as long as planned maintenance and certification programs continue.
 
On-going Life Extension Programs (involving replacement of aging components and selected improvements to safety, security and reliability): Support for these maintenance and certification efforts and will continue. The Nuclear Posture Review will address the programs needed to support long-term certification of the stockpile and how to maintain the required skilled and specialized workforce.

Until its results are published, committing funding to any particular programmatic solution is premature.