Administration Puts U.S. Security at Risk: Review Rejects Current Plutonium Disposition Efforts
Aug 21, 2001
Press Release - August 21, 2001
Contact: Steve LaMontagne - 202.543.4100 ×100; Luke Warren - 202.546.0795 ×127
After vowing to walk out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and scuttling the Biological Weapons Protocol, the Bush administration now seems poised to indefinitely delay efforts to eliminate 100 metric tons of U.S. and Russian plutonium that could be used to make nuclear weapons. Such an action would costly as well as damaging to U.S. national security
A recent review of cooperative security programs with Russia reportedly expressed concern over the cost of the plutonium disposition plan, estimated by the Department of Energy at $6.6 billion over several years.
“It’s hypocritical for the administration to cringe at this modest investment while at the same time throwing $8.3 billion into the missile defense collection plate in fiscal 2002 alone,” said Steve LaMontagne, nonproliferation expert at Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation, a pro-arms control organization. “Securing, monitoring, and disposing of the plutonium now would be an important investment in U.S. national security and would actually save money in the long run because we wouldn’t have to spend $500 million a year babysitting it.”
While the review criticizes two current approaches to eliminating weapons-grade plutonium - immobilizing the material or converting it into nuclear reactors fuel - it offers no realistic near-term alternative for disposing of plutonium. Instead, the review proposes joint research and development with Russia of new plutonium-burning fuels or advanced reactors that would take many years to develop, test, license and build, and could increase costs even further. Previous reviews by both the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy rejected similar concepts as too costly and time-consuming.
In Russia’s case, the longer this plutonium lies around, the greater the danger that it could be stolen and used by proliferators to make nuclear weapons. For both Russia and the U.S., eliminating the vast stockpiles of bomb material build up over five decades of Cold War will be essential to achieving deep reductions in nuclear arms.
In January 2001, a bipartisan, blue-ribbon Department of Energy task force chaired by former Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) and former White House counsel Lloyd Cutler concluded that Russia’s massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons-usable materials constitute “the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today.” The task force recommended devising an eight to ten year strategic plan to eliminate all of these materials and suggested a total investment of $30 billion over this period.
“The administration should be working to implement the Baker-Cutler recommendations, but instead it appears headed in the opposite direction. They are essentially giving up on getting started with disposition efforts any time soon.” LaMontagne said.
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