Nuclear-Weapon Labs to Get New Missions, Energy Secretary Says

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Monday, April 13, 2009


U.S. national laboratories should continue treating nuclear arsenal maintenance as their top priority while they take on new missions involving climate change and advanced energy technology, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Friday.

"As long as other countries have nuclear weapons, we must have a nuclear stockpile," Chu told employees at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

President Barack Obama intends to have the United States ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which would permanently make scientists responsible for ensuring the nuclear stockpile's reliability without being able to conduct test detonations, Chu said. He described the task as "a deep technical issue" that would demand superior technology and expertise.

Chu did not address how much money the Obama administration plans to set http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=389aside for nuclear-weapon work at the laboratories, but the Energy Department is likely to release its fiscal 2010 budget request within the next several weeks, according to the Journal. Washington would not decide whether to move forward on a plutonium laboratory planned at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico until the Defense Department finishes an assessment of its nuclear weapons strategy, Chu said.

He also expressed opposition to a proposal to place the laboratories under Defense Department control.


report: http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20090413_1138.php