U.S. policy since the mid-1950s has been to maintain a stockpile of at least several thousandnuclear weapons (active and inactive) for the indefinite future. The Bush Administration reaffirmedthis policy in its Nuclear Posture Review, briefed to Congress in early 2002. (1) This report deals withan element the Administration views as necessary for continued maintenance of the stockpile,resuming production of "pits," a key component of nuclear warheads. (2) U.S. nuclear warheads include a primary and a secondary stage. The primary stage has a layer of chemical explosive surrounding a shell of fissile metal -- all warheads in the stockpile useplutonium -- and other components. Detonating the explosive compresses the fissile metal so muchthat it can sustain a fission chain reaction. The resulting nuclear explosion triggers a secondarystage, which through fission and fusion produces most of the warhead's explosive yield. In theprimary, the components inside the explosive make up what is called the pit. Of these components,the plutonium shell is by far the hardest to make. When completed, the pit is sealed to protect itfrom air and moisture. From 1952 to 1989, Rocky Flats Plant, under the supervision of the Department of Energy (DOE) and its predecessor agencies, used industrial-scale processes to manufacture many thousandsof pits for deployed weapons. All weapons now in the U.S. stockpile use pits made there. (LosAlamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories fabricated hundreds of one-of-a-kind pitsfor nuclear tests.) Following a 1989 raid by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and othersto investigate suspected environmental, safety, and health violations, (3) DOE suspended Rocky Flats'pit manufacturing operations in 1989, and permanently closed these operations in 1992. Thus, since1989, the United States has had no capability to build pits of the quality and quantity that DOEdeems necessary for use in the stockpile. DOE stated in February 2004, "Today, the United Statesis the only nuclear weapons power without sufficient capability to manufacture stockpile-certifiedplutonium pits required to sustain its nuclear arsenal." (4) The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous agency within DOE that Congress established in 1999, manages the nuclear weapons complex -- the labs, plants, andtest site for nuclear warhead R&D, production, maintenance, etc. It is thus responsible for restoringpit production. NNSA holds that the inability to build pits could impair the nuclear stockpile, for reasons such as the following. Each year, NNSA monitors some warheads for defects. Most of these warheads can be put back into the stockpile, but a few undergo more extensive tests that precludetheir reuse. These latter tests include destruction of pits. Therefore, when DOE built pits forstockpile weapons, it built some spares to replace pits expected to be destroyed over a warhead'sdesign life. Now, warheads are expected to remain in the stockpile far beyond their design lives. Unless new pits are made by the time spares are used up, tests that consume pits would force theremoval of deployed warheads from the stockpile. Based on current data, NNSA anticipates that pits will last for decades, but will eventually deteriorate. If that proves to be the case, NNSA would ultimately have to replace all pitsthat remain in the stockpile beyond that time. Without replacement pits, if a type of pit develops certain kinds of defects, NNSA might have to withdraw from service all warheads using that pit. If NNSA designs new nuclear warheads in the future, it would probably need new pits for them. NNSA now stores thousands of pits from retired warheads. In theory, newwarhead designs might incorporate stored pits. However, any aging problems would affect storedpits as well as deployed pits, so that NNSA cannot count on using existing pits in futurewarheads. The Nuclear Posture Review presents the Administration's general policy guidance for nuclear weapons and related defense elements, including infrastructure. While it isclassified, NNSA said that the review "stated that the ability to produce pits is important to ensurethe future viability of the nation's nuclear deterrent." (5) The Pit Manufacturing and Certification Campaign is NNSA's effort to restore pit production. Campaigns are "focused scientific and engineering efforts" whose goal is "to develop and maintainspecial capabilities and tools needed for continued certification of the stockpile, now and into thefuture, in the absence of underground nuclear testing." (6) This campaign seeks to manufacture andcertify one type of pit in the short term, restore the capability to build other pit types in theintermediate term, and build a higher-capacity manufacturing facility for the long term. This sectiondiscusses the elements of this campaign; "Congressional Actions," below, discusses congressionalhandling of this campaign. Table 1 presents estimated funding. The FY2005 request document isthe first to include detailed out-year budget projections (in this case through FY2009) generatedthrough the Future-Years Nuclear Security Program, providing a window into future plans. The basis for the Pit Manufacturing and Certification Campaign was a record of decision on stockpile stewardship, published December 26, 1996, in which DOE "decided to ... reestablish pitfabrication capability, with a small capacity, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory." (7) DOEestimated requirements at 20 pits per year to replace pits destroyed in surveillance testing, but alsoclaimed that with the capability to produce all types of pits in the stockpile, it could produce "about50 pits per year in single shift operations." It judged the latter rate would be sufficient for the next10 years or more, rejected larger capacity because of small current demand and the long periodbefore added capacity might be needed, and raised the prospect of greater capacity in the future. (8) Rocky Flats Plant ceased production abruptly when it was only part-way through the planned production run of pits for the W88, a nuclear warhead used on the Trident II submarine-launchedballistic missile. Only one W88 pit remains for destructive evaluation. (9) Accordingly, the mosturgent short-term need of the current pit program is to produce and certify W88 pits. To accomplishthese tasks, the W88 pit effort has two main elements within the Pit Manufacturing and CertificationCampaign -- W88 Pit Manufacturing and W88 Pit Certification. A third element, Pit CampaignSupport Activities at NTS, mainly involves subcritical experiments at the Nevada Test Site toprovide data that NNSA requires for W88 pit certification. Table 1. Pit Manufacturing and Certification Campaign Budget, FY2001-FY2009 (Budget Authority, $ millions) Abbreviation: NTS, Nevada Test Site. Source: FY2001 Support Activities at NTS figure was provided by NNSA March 3, 2004. OtherFY2001 data: U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Management, Budget and Evaluation/CFO, FY2003 Congressional Budget Request. vol. 1, National Nuclear Security Administration. DOE/ME-0001, February 2002, p. 170. FY2002 data: U.S. Department of Energy. Office ofManagement, Budget and Evaluation/CFO, FY 2004 Congressional Budget Request. vol. 1, NationalNuclear Security Administration. DOE/ME-0016, February 2003, p. 225. FY2003-FY2009 data:U.S. Department of Energy. Office of Management, Budget and Evaluation/CFO. FY 2005Congressional Budget Request, vol. 1, National Nuclear Security Administration. DOE/ME-0032,February 2004, p. 147. Note: The Pit Manufacturing and Certification Campaign began in FY2001. Before then, pit fundswere scattered in other programs, so earlier cost data are not available. The current Future-YearsNuclear Security Program projects funds out to FY2009; data beyond then are not available. a. For FY2004, the pit campaign was reduced from $298.5 million to $296.8 million as a result ofthe omnibus rescission of 0.59 percent. The reduction was all applied to W88 pit manufacturing;the amount appropriated for that component was $126.7 million. Source for the latter figure: U.S. Congress. Committee of Conference. Making Appropriations for Energy and Water Developmentfor the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2004, and for Other Purposes. 108th Congress,1st Session, H.Rept. 108-357 , USGPO, p. 158. b. FY2008 and FY2009 funding for W88 Pit Manufacturing is currently included in Directed Stockpile Work. NNSA estimates that the cost for this activity will be $110 million a year for eachof these two years. These amounts do not appear in Table 1, which presents funding for Campaigns. As Table 1 shows, NNSA projects that W88 Pit Manufacturing will remain in the Pit Manufacturing and Certification Campaign through FY2007. In the FY2005 budget submission,W88 Pit Manufacturing continues in FY2008 and beyond in a different part of NNSA's WeaponsActivities budget, Directed Stockpile Work (DSW), which is direct work on warheads currently inthe stockpile. This was originally planned to mark the transition from manufacturing that supportedcertification to interim production of W88 pits. Pit Campaign Support Activities at NTS is notbudgeted in FY2007 because subcritical experiments to support the W88 are planned to becompleted in FY2006. Similarly, W88 Pit Certification budgets are planned to end after FY2008as a result of expected certification in FY2007.