In a sit-down with the editors of the Washington Post yesterday, the heads of the U.S. government's top nuclear research laboratories said their missions are being compromised by cutbacks in funding.
The directors of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories told the Post (please see Directors Say National Labs Are Underfunded) that budget cuts brought on by squabbling in Washington have reduced their ability to carry out scientific research needed to ensure the reliability of the nation's nuclear arsenal going forward.
According to an account published in the paper today, the Bush administration is already pursuing a costly restructuring of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure but has been unable to gain congressional approval to develop a new generation of warheads under the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program.
A bipartisan congressional group said the executive branch should decide the number of warheads necessary through 2030 before the program can be approved, according to the Post.
The labs leaders said there is a risk of "confidence eroding in the current stockpile" over the next few years if a decision is not made to proceed with the RRW program soon.
