Armed personnel stand in front of the security gate leading to Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Harrisburg, PA.
AP Photo

"Next Steps to Strengthen the National Nuclear Security Administration's Efforts To Prevent Nuclear Proliferation"

Testimony to the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations, United States Senate

Testimony

April 30, 2008

Author: Matthew Bunn, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security; Managing the Atom; Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Matthew Bunn testified to the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations, United States Senate about critical issues for U.S. and world security — nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation, and what more the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) can do to prevent them.

Dr. Bunn argued that while money is not the most important constraint on progress for most of the nation's efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism, there are several areas where additional funds could help reduce major dangers to our national security

He recommended additional funding and direction to:

• Move toward securing and consolidating all stocks of nuclear weapons and materials worldwide, to standards sufficient to defeat the threats terrorists and criminals have shown they can pose, in ways that will work, and in ways that will last.
• Build effective global standards for nuclear security, in part by building on the foundation provided by UNSC 1540's legal requirement that all countries provide "appropriate effective" security for whatever stockpiles they may have.
• Expand global police and intelligence cooperation focused on stopping nuclear smuggling and terrorist nuclear plots, while modifying our approach to radiation detection and cargo scanning.
• Expand R&D on nuclear forensics.
• Engage with North Korea and Iran to verifiably end their nuclear weapons programs.
• Eliminate funding for RRW; scale back funding for complex transformation to focus on a smaller, cheaper complex to support a smaller stockpile; and increase funding for dismantlement, placing excess materials under international monitoring, and developing international approaches to verifying nuclear disarmament.
• Expand global police and intelligence cooperation to stop black-market nuclear networks, and increase efforts to help countries around the world implement the UNSC 1540 obligations to put in place appropriate effective export controls, border controls, and transshipment controls.
• Provide incentives for states not to build their own enrichment and reprocessing facilities, while reducing the emphasis on near-term reprocessing in GNEP, reducing GNEP's requested budget, and increasing funding for development of small sealed-core reactors with low proliferation risks.
• Reinvest in the people and technology needed for advanced safeguards.
• Continue a modest investment in reducing the risk of proliferation of weapons expertise, while undertaking a fundamental review of the highest-priority risks and the best means to address them.
• Continue to support disposition of excess plutonium in the United States and Russia, while reviewing cost-effective alternatives and seeking new agreements to expand the amount of plutonium subject to disposition and ensure that disposition will be permanent and secure.
• Offer new incentives for Russia to blend far more of its HEU to LEU, and accelerate the blend-down of U.S. excess HEU.

For more information about this publication please contact the MTA Project Coordinator at 617-495-4219.

For Academic Citation:
Bunn, Matthew. "Next Steps to Strengthen the National Nuclear Security Administration's Efforts To Prevent Nuclear Proliferation." Testimony to the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations, United States Senate. Testimony., April 30, 2008.