WASHINGTON, D.C. – A group of nuclear security experts is urging the U.S. Senate to restore $85 million that the House on Friday cut from programs aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism.

The most significant cuts to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which helps reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, are to a program that converts nuclear reactors to run on non-weapon-grade low enriched uranium (LEU) rather than highly enriched uranium (HEU).  As little as 25 kilograms of HEU is required for a workable nuclear weapon. The National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the program, has set a goal to convert 200 research reactors to LEU by 2022.

More than 125 of those reactors still need to be converted. Many are in Russia, Poland, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and some have a history of lax security. Without this funding, the conversion program will face delays.  In addition, the bill zeros out funding for the removal of 1,900 unwanted and dangerous radioactive sources in the United States. Radiological sources can be used in a “dirty bomb”.

The cuts to the reactor program would have been far more severe but for the passage of a bipartisan amendment sponsored by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA), which restored $35 million out of the $70 million cut from the program by the House Appropriations Committee.  Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), the chair of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, and Rep. Pete Visclosky, the ranking member of the subcommittee, both spoke in favor of the amendment, which passed on a voice vote. 

The Fissile Materials Working Group (FMWG), a coalition of more than 60 leading experts and non-governmental organizations in nuclear security, is urging the Senate to take advantage of the bipartisan consensus on this issue to restore full funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative.

“The added $35 million is a first step in rectifying a situation that would have delayed several reactors from being converted this year, which would have delayed their HEU from being removed for a couple more years,” said Matthew Bunn, an associate professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, FMWG Steering Committee member, and author of Securing the Bomb 2010.  “Funding for this program directly affects the pace at which HEU can be removed from vulnerable sites.”

“These programs are America’s first line of protection against the ultimate nightmare of nuclear terrorism and this budget lowers America’s defenses against this danger. It is irresponsible in my view,” said Ken Luongo, president of the Partnership for Global Security and co-chair of the FMWG.

Despite the difficult economy, it is important for Congress to give priority to spending on critical programs aimed at preventing nuclear terrorism, which the U.S. National Security Strategy regards as the greatest threat to the American public, Luongo said.

As Luongo indicates, "[t]he House budget cuts come on top of the unprecedented 14 percent reductions made to these programs in the current federal budget. By comparison from 2001 through 2010, the Congress cut the budget by a cumulative total of slightly more than one-half of a percent."

Bipartisan experts, including Secretary of State George Shultz, Secretary of Defense William Perry, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Senator Sam Nunn, have uniformly recommended strengthening efforts to eliminate nuclear material from the black market by locking down existing stockpiles and reducing the amount of material that could be obtained by rogue states and terrorists. The 2010 U.S. Government’s National Security Strategy stated that, “There is no greater threat to the American people than weapons of mass destruction, particularly the danger posed by the pursuit of nuclear weapons by violent extremists.”

The FMWG, a coalition of U.S. and international experts, was formed to support and help implement the goal of securing all vulnerable fissile materials as quickly as possible.

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