Statement of John A. Gordon
Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator,
National Nuclear Security Administration
U. S. Department of Energy
Before the
Committee on Armed Services
U.S. Senate
14 February 2002
Introduction
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to meet with you
today on the Nuclear Posture Review and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s
(NNSA) role in working with the Department of Defense to implement it.
The NPR review of future national security needs, and the nuclear weapons stockpile and
infrastructure required to support it, was carried out by DoD in close consultation and
cooperation with the NNSA. Secretary Abraham and I fully endorse Secretary Rumsfeld’s
December 2001 Report to Congress on the NPR.
The central question that I want to address today is: What are the implications of the NPR for
nuclear weapons programs? More broadly, what does NNSA need to do to implement the
findings and recommendations of the NPR? Let me first give the “short answer,” which I will
then develop more fully.
First, the NPR reaffirms that nuclear weapons, for the foreseeable future, will remain a key
element of U.S. national security strategy. As a result, NNSA must continue to assure the safety
and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Our stockpile stewardship program is designed to
do just that, and to do so in the absence of nuclear testing.
Second, the NPR reaffirms the stockpile refurbishment plan agreed previously between DoD and
NNSA, which calls for three warhead refurbishment programs—the W80, the W76 and the
B61—to begin later this decade. As a result, NNSA must press ahead with its efforts to reverse
the deterioration of its nuclear weapons infrastructure, restore lost production capabilities, and
modernize others in order to be ready to begin those refurbishments on schedule.
This raises a key point—the NPR will not reduce NNSA’s costs or workload anytime soon.
Regardless of the eventual size of the future stockpile, we will need to meet the agreed timelines,
established with DoD well before the NPR, to begin refurbishments later this decade on the three
warhead types. In this regard, near-term costs are driven not by the total number of warheads to
be refurbished, but by the need to restore production capabilities in time to carry out the first
refurbishment of each type. Possible cost savings from having to refurbish fewer warheads for a
smaller stockpile would not be realized until well into the next decade.
