S.Amdt. 1673

SA 1673. Mr. KYL submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 1390, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

On page 424, between lines 7 and 8, insert the following:

SEC. 1059. CERTIFICATION REQUIREMENT REGARDING THE REFURBISHMENT, REUSE, OR REPLACEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILE.

(a) In General.--The Secretary of Defense may not carry out any program for the refurbishment, reuse, or replacement of the United States nuclear weapons stockpile unless the Director of the Sandia National Laboratory, the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and JASON certify to the congressional defense committees that the program--

(1) may be carried out without the need for any testing;

(2) will preserve the core intellectual and technical competencies of the United States in nuclear weapons, including weapons design, system integration, manufacturing, security, use control, reliability assessment, and certification; and

(3) will provide for the long-term safety, security, reliability, and credibility of the United States nuclear deterrent and extended deterrent.

(b) Definitions.--In this section:

(1) The term “refurbishment” means a strategy of, or similar to, the lifetime extension program, whereby individual warhead components are replaced before they degrade with components of nearly identical design or that meet the same form, fit, and function.

(2) The term “reuse” means a strategy of using surplus pits or secondaries from other warhead types or, in certain cases, a strategy involving the new manufacture of these components.

(3) The term “replacement” means a strategy that permits replacing nuclear components with modern designs.