S.Amdt. 3033

1. Adds SEC. 3136. REPORT ON FEASIBILITY, COST, AND ADVISABILITY OF REUSING PITS IN NUCLEAR WARHEADS at the end of subtitle C of title XXXI

   Adds a section

   In S. 3254 · Placed on Calendar Senate

   (B) in paragraph (2), by striking "Not later than 90 days after submitting the last report required under subsection (c)(3)" and inserting "Within seven months after receiving notification that all American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds have been expended, but not later than April 30, 2016".

   Inserted: SEC. 3136. REPORT ON FEASIBILITY, COST, AND ADVISABILITY OF REUSING PITS IN NUCLEAR WARHEADS.

   Inserted: (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:

   Inserted: (1) A key concept of the proposed interim plutonium pit strategy of the National Nuclear Security Administration is to reuse existing pits to supplement the 20 to 30 pits per year that the Administration asserts may be manufactured at Los Alamos National Laboratory, given extensive modifications to current facilities.

   Inserted: (2) Dr. Charles McMillan, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, testified before Congress on April 18, 2012, that "the extensive work required to convert these concepts into systems that could be certified is yet to be done". Dr. McMillan elaborated that "we must do the scientific work to further understand the effects of aging and to provide modern safety, safety that starts [with insensitive] high explosive systems. If we choose this path, it will require an investment over the next 5 to 10 years.".

   Inserted: (3) Pit lifetime is another critical aspect of the proposed interim plutonium strategy. The National Nuclear Security Administration has confidence that pits will last up to 100 years. Yet, Dr. Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and a leading plutonium metallurgist, was quoted on July 17, 2012, as saying, "We have never done enough of those [plutonium lifetime] experiments that would make me feel more comfortable with plutonium lifetimes in pits. So as far as I'm concerned, we still haven't demonstrated that these pits can last 50, 60, 80 or 100 years as some people claim.".

   Inserted: (4) Regarding the performance of older pits, a 2007 report by the private scientific advisory group known as JASON suggested that "there must be a more detailed understanding of the different types of dynamic strengths involved in the weapons codes, and then a more complete understanding of how these strengths vary with aging through relevant experimental and theoretical work. This is fundamentally difficult . . . New experiments should be carried out on both naturally and artificially aged [plutonium].".

   Inserted: (b) Report Required.--Not later than 60 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Defense shall jointly submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the feasibility, cost, and advisability of reusing pits in nuclear warheads that includes the following:

   Inserted: (1) An assessment of the technical work and experimentation that needs to be done to determine whether or not pit reuse is likely to be a successful strategy that leads to the certification of the safety, security, and reliability of nuclear warheads using those pits and the schedule and cost for that work and experimentation.

   Inserted: (2) A description of the criteria that must be met to determine whether nuclear warheads that reuse pits can be certified as safe, secure, and reliable and an estimate of the time at which the National Nuclear Security Administration anticipates having sufficient data to make such a determination.

   Inserted: (3) A description of the experiments that have been performed to determine whether nuclear warheads that reuse pits can be certified as safe, secure, and reliable and an assessment of the results of those experiments.

   Inserted: (4) An assessment of how pursuing pit reuse increases the cost and complexity of life extension programs and program planning by the National Nuclear Security Administration and the effect of pursuing pit reuse on the safety, security, and reliability of nuclear warheads.

   Inserted: (5) An assessment of the extent to which pursuing pit reuse, as opposed to manufacturing new pits, limits the incorporation of enhanced safety and security features into life extension programs and limits improvements to the performance margin in such programs.

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   Inserted: (6) A description of the technical process for and cost of--

   Inserted: (A) requalifying an existing pit for reuse with a weapon for which it was designed; and

   Inserted: (B) requalifying an existing pit for reuse with a weapon for which it was not designed.

   Inserted: (7) An assessment of the extent which the Nuclear Weapons Council has reviewed the processes described in paragraph (6) and the results of any such reviews.

   Inserted: (8) An explanation for the difference between the assessment of the National Nuclear Security Administration with respect to the lifetime of pits and the assessment of Dr. Siegfried Hecker described in subsection (a)(3).

   Inserted: (9) An assessment of the work that has been done by the national security laboratories of the Department of Energy or by other entities with respect to pit aging since 2007 and the results of that work.

   Inserted: (10) An assessment of the anticipated level of confidence of the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Defense with respect to experiments to artificially age plutonium and any concerns that there may be differences between natural and artificial aging of plutonium.

   Inserted: (11) An assessment of experiments that have been performed to understand the performance of older pits across the full stockpile-to-target sequence of nuclear warheads, including in highly dynamic environments, and the results of those experiments.

   Inserted: (12) A statement of the military requirement for pit production to have a responsive infrastructure capable of rapidly responding to technical or geopolitical strategic surprises.

   Original wording

   At the end of subtitle C of title XXXI, add the following:

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As printed