The United States has neither the intention nor need to renew nuclear testing, yet its failure to ratify the CTBT undermines both the credibility of U.S. leadership and the ability of the United States to improve the detection and deterrence of testing by others.

The best way to begin accounting for and reducing obsolete U.S. and Russian battlefield nukes is to finalize the new START agreement and, as the Obama administration has suggested, begin a new and more comprehensive round of talks early next year to arrive at limits on all types of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces.

Senator Jon Kyl relies on old and misleading arguments to claim that the resumption of nuclear testing is necessary, but there are no technical or military reasons to resume U.S. nuclear weapons testing. The Senate's reconsideration of the CTBT should be based on an honest and up-to-date analysis of the facts.

On Tuesday, October 25, the Chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Pete Domenici (R-NM) announced that Senate Energy appropriators would recede to the House position and eliminate funds for the controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) from the fiscal year 2006 budget.

As a result, for the second year in a row, a bipartisan coalition of forces has denied funding for the RNEP, which should effectively end the research on nuclear earth penetrators.

The catalyst for the RNEP program was the Pentagon's 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which called for the United States to develop "new nuclear weapon capabilities" to deal with targets located in deep underground, hardened bunkers. The next year, the Bush administration requested funds for research for a modified, high-yield bomb for this mission. (Read More)