White House Panel Votes to Block New Nuclear Weapons

WASHINGTON - - A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee defied the Bush administration recently and slashed funds to study a new generation of deep-earth penetrating nuclear weapons and so-called low-yield nuclear weapons.

The House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee denied the $36 million the administration sought to study the nuclear weapons it says may be needed to confront emerging threats since the end of the Cold War.

It took the measure while considering a $28 billion bill to fund energy, water and nuclear weapons programs.

The subcommittee also cut the funds last year, but the full Congress in later House and Senate votes restored them.

The administration has said it has no plans to develop the weapons. But it does not want to close the door to the "bunker-busting" nuclear weapons it said may be needed to bore into underground facilities and the smaller weapons with less than half the yield of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Critics contend that just considering such weapons will spur a renewed arms race and takes nuclear warfare out of the realm of the unthinkable.

In a vote last month on a bill authorizing defense programs, the House narrowly defeated an amendment pushed by Democrats to block the study.

The Senate is expected to debate the issue next week in an amendment pushed by Democrats on its defense authorization bill, and later when it takes up its version of the bill to fund energy, water and nuclear weapons programs.