“All funding for the research and development of a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator has been stripped from the FY ‘06 Energy and Water Conference Report. This is a consequential victory for all those opposed to the reopening of the nuclear door.

Our nation should be seeking to discourage nuclear proliferation. We should be seeking to reduce the threat from weapons of mass destruction. We should be seeking to make nuclear weapons less usable.

But the effort to research and develop the nuclear bunker buster, combined with the strategic nuclear policy of this Administration, is aimed at making nuclear weapons more usable.

The fact that all funding for this program has been eliminated is a tacit acknowledgment that this is the wrong policy at the wrong time.

There has been no one who has been more stalwart in the effort to remove this funding than Chairman David Hobson, and my great thanks go to him for his leadership. I’d also like to commend Senators Levin and Kennedy for working with me in the Senate in this effort.

As the Defense Authorization bill moves forward, we will seek the removal of the Congressional Authorization for this bill, and hopefully kill this program once and for all.”