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Title 10 — Armed ForcesRelease 119-83

§6131 Stockpile Responsiveness Program

Title 10 › Subtitle Subtitle A— General Military Law › Part VI— ELEMENTS OF DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND OTHER MATTERS › Subpart B— Atomic Energy Defense › Chapter 602— NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILE MATTERS › Subchapter I— STOCKPILE STEWARDSHIP AND WEAPONS PRODUCTION › § 6131

Last updated Apr 18, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Secretary of Energy must run a stockpile responsiveness program, through the Administrator and in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, together with the stockpile stewardship program (section 6111) and the stockpile management program (section 6116). The program must find, keep, improve, combine, and regularly practice the people, tools, facilities, and technologies needed to design, test, certify, produce, and field nuclear weapons. It must pass knowledge to the next generation of designers and engineers, show responsiveness with prototypes and flight tests and system demonstrations without using nuclear explosive tests, develop faster and cheaper technologies for life‑extension or new weapon projects, practice coordination with the Department of Defense, and, working with the Director of National Intelligence, keep the ability to assess and build foreign weapon prototypes and do no‑yield testing if needed. The “joint nuclear weapons life cycle process” means the process the Secretaries of Defense and Energy use for developing, making, maintaining, and retiring nuclear weapons.

Full Legal Text

Title 10, §6131

Armed Forces — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)It is the policy of the United States to identify, sustain, enhance, integrate, and continually exercise all capabilities required to conceptualize, study, design, develop, engineer, certify, produce, and deploy nuclear weapons to ensure the nuclear deterrent of the United States remains safe, secure, reliable, credible, and responsive.
(b)The Secretary of Energy, acting through the Administrator and in consultation with the Secretary of Defense, shall carry out a stockpile responsiveness program, along with the stockpile stewardship program under section 6111 and the stockpile management program under section 6116, to identify, sustain, enhance, integrate, and continually exercise all capabilities required to conceptualize, study, design, develop, engineer, certify, produce, and deploy nuclear weapons.
(c)The program under subsection (b) shall have the following objectives:
(1)Identify, sustain, enhance, integrate, and continually exercise all of the capabilities, infrastructure, tools, and technologies across the science, engineering, design, certification, and manufacturing cycle required to carry out all phases of the joint nuclear weapons life cycle process, with respect to both the nuclear security enterprise and relevant elements of the Department of Defense.
(2)Identify, enhance, and transfer knowledge, skills, and direct experience with respect to all phases of the joint nuclear weapons life cycle process from one generation of nuclear weapon designers and engineers to the following generation.
(3)Continually demonstrate stockpile responsiveness throughout the range of capabilities as required, such as through the use of prototypes, flight testing, integrated system demonstrations, and development of plans for certification without the need for nuclear explosive testing.
(4)Develop technologies for transition to a nuclear stockpile life extension program or new nuclear weapon program project that have the potential to reduce design, certification, and manufacturing cycles cost and schedule.
(5)Continually exercise processes for the integration and coordination of all relevant elements and processes of the Administration and the Department of Defense required to ensure stockpile responsiveness.
(6)The retention of the ability, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, to assess and develop prototype nuclear weapons of foreign countries if needed to meet intelligence requirements and, if necessary, to conduct no-yield testing of those prototypes.
(d)In this section, the term “joint nuclear weapons life cycle process” means the process developed and maintained by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Energy for the development, production, maintenance, and retirement of nuclear weapons.

Legislative History

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Codification Amendment by section 3113 of Pub. L. 119–60 directed to section 4220(c) of Pub. L. 107–314 executed to this section pursuant to section 3111(d)(1)(C) of Pub. L. 119–60. See Further Technical

Amendments

note set out under section 6114 of this title.

Prior Provisions

Provisions similar to those in this section were contained in section 2538b of Title 50, War and National Defense, prior to repeal by Pub. L. 119–60, § 3111(b)(1).

Amendments

2025—Subsec. (c)(3). Pub. L. 119–60, §§ 3111(d)(1)(C), 3113(a)(1)(A), substituted “Continually” for “Periodically” and inserted “integrated system demonstrations,” after “flight testing,”. See Codification note above. Subsec. (c)(4). Pub. L. 119–60, §§ 3111(d)(1)(C), 3113(a)(1)(B), substituted “Develop technologies for transition to a nuclear stockpile life extension program or new nuclear weapon program project that have the potential to reduce” for “Shorten” and “cost and schedule” for “and timelines to minimize the amount of time and costs leading to an engineering prototype and production”. See Codification note above.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

10 U.S.C. § 6131

Title 10 — Armed Forces

Last Updated

Apr 18, 2026

Release point: 119-83