§2538b Stockpile Responsiveness Program

Summary

The United States must keep and practice all skills, tools, and facilities needed to study, design, build, test, certify, and deploy nuclear weapons so the country’s deterrent stays safe, secure, reliable, credible, and ready. The Secretary of Energy, through the Administrator and working with the Secretary of Defense, must run a stockpile responsiveness program alongside existing stewardship and management efforts to do this. The program must cover every part of the weapons life cycle (science, engineering, design, certification, and manufacturing) and make sure those capabilities are kept, improved, and regularly exercised. It must pass knowledge to the next generation of designers and engineers, show responsiveness with prototypes and flight tests and plans that avoid nuclear explosive testing, shorten design and production timelines, keep coordination between agencies sharp, and — working with the Director of National Intelligence — keep the ability to assess and, if needed, build and test foreign prototype weapons without a nuclear yield. Definitions: "joint nuclear weapons life cycle process" — the DOE and DoD process for developing, producing, maintaining, and retiring nuclear weapons.