US House of Representatives and Senate negotiators on Wednesday agreed to give President George W. Bush most of the money he had sought to study new types of nuclear weapons, as critics warned the move could spark a new nuclear arms race.
The funds were approved as part of a US$27.3 billion bill funding energy and water programs next year, which also includes spending for a controversial nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert that opponents have vowed to block.
Both chambers are expected to clear the spending bill soon and send it to Bush to be signed into law.
The bill would give Bush half of the US$15 million he had sought to develop an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead for use against deeply buried bunkers and all of the US$6 million he wanted to research small, low-yield nuclear weapons.
Critics argue small nuclear weapons are dangerous because policy-makers may see them as a usable adjunct to conventional arms, heightening risks of nuclear escalation. And they say US moves to develop them may force others to follow suit.
"This is just a horrible message to send to the rest of the world," said Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan.
The House initially cut almost all of the funds for the programs. But most were restored at the Senate's insistence.
"We have compromised rather substantially," said New Mexico Republican Senator Pete Domenici.
Congress is scrambling to finish its overdue budget work before it adjourns for the year, and the House later on Wednesday approved the latest in series of stopgap measures to keep the federal government open until Nov. 21.
The spending bill would also provide US$580 million for the controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project next year, around US$11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a US$425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate.
The plan aims to site the first permanent US nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas and is bitterly opposed by the state of Nevada, whose senators have generally succeeded in capping its funding in past years.
While Congress has given final approval for the repository, scheduled to open in 2010 and hold up to 77,000 tonnes of radioactive waste, the state has launched multiple lawsuits seeking to block it on safety grounds.
The spending bill would commit US$11 million next year -- around US$12 million less than the White House had requested -- to a proposed new factory to make the plutonium "pits" at the heart of US nuclear weapons. The last US facility manufacturing the nuclear triggers closed in 1989.
It also contains nearly US$25 million to fund an effort to cut the time it would take to again begin testing US nuclear weapons from three years to two years. The Bush administration has argued that period needs to be cut further, to 18 months.
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