Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have studied modifying a B83 warhead to create a bomb called the "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator."
A team on the project met twice within the last six months, said Jim Danneskiold, a Los Alamos spokesman.
The modification, also being studied at Lawrence Livermore National Labora-tory, would provide a thicker shell for earth-penetrating warheads already in the U.S. nuclear stockpile, allowing them to hit targets deeper in the ground.
Interest in the earth-penetrator project emerged, along with three other nuclear weapons initiatives, in Department of Defense legislative proposals for 2004.
The Bush administration asked Congress to fund research on an "Advanced Concepts Initiative" at each of the national laboratories and on methods to shorten the delay between ordering and conducting a nuclear test. It also requested a repeal of the 1993 ban on development of "low-yield" (one-megaton) nuclear weapons, according to a March Congressional Research Service report.
If these initiatives are carried out, Los Alamos - which the UT System hopes to manage - will be involved.
Work on the earth-penetrating bomb is stalled at Los Alamos because funds were cut but will pick up in 2005 if Congress allocates the requested $27.6 million said Brian Wilkes, a National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman.
The Advanced Concepts Initiative, which includes weapons studies and concepts for warhead designs, would provide money for Los Alamos to conduct "advanced computer modeling and simulation capacity" and mechanical testing, according to the Congressional Research Service report. Danneskiold said this money has not yet been allocated yet to the laboratory.
While the Bush administration requested money to improve preparation time for testing nuclear weapons, Los Alamos scientists have already been "continuously engaged" in maintaining test readiness at the Nevada test site, Danneskiold said.
Nuclear weapons have not been tested since 1992, but Los Alamos now oversees the U.S. stockpile. Los Alamos scientists created the atomic bomb in 1945 and developed nuclear weapons throughout the Cold War.
More than 50 percent of research at Los Alamos, and about 75 percent of funding, is for nuclear weapons, Danneskieold said. The laboratories' staff is larger than it was during the Cold War.
Critics say the Bush administration's nuclear initiatives to Congress show an unhealthy interest in developing new weapons.
"People in the administration absolutely have a fetish about nuclear weapons that is absolutely out of proportion to their importance in the world," said Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists, a research policy watchdog group. "Part of it is this focus on these deeply buried targets."
Wilkes said the initiatives are separate and not meant to pave the way for new weapons testing and development.
"People are connecting dots that don't exist," he said.
Congress in 2003 did follow the request to repeal the ban on development of low-yield nuclear weapons. After the repeal was signed into law last fall, NNSA administrator Linton Brooks wrote a letter encouraging directors of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories to conduct new research.
"We are now free to explore a range of technical options that could strengthen our ability to deter, or respond to new or emerging threats," Brooks wrote. "We should not fail to take advantage of this opportunity."
Yet Brooks told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in March the Bush administration has no plans to develop new low-yield weapons.
Wilkes said the letter may have been poorly worded and never instructed the laboratories to develop new weapons.
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