Nevada Democrats demand answers about renewed nuclear testing

McKenna Ross, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Nov 5, 2025

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LAS VEGAS – Nevada Democrats are pushing for more detail into Donald Trump’s call to resume nuclear testing as members of the president’s administration say publicly that explosive testing is unlikely.

Sens. Jacky Rosen, Catherine Cortez Masto and Reps. Steven Horsford, Susie Lee and Dina Titus sent the Trump administration a letter Monday demanding clarification on Trump’s directive last week.

The effect of such a change in nuclear testing policy could be felt in Nevada, where nearly 1,000 of the nation’s nuclear atmospheric and underground tests occurred between 1951 and 1992 at the former Nevada Test Site. The testing location is now known as the Nevada National Security Site and is located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News on Sunday that the agency was planning “system tests” that are noncritical, not nuclear explosions. The statements were the first indication that Nevadans should not expect the explosive nuclear testing seen in the Cold War.

But Rosen said she and Nevada’s congressional delegation — except for Republican Rep. Mark Amodei — did not believe Wright’s statements. During a Tuesday call with reporters, Rosen said Trump’s cabinet secretaries were “trying to equivocate for the President.”

“While Energy Secretary Chris Wright has attempted to clarify Trump’s comments, saying resuming nuclear testing does not include explosive testing, we need the President himself to make that clarification, and until then, we’re going to have to take him at his word,” Rosen said during a Tuesday morning call with reporters.

The delegation’s letter requests the administration to reverse course on resuming nuclear testing and reaffirm the country’s moratorium on explosive nuclear weapons testing. It also asks to immediately halt any preparatory activities that could signal the intent to resume that testing, provide a briefing to Congress on the stockpile and technology developments, including the use of artificial intelligence in weapons design, and provide the cost estimates required to conduct full-scale nuclear explosive testing.

Trump officials appear to be referring to subcritical testing, a type of nuclear testing in which researchers conduct experiments that fall short of producing a nuclear chain reaction. Subcritical tests are conducted at the Principal Underground Laboratory for Subcritical Experimentation at the test site.

According to the Nevada Democrats’ letter, the underground lab is “undergoing major mining and construction” for improved subcritical experiments. Two weapons radiographic systems, called the Scorpius and ZEUS test beds, will be hosted in Nevada and used to evaluate the behavior of nuclear materials, often plutonium, in combination with high explosives.

Those experiments are meant to mimic fission in a nuclear weapon without reaching the critical mass that starts off a nuclear reaction. Planning and conducting a subcritical experiment can take more than five years, according to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the government’s New Mexico-based research institution that partners with the Nevada test site.

A spokesperson from Mission Support and Test Services, a government contractor, answered the test site’s government email address for media inquiries. He directed questions to the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. Neither agency responded to requests for comment Tuesday about subcritical testing, staffing levels and possible changes to the testing program.

It’s still unclear how operations and staffing levels could change at the test site. It employs approximately 3,500 people, 3,200 of whom work in Nevada, according to the test site’s web site.

The Center for Business and Economic Research at UNLV estimates that the military has about 17,200 personnel stationed in Clark County. Federal defense spending is estimated to contribute $7 billion to the Nevada economy in 2017 dollars, according to the researchers.

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