History

While the CTBT was opened for signature in 1996, it has not entered into force, leaving a ban on nuclear testing as the oldest item on the arms control agenda. President George H. W. Bush signed the bill into law ( P.L. As of August 2016, 183 states had signed it and 164 had ratified. On September 22, 1997, President Clinton submitted the CTBT to the Senate. The Obama Administration and the CTBT : In a speech in Prague on April 5, 2009, President Obama said, "my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated, "The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is an integral part of our non-proliferation and arms control agenda, and we will work in the months ahead both to seek the advice and consent of the United States Senate to ratify the treaty, and to secure ratification by others so that the treaty can enter into force." Reducing the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy; 3. United Kingdom: The United Kingdom cannot test because it held its nuclear tests for several decades at the Nevada Test Site and does not have its own test site. Claiming that Britain and France have ratified the treaty but do not have a moratorium on testing, that the reverse is the case for China and the United States, that India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan have done neither, and that only Russia has ratified the treaty and has a moratorium on testing, he argued that
if the treaty has not been in force for fifteen years [i.e., since it was opened for signature in 1996], it is difficult for Russia to be the only nuclear power which complies with its terms and conditions in full. (See CRS Report R42948, U.S.-India Security Relations: Strategic Issues , by [author name scrubbed] and [author name scrubbed].) As of August 2016, Pakistan had not signed the CTBT. Of the 44, as of August 2016, India, North Korea, and Pakistan had not signed the treaty and China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, and the United States had signed but not ratified it. In practice, these conferences (often called Article XIV conferences) have been held every second year beginning in 1999. In September 2012, the Sixth Ministerial Meeting on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty issued a statement reaffirming their "strongest support for the early entry into force" of the CTBT, called on states that have not done so to sign and ratify the treaty, noted that with the exception of North Korea, "the voluntary nuclear test moratorium has become a de facto international norm in the 21 st Century," and pointed to advances made by the CTBTO Preparatory Commission in building the verification regime for the treaty. The Seventh Ministerial Meeting on the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was held on September 26, 2014. For a discussion of stockpile stewardship programs and budgets, see CRS Report R43948, Energy and Water Development: FY2016 Appropriations for Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship , by [author name scrubbed]. The FY2015-enacted amount was $8.180 billion, and the FY2016-enacted amount was $8.846 billion. The FY2017 request for Weapons Activities was $9.24 billion. Beginning with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the United States has implemented "safeguards," or unilateral steps to maintain nuclear security consistent with treaty limitations. These safeguards are: Safeguard A: "conduct of a Science Based Stockpile Stewardship program to insure a high level of confidence in the safety and reliability of nuclear weapons in the active stockpile"; Safeguard B: "maintenance of modern nuclear laboratory facilities and programs"; Safeguard C: "maintenance of the basic capability to resume nuclear test activities prohibited by the CTBT"; Safeguard D: "a comprehensive research and development program to improve our treaty monitoring"; Safeguard E: intelligence programs for "information on worldwide nuclear arsenals, nuclear weapons development programs, and related nuclear programs"; and Safeguard F: the understanding that if the Secretaries of Defense and Energy inform the President "that a high level of confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear weapon type which the two Secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear deterrent could no longer be certified, the President, in consultation with Congress, would be prepared to withdraw from the CTBT under the standard 'supreme national interests' clause in order to conduct whatever testing might be required." For a discussion of the possible role of updated safeguards in a future CTBT debate, see CRS Report R40612, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Updated "Safeguards" and Net Assessments , by [author name scrubbed]. The FY2016 budget request included out-year figures for Weapons Activities. For FY2013, there were 13 experiments at JASPER, 7 of which used plutonium. The National Defense Authorization Act and the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act provided the funds requested. CTBT Pros and Cons

The CTBT is contentious. For a detailed analysis of the case for and against the treaty, see CRS Report RL34394, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Issues and Arguments , by [author name scrubbed]. Council on Foreign Relations. U.S. Congress. Senate. National Nuclear Security Administration. U.S. Department of Energy. 05/28/98— Pakistan announced that it conducted five nuclear tests.
A ban on all nuclear tests is the oldest item on the nuclear arms control agenda. Three treaties that entered into force between 1963 and 1990 limit, but do not ban, such tests. In 1996, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which would ban all nuclear explosions. In 1997, President Clinton sent the CTBT to the Senate, which rejected it in October 1999. In a speech in Prague in April 2009, President Obama said, "My administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty." However, while the Administration has indicated it wants to begin a CTBT "education" campaign with a goal of securing Senate advice and consent to ratification, it has not pressed for a vote on the treaty and there were no hearings on it in the 111th, 112th, or 113th Congresses. There will be at least one hearing in the 114th Congress—a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the CTBT planned for September 7, 2016.
As of August 2016, 183 states had signed the CTBT and 164, including Russia, had ratified it. However, entry into force requires ratification by 44 states specified in the treaty, of which 41 had signed the treaty and 36 had ratified. India, North Korea, and Pakistan have not signed the treaty. Nine conferences have been held to facilitate entry into force, every other year, most recently on September 29, 2015. In years between these conferences, some foreign ministers meet to promote entry into force of the CTBT. A ministerial meeting was held on June 13, 2016, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the signing of the CTBT.
Nuclear testing has a long history, beginning in 1945. The Natural Resources Defense Council states that the United States conducted 1,030 nuclear tests, the Soviet Union 715, the United Kingdom 45, France 210, and China 45. (Of the U.K. tests, 24 were held jointly with the United States and are not included in the foregoing U.S. total.) Congress passed and President George H.W. Bush signed legislation in 1992 that established a unilateral moratorium on U.S. nuclear testing. Russia claims it has not tested since 1990. In 1998, India and Pakistan announced several nuclear tests. Each declared a test moratorium; neither has signed the CTBT. North Korea announced that it conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, and 2016. Since 1997, the United States has held 28 "subcritical experiments" at the Nevada National Security Site, most recently in August 2014, to study how plutonium behaves under pressures generated by explosives. It asserts these experiments do not violate the CTBT because they cannot produce a self-sustaining chain reaction. Russia reportedly held some such experiments since 1998.
The Stockpile Stewardship Program seeks to maintain confidence in the safety, security, and reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons without nuclear testing. Its budget is listed as "Weapons Activities" within the request of the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous component of the Department of Energy. Congress addresses nuclear weapon issues in the annual National Defense Authorization Act and the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act. The FY2017 request for Weapons Activities was $9.243 billion; on a comparable basis, the FY2016-enacted amount was $8.846 billion. Congress also considers a U.S. contribution to a global system to monitor possible nuclear tests, operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The FY2016 request for the contribution was $33.0 million.
This report will be updated occasionally. This update reflects the FY2017 budget request and developments through August 2016. CRS Report RL34394, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Issues and Arguments, by [author name scrubbed], presents pros and cons in detail. CRS Report R40612, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Updated "Safeguards" and Net Assessments, by [author name scrubbed], discusses safeguards—unilateral steps to maintain U.S. nuclear security consistent with nuclear testing treaties—and their relationship to the CTBT. CRS Report R43948, Energy and Water Development: FY2016 Appropriations for Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship, by [author name scrubbed], and CRS Report R44442, Energy and Water Development: FY2017 Appropriations for Nuclear Weapons Activities, by [author name scrubbed], provide details on stockpile stewardship.