What does Trump’s call for renewed nuclear testing mean for Nevada?

President Donald Trump’s call to resume U.S. nuclear weapons testing prompted quick condemnation from some Nevada congressional Democrats.

It’s unclear exactly what directive Trump gave in a Wednesday post on his social media platform and whether he meant that a nuclear warhead should be detonated in the testing. But any changes to the program could run through Nevada, home of the former Nevada Test Site where nuclear weapons were once tested and are now maintained as the Nevada National Security Site.

“Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post.

Trump mentioned Russia and China’s capabilities in his post.

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that testing would ensure the arsenal is “functioning” properly, but he did not expand on what types of tests the president ordered.

Vance said the country was also working with others to limit nuclear proliferation.

“The president’s going to keep on working on that, but it’s an important part of American national security to make sure that this nuclear arsenal we have actually functions properly, and that’s part of a testing regime,” he said. “To be clear, we know that it does work properly, but you got to keep on top of it over time and the president wants to make sure that we do that.”

The Kremlin denied conducting nuclear testing but said it would do so if the U.S. resumed the activity, which last took place more than three decades ago, The Associated Press reported.

Titus, Rosen push back

The Department of Energy did not respond to an inquiry seeking comment about what testing would entail for Nevada, or how furloughs during the federal government shutdown might affect those efforts. The department’s National Nuclear Security Administration maintains the nation’s stockpile, though Trump’s social media post suggested his directive went to the Pentagon.

DOE Secretary Chris Wright visited the Nevada National Security Site and a North Las Vegas office earlier this month, where he announced that about 70 federal employees at the local office had received furlough notices.

U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., said she will be introducing legislation on Friday to prevent federal funding from going toward atomic testing.

Titus, speaking to the Las Vegas Review-Journal by phone on Thursday, said she wasn’t sure what to make of the directive and hadn’t heard whether testing would focus on the existing stockpile or developing new weapons. But she said she feared the president was serious about changes to the country’s nuclear program because Project 2025, the conservative road map developed by the president’s supporters for his second administration, called to “restore readiness” of the testing.

A change to nuclear program testing would harm Nevadans who could be exposed to unhealthy nuclear radiation and restart the global nuclear arms race, Titus said.

She also questioned how the program could be restarted because of staff reductions taken during the Trump administration’s effort to reduce the federal government workforce and furloughs during the shutdown that began on Oct. 1.

“It’s totally contrary,” Titus said. “On one hand, he wants to start testing, which is no small feat. You don’t just run out there and test something. You have to set that up. That could take a couple of years. But then on the other hand, he’s gotten rid of the people who are the scientists and analysts who know how to do this.”

U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., further pressed the issue in a military confirmation hearing in the Senate on Thursday. She said testing unnecessarily exposes Nevada’s land and people to radiation. She also said the Nevada National Security Site has “safely conducted non-explosive experiments to certify the reliability, the safety (and) the effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile” since 1992.

“Let me tell you that we like to say in Nevada ‘what happens in Las Vegas stays in Vegas,’” she said during the hearing, “but if you start those explosive nuclear tests, I can tell you this: every bit of air, every bit of ground water, every bit of soil across these United States will be contaminated with radiation and everyone in this country will suffer. Not just the people of Nevada.”

Nevada’s history with atomic testing

Nearly 1,000 nuclear tests have been conducted at the Nevada site since it opened in 1951 — including 100 atmospheric tests and 828 underground tests. Nuclear testing has been halted since 1992, when the United States entered a testing moratorium.

Officials at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas declined to comment on how Trump’s directive could affect operations in Nevada. Joseph Kent, the museum’s chief community development officer, said the Nevada Test Site employed “tens of thousands” of people at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s.

Nowadays, the site’s workers focus on the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which can involve “subcritical testing.” That is when researchers test the behavior of nuclear materials without reaching the critical mass that would trigger a nuclear explosion.

“They’re able to gain information from performing an experiment like that,” Kent said, adding they can also use supercomputer calculations and other physics tools to understand radioactive materials’ changes over time.

Above-ground testing in the 1950s was part of the tourism draw to Southern Nevada, said UNLV history professor Michael Green.

“They would give people breakfasts or lunches, depending on the time of day, to sit on the roof of the hotel-casino and watch the mushroom cloud go up,” Green said.

What comes next?

It was unclear Thursday how any changes to nuclear testing could affect Nevada and the test site. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the advocacy group Arms Control Association, said the underground facility at the test site would likely be involved.

“It is possible to scale it up, to make serious modifications to the facility to allow a super critical test, so that may be what someone is telling Trump we can do now,” Kimball said.

He estimated it could take a year or more to modify existing facilities for those tests. The federal government would likely hire engineers, scientists and even drilling specialists to prepare underground testing.

“This would be very expensive,” Kimball said. “It would cost probably several hundred million dollars in today’s dollars.”

Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter Director Olivia Tanager said the local chapter is working with Nevada’s federal delegation to prevent the testing.

“We are prepared to fight back, and we’re going to fight back as hard as we can,” she said. “We know that this is something that negatively impacts Nevadans and that has a long and sordid history here in Nevada.”