nuclear-news

US budget constraints on nuclear arsenal

D’Agostino and other officials also had to explain why the agency’s Weapons Dismantlement and Disposition budget would shrink from slightly more than $96 million in fiscal 2010 to less than $57 million in the upcoming budget year.

Senior Lawmakers Wary of Nuclear Agency Budget Increase, NTI: Global Security Newswire, March 2, 2011, By Martin Matishak WASHINGTON — Budget constraints might make it difficult to grant the Obama administration’s request to increase spending for operations to ensure the safety and performance of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, leaders of a key congressional panel indicated yesterday (see GSN, March 1).The White House blueprint for the next federal budget calls for the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, to receive a 5 percent funding hike to $11.8 billion (see GSN, Feb. 15).

Of that amount, $7.6 billion would go in fiscal 2012 toward the agency’s “weapons activities,” which cover all efforts that directly support the warheads in the nuclear stockpile, including refurbishment. That represents an 8.9 percent, or $621 million, boost for those programs from the enacted fiscal 2010 request.

However, “in the fiscal environment that we are now facing, that request is unlikely to be met,” House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.) said in his opening statement during a hearing on the agency’s weapons operations.

“New resources will not be available unless they come from existing accounts,” the GOP lawmaker added…….

Warhead Dismantlement D’Agostino and other officials also had to explain why the agency’s Weapons Dismantlement and Disposition budget would shrink from slightly more than $96 million in fiscal 2010 to less than $57 million in the upcoming budget year.

The program is intended to eliminate retired weapons and their components and to reduce the security and maintenance burden of legacy warheads and bombs. The exact number of warheads the agency intends to take apart in the next budget year is classified……

NTI: Global Security Newswire – Senior Lawmakers Wary of Nuclear Agency Budget Increase

March 3, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war