nuclear-news

USA nuclear weapons spending contrasts with budget realities

Nuclear Plan Conflicts with New Budget Realities  2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul: Achieving Sustainable Nuclear Security Culture Federation of American Scientists  (FAS) By Nickolas Roth, Hans M. Kristensen and Stephen Young

Note: This is the first of four posts analyzing the FY 2012 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan, each jointly produced by the Federation of American Scientists and Union of Concerned Scientists.

A new nuclear weapons plan from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which seeks further increases in spending over the next decade for nuclear weapons and for weapons production and simulation facilities, will face real challenges in the new budget environment.

The FY2012 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP), which was sent to Congress in April, is NNSA’s outline of its near- and long-term plans and associated costs for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and supporting infrastructure. However, with national security spending facing real cuts below FY2011 levels for the next two years at a minimum, either the NNSA must overcome that trend or cut back on its plans.

The FY2012 SSMP is unclassified but has two secret annexes. The new plan updates, with input from Congress, the FY2011 SSMP published last year, and is the first plan to fully incorporate the recommendations of the Obama administration’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. Increased Nuclear Weapon Spending

The Obama administration has significantly increased the amount of money the United States spends on nuclear weapons, and had planned further increases before the Budget Control Act of 2011 was passed last month. The FY2011 budget proposed in early 2010 increased NNSA’s spending on Weapons Activities by nearly 10 percent relative to the previous year, and the administration later added another $5.4 billion for the 2011-2015 future years nuclear security program. According to the FY2011 SSMP, NNSA planned to spend about $80 billion from 2011 through 2020—or an average of $8 billion per year. In comparison, nuclear weapons budgets in the last years of the Bush administration were around $6.7 billion annually in inflation-adjusted dollars.

The FY2012 SSMP shows that the NNSA plans additional funding increases, beginning with an additional $4 billion for the 2012-2016 future years nuclear program. The NNSA now plans to spend $88 billion on nuclear weapons and the nuclear weapons complex from 2012 to 2021, for a yearly average of $8.8 billion. This is another 10% increase on top of the FY11 SSMP increase.

However, those budget levels may be less than what is required if NNSA’s plans do not change. In particular, cost estimates for two major facilities—the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) in Los Alamos, New Mexico—are a cause for concern…..

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2011/09/stockpileplan2011.php

September 13, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war