nuclear-news

American taxpayers to pay up big for nuclear weapons

McKeon Wants Taxpayers to Spend Millions on Nuclear Boondoggle and NATO’s Bombs   POGO Project on Government Oversight By MIA STEINLE, 7 May 12, With the House Armed Services Committee scheduled to mark up the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this Wednesday, committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) has just released his markup of the bill. Alarmingly, McKeon’s NDAA markup includes an unjustified $100 million increase in funding to a proposed boondoggle of a nuclear weapons facility, the funding for which the House Appropriations Committee zeroed out last month. The Obama Administration had earlier requested that construction for the project be delayed by at least five years. ..

… Increased funding for CMRR-NF isn’t the only way McKeon’s NDAA mark-up gets it wrong. McKeon’s suggestion would increase the Administration’s request to modernize B61 nuclear bombs by $66 million, to a total of $435 million. Nearly 200 American B61s are stored at bases in five European countries as part of NATO’s defense. However, the cost to modernize these European-based B61s (in a process known as a life extension program, or LEP) would fall squarely on the shoulders of American taxpayers. McKeon’s suggested increase means that Americans would pay even more for these bombs on behalf of NATO….. http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/05/mckeon-wants-taxpayers-to-spend-millions-on-nuclear-boondoggle-and-natos-bombs.html

May 10, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war