nuclear-news

US Democrats lose bid to monitor costs of nuclear weapons

House Democratic Bid to Question Nuclear Weapons Plan Fails in Panel Vote National Journal, By Douglas P. Guarino, 8 May 14 House Democrats on Wednesday sought to include in the annual defense authorization bill requirements for formal studies and reports on the necessity of various nuclear weapons and how much it would cost to maintain them.

The minority party in the House Armed Services Committee, however, had to settle for more narrow provisions requiring only less formal, oral briefings from the Obama administration on these issues. The Republican majority rejected Democratic amendments that went any further.

The Democratic effort followed a January report by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies that asserted the current U.S. plan for modernizing the nation’s nuclear arsenal is so expensive that it could not realistically be implemented.

Congress and the executive branch do not yet fully know the cost of the plan’s various components, said the report. Its sole recommendation was for lawmakers to require the administration “to annually produce an integrated nuclear deterrence budget” that projects the full cost of each system in the nuclear arsenal.

The version of the defense authorization bill that the House committee approved on Wednesday does not include provisions that would require anything so broad and detailed, though……..http://www.nationaljournal.com/global-security-newswire/house-democratic-bid-to-question-nuclear-weapons-plan-fails-in-panel-vote-20140508

May 9, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war