nuclear-news

The NNSA, a semiautonomous agency within the Department of Energy that has oversight on America’s nuclear weapons stockpile, is requiring $16.5 billion in the fiscal 2020 budget, up $1.3 billion from its FY19 total. Weapons-related activities would see an allocation of $12.4 billion, an 11.8 percent increase over how much funding went to that mission in FY19. NNSA’s proposed budget comprises 52 percent of the DOE’s total budget request……..

The agency has five major modernization programs underway: life extensions of the B61-12 gravity bomb; W80-4 warhead design for the Air Force’s long-range standoff weapon; W88 Alteration 370 for the Trident II ballistic missile; and the W87-1 Modification Program for intercontinental ballistic missile warheads. The fifth program is the W76-2 modification, perhaps the most controversial.

A low-yield nuclear warhead that the Trump administration first introduced as a requirement with the Nuclear Posture Review at the start of 2018, the W76-2 is moving along quickly. In January, the NNSA announced production had begun on the first unit; the budget documents released March 11 state that the system “completes development and production” in FY20……..https://www.defensenews.com/smr/federal-budget/2019/03/11/trump-budget-increases-nuclear-weapons-agency-funding-amidst-new-production/