nuclear-news

Lawmakers gird for spending battle over nuclear weapons, The Hill, BY REBECCA KHEEL – 03/07/21 Nuclear weapons are emerging as one of the top political brawls in the brewing battle over next year’s defense budget.Democrats have been introducing bills to curtail costly nuclear modernization programs, as well writing letters urging President Biden to support their efforts.

But Republicans are shooting back with their own letters and op-eds calling on Biden to stay the course on programs that largely originated during the Obama administration. They’re also working to pin down Pentagon nominees on where they stand.

The back-and-forth over nuclear modernization is providing a lens into the larger fight that’s taking shape as the Biden administration prepares to present its first defense budget in the spring. Expectations are that the administration will keep funding flat.

In one of the latest salvos, top Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee said Biden should boost defense spending by 3 to 5 percent, in part citing nuclear modernization needs, as well as bolstering cyber and naval capabilities…….

But even the Trump administration had projected a relatively flat defense budget in fiscal year 2022 compared to the $740 billion defense budget in fiscal 2021, amid other pressures such as a growing national debt.

As the Biden administration faces a time crunch in crafting its first budget proposal, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks in a February memo directed a review of a select group of programs, including low-yield nuclear warheads and nuclear command and control, according to multiple reports.

The Trump administration developed and deployed a submarine-launch low-yield nuclear warhead, dubbed the W76-2 warhead, that Democrats argued raised the risk of nuclear war by potentially lowering the threshold for the U.S. willingness to use nuclear weapons.

Trump officials were also in the early stages of developing a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile.

On Thursday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) introduced a bill to prohibit production and deployment, as well as research and development, of the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile and its associated warhead.

“Putting new, expensive nuclear warheads on attack submarines and surface ships that haven’t carried those weapons in almost thirty years is a distraction that will suck precious resources away from the most pressing need of the U.S. Navy—namely, to increase the size of its overworked fleet,” Courtney, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee, said in a statement. “This legislation is a common-sense bill that will stop the hemorrhaging of precious Navy dollars for a wasteful program that Congress barely debated.”

An interim national security strategy released by the White House on Wednesday said the administration would “take steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, while ensuring our strategic deterrent remains safe, secure, and effective and that our extended deterrence commitments to our allies remain strong and credible.”

But Republicans have been pushing back against any potential changes to nuclear programs………………..  https://thehill.com/policy/defense/541906-lawmakers-gird-for-spending-battle-over-nuclear-weapons