March 17, 2014

ADMINISTRATION OUTLINES OPPOSITION TO NEW START RESTRICTIONS

By ExchangeMonitor

A host of nuclear weapons-related provisions included in the House version of the Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Authorization Act are drawing opposition from the Obama Administration, which yesterday threatened to veto the bill if it included language limiting implementation of the New START Treaty or tying the hands of the president on future nuclear reductions. The House Armed Services Committee marked up the bill last week, and Republicans on the committee drafted a host of nuclear and arms control related provisions, including language that would fence off more than $70 million for the implementation of New START or language that would handcuff the Administration to the current structure of the nuclear triad going forward. “All of these provisions would impinge on the President’s ability to implement the New START Treaty and to set U.S. nuclear weapons policy,” the White House Office of Management and Budget said in a Statement of Administration Policy yesterday. It later said it “strongly objects” to language that would force the President to negotiate any future nuclear reductions through a treaty framework.

The Administration also said it opposes language that would direct the nation’s nuclear weapons lab directors and the commander of Strategic Command to bypass the president and submit annual stockpile assessment letters to Congress if the Administration misses its deadline for submitting th letters. A provision that would expand the use of the Kansas City Plant governance pilot program to two additional sites across the weapons complex as well as language giving DOE the ability to force the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to perform cost-benefit analyses also drew opposition from the Administration.

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