The Biden Administration’s fiscal 2024 budget requests $23.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, an increase of about $1.5 billion from the current fiscal year.
Released Thursday, the president’s budget request aims to “make historic investments in the nation’s nuclear security enterprise to implement the President’s Nuclear Posture Review; support a safe, secure, and effective nuclear stockpile; reduce nuclear risks; and provide nuclear power to the U.S. Navy,” according to a White House summary.
The fiscal 2024 budget request includes $18.8 billion for weapons activities, a $1.6 billion increase from the 2022 omnibus appropriation of $17.1 billion. Funding for nuclear nonproliferation came in at $2.5 billion in the 2024 request, up slightly from the $2.49 billion agreed upon in the 2022 omnibus, according to supplemental budget documents the White House released Thursday.
Biden’s budget aspires to “power the nuclear Navy,” with the 2024 request nearly level at $1.96 billion with the $2 billion approved for naval reactors in the current fiscal year. Also included in the budget is funding to support the trilateral AUKUS partnership between the U.S., U.K. and Australia to provide the latter with a conventionally armed, nuclear powered submarine capability.
Detailed budget request documents, including those for the departments of Energy and Defense and for the individual military services were not published at deadline.
Congress will then embark on its annual fiscal tug of war. In recent hearings of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have expressed their opinions that the budgets for the nation’s nuclear weapons complex is both too low and too high, respectively.
Sen. Jack Reed, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday broadcast support for the administration’s request, calling it both “strong” and “among the largest” in U.S. history.
