A liberal bloc of House lawmakers on Friday urged President Joe Biden to cut the nuclear weapons budget in fiscal year 2023.
In a letter led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the bloc of 29 U.S. representatives told Biden “to use the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to set a nuclear strategy that aims to limit the role of nuclear weapons in our national security, reduces unnecessary spending, and sets the stage for progress towards your recent agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to pursue additional arms control and risk reduction measures.”
All else being equal, the group of progressives is more than large enough to obstruct Democratic legislative priorities, given the eight-vote margin the majority has on party-line votes.
The Biden administration will notionally publish its nuclear posture review in January as part of a broader national defense strategy. The last two presidential administrations have each published a nuclear posture review.
The Biden administration’s 2022 budget request essentially continued the nuclear modernization program started by the Barack Obama administration in 2016 and continued, with relatively minor supplements, by the Donald Trump administration.
With regard to National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) programs, Friday’s letter from House progressives called out the W93 submarine launched ballistic missile warhead that’s now in the very early stages of development at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the B83 service life extension that the Biden administration requested, and which Congress has proposed to fund in appropriations bills that were awaiting further votes at deadline Monday.
