While some program delays are “inevitable” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has done an adequate job of sustaining its nuclear-weapon work while minimizing the spread of disease among its workforce, the House’s top GOP military policy maker said Thursday.
“There has been some criticism at NNSA, just like in other parts of the government,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor during a conference call with Washington, D.C.-based reporters. “But it needs to be … constructive.”
Thornberry’s congressional district includes the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas: the geographical and figurative heart of the nationwide NNSA nuclear security enterprise. The site has continued round-the-clock weapons servicing since COVID-19 arrived on U.S. shores in January, though it has been in a mission critical operations posture since April, allowing on-site only those involved directly with essential weapons work.
“Pantex has a good record of making up delays,” Thornberry said of his nuclear constituent. But exactly how much schedule the plant will have to claw back, and on which programs, will depend on how long the pandemic response continues and how many workers it affects.
“We don’t know the answer to that yet,” Thornberry said.
Like all NNSA sites, Pantex has confirmed cases of COVID-19. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency has not disclosed how many nuclear-weapons workers have been forced to quarantine at home for two weeks after coming into contact with a co-worker who later tested positive. Typically, though, the number of quarantines far outnumbers confirmed infections.
Throughout the nuclear security enterprise, NNSA weapons sites are allowing only the personnel working on essential weapons missions to report for work. The sites are also requiring workers to maintain a distance of 6 feet where possible, and sometimes wear personal protective equipment where not, to prevent the spread of the virus. Most facilities are also screening people for symptoms and taking those peoples’ temperatures before letting them on site.
Meanwhile, Thornberry essentially told the Capitol Hill defense-press corps that any COVID-19 relief for the defense industry, including the NNSA and its contractors, should be in addition to the $740 billion that federal law allows Congress to spend on defense programs in 2021.
That defense-spending ceiling was set by legislation signed in 2019 that undid the last of the sequestration cuts from the 2011 Budget Control Act. Congressional Armed Services committees authorize defense spending each year in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that sets policy and spending limits for Pentagon and NNSA programs.
This opening gambit could put Thornberry at odds with House Democrats, who generally do not want to increase military spending amid the pandemic. The House majority, in media reports and public statements, has discussed including defense-related COVID-19 aid in the NDAA and decried the continuing reprogramming of Pentagon construction funding to pay for ongoing construction of portions of President Donald Trump’s southern border wall.
The amount and target of proposed extra Pentagon funding in fiscal 2021 will depend on “what sort of costs have been imposed [by COVID-19] on the department, and then also the consequences to the industrial base,” Thornberry said. The lawmaker, who is not seeking re-election in November, said he has recently spoken with Defense Secretary Mark Esper and others at the Pentagon about the issue.
Thornberry told reporters he didn’t know when the full House Armed Services Committee would mark up the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, but he hoped it would be “relatively soon.” The ongoing COVID-19 response has Congress treading carefully. The Senate returned to Washington this week, and the House may do so next week. Thornberry and House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) have said a draft version of the full-committee bill. The next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
The NNSA has requested about a $20 billion budget for 2021, which would be a 20% increase from its current appropriation. The 2021 ask is a sharp revision upward, compared with the budget projections NNSA offered a year ago in its annual budget request.
“I bristle a little bit” about cutting the defense budget post-pandemic, Thornberry said. “The world’s not going to be any safer on the other side of COVID.”
