Kerry Announces Current Stockpile Size of 4,717
Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
5/1/2015
Concerned about an increased emphasis on nuclear weapons dismantlement, the House Armed Services Committee this week added language to the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that would cap the National Nuclear Security Administration’s dismantlement budget at $50 million over the next five years. The amendment was added to the bill during the committee’s marathon April 29 markup, and comes as a response to an announcement earlier in the week by Secretary of State John Kerry that the United States plans to accelerate dismantlement work by 20 percent. “Dismantlement is not a high priority,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. “On the contrary, getting nuclear modernization done is the highest priority.”
In an April 27 announcement at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, Kerry said that as of September 2014, the United States had dismantled 10,251 warheads over the last 20 years. That’s an increase of 299 from the Obama Administration’s September 2013 announcement that it had dismantled 9,952 warheads. Kerry said about 2,500 warheads remain in the dismantlement queue. Those retired by 2009 will be dismantled by 2022, while warheads retired in the last six years could take longer to take apart. Kerry also said the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile was 4,717 as of September 2014, down 87 warheads from September 2013.
Was Administration Planning to Up Dismantlement Funding?
The Obama Administration requested $48.05 million for NNSA warhead dismantlement efforts in FY 2016, less than the cap established by the language in the House bill. According to FY 2016 budget documents, the agency was planning level funding for dismantlement work through FY 2020 and it said it was still on track to meet its goal of dismantling all weapons retired before FY 2009 by FY 2022 under the current dismantlement plan. Under the budget projections released Feb. 2, funding for the program would gradually increase before peaking in FY 2019 at $52.37 million. A funding level of $51.77 million is projected for FY 2020. The bulk of the NNSA’s warhead dismantlement work takes place at the Pantex Plant and the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Republicans on the committee, however, were concerned that the recent announcement by Kerry would mean an increase in spending on dismantlement work. The bill also would prohibit the dismantlement of warheads retired after 2009, with some exceptions, and would disallow the dismantlement of the W84 cruise missile warhead. “This actually fits within NNSA’s current plan,” Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said. “All it does is hold them to their current plan and doesn’t allow acceleration of it. … This does not change the direction NNSA was going. It just does not allow it to be accelerated, especially in the environment we’re in.” Rogers said accelerating dismantlement work while Russia was increasing its reliance on nuclear weapons and ramping up its nuclear saber-rattling sends the wrong message to Moscow and to U.S. allies. “While Russia makes nuclear threats, we accelerate our unilateral disarmament. This is crazy,” Rogers said.
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, said that NNSA and the Department of Defense were not in favor of the amendment. “It is mainly going to unbalance the workforce at Pantex,” Cooper said. “As I understand it, that weapons facility has used dismantlement as a sort of gap filler between their other duties.”
