March 17, 2014

HOUSE E&W CHAIRMAN SUGGESTS NNSA WEAPONS FUNDING BOOST NOT LIKELY

By ExchangeMonitor

Bucking some of his Republican colleagues, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, suggested yesterday that the panel would not provide additional funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program. Citing budgetary pressure, the Obama Administration requested $7.58 billion for the program in Fiscal Year 2013, approximately $370 million less than projections a year ago. That has drawn howls of concern from some House and Senate Republicans who are upset that the Administration is backing off modernization promises made during debate on the New START Treaty. “I think we’ve been doing a pretty good job providing them what they need,” Frelinghuysen told NW&M Monitor after a budget hearing with NNSA officials yesterday. “There is obviously a desire for more and there are obviously some who feel we’re not measuring up but I think they’ve done an excellent job with less resources. I think we’ve taken a pretty close look at their operations and I think we’re meeting their needs.”

During the hearing, NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino also suggested that the program did not need more funding. “It fully meets the requirements and we’ll be able to take care of the stockpile, do the annual assessments we need to do, commence the life extension work that the Nuclear Weapons Council has recently approved on the B61-12, as well as take care of the scientific and technical infrastructure that’s so critical to evaluate the surveillance data we get from the stockpile,” D’Agostino told the subcommittee. “So the stockpile is safe secure and reliable.” Rep. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), the panel’s ranking member, raised questions with the budget request for the agency and decisions to change tack on major projects like the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility and the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility and delay the completion of a First Production Unit on the refurbished B61 bomb by two years. Visclosky suggested the changes “call into question the process by which the needs of the complex are defined,” creating a credibility issue for the agency. “One the one hand, this points to the fundamental ingenuity that our nation’s engineers and scientists possess, something that we can rightly all take pride in,” Visclosky said. “On the other, it points to an organization that backs into decisions only after being faced with resource realities.”

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