ILLINOIS DEM VOWS TO CONTINUE FIGHT AGAINST B61 LEP

By ExchangeMonitor

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) isn’t giving up his fight to cut funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s B61 life extension program. Quigley said he was in the “beginning stages” of drafting a bill to cut funding for the nuclear bomb refurbishment despite a failed attempt to trim money from the program during debate on the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act earlier this year. An amendment drafted by Quigley and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) that would’ve cut $23.7 million from the Obama Administration’s $551 million budget request for B61 work in FY 2014 was narrowly defeated 227-196. The B61-specific bill that Quigley said he was working on could “educate the House at the beginning of this as we go into the next year of appropriations that addresses the issues of what’s an appropriate nuclear force and what types of weapons make sense,” Quigley said in comments on the sidelines of an event yesterday sponsored by the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “The fact of the matter is I don’t think most members even think about it in that context. They just think, ‘Well, we need nukes to keep us safe.’ Well, what kind of nukes, what are the numbers and what are the costs of maintaining this. Every once in a while … you’ve almost got to Etch A Sketch your thinking on this. This isn’t 1955. This isn’t 1965. There is a whole new world of challenges that we face and we’re still funding at extraordinary cost and great risk a system that doesn’t keep us safe.”

Quigley said he would work with the Senate on the bill, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who as the chair of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee helped cut $168 million from the B61 life extension program in the Senate version of the FY 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act. Despite recent statements from the Administration that the B61 life extension program is the cheapest refurbishment effort that will meet military requirements, Feinstein suggested the LEP was “more like a Cadillac than a Ford” in comments after the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation event yesterday. “My view is we should do what’s pragmatic, what’s necessary for safety, but not really go to create what’s essentially a new warhead,” she said. Don’t expect a B61-related amendment from Feinstein when the Senate takes up the FY 2014 Defense Authorization Act next week. Feinstein said she won’t address the issue in that venue.

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