A House Appropriations panel on Monday followed through with its promise not to grant a $20-billion budget request for civilian nuclear weapons programs in a fiscal 2021 spending bill that would also forbid preparation for a nuclear yield-test, limit Pentagon influence on Department of Energy budgets, and potentially slow development of a proposed new nuclear warhead.
For active nuclear weapons programs managed by DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee proposed about $18 billion in funding. That would be some $1.3 billion above the 2020 budget of $16.7 billion, but well short of the nearly $20 billion the semiautonomous weapons agency sought.
The House panel is scheduled to mark up its $49.6 billion bill this afternoon. Subcommittee markups are usually brief and noncontroversial, without much debate on amendments. Big debates usually wait until the full Appropriations Committee markup, which was not scheduled at deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing. Media had reported the full session could happen as soon as Friday.
The Senate Appropriations Committee at deadline had not released any draft budget language for the Energy Department or NNSA for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
The House subcommittee released its bill text less than a week after the House Armed Services Committee, in its version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, authorized the NNSA to spend all $19.8 billion the agency requested. Authorization bills set spending limits and policy, but appropriations bills actually provide the money.
Lawmakers traditionally frown on using appropriations bills for policy statements, but lawmakers of both sides often flex the power of the purse to ensure agencies spend as congressional majorities prefer.
For example, the House panel’s draft spending bill would forbid the Energy Department from spending 2021 funds to work with the joint DOD-DOE “Nuclear Weapons Council to guide, advise, assist, develop, or execute a budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration.” It would also forbid using the 2021 budget to prepare for a yield-bearing nuclear weapon test. Both the House and Senate Armed Services committees this year approved the NNSA to do the latter, and the Senate panel approved the former.
The bill also could also attach some strings to early development of the next-generation W93 warhead. The weapon, authorized by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Acts passed by House and Senate Armed Services committees, would pair a previously tested nuclear-explosive design with a new aeroshell to create, in the decades to come, a replacement for both the current W76 and W88 warheads used today aboard U.S. ballistic-missile submarines.
Under the House panel’s draft spending bill, the text of which does not mention W93 by name, the secretary of energy could only spend 2021 appropriations on new nuclear-weapon designs, or modifications, by first providing Congress with “a preliminary cost range” for the program, plus a “detailed justification and information about the assumptions underlying such an action.” The prohibition would even apply to studies about new designs or modifications, according to the bill.
