Obama Signs NDAA

President Barack Obama last Wednesday signed the new fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that authorizes $607 billion in defense spending, following a previous veto of the bill over objections to the use of overseas contingency operations funds. The new deal passed the House and Senate after an agreement between Congress and the White House cut $5 billion in previously authorized defense funding. The cuts include a $230 million reduction for the Air Force’s Long-Range Strike Bomber for the current budget year, while funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is maintained at $12.5 billion. The bill’s provisions include a stockpile responsiveness program for knowledge transfer between generations of nuclear-weapon designers and engineers, a plan to address the NNSA’s $3.6 billion deferred maintenance backlog, and the development of military responses to Russian Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty violations. Obama said that although the NDAA keeps open the detention facility at Guantanamo, he signed the bill “because it includes vital benefits for military personnel and their families, authorities to facilitate ongoing operations around the globe, and important reforms to the military retirement system, as well as partial reforms to other military compensation programs.” 

 

Additionally, the bill authorizes the Obama administration-requested amount of $345 million to continue construction on the 70-percent completed Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility at the Savannah River Site, and also green lights $5 million for an analysis of MOX alternatives.