The Donald Trump administration plans to pay for a larger civilian nuclear weapons budget in fiscal 2021 partly by requesting funding for only a single Virginia-class attack submarine next year, rather than a pair, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.
The outlet is the first to confirm rumors that circulated in Washington in January that President Donald Trump’s decision to back a $20 billion 2021 budget for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would crimp the Navy’s fleet-expansion program.
The requested NNSA budget would be well above the appropriation of $16.7 billion for the current 2020 fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.
The Navy’s submarine program winds up the primary bill payer for that proposed increase, ponying up $1.6 billion for the NNSA request, Bloomberg reported. Other defense programs would provide the remaining $1 billion or so that the White House has allowed the NNSA to seek from Congress.
Most of the money would be funneled into the NNSA’s Weapons Activities account, which includes the agency’s nuclear weapons life extension and major alteration programs, along with stockpile stewardship programs such as subcritical plutonium experiments.
According to one source with knowledge of the DOE branch’s unilateral press for a bigger budget, NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty was adamant the agency should not have to move funds from any of its non-weapons programs to bolster the weapons programs.
In January, the news outlet The Dispatch was first to report that Gordon-Hagerty and Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette were at loggerheads over the NNSA’s 2021 budget request. Gordon-Hagerty wanted the $20 billion budget, and Brouillette refused to submit that amount to the Office of Management and Budget. Eventually, the White House came up with a $17.5 billion proposal that Brouillette, in vain it turned out, supported.
Trump reportedly sided with Gordon-Hagerty over Brouillette following an Oval Office meeting in January during which prominent defense hawks in Congress, including Senate Armed Services Chairma James Inhofe (R-Okla.), threw their weight behind a larger NNSA budget.
The Navy is starting to build Block V Virginia-class submarines: the latest iteration of the attack sub that replaces Los Angeles-class boats. These attack submarines are nuclear powered, but do not carry nuclear weapons. In December, the Navy gave General Dynamics Electric Boat a $22.2 billion contract to build nine Virginia-class subs by 2029, with an option for a 10th boat.
Meanwhile, in a presidential election year, Washington watchers predict the government will be funded with stopgap continuing resolutions until after Americans hit the polls Nov. 3. That would put the NNSA a little behind its idealized schedule for ongoing and planned weapons modernization programs, even if Congress is prepared to grant the enormous increase the White House reportedly intends to request.
That is according to congressional staffers, consultants, and government affairs specialists who spoke on two panels at the Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) annual meeting in the final week of January. No long-term funding is apt to occur until a potential lame duck session after the November elections, they said.
Passage of any major legislation is likely to be “swallowed alive” by campaign politics — both presidential and congressional — by June or July, Bechtel Vice President and Manager of Government Affairs Bob DeGrasse said Jan. 31. The entire process could be overcome by the campaign season as early as this month, with presidential impeachment proceedings and the annual State of the Union speech now in the rear view.
A continuing resolution would leave the National Nuclear Security Administration funded at the annual equivalent of about $16.7 billion.
The White House is scheduled to issue its latest budget proposal on Monday.
