The House and Senate disagree about whether to fund construction of new tritium facilities at the Savannah River Site in fiscal 2019, according to their latest appropriations proposals.
The two chambers have also staked out very different negotiating positions about an Obama administration program to create nuclear warheads that could fly on both Air Force and Navy missiles. House lawmakers want to nix the program, but Senate appropriators want the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to keep it going.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, in a bill approved late last week, fully backed the Trump administration’s $27 million request for new tritium-related infrastructure at the South Carolina facility in 2019.
The House Appropriations Committee recommended only $2 million in a bill approved in May. That is in contrast to their colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee, who in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act approved by the lower chamber earlier last month authorized the full $27 million for the planned Savannah River Site Tritium Production Capability.
House appropriators did not say why they would not meet the request for the Tritium Production Capability, which would replace the Savannah River Site’s 1950s-vintage H Area Old Manufacturing Facility. In the facility, the NNSA performs final manufacturing touches on tritium reservoirs that are filled elsewhere on the site, then inspects the reservoirs before preparing them for shipment off-site.
The Senate’s version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act still has not been made public. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the bill last week.
The NNSA estimates the new Tritium Production Capability will cost about $500 million to build by fiscal 2029. The agency wants to construct two new buildings to house tritium and deuterium processes now located at the Old Manufacturing Facility.
The full House is slated to vote in June on a package of appropriations bills that includes the Department of Energy’s budget bill for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The Senate’s energy and water appropriations package was not scheduled for floor debate at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said last week a vote could happen in June.
Tritium gas, obtained from uranium, increases the explosive yield of nuclear warheads and acts as a sort of fountain of youth for aging warheads. Warheads naturally lose some explosive power as their plutonium and uranium cores decay: something the NNSA can balance out by adding more tritium to the warhead.
Senate Check Writers Back Interoperable Warhead
In another break with the House, the Senate Appropriations Committee has proposed $53 million in the budget year starting Oct. 1 for the NNSA to continue its work on the interoperable warhead. That is exactly what the NNSA requested for the weapon, which is also known as IW-1. It would be the first of three such warheads to be developed under the 30-year nuclear modernization and maintenance program the Barack Obama administration set in place.
In the 2019 NNSA budget bill it approved earlier this month, the House Appropriations Committee said the agency should instead spend the $53 million to study a life-extension program for the W78 warhead that now tips the Air Force’s intercontinental ballistic missiles, and which the interoperable warhead would replace.
The House’s version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, a policy bill that sets priorities for appropriators, also proposed scrapping the interoperable warhead. The Senate could vote on its National Defense Authorization Act as soon as next week, according to Politico. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s bill summary did not mention the interoperable warhead.
