The National Nuclear Security Administration will keep its 2019 budget for a little less than two months of fiscal 2020, under a stopgap spending bill awaiting President Trump’s signature at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill Thursday afternoon by a vote of 82-15. The House last week passed the continuing resolution, which extends 2019 spending levels through Nov. 21. That will give Congress, mired in a partisan fight over whether to fund Trump’s southern-border wall, a little time to work out their differences over the 2020 budget, which could be passed piecemeal.
The continuing resolution would temporarily limit the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to an annualized level nearly 10% lower than requested for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
The stopgap budget would keep the U.S. nuclear-weapon steward at $15.2 billion: 8.5% lower than the request of $16.5 billion. Even the House’s proposed 2020 DOE budget bill, which seeks to slow roll the NNSA’s plutonium-pit program and the agency’s work on intercontinental ballistic missile warheads, would provide more than that: $16 billion, which is 4% lower than requested but roughly a 4.5% raise over 2019 levels. The House passed its 2020 DOE budget in late June.
The Senate’s proposed DOE budget for 2020 provides more than the agency asked for, and more than the Senate Armed Services Committee authorized spending for the next fiscal year: almost $17 billion. House and Senate lawmakers started final conference negotiations over their dueling National Defense Authorization Acts last week. Those closed-door talks were ongoing at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
At deadline, the full Senate had yet to schedule a vote on the nearly $50-billion energy and water funding bill the upper chamber’s Appropriations Committee approved two weeks ago. Democrats object to beginning debate on the bill as part of a so-called minibus appropriations package that would fund Trump’s proposed border wall in part by diverting money from military and defense programs.
