March 17, 2014

SENS. LOOK TO DOD TO MAKE UP FOR NNSA FUNDING CUTS

By ExchangeMonitor

Could the Pentagon help prop up the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program again, this time as NNSA faces cuts to its $7.6 billion Fiscal Year 2012 request from House and Senate appropriators? That’s the idea behind a controversial amendment to the FY2012 Defense Authorization Act that would give Defense Secretary Leon Panetta the ability to transfer money to the NNSA’s weapons program to cover differences between what Congress appropriates and what it authorizes. Authored by Republican Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the amendment has angered Senate appropriators for appearing to subvert their authority, and it’s unclear how much support there is for the legislation. “This is your classic tension between authorizers and appropriators,” one Congressional aide said, suggesting that Senate appropriators were “furious” about the amendment. “It bypasses the 302(b) allocation process they approved in committee,” the aide said.

Senate appropriators provided $7.2 billion for the NNSA’s weapons program, and the House provided $7.1 billion. In contrast, House and Senate authorizers each matched the Administration’s $7.6 billion request, and the amendment would allow the Pentagon to make up the difference. The amendment reads: “If the amount for the weapons activities of the National Nuclear Security Administration for fiscal year 2012 is less than the amount authorized to be appropriated for those activities for that fiscal year by this title, the Secretary of Defense may transfer, from amounts appropriated for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2012, to the Secretary of Energy for the weapons activities of the National Nuclear Security Administration an amount equal to the difference between the amount appropriated and the amount authorized to be appropriated for weapons activities for fiscal year 2012.” Kyl and Corker also submitted an amendment that would have given the same authority to the State Department, but Foggy Bottom has bristled at sharing its own funds to boost the weapons program and refused to support the concept, according to Congressional aides. The Senators are not expected to offer that amendment on the Senate floor.

A separate amendment to the bill proposed by Kyl and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) yesterday restates part of the New START Treaty Resolution of Ratification in an effort to reaffirm that Congress supports the Obama Administration’s plans to modernize the NNSA’s weapons program and its strategic delivery vehicles. The amendment would strengthen language already in the bill, moving it closer to provisions in the House version of the legislation that would tie the modernization funding to future stockpile reductions.

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