March 17, 2014

TURNER: CONGRESS NOT TO BLAME FOR MODERNIZATION CUTS

By ExchangeMonitor

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) dismissed claims that Congress was to blame for the Obama Administration’s less-than-anticipated funding request for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program in FY2013, suggesting that the Administration should have fought harder to modernize the nation’s nuclear weapons complex and arsenal. Congressional appropriators cut nearly $400 million from the Administration’s request for the weapons program in FY2012, and the Administration responded to the budgetary pressure facing the government by requesting $7.58 billion for the program in FY2013, approximately $370 million less than it had projected requesting a year ago. “Some in the Administration are making ‘he said, she said’ statements, stating that the Administration has tried, but Congress won’t fund the promises,” Turner said Friday at the Fourth Annual Nuclear Deterrence Summit. “I think that misses the point. The linkage is clear, reductions are not in the U.S. national security interest without modernization. It simply isn’t good enough to try when it comes to national security—we have to succeed. We have to be adults about these issues; the nuclear deterrent is too important to our national security.”

Turner said he will introduce the “Maintaining the President’s Commitment to Our Nuclear Deterrent and National Security Act of 2012” after this week’s House recess in an attempt to strengthen provisions in the FY2012 Defense Authorization Act. Turner’s attempt last year to tie stockpile reductions to modernization were watered down in conference negotiations with the Senate. “I expect more bicameral support this year in view of what one of my colleagues called the ‘reckless lunacy’ of instructing the military to plan for an 80 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear deterrent—coupled with the now apparent total abandonment of the President’s modernization promises,” Turner said.

Turner also outlined his opposition to potential drastic cuts in the nation’s deployed strategic, and he wasn’t alone. Turner, House Armed Services Committee chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) and 32 other members of the House Armed Services Committee said proposed reductions beyond the 1,550-warhead cap set by the New START Treaty with Russia would “undermine” the nation’s nuclear deterrent in a letter sent to President Obama Friday. The Associated Press reported last week that the Administration is considering several future options, including bringing down the size of the strategic deployed stockpile to 1,000-1,100, 700-800, or 300-400. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Jim Miller would not comment on the potential reductions, but suggested at last week’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit that the United States could meet its deterrence requirements at less than 1,550 warheads. “We seek your assurance that in view of the ambitious nuclear weapons modernization programs of Russia, communist China, Pakistan and others, the deep cuts to U.S. conventional capabilities per the Budget Control Act, and your failure to follow through on your pledged section 1251 plan, that you will cease to pursue such unprecedented reductions in the U.S. deterrent and extended deterrent,” the lawmakers wrote. “Surely you agree that blind ideology cannot drive a matter as important as U.S. nuclear forces over reality. This will certainly be our starting point when drafting this year’s national defense authorization bill.”

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