The Trump administration’s budget outline for 2018 proposes an 11 percent funding increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration while cutting overall funding for the Department of Energy.
The White House released the budget blueprint Thursday, requesting $28 billion for DOE, down $1.7 billion or 5.6 percent from its 2017 annualized level under the continuing budget resolution that expires on April 28. The DOE funding proposal “reflects an increased reliance on the private sector to fund later-stage research, development, and commercialization of energy technologies and focuses resources toward early-stage research and development,” the document said.
Meanwhile, the White House would add $1.4 billion to the current funding of $12.5 billion for the NNSA, the semiautonomous DOE agency tasked with sustaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent. This request supports the “goals of moving toward a responsive nuclear infrastructure and advancing the existing program of record for warhead life extension programs” by eliminating the defense sequestration budget caps on the agency, and is meant to allow it to begin addressing its infrastructure maintenance backlog, the document said.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 set federal spending limits for 10 years in an attempt to save the U.S. government over $900 billion. Those caps for the discretionary security category included NNSA.
The 64-page budget proposal did not provide a detailed breakdown for proposed program spending at the NNSA or other federal agencies. That is expected in May.
NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said Thursday at a House Armed Services oversight and investigations subcommittee hearing that the budget request “demonstrates the administration’s strong support for the United States nuclear security enterprise and will help ensure that we have a nuclear force that’s second to none.”
“Details of the budget are still being finalized,” the NNSA said in an emailed statement. “When the President’s Budget Request is transmitted to Congress in a few weeks’ time, we will then be able to provide additional details.”
Lawmakers from both parties expressed concerns about various parts of the Trump budget, and noted that it is their job to set appropriations for federal agencies. “Budgets are about choices. @POTUS‘s chooses walls, deportations, and nukes over diplomacy, cancer research, and Meals on Wheels,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tweeted on Thursday.
Much of the proposed increase at the NNSA would go toward the line items in its budget – which include weapons activities, defense nuclear nonproliferation, naval reactors, and federal salaries and expenses – in addition to warhead life extension, recapitalization, and maintenance, Klotz said.
The NNSA’s warhead life extensions are part of a program meant to extend the life of the W76, W88, B61, and W78 warheads through upgrades and aging component replacement. The agency received $1.3 billion for its life-extension and major alteration operations in fiscal 2016; it sought a $38 million bump for the current budget year.
The Thursday hearing on Capitol Hill focused on nuclear weapons complex infrastructure, with Klotz and other officials recommending changes to existing policy to help the nuclear enterprise tackle its aging infrastructure problem. The NNSA faces a $3.7 billion deferred maintenance backlog in its aging buildings, many of which date to the Manhattan Project. The agency has attributed much of its backlog to funding limitations.
One of Klotz’s recommendations for a more efficient approach to infrastructure was greater flexibility to use third-party financing; the NNSA cites the new Kansas City National Security Campus as a model that saves the government roughly $100 million each year in operating and maintenance costs. This facility was designed and constructed by contractor CenterPoint Zimmer LLC and leased by the U.S. General Services Administration on the NNSA’s behalf. Plant contractor Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technology completed the plant’s move to the new facility in 2014.
Another example is the Administrative Support Complex under construction at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, where site contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security entered into a lease agreement by which a private developer is building the facility via third-party financing. “It was exceedingly challenging work over a period of about 16 months in order to secure the . . . authority to give approval to the M&O contractor to go ahead and enter into this lease, so some streamlining there would be very, very helpful,” Klotz said.
The new White House budget also requests $639 billion for the Defense Department, or $52 billion over the current level. It includes $574 billion for the base budget and $65 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations. For the State Department, it requests $25.6 billion in base funding, or 28 percent less than the currently enacted level.
