With congressional negotiations set to begin next week on the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the White House asked the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee not to cut development of new proliferation-detection technologies at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed in June, would not authorize some $20 million in funding the agency requested to develop new detection technologies in the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1. It is a small part of the total nonproliferation detection request and would, if signed into law, max out the account at about $285 million instead of roughly $305 million.
Senate appropriators this week decided the account could have $290 million: more than their counterparts on the Armed Services Committee authorized, but still less than requested.
Failure to authorize the requested level of funding “would impede the NNSA’s ability to provide the best technical advice and capabilities to national leadership to detect and monitor foreign weapon development programs of concern,” Russell Vought, acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, wrote last week in a letter to Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.).
The NNSA is set to begin a broad review of its present and future nonproliferation work: an evaluation formally called the “nonproliferation stewardship initiative.” It will be a “longterm” project, the agency stated in its 2020 budget request. The Senate Armed Services Committee, however, balked at funding any next-generation technology before the agency even begins the review.
“The committee encourages the program to formulate a multi-year plan to address gaps in the proliferation detection architecture and then request funds for technological approaches to closing those gaps in future fiscal years,” senators wrote in a report appended to its NDAA.
The NNSA and its labs help develop technology to detect radionuclides that may be moving illegally. Some detectors are large enough for a truck to drive through, others small enough to hold in a hand.
The House’s version of the 2020 NDAA includes the requested level of funding for the new nonproliferation work: one of the many ways the chambers’ two bills differ.
The House’s NDAA authorizes around $15.9 billion for the NNSA in 2020: about 4% less than requested, but still roughly a 4.5% increase from the agency’s 2019 budget. The Senate NDAA authorizes all $16.5 billion the White House requested for the NNSA in fiscal 2020.
House appropriators approved funding the NNSA at the amount authorized by their counterparts on the Armed Services Committee. Senate appropriators on Thursday provided even more money than that chamber’s Armed Services Committee authorized: just under $17 billion.
Among the main sticking points, the House wants to slow development of next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile warheads at the NNSA, including by restricting funding for new infrastructure to build the cores of the weapons, called plutonium pits. House appropriators approved $470 million for the NNSA’s pit-funding Plutonium Sustainment account, while Senate appropriators aproved $720 million: $10 million more than requested.
The House also wants to bar the Navy from deploying the new W76-2 low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead the NNSA is set to finish building in fiscal 2020.
Authorization bills set spending limits and policy for defense programs, including defense nuclear work at the Department of Energy. Separate appropriations bills provide funding.
