The White House is angling for a sharp $1 billion increase to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons activities budget in fiscal 2018, according to a spreadsheet that appears to show line items from the president’s full budget request to be released next week.
The spreadsheet, obtained and released Thursday by the centrist Third Way think tank, breaks down the NNSA’s major line items that correspond with the Trump administration’s “skinny budget” released in March. That budget outline proposed an 11 percent funding increase from fiscal 2016 levels to almost $14 billion for U.S. nuclear deterrent and nonproliferation operations.
According to the document, the NNSA’s weapons activities would receive $10.2 billion in the next fiscal year, nearly $1 billion more than the currently enacted level for operations that include life-extension programs for the W88, B61, W76, and W80 warheads; research, development, test, and evaluation in support of the stockpile; special nuclear material sustainment; and infrastructure projects.
The NNSA’s defense nuclear nonproliferation account would receive $1.8 billion, a decrease of almost $100 million from the present level. This includes work to secure or eliminate nuclear and radiological materials worldwide and conduct various nonproliferation efforts.
The spreadsheet does not break down how NNSA segment funding would be distributed to specific programs.
“Will be interesting to see what huge weapons plus up goes toward but likely a lot for deferred maintenance of aging facilities,” Kingston Reif, director of disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, tweeted on Thursday. The NNSA is currently grappling with a $3.7 billion and growing backlog of deferred maintenance. The agency declined to comment on the spreadsheet.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency would under the apparent White House plan receive $418.6 million for salaries and expenses, up from the current $390 million; and $1.5 billion for naval reactor operations, up from the current $1.4 billion.
The upward trend in weapons activities and downward trend for defense nuclear nonproliferation appears in line with projections from analysts and observers who indicated early on in President Donald Trump’s term that his focus at the NNSA would be in boosting nuclear weapons stockpile work.
The federal government is currently funded through Sept. 30, following a $1 trillion omnibus spending bill signed into law earlier this month. That budget deal provides $12.9 billion in total for the NNSA for this year.
The White House is expected to release its fiscal 2018 budget request next week, after which Congress and the administration will need to reach an agreement on federal spending before the budget year begins Oct. 1.
