In my May Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists column I explore the history of post-Cold War GOP efforts to constrain Democratic presidents from making reductions to the size of the US nuclear arsenal and how such efforts harm US national security. Here's the intro:

One of the perks of being a Republican president in the United States is the freedom to make drastic changes to US nuclear posture while Democratic presidents are forced to travel a much tougher road, often in the pursuit of far less ambitious goals. This pattern has been ongoing since the end of the Cold War and sadly continues unabated today. On May 9, the House Armed Services Committee wrote the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and Republican leaders used their majority to pass legislative provisions that will restrict and perhaps even block the Pentagon's ability to implement the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and prevent the president and senior military leaders from making future changes to the size and structure of the US nuclear arsenal. According to Republican Strategic Force Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner, "It’s not even clear that the unilateral reductions to U.S. nuclear forces required by the New START are in the interest of our national security. ... The president’s most recent budget, however, abandons the nuclear modernization funding he promised. This can only be described as bait and switch. The Senate has been deceived."

This overblown bluster, however, ignores a few basic realities: Spending on nuclear weapons has increased dramatically under President Obama, constraints on New START would restrict the military from fielding the most capable force possible, fewer weapons won't obviate deterrence, and preventing future nuclear force reductions would lock in an excessively large nuclear arsenal ill-suited to the current terrorist threat and to the current economic environment.

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Nukes on a Blog, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Column, Congress, nuclear weapons budget, nuclear guidance review (all tags)

Yesterday the House Armed Services Committee marked up the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. Head over to the mothership for our initial summary.  If you thought last year’s version of the bill was bad, this year’s iteration includes a number of proposed funding proposals and policy provisions on nuclear weapons and missile defense that are even more extreme.

Click here, here, and here for our earlier previews of the bill.

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Nukes on a Blog, NDAA, nuclear weapons budget, Congress, nuclear guidance review (all tags)

Today House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon released his version of the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Click here for the Chairman's mark, which includes detailed funding tables for national defense (function 050) spending.  

The Chairman's mark will serve as the basis for the full Committee markup on Wednesday, May 9. It will be supplemented by the subcommittee marks and whatever amendments are adopted to the individual marks and the Chairman's mark.

The Chairman's mark provides $554 billion for national defense (function 050). This is an increase of approximately $4 billion above the President's request and $8 billion above the Budget Control Act's FY 2013 cap on 050 spending. While Republicans decry the national debt and denounce unnecessary spending, HASC is proposing to add hundreds of millions of dollars to defense programs the Pentagon says it doesn’t want.

Some highlights from the Chairman's mark re: nuclear weapons funding include:

-The mark authorizes $7.9 billion for NNSA weapons activities, an increase of $323 million above the FY 2013 requested level and the Senate and House Appropriations Committee approved levels. The purpose of the increase is to ensure that nuclear weapons spending keeps pace with the funding levels outlined in the Section 1251 report, which outlines the 10-year, $88 billion funding plan for NNSA weapons activities proposed by the administration in the context of the Senate's debate on the New START treaty.

-The mark authorizes $100 million for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at Los Alamos. The administration's budget request did not contain any funding for CMRR-NF due to its decision to delay construction of the facility for at least five years.

The five-year deferral of the CMRR will not compromise NNSA’s ability to maintain the stockpile as essential plutonium missions can be performed by the existing complex.

Referring to the delay to the CMRR, NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino testified to Congress in April that: “And the good news by all of this, frankly, is there are a number of options, a number of different paths that we can proceed. We are not hampered by saying the nation has to have a capability right now to make 50 or 80 pits per year in order to take care of the stockpile. That's great news for the country because we are not forced into making rash decisions on significant investments in a very short period of time. So we have time to evaluate this area.”

Both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees supported the five-year delay to the facility in their marks of the FY 2013 Energy and Water bill in April. They are in agreement that NNSA can’t afford to build CMRR right now, an alternative to maintaining pit manufacturing and pit sustainment exists, and NNSA must demonstrate better project management when embarking on multibillion dollar construction projects.

It remains to be seen whether Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) will seek to further increase funding for CMRR in Committee on Wednesday, as the 1251 report included $300 million in projected funding for CMRR in FY 2013.

-The mark authorizes a $374 million increase above the requested level for Advanced Submarine System Development, the Pentagon research and development account that includes the program element which funds the Ohio-class replacement program. The Committee also authorized an additional $97 million above the request for the Ohio-class replacement reactor development program within the NNSA Naval Reactors account.  As we suspected, HASC appears bent on reversing the administration's proposed two-year delay to the Ohio-class replacement program.

-Finally, the mark authorizes $2.46 billion for NNSA's defense nuclear nonproliferation account, the same as the administration's request. The mark fully funds the Global Threat Reduction Initiative and the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program. Recall that both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees increased funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Suffice it to say that HASC is prioritizing spending on weapons programs above spending on material security programs.

Stay tuned this space for full coverage of the HASC mark on Wednesday and reaction in the days afterward as the bill heads to the House floor next week.    

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, nuclear weapons budget, NDAA (all tags)

On April 26 the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up and approved its version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 Energy and Water bill. You can read the full Committee report here. For an overview of the House bill, see our analysis from last week here.

The Senate bill recommends $11.51 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an increase of $511 million above the FY 2012 appropriated level.  

Rightly unimpressed with the administration's underwhelming (to put it nicely) budget request for core nuclear material security programs, Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Ranking Member Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) increased funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) and the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation (INMPC) program by a combined total of $130 million over the request. House appropriators also increased funding for these programs, though not by nearly as much as the Senate.  In addition, the Senate removed the $150 request for USEC from the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account. Suffice it to say that bipartisanship is alive and well on Capitol Hill - at least when it comes to robust support for nuclear material security. The administration ought to think twice about submitting such an imbalanced request for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account in the future.

On the weapons side, the Committee, like the House, fully funded the administration's request of $7.577 billion, while expressing grave concern with NNSA's poor project management record. And like the House mark, the appropriation includes no funds for the Chemistry Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at Los Alamos. Together with the House appropriation, which also funds weapons activities at the requested level, the Senate mark provides a strong rejoinder to those who argue that the capabilities necessary to maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of the stockpile are not being adequately funded. Indeed, it's striking that both the Senate and House provided increases to core nuclear terrorism prevention activities, which combat one of the most urgent national security threats to the United States, while funding weapons activities at the requested level.    

Below are some highlights of the Senate bill...

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, nuclear terrorism, nuclear weapons budget (all tags)

On April 25 the seven Subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) began releasing their marks in preparation for the full HASC mark up of the defense bill on May 9. Among the marks released today was the Strategic Forces Subcommittee mark. The Subcommittee is scheduled to take up the mark on April 26.

If previous years are any indication, the Subcommittee marks are likely to be very short. In the case of Strategic Forces, controversial issues such as missile defense funding, the budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) weapons activities account, and likely amendments on nuclear weapons and missile defense from Chairman Rep. Michael Turner's (R-OH) "Maintaining the President's Commitment to Our Nuclear Deterrent and National Security Act of 2012," (H.R. 4178) and Rep. Mo Brooks' (R-AL) "Protecting U.S. Missile Defense Information Act of 2012." (H.R. 4125) will not be debated until the full Committee considers the defense bill.

The Subcommittee mark doesn't contain detailed funding levels for strategic forces programs at DoD and NNSA. Those figures may not be revealed until HASC Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) releases his Chairman's mark prior to the full Committee mark up.  Recall that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) provided nearly $4 billion more for National Defense (Function 050) than the Presidents budget request.

Most of the Subcommittee's legislative provisions and reporting requirements pertain to making drastic changes to NNSA’s governance and management systems to make the agency more independent and efficient and missile defense programs. Below is an early look at some of these provisions.

Re: missile defense, the mark proposes a $356 million increase for the ground based midcourse defense system (GMD), despite the fact that the system has not had a successful flight intercept test in 3+ years and additional funding will not ameliorate many of the problems that continue to plague the system.

The mark also requires the Missile Defense Agency to develop a plan for the deployment of missile defense site on the East Coast of the United States to be operational not later than the end of 2015. The mark would also authorize $100 million in FY 2013 to be available 30 days after the plan is presented to the congressional defense committees. For a good take on why this would be a bad idea, see Noah Shachtman's piece over at Danger Room here.

In keeping with Chairman Turner's zeal for national missile defense programs, the mark includes a provision requiring Europe to shoulder much more of the financial burden for the European Phased Adaptive Approach.

Meanwhile, the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee mark includes two controversial provisions re: the air- and sea-based legs of the U.S. nuclear triad:

• A provision requiring the Secretary of the Air Force to make certain that the new long-range strike bomber will be certified to use strategic weapons by the date it receives declaration of initial operational capability.
  
• A provision requiring the Secretary of the Navy to maintain a minimum of 12 ballistic missile submarines in the fleet.

The Pentagon's FY 2013 budget request delayed procurement of the first Ohio-class replacement submarine by two years, which according to current plans will result in a strategic submarine fleet of 10 subs in the 2030s. The Pentagon has also indicated that it plans to delay certification of the nuclear mission for the new bomber to control costs.

Rep. McKeon has stated that HASC will seek to begin undoing the two-year delay to the Ohio-class by adding funding in FY 2013 for research and development for the program, which was more than $600 million less than projected as of the FY 2012 budget request.

There is simply no need to rush the certification of a nuclear capability for the bomber and requiring the Navy to maintain 12 ballistic missile submarines in perpetuity regardless of the global security environment makes neither strategic nor fiscal sense. U.S. nuclear force structure should be driven by strategic needs (a review of which is ongoing) and affordability, not the inertia of the status quo.

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, missile defense, nuclear weapons budget, nuclear guidance review (all tags)

By Kingston Reif and Nickolas Roth

On April 24 the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee released its draft Committee report of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 Energy and Water bill.  The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to take up the bill on April 25.  

The House version of the bill recommends $11.28 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a decrease of $260.9 million below the requested level and an increase of $275 million above the FY 2012 level.  

Subcommittee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) and Ranking Member Pete Visclosky (D-IN) deserve credit for prioritizing NNSA’s core nuclear material security and nonproliferation programs, which support the U.S.-led global effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials at an accelerated rate. As we hinted last week, the Committee actually increases funding for some of these programs, while wisely reducing funding for the controversial Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program and research and development on a cultivating a domestic uranium enrichment capability.

Regarding weapons activities, the draft bill supports the Obama administration’s decision to delay by at least five years construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.    

Nuclear Material Security and Non-Proliferation

Including rescissions, the draft House report funds NNSA's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account at $2.276 billion, a decrease of $20 million below last year's level and a decrease of $182.6 million below the requested level...  

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, nuclear terrorism, nuclear weapons budget (all tags)

With the House Subcommittee on Strategic Forces set to mark up the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on April 26, to be followed on May 9 by the full House Armed Services Committee, stay tuned to this space for a preview of what to expect on nuclear weapons and missile defense policy as well as analysis of the bill as it moves it's way through the House.

For a reminder of what transpired on these issues last year, see our summary of the FY 2012 NDAA here.

As was the case last year, Strategic Force Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) plans to use the defense bill to attempt to severely constrain the President and the Pentagon's ability to implement the New START treaty and the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.

Rep. Turner and his allies are likely to draw amendments to offer to the NDAA during the full Committee markup from two sources: H.R. 4178, also known as the "Maintaining the President's Commitment to Our Nuclear Deterrent and National Security Act of 2012," and H.R. 4125, titled "Protecting U.S. Missile Defense Information Act of 2012."

We'll have more to say about these bills and their specific provisions in the coming days - in fact we've already had a say on some of the content of H.R. 4178. Our colleagues over at the Arms Control Association also provided a nice rejoinder.

For a taste of just how mystifying Rep. Turner's program is, it's difficult to do better than H.R. 4178's provision titled "Nuclear Warheads on Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles of the United States."

The provision includes a Sense of Congress stating "that reducing the number of nuclear warheads contained on each intercontinental ballistic missile of the United States does not promote strategic stability if at the same time other nuclear weapons states, including the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, are rapidly increasing the warhead-loading of their land-based missile forces." It also includes a limitation mandating that the number of nuclear warheads on ICBMs can't be reduced to a single warhead "unless the President certifies in writing to the congressional defense committees that the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China are both also carrying out a similar reduction."

You'll recall that the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review declared that "The United States will “deMIRV” all deployed ICBMs, so that each Minuteman III ICBM has only one nuclear warhead....This step will enhance the stability of the nuclear balance by reducing the incentives for either side to strike first."

This decision has been applauded by just about everyone, except it seems, the Republicans on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee.  For example, the bipartisan Senate ICBM caucus, which can't exactly be accused of being soft on this issue, noted in a recent letter the move a single warhead force is a "stabilizing trend".  And at an April 17 House Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing, STRATCOM Gen. Robert Kehler proclaimed:

And so the idea is to bring them down to one reentry vehicle per ICBM to essentially reduce their strategic value. That's the pathway that we've been on for quite some time. I support that. I think that that is the right way to go forward for both of those reasons. I also believe that maintaining the ability to go back to a MIRV in the future as a hedge is also the right thing to do.

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, New START, nuclear guidance review (all tags)

Regular readers know that we weren't big fans of the Obama administration's Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 budget request for core nuclear material security programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. And given that Republicans on the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee made significant cuts to these programs in FY 2012, there was concern that an already ugly budget could get even uglier.

On April 17, the Subcommittee released the fiscal year 2013 Energy and Water and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.  Excluding rescissions, the bill funds NNSA's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account at $2.283 billion, an decrease of $12.8 million below last year's final appropriated level and a decrease of $175.6 million below the requested level. The bill did not included detailed numbers for the various subaccounts within the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation portfolio.  

Nor were the detailed budget numbers revealed at the Subcommittee's April 18 markup of the bill. In his opening statement at the markup, Chairman Rep. Rodney Freylinghuysen stated: "Funding for Nonproliferation, although below the request, actually increases for some core programs. $100 million is provided to support new uranium enrichment activities." Likewise, Ranking Member Rep. Pete Visclosky said: "Let me first express my appreciation for the inclusion of additional funds for core Nonproliferation activities and the focus on American manufacturing."

It's encouraging that both the Chairman and Ranking Member are touting increases to core nonproliferation programs, which likely means the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) and the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation (INMPC) program (or activities therein). It's also encouraging that the Subcommittee only provided $100 million out of the $150 request for USEC. And rumor on the street is that a portion of the overall cut to the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account reflects cuts to the Mixed Oxide Fuel program.

Despite these good early indicators, it remains to be seen if the increases to core programs touted by Reps. Freylinghuysen and Visclosky are relative to last year's appropriation or this year's requested level. An additional area that needs confirmation is that the Subcommittee didn't makes cuts to radiological security activities, which have been cut the last two fiscal years.

We wont have definitive answers to these questions until the detailed budget numbers are released at the full Appropriations Committee markup of the bill likely sometime next week.

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Nukes on a Blog, nuclear terrorism, Congress (all tags)

Last night Rachel Maddow devoted her show to the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) vital nuclear material security and nuclear terrorism prevent efforts. In particular she highlighted the successful effort to remove highly enriched uranium from Mexico in time for the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit to take place in Seoul next week.

This is not the first time that Maddow has highlighted NNSA's important work in this area (see here, for example).

The Mexico removal is part of NNSA's contribution to the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear materials at an accelerated rate. NNSA recently completed the removal of the removal of highly enriched uranium from Ukraine, which will also be announced at the Summit. And rumor has it that the removal of highly enriched uranium from a third country ahead of schedule will also be announced at the Summit.

Maddow's segment illustrates the important progress that has been made since the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit to ensure that terrorists cannot get their hands on the material to build a nuclear explosive device. And it also demonstrates the need for the administration and Congress to continue to support and build on this vital work and related activities moving forward.

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Nukes on a Blog, nuclear terrorism, Congress (all tags)

On March 14 the Senate Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia held a hearing titled "Managing Interagency Nuclear Nonproliferation Efforts: Are We Effectively Securing Nuclear Materials Around the World?"

The hearing focused on the status of the U.S.-led effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. Of particular interest was a question asked by Subcommittee Chairman Daniel Akaka on the FY 2013 budget request for nuclear material security programs.  Below is Sen. Akaka's exchange with Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation Anne Harrington on the request for the National Nuclear Security Administration's material security activities.

SEN. AKAKA: ...

Ken Luongo, who is president of the Partnership for Global Security, has raised concerns that this budget is inadequate to meet the nuclear threat to American and international security and could undermine the four-year nuclear security agenda. Others likely will argue that we cannot fully fund the president's requests.

Please respond to Mr. Luongo's view that more funding is needed, and address what affect less funding would have on our ability to effectively secure vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials.

Ms. Harrington.

MS. HARRINGTON: I noticed that Mr. Handelman is letting me take this question first, thank you.

If you look at budget projections that were presented several years ago for where we would be in the 2013-2014 space, they're quite different from where we are right now. But that is very much a reflection of fiscal realities in the United States. The Budget Control Act governs what our limits are going to be. The Budget Committees are very constrained overall. And so across the government, every agency every program is looking at how it can continue to meet mission goals, but with less resource.

We are no exception. And we are confident that the 2013 budget as presented will allow us to continue to meet our four-year goals. That does not mean that it's only the Global Threat Reduction Initiative Program, but we have to maintain the funding in other programs that are also part of this overall effort. There are at least four different program areas that support the four-year effort, in my office. So we have done our best to balance across those programs to make some tough decisions, but we believe they were the right decisions to be able to carry this effort forward. Thank you.

Harrington is correct that the current budget environment requires difficult budgetary tradeoffs and that an appropriate balance must be struck. However, while the budget request for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) and the International Materials Protection and Cooperation program (INMPC), the two core NNSA programs in the effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials at an accelerated rate were cut by $291 million relative to last year's appropriated level, the request for the controversial Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program is $229 million more than last year's level.

In addition, the FY 2013 budget includes a onetime request of $150 million for USEC. Formerly the U.S. Enrichment Corp., USEC is a privately owned company that is attempting to build a new gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant to produce fuel for nuclear power plants at Piketon, near Portsmouth in southern Ohio.

Neither the MOX program nor USEC are core material security programs or contribute to the mission of the four year goal. Last year the House Energy and Water appropriations subcommittee noted that the rising costs of the MOX program’s construction projects are a “threat…to the progress of core nonproliferation activities.” The Senate expressed similar concerns.

There's of course more to the story than just the topline budget numbers. In short, as Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN), ranking member on the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, noted at the subcommittee's March 6 hearing on the NNSA nonproliferation budget, it's difficult to conclude that NNSA struck the right balance within the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account.

For more on the shortcomings of the FY 2013 budget request not only at NNSA, but across the government, see Ken Luongo's opening statement at the March 14 hearing's second panel here.

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, nuclear terrorism (all tags)