HASC GOP SEEKS TO ACCELERATE KEY NNSA MODERNIZATION WORK

By ExchangeMonitor

Republicans on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee are objecting to Administration plans to delay the refurbishment of the cruise missile warhead, and they are moving to authorize additional funding to accelerate the program in Fiscal Year 2015. The subcommittee released its portion of the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization Act yesterday, and while the markup documents do not include funding tables, NS&D Monitor has learned that additional funding will be authorized for the cruise missile warhead. The subcommittee will mark up the bill today. The Administration requested $9.1 million in FY 2015 for a study on refurbishing the warhead while acknowledging the program’s First Production Unit would be delayed by three years until 2027. “The committee believes the proposed 3-year deferral of this cruise missile is contrary to the interests of national security,” the subcommittee said in a report accompanying its version of the bill. “Therefore, the committee recommends this provision to ensure warhead production for this cruise missile is deferred only one year.”

The subcommittee also objected to the Administration’s plans to delay establishing the capability at Los Alamos National Laboratory to build 30 plutonium pits, pushing up the deadline for producing 30 pits per year from 2026 to 2023. The legislation would require the production of 50 pits per year by 2026, and the demonstration of the capability to produce pits at a rate of 80 per year during a 90-day period in 2027. “The committee is concerned that, despite the President’s policy to create a responsive nuclear infrastructure to enable nuclear stockpile reductions without undue risk, the Department of Energy continues to slip schedules and programs needed to achieve this critical national security goal,” the subcommittee said, adding: “As a key component of a responsive nuclear infrastructure, continued delay in achieving this pit production capacity is unacceptable. The committee believes that waiting over 15 years to achieve a responsive nuclear infrastructure is too great a risk to national security.”

The subcommittee also provided transfer authority to the Pentagon that would allow it to move up to $150 million to the NNSA’s weapons or naval reactor programs if less than $8.7 billion is appropriated for NNSA weapons activities in FY 2015. The Administration requested $8.3 billion for the program in FY 2015.

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