House Republicans yesterday fended off a handful of amendments to the Fiscal Year 2014 Energy and Water Appropriations Act that would have reduced funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program, including an amendment drafted by Reps. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.) that would have cut $23.7 million from the B61 refurbishment program. In addition to the Quigley/Polis amendment, 10 other amendments introduced during the first day of debate in the House on the bill sought to cut funding for the program, which House appropriators already reduced to $7.6 billion, $193 million below the Administration’s request. The amendments, which included three by Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), ranged in value from $245 million to $1.2 million. A separate amendment offered by Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) that would have increased weapons funding by $14 million and reduced NNSA nonproliferation funds by $16.6 million also failed. Debate on the bill stretched late into last night, and is expected to continue this week.
Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor Vol. 27 No. 21
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Morning Briefing
Article of 7
March 17, 2014
HOUSE GOP FENDS OFF ATTEMPTS TO CUT NNSA WEAPONS PROGRAM FUNDING
Quigley and Polis had already taken aim at the B61 refurbishment program during debate on the Defense Authorization Act, and their latest amendment would have reduced funding for the B61 to $537 million, the level of the Obama Administration’s request. “This targeted amendment represents a small effort to reduce outsized funds for a nuclear weapon many agree we no longer need,” Quigley and Polis wrote in a letter distributed to lawmakers yesterday, adding: “As we seek to reduce our deficit and right size our spending, we cannot continue to provide funds agencies have not even requested.”
Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) also signaled yesterday that he was planning to introduce an amendment aimed at preventing funds from being spent on reducing the size of the nation’s nuclear stockpile in the absence of a treaty. Congressional Republicans have raised concerns with President Obama’s plan to cut the nation’s strategic deployed stockpile by about 500 warheads, especially about the possibility that the President could seek those reductions without the consent of the Senate. “Such disregard for long-enshrined practice is disappointing, dangerous, and injures the checks and balances that are needed foremost when it comes to international agreements with states like Russia, especially when Russia is actively cheating on major arms control agreements, which thus far the President has not seen fit to aggressively confront,” Turner said in a letter to other lawmakers yesterday.