The relatively flat National Nuclear Security Administration budget proposed by a House appropriations subcommittee on Monday “short changes” the national defense, the panel’s ranking Republican said Monday.
The bill’s proposed “increase of less than 1% for the Weapons Activities does not even keep up with inflation,” Rep. Mike Simpson(Idaho), the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee, said Monday in a markup that sent the bill to the full Appropriations Committee without any amendments — par for the course for the committee.
Weapons Activities, which handles the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) bread-and-butter nuclear-weapons modernization and maintenance, would get a roughly $15.4 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, under the subcommittee’s bill. That’s about a 0.9% increase from the 2021 appropriation of roughly $15.3 billion.
According to the Future-Years Nuclear Security Program that the Donald Trump administration included with NNSA’s 2021 budget request, Weapons Activities needs a 2.5 percent year-over-year increase from the 2021 appropriation. In raw dollar terms, the split between the Trump administration’s projection and the first Joe Biden request for NNSA Weapons Activities is more than $450 million.
“The bill significantly underfunds efforts to modernize our nuclear weapons,” Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the ranking Republican on the full committee, said via video conference during the markup. “We must have a reliable and effective nuclear deterrent to ensure our national security.”
In a brief interview with Weapons Complex Morning Briefing after the markup, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the chair of the subcommittee, said the 2022 NNSA budget recommendation was a “measured way” to fund civilian nuclear weapons programs and “met our responsibility to the country.”
The full House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to mark up the NNSA budget — part of the annual energy and water development appropriations act — on Friday morning, along with the annual Transportation, Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill. Details of the subcommittee’s plans for the NNSA in the coming fiscal year will be part of a detailed bill report that is typically released a day before a full committee markup.
