Sequestration cuts would have a “devastating” and wide-ranging impact on the work National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz said yesterday. Speaking at the Nuclear Deterrence Summit in Washington, D.C., Klotz referred to the across-the-board sequestration cuts that would go into effect in Fiscal Year 2016 as the “800-pound elephant in the room” and said the cuts could delay or cancel warhead refurbishment work. “I won’t go into specific impacts here today, but rest assured sequestration would have devastating impacts on our current surveillance and life extension programs to include pushing those programs further out into the future or canceling them altogether,” Klotz said. “It would also have grave impacts on the science, technology and engineering work taking place at our laboratories and plants and at the Nevada National Security Site, which in turn would have a ripple effect on many sectors of the economy that depend on the unique science and engineering that NNSA promotes and undertakes.”
In its FY 2016 budget request, the Obama Administration requested more than Congressionally mandated budget caps called for, not just for the NNSA but across the government, and Republicans are not expected to go along with many of the increases for which the Administration is asking. For the NNSA, the Administration asked for $8.8 billion, a $615 million increase, requesting increases for major life extension work on the W80-4 cruise missile replacement warhead, W88 Alt 370 and other major infrastructure projects, like the Uranium Processing Facility. The NNSA also asked for $1.94 billion for its nonproliferation account, a $299 million increase over the $1.6 billion Congress provided the program in FY 2015, but much of that funding increase is masked by a shift of Nuclear Counterterrorism Incident Response and Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation Programs from the agency’s weapons program to its nonproliferation account.
Klotz said NNSA was directed to request funds that were “prudently” and “rationally” needed to meet the agency’s mission. “The FY 2016 budget request reflects this,” Klotz said. “If sequestration does in fact occur as is currently legislated we would not be able to do a great deal of the activities we are currently executing to meet the nation’s strategic requirements.”
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