NNSA WEAPONS FUNDING PROJECTED TO APPROACH $10B BY FY 2019

Meanwhile, funding for the NNSA’s nonproliferation account is expected to get a small boost in FY 2016 before leveling off through FY 2019, the budget request reveals. The agency requested $1.6 billion for the agency’s nonproliferation account in FY 2015, down $399 million from FY 2014 enacted levels. Funding is projected to be $1.7 billion in FY 2016, and largely flatline through FY 2019.

 

The budget details this weekend also shed a little more light on extra spending on the Administration’s wish list for FY 2015. Dubbed the “Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative,” the Administration said it wants another $600 million for the NNSA’s weapons and nonproliferation accounts that would be above the Congressionally established budget cap for FY 2015. According to the budget details, which do not include any specifics about the funding, the OGSI money would be used to “accelerate modernization and maintenance of nuclear facilities” by “accelerat[ing] funding for infrastructure infrastructure planning and improvements found in the Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities program.” It would also boost nonproliferation funding with extra money for “R&D to advance proliferation detection and nuclear detonation detection capabilities; efforts to remove and eliminate, or secure and safeguard vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials worldwide; and efforts to limit or prevent the illegal transfer and illicit trafficking of weapons‐usable nuclear and other radiological materials.” Additional money would also go toward cybersecurity programs.