NNSA’S COOK: W76, B61 TO AVOID MAJOR IMPACTS FROM SEQUESTRATION

By ExchangeMonitor

Sequestration cuts to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons account won’t impact the W76 refurbishment program and will have a “minimal” impact on the B61 refurbishment program, NNSA weapons chief Don Cook said yesterday in a speech at the Capitol Hill Club. The across-the-board funding cuts slashed approximately $600 million from the NNSA’s weapons account in Fiscal Year 2013, but Cook said the NNSA is using flexibility provided by an anomaly for the weapons program in the full-year Continuing Resolution funding the agency to move money around toward higher priority work like the W76 and B61. “We enjoy a presidential anomaly for weapons activities for this year,” Cook said. “It’s a wonderful thing. … We have some flexibility. That’s how I can confidently say we’re going to deliver all of the W76 warheads and the smallest slip we can in the B61-12 by moving funds around.”

Cook said some of the NNSA’s plans to move money around could come in the form of a reprogramming request to Congress, while other funding moves might not meet the threshold for reprogramming requests. He said the agency planned on providing Congress a CR implementation plan soon outlining its plans for the remainder of the year. “It’s just stating where we want to put money,” Cook told NW&M Monitor on the sidelines of the event. “The way it is actually going forward. The Congress asked for a rest-of-the-year CR implementation plan, we put it in there. That basically takes the step program-wide of a reprogramming action instead of all the little pieces.”

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