The National Nuclear Security Administration would be authorized to spend over $425 million more than requested for infrastructure in 2022, if a Republican amendment proposed for the next National Defense Authorization Act becomes law.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, announced his amendment on Monday, two days before the Committee was set to mark up its version of the annual must-pass defense policy bill, which also sets funding limits for agencies including the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
Rogers’ amendment would authorize $25 billion more for defense programs overall than the Joe Biden administration requested for 2022, matching a top line proposed in July by the Senate Armed Services Committee in its version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The NNSA’s cut of the proposed top-line boost would go for “facilities improvements,” according to a summary of the amendment Rogers posted online.
In his draft of the House’s 2022 NDAA Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash), chair of the Armed Services Committee, proposed $19.8 billion overall for the NNSA, a little more than the $19.7 billion requested. The extra funds would accelerate studies about plutonium aging and boost budgets for international non-proliferation efforts and the National Ignition Facility.
Smith’s version of the bill already would authorize full funding for nearly every requested NNSA weapons modernization program, blanking only a requested life-extension for the B83 megaton-class gravity bomb.
On the Pentagon side of the nuclear-weapons house, the chairman’s mark — the formal term for Smith’s draft — also called for new reviews of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missile program, the Long Range Standoff Weapon cruise-missile life extension, and the planned modernization of nuclear command, control, and communications infrastructure under U.S. Strategic Command’s NC3 Next effort.
Smith was set to face the virtual room Tuesday at 10 a.m. Eastern time, after deadline for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, to discuss his proposed NDAA in a webinar hosted by the Washington-based Brookings Institute think tank.
