SEN. FEINSTEIN: NNSA WEAPONS REQUEST ‘MORE THAN SUFFICIENT’

Advocates for increasing funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program won’t find an ally in Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. Feinstein suggested at an NNSA budget hearing yesterday that the Administration’s $7.58 million request for the agency’s weapons program “provides more than sufficient funding to modernize the nuclear weapons stockpile” while raising concerns about the management of many of the agency’s current projects. Congressional Republicans have ripped the Obama Administration for backing off of its modernization promises—a year ago, the Administration projected that it would need more than $7.9 billion in FY2013—but Feinstein blasted the agency for not assessing alternatives before spending $1.5 billion combined on two projects that it abandoned or deferred in the last six months: the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility and the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Facility and for delays and cost increases to other major projects. “Those funds could have been better spent on other nuclear weapons and nonproliferation activities and it raises questions about the return on the taxpayers’ investments,” Feinstein said. “In a time of fiscal constraints, NNSA must be more cost conscious and do a better job developing realistic and credible cost estimates for major projects or else cost overruns and schedule delays will undermine the nuclear modernization agenda and nonproliferation goals.”