May 29, 2014

SENS. INTRODUCE BILL TO CUT BILLIONS IN WEAPONS SPENDING

By ExchangeMonitor

With the Obama Administration set to release its Fiscal Year 2015 budget request this week, Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) reintroduced legislation late last week that would cut $100 billion in nuclear weapons spending over the next decade. Markey first introduced the “Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures (SANE) Act” when he was in the House in 2012. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) introduced a similar bill, the “Reduce Expenditures in Nuclear Investments Now (REIN-IN) Act,” in the House of Representatives.

The SANE Act would limit the cost of the B61 life extension program to $5 billion, and would cancel the W78 life extension program. It would also cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility and the Uranium Processing Facility as well as reduce the number of nuclear ballistic missile submarines from 14 to eight, defer the development of new ICBMs and cut the nuclear mission from the F35. “America faces a real choice: spend billions on nuclear weapons we no longer need or fund programs that educate our children and help find cures to deadly diseases. The security of our nation’s future will be ensured by investing in education not nuclear annihilation,” Markey said in a statement. “We need to stop pouring billions into the nuclear weapons programs of the past and instead prioritize our nation’s pressing needs.”

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