Sen. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, said it was “hard to see” a reason for the large spike in potential funding for the agency maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile.
“There’s a lot I can buy for $7 billion,” Moulton said, directing his question to Brandon Williams, head of the DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), during a testimony on the fiscal 2027 budget’s atomic energy and defense activities. “There’s a lot of gas at inflated prices that Americans can buy for $7 billion so just tell us, what are you buying for $7 billion?”
The primary increase in the White House’s fiscal 2027 budget request for NNSA was driven by weapons activities. The line item, which funds the agency’s seven modernization programs and plutonium pit production, would receive a $7 billion plus-up, or an increase of 35%, from fiscal 2026 enacted levels if made law.
“We are accelerating the plutonium pit mission in Los Alamos, so a lot of [what we’re buying] are glove boxes,” Williams said. He added that NNSA is “building a training center and equipping the training center for the workforce in Savannah River,” likely referring to the High-Fidelity Training and Operations Center that had the start of full construction greenlighted in March.
“We’re continuing the modernization, the transformation, I should say, of the MOX [mixed-oxide] facility at Savannah River into the two-site solution for pit production, to include the Savannah River,” Williams continued. He was referring to the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) that will function, once the MOX facility is converted, as the tandem plant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory pit facility. “We are doing reinvesting in a number of the scientific instruments that are necessary to continue to stay ahead of our adversaries, to continue to monitor the stockpile.”
Savannah River is expected to make upwards of 50 pits once SRPPF construction is finished around 2035, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico is expected to make upwards of 30. NNSA also expects SRPPF’s design to be 90% complete in 2026.
Los Alamos would initially make cores for the first stages of W87-1 warheads, which are to top the Air Force’s planned silo-based Sentinel missiles some time next decade. Savannah River will make cores for the W93 warheads, which the Navy will use in its submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The W93 warhead will begin production in the mid-2030s.
“It’s very hard to see a training center and Savannah River facility that, thanks to my colleague from South Carolina here [Rep. Joe Wilson (R)], has been regularly funded by this subcommittee, costing $7 billion,” Moulton said. “Nothing in your list that struck me as something that should even cost a billion dollars.”
Moulton added that, after what he said was a “target” by the Department of Government Efficiency, “there were personnel cuts, there are other cuts made to your facilities, and the whole point was that we can save money there.
“Is this a place where we can get more efficiencies in government, or is it a place where we need to spend more money?” Moulton concluded. “I think we need some clarity on that.”