Over the Future Years’ Defense Program, nuclear funding is projected to occupy the highest proportion of the Pentagon’s budget in Fiscal Year 2020, a top Pentagon official told House lawmakers yesterday. Robert Scher, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, during a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing, said the Defense Department expects nuclear enterprise funding to compose about 3 percent of the Pentagon’s overall budget during the five-year FYDP, possible creeping slightly over that figure in FY 2020. Scher was answering a question by subcommittee member Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who noted a January-released Congressional Budget Office Report which estimated the cost of nuclear weapons over the next decade at $340 billion.
Brooks asked Scher if he agreed with the estimate. “I don’t have the exact figure for 10 years. We do extensive planning for the five-year plan,” Scher responded. “About 3 percent of the budget is what we see over this fiscal year, and then I think we get to right around 3 percent, maybe a little bit more; the peak is at FY ’20.” The Air Force has plussed up its nuclear funding request over the FYDP by $5.6 billion, while the Navy has programmed a total of $10 billion over the next five years for advanced procurement and research and development for the Ohio-class Replacement.
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