WASHINGTON — The Obama administration yesterday unveiled a spending plan that would increase funding for the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to $11.2 billion in the next fiscal year (see GSN, Jan. 29).

The agency, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department, would receive a 13.4-percent budget increase in fiscal 2011 to maintain the country’s nuclear stockpile and conduct nonproliferation activities around the globe, according to the White House funding request.

More than $7 billion would be devoted beginning Oct. 1 to “weapons activities,” which ensure the safety and performance of the nation’s atomic stockpile. The amount is a $624 million increase from this year.

Another $2.7 billion would be funneled to the agency’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program, a hike of 25.8 percent above fiscal 2010. That effort seeks to secure nuclear materials around the globe that could be used for weapons and convert them for peaceful purposes.

The remaining funds would go to other agency efforts, including its national laboratory network and its naval reactor program.

The budget boost marks the down payment in a more than $5 billion increase planned over the next five years to maintain the U.S. nuclear complex and deterrent. The move was telegraphed last week in a Wall Street Journal commentary by Vice President Joseph Biden.

The newly minted budget request “highlights our critical role in implementing the nuclear security vision” President Barack Obama laid out in his Prague speech last spring, NNSA Administrator Thomas D’Agostino told reporters yesterday.

Weapons activities funding would include more than $2 billion for stockpile support, an increase of 25 percent from the present funding level. Those funds would finance the agency’s “stockpile management program,” which includes evaluations of the condition of weapons, maintenance, assembly and dismantlement.

The program, as written into law by Congress for fiscal 2010, lays out a series of principles intended to annul the controversial Reliable Replacement Warhead program proposed during the George W. Bush administration. (more)

Posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 7:22 am and is filed under energy policy.
Tags: administrator, Barack Obama, Congress, Department of Energy, George W. Bush administration, Joseph Biden, laboratory network, Obama administration, Prague, President, The Wall Street Journal, Thomas D'Agostino, U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. nuclear complex, United States, USD, vice president, WALL STREET JOURNAL, Washington, White House.