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Weapons Complex Monitor
December 13, 2011
Final Version of Defense Auth. Bill Emerges From Conference
The funding picture for the National Nuclear Security Administration became a lot clearer yesterday as House and Senate lawmakers unveiled the conference version of the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $7.27 billion for the agency’s weapons program and allows the Department of Defense to transfer an additional $125 million. The bill also authorizes $2.33 billion for the NNSA’s nonproliferation account, $216.8 million less than the Obama administration’s $2.55 billion budget request. In setting the $7.27 billion funding level for the NNSA’s weapons program—$355 million less than the $7.6 billion that the House and Senate Armed Services Committee provided for the program, matching President Obama’s $7.6 billion request—lawmakers said they reflected the funding levels in the conference agreement on the FY2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which is set to be unveiled today as part of a nine-bill omnibus appropriations act. Under the provisions of the conference agreement, the Pentagon could boost funding for the agency’s weapons program by $125 million—mirroring legislation drafted by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Jon Kyl (RAriz.) that enjoyed the support of the Department of Defense but was excluded from the Senate version of the Defense Authorization Act due to a procedural issue.
Lawmakers backed off a House-crafted provision that would have tied stockpile reductions under the New START Treaty and in the future to progress on the Obama Administration’s $88 billion plan to maintain and modernize the nation’s weapons complex and nuclear arsenal over the next decade. The provisions, which were drafted by Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, drew a veto threat from the Obama Administration, and were replaced in the conference agreement by a “sense of Congress that sustained investments in the nuclear weapons stockpile and the nuclear security complex are needed to ensure a safe, secure, reliable, and credible nuclear deterrent and that such investments could enable additional reductions in the hedge stockpile in the future.” The agreement, however, includes a provision requiring the President to report to Congress each year it is determined that the modernization plan isn’t adequately funded as well as a provision requiring the President to provide a net assessment of the nation’s nuclear forces if the Administration proposes reductions to the nation’s active or reserve stockpiles.
Weapons Complex Monitor
December 13, 2011
Final Version of Defense Auth. Bill Emerges From Conference
The funding picture for the National Nuclear Security Administration became a lot clearer yesterday as House and Senate lawmakers unveiled the conference version of the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $7.27 billion for the agency’s weapons program and allows the Department of Defense to transfer an additional $125 million. The bill also authorizes $2.33 billion for the NNSA’s nonproliferation account, $216.8 million less than the Obama administration’s $2.55 billion budget request. In setting the $7.27 billion funding level for the NNSA’s weapons program—$355 million less than the $7.6 billion that the House and Senate Armed Services Committee provided for the program, matching President Obama’s $7.6 billion request—lawmakers said they reflected the funding levels in the conference agreement on the FY2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which is set to be unveiled today as part of a nine-bill omnibus appropriations act. Under the provisions of the conference agreement, the Pentagon could boost funding for the agency’s weapons program by $125 million—mirroring legislation drafted by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Jon Kyl (RAriz.) that enjoyed the support of the Department of Defense but was excluded from the Senate version of the Defense Authorization Act due to a procedural issue.
Lawmakers backed off a House-crafted provision that would have tied stockpile reductions under the New START Treaty and in the future to progress on the Obama Administration’s $88 billion plan to maintain and modernize the nation’s weapons complex and nuclear arsenal over the next decade. The provisions, which were drafted by Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, drew a veto threat from the Obama Administration, and were replaced in the conference agreement by a “sense of Congress that sustained investments in the nuclear weapons stockpile and the nuclear security complex are needed to ensure a safe, secure, reliable, and credible nuclear deterrent and that such investments could enable additional reductions in the hedge stockpile in the future.” The agreement, however, includes a provision requiring the President to report to Congress each year it is determined that the modernization plan isn’t adequately funded as well as a provision requiring the President to provide a net assessment of the nation’s nuclear forces if the Administration proposes reductions to the nation’s active or reserve stockpiles.
Comments
Congress is giving the NNSA labs "budgetary whiplash" with their abrupt funding moves! Time to start creating those RIF lists in anticipating of approaching layoffs.
December 17, 2011 7:49 PM
Those lists have been ready to go for months. Knapp's been adjusting and readjusting his for years. The only thing that McMillan needed was the "fall guy" Marquez.
It's time to get the Mythbusters team involved, so we can begin testing again.
Hope they can keep the blast on the test site grounds.
And worse, this guy is obviously being groomed to be LANL's next Director!!!!!! It's sickening to watch.
And worse, this guy is obviously being groomed to be LANL's next Director!!!!!! It's sickening to watch.
December 18, 2011 10:38 AM
We can blame Anastasio for this selection. Unfortunately, it was the "best" engineer Livermore had to offer.
December 18, 2011 7:28 PM
While LLNL and LANL are great physics institutions, they are physics labs, not engineering Labs. I mean, look at the engineering leadership at LANL, Bret Knapp, Steve Girrens, Paul Wantuck, all lousy leaders with no record of engineering R&D or publications. If you want top caliber engineering, go to Sandia.
They've poisoned them beyond the point of return. The NNSA labs have become nothing more than expensive centers of risk aversion, bloated management and bureaucratic CYA policy creation.
It's been sad watching this fiasco play out over the last few years. Pretty much everything that the LLC "naysayers" said would happen has happened and then some!
don't get around much?
don't get around much?
December 21, 2011 7:35 PM
Sandia National Laboratories is THE Engineering National Laboratory.
December 18, 2011 7:59 PM
Don't forget to throw John Benner into that mix. What awful and absolutely worthless W-Program and Division manager.