Final Version of Defense Auth. Bill Emerges From Conference

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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.