Anonymously contributed:
Congress Seen Cutting Obama's Nuke Budget
Friday, March 11, 2011 – Global Security Newswire
Recently defeated budget bills suggest fiscal 2011 funding for the maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons will ultimately fall below levels sought by the Obama administration, the Albuquerque Journal reported on Thursday (see GSN, March 3).
President Obama requested $7 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration's weapons stockpile activities in the current budget cycle, which ends on September 30. Congress has yet to approve a final budget for the current fiscal year and the federal government is operating under a continuing funding resolution set to expire next Friday.
The fiscal 2011 spending budget passed by the House of Representatives would provide $6.7 billion for nuclear stockpile work. Though the amount is less than what Obama sought, it would provide a 7 percent increase over fiscal 2010 funding levels. A separate Senate budget proposal would have allotted $6.8 billion to NNSA weapons programs.
Though neither the Democrat-sponsored Senate plan nor the Republican-backed House proposal acquired enough votes for passage in the Senate on Wednesday, the fiscal 2011 stockpile funding levels offered by both bills suggest the ultimate amount would fall between $6.7 and $6.8 billion, Friends Committee on National Legislation lobbyist David Culp said.
"The Senate cut less, but certainly followed suit," Union of Concerned Scientists stockpile policy analyst Nickolas Roth said.
The debate over stockpile funding in the current budget cycle indicates fiscal 2012 funding negotiations could be similarly contentious, Culp added.
The White House is seeking $7.6 billion for NNSA "weapons activities" in fiscal 2012, according to a previous report (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, March 10).
Congress Seen Cutting Obama's Nuke Budget
Friday, March 11, 2011 – Global Security Newswire
Recently defeated budget bills suggest fiscal 2011 funding for the maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons will ultimately fall below levels sought by the Obama administration, the Albuquerque Journal reported on Thursday (see GSN, March 3).
President Obama requested $7 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration's weapons stockpile activities in the current budget cycle, which ends on September 30. Congress has yet to approve a final budget for the current fiscal year and the federal government is operating under a continuing funding resolution set to expire next Friday.
The fiscal 2011 spending budget passed by the House of Representatives would provide $6.7 billion for nuclear stockpile work. Though the amount is less than what Obama sought, it would provide a 7 percent increase over fiscal 2010 funding levels. A separate Senate budget proposal would have allotted $6.8 billion to NNSA weapons programs.
Though neither the Democrat-sponsored Senate plan nor the Republican-backed House proposal acquired enough votes for passage in the Senate on Wednesday, the fiscal 2011 stockpile funding levels offered by both bills suggest the ultimate amount would fall between $6.7 and $6.8 billion, Friends Committee on National Legislation lobbyist David Culp said.
"The Senate cut less, but certainly followed suit," Union of Concerned Scientists stockpile policy analyst Nickolas Roth said.
The debate over stockpile funding in the current budget cycle indicates fiscal 2012 funding negotiations could be similarly contentious, Culp added.
The White House is seeking $7.6 billion for NNSA "weapons activities" in fiscal 2012, according to a previous report (John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, March 10).
Comments
March 12, 2011 5:04 PM
Brett Knapp will be first to "volunteer" his workers for layoffs. He just loves the opportunity to put some extra change in his pocket at the expense of nuclear weapon expertise and capabilities.
To make things worse, NNSA is not being considered part of the defense or homeland departments, so it won't be excluded from the cuts targeted at the discretionary budget. Exclude defense from the budget cuts and you have all these proposed cuts falling on only 12% of the federal budget (with defense and entitlements excluded from any cuts).
By summer, it will be clear to both LLNL and LANL upper management that large cuts are going to be required in staffing and that managers need to start preparing the RIF lists. This is, indeed, bad news for an already totally demoralized lab workforce!
You can also probably expect that one of the major NNSA construction project, either at Y-12 or at LANL, will be radically slowed down for years to come.
Give me my 80k severance and I will gladly leave.
Give me my 80k severance and I will gladly leave.
March 15, 2011 7:08 PM
What does this mean to the best and brightest?
March 15, 2011 7:08 PM
What are you talking about?? Severance?? If you mean incentive to retire, you are delusional. That will never happen again. There has never been, even under UC, a "severance" provision in the contract. What are you smoking?
Lots of corporations in America cut their severance level way back right before their massive layoffs starting in 2008. Coincidence? I think not!
Is this true? Can anyone else verify that Dr. Chu, indeed, has asked the lab management teams to prepare layoff plans?
First the multi-year salary freezes, continuous benefit cuts and now this?
Does this guy have any idea how demoralized the scientists are at the NNSA/DOE labs? If this layoff plan is true, then his recent comments about "valuing the best & brightest" at the NNSA labs are total bunk!
You are WRONG regarding severance. Severance pay is in the employee manual. If one is in a RIF you get severance based on years of service. I just verified this.
Part III, Section J, Appendix A – Personnel Appendix
SECTION V - PAYMENTS ON SEPARATION
(a) Reduction in Force (RIF). When employees are terminated due to a RIF, the following costs are allowable:
(1) Pay in lieu of notice. Any employee who is laid off or terminated due to a RIF may be given pay in lieu of the required minimum written notice of termination to the extent permitted by law. Accumulated vacation credit is also paid.
(2) Severance pay benefit. The severance payment shall be made in an amount equal to one week's pay for each year of continuous full-time equivalent service (a fractional year of full-time equivalent service of six months or more is counted as one year of service) not to exceed a total of 26 weeks pay.
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Severance pay is an "allowable cost", which means LLNS can take it out of the money NNSA sends to run the lab. But the question really should be - Is it mandatory that LLNS pay severance. Yes its in the employee manual, but LLNS/LLNL can change the manual at any time. When we were UC managed, LLNL HR had to get UC approval for manual changes and the change had to be consistent with UC policies. Now its just George who approves, and the policy change just has to make NNSA happy or save them money (like not paying severance).
NNSA allows (not requires) LLNS to provide severance pay.
The personnel policy provides for severance pay, but that can change anytime by LLNS .... As I recall, LLNS greatly reduced the severance pay after the last ISP (a setup for the next ISP).
As other posters have stated, NNSA says it is "allowed", but there is nothing that says it is legal right like the accumulated assets in your lab pension.
Given the fact that the LLCs can't afford to pay severance out of their current operating budgets, you can probably assume you'll never see the full amount listed in the employee manual if they implement RIFs. I've heard PADs at LANL state as much to employees during meetings.
Severance would have been more secure if the labs were still managed by UC, but those days are long gone. From the way some people think, however, you get the feeling they never got the message that the management team has changed!
26 weeks? Yahoo!! I'll go for 24.
Chu's cancellation of salary increases cost me $600 per month. So that chink can kiss my whitey ass goodbye.
You are an ignorant racist who should be show the gate.
March 19, 2011 7:21 AM
Too late. I think he was already headed there. Find someone else to scream your overheated accusations at.
I've only found one person happy about the pay freeze. A friend whose opinion I value even if I don't agree with it this time, especially for young employees. So some anonymous venting at the Secretary is understandable. However, the gratuitous racial slur is not.
March 20, 2011 11:53 AM
Really? Well, you must be quite young and sheltered. I grew up in a time and a place where "nicknames" for the various ethnicities and races were quite common, a sort of slang that the targets themselves used to refer to each other. There was nothing hateful or racist about it, it was just the way people talked back then. Everyone still got along. I think political correctness is killing our country. People need to re-learn how to develop a thicker skin and stop taking offense at such little things. Only very insecure people are so sensitive. And I am one of the "minorities" supposedly affected. In reality I refuse to be affected because I am secure in who I am and what I stand for.
Have the self-enraptured, America-hating, lugubrious, incompetent, huckstering, idealoging, easily-distracted showmen, that dumb-ass* Americans elected to represent them in Congress f*****d things up well enough so I can get my 26 weeks severance soon?
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* sorry friends, but your ability to elect competent representatives is pitiful. It is as if every district is trying to win the biggest loser** competition.
**the McInerney and Boxer districts win, with the Paul and Reid districts close behind.