The president’s FY 2017 budget request was sent to Congress February 9th and many programs received increases in funding that FCNL does not support, but there were also some big wins. The funding for nuclear weapons programs is spent between the Energy Department and the Defense Department.
The most gratifying part of the proposed budget was to see termination of the costly Mixed Oxide Fuel program (MOX). The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant will be reopened to take the place of MOX and informal negotiations with Russia have begun to happen about this transition. The transition will provide a cheaper alternative to the disposal of highly enriched plutonium.
The Defense Department increased funding for Long Range Strike Bombers, the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, the Long Range Stand Off Missiles (new nuclear cruise missile), and the F-35 fighter jets. The Ohio-Replacement Submarine received its first wave of funding from the Defense Department, but it has been receiving money from the Energy Department for several years for the nuclear reactor. While this is disappointing to see all of these increases in funding, there was a reduction in funding for the B61 nuclear bomb program.
The Energy Department’s funding provided a much more promising outlook for a world with less nuclear weapons, but was also disappointing in the decrease in funding for securing bomb grade nuclear materials around the world. The Energy Department stated that it will be accelerating the dismantlement of retired nuclear warheads by twenty percent. Unfortunately, the total nonproliferation budget was reduced.
While FCNL is not satisfied with the increased funding of nuclear weapons and the decrease in nonproliferation funding, we do support the cheaper alternative to the disposal of highly enriched plutonium and the acceleration of retired warhead dismantlement. Unfortunately, the funding for the nuclear weapons programs is only the beginning of a trillion dollar modernization program over the next thirty years.
