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Ploughshares Blog: Nuclear Budget

The U.S. nuclear weapons budget is vast, difficult to decipher and rife with waste and excess. Following is analysis and opinion from Ploughshares Fund staff, grantees and guests on the continuing effort to shed light on and ultimately correct the nuclear budget.
Finding Budget Savings from the Nuclear Force
  On the radar: “Nuclear force economies”; Subs, budgets and requirements in flux; Missileer malaise; East Coast site evaluations; Upcoming IAEA talks; and Dennis the Menace to return to North Korea.   Read more »
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Posted on May 13, 2013
Time to Pull the Plug on MOX
Some things never seem to change, sometimes to the detriment of the U.S. taxpayer. Allowing parochial interests to trump national ones is a Washington tradition that lives on. Case in point: this week Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) placed a “hold” on the nomination of Dr. Ernest Moniz, a well-respected MIT professor and former Undersecretary of Energy, to be the next head of the Department of Energy (DOE). The reason? The senator is concerned about administration plans to reduce the budget request for the plutonium fuel program at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina known as MOX. Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on April 30, 2013
Department of Energy, MOX, National Nuclear Security Administration, Nuclear Budget, United States
Obama Administration to Push for Deeper Nuclear Reductions
In an upcoming decision, the Obama administration is poised to pare down the U.S. nuclear arsenal. This move, which the president is likely to discuss in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, has the support of many experts who note it’s about time the U.S. moved away from Cold War weapons and invested in a 21st century security strategy that will make us more secure. Read more »
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Posted by Alyssa Demus on February 11, 2013
Center for Public Integrity, Jeffrey Smith, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Zero
Plutonium Waste Begets Budget Waste
Many in Congress fumed last year when a green energy company – Solyndra – defaulted on a $535 million government loan, resulting from some bad management decisions and the market falling out from under the company. What happens when the government spends $5 billion on a poorly managed plutonium program that has no market? Read more »
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Posted by Ben Loehrke on January 23, 2013
MOX, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Materials, United States
The $640 Billion Question
Whether or not the nation zooms over the fiscal cliff, the Pentagon’s budget is going to get tighter. This may be a challenge for some. But it’s also an opportunity for the Pentagon to shift away from Cold War weapons and reshape the U.S. military to deal with 21st century realities. It comes down to a simple question: Should the U.S. put its money toward a Cold War nuclear strategy? Or should those funds be spent to equip the military to address 21st century realities? Read more »
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Posted by Ben Loehrke on November 14, 2012
$640 Billion, Cold War, Fiscal Cliff, Gen. James Cartwright, Global Zero, Military, Nuclear Budget, Pentagon Budget, Politico, Sec. Colin Powell, Walter Pincus
What's more expensive than a hurricane? Nuclear weapons.
There's no doubt: Hurricane Sandy has left her mark. The damage the storm left to basic infrastructure on the East Coast will take billions of dollars and months (if not years) to repair. But, hurricane damage costs pale in comparison to the spending our country is already planning to dole out to America's nuclear weapons and related programs.  Read more »
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Posted by admin on November 2, 2012
hurricane sandy, infographic, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons
Too Big to Succeed? Huge Laser for Weapons Tests Fails to Perform
Although the United States has not tested a nuclear weapon for twenty years, we still spend billions each year on an array of machines that conduct all kinds of diagnostic experiments to mimic nuclear explosions. One of the most expensive is called the National Ignition Facility (NIF). Read more »
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Posted by Paul Carroll on October 31, 2012
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, National Ignition Facility, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear Weapons, Stockpile stewardship
How would you spend $640 Billion?
It's not easy to know how much our nation pays for our nuclear weapons programs. There is no official nuclear weapons budget. Instead, government spending accounts are often opaque, poorly defined and always spread out over several government agencies. But, as we debate appropriate levels of defense spending, Ploughshares Fund believes that it's important to get a sense of what the overall nuclear budget looks like. Read more »
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Posted by admin on October 7, 2012
International relations, Iran and weapons of mass destruction, Nuclear Budget, Nuclear warfare, Nuclear Weapons, Ploughshares Fund
A Victory for Good Government
When 19 Senators write the administration to demand funding for a pet project, they usually get what they want.  But not this time.  This time common sense, fiscal realities and the hard work of dozens of Ploughshares Fund grantees combined to kill a wasteful and unnecessary nuclear bomb factory. Read more »
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Posted by Joe Cirincione on September 23, 2012
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, CMRR, Continuing Resolution, Friends Committee on National Legislation, House Appropriations Committee, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Nuclear Budget, Plutonium, Senate Appropriations Committee, Stockpile stewardship, Union of Concerned Scientists
Why the Navy is not Paying for Missile Defense
The Navy’s Aegis missile defense system is the backbone of the Obama administration’s Phased Adaptive Approach to missile defense. So why isn’t the Navy paying anything for missile defense? The omission, revealed by Pentagon missile defense budget estimates, says a lot about Navy priorities during an era of tightening budgets. Read more »
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Posted by Ben Loehrke on August 27, 2012
Aegis, budget, DDG-51, Missile Defense, Missile Defense Agency, Navy, Nuclear Budget, Phased Adaptive Approach, Procurement, Sec. Ray Mabus, Sequestration, SM-3