Senate Scales Back Nuclear Budget Buster

On the radar: Golden warhead gets dinged; Saving GTRI; Securing nuclear material; Amano on nuclear security; and Matthew Broderick’s thermonuclear war hardware now for sale.

June 28, 2013 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Alyssa Demus

Cutting the B61 - The Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday approved a bill that would cut funding for a program to upgrade the B61 nuclear bomb by $168 million - 30% below the President’s budget request. “Given the high cost of this effort, the declining military justification, and the fact that less expensive alternatives exist, Senate appropriators made the right call,” writes Tom Collina at Arms Control Now. http://bit.ly/1cuOwb9

Committee report language - The Committee recommends spending $369 million on the B61 Life Extension Program for fiscal year 2014. In its report, the Committee stated its concern “that NNSA’s proposed scope of work for extending the life of the B61 bomb is not the lowest cost, lowest risk option that meets military requirements and replaces aging components before they affect weapon performance.”

--Sticker shock: “NNSA’s cost estimate for the B61 Life Extension Program has doubled in the past two years as work scope has increased—from $4,500,000,0000 to $8,168,000,000. An independent cost review by the Department of Defense’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office estimates that the actual cost will be $10,100,000,000. With a projected scope of only several hundred bombs, NNSA would be paying tens of millions of dollars per bomb.” Full Committee report here. (pdf, p. 102-103) http://1.usa.gov/12qQJCU

Fiscal sanity - The U.S. is planning to spend $10 billion dollars on the B61 - a nuclear bomb deployed in Europe that does “nothing to advance our security,” writes Terri Lodge in Roll Call.

--”The Senate is on the right track with an appropriations bill that requires an assessment of alternatives to the B61. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Lamar Alexander, chair and ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees nuclear weapons activities, should be proud of this step towards fiscal responsibility. If their colleagues in Congress have the same interest in protecting taxpayer dollars, they will look carefully at the nuclear weapons budget and cut wasteful programs such as the B61.” http://ow.ly/mtAnk

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Restoring nonproliferation - Senate appropriators also sought to reverse a proposed $76 million cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, allowing the successful nonproliferation program to better achieve its goal of securing facilities that hold radiological materials. U.S. News has the story. http://bit.ly/16EE8wj

Welcome to the Twitters - Brookings scholar and former Ambassador @steven_pifer.

Nuclear security - “Nuclear security is a matter of global concern, and global action is required. Efforts by just a handful of major players will not be sufficient to keep the world safe. We cannot afford to have weak links in our chain of defense. All countries must play their part,” writes IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in Project Sydicate.

--“One simple measure would make a big difference: All countries should allow peer reviews of their nuclear-security arrangements by international experts. Peer reviews have been shown to work – for example, in improving safety at nuclear power plants. Everyone benefits. Bringing experts in nuclear security together to share their experience is a no-brainer. More countries need to do it.” http://bit.ly/128BgEl

Missing material, nuclear threat - “Nuclear and radioactive materials are still going missing and the information the United Nations atomic agency receives about such incidents may be the tip of the iceberg, said a senior U.N. official.” By Fredrik Dahl of Reuters. http://reut.rs/1cuKekd

Tweet - @NTI_GSN: New Senate Bill Would Centralize Atomic Waste in the Interim. http://t.co/hlAcE5BfTT

Sanctioned - The U.S. Treasury department is sanctioning North Korea’s Daedong Credit Bank and its China-based representative. The bank is said to have facilitated financial transactions on behalf of Pyongyang’s top arms dealer. AP reports. http://wapo.st/11SeZdX

Tweet - @globalzero: Graham Allison applauds Obama "shining the spotlight" on nuke danger, says "he demonstrates a great capacity to remember what is important."

Speed reads -

”U.S. Should tread lightly on Iran” by Matthew Duss and Lawrence Korb from Politico. http://ow.ly/mtCJg

--“U.S. Ospreys and air tankers put Iran in Israel's reach” by Oren Dorell for USA Today. http://usat.ly/11NvED5

--“Reports: Ex-vice chairman of Joint Chiefs target of leak probe involving cyberattack on Iran” from AP. http://wapo.st/124sEgT

Dessert:

Own the original cyber/nuclear threat - These days, pc’s and futuristic computer tech is the norm. Thirty years ago, however, when “the classic hacker movie WarGames” was released, the hardware Matthew Broderick's character David Lightman used “to almost start a global thermonuclear war” would have made the most savvy computer nerd blush. Those geeks can now fulfill their wildest wonky fantasies of owning the computer featured in the film.

--Todd Fischer, the man who originally supplied the studio with the equipment is selling the iconic machine (valued at over $25,000). Phil Johnson at IT World has the story and Fischer’s contact info for potential purchasers. http://ow.ly/mtJgz