There will be no discussion of low-yield warheads, plutonium pits, or a controversial plutonium-disposal plant on Thursday when the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee marks up its portion of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
However, the bill will recommend setting the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) fiscal 2019 budget higher even than the White House’s request of $15 billion, though committee aides who briefed reporters here Wednesday would not say how much higher. The legislation will also propose adding the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering to the joint Department of Energy-Department of Defense Nuclear Weapons Council, the aides said.
The aides said low-yield warheads, nuclear-weapon cores called plutonium pits, and the fate of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility — the plutonium disposal plant in South Carolina the NNSA has proposed canceling — would come up May 9, when the full Armed Services Committee is slated to mark up its version of the 2019 NDAA. The next budget year begins on Oct. 1.
The National Defense Authorization Act, one of the few must-pass pieces of legislation that comes through Congress each year, sets policy and provides funding guidelines for U.S. defense programs. That includes the nuclear-weapon and nonproliferation programs managed by the NNSA, a semiautonomous branch of the Energy Department.
The House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee’s NDAA markup is scheduled for 3 p.m. Eastern time and will be webcast.
The NNSA has requested $65 million for fiscal 2019 to begin work on the low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead called for in February in the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. The agency plans to modify some of the existing W76 warheads used on the Trident II D-5 missiles carried aboard Ohio-class submarines, but needs congressional authorization to start the work.
Congressional Democrats, including House Armed Services Ranking Member Adam Smith (Wash.), have questioned whether the NNSA can, or should, afford new low-yield weapons. On Wednesday, an aide for the minority said Democrats still have “some issues” with the proposed low-yield weapons.
Committee aides said Democrats also want to know why the Pentagon and the NNSA want to annually manufacture at least 80 plutonium pits by 2030. That target was included in the Nuclear Posture Review, prior to which the NNSA and the Defense Department had planned to make 50 to 80 cores a year by 2030.
The Energy Department is nearing a decision on whether to move some pit production from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. However, the decision is not due on Capitol Hill until May 11, two days after the full House Armed Services Committee plans to mark up the full NDAA.
Meanwhile, the NNSA still has not turned in a cost analysis for its proposed alternative to the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, a committee aide said. In the 2018 NDAA, Congress said the agency could cancel the plant if it can prove its proposed alternative — diluting the plutonium and burying it deep underground in New Mexico — is half as expensive as completing the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility.