The National Nuclear Security Administration would receive not quite $15 billion if a Department of Energy budget bill approved Tuesday by a Senate Appropriations subcommittee becomes law.
The bulk of the money — $10.9 billion — would fund nuclear-weapon operations at the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency, with the rest split almost evenly between nuclear nonproliferation and naval nuclear reactor work.
Like a companion bill that cleared the House Appropriations Committee last week, the Senate energy and water subcommittee legislation would provide $65 million for a new low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead. That would match the amount requested by the Trump administration, which first directed the missile in the Nuclear Posture Review issued in February.
The White House wants to start work on the weapon, a modified version of the W76 warhead used on Trident II-D5 missiles carried aboard Ohio-class submarines, in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
Subcommittee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) immediately declared her opposition to the new low-yield weapon.
“I don’t see any reason to develop new low-yield weapons,” Feinstein said.
Nevertheless, she moved to send the subcommittee bill to the full Senate Appropriations Committee for a vote Thursday. Feinstein promised she would have “much more” to say about the warhead at the full committee mark.
An aide here said the Senate will not release the language of the proposed 2019 budget bill until after the Thursday hearing. Likewise, the detailed bill report with specific program funding proposals, will not be available until that time.
The Senate subcommittee’s bill would fully fund DoE’s $703 million request for the Uranium Processing Facility that Bechtel National is building at the Y-12 Nuclear Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The Department of Energy in March authorized major construction at the next-generation plant, which will shape and process uranium used in weapons and naval reactors, and as naval reactor fuel. The plant is supposed to be finished by the end of 2025 at a cost of no more than $6.5 billion, DoE has said.
Meanwhile, it appears the Senate subcommittee’s appropriations bill would spell the end of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The Energy Department wants to cancel the over-budget facility’s nonproliferation mission — to turn 34 metric tons of surplus weapon-usable plutonium into commercial reactor fuel — and convert the plant into a factory capable of making 50 fissile nuclear warhead cores annually by 2030. Energy Secretary Rick Perry served Congress notice on May 10 that he planned to go through with DoE’s long-stated plan to wind down construction on the plant.
Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) appeared Tuesday to accept Perry’s decision.
“We look forward to working with the Department of Energy and Senator [Lindsey] Graham to ensure the plutonium leaves South Carolina sooner, and at a lower cost to taxpayers,” he said during the markup.
The House version of the energy and water bill would give the agency $335 million to continue building the facility for its original mission.