Chairman Mike Turner (OH-3) was joined by all eight other GOP members of his House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces in calling on four key Senate Appropriators to honor their written commitment of “support for...full funding for the modernization of our nuclear weapons arsenal.”
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Washington D.C. – Chairman Mike Turner (OH-3) was joined by all eight other GOP members of his House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces in calling on four key Senate Appropriators to honor their written commitment of “support for...full funding for the modernization of our nuclear weapons arsenal.”

 

The members of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over our nuclear arsenal and related Department of Energy programs wrote to the Senators in response to cuts made in the FY 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The bill, reported to the Senate on September 7th by the Committee on Appropriations, would cut funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear weapons activities by $440 million (6%) from the President’s budget request, while adding money above and beyond the budget request for water projects.

 

“These cuts are particularly disturbing because former Secretary of Defense Gates transferred $8.3 billion in top-line budget authority from the Department of Defense to NNSA over five years. As an off-the-record senior defense official recently said, ‘Secretary Gates wasn’t trying to pay for water projects,’” wrote the Members.

 

The Members pointed out to the Senators that the cuts to NNSA occurred despite a December 16, 2010 letter from the Senators to President Obama in which they each expressed their “support for ratification of the New START Treaty and full funding for the modernization of our nuclear weapons arsenal.” In the letter to President Obama, the Senators highlighted the President’s ‘Section 1251’ report—which proposes significant funding increases for NNSA—and asks the President, “in your future budget requests to Congress, you include the funding identified in that report on nuclear weapons modernization.”

 

The Members closed by asking the Senators, “We respectfully request that you stand by the nuclear modernization commitment made by the President and the Senate during New START ratification—and unequivocally endorsed by each of you in your December letter.”