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Nuclear Weapons Budget

The Fiscal Year 2011 budget (FY-11) has allocated a signficant amount of funding to agencies with responsibilities over the United States' nuclear arsenal. Although there are positive aspects to some of the budget increases (regarding increases in non-proliferation initiatives) there are areas of considerable concern where the administration appears to be developing America's capacity to build more nuclear weapon components in the future. We feel that this sends the wrong message to the international community and will hinder our ability to make progress in building a consensus towards disarmament.
 
Noteable Increases
 
Within the FY-11 budget between the Department of State (DoS) , National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Homeland Security (DoHS) $3,163,200 million have been allocated to the WMD Security Programs. Including substantial increases in four areas:
 
 All amounts in millions
 
NNSA FY-10 FY-11 % increase
Fissile Material Disposition 36.4 138.9 281%
Global Threat Reduction 333.5 559.0 67%
 
Department of Defense
Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs 424.1 522.5 23%
 
Department of Homeland Security
Science and Technology Directorate 357.0 431.9 20%
 
Stastical data provided by Partnership for Global Security www.partnershipforglobalsecurity.org
 
 
The Center for Arms Control and Non Proliferation put together a budget briefing book of the FY-11 budget under Nuclear Weapons and Non Proliferation, the Department of Energy shows significant increases in defense spending particularly for nuclear facilities. The briefing book also references a decrease in spending on nuclear dismantlement.
 
Department of Energy (Defense Spending) FY-10 FY-11 % increase
Weapons Activities 661 million 7 billion 10.4%
Non Proliferation (Significant amount allocated to MOX facility) 550 million 2.7 billion 25.7%
CMMR plutonium facility (Los Alamos) 97 million 225 million 139%
Y-12 Uranium Processing Facility 94 million 115 million 22%
 
FY-10 FY-11 % decrease
Nuclear Dismantlement 196.1 million 58 million 70%
 
Statistical data provided by the Center for Arms Control and Non Proliferation budget briefing book. Available at (?)
      
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Appropriation of FY-11 budget
 
The FY-11 budget for nuclear weapons is divided into five separate categories, which each receive an alloted amount of money to spend within that particular area.
 
Nuclear forces and operational support
Deferred environmental and health costs
Missile Defense
Nuclear threat reduction
Nuclear incident management
 
Information provided by Nuclear Security Spending: Assessing Costs, Examining Priorities published by Carnegie Endowment

Researcher Corner

http://www.comw.org/pda/budgetreview.html - Project on Defense Alternatives has compiled an extensive review of defense spending including conventional, nuclear, and other topics.

Feingold / Markey Letter to Obama on the Budget - Letter from Senator Feingold and Congressman Markey on the need to redirect funds to nuclear disarmament.

Activist Corner

If you are interested in educating your local representatives, we encourage you to make use of the resources on this site and some of our partner organizations. One particularly powerful argument to local representatives is the National Priorities Project that details how much the United States' military budget costs your local community (http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home). We think that this a long with the arguments made throughout this site on why we need to move towards nuclear disarmament set-up a strong case to your representative as to why they should declare their support for Arms Control Treaties like START, CTBT, and the NPT.

Action Alerts

  • Time for Diplomacy with Iran

    We need you to write to President Obama now and ask him to bring us back from the brink of a conflict that neither country can afford. We ask President Obama to establish direct diplomatic engagement with Iran.

  • Rare moment of opportunity to cut nukes!

    Please take a moment to contact your Representative now, asking them to sign on to Rep. Markey's letter.

More action alerts»

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