DOE - NNSA

The budget for the National Nuclear Security Administration is continuing its recent rapid rise, with the latest appropriation supporting major new plutonium research and production initiatives while rejecting a proposal to pare back the inertial confinement fusion program.

This year's National Defense Authorization Act includes numerous provisions bearing on science and technology policy, including ones establishing a Space Force, creating a Climate Security Advisory Council, and directing the Defense Department’s research security efforts.

Both the House and Senate propose substantial budget increases for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons R&D and nonproliferation programs, matching or exceeding the president’s request in many instances.

The House and Senate have completed work on their respective versions of the annual legislation that updates U.S. defense policy. The bills include numerous proposals related to DOD’s research laboratories, innovation policy, nuclear weapons, research security, and climate change, among other areas.

Worried about an impending wave of retirements at the national laboratories, House appropriations subcommittee chair Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) announced last week she is interested in supporting a broad initiative to train a new generation of elite scientists.

The National Nuclear Security Administration proposes to ramp up funding for new plutonium experimentation and production facilities while paring back support for inertial confinement fusion in its latest budget request. Meanwhile, funding for nonproliferation programs would increase slightly overall.

Within a 4 percent overall budget increase for the National Nuclear Security Administration, funding for most weapons and nonproliferation R&D programs will remain steady in fiscal year 2019. Congress rejected steep proposed cuts to inertial confinement fusion programs and greenlit development of a controversial new low-yield nuclear warhead.

As the conference committee for this year’s iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act begins its work, conferees will navigate numerous proposals for changes in defense R&D and innovation policy.

The fiscal year 2019 spending bills for the National Nuclear Security Administration advanced by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees reject the Trump administration’s deep proposed cuts to fusion research, accept its request to develop a new low-yield nuclear weapon, and split on whether to continue construction of a plutonium conversion facility that it wants to terminate.

The final spending legislation for fiscal year 2018 raises the National Nuclear Security Administration’s budget by 13 percent to $14.7 billion, with most major R&D programs benefiting from the increase.