Alan Simpson: “Although I am opposed to the amendment, I have to admit that I do enjoy our annual discussion on this. I oppose this…”

“Although I am opposed to the amendment, I have to admit that I do enjoy our annual discussion on this. I oppose this amendment because the bill already shows strong support for the nonproliferation programs of the NNSA. Funding for nuclear defense nonproliferation is $1.83 billion--$76.5 million below fiscal year 2017 and $16.8 million below the budget request. Within nonproliferation, the bill largely supports funding as requested, but makes a limited number of realignments within the account to emphasize the importance of nonproliferation research and development activities and to meet international commitments for plutonium disposition. Our understanding--and this is the important point. Our understanding is that budget request is down because NNSA still has significant unexpended balances in this account due to slow progress on international nonproliferation agreements. Specifically, the NNSA reported in May that it had approximately $2.2 billion in funds available to carry out its nonproliferation mission, of which over $680 million is left over from prior years. For years, NNSA has struggled to execute funding in its nonproliferation budget because it could not obtain agreement from other nations to do the work as quickly as planned or as we would maybe like to. This amendment also targets funding from the weapons activities infrastructure recapitalization program.…”