Kind of shoots the whole Obama weak on nukes and defense argument:
http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20110216_1095.php
Major Budget Boosts Sought for Nuclear Labs
Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2011
The Obama administration has requested $2.3 billion for operations in fiscal 2012 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, a 24 percent increase from 2010 spending levels, the Albuquerque Journal reported (see GSN, Feb. 15).
The proposed Energy Department budget would provide $300 million toward design operations for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement complex, which would succeed a plutonium laboratory that is more than six decades old (see GSN, Feb. 11).
The Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico would receive $1.6 billion in the fiscal year that begins on October 1, a 16 percent funding boost that would benefit the laboratory's efforts to sustain the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Updates to B-61 nuclear gravity bombs are under way at the site.
The two laboratories, both involved in nuclear-weapon operations, would together receive a 20 percent in additional funds over two budget cycles under the administration's proposal.
"The president's budget is good news for our national security, and it tales our [National Nuclear Security Administration] responsibility seriously," Representative Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said. "It puts them (the labs) in a good position to work on nonproliferation and to work on the [New] START treaty and to do the things they need to do with the weapons program. I think it's a very reasonable approach" (Fleck/Coleman, Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 15).
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee would receive $1.4 billion, a level of funding comparable to spending in prior budgets, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported yesterday. The Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee would receive $1.06 billion, including $160 million for work on the planned Uranium Processing Facility (see GSN, Jan. 20; Frank Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel, Feb. 15).
Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives, though, last week proposed a continuing resolution that would curb nuclear weapons modernization funding increases incorporated in the proposed fiscal 2011 budget, which has not been passed (Fleck/Coleman, Albuquerque Journal, Feb. 15). Federal spending has been largely frozen at fiscal 2010 levels under an earlier continuing resolution approved by Congress in December.
The proposed funding reductions could inflict severe damage on operations at the Oak Ridge laboratory, ORNL Director Thom Mason said on Monday. As spending at the site has remained for months at fiscal 2010 levels, a possible 18 percent reduction for the remaining fiscal 2011 cycle would be almost prohibitively deep, he said (Munger, Knoxville News Sentinel).
