On Tuesday, the House Armed Services Committee marked up the fiscal year 2010 Defense Authorization bill. Among the provisions included were some especially promising nonproliferation boosts. Here’s how a couple of programs that Kingston and Cuyler were concerned about fared:
–The Department of Energy’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which tracks down and secures loose nuclear material internationally, received an additional $224 million.
–$179 million was added for the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program, another DoE effort, which would go towards installing radiation sensors at risky border crossings and tracking down potential WMD components.
Also included in HASC’s markup was an additional $30 million for the Department of Defense’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program, aka “Nunn-Lugar.” As Travis wrote last month, funding for the program steadily decreased during the Bush years, dropping 19 percent. HASC’s increase will bring Nunn-Lugar funding to $434 million – a good sign – but it is still short of the Bush administration average of $474 million per year.
Between these three programs, funding for international nonproliferation efforts was upped by HASC by $433 million, bringing the total for 2010 to $3.2 billion, $223 million more than last year’s budget.
