The residents of Nevada County California woke up yesterday morning to an op-ed on New START’s recent entry into force by yours truly. I’m sure it changed their lives. Here’s an excerpt:In a political climate paralyzed by partisanship on ot…
FY 2011 and FY 2012 Budgets for Nuclear Security
by Kingston Reif By Kingston Reif and Patricia Morris The international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials and keep our nation safe from nuclear terrorism is at a crossroads. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, the President’s budget request and Congressional appropriations for threat reduction programs did not reflect the urgency of the threat. Funding […]
What Would States Sacrifice for Nonproliferation?
by Leonard Weiss Published in the March 2011 issue of The Nonproliferation Review 18:1, 2011, p.11 Christopher Paine and Thomas Cochran have produced an interesting variation on an old idea for enhancing nonproliferation by internationalizing the fuel cycle (see “Nuclear Islands: International Leasing of Nuclear Fuel Cycle Sites to Provide Enduring Assurance of Peaceful Use,” […]
New START’s Nuclear Compromise
by Kingston Reif The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the United States and Russia officially entered into force in a low-key ceremony in Munich in early February–much to the delight of our military leadership, intelligence community, and just about every national security expert on the planet. The national security case for the […]
House Votes to Cut F-35 Extra Engine
The saga continues in the fight to fund the F-35 extra engine. Today, the House voted 233-198 on an amendment that would cancel the program.
The vote split both Republicans and Democrats, with over 100 Republicans and around 130 Democrats voting yes. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-FL) took the lead on the amendment, crediting House GOP leaders with allowing a vote on the issue despite Speaker John Boehner’s opposition.
Freshman Republicans in the House were initially hesitant to trim military spending, but have since broken ranks with their party’s speaker to include $16 billion in military cuts in the current spending bill. Cutting the F-35 extra engine would save an additional $450 million.
House GOP leaders hope to pass the overall spending bill later this week, which would fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year, but the buck does not stop there. The bill then goes to the Senate. Funding for the extra engine could be among the many changes that are made.
