WHAT: The House of Representative will consider a host of issues including: the authorization of $250 million for an East Coast missile defense site; new funds for nuclear weapons, including the B61 life extension program and $85 billion related to the Afghanistan War. The panel of experts will explain the military, technical and political implications of these programs and other during a press call on:
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE
The NDAA Moves from Committee to the House Floor Military, Science and Political Experts Comment on Anticipated House’s NDAA Action Washington DC June 6, 2013–Press Advisory The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation will host a press call with Lt. General Robert Gard, Hon. Philip Coyle and John Isaacs analyzing the military, technical, budgetary and […]
Key GOP Senator agitated by cost explosion of nuclear weapons enterprise
In an interview this week with Knoxville News reporter Frank Munger, Tennessee GOP Senator (and Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member) Lamar Alexander expressed is frustration and displeasure with the exploding costs of the nuclear weapons enterprise
Don’t waste money upgrading obsolete nukes
In a post-sequester era, members of Congress who are leaders on budget issues should be giving close scrutiny to wasteful government spending, including expensive weapons programs whose national security rationale is dubious. I wrote an op-ed in the Morristown Daily Record arguing that the expensive upgrade of the B61 nuclear bomb should be a target of such scrutiny. New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen is a fiscally conservative Republican with extensive influence over the nuclear weapons budget, so he’s well-positioned to ask the tough questions about whether taxpayers can – or should – fork over $10 billion to upgrade the B61.
It’s smart to scale back nuclear weapons spending
Published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Online on May 21, 2013. Article summary below; read the full text here. As part of his effort to win Republican support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2010, President Obama submitted to lawmakers a 10-year plan to maintain and modernize US nuclear warheads, […]