Nuclear weaponsU.S. to spend more money on modernizing its nuclear arsenal, less on nonproliferation programs

President Barack Obama has made gains in his quest to secure nuclear weapons and materials. In March, at the Nuclear Security Summit in Holland, Obama declared “it is important for us not to relax but rather accelerate our efforts over the next two years.”

The Obama administration, however, is allocating more resources toward refurbishing and modernizing current nuclear weapons than advancing nuclear nonproliferation programs. A new analysis of nuclear security spending published by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government notes that the administration’s proposed 2015 budget reduces funding for the Energy Department’s nuclear nonproliferation programs by $399 million, while increasing spending on its nuclear weapons programs by $534 million. For fiscal 2014, Congress approved $1.95 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to spend on nonproliferation programs. The White House fiscal 2015 budget proposed $1.56 billion- a 20 percent reduction.

Critics note that Obama missed a self-imposed deadline of April 2013 for ensuring that nuclear materials were safe from terrorist organizations. They also point out that the administration rejected a May 2013 NNSA report advocating acceleration of nonproliferation efforts before 2016, the year Obama will lead the fourth international summit on nuclear security. The proposal, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), expressed concern at the global availability of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. The CPI notes that today, civilian institutions including research labs hold enough nuclear explosive materials to put together 40,000 atomic bombs..

Officials familiar with the White House’s decision claim that an interagency debate regarding whether to reduce spending for non proliferation programs or nuclear weapons modernization projects led to the budget decision. “As they were putting the administration’s budget together, there were debates,” said Matthew Bunn, a former White House official and professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “Should they provide more money for nonproliferation, or more money for weapons? It’s clear that weapons won that debate.”

Laura Holgate, the administration’s senior director for weapons of mass destruction terrorism, did not dispute the budget debate but attributed the final decision to the achievement of Obama’s nonproliferation goals. “The President’s nonproliferation and nuclear security priorities were protected,” she wrote in an email to CPI. “The decreased budget reflects natural and predictable declines based on project completion. The U.S. commitment and capacity to support global nuclear security activities remains strong and unparalleled.”

The NNSA report acknowledged that the White House’s effort on nonproliferation has made the world more secure, but it also reaffirmed the need for more to be achieved by December 2016. The report calls for removing or eliminating 1.1 metric tons of weapons-grade uranium and 400 kilograms of plutonium from sites around the world, and removal of all highly-enriched uranium in eight more foreign countries by December 2016. The NNSA wants the administration to keep better count of existing plutonium stocks, decide the best way to dispose of them, and persuade other countries to balance production with consumption to achieve a shrinking global stockpile. The agency also wants the administration to accelerate efforts to convert at least thirteen research reactors that use weapons-grade uranium into using a form of uranium that cannot easily be used to fuel weapons.

On questions regarding the administration not meeting its 2009 goal to secure vulnerable nuclear materials by 2013, Holgate insists that the White House aimed to “make a big dent” in securing the world’s civilian stockpiles of nuclear materials. “I don’t think … we can say it was not met,” she said. “What he was talking about is a global effort over that four-year time, like a sprint in the middle of a marathon. Holgate added that “in that time 12 countries eliminated all fissile material on their territories that could be used in a weapon, including Ukraine,” she said. “Think how differently we would be thinking about the Ukraine situation now if the 50 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium — that’s a couple of bombs worth — were still at that Kharkiv Institute, which the rebels have taken over. That’s a very different situation than what we would have today.”