Report examines nuclear weapons modernization costs

Findings from a Government Accountability Office (GAO) analysis requested by a pair of lawmakers determined nuclear weapons modernization costs will be larger than estimated unless programs are scaled or scrapped.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Edward J. Markey (D-MA) requested the GAO analysis as a means of identifying what steps the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have taken since Fiscal Year 2017 to address rising nuclear weapons modernization costs.

Per the GAO, the figure upwards of $1.2 trillion the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the nation would spend over the next three decades on nuclear-weapons spending would rise without action.

“The GAO today reported the government will have to set aside billions of dollars more to support our nuclear weapons program,” Feinstein said. “This is particularly alarming considering we already expect to spend a stunning $1.2 trillion over the next three decades. And if New START expires, as President Trump has threatened, the costs would climb even more to keep pace with Russia. We already have more than enough weapons to destroy the world many times over, and at a time of economic crisis, the administration must consider delaying or terminating some of our nuclear weapons programs in order to keep the potentially crushing costs under control.”

Markey said the nation cannot afford over $1 trillion in nuclear modernization programs.

“The GAO sounds the alarm that the Trump administration wish-list to build new types of nuclear weapons in new multi-billion dollar facilities is not only unnecessary, it’s not sustainable, at least not without sacrificing other funding priorities,” Markey said. “We risk tumbling into an unaffordable and unwinnable 21st-century arms race.”