Obama Administration to Seek More Funds from Congress for N-Arsenals

The Obama Administration is going to ask the US Congress to increase budgetary allocation to secure and maintain the country’s nuclear stockpile, said media reports.

While submitting his budgetary proposal to the Congress, US President Barack Obama is expected to ask for $7 billion for maintenance of nuclear-weapons stockpile and related efforts, said repots.

Reports said that this is $600 million more as compared to what Congress approved last year.

In an op-ed published ‘The Wall Street Journal’, US Vice President Joe Biden said that the Obama Administration intended to hike up funding for these significant activities by more that $5 billion over the next five years, said reports.

“This investment is long overdue. It will strengthen our ability to recruit, train and retain the skilled people we need to maintain our nuclear capabilities. It will support the work of our nuclear labs, a national treasure that we must and will sustain,” Biden argued.

Mentioning that most of US facilities date back to World War II, Biden said that they put safety and environmental challenges, said reports.

“Increased funding now will eventually enable considerable savings on both security and maintenance. It also will allow us to clean up and close down production facilities we no longer need,” he said.

It should be mentioned that the slow but steady decline in support for US nuclear stockpile and infrastructure and that for its highly trained nuclear work force is one of the many challenges the Obama Administration inherited.

“The stockpile, infrastructure and work force played a critical and evolving role in every stage of our nuclear experience, from the Manhattan Project to the present day. Once charged with developing even more powerful weapons, they have had a new mission in the 18 years since we stopped conducting nuclear tests. That is to maintain the strength of the nuclear arsenal,” Biden said.