Albuquerque, NM -- Today, the Trump Administration began the process of submitting its proposed
FY2027 federal budget to Congress for review.
For the Department of Energy (DOE), the
Budget in Brief provides some useful details about what this new budget would entail for DOE programs, including the nuclear programs of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which are of particular interest to this organization.
Under the terms of this budget, overall NNSA funding would rise by 12% from $29.289 billion (B) (including $3.885 B in mandatory spending from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, OBBBA, P. L. 119-21) to $32.802 B.
The Administration (at
p. 3) calls this "a historic investment" to "modernize the Nation's nuclear deterrent and protect the American people."
NNSA warhead programs ("Weapons Activities" in budget parlance) would rise from $24.263 B (including all of the $3.885 B in the OBBBA) to $27.441 B, a 13% increase.
Historical NNSA Weapons Activities spending, corrected for inflation, can be seen in
this graph.
Last year, discretionary Weapons Activities spending was just $20.378 B; the proposed $27.441 B would be a 35% increase in discretionary warhead spending.
As opposed to last year, this budget proposal intends to fund NNSA and its programs entirely from discretionary funds.
This is not the case for the Department of War (DoW), which the Administration proposes to partially fund via a $350 B budget reconciliation bill (which, as a reminder, produces
mandatory spending) as well as $1.15 trillion in discretionary spending. Quoting from a White House budget fact sheet ("
Rebuilding Our Military"):
For FY 2027, the Budget proposes $1.15 trillion in discretionary (28% increase) and $350 billion in mandatory bringing total resources for defense to $1.5 trillion (including a 44% increase for the Department of War (DOW)). This amount exceeds even the Reagan buildup by approaching the historic increases just prior to World War II, a level that recognizes the current global threat environment and restores the readiness and lethality of our forces. The whole of government, whole of nation shipbuilding order of 41 ships alone represents the largest demand signal to the maritime industrial base since the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
NNSA's proposed spending in the FY2028-FY31 outyears (what is called the Future Years Nuclear Security Program, or FYNSP) totals $137.9 B, which averages to $34.475 B over these years.
In addition to supporting current nuclear warheads, NNSA anticipates working on seven simultaneous warhead programs in FY2027 (quoting):
- B61-13 Phase 6.6 (Full Scale Production) activities and support all required deliveries to the DoW;
- Obtain Phase 6.5 (First Production) authorization and achieve Warhead First Production Unit (FPU) for the W80-4 LEP;
- Continue Phase 6.3 (Development Engineering) activities for the W87-1 Modification Program;
- Continue Phase 6.3 (Development Engineering) for the W80-5 Modification Program (funded using WFTCA [i.e. OBBBA] carryover); and
- Commence Phase 3 (Development Engineering) for the W93.
- [And:] In FY 2027 Stockpile Modernization is planning to authorize two new programs for Phase 2/6.2.
For reference,
- The B61-13 is a high-yield (approximately 360 kiloton) earth-penetrating, precision-delivery gravity bomb.
- The W80-4 is the warhead for the Long-Range Stand Off (LRSO) air-launched cruise missile.
- The W87-1 is a new warhead for the Sentinel silo-based missile. Sentinel is currently expected to be deployed starting in early 2030s and extending to the early 2050s. The W87-1 will use plutonium cores ("pits) made at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Some (possibly many) W87-1s may be made with recycled pits.
- The W80-5 is the warhead for the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile Nuclear (SLCM-N), expected to be deployed in the early 2030s.
- The W93 is an additional warhead for the Trident D5 missiles slated to be deployed on Columbia-class submarines.
The B61-12 Life Extension Program (LEP) and W88 Alteration (ALT) 370 completed transition to Stockpile Operations in FY 2026.
FY2027 NNSA funding will support pit production at LANL and the Savannah River Site (SRS).
By way of background, the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA,
P. L. 119-60), at Section 3112, requires the Secretary to Energy to ensure that LANL "has the capability to reliably produce no fewer than 30 war reserve plutonium pits annually" and the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility at SRS "has the capability to reliably produce no fewer than 50 war reserve plutonium pits annually.’’ Legislation
proposed last year by the Senate to increase LANL's pit production requirements were defeated.
Study Group director Greg Mello:
"As DOE says in its Budget in Brief [p. 2], this budget aims to "unleash America's energy dominance." From the White House's perspective, all of NNSA's programs "work in concert to deter strategic attacks against the United States and achieve Peace through Atomic Strength" [p. 20].
"This will not work. The U.S. has withdrawn from every important arms control treaty with Russia, or in the case of New START, simply allowed it to expire despite Russia's expressed interest in extending that Treaty's limits. Meanwhile our own investments in advanced and ever more diverse kinds of nuclear weapons as well as missile defense -- Trump's ridiculous "Golden Dome," which will never work -- and above all our highly-aggressive and lawless foreign policy have triggered a new nuclear arms race.
"The paranoid Trump Administration sees the reactions to U.S. aggression and reads them as reasons for more nuclear investments. The fact is, there is no sane competition in nuclear weaponry. More is not better. Nuclear weapons cannot be used to win wars against other powerful nuclear states, which means arms racing is foolish in the extreme. More nuclear weapons do not protect us. Quite the reverse.
"The U.S. cannot in any case "win" any kind of arms race with a country which can build and sell electric cars for $10,000.
"What is really going on is a payoff to the nuclear-military-industrial-congressional complex, which has to kept at bay. Trump is doing that in this budget. It has nothing to do with national security. It's about political security -- hanging onto power. It's about contractor security. It's about pork-barrel security. It's about protecting the President's own backside at the expense of peace and the fruits of peace, which he once promised.
"This budget, like the war in Iran, is an utter betrayal of most of the people who voted for this President. In the case of nuclear weaponry the betrayal is less obvious than the economic pain Americans will now endure as a result of this war -- if they can endure it, but it's very real. Investing in nuclear nightmares as Trump is doing drags this country down, and sets us on the wrong path.
"It is also illegal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but Trump cares even less about that than did his predecessors.
"Throughout this budget it is global dominance, not global cooperation, that is the stated theme. U.S. dominance was always more or less the goal no matter what was said, but it now it is the explicit goal.
"Not just NNSA's warhead work but also NNSA's nonproliferation and arms control work are now explicitly oriented toward global dominance. Nonproliferation and arms control are said to not just enhance U.S. national security but also to unleash "U.S. dominance in the civil nuclear sector...[and] protect American international investments and America's civil nuclear infrastructure and...critical supply chains." NNSA nonproliferation programs "advance U.S. civil nuclear technologies globally and empower trade relationships that benefit U.S. businesses." It's difficult to get more explicit than that.
Detailed analysis of the NNSA budget will be released as more parts of it become available.
