If Joni had done the right thing instead of chickening out, there would have been no tie (two Republcians opposed him, Susan Collins and Lisa whatever from Alaska).
"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
MURRAY: “At the same time Trump is demanding trillions for a war in Iran and trying to justify this war on the threat of nuclear proliferation, he is completely blowing off the very program that works around the clock to prevent state and non-state actors from developing nuclear weapons, or acquiring weapons-usable materials, equipment, technology, and expertise.”
ICYMI: Senator Murray on President Trump’s FY27 Budget Request
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s opening remarks***
***WATCH: Senator Murray’s full questioning***
Washington, D.C. — Today—during a Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee hearing on President Trump’s fiscal year 2027 budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, pressed witnesses on current needs of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation programs, following congressional direction in the recently-enacted FY26 funding bill for the Department of Energy, staffing challenges caused by DOGE ripping through the agency last year, and changes to funding and plans for pit production.
Witnesses included NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams, NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Matthew Napoli, and NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs David Beck.
In opening comments, Senator Murray said:
“The National Nuclear Security Administration plays a really crucial role maintaining our nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, safely and reliably powering the Navy’s nuclear-powered fleet, keeping nuclear weapons out of the wrong hands, and advancing critical nonproliferation efforts.
“And NNSA labs are on the frontlines propelling new technologies like AI to answer critical national security questions. So the stakes for this work couldn’t be higher. It is really crucial that we make balanced investments advancing important defense programs, as well as nuclear nonproliferation work.
“And, in the course of that work, it’s also crucial that we make sure these dollars are being spent efficiently and effectively. And what I see from Trump’s budget to me is not balanced in the least.
“He wants to boost the war spending by roughly half a trillion dollars—and cut investments in families. When it comes to our nuclear program, he wants to make completely unjustified, exorbitant increases to weapons spending while cutting the nuclear nonproliferation work.
“This was already far from a balanced budget in any way, shape, or form. But the NNSA investments are to me, completely lopsided. Especially when you consider the fact that Republicans already shoveled nearly $4 billion for the Weapons program into the reconciliation bill last year.
“What’s more—we still lack details on exactly how the Department plans to spend these resources, making our process this year very difficult. But now, on top of that, the $4 billion spending spree, Trump is now requesting another $7 billion boost. All while he is slashing funding for nonproliferation programs. Not to mention proposed cuts to medical research, affordable housing, cost saving energy programs, and more.
“Look, we all agree NNSA is an important investment. How we handle our nuclear weapons program, and how we defuse potential nuclear threats—is about as important as it gets. That is exactly why we need to be incredibly thoughtful and ensure due diligence here. It is an enormous responsibility.
“But there is nothing responsible about blindly shoveling billions of dollars at an agency without addressing some long-running challenges we’ve seen regarding project management, cost estimates, and sufficient federal staff to oversee that work.
“It is critical that NNSA do a much better job at providing accurate cost estimates, effectively managing projects, and preventing the massive cost overruns and delays we have seen too much of. Ballooning costs and inaccurate estimates waste taxpayer dollars—and make it much harder for this Committee to do its work.
“I am also worried about how President Trump’s policies are worsening cost overruns we’re seeing tariffs, and wars, and haphazard firings, and grant cancellations, those all worsen inflation, they fuel uncertainty in the country, they restrict our supply chains for really crucial materials, and undermine our ability to keep our crucial work on track.
“With work this important, we can’t just throw money at projects and programs without addressing fundamental project management issues or acknowledging root causes of skyrocketing project costs. And just as we cannot ignore ballooning costs on the Weapons side. We also cannot ignore Trump’s plan to shortchange nonproliferation programs.
“This work helps keep us safe. It is mind boggling to me that at the same time Trump is demanding trillions for a war in Iran and trying to justify this war on the threat of nuclear proliferation, he is completely blowing off the very program that works around the clock to prevent state and non-state actors from developing nuclear weapons, or acquiring weapons-usable materials, equipment, technology, and expertise.
“We need to continue investing in the essential nonproliferation work, which helps secure nuclear materials across the globe and keeps people out of harm’s way. We’re talking about programs to improve detection capabilities, prevent terrorists from accessing nuclear materials, and more.
“This is work that the Pacific Northwest National Lab in my state, Washington state, is helping lead—and that we cannot afford to shortchange. President Trump’s budget largely ignores it. Which is why I’m planning on ignoring the budget.
“Last year, Chair Kennedy and I worked together to reject similar cuts Trump proposed, and to make really thoughtful investments across the NNSA portfolio. I hope we can do that work again together this time, draft a balanced, bipartisan bill. And I look forward to working with you Mr. Chairman.”
[Nonproliferation Programs]
Senator Murray began her questioning by asking Deputy Administrator Napoli about which programs would be responsible for working to respond to the situation in Iran—and why President Trump is proposing to shortchange those programs. Separately, Murray asked Deputy Administrator Napoli how he intends to restore programs that were cut in FY25 back up and running now that the FY26 bill provide additional resources.
MURRAY: As I said, the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program plays a really critical role in protecting Americans and our allies from nuclear threats—investigating and countering nuclear smuggling, monitoring and verifying nuclear treaty compliance, preventing and mitigating effects of radiological incidents worldwide.
So, I wanted to ask you today Mr. Napoli, as international tensions [rise], this work is really more important than ever. So, if we are successful in denuclearizing Iran, what programs are responsible for that work and what does it entail?
NAPOLI: Thank you Senator for the question. The National Nuclear Security Administration, through the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, has the unique and unmatched capability to deny, detect, and defeat our adversaries from acquiring nuclear and radiological weapons. Through the funding of this committee Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation maintains a broad set of capabilities in this regard, and they’re very, very diverse. That is removing and securing of nuclear materials, the technical ability to address the entire fuel cycle, including centrifuges and uranium conversion facilities, the ability to detect weaponization programs, the ability to enact verification expertise and work in concert with the International Atomic Energy Agency and respond to our Nuclear Emergency Support Team, better known as NEST.
We draw upon experts within the NNSA headquarters, as well as our laboratories, plants and sites nationwide, and PNNL is a huge part of my portfolio to accomplish that mission. It takes a weapons program to know weapons program, and our team has a track record of success in this area, addressing international threats—legacy ones, including removing highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union, dismantling Libya’s nuclear program in the early 2000s, and material removals from Iraq in the early 2000s as well, via project McCall.
We also worked to convert research reactors from highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium, and we work to secure radiological sources around the world such as cesium and cobalt. Two primary examples, just in the recent months, we secured cesium materials from University of Georgetown as well as Lebanon across the oceans, showing a broad range of capabilities of our team. NNSA, and the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation stands ready to rise to any challenge.
MURRAY: Well, I think you made the point that this is really, really a critical program. So you can see why I was concerned when DNN carried out layoffs and cuts to really critical programs last year after the slush fund CR and Trump’s bad [FY26 budget] request. Thankfully, Congress rejected that and worked together to pass a bill and restored the funding.
And I wanted to ask you, with that funding restored in our FY26 bill, what are you doing now to get those projects back up and running? It takes really, critically, really great people to run those programs, and I want to know what you’re doing to get them back up and running since they were cut.
NAPOLI: Senator, I appreciate the question. As you noted, people are at the heart of our business. I will continue to be an advocate for all men and women of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Now, I would like to thank you for the generous appropriations that were provided in FY26 and we are using those in a variety of methods to scale up and execute our mission priorities, that is things like security by design, work that we’re doing—
MURRAY: So I’m asking, are you able to get qualified people back? Are they on board? Where are you in restoring all of the cuts that were made?
NAPOLI: We are continuing efficiency in our hiring and targeted hiring selections to make sure that we can execute the totality of our mission. Yes, ma’am.
MURRAY: Are you back up to where you were?
NAPOLI: I am in the process of evaluating our future needs and continuing to hire the best and brightest in the United States to come to the National Nuclear Security Administration.
MURRAY: Okay, it’s really important that you keep our committee informed of where you are in the hiring as we work on this budget now. It is really critical that we have your agency up running and capable.
[Following FY26 Funding Bill]
Senator Murray then pressed Administrator Williams on how FY26 funding is being spent, and whether he intends to follow Congressional directions and funding levels.
MURRAY: Administrator Williams—Congress included language to protect specific programs and projects in the FY26 bipartisan bill. Are you executing the FY26 funding in accordance with the funding level directives we put in that bill?
WILLIAMS: Yes, Senator, we’re following the direction, the letter of intent provided by Congress.
MURRAY: Okay, so you are not planning any reprogrammings that would move money away from congressionally directed levels?
WILLIAMS: We’re doing some reprogramming internally, as we’re allowed by law. But I think we’re very transparent in everything that we’re doing, we’re transparent to you and the committee to keep things moving. But if you’re talking about redirecting OBBBA funds, the answer is, no, we’re not doing—
MURRAY: Okay, so, but in our bill, we directed funding to go to the Forensic Research and Development Global Material Security Nonproliferation Stewardship program, nuclear detonation, detection, reactor conversion, and uranium supply. You’re not redirecting any of those funds? Those were congressionally directed.
WILLIAMS: I don’t believe so. And those are really important missions to us. I really view the nonproliferation mission as part of the deterrence mission. They all serve deterrence for our country, and our ability to interdict and detect other programs is a key part of our national deterrence, our strategic deterrence.
MURRAY: Okay, thank you for that answer.
[Rehiring NNSA Staff]
Senator Murray continued and asked Administrator Williams about his plan to hire back staff that were recklessly pushed out at NNSA last year as DOGE swept through the agency.
MURRAY: Before Trump took office, NNSA had 2,000 employees, and was hiring more. Under President Trump and Elon Musk and the DOGE thing, you had a lot of cuts.
And by the time you stopped the bleeding, we know that hundreds of key staff—actually the people who manage the nuclear stockpile—were gone. I know you are still trying to undo that damage. And your budget requests a 10 percent increase for Federal Salaries and Expenses to support additional hiring across NNSA.
What is your target hiring number right now for NNSA?
WILLIAMS: Senator, we are looking to hire about 100 new personnel, you know across, in terms of federal employees, across our enterprise. And again, as Dr. Napoli said, those are targeted hires. It’s the quality of the people we bring in is really important, and that we do so in an efficient way.
MURRAY: Yeah, well, I know that under the DOGE cuts a lot of people were gone. You’re now trying to hire them back. Can you tell the Committee how much it cost the taxpayers to have to recruit and hire back hundreds of those people?
WILLIAMS: Honestly Senator, that all happened before I was confirmed at the end of September.
MURRAY: So you can’t tell us?
WILLIAMS: I don’t have that information.
MURRAY: Okay, well I just think it’s important that the American people understand the reality: efficiency is good, and we need good people. And DOGE was not efficient, and it has cost us money. So I just wanted to make that point.
[Competing Pit Production Strategies]
Senator Murray then questioned Deputy Administrator Beck about possible changes to funding and plans for pit production and how that squares with the budget request NNSA submitted this year.
MURRAY: Mr. Beck, I wanted to ask you a question about the pit mines. You recently released a memo outlining a series of “Transformation Objectives”—including a reevaluation of all the ongoing major production and infrastructure projects across the NNSA complex.
One of the most costly efforts at the agency right now is the pit production mission. NNSA is slated to release a long-awaited Integrated Master Schedule for pit production that outlines the two-site construction schedule.
Can you clarify: Does the FY27 budget propose funding for projects based on the existing plan for pit production? Or does it factor in changes you’re pursuing in your transformational objectives effort?
BECK: Senator, I’m so glad you asked that question. We are the reasons why—there’s a couple reasons I’m in this job, is I care about the mission. The other one is, I’m frustrated about some of the things you’ve already mentioned, about how expensive it is to build facilities in the world that we’re in, and the Administrator has mentioned some of the reasons for that. The transformation objectives are an effort to try to impart greater urgency into our production so that we can create, get to the deterrence level that we need going forward in the future. And we’re looking hard at the pit strategy. Our pit strategy is we’re looking at it from a synergistic effect, where we’re bringing all the pit capabilities together, and looking at it as a systems approach. And we have an integrated plan for the work that’s done at Los Alamos. We do not yet have a complete integrated master schedule that includes Savannah River, because the CD23 estimate for SRPPF is not quite in. We expect that this summer.
We are moving forward with an approved strategy to be able to make more pits faster. And our intent is to change the way we do business. This is not the NNSA of two years ago. We are moving fast to make more pits. The number of pits we plan to make this year at Los Alamos, we got that done in the first half of the year, and we’ll make three times that number by the end of the year. That’s done in cooperation with all the sites. Savannah River in particular, is helping with classified tooling, training, electro refining efforts and chemical analysis. So, it’s a total team effort across the sites. The facility of Savannah River will not be ready until the 2030s, we’re trying to move that forward faster.
But we are going through, if one of the transformation objectives in that list is to evaluate every line item and capital project, we have to relook at three things. Do we have the right leadership? That’s the number one thing, leadership, federal and contractor leadership. Do we have the right strategy? Many times, we do not. And do we have the right operational drum beat and metrics to achieve where we go? And as we look at that, we’re making some significant improvements to move forward faster. And I’m encouraged by that, by the great work that has been done by the Savannah River and Los Alamos people that are assigned pits. And they are doing extremely good work this year, and I’m proud of what’s been happening so far.
MURRAY: Okay, well, from appropriations perspective here, that’s our job. If the execution strategy on some of the largest projects that you have change, how are you going to work with this Committee, so we understand where the resources are going that we are providing?
BECK: This is my second time in government. This is my 50th year in the nuclear weapons business, and having an agile strategy is one thing. One of the challenges you have is the budget’s not as agile as you’d like it to be, because it takes a long time to get to this stage. We will work with you very closely. We’re working with your staff. We’re briefing your staff in this, you know, we’ve spent many times briefing the staff on how to move forward and where we need help. And there are some things, in particular summary program is that I think makes sense to move forward to be more agile.
MURRAY: Well, speaking on behalf of the Chair and myself, we need to know what those are and where you’re going, so we know what resources need to be provided and where those are going. Those are critical decisions for us to understand.
BECK: We have met with your staff this week and last week, and we’re working through that process to make that happen.
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