Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

President Obama and Russian President Medvedev signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) on April 8 to reduce both countries’ large nuclear arsenals. New START also provides for verification measures such as on-site inspections and data exchanges. The treaty includes the following reductions:

* 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads
* 800 total deployed and non-deployed missiles and bombers
* 700 deployed missiles and bombers

Now the treaty needs the support of 67 senators in order to be ratified and enter into force. To hit that threshold, at least 8 Republican senators will need to support New START.

The Nuclear Security Summit gathered 47 world leaders in DC to commit to achieving the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material, such as plutonium or highly enriched uranium, and securing loose nuclear weapons within four years. President Obama linked the summit to the vision of achieving a nuclear weapons free world, which he outlined in his speech from Prague last year. With world leaders gathered, the summit was also an opportunity to raise the profile of nuclear disarmament.

The Fiscal Year 2011 budget has a 10% increase for nuclear weapons programs, bringing total funding to about $7 billion. I wanted to share with you a roundup of some excellent analysis of the budget by groups in the disarmament community, as well as two announcements about activities around the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the Kansas City Plant.

Analysis of the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

“Proposed DoE funding also includes large increases for a facility that will expand plutonium production in Los Alamos, New Mexico and for a new highly enriched uranium production facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, each estimated to cost about $3 billion. The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project (CMRR) plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory increased from $97 million in FY 2010 to $225 million in FY 2011. Y-12’s Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) also increased to $115 million from $94 million in FY 2010.”