By David E. Hubler
Contributor, In Homeland Security

President Trump’s $1.15 trillion budget proposal for discretionary funding for FY 2018 calls for a $54 billion increase in defense spending. But the proposal slashes funding for most civilian agencies, including the Department of Energy, which is one of the Republicans’ favorite targets for reduction in size and scope or elimination altogether.

The Trump budget earmarks $28.0 billion for DOE. That is a $1.7 billion or a 5.6 percent decrease from the FY2017 continuing resolution (CR) level. However, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration would see a $1.4 billion increase, or 11 percent more than last year’s CR level.

That increase could be especially good news for NNSA’s Office of Secure Transportation. OST is a $237 million per year, little-known agency that moves nuclear warheads around the country in 42 tractor-trailers, according to a recent investigation by the Los Angeles Times.

It’s not known yet how much of the proposed DOE funding will pass Congress and filter down through NNSA to OST.

Budget: Paying to Ship America’s Nuclear Warheads

The OST’s unmarked fleet – with highly armed escorts – transports warheads from missile silos, bomber bases and submarines to nuclear weapons labs across the country. The warheads undergo maintenance, upgrades and repairs before they are trucked back to their bases.

The 18-wheelers and their drivers currently log more than 3 million miles a year, the LA Times reported.

According to the Times’ investigation, about 450 warheads are in underground silos from North Dakota to Wyoming. An additional 1,000 or so are on submarines at bases in Washington state and Georgia. Hundreds more bombs are part of the U.S. strategic bomber fleet.

The workload will increase with the planned $1 trillion nuclear arsenal upgrade “that will require additional warhead shipments over the next 15 years,” the LA Times noted.

“We are going to be having an increase in the movements of weapons in coming years and we should be worried,” Robert Alvarez, a former deputy assistant Energy secretary, told the Times. “We always have to assume the worst-case scenario when we are hauling nuclear weapons around the country.”

That “worst-case scenario,” of course, would be a nuclear missile hijacking. But the agency faces a number of actual problems, the Times investigation found, including:

• OST is 48 agents short of its planned staffing of 370.
• Classes in weapons and tactics were cancelled in 2011 and 2012 for lack of funds.
• More than one-third of the workforce puts in more than 900 hours of overtime a year, which has contributed to a breakdown in morale and rapid turnover.
• The agency’s truck fleet is antiquated by commercial standards and well past its operational life.
• About half of the tractors (cabs) are more than 15 years old and the high-security trailers are even older.

Agency officials denied repeated requests from the Times for interviews with top managers. However, the agency did issue a statement: “For more than 40 years — even after driving the equivalent distance of a trip to Mars and back — no cargo has ever been damaged in transit.”

Nevertheless, questions remain. Under the proposed budget, can OST continue to provide secure handling of the current 4,018 nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal? And how will this little-known federal agency handle additional warheads in the future?

Additional funding is the first step in the right direction.

About the Author

David E. Hubler brings a variety of government, journalism and teaching experience to his position as a Quality Assurance Editor at APUS. David’s professional background includes serving as a senior editor at CIA and the Voice of America. He has also been a managing editor for several business-to-business and business-to-government publishing companies. David has taught high school English in Connecticut and at Northern Virginia Community College. He has a master’s degree for Teachers of English from the University of New Hampshire and a B.A. in English from New York University. David’s 2015 book, “The Nats and the Grays, How Baseball in the Nation’s Capital Survived WWII and Changed the Game Forever,” has just been published in paperback by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.