A Congressional Budget Office report on its estimated $634 billion price tag for modernizing, operating and manning the national nuclear enterprise over the next decade includes “long-planned” submarine construction, plutonium pit production and military weapons programs, according to McAleese & Associates.
Jim McAleese, founder of McAleese & Associates and three-time Wash100 winner, writes that CBO’s new 10-year projected cost of implementing the federal government’s nuclear modernization plan is 28 percent, or $140 billion, higher than the 2019-2028 estimates from the agency.
CBO said it expects the Department of Defense to incur nearly two-thirds of the overall cost estimate in the 2021-2030 period and the largest DOD investments would go to the procurement of a new ballistic missile submarine class and an intercontinental ballistic missile system.
The office noted that work at nuclear weapons laboratories and production facilities would primarily account for the Department of Energy’s share of the total cost during the forecast period, the agency noted.
Thirty-six percent of the difference between CBO’s previous and current estimates covers the eight-year overlapping period.
