CNN: Shutdown furloughs raise concerns about US nuclear program readiness

Before running out of funds, officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)—the federal agency responsible for building nuclear weapons and safeguarding the nation’s stockpile—made an urgent appeal to the White House Office of Management and Budget. They requested that money from previously approved spending bills be redirected to prevent furloughs of their staff, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

That request, however, has not been fulfilled, the sources said, even though similar reallocation of funds has been used to pay US troops, Customs and Border Protection officers, Coast Guard personnel, and other federal law enforcement officials.

Last week, the NNSA furloughed most of its full-time workforce—about 1,400 employees—marking the first time in the agency’s history that furloughs occurred during a government shutdown.

A Department of Energy spokesperson, which oversees NNSA, stated: “While the administration was able to identify funds to keep NNSA weapons laboratories, plants, and sites operating with our contractors, legal and budgetary limitations required the administration to begin furloughing NNSA federal employees.”

The move came as a shock to some within the agency, where roughly $20 billion of the $25 billion annual budget goes toward the production of nuclear weapons, some of which are later deployed on Navy cruisers and Air Force bombers.

“People were hopeful after they saw DoD move money around to pay the troops,” one agency source told CNN, referring to the Department of Defence’s funding reallocation. “We’re doing the same kind of national security work.”

Another NNSA source added, “That money, without a doubt, would have kept all 1,400 furloughed employees on the job.” Many of these staff supervise and oversee weapons development, while others focus on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

Even before the shutdown, the NNSA was struggling to keep pace with an expanded workload under the second Trump administration, which accelerated timelines for major weapons programs intended for the Department of Defence.

This year, the agency completed the first modernised B61-13 gravity bomb ahead of schedule. Upcoming projects include designing and building a new sea-launched cruise missile for the Navy and modernising the Navy’s W88 nuclear warhead.

“There is definitely a sense of urgency for weapons production in the second Trump administration,” one source said. “It’s felt like the mission has become much more salient; if you look at the news happening around the world, it’s easy to see why.”

However, the shutdown has now made achieving the president’s nuclear weapons objectives significantly more challenging.

“If your adversaries see that you cannot get your stuff together to accomplish the things that you say you need for national security, in a lot of cases that can embolden an adversary,” one source warned.

By Tamilla Hasanova