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Daily Archives: February 14, 2017

CBO – Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2017 to 2026

February 14, 2017 – “Nuclear weapons have been a cornerstone of U.S. national security since they were developed during World War II. In the Cold War, nuclear forces were central to U.S. defense policy, resulting in the buildup of a large arsenal. Since that time, nuclear forces have figured less prominently than conventional forces, and the United States has not built any new nuclear weapons or delivery systems for many years. The nation’s current nuclear forces are reaching the end of their service life. Those forces consist of submarines that launch ballistic missiles (SSBNs), land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), long-range bomber aircraft, shorter-range tactical aircraft, and the nuclear weapons that those delivery systems carry. Over the next two decades, essentially all of those nuclear delivery systems and weapons would have to be refurbished or replaced with new systems to continue operating. Consequently, the Congress will need to make decisions about what nuclear forces the United States should field in the future and thus about the extent to which the nation will pursue nuclear modernization plans. To help the Congress make those decisions, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 required CBO to estimate the 10-year costs to operate, maintain, and modernize U.S. nuclear forces. In response, CBO published Projected Costs of U.S. Nuclear Forces, 2014 to 2023. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 requires CBO to update its estimate of the cost of nuclear forces every two years. This report is the second such update. If carried out, the plans for nuclear forces delineated in the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) budget requests for fiscal year 2017 would cost a total of $400 billion over the 2017–2026 period, CBO estimates—an average of $40 billion a year. (In this analysis, “costs” refers to budget authority, the amount that would need to be appropriated to implement the plans.) The current 10-year total is 15 percent higher than CBO’s most recent previous estimate of the 10-year costs of nuclear forces, $348 billion over the 2015–2024 period. Both the current and previous 10-year estimates are presented in nominal dollars, meaning that they include the effects of inflation. Besides presenting an estimate of those costs, this report also describes the major differences between CBO’s current estimate and its most recent previous estimate, which was published in January 2015. Most of the increase in the total estimated cost of nuclear forces reflects the fact that the current estimate spans a 10-year period that begins and ends two years later than the 2015 estimate and thus includes two later years of development in nuclear modernization programs. The development costs of weapon systems typically increase as a program proceeds, which means that the current estimate replaces two lower-cost years with two higher-cost years. The current estimate also includes the initial years of purchases in some programs that were not covered by the previous estimate, further raising costs in the 2017–2026 period relative to the 2015–2024 period. In addition, in the two years since CBO’s earlier estimate, the modernization plans for some nuclear systems have become better defined, leading to higher cost projections for some programs and lower projections for others.”

Cybersecurity: Actions Needed to Strengthen U.S. Capabilities

Cybersecurity: Actions Needed to Strengthen U.S. Capabilities, GAO-17-440T: Published: Feb 14, 2017. Publicly Released: Feb 14, 2017. “GAO has consistently identified shortcomings in the federal government’s approach to ensuring the security of federal information systems and cyber critical infrastructure as well as its approach to protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information (PII). While previous… Continue Reading

AP – Judge grants injunction against Trump travel ban in Virginia

Follow up to previous related postings – news via AP –  “[On February 14, 2017] A federal judge Monday granted a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from implementing its travel ban in Virginia, adding another judicial ruling to those already in place challenging the ban’s constitutionality. The ruling is significant from a legal standpoint… Continue Reading

ICE Immigration Raids: A Primer

“There are widespread reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fugitive operations teams conducted immigration roundups in a number of communities across the country last week. This report breaks down the numbers on ICE apprehensions in recent years to provide a better picture of the role of ICE fugitive operations as compared with other components… Continue Reading

Publishers Still Fighting to Bury Universities, Libraries in Fees for Making Fair Use of Academic Excerpts

EFF – “On behalf of three national library associations, EFF today urged a federal appeals court for the second time to protect librarians’ and students’ rights to make fair use of excerpts from academic books and research. Nearly a decade ago, three of the largest academic publishers in the world— backed by the Association of… Continue Reading

Murray, Cantwell Seek Answers After Resource Website for Federal Law Protecting Students with Disabilities is Taken Down

“Washington state Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell today called on new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to provide an immediate and detailed explanation for why the resource website for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has disappeared. “The Department’s failure to keep this critical resource operational makes it harder for parents, educators, and… Continue Reading

Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the deepest ocean fauna

Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the deepest ocean fauna. Alan J. Jamieson, Tamas Malkocs, Stuart B. Piertney, Toyonobu Fujii & Zulin Zhang. Nature Ecology & Evolution 1, Article number: 0051 (2017) doi:10.1038/s41559-016-0051. “…We measured the concentrations of key PCBs and PBDEs in multiple endemic and ecologically equivalent Lysianassoid amphipod Crustacea from across two of the deepest… Continue Reading

Durbin Demands Trump Administration Restore Animal Cruelty, Puppy Mill Records On USDA Website

“U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) [February 13, 2017]  joined a group of 18 Democratic Senators in calling on the Trump Administration to immediately restore animal cruelty information recently purged from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) website.  APHIS makes inspection reports for all regulated entities and annual… Continue Reading

The Influence of Gender and Income on the Household Division of Financial Responsibility

The Influence of Gender and Income on the Household Division of Financial Responsibility, By Marcin Hitczenko. 2016 Series.16–20 Research Department Working Papers – Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. “Most previous research on household dynamics has focused on how married couples divide responsibilities for “housework,” a broad category that generally includes routine cleaning chores, child care,… Continue Reading