Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned Thursday that nuclear weapons funding stands to dry up within the next week and called the prospect “incredibly irresponsible.”
The Energy secretary spoke during a meeting of Trump administration Cabinet officials as the government shutdown continued into its second week. Some parts of the government remain operational as they rely on funds that didn’t halt when much of the government’s funding lapsed Oct. 1.
Funding for the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration — a semiautonomous agency within DOE tasked with overseeing the safety of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile — will lapse in a matter of days, Wright said as he pinned blame on congressional Democrats.
“In the next six, seven days, we’re going to run out of funding,” Wright said. “The retooling of our nuclear stockpile — the ultimate guarantor of our sovereignty — is going to be underfunded, and we’re going to have to slow down and creep to a crawl these efforts.”
