Combating Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

assigned a senior staff member responsibility for cross-appropriations scrutiny ofproliferation-related programs. This would facilitate the executive/congressional dialogue.Reprogramming and TransfersRecommendation 3.6: The President should authorize the National Director,jointly with the Director of OMB, to concur in departmental or agency proposals forreprogramming or transferring funds from lower priority to higher priority programsand to propose funds transfers between departments and agencies under existingdraw-down authorities.Internal agency reprogramming is common in the Defense Department and also takesplace to some extent in other agencies. For those agencies with proliferation-relatedresponsibilities, below-threshold reprogramming rules need to be set that would providesufficient flexibility within the proliferation budget to respond to needs that arise afterbudgets are written and appropriations passed. Above these thresholds, congressionalcommittees normally must be notified of reprogramming.Transfers across agencies (as distinct from reprogrammings, which are internal to anagency budget) are substantially more difficult to accomplish. Draw-downs allow oneagency (e.g., State) to request that another agency (e.g., Defense) provide a service orgood up to a certain amount, out of spending authority provided in law for such a drawdown(e.g., military equipment to a country State wishes to support). Economy Acttransfers allow one agency to provide a good or service to another agency, provided it hasthe statutory authority to do so.The Commission believes that the President should authorize the National Director,together with the OMB Director, to concur in agency proposals for below-thresholdreprogrammings from lower-priority to higher-priority programs and activities and topropose above-threshold reprogrammings, which would ultimately require theconcurrence of the congressional authorizing and appropriating committee chairmen. TheNational Director should also have authority to propose transfers of funds betweenagencies under existing draw-down authorities and the Economy Act.Technology AcquisitionIn the age of technology, one need is self-evident: coping with the menace of WMD-relatedtechnology requires the vigorous acquisition of new and effective counter-proliferationtechnologies.24