Obama administration to make request for billions more in nuclear funding

The Obama administration will ask Congress for billions more in funds to secure and maintain the nation's nuclear stockpile.

The president will ask for $7 billion for the efforts, a $600 million bump from last year. Over the next five years, the administration hopes to increase nuclear spending by $5 billion.

If approved, the money would go to repairing aging facilities and recruiting nuclear experts.

Vice President Joe Biden previewed the request in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.

"This investment is long overdue," he wrote. "It will strengthen our ability to recruit, train and retain the skilled people we need to maintain our nuclear capabilities. It will support the work of our nuclear labs, a national treasure that we must and will sustain."

The vice president warned that many nuclear facilities are quickly decaying.

"Many of our facilities date back to World War II, and, given the safety and environmental challenges they present, cannot be sustained much longer," he wrote.

Biden also reaffirmed the administration's commitment to ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would prevent the U.S. from testing nuclear weapons.