Wrap up: Senate manager’s amendment for NDAA; CNS/Pantex awards Amarillo community; Energy secretary ‘concerned’ about Iran

Senate armed services committee chair Jack Reed (D-R.I) and ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) this week said they amended the committee’s 2025 National Defense Authorization Act to include language about the next silo-based, nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile.

The language, part of a large managers package of uncontroversial amendments, says that it is “sense of Congress” that the ground-based leg of the triad is “vital” to international security and should remain funded, and that the extension of the lifecycle of Minuteman III for the land leg is “unsustainable.” 

However, the Nunn-McCurdy breach to modernize the land leg “should be addressed in a way that balances the national security need with fiscally responsible modifications to the program that prevent future unanticipated cost overruns.” The House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, passed in June, did not include a sense of Congress for the land-based leg or for the Sentinel, which would replace Minuteman III for the land leg.

The Pantex Plant and the Amarillo Area Foundation awarded over $117,000 in grants to nonprofit organizations in Amarillo, Texas, a press release by Pantex contractor Consolidated Nuclear Security said.

“As a company, we are extremely pleased to partner with the Amarillo Area Foundation and community organizations for the betterment of Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle—where our employees work, live, and give,” Ashlee Estlack, Pantex Site communications manager, said in the press release.

CNS started meeting with the Amarillo Area foundation in 2014, and has given over $1.34 million in philanthropic efforts in the history of the program, the contractor said in the release.

The U.S. is “concerned” with Iran’s lack of cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency regarding transparency with the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program, Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk said in remarks to the U.N. agency’s 68th general conference in Vienna this week.

“Let me be clear – The United States and our partners stand resolutely behind the IAEA in calling on Iran to implement its safeguards obligations fully and immediately,” Turk said.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Iran would need “probably one or two weeks” to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon, given its uranium enrichment progression.