Scores of Democratic congresspeople wrote to President Donald Trump this week to complain that the White House’s plans to add new low-yield nuclear warheads to the U.S. arsenal is dangerous and fiscally irresponsible.
That was the takeaway of a letter dated March 26 and signed by 43 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Smith (R-Wash.): ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee that has policy jurisdiction over Department of Energy nuclear-weapon programs managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The 43 signatures represent about 20 percent of the entire Democratic voting bloc in the House, where majority Republicans can pass legislation without a single Democratic vote.
The Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review calls on the NNSA to build a low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles right away, and to study a potential future low-yield warhead for a new sea-launched cruise missile. The work would be on top of a 30-year nuclear modernization and maintenance program that includes more than $250 billion in projected DOE spending.
In their letter, lawmakers worried about the new submarine-launched weapon “reducing the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons without offering convincing arguments as to why this would enhance deterrence.” The Democrats also wondered whether “we can sustain and upgrade our nuclear arsenal under the current budgetary projections.”
Curiosity about whether the NNSA can really afford the new capabilities the Nuclear Posture Review calls for is a bipartisan issue in Congress. Republican lawmakers on several committees on both sides of Capitol Hill last week grilled both Energy Secretary Rick Perry and NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty on the subject.
Both said the NNSA could afford the work, as long Congress provides the semiautonomous weapons agency with a 14-percent budget increase over the next five years. That is the funding level the NNSA assumes it will need to complete ongoing nuclear weapons life-extension programs, plus the new work mandated in the Nuclear Posture Review, according to the agency’s fiscal 2019 budget request.
The NNSA got more than $14.5 billion in 2018, under the omnibus budget signed last week. The agency wants that rise to about $17 billion over the next five years.
