Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) will be ranking member for the House Appropriations defense subcommittee for the 116th Congress, his office said this week.
Calvert has served in the House since 1993. He was previously a member of the HAC-D subcommittee, serving as vice chairman in the 115th Congress.
In a statement Tuesday, Calvert said the role of Congress should be “strenuous oversight” of the Pentagon; he vowed to question the Pentagon and attempt to improve acquisition processes and reduce bureaucratic overhead.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee writes the lower chamber’s first annual bills to provide funding for crucial nuclear-weapon delivery systems used by the military.
Among these are the next-generation air-launched cruise missile, the Long-Range Standoff Weapon, and the next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile, the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. The weapons will respectively use W80 and W88 warheads provided by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
The defense subcommittee also funds the 12 planned Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines that will begin replacing 18 Ohio-class submarines in 2031. The boats, to be built by General Dynamics Electric Boat, carry Trident II-D5 missiles tipped with W76 warheads.
The subcommittee is likewise in charge of tail kit modifications for aircraft that will carry the NNSA’s planned W76-12 gravity bomb: a homogenized version of four previous B61 designs. The NNSA expects to make the first B61-12 in 2020 and the last in 2025. Carrier aircraft include the F-15, the B-2. Boeing is working on the tail kit under a contract awarded in 2012. The Air Force expects the guided tail-kit assembly program to cost a little under $3 billion to complete over roughly 20 years.
Unlike the Pentagon, the NNSA gets its annual funding from the Appropriations energy and water subcommittees in both chambers.
Calvert received $144,500 from defense contractors in the electronics, aerospace and miscellaneous technology sectors during the 2018 midterm cycle, mostly from political action committees, according to the not-for profit Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C.
Defense contractors were Calvert’s top three contributors for the 2018 cycle: General Atomics contributed $24,300, with $14,300 of that coming from individuals. Northrop Grumman contributed $20,000 from its political action committee, and General Dynamics contributed $16,800, with $6,800 coming from individual donors.
Over the course of his career in the House, Calvert has received $368,830 from defense aerospace industries, and $319,900 from defense electronics firms in campaign donations. His top contributors include General Atomics, with $118,900 donated over the course of Calvert’s career; Lockheed Martin with $87,750 in that time frame; Boeing with $85,750; and General Dynamics with $84,400. Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Honeywell, and Leidos Inc. have each contributed more than $72,000 to Calvert’s campaign since he first ran for office.
Lockheed and Raytheon are maturing competing designs for the Long-Range Standoff Weapon. Boeing and Northrop are maturing competing designs for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent. Honeywell and Leidos are involved with site management contracts for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Honeywell has a presence at the Kansas City National Security Campus, the Nevada National Security Site, and the Savannah River Site. Leidos is one of the teammates on Consolidated Nuclear Security, which runs the Pantex weapons assembly and disassembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor staff reporter Dan Leone contributed to this story from Washington. The story first appeared in NS&D Monitor’s affiliate publication, Defense Daily.
