The full House of Representatives will not consider several defense-nuclear amendments to a fiscal 2020 spending bill until next week.
The House cleared the amendments for floor debate, but lawmakers spent much of Wednesday and all day Thursday discussing other aspects of the bill before adjourning. The chamber had no votes scheduled for Friday.
Debate on the nuke amendments could have started Wednesday evening, but movement on the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2020 minibus appropriations package ground to a snail’s pace as Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) insisted on roll-call votes for many of the 100-plus amendments that went to the floor before lawmakers approved a rule allowing debate on nuclear and defense amendments.
Lawmakers held that crucial vote around 6 p.m. Wednesday, laying the ground to debate pro- and anti-nuclear arms amendments to the 2020 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act and the 2020 Defense Appropriations Act. The bills have been wrapped into the larger minibus, along with funding measures for the State Department and other federal agencies.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) successfully advanced an amendment to the floor to ensure the low-yield W76-2, a modified version of the existing w76-1 to be loaded on submarine-launched ballistic-missiles, would be permitted aboard Ohio-class submarines in the budget year that begins Oct. 1. In their 2020 spending package, House Democrats in the chamber’s majority denied the Navy some $19.5 billion in requested 2020 funding to deploy W76-2.
Meanwhile, an amendment from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) would move $660 million in weapons funding for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to the agency’s nuclear nonproliferation program.
Another Jayapal amendment would prohibit research on the Long-Range Standoff weapon: the next-generation, air-launched cruise missile the Defense Department wants to deploy beginning around 2025.
Also authorized for floor debate is an amendment that would allow the Department of Energy to spend $5 million researching the use of low-enriched uranium to fuel nuclear-powered warships and submarines. Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.) sponsored the amendment, along with Reps. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Rick Larsen (D-Wash).
Some advocates for nuclear nonproliferation support transitioning the nuclear navy from high-enriched uranium fuel to proliferation-resistant low-enriched uranium. The Navy supports high-enriched uranium fuel because it is more energy dense and allows ships to stay at sea longer.
One amendment that did not make the cut for floor debate was a proposal by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Garamendi to reduce funding to refurbish the W80 nuclear warhead by $185 million to $714 million.
The proposed House minibus 2020 minibus spending bill would fund most NNSA nuclear arms modernization programs at the requested level. However, it would slice 20% from the request for the next-generation Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent intercontinental ballistic missile, to about $460 million. The Defense Department wants to deploy that weapon beginning around 2030.
The proposed House minibus also would limit funding to produce the NNSA-made warheads and warhead cores, or plutonium pits, for the future ICBMs. The NNSA wanted $710 million or so for plutonium sustainment in 2020, but House appropriators approved roughly $410 million.
Overall, the minibus would provide about $15.8 billion for the NNSA. That is 4% less than the $16.5 billion the White House requested, but around 4.5% more than the 2019 appropriation of about $15.2 billion.
This week, the White House said that if the House’s bill passed as written, President Donald Trump would veto it, in part because of proposed cuts to the ICBM fleet and the pit production complex, along with the lack of funding for low-yield warhead deployment.
The Senate Armed Services Committee had yet to draft energy and water or defense appropriations bills at deadline Friday.
