The House of Representatives on Wednesday shot down amendments to the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that would have checked the funding increase and new warhead mission proposed for the National Nuclear Security Administration.
An amendment proposed Tuesday to limit 2019 funding for a new low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead was defeated Wednesday on a largely party-line vote, 188-226. All but seven of the Democrats who voted supported the amendment to the defense policy bill, while only five Republicans crossed the aisle. Three Democrats and 10 Republicans did not vote.
The amendment by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) would have fenced off half of the $65 million in funding the NDAA authorized for the proposed warhead — which is to be a less powerful version of the existing W76 warhead — until the Pentagon reports to Congress about how the low-yield weapon might affect global military stability.
The Donald Trump administration requested the low-yield warhead in February’s Nuclear Posture Review, insisting it is needed in the face of similarly powerful Russian weapons. House Democrats lined up behind an argument made by Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) that the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal can deter Russia from using a low-yield nuclear weapon to win a fight started with conventional weapons.
Also defeated along party lines Wednesday was an amendment proposed by Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) that would have required the White House to add a 20-year cost estimate for ongoing nuclear weapon programs to an annual report it delivers to Congress along with each year’s federal budget request.
Aguilar’s amendment went down 198- 217, with nine Republicans voting yes and only a single Democrat voting no. Nine Republicans and three Democrats sat on the sidelines.
An amendment from Reps. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Blumenauer would have reduced the funding authorized in 2019 for the NNSA’s defense programs office by about $200 million to roughly $11 billion: the amount the administration requested. The amendment was defeated along a somewhat narrower party-line vote: 174-239.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and two New Mexico colleagues proposed an amendments to ratchet up oversight of the NNSA plutonium pit program. Earlier this month, the agency announced a plan to produce fissile nuclear warhead cores called plutonium pits at both the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Luján opposes moving any part of the pit mission away from Los Alamos.
Luján’s amendment, co-sponsored by Reps. Steve Pearce (R-N.M.) and Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.), would require a Federally Funded Research and Development Center — one not owned by the Department of Energy — to assess the NNSA’s future plutonium plans and deliver a report to Congress by April 15. That report would include a review of the engineering analysis the agency cited as justification for the two-pronged pit-program announced earlier this month.
The House had not voted on the Luján amendment by deadline Wednesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
