The House of Representatives could vote on a compromise version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act next week, a spokesperson for the chamber’s Armed Services Committee said Thursday.
The annual NDAA — one of the few bills Congress reliably passes every year — sets funding ceilings and policy for federal defense programs, including the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nuclear weapons, nonproliferation and nuclear naval programs.
Crucially this year, the 2019 NDAA would allow NNSA to start work on a new low-yield, submarine-launched, ballistic-missile warhead the Donald Trump administration called for in February as part of its Nuclear Posture Review.
When the House and Senate kicked off their NDAA conference July 11, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the conferees hoped to finish their work by July 27 — a little more than two weeks.
Last year, the House and Senate produced a unified NDAA after about two weeks in conference. It took another month-and-a-half after that before President Donald Trump signed the measure.
Overall, the House and Senate both recommended authorizing about $15 billion for the NNSA in 2019. Both chambers also agreed to authorize $65 million in 2019 for the new low-yield warhead — to be made by modifying a number of existing W76 warheads carried on Trident II-D5 missiles — and to allow NNSA to design future low-yield and other warheads without specific congressional authorization.
Big differences between the House and Senate proposal include:
- Whether to continue or cancel the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility plutonium-disposal plant under construction at the Savannah River Site.
- Whether to require the Government Accountability Office to examine how much money NNSA has saved by combining the management and operations contracts for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas. The Bechtel-led Consolidated Nuclear Security holds that contract, which NNSA extended in late March. Options would take the contract into the middle of 2024.
- Whether to make the already semi-autonomous NNSA even more autonomous from the Secretary of Energy, as Section 3111 of the Senate’s NDAA would. The Department of Energy opposes the proposed change, an official told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week.
Earlier this week, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee said reconciling different versions of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act was going to be a challenge for the House and Senate.
“We’re still working on it,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor sister publication Defense Daily here Tuesday. “We’ll continue our discussions, but it’s going to be challenge”
Asked whether the House and Senate had ironed out any of the big differences between their two version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Smith said, “not at this point.”
Matthew Beinart, staff reporter for NS&DM sister publication Defense Daily, contributed to this story from Washington.
