The House of Representatives started floor consideration Tuesday of a 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which would allow the Department of Energy to create a new low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead by modifying some existing weapons.
Floor debate, scheduled through Thursday, began a few hours after the House Rules Committee approved the rules of debate for the annual military policy measure. That rule, approved on an essentially party-line vote, allowed floor debate of one Democratic amendment that would wall off funding for the low-yield warhead pending a report from the Department of Defense.
The amendment from Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), John Garamendi (D-Calif.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), would authorize only half the $65 million requested by the White House and recommended by the House Armed Services Committee for the warhead in 2019. The other half would be withheld until after after the Pentagon reports to Congress about how the new low-yield warhead might affect global military stability.
The Donald Trump administration proposed creating the weapon in February as part of its Nuclear Posture Review, saying the U.S. needs the capability to check similarly powerful Russian weapons. Democrats question the logic of that argument.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Armed Services strategic subcommittee, said the Blumenauer amendment “is designed simply to slow down the long overdue modernization and improvement of our nuclear forces,” and that Defense Secretary James Mattis has said the low-yield weapon would not upset global stability.
Also heard on the floor Tuesday was an amendment from Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) that would broaden the scope of an annual report about the state of the U.S. nuclear-weapon complex the White House is required to send Congress every year with the federal budget request.
The Aguilar amendment would require this yearly report — which covers both DOE and Pentagon nuclear programs — to include a 20-year life-cycle cost estimate for “each type of nuclear weapon and delivery platform” in the U.S. arsenal.
Rogers opposed Aguilar’s amendment, calling it burdensome and deflecting worries about the cost of the nation’s ongoing nuclear modernization program.
The House adjourned Tuesday without voting on the Blumenauer and Aguilar amendments.
Overall, the House’s version of the 2019 NDAA recommends $15.3 billion for NNSA: about 4.5 percent more than the 2018 appropriation, and about 1.5 percent more than the White House requested for 2019. The bill calls for a series of reports on crucial NNSA defense programs, such as the B83 gravity bomb the administration wants to un-retire, and DOE’s future plutonium-pit production strategy.
Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee is marking up is version of the 2019 NDAA in closed meetings this week. The upper chamber had not made the text of its NDAA public at deadline Tuesday.
