Progressive lawmakers Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) urged President Joe Biden to scale back nuclear modernization efforts, including pausing development of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program and canceling new and planned low-yield weapons.
In a letter sent Tuesday to Biden, Markey and Khanna raised concerns on the “unsustainable rate of spending” on nuclear modernization and asked for the upcoming fiscal year 2022 budget request and subsequent policy reviews to include several actions to reassess future plans.
The two nuclear doves, who reliably introduce legislation to trim the arsenal about every session of Congress, asked Biden to cancel the W76-2 low-yield submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead, stop the planned low-yield, nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile and “pause funding for the GBSD [Ground Based Strategic Deterrent] and look to the viable alternative of extending the existing Minuteman III ICBM until at least 2050.”
Delaying GBSD in favor of a Minuteman III life-extension study is similar to the gambit House Armed Services Chair Adam Smith (D-Wash.) tried in 2019, only to run up against intractable opposition in the Senate. A year later, with the election looming, Smith backed off the more forceful elements of his drive to slow GBSD, which has plenty of support among House Armed Services Democrats.
Even after Biden locked up the vote last year, Smith predicted that nuclear modernization would stay the course, with respect to both GBSD and the low-yield W76-2 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead. In December, Smith said Democrats lacked the votes in Congress to pressure these programs legislatively.
GBSD, which is being built by Northrop Grumman, is set to begin flight testing in fiscal year 2024. The Air Force plans to buy more than 650 missiles.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the Senate’s new top defense appropriator, has plenty of constituents who stand to benefit from GBSD, which would begin occupying silos in his home state some time after 2030.
