The Senate on Wednesday voted 90-8 in favor of formally beginning final negotiations with the House to produce a unified version of an annual defense policy bill.
Conferees from the two bodies must now hammer out a compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), both of which would set spending limits for the National Nuclear Security Administration at about $22 billion. The House NDAA would allow a higher ceiling than the Senate committee’s NDAA: some $725 million more than requested, compared with about $590 million more.
For the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management defense environmental account, which funds the clean-up of shuttered nuclear-weapon production sites, the House version of the NDAA allows roughly $7.96 billion. The Senate allows $8.3 billion.
Both versions of the bill authorize development of a sea-launched version of the W80-4 warhead and a sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) to carry it that the Navy will develop separately.
The House version of the NDAA includes $70 million to develop the warhead while the Senate bill authorizes $75 million for development of the warhead and another $190 million for the missile through the Navy’s Precision Strike Weapons Development Program..
The House narrowly passed its version of the NDAA in mid-July. The Senate easily passed its own version later that month. Both bills would set the ceiling for defense spending at about $886 billion.
