President Donald Trump on Friday signed fiscal 2019 appropriations legislation that would provide full-year funding for the Department of Defense, with a plus-up for its nuclear missile programs.
Trump signed the measure days after the House of Representatives passed it by a vote of 361-61, following Senate approval last week. Trump signed the bill despite his complaints on Twitter that the $855 billion budget package lacked funding for a wall on the border with Mexico.
Besides the Pentagon, the appropriations law provides full-year funding starting Oct. 1 for the Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education departments. It also provides funding through Dec. 7 for the federal agencies still waiting on their own appropriations to pass. That does not include the Department of Energy, which got its fiscal 2019 funding last week when Trump signed a separate budget “minibus.”
A number of House members noted Wednesday that the bill represents the first on-time funding for the Pentagon in more than a decade. The Defense Department slice of the appropriations measure totals roughly $675 billion, $2 billion below the White House request but about $18 billion more than the current funding level.
It provides close to $415 million for the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) program to replace the current arsenal of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. That is nearly double the current appropriation and 20 percent above the White House request. The current fleet of Minuteman III missiles mostly use W78 warheads, which would eventually be refurbished for the next-generation missiles.
The Long-Range Standoff nuclear-armed cruise missile got roughly $665 million for fiscal 2019: some 50 percent above the fiscal 2018 appropriation and some 8 percent more than requested. The missile would use refurbished W80 warheads.
The Defense Department wants to deploy both missiles beginning in the late 2020s.
