In an amendment to the Senate’s biggest defense bill of the year, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wants to force another debate about whether Congress should authorize the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Navy to build a nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile.
Van Hollen’s amendment would bar development of the missile, citing the cost. President Joe Biden wanted to cancel the nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCM-N, but Congress has not gone along with the plan this year. The Senate was scheduled to vote on its version of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) some time after the Nov. 8 midterm election.
Both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House of Representatives have already voted to keep SLCM-N around, in defiance of Biden’s recommendation. After the Senate approves its NDAA, the two chambers will have to produce a compromise version of the annual must-pass bill, which sets spending limits and policy for defense programs, including civilian nuclear-weapon programs.
Van Hollen’s proposal is one of nearly 1,000 amendments Senators have piled on so far to the National Defense Authorization Act. Few of these amendments deal directly with the National Nuclear Security Administration and it is not guaranteed that any of them will receive a vote on the floor; the Senate leader can exploit the chamber’s rules to circumvent debate of certain amendments.
The Van Hollen amendment, citing a Congressional Budget Office estimate, said the nuclear-tipped, sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCM-N would cost $9 billion to field by 2028 or so, “increasing pressure on the Navy budget as the Navy plans for increases in shipbuilding while funding the Columbia class submarine program.”
SLCM-N’s warhead would be a sea-launched version of the W80-4 that the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is building for the Air Force’s Long Range Standoff Weapon cruise missile.
The Senate committee’s NDAA authorizes about $22 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration for fiscal year 2023, about $600 million more than what the White House requested. Most of the surplus the committee authorized is for construction of plutonium pit plants at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C.
The 2023 fiscal year started Oct. 1. Congress failed to complete defense authorizations or appropriations for 2023 before the fiscal calendar flipped, so programs are running on their 2022 budgets under a stopgap spending bill that expires at 12:00 a.m. on Dec. 17.
