Congress should not authorize or fund a nuclear-tipped, lower-yield sea-launched cruise missile or save a megaton-class gravity bomb, the White House said again Tuesday.
The message was part of a statement of administration policy about the Senate’s version of the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which like the version of the annual military policy bill the House passed in July would permit the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Department of Defense to work on both weapons.
The Senate planned to vote on its version of the NDAA in November, after the midterm elections Nov. 8. After that, the two chambers will have to craft a compromise bill in a closed-door, bicameral conference committee. Authorization bills set policy and spending limits for appropriations bills, which actually provide funds to agencies.
“The Administration looks forward to working with Congress to address its concerns” about the Senate NDAA, the White House wrote in Tuesday’s statement.
Still, the “Administration strongly opposes continued funding for the nuclear sealaunched cruise missile (SLCM-N) and its associated warhead,” reads the White House’s statement of administration policy. “The President’s Nuclear Posture Review concluded that the SLCM-N, which would not be delivered before the 2030s, is unnecessary and potentially detrimental to other priorities.”
The military does not need the sea-launched cruise missile because it already has the W76-2 low-yield, submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missile and will soon have F-35A aircraft to carry the B61-12 gravity bombs the NNSA is assembling now, the administration said in the statement.
As for the gravity bomb, the “Administration opposes any limitation or delay to the retirement of the B83-1 because of its diminishing utility in the current security environment.”
The Biden nuclear posture review, which as of Tuesday that had not been released in unclassified form, wanted to cancel development of the cruise and dismantle the B83 gravity bomb. The Donald Trump administration called for the missile in its own nuclear posture review in 2018. The Trump review also reversed the Barack Obama administration’s decision to retire B83.
The cruise missile will use a version of the W80-4 warhead planned for the next-generation air-launched cruise missile, the Long Range Standoff weapon. The NNSA planned to produce the first proof-of-concept W80-4 in 2027 and put the warhead into mass production after that.
Most defense funding bills produced in Congress this year have included both the cruise missile and B83. A House-passed appropriations bill had no funding for the missile but that would not necessarily prevent the NNSA and the Navy from using prior appropriations to continue work on the weapon they have already started.
