Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/27/2015
The top Republican and Democrat on the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee vowed this week to push back against House leadership plans to set funding levels for the nation’s strategic and nuclear forces at sequestration levels, with Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), the ranking member of the subcommittee, suggesting such a move would be a “big train wreck.” President Obama’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request has been well received by members of the panel, and subcommittee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) noted during a Feb. 26 hearing that the request is “in some ways … among the best we’ve seen” since Obama took office.
The request would provide $8.8 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, accelerating work on key warhead and infrastructure modernization efforts, while committing significant funds to key Department of Defense nuclear modernization needs as well, like the Ohio Class nuclear submarine replacement program, the Long-Range Strike Bomber, the Long-Range Standoff weapon, and key Air Force nuclear sustainment efforts. “The president’s budget for ‘16 strikes a responsible balance between national priorities, fiscal realities, and begins to reduce some of the risks we have accumulated because of deferred maintenance and sustainment,” Adm. Cecil Haney, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said at the hearing. “This budget supports my mission requirements, but there is no margin to absorb new risk. Any cuts to that budget, including those imposed by sequestration, will hamper our ability to sustain and modernize our military forces.”
Brian McKeon, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, also emphasized the Administration’s commitment to modernization at the hearing. “The effort to modernize our delivery systems and extend the life of our warheads across the triad and our non-strategic nuclear force will require significant resources over the next decade and beyond,” he said. “… The nuclear mission is the highest priority of the department, and we must prioritize it accordingly.”
Cooper: Greatest Risk to Nuclear Forces is … Congress
Cooper, however, said the subcommittee has been told it should mark up the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act to sequestration levels, which would be $34 billion less than the President’s budget request. “I’m worried that the greatest risk to our nuclear defenses is not at the witness table, and they’re fine organizations, but it’s on this side,” Cooper told Haney and McKeon, referring to Congress. He later added: “That is just unacceptable. And this committee has a great tradition of bipartisanship, people working together for a strong defense for America. We have got to solve this problem. We really don’t have a lot of time to do it.”
Rogers agreed, suggesting that sequestration cuts for the nation’s nuclear forces should not be an option. “Marking up to the BCA [Budget Control Act] levels is not a responsible thing to do and I’m going to do everything in my power to keep us from having to do that,” Rogers said. “And I also think that the President’s number is much more responsible and the minimum that we should be thinking about.”
Cooper acknowledged that it will be difficult to solve the problem at the level of House leadership, but he also noted that it would be difficult to find areas within the jurisdiction of the subcommittee to shift money around. “We’re going to have to find, you know, monies within our own jurisdiction,” he said. “How do we do that? There are only a few areas to go to, and none of those are popular. So, we’ve really got a lot of work to do just in the next month or two. Otherwise, there’s a big train wreck coming.”
Haney: ‘Can We Afford Not To’ Modernize?
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that the Obama Administration’s plans for nuclear forces will cost $348 billion from 2015 to 2024. Haney said that the Administration projects to spend about 5 to 6 percent of the DoD budget on recapitalizing its strategic forces during the 2020s and into the 2030s, down from the “close to 10 percent” he predicted in a Sept. 22 letter to Rogers. Currently, the spending is about 2.6 percent, Haney said. This week, he said the funding was necessary because other countries are modernizing their nuclear capabilities and “provide an existential threat to the United States of America. So in order to maintain and sustain its strategic stability, it’s very important that we have that kind of balance. Quite frankly, the question really is, can we afford not to?”
However, Rep. Rick Larsen (D-Wash.) noted that there are significant competing budget priorities across the government. “That’s the question we have to ask for every budget item that comes to us, and we don’t have the money for all that,” Larsen said.
Garamendi Presses Haney on LRS-B, LRSO
At the hearing, Haney also defended the Administration’s plans for the Long-Range Strike Bomber and Long-Range Standoff weapon, which would replace the aging Air-Launched Cruise Missile, under questioning from Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.). The Long-Range Strike Bomber would be designed to penetrate enemy airspace like the current B-2s and B-52s, Haney said, while the new Long-Range Standoff weapon would provide a “flexible option” to the President that in “extreme circumstances” could also penetrate enemy defenses. “It’s also designed as a deterrent mechanism first and foremost, such that any adversary that would want to challenge us would have to consider that avenue,” he said.
Garamendi did not appear satisfied, and promised to press for more information during a classified portion of the hearing after the open portion. “Do we need a long-range bomber to deliver a nuclear weapon into enemy airspace, as well as the new long-range missile? Do we need both,” Garamendi said, later adding: “In a classified hearing, I’d like to have an answer to three letters—why,” Garamendi said, before spelling out the word: “W H Y.”