Before ending its annual session in December, Congress approved two bills directing and funding the Pentagon and the U.S. nuclear complex. In doing so, legislators added a little extra money to anti-missile projects but gave nothing to a controversial nuclear weapons initiative. They also demanded more insight into the administration’s thinking on defense issues, ranging from its outer space planning to nuclear strategy.

Congress Dec. 21 passed both a $441.5 billion fiscal year 2006 defense authorization bill and a $403.5 billion fiscal year 2006 defense appropriations bill. Lawmakers also approved an additional $50 billion for continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The authorization bill sets policy guidelines and notional spending amounts, while the appropriations bill grants the actual funds to be expended. Fiscal year 2006 began Oct. 1, 2005, and ends Sept. 30.

Missile Defense Funding Grows

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) received a $21 million boost above the administration’s nearly $7.8 billion request. Despite the modest raise, Congress indicated it is not entirely satisfied with the agency’s performance. Indeed, Senate appropriators charged in a Sept. 29 report that the MDA lacked sufficient focus on near-term priorities.

To remedy this concern, lawmakers shifted funding from broader and future-oriented research to specific and established projects. The biggest beneficiary was the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD), which received a $150 million increase, to nearly $2.5 billion.

During the last two years, the Pentagon has installed 10 GMD interceptors in Alaska and California to serve as a rudimentary defense against long-range ballistic missiles. But the system has yet to be declared operational as the Pentagon conducts a prolonged “shakedown” to assess the system’s capabilities and devise operating procedures. (See ACT, December 2004.)

Congress also gave $41 million extra for development of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System’s interceptor, helping increase sea-based missile defense funding to $939 million. Designed to destroy short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the Aegis system’s developmental testing record comprises one miss and six intercepts, the latest of which occurred Nov. 17. (See ACT, December 2005.)

After threatening to trim funding for the nascent Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program, legislators fulfilled the administration’s nearly $215 million request. The KEI is intended to strike missiles during their first few minutes of flight, known as the boost phase.

Part of the KEI program, called NFIRE, involves stationing a satellite in orbit to gather information on missiles during their boost phase. Congress endorsed arming the satellite with a kill vehicle to collide with a rising missile, despite opposition from some lawmakers. Congress instructed the MDA to “continue development and mission integration of the deployable NFIRE kill vehicle.” Still, an MDA spokesperson told Arms Control Today Jan. 4 that the NFIRE satellite will launch in 2006 and “have a laser communications generator and not a kill vehicle.”

Another boost-phase system, the Airborne Laser (ABL), also received congressional blessing. Reuters reported Nov. 30 that, in drawing up a fiscal year 2007 budget request, White House officials are considering not seeking funding for the program, which entails equipping a modified Boeing 747 with a powerful chemical laser. In the fiscal year 2006 appropriations bill, however, Congress provided the ABL with $7 million more than the administration’s original $465 million request.

Legislators also added $10 million for the MDA to start exploring the protection of the U.S. homeland against shorter-range missiles fired from offshore ships. They described this threat as one they are “increasingly concerned about.”

Congress appropriated another $1.6 billion for missile defense projects outside the MDA, including almost $490 million for the Army to buy 108 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 short- and medium-range missile interceptors. The Air Force’s troubled Space-Based Infrared System-high took a $50 million cut, to roughly $707 million. This satellite system is supposed to spot missile launches around the world but remains stuck in the laboratory.

Nuclear “Bunker Buster” Funding Denied

Although it costs a fraction of the anti-missile programs, an initiative to modify a nuclear warhead to penetrate further underground before detonating has evoked far more congressional opposition. In November, lawmakers refused to provide $4 million for the Department of Energy to study the weapon, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). (See ACT, December 2005.) Because the Energy Department develops and maintains nuclear weapons, this action was widely declared the end of the RNEP.

Yet, Congress had not dealt with a corresponding $4.5 million RNEP request by the Air Force, and a Pentagon official suggested this sum could still be used to advance a nuclear penetrator. On Dec. 6, Defense Daily quoted Billy Mullins, deputy director of strategic security for the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, as saying, “There is some misunderstanding that the Defense Department has dropped the nuclear part of the [RNEP].”

In the defense appropriations bill, however, Congress only approved $4 million for the Air Force to conduct a conventional penetrator study.

Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), the chief opponent of the RNEP and chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, told a Washington audience Dec. 14 that it is time for the Pentagon to give up on a nuclear earth penetrator. “It’s dead. Forget about it. Go conventional,” he declared.

According to Hobson, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman has provided him with a personal assurance that Energy Department facilities will not be used to carry out a critical test for the conventional penetrator study. Hobson explained, “If they do it at a [Department of Defense] site, that sends the right messages that it’s not a nuclear test.”

The RNEP grew out of the Bush administration’s December 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, calling for a revised nuclear weapons complex, including possible new weapons. (See ACT, January/February 2002.) In the defense authorization bill, Congress ordered the secretary of defense to establish a 12-member commission to assess progress toward the posture’s goals. The commission is to submit its findings before June 30, 2007.

Lawmakers also obligated the secretary of defense to report on threats to U.S. space assets and strategies for dealing with them over the next 20 years. The initial report is supposed to be submitted by April 15 and then updated every odd-numbered year.

Congress further tasked the Defense and Energy Departments with making separate reports this year on Russia’s tactical, or battlefield, nuclear weapons. The Pentagon is to determine whether the United States should pursue reductions in these types of weapons, while the Energy Department is to recommend ways to improve Russia’s accounting and security of its tactical stockpile. Western estimates vary greatly on the size and safekeeping of this force.

Meanwhile, an effort to include a statement in the defense authorization bill declaring the deployment of 500 ICBMs to be U.S. nuclear policy failed. The United States currently deploys that many ICBMs, but some legislators are worried the Pentagon may cut this total. (See ACT, November 2005.)