Defense Policy Bill Sets Stage for Nuclear Expansion

January/February 2025
By Xiaodon Liang

Congress asked the Defense Department to provide a path toward the potential expansion of U.S. nuclear forces in a defense policy bill unveiled in early December, but for now offered little additional money for programs beyond the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile.

Negotiators for the Senate and House of Representatives released a compromise $850 billion defense authorization bill for the 2025 fiscal year on Dec. 7 that rejected higher overall discretionary spending levels recommended earlier by the Senate Armed Services Committee. The total sum complies with fiscal limits adopted as part of a government spending agreement in 2023.

The House passed the defense authorization bill 281-140 on Dec. 11, and the Senate gave its approval 85-14 on Dec. 18. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Dec. 23.

The bill directs the Pentagon to provide congressional committees directly with an “assessment of the quantities and types of forces necessary” to hold at risk all the targets defined in the Biden administration’s nuclear weapons employment guidance, which was finalized this year. It also tasks the department to take into account “the planned growth in potential target quantities due to the expansion and diversification of likely adversary capabilities” over the next 10 years.

The bill, the key defense policy legislation, requires the department to report annually on implementation of the recommendations of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States for the next five years. That commission, which released its final report in October 2023, called for increases in U.S. nuclear forces primarily through the expansion of existing modernization programs. (See ACT, November 2023.)

The bill also directs the Pentagon to provide plans to reduce the time needed to upload additional warheads to the existing intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force, expand the future ICBM force to 450 deployed missiles, and manage the transition between older and in-development delivery vehicles.

Even as these directives lay the groundwork for future growth in U.S. nuclear forces, the bill provides full funding for the president’s current nuclear modernization budget requests across the board, trimming and adding only marginal amounts of money from accounts.

One notable exception is the budget for the increasingly expensive Sentinel ICBM. (See ACT, September 2024.) In the compromise defense bill, negotiators added $200 million to the program’s research and development effort to support prototyping and industrial-base risk reduction, bringing the program to an authorized limit of $3.9 billion infiscal 2025.

But the military construction budget for the missile was lowered significantly, with $366 million struck from a $680 million request for land acquisition and construction work at F.E. Warren and Vandenberg Air Force bases.

In July, the Pentagon announced that it would continue the Sentinel program despite continued projected cost increases. The department now estimates that the missile program will cost $141 billion in 2020 dollars. (See ACT, September 2024.)

The bill does not increase funding significantly for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program beyond the $9.8 billion requested by the White House for shipbuilding and R&D.

But in votes on Dec. 20, Congress temporarily raised the annual budget for Columbia-class shipbuilding to $8.9 billion, up from the $5.8 billion approved in fiscal 2024 appropriations, in a second continuing resolution extending appropriations levels from the 2024 fiscal year. The higher spending rate will stay in place until fiscal 2025 appropriation levels are finalized. This additional funding for the Columbia program came as a response to a supplementary request from the White House in November.

The Office of Management and Budget, the Navy, and contractor Huntington Ingalls Industries have been involved in negotiations on the best way to pay for higher costs at the submarine shipyards in recent years, USNI News reported Nov. 25. According to the report, Chief Executive Chris Kastner of Huntington Ingalls noted “underlying realities: a tight fiscal environment, inflation, increased wage expectations for skilled labor, and extended supplier lead times.”

Months after the Biden administration dropped its opposition to a nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile, the defense bill adds $252 million for R&D for the program, up from $90 million appropriated last fiscal year. (See ACT, July/August 2024.) The bill also authorizes $70 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to develop a warhead for the missile, maintaining funding constant compared with last year.

The Senate Armed Services Committee had recommended providing more money above the fiscal 2025 budget request to accelerate modernization of the Navy’s nuclear command, control, and communications system for ballistic missile submarines, which involves the E-6B Mercury aircraft. The final compromise legislation rejected this proposal.

The E-6B aircraft, a critical component in the communications chain between commanders and underwater submarines, is set to be replaced by a new aircraft, the E-130J, by 2026. Construction of the first airframe started in November, according to the Navy’s social media accounts, and the service awarded an overarching systems integration contract for the new plane on Dec. 18.

The compromise bill maintains funding for the B-21 bomber program at levels requested by the Biden administration in March, providing $5.3 billion for R&D and procurement. Speaking Dec. 6 at the Mitchell Institute, the head of the Air Force Global Strike Command, Gen. Thomas Bussiere, suggested that the service may seek to expand the number of bombers it buys beyond original plans for at least 100 aircraft. The total bomber fleet size “probably needs to be reevaluated based on the world as we see it today,” Bussiere said.

The prime contractor building the B-21, Northrop Grumman, told its investors earlier this year that its current fixed-price contract for low-rate initial production of the bomber would lead to $1.6 billion in pretax losses, spread over the first 21 aircraft. In June, the company said it had reached an agreement with the Air Force to raise the price of the plane under its next agreement for 19 more bombers. That threatens the Air Force’s initial promise to keep costs under $550 million per aircraft in 2010 dollars, which is now equal to $780 million.

The defense policy bill also provides $1.2 billion for continued upgrades to the B-52H bomber fleet, including $785 million for an engine replacement program. The new engine passed a critical design review in December, according to an announcement by contractor Rolls-Royce.

The bill adds $4.5 million for renuclearization of the 40 B-52H bombers that were configured for conventional missions to comply with the limits of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Although the Senate committee had recommended directing the Air Force to begin renuclearization of the aircraft, the compromise bill permits renuclearization at the executive branch’s discretion.

Spending on nuclear programs remains largely in line with the president’s budget request, but congressional negotiators gave missile defense several notable boosts in the compromise defense bill. The defense committees authorized $393 million in additional spending on the Glide Phase Interceptor program, a U.S.-Japanese collaborative effort to produce an interceptor for bringing down hypersonic weapons with a glide trajectory.

In September, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) selected Northrop Grumman to continue development of the interceptor, eliminating a competing design effort. In last year’s defense authorization act, Congress directed the agency to ensure that the interceptor can achieve initial operational capability by 2029, but agency leaders remain skeptical that goal can be met.

In its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Biden administration signaled that it would cease production of the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IB ballistic missile interceptor in favor of shifting toward producing the upgraded SM-3 Block IIA variant. The defense authorization bill reverses this decision, adding $250 million to restart SM-3 Block IB production and $65 million to expand SM-3 Block IIA production to 36 interceptors per year, up from the currently planned 12 per year. The Navy fired interceptors, including SM-3 missile variants, to defend Israel from Iranian ballistic missile attacks in April and October.

The defense bill also includes a requirement for the MDA to establish by 2031 a third Ground-Based Midcourse Defense site on the east coast of the United States. Proposals for the third site have been opposed by the Biden administration and failed in previous defense bill negotiations.

The bill also prohibits the NNSA from spending money on dismantling the B83-1 gravity bomb, a large-yield weapon that the Biden administration has sought to eliminate, without assurance from the head of Strategic Command that there are no “gaps” in the U.S. strategic deterrence posture. The Biden administration has argued that the new B61-13 gravity bomb would satisfy the hardened and large-area requirements previously met by the 1.2-megaton B83-1. (See ACT, December 2023.)

Congressional negotiators modified a restriction proposed by the House on data-sharing under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty to permit unilateral disclosures when they would be in the national interest or if Russia were to resume providing notifications. The bill also includes a restriction on the admittance of Chinese and Russian citizens to the national laboratories after April 15, 2025.

In an organizational move, the bill designates the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs as the principal civilian adviser to the defense secretary for nuclear programs and policies, including “all matters relating to the sustainment, operation, and modernization of United States nuclear forces.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted his concerns with this modified position in a Sept. 26 letter to the congressional defense committees, stating that the reorganization threatened to “carve out functions and authorities” from two existing offices, that of the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment and the undersecretary for policy, creating “unclear lines of authority.” The final legislation clarifies the original Senate proposal by stating that the new assistant secretary will advise and assist the existing undersecretaries.

Negotiators significantly changed a House recommendation that Congress mirror the Biden administration’s language that a human always should remain “in the loop” on critical nuclear weapons employment decisions.

Instead, the compromise version states that it is U.S. policy that the use of artificial intelligence in nuclear forces should not compromise “the principle of requiring positive human actions in execution of decisions by the President with respect to the employment of nuclear weapons.”