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U.S. Senate Panel Approves Defense Bill, MOX Funds By David Ruppe WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday passed a $517.7 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2007 that includes missile defense funding adjustments and money for a submarine-launched conventional ballistic missile (see GSN, May 4). The amount approved for Defense Department programs not contributing directly to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was $467 billion, an increase of $26.2 billion or 4.1 percent from what Congress approved last year. It was also $7 billion more than the non-war-related total approved Wednesday by the House Armed Services Committee. The remaining $50 billion was authorized to cover war-related expenses for at least part of the fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Similar to the House version, the Senate bill authorized funds for construction of a mixed-oxide fuel production facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, for disposal of 34 tons of surplus U.S. weapons grade plutonium independent of similar Russian action. Russia and the United States pledged in 2000 to build similar facilities to each eliminate 34 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium, but the nations have been unable to formally agree on all the details. The Senate bill, though, withholds the construction money until the Energy Department provides an independent cost estimate for the facility construction and certifies that it plans to use the MOX facility for plutonium disposition regardless of what occurs regarding the Russian program. Details of the approved bill were provided in a press release yesterday evening. Missile Defense ChangesThe Senate Armed Services Committee, like its House counterpart, approved changes to the Bush administration’s missile defense budget requests, with the aim of more strongly supporting efforts to develop and deploy near-term systems over systems that would take longer to develop. The committee, though, did not significantly adjust the administration’s $9.3 billion total request for the Missile Defense Agency budget, and it appeared to significantly cut just one major missile defense program. The committee added $200 million for additional flight-testing of the developmental Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, compared to $20 million added by the House committee. It also added $100 million for accelerated upgrades and deployment of sea-based Aegis missile defense systems and $100 million for Army procurement of additional Patriot Advanced Capability 3 missiles and upgrades to the Patriot systems. The House committee offered $40 million and $140 million increases respectively for those programs. The administration had requested $1 billion specifically for the Aegis program and as much as $900 million for Patriot research and development, upgrades and purchases for fiscal 2007. The Senate Patriot funding is included in about $1 billion approved for the armed services rather than specifically the Missile Defense Agency. Meanwhile, the committee approved a 50-percent, $200 million reduction for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor program, which is aimed at shooting down missiles in their boost and ascent phases. The House bill differently had also eliminated the $55.8 million requested for constructing a Ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptor site in Europe, $65 million from the Multiple Kill Vehicle program, and $100 million from the Kinetic Energy Interceptor program. It also cut the overall Missile Defense Agency budget request by $183.5 million, eliciting praise yesterday from several prominent missile defense critics in a released statement. “Republicans and Democrats are finally exercising their oversight responsibilities by forcing MDA to slow down and shift its efforts away from the more pie-in-the-sky technologies,” retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert Gard, a consultant to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation was quoted in the statement. The Senate committee fully funded the administration’s $127 million request to begin developing a conventional version of the Trident D-5 submarine-launched ballistic missile. The House cut $50 million to slow the effort, amid concerns that countries could mistake its use for a nuclear attack. According to the release, the Senate committee “prohibited the Navy from using more than $32 million of the funds until a report, prepared by the secretary of defense, in consultation with the secretary of state, addressing nuclear ambiguity issues, is submitted to Congress.” The committee approved the administration’s $27 million request for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program study, and the requested $372.1 million for the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program. It included a five-year extension to the president’s authority to waive annually certain conditions that must be met before Cooperative Threat Reduction funds can be spent at Russia’s Shchuchye chemical weapons demilitarization site. It also provided that any contract for the destruction of U.S. chemical weapons include an incentive clause, “in order to accelerate the safe elimination of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile and to reduce the total cost of the chemical demilitarization program.” The Pentagon recently announced it did not expect to meet the Chemical Weapons Convention’s requirement that all member countries eliminate any chemical arsenal by the end of 2012 (see GSN, April 18).
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