House Committee Rejects Greater Missile Defense Oversight; Nuclear Weapon Issues Advance

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House Armed Services Committee yesterday rejected a Democratic proposal to increase oversight of national missile defense systems being simultaneously developed and deployed by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (see GSN, May 3).

Democrats sought to include the provision in the $441.6 billion fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill that the committee approved yesterday. That bill and the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill, approved by the House Appropriations Committee yesterday, included provisions both increasing and restricting U.S. nuclear weapons work and other strategic systems activities proposed by the Bush administration.

Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) proposed an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would have required new missile defense systems to be tested for operational effectiveness under a program designed by the Defense Department’s independent Operational Test and Evaluation Office before they are deployed.

“To date, MDA has been exempted from rigorous testing before deployment, but with 20 untested interceptors emplaced in silos by the end of this year, the time has come to end this exemption and restore credibility to missile defense,” Tauscher said in a debate prior to the vote.

The Armed Services Committee killed the measure with a party-line vote of 33-27. 

“Congress can’t continue to pour funds into a program that has come nowhere near success — we need better accountability and we need to be able to trust the answers given us,” Tauscher said in a statement following the vote.

The Senate approved similar language last week in its version of the authorization bill.

Representative Terry Everett (R-Ala.), who chairs the House Armed Forces Strategic Forces Subcommittee, said he opposed giving the Test and Evaluation Office a supervisory role because the system is still undergoing developmental testing, as opposed to testing to see whether the system would be effective in the field.

He said U.S. law prohibits the office from supervising developmental testing.

“The Office of Test and Evaluation already has an important role in reviewing MDA test plans and evaluating MDA testing,” he said.

U.S. law, however, also requires that every defense system complete development testing and initial operational testing before it is deployed and that the testing is reviewed by the director of operational test and evaluation.

In an unusual move several years ago, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld exempted the Missile Defense Agency from traditional oversight by the office, which was created by Congress in the early 1980s to design a testing regime to ensure weapons systems are proven suitable and effective before they are put in the field. The office was given an advisory role in missile defense.

Soon after, the Missile Defense Agency scaled back testing and accelerated fielding of billions of dollars worth of missiles, ships, radar, and communications systems. This occurred despite conclusions by government officials that the agency has not yet demonstrated that the system’s central Ground-based Midcourse Defense system would work against real threats, and by concerns by independent critics that it never will. Pentagon officials have argued such an approach is needed to address a potential nuclear ICBM capability from North Korea.

The administration has requested funding for additional systems beginning next fiscal year, including money for at least 20 additional long-range interceptors. A separate provision that was approved in the House bill, however, provides money for constructing only 15 of those missiles.

It also included a Democrat-proposed $100 million increase to the Missile Defense Agency budget to conduct an operationally realistic Ground-based Midcourse Defense intercept test by Oct. 1. The test was ordered by Congress in its defense authorization bill last year.

The defense authorization bill also establishes guidelines for the Energy Department’s Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which is intended to study and possibly develop replacement parts or warheads for the current nuclear weapons arsenal. 

The bill requires that the program not produce new capabilities that would enable new nuclear weapons missions and that it use designs and components already proven through testing, so that the program does not lead to a resumption of live U.S. nuclear testing.

The bill approves $4 million for the Defense Department to evaluate various options for a new earth-penetrating weapon for striking deeply buried targets. Last year, Congress blocked spending on such a program.

It also repeals a requirement by the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill that the Pentagon report annually to Congress on its controversial “global strike” plans, which are intended to produce a capability of striking rapidly and possibly pre-emptively anywhere on earth with conventional or nuclear weapons.

The bill also authorizes $49.1 billion in “supplemental” funding to the fiscal 2005 bill, primarily for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The House Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, approved a $29.7 billion fiscal 2006 Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill that includes $6.2 billion for nuclear weapon-related activities.

The bill excludes funding requested by the Bush administration for an Energy Department study of a nuclear earth penetrator, while providing $25 million for an initial Reliable Replacement Warhead study, for which the administration had requested $9.3 million.

The bill excludes a $7.7 million request for constructing a “Modern Pit Facility” for constructing new plutonium pit triggers for nuclear weapons. 

It provides just $15 million of $25 million requested to improve readiness for conducting a nuclear weapons test if ordered by the president, and says the preparation time should remain at 24 months and not move toward the administration’s goal of 18.

The bill includes $1.5 billion overall for nuclear nonproliferation activities, including efforts to dispose of U.S. plutonium.

A report accompanying the bill suggests the Energy Department move spent nuclear fuel from civilian reactor sites to an interim, undetermined facility.   Funding also was approved for an initiative to develop spent nuclear fuel recycling technologies.

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.