Billions of dollars and a handful of nuclear weapon ventures would be jeopardized if Congress fails to pass a defense funding bill and instead relies on a full-year continuing resolution, which would freeze spending at prior levels, officials recently warned.
In succession Thursday, military service chiefs and Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord told lawmakers that a lengthy continuing resolution would prove detrimental to both people and programs.
“A year-long CR actually allows our adversary just to continue their acceleration,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said, “while we are, I would say, stuck in neutral.”
The leaders rattled off programs imperiled by a continuing resolution, the contested Ground Based Strategic Deterrent among them.
The GBSD, as it’s often referred to, would replace an aging intercontinental ballistic missile system. It would use the W87-1 warhead, for which plutonium pits will be produced. The National Nuclear Security Administration is currently working on plutonium pit factories in both New Mexico and South Carolina: at Los Alamos National Laboratory, near Santa Fe, and at the Savannah River Site, south of Aiken.
Brown in testimony submitted to House appropriators said a year-long continuing resolution “would irreversibly delay the modernization of the nuclear enterprise and impact our deterrence posture.”
Adm. Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, echoed him in his own write-up: “We currently face the simultaneous challenges of recapitalizing our strategic nuclear deterrent, making a once-in-a-century investment in our public shipyards, and delivering” needed weapons and other materiel.
The most recent continuing resolution will expire Feb. 18. U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., on Friday said the matter needs to be addressed by then – and should follow the National Defense Authorization Act’s example of bipartisanship. (The annual policy package last month authorized $768 billion in defense spending, including billions for the Department of Energy and its NNSA.)
“The real concern, as you’ve identified, is the long-term CR and the consequences of that, which are very sad,” Wilson said in an interview. The congressman is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.
A piecemeal or patchwork approach was uniformly shunned by appropriators Thursday. But what they couldn’t agree on was who was to blame for the current predicament.
U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, speaks at an event in Aiken on Friday. (Colin Demarest/Staff)
“When we’re unable to carry out the most fundamental constitutional responsibility,” Rep. Ken Calvert, a California Republican, said Thursday, “we create self-inflicted wounds that are difficult to recover from.”
A lot rides on a proper funding bill, Wilson emphasized, as the U.S. faces nuclear competition from Russia and China, threats at the southern border and a belligerent Iran. Installations in South Carolina, and across the river near Augusta, Georgia, count on the funding, too.
“Sadly, there has not been the urgency that we feel that there should be,” Wilson said, “particularly in light of what’s going on.”
