The chairmen of a congressional working group on nuclear weapons on Tuesday announced a late July hearing into the controversial Sentinel missile program, which has run over budget and raised concerns among more progressive lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Members of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, co-chaired by Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Reps. John Garamendi (Calif.) and Don Beyer (Va.), said the July 24 hearing will be would focus on testimony from experts in the world of nuclear weapons.
Garamendi said at a press conference that the purpose of the hearing is to try to “engage Congress in its constitutional responsibility”.
Beyer added that he wants to “raise the alarm about our unsustainable and reckless nuclear posture.”
“We all understand the need for an adequate nuclear deterrent,” Beyer said. “But our spending process and our nuclear posture are becoming increasingly divorced from reality – a reality of scarce resources and a variety of competing national security priorities.”
Tuesday’s press conference was also attended by former Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) and Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“In the United States, there seems to be a sense of inevitability surrounding the need to build our own arsenal,” Tierney said, adding that he was “demanding answers to questions about programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars without us force a little safer.”
Tierney said it was Congress’s duty to conduct oversight, but that many of his former colleagues were “eager to simply rubber-stamp multibillion-dollar programs without asking even the most basic questions.”
In January, Sentinel exceeded its projected budget by 37 percent, forcing the Pentagon to step in and review the program.
The program, which is being led by defense contractor Northrop Grumman, is expected to cost about $130 billion, up from projected initial costs of about $60 billion in 2015. It is also expected to be delayed by at least least two years.
Most of Congress supports modernizing the nuclear arsenal and views land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as a vital part of nuclear deterrence, along with the other legs of the so-called triad: bombers and submarines.
Proponents argue that the Sentinel program is a national security priority, especially as China and Russia modernize or increase their nuclear weapons. Still, progressive Democrats have warned about rising costs and the program’s viability.
The congressional working group on Tuesday called on the Pentagon to conduct a frank review of Sentinel, which Garamendi and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had previously pushed for.
And Markey called on the Pentagon to declassify the 2014 Analysis of Alternatives report, which concluded that it would be cheaper to create new Sentinel missiles than to extend the life of Minuteman III ICBMs, which are more than 50 years old. The Air Force kept the report, which would detail how they reached this conclusion, confidential.
Markey also pushed for a review of the modernization costs of the entire nuclear triad and highlighted his concerns about the “insanity” of spending hundreds of billions of dollars on upgrading nuclear weapons under the “guise” of protecting against security risks. national.
“This is simply not an excuse to open the federal government’s bank account to write a blank check issued to nuclear bomb makers without any transparency,” he said. “We have a responsibility to ensure that we put the Sentinel program at risk.”
Sentinel will replace the 400 Minuteman III ICBMs spread across rural western areas of the US in missile silos and deploy them by 2075. The program is a major overhaul and involves a major multi-state real estate effort that is increasing costs.
Garamendi tried to approve several changes to control the Sentinel program in the annual defense bill that the House Armed Services Committee approved last month, but they were ultimately blocked except for one that required the Government Accountability Office to audit the Pentagon’s review of the program.
Garamendi raised concerns about the difficulty of getting Congress to provide more oversight of the program.
“We want Congress to do its job,” said Garamendi.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
