The Great Falls Tribune - House Takes Aim at ICBMs

News Article

By Jenn Rowell

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives settled in for a long night debating around 100 amendments to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act 2014, including several related to the nation's nuclear arsenal. The bill covers defense funding for fiscal year 2014, which begins Oct. 1.

Montana's lone representative, Rep. Steve Daines, joined again with Reps. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota to introduce an amendment that would prevent funds from the legislation being used to conduct an environmental impact study, or EIS, of intercontinental ballistic missiles or the facilities in which the missiles are located. The Republicans from missile states are joined by the amendment's sponsor, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo.

The amendment targets an EIS that is tucked into an Air Force budget line related to the nuclear reductions required by the New Start Treaty. The scope of the EIS was not clear Tuesday.

The House will debate and vote on the amendment today.

In June, President Barack Obama called for a one-third reduction in the nation's nuclear arsenal beyond the reductions required by the New Start. According to a letter to their colleagues from Daines, Lamborn, Lummis and Cramer, the White House requested funds in the 2014 budget for EIS studies "is widely seen as backdoor attempt to reduce our ICBM fleet. Our amendment simply prohibits this study. Now is not the time to reduce our ICBM fleet, and this is certainly not a responsible way to even discuss the issue."

The ICBM leg of the nuclear triad is comprised of Malmstrom Air Force Base, Minot AFB in North Dakota and F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming. Each base has 150 ICBMs in its missile field, but Malmstrom's missile field is larger than the other two combined. According to the Montana congressional delegation, the ICBM mission accounts for more than 40 percent of the economy in northcentral Montana and contributes to about 5,000 jobs.

Also on the docket for debate was an amendment by Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., that states, "none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to operate or maintain more than 300 land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles." The amendment failed 283-142, almost entirely down party lines.

Such a measure would have effectively implemented Obama's call for a one-third reduction to the ICBM force and equates to the same number of ICBMs in a missile wing. There are also several provisions in current legislation that would prohibit use of funding from the appropriations bill for base closure and realignment activities. Another amendment on the docket Tuesday from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., prohibited the use of funds in this appropriations bill for reducing nuclear forces to implement the New START Treaty.

Malmstrom is eliminating 50 missile silos and associated missile alert facilities that were closed previous to the ratification of the New START Treaty. The 564th Missile Squadron was deactivated in 2006, but the elimination of the sites is required by the New START Treaty. The Air Force recently completed an EIS related to the dismantling of those silos.

The treaty requires that both Russia and the U.S. eliminate 100 deactivated missile silos and 10 associated alert facilities by Feb. 4, 2018.

According to the treaty terms, the United States and Russia must reduce nuclear armaments to no more than 1,550 deployed warheads; 800 deployed and nondeployed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; and to have reduced their deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments to no more than 700.

No details were available Tuesday as to how the missile bases, Air Force Global Strike Command and U.S. Strategic Command plan to meet the required reductions.

In April, Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, the Air Force's assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, told the Senate Armed Service Committees subcommittee on strategic forces that he supported an approach allowing the missile wings to have flexibility in choosing which silos to close down.

"I believe it's critical that we have the flexibility to do what's most cost-effective, what's most efficient, which makes the most sense, so we can accomplish the mission while also having the flexibility to look at and say, OK, there are silos that have more water intrusion than the other ones, and just go across the force and say, hey, it's smart to pick this silo or that silo," Harencak told the Senate subcommittee.

According to the Defense Treaty-Inspection Readiness Program's Treaty Information Center, the estimated U.S. ICBM force in 2010 was 450 launchers and 500 warheads.

By 2017, the U.S. could retain 420 total launchers, 400 deployed launchers and 400 warheads, according to estimates from the Congressional Research Service.

Those estimates mean 30 more launch sites or silos will be closed between now and Feb. 4, 2018, meaning 10 from each missile base could be closed. But the details related to how those reductions will be implemented have not been released.

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