Congress talks nuclear weapons and budgets

The state of the nation's nuclear forces, including those at Malmstrom Air Force Base, were the subject of Wednesday's House Armed Services Committee's subcommittee on strategic forces hearing.

The White House budget includes $142 billion to recapitalize, sustain and modernize the nuclear enterprise over the next five years, including $8.5 billion in enhancements related to findings from last year's nuclear enterprise reviews, according to Robert Scher, assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities.

Scher told the subcommittee that the White House budget request fixes some problems from sequestration and reflects some of the changes made as a result of the nuclear reviews.

"Sequestration would be a disaster for the Defense Department," he said. "Especially the nuclear enterprise."

The list of items that won't happen if sequestration remains include military construction projects, including a proposed $19.7 million tactical response alert facility at Malmstrom and the proposed replacement of the UH-1N helicopters used by units at all three ICBM bases, including Malmstrom.

The replacement program will purchase Army UH-60A Black Hawk models and convert them to UH-60L models using existing government contractor services, according to the DOD budget documents.

The helicopter replacement is scheduled to be completed by 2020, according to the Air Force budget proposal, and cost $980 million.

The budget includes $212 million for nuclear weapons modernization, $68 million for nuclear operations and sustainment, $8.8 million for nuclear and conventional physical security development, $142 million for ICBM fuze modernization and $178.9 million for ICBM squadrons.

The Air Force and Navy are collaborating on efforts to create a new warhead that would be used on current and future intercontinental ballistic missiles as well as the submarine launched ballistic missiles.

"We believe that we can have an affordable triad," said Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, the assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration for the Air Force.

Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, asked the witnesses to describe the impact on the nuclear forces.

Scher said that the reviews provided critical looks at the nuclear enterprise to see problem areas and pay better attention to the enterprise as a whole.

"We welcomed the opportunity to really look at the results of that review and implement fixes that will fix this now and into the future," he said.

Some of those fixes have included funding for quality-of-life items, new uniforms for missile security forces airmen, new vehicles for crews going to the missile field, incentives, bonuses and scholarships for certain airmen in the ICBM community and a new Nuclear Deterrence Operations Service Medal.

Funding for modernizing the ICBM and developing a follow-on missile for when the Minuteman III reaches its the end of its life expectancy in 2030.

Harencak told the subcommittee that the Minuteman III is a 1970s weapon that airmen are doing a great job sustaining.

They're working with a weapons system and in silos that are sometimes older than the missiles themselves, Harencak said.

"It's an amazing engineering challenge to keep that system up and functioning as it is," he said.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado, asked if it was accurate to characterize ICBMs as being on a hair trigger alert.

Harencak said "absolutely not."

"They are very responsive," Harencak said, but "there's a holistic system of safeguards."

The budget proposal also includes $95 million for a weapons storage facility at F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming, and Malmstrom is expected to be next in line for a new weapons storage facility after the Wyoming facility is completed.

But Gen. Mark Welsh, chief of staff of the Air Force, has testified to Congress that sequestration would cut all nuclear military construction projects except the weapons storage facility at Warren.

The proposed budget funds 1,120 additional military and civilian personnel across the nuclear enterprise. Those positions were announced last year after the cheating investigation was announced at Malmstrom, but this budget will continue to fund those positions as airmen and civilians transfer into the nuclear bases.

The budget also supports the DOD's efforts to reduce nuclear weapons to the levels required under New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.