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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – A Senate Armed Services panel chair today said boosters of the Golden Dome program still have work to do to increase support on Capitol Hill while warning against relying on reconciliation to nearly exclusively fund the program going forward.
“When I look at Golden Dome and the support we have, I would say that there still is a lot of work that has to be done,” Sen Deb Fischer, (R-Neb.), chair of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, said here during a panel at the Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference.
She said that is somewhat in contrast to a general strong bipartisan support in the committee to identify threats and meet the needs of DoD and the military on other topics like nuclear modernization and space as a warfighting domain.
“Missile defense now is Golden Dome and to be able to, I think, first of all, get the information that we need is extremely important, but also to have a better understanding of just what Golden Dome involves,” Fischer added.
She said Golden Dome itself was an outgrowth of the 2024 national defense authorization act that included a provision directing a study on a layered missile defense system but they need more information for Congress going forward.
“When President Trump came into the White House, he named it Golden Dome, but it started within Congress, and I think it’s important to remember it because it shows you the level of commitment that’s there. As we do move forward, we’re going to have to be able to have, again, better information.”
Fischer said some analyses like the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) were so unrealistic compared to what direct reporting program manager of the Office of Golden Dome for America Gen, Michael Guetlein is building because “I think it’s due to the fact that there’s not a clear understanding of this layered defense that we’re looking at when it comes to defending our homeland.”
In May, Guetlein said CBO is “not estimating what we’re building” and has generally criticized outside reports as taking legacy capability and technology from the early 2000s and merely multiplying it to cover the territory of the U.S. (Defense Daily, May 14).
Most notably, a CBO estimate of a missile defense system along the lines of one called for under President Trump’s initial January 2025 Iron Dome for America executive order, published in May said, it would cost about $1.2 trillion in fiscal year 2026 dollars over 20 years (Defense Daily, May 13).
However, last month a CBO official said the Pentagon has declined CBO requests for a briefing on what they are actually planning to build for Golden Dome, so they only used what Trump outlined in the initial executive order. The official acknowledged Pentagon budget plans do not have them spending on a similar level to what CBO priced out for an all-encompassing system (Defense Daily, Aug. 19).
Fischer also argued Golden Dome funding should come through the regular budget process with wider spread buy-in, rather than the partisan reconciliation bill that the administration plans to use to continue funding most of Golden Dome.
“To sustain a commitment through different administrations, through different majorities, through different changes in our country – We’ve seen fallout from that across the board in the past. You know, I’m worried about it right now, to be honest with you, to be able to fund what we need, I’m a supporter of the $1.5 trillion. That’s what we need. I am also a supporter of it going through regular order, going through an appropriations process, having committee, subcommittee hearings, having transparency, being on the record with your votes, laying it out that an administration can then follow it, so you see that commitment,” she said.
“We had $24 billion in reconciliation last year for Golden Dome. That was fine, but in my opinion, that’s not the way that we can have certainty going forward. I believe we have to go through an appropriations process. We have to have that commitment. We have to have not just the buy-in from Congress in order to support our military and the defense of this country, but we have to have the buy-in from the people of this country as well,” Fischer continued.
Her comments come a month after Guetlein warned that if Congress does not pass the reconciliation bill Golden Dome will halt (Defense Daily, Aug. 11).
However, he noted at the time that DoD was discussing some contingency plans where the services could decide to continue investments around for some Golden Dome systems that already fall under their purview.
Fischer said getting wider buy-in from lawmakers to find it in the regular appropriations process requires having lawmakers understand the threats, the needed systems for Golden Dome, and the resources being committed to address that in a transparent and accountable way.
“Those aren’t just words. We need to make sure that they are followed, and there is that strong buy-in, not just from Congress, not just from any administration, but from the people of this country. And I think they’ll be there. They are there when they know what’s at stake.”
