The House Armed Services Committee quickly moved forward subcommittee marks of the fiscal year 2016 defense authorization bill ahead of debate by the full committee next week.
Only two subcommittees—Seapower and Projection Forces and Strategic Forces—put forward amendments to their proposals, which were released Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Strategic Forces subcommittee debated the most amendments to its mark and approved all of them.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) offered an amendment that would prioritize investments to develop and field a boost phase missile defense system by fiscal year 2022. It would require the Missile Defense Agency to create a senior-level advisory group to recommend promising technologies, such as lasers and microwave systems that could intercept a missile in its boost phase.
“Engaging a missile threats in its boost phase, when no countermeasures or decoys are deployed, is undoubtedly the ideal time for intercept,” he said. Before the Obama administration, two boost phase defense programs were in development, the airborne laser and kinetic energy interceptor, but both were canceled. “Making decisions like restarting the boost phase program will help reverse this dangerous trend and send a message to our foes and allies alike.”
Although the amendment passed, it faced opposition from Democrats.
Ranking member Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) spoke against the measure. The ideal time to intercept a missile, he said, was before it ever leaves the ground or “left of launch.”
Further, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2010 canceled the airborne laser system because it was “unaffordable and unworkable,” and the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 also released a report calling boost phase missile defense impractical and not cost-effective, he said.
“Right now we’re not able to use this approach in any sort of feasible, workable way,” he said. “Why spend this money? Why force the Missile Defense Agency to do things that it thinks is a waste of time and money?”
The subcommittee’s other amendments were passed unanimously by voice vote.
One amendment, offered by vice chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), would prohibit the Defense Department from relying on Chinese and Russian space-based weather data. The military currently depends on a European weather satellite called Meteosat-7 for its coverage of the Middle East, but the satellite reaches the end of its service life in 2017 and will not be replaced.
Relying on China and Russia for that data is untenable, Lamborn said. “The Air Force has to come up with the planning required to fill that gap faster than they had anticipated.”
The Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee unanimously passed by voice vote an amendment—submitted by Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.)—calling for a report assessing the placement of Air National Guard C-130 aircraft equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System. In recent years, wildfires have become more prevalent on the western portion of the country, and the Guard’s C-130 units oftentimes are called in to help stop the fires from spreading. The report will provide utilization rates of MAFFS-equipped C-130s and evaluate whether more coverage is needed in the western United States.
The full committee will mark up the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1735) on April 29.