{"id":1289970,"date":"2023-05-19T18:10:05","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T22:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/hypersonics-nukes-top-house-lawmakers-priorities-list\/1289970\/"},"modified":"2023-05-19T18:10:05","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T22:10:05","slug":"hypersonics-nukes-top-house-lawmakers-priorities-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/hypersonics-nukes-top-house-lawmakers-priorities-list\/1289970\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypersonics, Nukes Top House Lawmaker’s Priorities List"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Hypersonics, Nukes Top House Lawmaker’s Priorities List<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Audrey Decker via DefenseOne.com,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons will get top priority when the House Armed Services committee\u2019s strategic forces panel finally gets to mark up the 2024 defense-policy bill,<\/strong> according to the subcommittee\u2019s chairman.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

HASC markups are on hold while GOP lawmakers seek federal budget cuts by threatening to\u00a0force the U.S. renege on its debts<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican whose district is based in Colorado Springs, said his biggest concern ahead of the markup, which\u00a0was supposed to kick off<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday, is the top-line number.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lamborn said he\u2019s \u201cdisappointed\u201d the defense policy bill is delayed but \u201cunderstands\u201d why Congress needs to concentrate on the debt ceiling first.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGetting that top-line number, I think, is critical because if that number is reduced as part of a negotiation with the Senate and the White House, I would be very concerned that that would lead to cuts in capabilities in the future,\u201d he told\u00a0Defense One\u00a0in an interview.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A GOP-forced default on outstanding debts would hurt national security in various ways, according to a host of leaders, including the\u00a0defense secretary<\/a>,\u00a0Joint Chiefs chairman<\/a>, the\u00a0director of national intelligence<\/a>, the\u00a0Air Force secretary<\/a>, and more.<\/p>\n

If the Pentagon\u2019s top-line number does change, Lamborn said he\u2019s confident programs in the strategic forces portfolio would be in a safe position as \u201ceveryone involved\u201d is aware of the need for the Space Force to be fully funded. However, the committees that focus on bigger items, like ships, aircraft, and munitions, might run into some problems, he said.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cBecause we have consensus in the community and with the administration, and I think even the Senate, I think the Space Force is in a good position,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Lamborn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As chairman of the committee, Lamborn said his top priority is the Pentagon’s hypersonics programs. The pace of development is \u201cway too slow,\u201d and he\u2019s looking to increase funding in the defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, for \u201cdifferent testing capabilities and facilities\u201d to hopefully accelerate schedules, Lamborn said.<\/p>\n

In addition to offensive hypersonic missiles, Lamborn said his committee is adding language calling for a \u201cvery active\u201d and robust schedule to field systems that can defend against hypersonics.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pentagon confirmed last week that Ukraine recently\u00a0used a Patriot missile system<\/a>\u00a0to take out a Russian hypersonic missile, the Kinzhal.<\/p>\n

However, Lamborn said the scenario in Ukraine doesn\u2019t mean the U.S. could do the same against a Chinese hypersonic missile.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cRussia has a history of exaggerating their capabilities. It may have been a primitive\u2014that is, an older-generation hypersonic weapon that a Patriot would be fully capable of intercepting,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Another priority for the chairman is keeping the Pentagon\u2019s nuclear triad\u2014bombers, submarines, and intercontinental ballistic missiles\u2014on track. There\u2019s concern that \u201cwe’re starting to lose the cushion that we have in any of these programs,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> Lamborn said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A major problem for U.S. nuclear programs is\u00a0plutonium-pit production<\/a>,<\/strong> Lamborn said. Plutonium pits are part of the fission-fusion chain that creates a thermonuclear explosion.\u201cI’m concerned that we have some possible delays coming up in pit production. And I know that the people running different aspects of the program have contingency plans in place, but I hope it doesn’t come to the point where we have to start looking at contingencies,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Congress monitors the Pentagon\u2019s nuke programs, Lamborn said there will be bipartisan agreement in the NDAA to keep funding research and development for the Navy\u2019s nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, despite\u00a0multiple attempts<\/a>\u00a0from the Biden administration to kill the program, with the goal of \u201cultimately fielding SLCM-N.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the committee’s space portfolio, Lamborn said he\u2019s focused on ensuring that the Space Force has the \u201cmaximum launch capacity as a country that we can, both in the short term and long term.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now three years since the Space Force was created, Lamborn said he\u2019s happy with the newest service\u2019s progress but there\u2019s \u201ca little ways to go\u201d as he\u2019s heard complaints from industry that there\u2019s still too much red tape when a company wants to work with the Space Force.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lawmakers are also \u201cvery frustrated\u201d with the service\u2019s overclassification of information, Lamborn said, which makes it difficult to share information with the government, industry, partners and allies\u2014and explain the Space Force\u2019s \u201ccritical needs” to the public.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to legislate a cultural change, but \u201cthe next best thing we can do is to highlight the need to be more open while walking that fine line of not divulging proprietary information to the other side,\u201d he said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 05\/19\/2023 – 20:20<\/span><\/p>\n

From:Zerohedge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hypersonics, Nukes Top House Lawmaker’s Priorities List Authored by Audrey Decker via DefenseOne.com, Hypersonic missiles and nuclear weapons will get top priority when the House…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1289970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-5pzY","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1289970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1289970\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1289970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1289970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1289970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}