[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2422 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
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119th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 2422
To pause development of the new Sentinel program, extend the life of
the Minuteman III, and redirect savings from Sentinel toward the
Department of Education, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 23, 2025
Mr. Markey (for himself, Mr. Sanders, Mr. Merkley, and Mr. Van Hollen)
introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the
Committee on Armed Services
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To pause development of the new Sentinel program, extend the life of
the Minuteman III, and redirect savings from Sentinel toward the
Department of Education, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Investing in Children Before
Missiles Act of 2025'' or the ``ICBM Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) According to the Congressional Budget Office, the
projected cost to sustain and modernize the United States
nuclear arsenal, as of 2025, is ``$946 billion over the 2025-
2034 period, or an average of about $95 billion a year'', and
nuclear forces account for 8.4 percent of the total 10-year
cost of the plans for national defense outlined in the
President's 2025 budget submission.
(2) In September 2020, the Air Force awarded a sole-source
contract to Northrop Grumman for the ground-based strategic
deterrent program (now called Sentinel intercontinental
ballistic missile program), raising concerns that the absence
of competition for the award would result in higher than
projected costs to United States taxpayers. The program is
intended to replace 400 deployed Minuteman III missiles with
more than 600 new missiles, to allow for test flights and
spares.
(3) The Sentinel program has encountered significant cost
growth and schedule delays in recent years, and the full extent
of both remains uncertain as the Department of Defense is
currently restructuring the program.
(4) In January 2024, increases in the total costs of the
Sentinel program triggered a review under chapter 325 of title
10, United States Code (commonly known as the ``Nunn-McCurdy
Act''), which is intended to determine whether a program that
has experienced large cost overruns should continue, and what,
if any, changes should be made to control costs.
(5) In July 2024, the Department of Defense completed that
review and released a new estimate of total costs for the
program of $141,000,000,000 in constant 2020 dollars, which is
81 percent (or $63,000,000,000) larger than the program's
baseline 2020 estimate of $78,000,000,000. The total estimated
life cycle cost of the Sentinel program (not including
warheads) was estimated by the Department of Defense to be
$260,000,000,000 in 2020 and is undoubtedly higher today.
(6) In May 2025, the Air Force announced the Sentinel
program will likely ``predominantly'' require digging fresh
missile silos, a significant change from previous plans to
reuse existing silos and a move that would likely cause further
significant cost increases and schedule delays.
(7) According to public reports, officials of the
Department of Defense expect the restructuring effort to delay
the Sentinel program by several years. The Department of
Defense's 2025 budget plans called for initial operating
capability to be achieved in May 2029, a date that, as of the
date of the enactment of this Act, looks unachievable. The Air
Force is considering contingency plans that would extend the
life of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles by 11
more years to 2050 if delays continue to plague the Sentinel
missiles intended to replace them.
(8) The National Nuclear Security Administration is
developing a replacement intercontinental ballistic missile
warhead, the W87-1, for the Sentinel and expanding plutonium
pit production to build new warhead cores, costing at least
$14,000,000,000 and $18,000,000,000, respectively.
(9) Even in the absence of an intercontinental ballistic
missile leg of the triad, the United States would have an
assured retaliatory capability in the form of multiple
ballistic missile submarines, which are virtually undetectable,
and there are no known, near-term credible threats to the
survivability of the ballistic missile submarine force. The
survivability of the submarine force will be enhanced as the
Department of Defense moves to replace the Ohio class ballistic
submarine fleet with the new Columbia class ballistic missile
fleet.
(10) While intercontinental ballistic missiles have
historically been the most responsive leg of the United States
nuclear triad, advances in ballistic missile submarine
communications to allow for the dissemination of emergency
action messages in wartime have negated that advantage.
(11) Intercontinental ballistic missiles based in silos are
vulnerable and, once launched, cannot be recalled, leaving
decisionmakers with mere minutes to decide whether to launch
the missiles before they are destroyed, known as a posture of
``launch on warning'' or ``launch under attack'' in the face of
a perceived nuclear attack, greatly increasing the risk of a
national leader initiating a nuclear war by mistake.
(12) Under current policy, the President has the
authority--
(A) to launch United States nuclear weapons first
and is not limited to retaliation;
(B) to launch nuclear weapons under warning of
attack, rather than waiting for evidence of attack; and
(C) to launch nuclear weapons on the President's
sole order.
(13) False alarms have happened multiple times and can
happen again. For example, in 1980, a false alarm was reported
to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
and was almost reported up to President Jimmy Carter as a real
attack but was luckily identified in time. Recent Pentagon
reports have found that, as a result of cyberattacks, the
President could be faced with false warnings of attack or lose
the ability to control nuclear weapons.
(14) In 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a former lieutenant colonel
of the Soviet Air Defense Forces correctly identified a false
warning in an early warning system that showed several United
States incoming nuclear missiles, preventing Soviet leaders
from launching a retaliatory response, earning Colonel Petrov
the nickname ``the man who saved the world''.
(15) Former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry wrote
that the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad is
``destabilizing because it invites an attack'' and
intercontinental ballistic missiles are ``some of the most
dangerous weapons in the world'' and ``could even trigger an
accidental nuclear war''.
(16) General James Cartwright, former vice chair of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Commander of the United States
Strategic Command, wrote, with Secretary Perry, ``[T]he
greatest danger is not a Russian bolt but a US blunder--that we
might accidentally stumble into nuclear war. As we make
decisions about which weapons to buy, we should use this simple
rule: If a nuclear weapon increases the risk of accidental war
and is not needed to deter an intentional attack, we should not
build it. . . . Certain nuclear weapons, such as . . . the
[intercontinental ballistic missile], carry higher risks of
accidental war that, fortunately, we no longer need to bear. We
are safer without these expensive weapons, and it would be
foolish to replace them.''.
(17) General George Lee Butler, the former Commander-in-
Chief of the Strategic Air Command and subsequently Commander-
in-Chief of the United States Strategic Command, said, ``I
would have removed land-based missiles from our arsenal a long
time ago. I'd be happy to put that mission on the submarines.
So, with a significant fraction of bombers having a nuclear
weapons capability that can be restored to alert very quickly,
and with even a small component of Trident submarines--with all
those missiles and all those warheads on patrol--it's hard to
imagine we couldn't get by.''.
(18) While a sudden ``bolt from the blue'' first strike
from a near-peer nuclear adversary is a highly unlikely
scenario, extending the Minuteman III would maintain the
purported role of the intercontinental ballistic missile leg of
the triad to absorb such an attack.
SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY ON MINUTEMAN III, SENTINEL, AND EDUCATION
FUNDING.
It is the policy of the United States that--
(1) as of the date of the enactment of this Act, the
Sentinel program is significantly over budget and behind
schedule and should be paused and reevaluated for need and
technical merit;
(2) the operational life of the Minuteman III missile
should be safely extended until at least 2050; and
(3) investments in the Department of Education are a better
use of United States taxpayer resources than continuing with
the current Sentinel program.
SEC. 4. AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS FOR EDUCATION INSTEAD OF SENTINEL.
(a) Transfer From Department of Defense.--The Secretary of Defense
shall transfer all amounts appropriated to the Department of Defense
for the research, development, test, and evaluation of the Sentinel
program, and available for obligation as of the date of the enactment
of this Act, to the Department of Education to carry out part A of
title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (20
U.S.C. 6311 et seq.).
(b) Transfer From National Nuclear Security Administration.--The
Secretary of Energy shall transfer all amounts appropriated to the
National Nuclear Security Administration for the W87-1 warhead
modification program, and available for obligation as of the date of
the enactment of this Act, to the Department of Education to carry out
part A of title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
(20 U.S.C. 6311 et seq.).
SEC. 5. PROHIBITION ON USE OF FUNDS FOR GROUND-BASED STRATEGIC
DETERRENT PROGRAM AND W87-1 WARHEAD MODIFICATION PROGRAM.
None of the funds authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made
available for fiscal year 2026 may be obligated or expended for the
Sentinel program or the W87-1 warhead modification program.
SEC. 6. INDEPENDENT STUDY ON EXTENSION OF MINUTEMAN III
INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILES.
(a) Independent Study.--Not later than 30 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall seek to enter
into a contract with the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a
study on extending the life of Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic
missiles to 2050 or beyond.
(b) Staffing.--
(1) Experts.--The conduct of the study required by
subsection (a) shall include input from a wide variety of
technical and subject matter experts.
(2) Prohibition on certain air force employees.--No member
or former member of the Air Force or employee or former
employee of the Department of the Air Force who is or was paid
for work relating to the Sentinel program may participate in
the conduct of the study required by subsection (a).
(c) Elements.--The study required by subsection (a) shall address
the following:
(1) A comparison of the costs through 2050 of--
(A) extending the life of Minuteman III
intercontinental ballistic missiles; and
(B) deploying the Sentinel program.
(2) An analysis of opportunities to incorporate
technologies into the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic
missile program as part of a service life extension program
that could also be incorporated in a possible future Sentinel
program, including, at a minimum, opportunities to increase
resilience against adversary missile defenses.
(3) An analysis of the benefits and risks of incorporating
sensors and nondestructive testing methods and technologies to
reduce destructive testing requirements and increase the
service life and number of Minuteman III missiles through 2050.
(4) An analysis and validation of the methods used to
estimate the operational service life of Minuteman II and
Minuteman III motors, taking into account the test and launch
experience of motors retired after the operational service life
of such motors in the rocket systems launch program.
(5) An analysis of the risks and benefits of alternative
methods of estimating the operational service life of Minuteman
III motors, such as those methods based on fundamental physical
and chemical processes and nondestructive measurements of
individual motor properties.
(6) An analysis of risks, benefits, and costs of
configuring a Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic
missile for deployment in a Minuteman III silo.
(7) An analysis of the impacts of the estimated service
life of the Minuteman III force associated with decreasing the
deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles delivery vehicle
force from 400 to 300 or less.
(8) An assessment of the extent to which the Columbia class
ballistic missile submarines will possess features that will
enhance the current invulnerability of ballistic missile
submarines of the United States to future antisubmarine warfare
threats.
(9) An analysis of the extent to which an extension of the
life of the Minuteman III missiles would impact the decision of
the Russian Federation to target intercontinental ballistic
missiles of the United States in a crisis, compared to
proceeding with the Sentinel.
(10) A best case estimate of what percentage of the
strategic forces of the United States would survive a
counterforce strike from the Russian Federation, broken down by
intercontinental ballistic missiles, ballistic missile
submarines, and heavy bomber aircraft.
(11) The benefits, risks, and costs of relying on the W-78
warhead for either the Minuteman III or a new Sentinel missile
as compared to proceeding with the W-87 life extension.
(12) The benefits, risks, and costs of adding additional
launchers on submarines or uploading submarine-launched
ballistic missiles with additional warheads to compensate for a
reduced deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles of
the United States.
(d) Report Required.--
(1) Submission to department of defense.--Not later than
180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the
National Academy of Sciences shall submit to the Secretary of
Defense a report containing the results of the study conducted
under subsection (a).
(2) Submission to congress.--Not later than 210 days after
the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall
transmit to the appropriate congressional committees the report
required by paragraph (1), without change.
(3) Form.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall be
submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified
annex.
(4) Appropriate congressional committees defined.--In this
subsection, the term ``appropriate congressional committees''
means--
(A) the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee
on Foreign Relations, and the Committee on
Appropriations of the Senate; and
(B) the Committee on Armed Services, the Committee
on Foreign Affairs, and the Committee on Appropriations
of the House of Representatives.
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