U.S. Representative Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on the Fiscal Year 2025 budget request for missile defense and missile defeat programs.
Rep. Lamborn's remarks as prepared for delivery:
The subcommittee meets today to review the Department's fiscal year 2025 budget request for missile defense capabilities, and I have a number of concerns.
First, the overall level of funding is inadequate given today's threat environment. The FY25 budget requests $10.4 billion for the Missile Defense Agency – that's over $400 million less than FY24, and almost a billion dollars below the level projected for FY25 in last year's FYDP.
I want to reiterate this point: The FY25 budget request for the Missile Defense Agency is $960 million – almost one billion dollars – below the level planned for in last year's budget.
Furthermore, these draconian cuts are not limited to just FY25. The out-year spending projections included in this budget envision continued reductions in missile defense spending.
Compared to the spending plan in the budget submitted last year, this budget forecasts cutting over $2.6 billion in missile defense funding between FY25 and FY28.
To achieve these cuts, this budget would make several concerning decisions, including terminating the production line for SM3 bloc interceptor, and eliminating competition by prematurely down-selecting to single contractors on both the Next Generation Interceptor and Glide Phase Interceptor programs.
I know we'll get into these issues in greater detail, but, in the case of the Glide Phase Interceptor, I think it's important to note that this down-selection is occurring 5 years earlier than planned and before the preliminary design review is held. I am extremely concerned that we will simply not have sufficient technical data to make an informed choice between competing concepts for this program. The Glide Phase Interceptor is the only capability in development specifically designed to combat the growing hypersonic threats we face. It is vitally important to our national security that we get this program right. We should be investing in a robust program that delivers an effective capability to our warfighters on a schedule that meets the threat. That is what Congress mandated in Section 1666 of last year's defense authorization bill, but this budget would do the opposite.
Overall, I am concerned that these decisions simply accept too much risk, and that missile defense appears to have become a bill-payer for other capabilities in this budget.
This is difficult to understand given the growth in missile threats, the extremely high demand for missile defense capabilities from combatant commanders, and the visible evidence of the value these capabilities bring to the fight on full display in the Red Sea, Ukraine and Israel. I look forward to hearing more from our witnesses about how this budget impacts their programs, and their assessment of the risks contained in this budget.
