[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 21 (Monday, March 4, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1407-S1411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COSTS OF NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE
Mr. KYL. Madam President, on January 28, I addressed the reasons why
I believe the President is correct to move this nation forward in the
deployment of a national missile defense. I pointed out then that the
threat is too great not to proceed when the technical means are at
hand.
Today, I wish to address the issue of the costs of defending America
against the threat of ballistic missile attack. At the end of January,
the Congressional Budget Office released yet another of its reports
purporting to show the costs to the American taxpayer of a system to
defend the United States against such an attack. Opponents of missile
defense rushed to use the study to bolster their arguments. For reasons
I will discuss, portions of the CBO report are seriously flawed, and
opponents' cost arguments are fallacious. Today, I intend to set the
record straight, and to demonstrate that we can afford missile defense.
The first problem with the CBO report is that it was prepared at the
request of national missile defense skeptics various Senators who
carefully defined the options they wanted analyzed in their letter to
the CBO. As a result,
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CBO, as with its April 2000 report, provides a selection of options,
with high and low estimates for each option, none of which necessarily
reflects the actual system that will be built. Each is representative
only of possibilities, and many are not being contemplated. As such,
CBO's estimates tend to range from around $40 billion over 14 or 15
years to around $187 billion. The high-end numbers, however, are
derived from options that exceed anything the Department of Defense is
considering. Options that can be used to inflate the cost of missile
defenses include increasing the number of land-based interceptor sites,
the number of X-band radars on land and at sea, the number of
satellites in constellations, the number of ships that will have to be
built versus modifying existing ships for sea-based assets, and so on.
Also, CBO's cost estimates vary widely, depending upon which of its
scenarios and assumptions one wishes to use. For example, its April
2000 report includes cost estimates for one and two ground-based sites
with varying numbers of interceptors and X-Band radars and associated
space-based sensors, ranging from $29 billion to $60 billion. This wide
variance in estimates--a factor of 100--renders its analysis virtually
meaningless, except for the rhetorical use of opponents.
The high range of the new study--$187 billion--is CBO's estimate of
the cost of a 3-site national missile defense system and a full
constellation of space-based lasers--an option not planned by the
either the Clinton or Bush Administrations. This tactic of inflating
the cost of national missile defense was similarly employed in the 2000
study.
At least part of the reason for this methodology again can be laid at
the feet of the report's sponsors. CBO has estimated the cost of a
national missile defense employing the artificially derived assumptions
required by the letter from the Senators. It was their letter, not any
Department of Defense plan, that required the CBO study to include the
cost of the nonexistent third site. The same letter also requested cost
estimates for a stand-alone sea-based midcourse system, despite the
fact that no such system is envisioned by the Administration. It
should, therefore, be no surprise that CBO came up with a high estimate
in the neighborhood of $187 billion to build the national missile
defense system defined by its skeptics rather than the Defense
Department.
To CBO's credit, it denied the request of the sponsors' letter to
include in its estimate Brilliant Pebbles--canceled in 1993--and
appropriately treated as ``conceptual'' the sea-based boost-phase
kinetic energy idea. CBO explained its reluctance to factor into its
study cost estimates for Brilliant Pebbles by noting that:
the most recent complete technical description of [Brilliant
Pebbles] dates from 1992 [and] little additional work has
been done on space-based interceptors since Brilliant Pebbles
was terminated early in the Clinton Administration.
With regard to a sea-based boost phase kinetic energy, it writes
that:
sea-based boost-phase defenses are . . . currently in the
very early stages of conceptual development [and] there are
substantial uncertainties regarding the needed capabilities,
system architecture, technologies, and schedule for
developing and deploying such defenses.
I should note that I remain a strong supporter of Brilliant Pebbles
and hope that it is seriously pursued at some point in the future. That
the program's revival would entail financial costs is, of course, a
given, if it were ever actually considered.
CBO did include an estimated cost of $68 billion for a 24-satellite
constellation of Space-Based Lasers, despite the Appropriations
Committees having killed the long-range program, the Administration's
budget request reflecting little emphasis on that program, and despite
the fact that very little is known about the characteristics of any
such satellites that may eventually be built. CBO also included in its
estimate the construction of nine new AEGIS ships, each outfitted with
35 advanced interceptors, while omitting consideration of the
possibility of converting existing AEGIS ships for the new mission.
At the request of the Senators who requested the study, CBO also
priced options as though they will all develop and deploy concurrently,
and without regard for the relationships between programs. In other
words, it estimated program costs in what we call a ``stovepipe''
fashion: programs exist parallel to and independent of each other.
Deliberately ignored by the report's congressional sponsors is the
common base from which these programs develop and from which they will
operate, for example, feeding off of common sensor and processors. Once
again, CBO warned against using such an approach. To quote again from
its cover letter to Senators:
(A)s you requested, CBO's assumptions about the architecture
and components of the sea-based system reflect its use as a
stand-alone system, not as an adjunct to a ground-based
system.
To summarize, then, CBO's high-end estimates are derived from the
following questionable practices requested by Senators:
No. 1, use of exaggerated scenarios, for example, the third ground-
based site and the construction of new ships;
No. 2, inclusion of drawing board programs that may or may not be
included in some distant architecture, but certainly won't be developed
concurrent with other covered programs; and
No. 3, use of pricing and inventory requirement methodologies that
may bear little or no relationship to a national missile defense
system.
The second problem with the analysis is the context.
It assumes circumstances similar to other weapon acquisition
programs. But the development of missile defenses, does not easily
allow for such analysis. Unlike a new aircraft, for example, there is
no existing national missile defense system from which to draw
comparisons to programs under development. A decade of lost opportunity
has left us with no alternatives but to field the systems currently
under development.
Yet, look at some of CBO's assumptions from its April 2000 report,
which attempt to redefine a missile defense program to some
hypothetical norm:
Differing estimates for procurement arise for two reasons.
First, CBO believes that in addition to the 100 deployed
interceptors, the system would need 82 additional
interceptors to use in testing and to replace ones lost in
accidents or engagements. The Administration puts the number
of additional interceptors at 47. However, CBO's larger
figure is more consistent with the experience of previous
missile programs. It includes 20 additional interceptors for
operational testing and evaluation because CBO assumes that
the system will need a total of 30 tests over its first five
years of operations. (The Peacekeeper missile program
conducted about 20 tests during its initial five years of
operations, and the Navy's Trident missile program conducted
about 40 tests in its first five years.) In addition, CBO
projects that a greater number of spare interceptors (20
instead of five) will be necessary to replace ones that are
destroyed during engagement or tests and to allow for
unforeseen events such as damage during maintenance.
The problem with this approach is that it estimates the cost of a
make-believe program. It devises a program it thinks will be necessary
and runs the numbers on that. With regard to the number of additional
interceptors required for testing and spares, for example, CBO relies
on the histories of ballistic missile programs that have no bearing on
or relationship to the air defense interceptors being contemplated.
To summarize, then, the CBO report includes a very wide variance of
costs, depending upon a number of variables, many of which may bear no
relationship to the eventual system architecture, and it derives
assumptions based upon the experience of programs that have little or
no relationship to the components of a missile defense system.
The second point relates to the tactics of missile defense opponents.
Missile defense opponents, such as the sponsors of the CBO report,
invariably employ a series of misleading arguments to advance their
case against missile defense. One is the misuse of total program life-
cycle costs. Another involves the use of improperly derived cost
estimates by adding together numbers that even CBO clearly states
should not be added. A third argument used by missile defense opponents
is that money spent on missile defense programs comes at the expense of
other programs.
With regard to argument number one, it is not fair to evaluate the
cost of a program without spreading it out over the life of the
program. But many
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missile defense opponents do precisely that. CBO's estimates are for a
14-year time span. To cavalierly throw total program life-cycle costs
around without regard to annual expenditures is to distort the debate
over the program's value. As one analyst exposed the problem:
Estimating the cost of missile defenses over a 14-year
period would have been akin to devising a similar cost
estimate in 1958 for the cost of five generations of
intercontinental ballistic missiles (the Titan I, the Titan
II, the Minuteman I, II, and III) through 1972. If the
procurement cost of these systems--likely more than $200
billion--had been debated prior to the decision to develop
ballistic missiles, perhaps Congress would have been equally
shocked by the ``sticker price'' of deploying a nuclear
deterrent for the next 14 years.
The second argument or tactic of missile defense opponents involves a
misuse of data contained in the CBO report despite CBO warnings. For
example, if one simply adds the various high-end estimates, ignoring
the lower estimates and CBO's own caveats against taking such an
approach, it could appear as though the cost of a National Missile
Defense system would exceed $180 billion. And it turns out that is
exactly the conclusion the report's congressional sponsors emphasize.
In their prepared statement issued upon release of the report, the
three senators wrote the following: ``The report . . . shows that
developing, deploying, and maintaining a modest layered system that
includes ground, sea and space-based elements could easily cost well
over $150 billion.'' Yet, the CBO stated in its cover letter to the
Senate sponsors, ``The cost estimates that CBO has prepared for
individual systems should not be added together to yield an estimate of
the total potential costs of national missile defense.'' But that is
precisely what Senate opponents of missile defense are doing.
Missile defense opponents use the high-end CBO estimate as a baseline
from which the rhetoric escalates to even higher cost estimates. Some
examples:
One of our esteemed colleagues, in a floor statement on June 25,
stated the following:
The Congressional Budget Office in an April 2000 report
concluded that the most limited national missile defense
system would cost $30 billion . . . If we hope to defend
against the accidental launch of numerous highly
sophisticated missiles of the type that are now in Russia's
arsenal, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the
cost will almost double, to $60 billion . . . This is what
the Congressional Budget Office had to say in March 2001:
Those estimates from April 2000 may now be too low . . . Is
it any wonder that some critics believe that a workable
national missile defense system will cost more than $120
billion?
From $30 billion to $120 billion.
Another Senator was described in the New York Times on September 11
as saying that:
``The cheapest system proposed by the Bush Administration .
. . would cost $60 billion over 20 years, but could rise to
as much as $120 billion . . . A more complicated system that
would combat decoys or munitions that carry biological
weapons--known as a layered defense would cost between one-
quarter trillion and half a trillion dollars,'' Mr. Biden
said.
This Senator is reported to have said, that quickly, the estimated
cost to defend the American public from ballistic missile attack, in
the eyes of those who oppose any such defenses, went from CBO's lowest
number of $40 billion to ``one-quarter trillion.'' Exaggeration? Yes.
Inevitably, cost estimates for missile defense are used out of
context. The use of exaggerated lump-sum figures to portray national
missile defense in the most negative light is intellectually dishonest.
Even many critics of national missile defense claim to support the
components to defend against shorter range missiles, like Iraqi Scuds.
Taking such support for theater missile defense programs into
account, the remaining portion of the overall missile defense budget
allocated for defense of American cities usually represents less than
two percent of the defense budget. That's right: less than two percent.
The fiscal year defense appropriations bill included $331 billion. Of
the $8.2 billion in that bill authorized for missile defense, only $3.8
billion is directed toward the so-called midcourse segment, which
includes the ground and sea-based systems capable of intercepting
intercontinental-range missiles. That amounts to one percent of the
fiscal year 2002 defense budget for national missile defense. I will
repeat that.
That amounts to one percent of the fiscal year 2002 defense budget
for national missile defense.
For fiscal year 2003, the defense budget request is $379 billion. The
amount requested for missile defenses is $7.8 billion. Of that amount,
again, around $3 billion will go for systems designed to defend the
United States. Again, that is only one percent for National Missile
Defense programs. The Department of Defense's budget documents show
that the annual expenditure for all missile defense programs will rise
to $11 billion in 2007, a time when total defense spending is expected
to be around $450 billion. So, in 2007, when national missile defense
programs will be in or near the operational stage of development, and
assuming they represent as much as half of all missile defense
programs, they will still represent only one to two percent of defense
spending, while all missile defense programs constitute two to three
percent.
A third argument is that missile defense will rob other needy
programs of necessary funding.
Some folks try to portray the missile defense programs as robbing
from other more important things, more pressing national security
requirements, and other needs more close to the heart of the American
people.
For example--and I will just quote one or two of these--the Senators,
in their statement accompanying the release of the new CBO report,
write:
If the Administration decides to pursue such a costly
program, it could draw resources away from programs to
counter other, more likely and more immediate threats we know
we face: terrorism, attacks with anthrax or other biological
and chemical agents, the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction, and delivery systems that are far more likely to
be used than are ballistic missiles, such as trucks, ships,
airplanes, and suitcases.
One of the Senators involved here is the majority leader. It is my
understanding that the distinguished majority leader has proposed to
pay for the approximately $15 billion in energy subsidies in the energy
bill that we are going to be taking up perhaps this week by offsetting
that with the user fees that are collected by the Customs Agency.
U.S. Customs has a responsibility in this war on terror, a very
serious responsibility. As these Senators pointed out, one of the
likely possibilities, anyway, of threat to the United States is the
delivery of a weapon of mass destruction in the cargo hold of a ship.
That, of course, is exactly the kind of thing for which Customs is
supposed to check.
So on the one hand the distinguished majority leader is at least
recorded as having suggested that we take money away from the Customs
Service, money which could be spent to check this kind of thing, and
pay for subsidies in the energy bill with that funding. It is my belief
that we should do both. We have to leave the Customs fees with the
Customs Service which has a massive responsibility. They need more
money, not less, to do what we want them to do with their regular job
as well as fighting the war on terror.
We also need to spend the kind of money that is required to ensure
that we do not have a threat from ballistic missile attack. We can and
should do both.
Other Senators made similar comments, but I believe these arguments
are demonstrably wrong. I will illustrate why with discussion on three
brief points: First of all, spending to protect our Nation from another
terrorist attack; secondly, costs of other weapons programs; and,
third, what I would call porkbarrel spending.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, the United States
had budgeted $10.3 billion to combat terrorism for fiscal year 2002.
That was before September 11. Back in August, once again, the
Congressional Research Service had provided my office estimated federal
expenditures for border security of $14 billion for the current fiscal
year. Taking into account some degree of overlap, we can reasonably
surmise that between $15 billion and $20 billion was budgeted by the
Bush administration for what we now call ``homeland defense'' before
the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
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Pentagon. And this omits the $20 billion from the emergency
supplemental and the cost of ongoing military operations intended to
eliminate the terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan, as well as a
supplemental appropriations request we will soon receive in the range
of $10 to $20 billion.
The budget request for fiscal year 2003 includes $38 billion for
homeland security, double the amount for 2002. In addition, the amount
budgeted for national defense will be $379 billion, almost all for
conventional and special forces. Compare that with the $3 billion we
are spending on national missile defense. Clearly, the opponents'
claims that other defense and domestic security projects, especially
our efforts to deal with terrorism, are suffering because of missile
defense are just plain wrong.
How about other weapons programs?
The total costs of any major procurement program can appear daunting.
Tactical fighter modernization--the development and acquisition of the
F/A-18E/F, the F-22, and Joint Strike Fighter--is anticipated, if we
accept CBO's numbers, to cost $350 billion through the year 2020.
To date, we have spent over $10 billion on the V-22 Osprey program,
which continues to prove a developmental headache and accidents of
which have cost the lives of 30 Marines. The Department of Defense
calculates that the V-22 program will cost a total of $38 billion.
These are all high total costs. Taken out of context, they can be
exploited by opponents of individual programs. The $350 billion figure
for tactical fighter modernization, in particular, has been used to
buttress arguments against these aircraft, given the absence of a
serious threat to U.S. air superiority.
Such arguments, however, would be misleading. They ignore the
imponderables, such as the need to ensure air superiority throughout
much of the 21st century, and the fact that procurement costs are
spread out over many years. They ignore cost-benefit analyses that
demonstrate fewer units required to accomplish missions that require
far greater numbers of older, less capable models. They ignore missions
assigned to platforms that may not be readily apparent because they do
not fit into conventional images of how such platforms are used.
So, it is not persuasive to argue against missile defense based on
the seemingly large total cost spent over time.
Finally, what about he argument that other needs go unmet because of
what we would be spending on missile defenses? We rarely hear many of
these same critics decrying the expenditure of considerable amounts of
taxpayer money for porkbarrel projects that contribute neither to
national security nor to our economic well-being. I direct my
colleagues attention, for example, to the February 6 column by Robert
Samuelson in the Washington Post. Samuelson notes that, ``since 1978,
federal outlays to support farmers' incomes have exceeded $300
billion.'' Samuelson goes on to write: ``But wait: Congress is about to
expand the subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that
new farm legislation would increase costs by $65 billion over a 10-year
period, on top of the $128.5 billion of existing programs.''
These figures make what we are spending on national missile defense
pale by comparison.
Samuelson's column argues persuasively that the $300 billion in farm
subsidies have had no--repeat, no--discernable impact on agricultural
production in the United States, on farmer incomes, or on the
contraction in the number of small family farms.
My colleague Senator McCain regularly produces lists of items added
to spending bills for purely parochial reasons. For example, he
identified $3.6 billion worth of pure pork in the current year's
defense appropriations bill--an amount exceeding our expenditure for
national missile defense. And this is an annual phenomenon and
represents just one of the 13 annual appropriations bills, all of which
are loaded up with pork every year. Senator McCain estimated that the
total spent on pork for fiscal year 2002 equals $15 billion three times
the amount historically spent on missile defense programs per year.
As a final thought, when discussing the cost of a national missile
defense system, we should attempt to inject a little integrity into the
process. The liberal public policy organization, The Center for Defense
Information, recently published a report concluding that, since 1983,
the United States has spent ``roughly $44 billion'' on national missile
defense. The implication is intended to be that we have nothing to show
for all that money, and should not spend more. The center further
concludes that the cost of a three-site national missile defense
system--the nonexistent third site that I mentioned earlier--would
``likely'' cost more than $60 billion.
The $44 billion spent since 1983 on national missile defense amounts
to $2.3 billion per year--less than 1 percent of defense spending. The
suggestion that we have little or nothing to show for the money spent
ignores two very important facts: No. 1, the research and development
effort has given us a strong base of knowledge for what is technically
feasible; has contributed to the development of the theater and short-
range systems such as the Patriot PAC-3 that most of us agree are
needed; and has generated a large number of technological spinoffs, for
example, in the areas of cancer screening, computer chip production,
and laser eye surgery; and, second, to the extent not all of the money
was spent to produce a deployable system, we must recognize that, for 8
years, we had an administration vehemently opposed to actually
developing and building a system to defend this country against missile
attack.
To the extent we did not make as much progress as could have been
accomplished, the 8 years that were ``lost'' was because the Clinton
administration was committed to the notion that we didn't need missile
defenses, that arms control and deterrence would protect us against
those who would do us harm. While money was spent on research, there
was no commitment to actually deploy a national missile defense system.
Adherence to the ABM Treaty, which was considered ``the cornerstone of
strategic stability,'' was sacrosanct. As Deputy Defense Secretary
Wolfowitz, in response to an inquiry regarding the eventual cost of the
Bush administration's missile defense plans, said in his July 12
statement before the Armed Services Committee:
. . . we have not yet chosen a systems architecture to
deploy. We are not in a position to do so because so many
promising technologies were not pursued in the past. The
program we inherited was designed not for maximum
effectiveness, but to remain within the constraints of the
ABM Treaty.
That is the real problem.
So in conclusion, there is no question that the cost to build a
national missile defense system will be high. Freedom is not free. We
do not know the exact cost, both because we are struggling to make up
for lost time and we were constrained by an outdated treaty from which
President Bush is wisely extricating us. We do not know how many
satellites we will need, because political decisions are still to be
made regarding the scale of the threat against which a defensive system
will be deployed. And we are only now getting a handle on questions
that should have been answered years ago, for example, the feasibility
of various technologies for interceptors and sensors.
While we don't know precisely how much it will cost to build a
national missile defense system, we do have some sense of what it could
cost if we don't build one. A nuclear-armed missile targeted against
New York City would do far more damage than did the aircraft that
struck the World Trade Center. It would, in fact, destroy the city. The
ramifications for the people, the whole country, and our national
economy would, obviously, be enormous.
Just to try to quantify the fiscal costs, the Congressional Research
Service states that most credible projections of the cost to the
insurance industry from the September 11 attacks range from $40 to $70
billion. And that's just the impact on the insurance industry. Arnaud
de Borchgrave discussed the impact on the economy in a recent column in
the Washington Times, stating, ``. . . the accumulated damage to the
U.S. and world economies is now thought to be almost $700 billion.''
Obviously, the cost in human lives is incalculable.
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The cost of a system to defend against that attack would be minuscule
in comparison. In fact, as pointed out, the cost of defending against
terrorist attacks employing weapons of mass destruction, or even
conventional weapons, far exceeds what we spend on missile defenses.
The missile threat develops faster than does the means to counter it.
We are neither spending extravagantly, nor inappropriately. We are
seeking to deploy a layered defense that optimizes technologies that
have been developed over the past two decades, and that are continuing
to evolve.
Opponents of national missile defense are free to continue to oppose
the President's plan. That is their right. There is an old saying,
though. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion; no one is
entitled to his or her own facts. Missile defense programs should be
discussed with the same respect for context and intellectual honesty
that we afford the programs on which the other 98 percent of the
defense budget is allocated. Only then, can we make the informed
decisions we were sent here to make.
That concludes my remarks on this matter of the cost of national
ballistic missile defense. I spoke before on the need for national
missile defense, and I will speak in the future on the question of the
legal authority of the President to withdraw the United States from the
1972 ABM Treaty.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. COLLINS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Ms. COLLINS. Are we in morning business?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct.
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