FUNDING AND SENSE OF CONGRESS FOR ICBM MODERNIZATION PROGRAM

SEC. 231. FUNDING AND SENSE OF CONGRESS FOR ICBM MODERNIZATION PROGRAM (a) Program Funding.— Of the amount appropriated for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 1991, not more than $687,671,000 shall be available for the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) modernization program, of which not more than $680,208,000 shall be available for the rail garrison MX (RGMX) program and the small ICBM (SICBM) program. (b) Sense of Congress.— It is the sense of Congress that— (1) research and development of the RGMX and SICBM is a prudent and necessary hedge (A) against the robust Soviet strategic nuclear modernization program and, in particular, Soviet rail- and road-mobile ICBM programs, (B) against possible future threats to the invulnerability of the sea-based leg of the strategic Triad, and (C) to help ensure the continued stability of the strategic balance as the United States negotiates reductions in its strategic forces under the prospective Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) agreement and the planned follow-on negotiations for further reductions; (2) the two-missile mobile ICBM modernization program has failed to achieve the political consensus necessary for deployment of both systems; (3) as long as peaceful trends continue in the Soviet Union, the defense budget of the United States is likely to continue to decline in the future, making the deployment of both the RGMX system and the SICBM system unaffordable; (4) at a minimum the United States should continue to develop the SICBM system for deployment in silos to meet future United States ICBM modernization requirements and arms control objectives, while preserving a realistic option for subsequent mobile basing should future strategic or arms control developments so require; and (5) any funds obligated or expended for the RGMX system should be used only to conduct critical activities needed to complete research, development, test, and evaluation and maintain the key technologies for that system on a stand-by or “moth ball” status.