Lawmakers who created an independent commission to study U.S. nuclear modernization efforts without estimating the cost, now want to see what replacing all three legs of the triad and rehabbing the National Nuclear Security Administration will cost. 

During a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, several representatives — all Democrats — dinged the leaders of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States for not providing cost estimates in a 160-page report laying out the panel’s findings. 

Former Sen. John Kyl, a Republican from Arizona and vice chair of the commission, parried the questions by simply saying that calculating cost was not in the panel’s mandate from Congress. Kyl was flanked on the witness table by commission Chair Madelyn Creedon, now a non-resident fellow in foreign policy at Brookings but previously the principal deputy administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

“Your remit to our commission was not to develop a cost analysis and we did not do that,” Kyl said in his opening remarks, a version of which he offered to every question about how much nuclear modernization would cost. 

“I think it would have been too difficult to do any of that because much of what needs to be done in the future has yet to be decided. The commission can see very clearly what kind of requirements we need to meet, what kind of capabilities we need to have, but precisely what weapon systems comprise that, that’s will remain to be seen and therefore it’s very difficult to put a cost to it,” said Kyl.

Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) led the charge in his written opening statement, saying he is disappointed that the report did not address the cost of replacing so many nuclear weapons delivery systems as well as the huge cost of refurbishing the NNSA’s ability to make plutonium pits.

“Where I am most disappointed with this report is the fact that there is no mention of what any of these recommendations will cost,” Smith wrote. “With oversight of the entire defense budget, providing this committee a list of recommendations without any discussion of prioritization or budget implications is irresponsible.”

Smith was absent from the opening portion of the hearing, though his written testimony was entered into the record and echoed by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) at the top of the hearing. Smith put the cost issue to the witnesses when he appeared on the dias about halfway through the 90-minute hearing.

Along with a new strategic bomber and a replacement for the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile, Smith singled out the cost of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s aspirations to build 80 plutonium pits per year sometime after 2030.

“Every system we’re talking about upgrading right now is significantly over budget, whether it’s Sentinel [ground-based strategic deterrent]; I guess the B-21 is kind of hanging in there, but pit production is overwhelming,” he said. “And when you lay out all of those options, do you have any ideas for us where okay here is a more cost-effective way to make sure that we have an adequate deterrent?” 

Reps. Salud Carbajal and Sara Jacobs, both Democrats from California, piled on, asking similar questions about what modernizing almost every aspect of the U.S. nuclear enterprise would cost taxpayers and whether the entire effort was affordable in the end. They were joined by Rep. Jim Garamendi, another Democrat from California and one of the Arms Services Committee’s most reliably anti-nuclear members.

“Our writ did not include the development of cost estimates for all these things,” Kyl responded to each.