The Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees expressing concern on a provision in the Senate’s defense policy measure that would limit the Pentagon’s ability to develop a space-based missile defense architecture, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.
According to the report, the Senate’s proposed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2020 would designate the Missile Defense Agency to oversee the development and deployment of the architecture designed to detect and track hypersonic weapons.
OMB said the Department of Defense should wait for the MDA to complete its analysis of alternatives and the Space Development Agency to finish its prototyping efforts before designating a lead agency and establishing design requirements.
Other issues raised by the Trump administration in the letter are the need to have a legislative authority to establish the Space Force; oversight of DoD execute orders; military operations in the information environment; authorized budget for unmanned surface vessels; and reprioritization of military construction funds to unrequested projects.
Russell Vought, acting OMB director, wrote in the letter that the administration commends the Senate’s support for the nuclear deterrent enterprise and supports the extension of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.
