The $269.7 billion military spending bill for the next fiscal year was approved by the Senate Thursday night, but not before the lawmakers nixed a proposal to develop a mobile MX missile.
The action ended formal Senate consideration of the largest appropriations bill in the federal budget and sent the measure to a conference committee with the House where a compromise proposal will be worked out.Final passage in the Senate occurred four days before the end of the current fiscal year.
Prior to final passage by voice vote, the Senate voted 67-33 to strip $250 million from the bill needed to conduct a test firing of the rail-based MX missile.
A successful test firing would have given defense planners confidence the system would work if built and deployed. Blocking the test effectively kills the program to deploy the MX on rail cars rather than in silos.
There are 50 of the 10-warhead MX missiles in silos and the administration has designated the rail-based plan as its preference for a mobile missile system. The system proposes two missiles per train, which could be ready to disperse from shelters in an emergency.
"This is an affordable program. We wish to have the final test and then set it aside. If, God forbid, there is an occasion on which this must be revived, we will be ready," said Sen. Daniel Inoyue, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee.
Sen. James Exon, D-Neb., a leading opponent of the MX missile, argued the Senate was being driven by a "mania" that because Moscow has mobile missiles "we have got to have a mobile system whether we need it or not. This tit-for-tat attitude has got to stop."
Still in the research phase is a single-warhead mobile missile dubbed the "Midgetman."
In other actions on the military spending bill Thursday, the Senate:
-Barred firms that the president certifies helped Iraq build or work on weapons of mass destruction from importing goods to the United States.
-Told the Pentagon it cannot sign contracts with firms that honor an Arab boycott of Israel.
-Defeated a move to stop development of another Seawolf attack submarine, which would have effectively killed the entire program.
-Added $5 million to help pay for a new U.S. office in Hanoi to work on POW-MIA issues.
On Wednesday, the Senate rejected an attempt to halt the B-2 bomber program at the three planes flying and 12 others on order, and killed an effort to cut $1.1 billion from a proposal to spend $4.6 billion on the Strategic Defense Initiative, the spaced-based missile defense system also known as "Star Wars."
The bill reduces active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine forces by 106,358 people to 1.88 million, and cuts the National Guard and reserves by 35,166 people to 1.14 million.
It also provides $1.2 billion for environmental cleanup at U.S. military installations.