The White House has voiced major opposition to the addition of $30 million to the defense budget for designing an East Coast missile defense site that potentially would be located at Fort Drum in New York or in northwestern Maine.
A report from the Office of Management and Budget says the Obama administration feels “the authorization is premature and other missile defense requirements have higher priority.”
It also opposed moving sea-based X-band radar systems to an East Coast site by 2020, saying it “does not take into consideration the threat environment or cost.”
Fort Drum is one of four sites under consideration for the East Coast missile site, along with Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center, Ohio; Naval Air Station Portsmouth SERE Training Area, Maine; and Fort Custer Training Center, Michigan.
The SERE Training Area is on 12,000 acres near Rangeley in northwestern Maine.
The site would be in addition to those at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Republicans have thrown their support behind a new site because of concerns about Iran and North Korea. Rep. Elise M. Stefanik, R-Willsboro, said the $30 million in funding was an important investment.
“Missile defense shields our nation from hostile incoming warheads, and with the escalation of threats by rogue nations, like North Korea and Iran, the United States must be ready, not just to retaliate, but to actually stop an attack,” she said in April.
However, the project has faced doubt from military officials.
Navy Vice Adm. James D. Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency, has described a new East Coast site as unnecessary on multiple occasions, saying the money is better used improving the military’s current sites.
Navy Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr., vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a discussion Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies that no decision has been made about establishing an East Coast site.
“Our current sites — Vandenberg and Fort Greeley in Alaska — protect the U.S. homeland from the existing and the projected ICBM threat from North Korea and Iran should either of them really emerge,” he said, according to a DOD news release.
He said adding an East Coast site could add capacity but would come with “significant material development and service sustainment cost, so we need to be careful.”
A review of the environmental impact of potential missile sites is expected to be released by mid-2016, Adm. Winnefeld said.
Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten E. Gillibrand, both D-New York, have expressed support for a Fort Drum site placement, as long as the military determines an East Coast site is needed.
Last August, military officials estimated placement of a missile site at Fort Drum, along Route 3A, could cost $4 billion to build and create up to 600 temporary jobs and 1,800 permanent military, civilian and contractor jobs.
As Congress and the White House debate more funding for an East Coast missile site, work is continuing on the already approved missile data terminal at Fort Drum, which would relay information to the California and Alaska sites, the only other places with similar terminals.
In March, Adm. Syring told Congress that construction of the Fort Drum terminal is scheduled to be complete by the end of the year.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.