Democratic lawmakers press Air Force on ‘extraordinary cost and delay’ of Sentinel program

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) sent a letter to the Air Force this week demanding answers to their concerns about the “extraordinary” cost of the Sentinel nuclear missile program, which has ballooned in price over the years and is facing at least a two-year delay.

In the letter, provided exclusively to The Hill, the Democratic lawmakers said Sentinel has “lacked some of the basic building blocks for good program management” and noted concerns about aggressively pursuing deployment of the program.

The duo urged a greater investigation of the missile program after a January breach of the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which requires a Pentagon review after a program’s cost exceeds a certain threshold.

“We have spent billions of dollars and a decade of time; yet we are no closer to a stable cost or schedule for the Sentinel program,” Warren and Garamendi wrote in the letter. “The extraordinary cost and delay of the Sentinel program demands the Air Force properly and honestly provide clarity on every part of the program as the Department considers the requirements of the Nunn-McCurdy provisions.”

The letter is addressed to Kristyn Jones, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management and comptroller — who is also performing the duties of undersecretary of the Air Force. The lawmakers are demanding answers to several questions about the program by March 27.

The Sentinel program will replace the nuclear-armed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 400 of which are scattered across the rural Western U.S. in underground silos.

The project was first estimated at around $60 billion in 2015 but has continued to rise in cost projections, with the Nunn-McCurdy breach coming after estimates soared to around $131 billion.

Sentinel, which the Air Force had planned to begin fielding in 2030, is still in its early stages, with defense contractor Northrop Grumman operating off an initial $13 billion research and testing contract. The rising costs have spurred concerns on Capitol Hill, though Congress remains mostly united behind modernizing its land-based ICBMs along with the rest of the nuclear triad.

The Air Force says the rising costs are related to the vast real estate development component of the program, which includes constructing new utility lines, support buildings and other construction projects across nearly 40,000 square miles of land.

Most of the work is expected at the Air Force bases Malmstrom in Montana, Minot in North Dakota and F.E. Warren in Wyoming.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall last year described Sentinel as the “biggest thing” the department has ever done and noted the program was “struggling.” Despite the concerns, the military branch has pledged to continue funding Sentinel and the 2025 budget request this week offered more than $3 billion for the program.

In the letter, Warren and Garamendi raised concerns about how the original cost estimates for Sentinel were reached, arguing if they had looked at whether Minuteman could be extended through 2040 or 2050, it likely would have been cheaper to life-extend those systems rather than replace it with Sentinel, which the Air Force chose to keep until 2075.

They also argued that the Air Force could maintain Minuteman even longer if testing were shifted away from destructive tests that destroy components of the missile system.

“This is a self-inflicted problem that can be addressed by changes in the Air Force’s approach to testing,” they wrote.

The lawmakers, who have long been critical of the program, pushed for the Air Force to consider the role of life-extending Minuteman III to maintain ICBMs and called for “more innovative solutions,” noting that the Pentagon review is required to consider cheaper alternatives in light of the Nunn-McCurdy breach.

“The scope and scale of this overrun requires thorough analysis,” they wrote. “This analysis of alternatives must include a reassessment of assumptions made to this point.

“It is imperative that the Air Force think critically and creatively about the way forward,” they continued. “Given its scale and expense, nothing about this program should be seen as predetermined and we must evaluate every decision to determine if the expense truly provides for the national defense.”