WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th March, 2021) US Senator Chris Van Hollen and Congressman Joe Courtney on Thursday introduced a bill to terminate the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile program that was reinstated by the Trump administration.
"Putting new, expensive nuclear warheads on attack submarines and surface ships that haven't carried those weapons in almost thirty years is a distraction that will suck precious resources away from the most pressing need of the US Navy - namely, to increase the size of its overworked fleet," Courtney said in a press release.
President Donald Trump revived the program, which President Barack Obama retired in 2013.
The lawmakers emphasized that the "wasteful" program is too expensive, adding that arming Virginia-class attack submarines with Tomahawk missiles is in the highest demand in the Indo-Pacific and European regions.
In 2019, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the program to develop the missile would cost $9 billion from 2019 to 2028. The projection does not include the estimated costs for production and integrating the missile on ships.
