Defense contractors tied to Sentinel nuclear missile program increase spending on Congress: Report

Defense contractors working on the Sentinel nuclear missile program have increased political spending in the past two years as the initiative to modernize intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) has soared in costs and attracted renewed criticism.

A report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft says the 11 contractors have donated $87 million since 2018 to Congress, including a nearly 20 percent increase over the past two election cycles. During that time, Sentinel’s primary contractor, Northrop Grumman, has given $3.8 million to members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, where key decisions are made on nuclear weapons.

The 11 Sentinel contractors also spent $226 million lobbying since 2018, according to the Quincy report, which drew from publicly available data on political spending. The contractors also have hundreds of other contracts with the Pentagon and U.S. government, and Quincy did not attempt to differentiate spending on particular programs.

Bill Hartung, the author of the Quincy report and a senior research fellow at the institute, said “there is a strong economic component” to the Sentinel program that makes it difficult to restrain the $141 billion program, especially given how many jobs it creates on and around military installations.

But Hartung said the money has vast influence in decisionmaking on Capitol Hill, beyond those whose constituencies will see a direct benefit.

“Certainly some members, they have kind of an ideological, strategic idea, but I think the money and the jobs reinforce them,” he said, and “there’s a lot of members who don’t have that kind of connection in terms of jobs in their state, who are also being persuaded to support the program, not necessarily with a full sense of whether they serve our interests strategically.”

Congress remains generally united behind Sentinel. Efforts to restrain the controversial program, including earlier this year in the latest version of the House Armed Services Committee’s National Defense Authorization Act, have met pushback from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Senators receiving relatively large shares of the funds include lawmakers from states that house ICBM missiles or work on Sentinel-related projects: Montana, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), one of those senators, said the world was becoming increasingly dangerous, and it was vital to modernize nuclear weapons.

“It’s important as a matter of policy and as a matter of politics,” he said of Sentinel. “I’m a strong advocate for it, always have been. If I didn’t get a single dollar from Northrop Grumman or anybody else, any of their subcontractors, I’d still be a strong advocate for the deterrent, because it’s just that important.”

Sentinel is a major new program that will replace the more than 50-year-old Minuteman III ICBMs scattered across rural Western states.

Most of the missiles and related infrastructure for the project are housed at Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

The project, which began around 2014, is expected to be completed by the early 2030s, but delays and cost increases could derail that timeline.

The coast increases have been a major obstacle to the program, soaring this year to $140.9 billion, up 81 percent from 2020 and even more from estimates around 2015, which had a cost of roughly $60 billion.

Sentinel hit a Nunn-McCurdy breach in January that required the Pentagon to step in and review the program. Pentagon officials cleared the program to continue in July, saying it was vital to national security, though they are pushing to restructure the program to save costs.

According to the Quincy report, since 2018, the top five spending lobbyists who work on the Sentinel program include Honeywell, which has spent some $20 million on lobbying; Lockheed Martin at nearly $19 million; Northrop Grumman at $18.2 million; and General Dynamics at $13 million.

The top lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee who have received the contractor’s money since 2018 include Reps. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), Donald Norcross (D-N.J.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.) and Joe Wilson (R-S.C.).

On the Senate side, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) took the most from Sentinel contractors since 2018, the report says. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and ranking member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) were also top recipients.

The Hill has reached out to each of the lawmakers who are mentioned in the report.

Sentinel is part of a more than $1 trillion nuclear modernization upgrade the U.S. is pushing to complete. ICBMs are one part of the nuclear triad, along with bomber planes and submarines, all three of which the Pentagon is also working to acquire new versions of.

But amid the rising costs, some critics have questioned whether ICBMs are necessary, arguing they are sitting targets without the speed or stealth benefits of bomber planes and submarines.

Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) has led the calls criticizing the program on Capitol Hill, including plans to host a hearing on the issue with the Congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group.

Garamendi accepted money from defense firms with Sentinel contracts since 2018, according to the new report, as has Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has also publicly criticized the program.

Hartung said “an extraordinary” lobbying spree on Capitol Hill points to companies pushing for “absolutely no change” in the Sentinel program.

“In a lot of cases, it’s reinforced by the fact that the triad, in the minds of some members, is sort of sacrosanct. It’s been around for a long time,” he said. “The strategic arguments don’t fully hold up, and the economics and the money kind of create a base of support that makes it hard for the critics of Congress to make a lot of headway.”