U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) has moved to set aside $68.5 million in federal funds to prepare an area on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for testing a land-based variant of a missile defense system deployed on warships, The Hill reported yesterday (see GSN, June 11, 2007).
The "Aegis Ashore" site at the Pacific Missile Range Facility would help test land-based Aegis systems and Standard Missile 3 interceptors, key elements of a new European missile defense network planned by the Obama administration (see GSN, Nov. 9).
Inouye introduced an amendment that would directly add the funds to defense budget legislation now under consideration in Congress, bypassing approval for the project by relevant appropriations panels. In response, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) introduced his own amendment that would preserve funding for the test site while requiring the effort to receive authorization in upcoming legislation.
Missile Defense Agency chief Gen. Patrick O'Reilly defended the planned facility in a letter to two top senators involved in the defense authorization process.
“The Aegis Ashore test facility is essential if we are to implement the president’s new phased adaptive approach in time to counter the growing ballistic missile threat,” O'Reilly wrote.
In addition, the site could be outfitted to fire missile interceptors if the need to do so arose, he said, contending the facility could help secure the region against missile threats (Roxana Tiron, The Hill, Nov. 9).