Letter Text (PDF)

Washington (July 8, 2025) - Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Rep. John Garamendi (CA-08), and Rep. Don Beyer (VA-08), co-chairs of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, today led their colleagues in writing to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, urging the United States to refrain from building a “Golden Dome” space-based system advanced by the Trump administration to counter missile attacks from “any foe,” which could instead waste billions of taxpayer dollars, ignite a nuclear arms race, and aggravate corruption.

In the letter, the lawmakers write, “The Trump administration’s plans for Golden Dome could make it prohibitively expensive, operationally ineffective, massively corrupt, and detrimental to U.S. and global security by igniting a nuclear arms race with Russia and China. We are concerned that Golden Dome will be much more effective at wasting taxpayer dollars than countering missile attacks.”

The lawmakers continued, “Countering a possible Russian or Chinese attack involving hundreds of warheads would require a much larger, more technologically advanced, and more costly system. That is why Congress, since 1999 on a bipartisan basis, has specifically said that U.S. national missile defenses should aim to counter only ‘limited’ threats, not Russian and Chinese arsenals. Golden Dome would overturn that long-standing consensus with the stroke of a pen.”

The lawmakers request responses to the following questions by July 21, 2025:

1. What is the intended purpose of Golden Dome? How many missiles (and of what types) is it being designed to intercept? What system architecture will be used? Has the threat been validated as a requirement by the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
2. How does the Administration plan to spend the proposed $175 billion on Golden Dome?
3. What is the 20-year estimated cost of Golden Dome?
4. How does the Administration plan to deal with known and anticipated countermeasures to space- and ground-based missile defense, including nuclear detonations in space?
5. What aspects of the system would be based in space?
6. Will the Administration propose a third missile defense interceptor site on the East Coast?
7. How does the Pentagon plan to meet requirements for developmental and operational testing of the elements of the proposed system, given the very short timeline for deployment?
8. How will the Administration award contracts under Golden Dome? Will SpaceX get preferential treatment?
9. How does the Administration expect China and Russia to react to Golden Dome? How does the administration plan to reconcile its arms control goals with these reactions?

The letter was co-signed in the Senate by Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and in the House of Representatives by Representatives Bill Foster (IL-11), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC.), Greg Casar (TX-35), and Lloyd Doggett (TX-37).

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