As Trump Requests $1.5 Trillion for Pentagon, Reps. Beyer, Garamendi and Sens. Markey, Merkley Press for Details on “Golden Dome” $1.2 Trillion Price Tag, Mission

As Congress considers President Trump’s $1.5 trillion request for Pentagon spending and SpaceX wins billions in Golden Dome contracts, Representatives Don Beyer (VA-08) and John Garamendi (CA-08) and Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), co-chairs of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, today led their colleagues in a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, demanding further information on the Trump administration’s proposed Golden Dome missile interceptor system. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently estimated that Golden Dome could cost American taxpayers $1.2 trillion and deliver much less capability than advertised. Trump’s Department of Defense (DOD) rejected the accuracy of CBO’s estimate but has refused to share key information about Golden Dome with CBO, Congress, or the American people. In the letter, the lawmakers wrote , “This is unacceptable. Before you spend one more taxpayer dollar on Golden Dome, DOD must share its plans and goals for the system. There is no reasonable justification for keeping the mission and number of interceptors for Golden Dome secret. It is one thing to withhold design details or performance specifications of certain systems, but it is quite another to withhold the entire system architecture that you expect Congress to approve and fund. Congress and the American public have a right to know what they are paying for.” The lawmakers continued , “Transparency is particularly important when it appears, as it does here, that the system’s ultimate capability will fall far short of the original promises. On May 20, 2025, President Trump said that, with Golden Dome, ‘we will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland.’ According to CBO’s calculations, even a system that would cost $3 trillion would not meet that ambitious goal, which would need to be able to engage hundreds of missiles. If the Administration has not scaled back its goals for the system, the current official price tag is woefully unrealistic.” Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Representatives Jim McGovern (MA-02) and Bill Foster (IL-11) co-signed the letter. The lawmakers requested answers by June 30, 2026, to questions including : 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? How does the Administration plan to spend the proposed $185 billion on Golden Dome? What is your 20-year estimated cost of Golden Dome? Will the Administration propose a third missile defense interceptor site on the East Coast? 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? What parts of your plans for Golden Dome do you expect to keep secret and what parts will you release to the public? The full text of the letter is available here.