Senate committee endorses billions for B-21s and millions for South Dakota construction, Rounds says

The B-21 Raider is under development by Northrop Grumman in Palmdale, California. (Courtesy of Northrop Grumman)

Funding for the B-21 bomber program, construction money to support it at a base near Rapid City, and money for a Watertown National Guard vehicle maintenance building are wins for South Dakota in a new defense authorization bill, U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds said this week.

The South Dakota Republican is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity.

The money is in the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that outlines U.S. military funding priorities. The act passed the committee last week.

Ellsworth Air Force Base in Box Elder has been building up in anticipation of the new bomber program. The base will host the first two squadrons of the next-generation bomber, one a training squad and another an operational one. A third squadron would be placed at the base later on.

Rounds did not have a timeline for the delivery of the bombers, but said the inclusion of $3.5 billion in funding for the bomber program in this year’s bill gets it closer to operational.

The B-21 project began in 2015. The planes are meant to replace the B-1 bombers now housed at Ellsworth. Those planes will age out in the next 10-25 years, as B-21s come online.

Rounds said he’s unsure how much the B-21 program will cost in total by the time the planes are placed. He said the government has ordered 100 planes and could end up ordering 200. The price is about $700 million per plane, according to the Air Force.

In construction at Ellsworth alone, Rounds said the federal government is “looking at well over a billion dollars just in terms of the facilities.”

“That doesn’t include the additional infrastructure around the base itself that we’re going to need, the new schools and so forth,” Rounds said.

The authorization bill includes $378 million for construction at Ellsworth.

Rounds also talked up a $28 million allocation for a Watertown National Guard maintenance building and a 3.8% salary increase for military personnel, among other provisions.

The authorization act is the first step toward getting the federal money moving. Congress would need to appropriate the funds in a separate vote, which Rounds said he hopes to see happen sometime this year.

The B-21 Raider program has spurred rapid growth in Box Elder. This year, Gov. Larry Rhoden signed a bill to authorize a $15 million, no interest loan to the community’s Douglas School District to help build space for new students.