Representatives Garamendi and Beyer and Senators Markey and Merkley demand details on $1.2 trillion ‘Golden Dome’ price tag

As Congress considers President Trump’s $1.5 trillion request for Pentagon spending and as SpaceX wins billions in Golden Dome contracts, Congressman John Garamendi, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, Congressman Don Beyer and Senators Edward J. Markey and Jeff Merkley co-chairs of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, today led their colleagues in demanding Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for further information on the Trump administration’s proposed Golden Dome missile interceptor system.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that the Golden Dome could cost American taxpayers $1.2 trillion and deliver much less capability than advertised. Trump’s 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 a time when families across the country are struggling to afford healthcare, gas, food and housing after Trump and Republicans passed massive cuts to nearly every public service program that helps with these costs, Trump is now set to spend $1.2 trillion on his egomaniacal Golden Dome project,” said Garamendi. “What Americans deserve now are answers. My colleagues and I demand that the Trump administration explain to the American people why even more of their hard-earned money is being poured into an unproven system that will not be able to protect us.”

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.”

In addition to Representatives Garamendi and Beyer, and Senators Markey and Merkley, the letter was signed by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Chris Murphy and Representatives Jim McGovern and Bill Foster.

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?

As the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, Garamendi has worked to eliminate wasteful defense projects and ensure that Americans’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars are used to keep our country safe.

This month, Garamendi voted against the $1.5 trillion National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, a bill rampant with flaws and dangerous levels of spending.

Still, Garamendi made successful efforts to improve the bill, including amendments imposing oversight on the wasteful F-35 program, reforming processes for addressing cost overruns and ensuring that the department can hold non-performing defense contractors accountable.

In the NDAA for FY26, Garamendi introduced a series of provisions to ensure that the Department of Defense responsibly manages our nuclear weapons, including by fighting to limit Trump’s dangerous Golden Dome missile defense program.

Click here to read the full text of the letter.