Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) returned to one of his favorite legislative priorities during Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee, advocating for increased spending on directed energy weapons while criticizing the Biden administration.
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“It’s unclear in the budget where the directed energy money is if it’s in there. Those missiles that we’re using in the Red Sea to knock down $20,000 Yemen drones cost $4 million apiece. Directed energy is an incredibly important priority. The prior administration grossly underfunded it. I hope this administration will pay attention. This is cost-effective and it’s the weapon of the future. Mr. Secretary, are you going advocate for directed energy and see an increase in that budget,” said Sen. King.
Secretary of the Navy John Phelan attended the Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss the 2026 military budget bill currently up for consideration.
During the hearing, King raised concerns about cuts to the Navy shipbuilding budget in the 2026 military funding bill. He also expressed his distress that the budget proposal appeared not to include any funding for directed energy weapons.
He complimented the Navy’s performance in the Red Sea during the recent campaign against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen and argued that directed energy weapons could prove to be a much more cost-effective way of shooting down enemy drones and missiles than the current systems.
King pointed out that, in the Red Sea, the U.S. was forced to use multimillion-dollar missiles to shoot down drones that cost just tens of thousands of dollars.
Secretary Phelan agreed with King’s point, vowed to advocate for more energy weapon funding, and promised that the Navy would continue to work on developing its directed energy weapons.
“Yes, senator. I think it’s very important. Our capability, and as you mentioned, it’s a cost-effective one. We continue to be working very hard with the one system we have been testing live right now that appears to be working well, so we continue to work on that. So, yes,” said Phelan.
King has often advocated for directed energy weapons. Last year, he testified in committee that “we are systematically missing technologies—it is one of the great failures of the last 10 or 15 years in our defense structure.”
