Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett introduced a bill on Tuesday they are calling the Strategic Deterrent Sustainment Act of 2007, which aims to extend big-dollar contracts maintaining the nation's Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

The Defense Department has no plans to expand or update its ICBMs after 500 of the Minuteman fleet are rebuilt, which should take only a few more years.

That could cost about 1,000 jobs at defense industrial companies operating in Utah, and, according to Hatch, the move could become costly for the government as well.

If engineers now working on the ICBMs get jobs elsewhere, the government would have to spend even more to train a new generation to create a new missile defense system in the decades to come.

As we have learned from experience, building an ICBM is an extremely complex feat of engineering," Hatch said in a statement released Tuesday evening. "It requires engineers with years of experience."

The bill requires the Defense Department to create a strategy to continue maintenance and modernization of Minuteman missiles until a new missile system is created around 2030.

- Matt Canham