By Emelie Rutherford

President Bush was poised last night to sign the new defense authorization and appropriations bills, which together defer decisions to Bush’s successor on the future of programs including the DDG-1000 and DDG-51 destroyers, C-17 cargo aircraft, and F-22 jet fighters.

The Senate on Saturday passed the fiscal year 2009 defense appropriations bill–embedded within a continuing resolution (CR) temporarily extending most government spending–by a 78-12 vote. During the rare weekend session the chamber also passed the FY ’09 defense authorization bill by a voice vote. The two bills had not been signed by Defense Daily‘s deadline last night, but are expected to garner that final approval by midnight today, the last day of FY ’08.

The Air Force’s Boeing [BA]-built C-17s and Lockheed Martin [LMT]-made F-22s are both nearing the end of their production lines.

Though the Pentagon requested no funding to continue the F-22 line beyond FY ’09, both the defense appropriations and authorization bills call for adding $523 million in advance-procurement funds for 20 additional aircraft in FY ’10–thus keeping the line running past the fiscal year that starts tomorrow.

The authorization bill, though, includes a provision that would prohibit obligating more than $140 million of those advance funds until the next president decides, before next March, “whether continuing F-22 production or terminating production would be in the best interests of the Nation,” an explanatory statement says.

The Senate and House’s lead defense appropriators, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), both said yesterday they support the added funds for the F-22 program. Murtha, though, acknowledged the end is near for the fifth-generation fighter.

Though the Pentagon requested no funding for the C-17 program, the FY ’09 defense authorization bill calls for allowing $2.1 billion to be spent on six additional aircraft, which are funded through supplemental war-funding legislation and not the base defense appropriations bill. Because the last war supplemental, approved in June, includes partial “bridge” FY ’09 monies, the next president will be the one to sign off on the next war-funding bill.

The FY ’09 authorization legislation also calls for the secretary of defense to review the possibility of a commercial C-17 variant.

For the Navy’s DDG-1000 destroyer, the new defense authorization bill includes the Navy’s requested $2.5 billion for a third ship. Yet the appropriations bill includes only approximately 60 percent of the funding for that ship, or $1.5 billion, with the remaining funding needed in FY ’10.

Inouye, a supporter of the contested ship, said yesterday the appropriations reduction for the DDG-1000 is not a concern for him.

“Right now we don’t need the money” for the DDG-1000, said Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee, citing the preference “to allocate the funds to projects that require money at this moment.”

For Navy’s controversial new plan to start building more of the older DDG-51 destroyers in place of the DDG-1000s, the FY ’09 appropriations bill includes $200 million in advance-procurement funds, to preserve the option of restarting the production line. The authorization bill calls for $350 million for DDG-51, to be used either for advance procurement or to buy equipment spares.

The DDG-1000s and DDG-51 programs are shared by General Dynamics‘ [GD] Bath Iron Works (BIW) in Maine and Northrop Grumman‘s [NOC] Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi.