After an exhausting 18 hours of debate, the House Armed Services Committee early Thursday morning approved a $611.8 billion defense authorization bill that preserved funding levels requested by the military in the president’s fiscal year 2016 budget.
The National Defense Authorization Act recommends a $495 billion Pentagon base budget that remains below congressionally mandated caps set in the Budget Control Act of 2011. However, to make the investments in procurement, personnel and research and development laid out in the president’s request, the committee boosted Operations Contingency Operations funding to $89.2 billion, reflecting an added $38.3 billion in operations and maintenance spending usually found in the base budget.
The bill is slated for debate on the House floor in May, where it will come under the scrutiny of House appropriators, fiscal conservatives and others that could try to strip away the extra wartime funding. Despite that fact, there was little discussion on sequestration during the full committee markup held April 29, with most members seeming resigned to the expansion of OCO.
The night was a win for the defense industry. HASC Republicans blocked the few Democrat-backed attempts to alter funding for major weapons systems in Chairman Mac Thornberry’s (R-Texas) mark of the bill, which kept the A-10 from being divested and increased procurement of F-35s, F/A-18s, and Javelin and Tomahawk missiles. The two largest cuts to acquisition programs–in this case the Air Force’s KC-46A tanker and Long Range Strike Bomber–were made in response to delays impacting the service’s ability to spend the full amount of money originally planned in the president’s budget.
Thornberry also received little pushback on the acquisition reform portions of the NDAA, most of which stemmed from a bill co-authored with Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
The A-10 was unsurprisingly the biggest issue of the night. However, even though the debate looked markedly different than last year, the outcome was largely the same. In 2014, former HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) offered a compromise measure in his mark that would allow the planes to be put in storage. That language was struck after HASC approved in a bipartisan vote an amendment by Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.) that prohibited the Air Force from retiring the A-10.
This year, Thornberry fully funded the A-10 in his chairman’s mark, but two newly-elected freshmen, who are also combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan., propelled discussion on whether to mothball the plane. Barber’s successor, Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.)—a former A-10 pilot and squadron commander deployed to Afghanistan during the war—offered an amendment prohibiting the Air Force from retiring the plane or reducing the manning of Warthog squadrons. It also requires the service to retain a minimum inventory of 171 aircraft and directs the Secretary of the Air Force to commission a study on potential capabilities and requirements of an A-10 successor.
McSally’s amendment was passed via a roll call vote, but only after an hour long debate with Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a former Marine who served four tours in Iraq. Moulton offered a competing language that would have allowed the Air Force to retire up to 164 A-10s and use the savings to buy items listed in the Air Force and Marine Corps’ unfunded priorities list.
His amendment would have stripped about $682.7 million in A-10 funding to buy $75 million in counter improvised explosive device equipment and $145 million in TOW missiles for the Marine Corps, as well as eight MQ-9 Reaper drones, two C-130J Hercules transport aircraft and upgrades to the F-16’s cockpit and electronic warfare suite for the Air Force.
Moulton tried to make the case that other planes could support the close air support mission, while the military could be doing more with its money to keep infantrymen alive.
“IEDs were the number one killers of Americans in the Iraq and the Afghanistan wars. They have literally killed thousands of young Americans…far more than have died in the rare scenarios where only an A-10 could provide close air support,” he said.
McSally countered that Moulton’s bill would only leave 119 Warthogs in the fleet, not enough to meet current operational requirements.
“We’re already down to only nine squadrons after the administration retired the equivalent of four squadrons in the last three years,” she said. “And although about 110 A-10s sound maybe like a lot, once you take out aircraft that they need for training, testing, backup aircraft and attrition reserve, that leaves about 70 aircraft or the equivalent of three squadrons.”
Smith spoke in support of Moulton’s amendment. Given tight budget, hard choices need to be made, he said.
“The money here [for the A-10] is in the chairman’s budget, but it does come from somewhere,” he said. “It comes from readiness,” and decreasing it negatively impacts the service’s ability to train and equip the force. “Right now our military does not have as much fuel as they would like to train, they don’t have the ammunition that they would need to train, they don’t repair parts that get broken.”
Thornberry said the Warthog’s capability does come at a cost, but he was persuaded to fund the A-10 after seeing enduring demand for it, with more aircraft sent to Iraq and Syria last week.
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) argued that Moulton was trying to broker a false choice between the A-10 and counter IED capabilities.
“We need both, and we should not juxtapose them against one another,” he said. “The true tradeoff with the A-10 is, what can we replace that capability with?…Building another platform that can do exactly what it does is going to cost a great deal more than any savings we will have with retirement.”
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) challenged McSally’s assertions that the Air Force wants to retain the A-10 and only would divest the fleet because of budget pressures. If service officials really wanted the aircraft and the money is appropriated in the budget, then why add in a provision blocking their retirement, he asked.
“I have heard the Air Force say, ‘We don’t really want to do A-10s,’ and I say, fine. Let the Air Force do nukes and lasers and neat things that are going to be in Star Trek one day,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the committee mowed down Rep. Jackie Speier’s (D-Calif.) attempt to cut six Air Force Joint Strike Fighters from the budget. The amendment would have transferred the $588.5 million cost of those F-35As to the National Guard and Reserve Equipment Account.
Speier argued that developmental issues, such as sensor fusion and engine problems, should prompt more “prudent,” scaled-back procurement. Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee chairman Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and representatives from districts home to F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin [LMT] pushed back, saying that the boost in production was necessary to reap greater savings.
Republicans also defended bill language by Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) that would halve the amount of time allotted to the Navy to modernize their cruiser fleet. The 2016 NDAA authorizes two years for the service to extend the life of cruisers undergoing maintenance, while last year’s plan allowed a four-year modernization period.
The subcommitee’s ranking member, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), offered an amendment that would revert the NDAA to the original language. HASC rejected the measure.
Courtney cited an April 28 letter from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert outlining negative effects stemming from the decreased lay up period, including the erosion of cost savings and shortened service life of the ships. However, Forbes argued that the Navy wants to permanently shelve its cruisers, and if they were allowed to go into modernization for four years, the service would use that opportunity to be rid of them forever.
Many programs that had been controversial in past years emerged from the markup with funding unscathed, such as the littoral combat ship and the armored multi-purpose vehicle.