After a long markup ending early Thursday morning, the House Armed Services Committee moved forward a $610 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2017 that mostly kept acquisition programs safe from cuts.
Democrats refrained from volleying disagreements to HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry’s (R-Texas) budget gambit, which designates an additional $18 billion in wartime spending for base budget expenses, leaving the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account well short of the money needed to get through the fiscal year.
All members except for Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) voted in favor of final passage.
The bill adheres to the levels set in last year’s budget agreement, setting aside $543 billion for discretionary base expenses and $59 billion in the OCO account. Thornberry has said he hopes to induce supplemental funding after a new president takes office and OCO money runs out in April.
Many of the biggest fights of the night surrounded personnel, readiness or basing issues and touched on hot-button issues such as abortion, gun control, the Confederate flag, the selected service and illegal immigration. Disagreements about acquisition were settled without much disagreement, with one notable exception: space launch.
The final two amendments offered of the night dealt with the purchase of additional Russian rocket engines and funding for launch vehicle development. Both were passed by voice vote and without the need for a recorded vote—a culmination of an all-day hustle by staff members to distill language that would be acceptable to most members.
One provision, offered by Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.), would change the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to allow United Launch Alliance to buy up to 18 Russian rocket engines, an increase from the current nine-engine allotment. ULA is a joint venture of Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT].
“The current law requires the availability of at least two space launch vehicles, two family of vehicles capable of placing into orbit any national security payload. The Atlas V launch vehicle is absolutely essential to maintaining our nation’ assured access to space,” he said. “The Air Force has asked for 18 Russian made engines to ensure a safe, practical and responsible transition away from the RD-180-powered Atlas V rocket, and that’s exactly what my amendment does.”
Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) and Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), said a lower number of rockets should be authorized until ULA uses all of its current engines and needs more.
“We’re going to be here next year. We’re going to be here the year after that. Congress isn’t going away,” Hunter said. “We could look at this again and maybe come back and say, ‘We need this many over the next couple years.’ There’s no reason for us to line Putin’s pockets right now.”
Even the most heated exchange on the matter remained relatively civil.
“Putin invades, puts little green men into Ukraine,” said Rep. Garamendi (D-Calif.). “Then we’re going to turn around buy 18 of his rocket engines when we really don’t need to do it right now. I don’t quite get it.”
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala), who chairs HASC’s strategic forces subcommittee, shot back, “Mr. Garamendi, we’re not doing this to help Putin. We’re doing this to help ourselves. This is about our national security access to space.”
“Oh really?” Garamendi said, dryly. “So Russia doesn’t get anything out of it?”
“One of their companies gets employment. Whatever,” Rogers said, before the lawmakers began speaking over each other.
HASC top Democrat Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) offered the second major space-related amendment: a $100 million investment into a new space launch vehicle using a $77 million offset from the program to develop a Russian rocket engine replacement and $23 million from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Rogers, who helped hone the language, also provided a vital assist in persuading Republicans to get on board after lawmakers such as Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) said funding a new launch vehicle would be unnecessary.
“The fact is, while my focus has been on building the new engine…I do acknowledge that—no matter which engine is successful in the competition—there are going to have to be some modifications made to the Atlas system. There may have to be dramatic modifications made based on who wins, and there’s one engine in particular in the completion where if it wins, there will be dramatic modifications,” Rogers said. “It’s inevitable that we’re going to spend some money on these upper stages.”
Republican members defended increases to the military’s nuclear enterprise, which Sanchez said amounted to an addition of $316 million in the chairman’s mark. She offered an amendment that would have redirected that money to pay for three of the items on the services’ unfunded priority list: $77 million for F/A-18 counter electronic attack block II kits, $82 million for Patriot PAC-3 missiles and $158 million for two additional KC-130J aircraft for the Marine Corps.
Garramendi offered a similar amendment that would have stripped $21 million in funding for the Long Range Stand Off Weapon and use it for V-22 rotorblade erosion mitigation.
Rogers opposed both measures, contending that no other modernization priority is as important as the nuclear mission. The two amendments were defeated in voice votes.
Thornberry’s acquisition and Goldwater-Nichols proposals also survived intact, with members voting against an amendment by Rep. Mark Takai (D-Hawaii) that would have stripped language in the mark mandating that service and functional component commanders should be no higher than a three star level.
One big surprise was the approval of an amendment by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) that would include women in the selective service. Hunter, who opposes both drafting women and allowing women to serve in infantry positions, ultimately voted against the amendment but said he offered it because Congress—and not the Obama administration—should decide whether to change the law.
Ultimately, the amendment passed in a 32-30 vote that included votes in favor by Republican veterans Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.), who chairs the personnel subcommittee.
The committee left alone one of the few major cuts to a program: the decision in Thornberry’s mark to only allocate $2.5 million for the missile-detecting JLENS aerostat instead of the $45.5 million requested in the Army’s budget. JLENS, which stands for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, has been under fire since an October incident when one of the systems became untethered and drifted from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., to Pennsylvania.
However, the system could live to see another day. An amendment offered by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and tucked into an en bloc package would require U.S. Northern Command to study the potential redeployment of the existing JLENS systems—which were designed by Raytheon [RTN] —to the national capital region, including the required timelines and budget.
That package of amendments also included an extra $10 million for the anti-tunneling system being jointly developed by the United States and Israel, using funding offset from Defense Media Activity.
Earlier in the day, the committee shot down an amendment sponsored by Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) to break off the F-35’s block 4 modernization program into a separate program of record. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs HASC’s tactical and land forces subcommittee, argued that the amendment could actually increase cost and push the program to the right, citing statements by F-35 program executive officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan (Defense Daily, April 28).
An amendment by Speier on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), which had circulated to reporters before the start of the markup, was immediately withdrawn. If agreed to, that language would have that capped the LCS fleet at 40 ships and require the Navy to choose a single shipbuilder by fiscal 2019 (Defense Daily, April 28).