By Emelie Rutherford
A House subcommittee yesterday called for cutting the Pentagon’s budget request for the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) and Future Combat Systems (FCS) efforts, while advising adding supplemental funds to keep F-22 jets and C-17 cargo planes’ production lines humming.
The House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee marked up its version of the fiscal year 2009 defense authorization bill yesterday, ahead of next Wednesday’s full committee markup. The ARH and FCS cuts put the subcommittee at odds with the Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) FY ’09 authorization bill finalized last week–signaling potential friction points for a future conference committee.
The Air Land subcommittee also made recommendations to the full committee for the war supplemental bill nearing the House and Senate floors. It advises adding to the White House’s request for $523 million in advance procurement funds for F-22 Raptor jets to keep the production line running, $3.9 billion for buying 15 C-17s and keeping the line hot, and $246 million more for the counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar system. It also recommends heeding the administration’s new plea for $2.6 billion for transport, maintenance, and potential procurement of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAP).
F-22 proponent Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) said he will push to keep the Raptor production line open. Appropriators in both chambers are moving away from adding the funds in the supplemental and the SASC wants to leave the decision to the next administration (Defense Daily, May 7).
“We’re going to be fighting hard for that” F-22 advance procurement money, Gingrey told Defense Daily, noting meetings when Air Force brass said they need more than the 183 jets planned, despite the Pentagon’s lack of a request for more.
“I just feel that it’s up to us,” Gingrey said. “I almost feel like that I’m standing at the guard here, because on the Senate side things didn’t happen to our satisfaction.”
The subcommittee’s largest proposed reduction to the administration’s FY ’09 base bill request is for Army’s FCS effort, aides said. It called for cutting the $3.557 billion request by $200 million, dropping it to $3.357 billion, they said.
The SASC recommended fully funding the administration’s FCS request (Defense Daily, May 2).
The House panel’s proposed reduction is “to reduce concurrency of network and manned ground vehicle development and reduce program management costs,” subcommittee Chairman Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) said in a statement. The bill includes legislative provisions for increased transparency and oversight of FCS, he said.
Abercrombie told reporters after the hearing the $200 million in FCS funds was shifted to urgent readiness needs.
“It’s a readiness crisis if you will, a necessity, that couldn’t be ignored, so everybody’s got to put their paddle in that water,” he said.
He said he is committed to working with Pentagon acquisition czar John Young and others in the Pentagon to help improve the FCS technologies. It is “not a question of support” for FCS, Abercrombie said.
“The question here is, is can you, in regular order, produce and test and say with confidence that you can build something that’s going to work,” he said.
Subcommittee ranking member Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) said he wants to fully fund FCS.
For ARH, the subcommittee recommends cutting $166 million for procurement and advance procurement of the aircraft, dropping the figure from $438.8 million to $272.8 million. That money dip would drop production from the 28 helicopters the administration wants down to 15 helicopters, aides said.
The SASC, one of its aides said, is eyeing a $75 million cut to ARH regular procurement–which is less than the $166 million cut the HASC Air Land subcommittee wants.
The HASC Air Land subcommittee is giving ARH the benefit of the doubt, an aide said, noting the Government Accountability Office’s concerns about the program.
The panel calls for restricting obligation of procurement funding for ARH before completion of limited-user testing and certification that the helicopter is production ready.
Abercrombie said the recommendation to cut ARH production could be changed in conference committee, after the testing and certification is completed.
The subcommittee’s marked up bill also recommends:
- allowing retirement of C-5A aircraft “upon the Air Force completing the appropriate analysis and congressional certification,” Abercrombie’s statement says.
- adding $526 million to the administration’s request for the second-engine program for the Lockheed Martin [LMT]-built Joint Strike Fighter F-35, with the engine built by m a General Electric [GE]-Rolls-Royce team. The SASC also wants the second-engine program, but recommended a smaller funding amount.
- reducing funding for the Air Force’s controversial KC-X tanker program by $62 million, “without prejudice to the program.” The committee did not address the issue of the disputed tanker contract with Northrop Grumman [NOC], and aides said the reduction was for advance-procurement monies the Air Force previously put in as a placeholder but are now not needed, because the program does not have advance procurement.
- creating an executive agent for body armor.
- restricting obligation of procurement funding for tactical radios until the Army provides an acquisition strategy.