In their $576 billion defense spending bill, House appropriators mimicked the authorizing committee’s approach to increase funding for the military by shorting the wartime spending account—thereby forcing the next president to ask for more money next year.
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee’s draft bill, released late on Tuesday, contains $517 billion in base budget funding—about $587 million less than the administration’s budget request—and $59 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). As in the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) budget, about $16 billion in the wartime spending account has been designated to pay for base expenses, meaning that the OCO funds will only last until April 2017.
The additions to OCO greatly benefited procurement, which grew by $9.6 billion in the appropriations bill. Appropriators also used OCO to provide an additional $9.4 billion for training and an extra $753 million for sustaining equipment.
Members of the subcommittee will meet Wednesday evening to amend the bill, although a staff member said no major changes are expected.
The subcommittee boosted funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) to $8.3 billion, allowing the services to buy the 74 aircraft listed in the budget request and the service chiefs’ unfunded priorities lists. The bill does not spell out how many of each variant are to be procured, but those documents calls for 48 Air Force F-35As, 18 Marine Corps F-35Bs and 8 Navy F-35Cs.
Like HASC, authorizers also designated $1.35 billion for an additional 14 F/A-18 Super Hornets listed in the Navy’s unfunded requirements list, raising the total procurement to 16 aircraft.
In the area of shipbuilding, it included $21.6 billion for 15 vessels, including a third Littoral Combat Ship that was not requested in the Navy’s request. Unlike HASC, House appropriators seem to have provided funds for only two DDG-51 destroyers, not the incremental funds needed to finish procuring a third in 2017.
The bill also restores some of the cuts made to Army rotorcraft, including $1.2 billion for 72 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, $689 million for 27 CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopters, $881 million for 52 remanufactured AH-64 Apaches as well as $374 million for 10 new attack helicopters. It also added $131 million for 20 UH-72 Lakotas, which were not requested in the budget but needed for flight training.
Comparatively, the president’s request included only 52 remanufactured Apaches, 22 Chinooks and 36 Black Hawks.
In other aircraft, the draft fully funds the Air Force’s KC-46A tanker program, with $2.8 billion for 15 aircraft. It provides $1.8 billion for the 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft asked for in the Navy’s request.
It also includes $440 million for the 123 Stryker Double V-Hull upgrades requested by the Army and $332 million for cooperative programs with Israel.
The draft also provides $70.8 billion for research and development, including for key programs like the F-35, Ohio replacement program, next-generation JSTARS and the MQ-4C Triton.
“In an increasingly dangerous and rapidly changing world, we must guarantee that our military and intelligence community have the capability to defeat barbaric Islamic terror groups and deter aggressor-nations, like Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea,” said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), who chairs the defense subcommittee. “This bill recognizes the critical need for increased funding for more training, readiness and equipment.