The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) approved a defense policy bill Thursday that supports the Pentagon’s request for buying F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs), while scaling back Republican attempts to construct a site with missile interceptors on the East Coast.
The SASC approved the $625 billion fiscal year 2014 defense authorization will by a 23-3 vote in closed session, SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told reporters Thursday night. The measure authorizes funding for the Pentagon base budget and Overseas Contingency Operations war-funding at “essentially” the same levels that President Barack Obama’s administration requested, Levin said.
“We also identified $1.8 billion in savings and efficiencies, and we put that money toward restoring readiness that had been weakened by the sequester (funding cut of $500 billion over a decade),” Levin said. That redirected $1.8 billion would support flying hours, steaming days, and other training activities.
Levin and Inhofe did not detail funding cuts in the bill, saying the committee will release more details on Friday.
Yet Levin confirmed the measure supports the Pentagon’s proposal for buying 29 F-35s and four LCSs, heeds the Navy’s request to raise the cost-cap on the Ford-class aircraft carrier, and makes no changes to the Army’s request for M1 Abrams tanks.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) had concerns about the LCS program that he will likely bring up when the full Senate takes up the authorization bill, Levin said. The committee’s bill calls for “cost controls” for the littoral-ship effort, and McCain wanted to add additional controls, an aide said.
The SASC held 10 roll call votes during its bill-markup session, on controversial matters including a proposal to accelerate plans for building a facility with missile interceptors on the U.S. East Coast. The Pentagon, under direction from Congress in the FY ’13 defense authorization act, is preparing to conduct environmental-impact studies on three possible missile-defense locations, at least two of which are on the East Coast.
Levin said the committee rejected a proposal to require the fielding of such a facility. Instead, SASC members agreed to authorize funding for missile sensors, a move he said a “broad consensus” supported. Military leaders, he said, “tell us (the sensors) will be less expensive, more effective–significantly more effective than just additional missiles–and could be fielded much faster than a new missile-defense site.”
The sensors would be used at the current missile-interceptor fields in Alaska and California and “add great capability for the entire country,” Levin said. Missile-defense officials at the Pentagon requested such capability, he said.
The House, meanwhile, plans to continue debating its version of the FY ’14 defense authorization bill on Friday.