By Emelie Rutherford
The House Appropriations defense subcommittee’s fiscal year 2009 defense bill includes no money for buying a Navy DDG-1000 destroyer, yet its chairman expressed doubts yesterday about the sea service’s new plan to stop building the destroyers and restart production of older DDG-51 combatants.
The $487.7 billion bill the HAC-D marked up yesterday also directs the Air Force to heed the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recommendations for its tanker re-competition and directs the Pentagon to consider industrial-base impacts in the evaluation. It adds monies to the White House’s budget request for the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program and for continuing the Air Force’s F-22 jet production line, and reduces the request for the troubled presidential helicopter and Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter (ARH) efforts.
HAC-D Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) and House Appropriations Committee (HAC) Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) said the FY ’09 defense appropriations bill is due to be weighed by HAC and full House in September, though it’s not clear if the legislation will make it through Congress before the fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
Murtha said even though the marked-up bill includes no funds for the one DDG-1000 the Navy previously wanted to build in FY ’09, he is not comfortable with the service’s new plan to truncate the DDG-1000 buy at the two ships on contract and build more DDG-51s. The Navy said last week it wants to buy eight more DDG-51s starting in FY’ 10.
Both destroyers are built at General Dynamics [GD] and Northrop Grumman [NOC].
Murtha said he met with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead last Friday about the Navy’s new plan.
“I said I’d listen to his suggestions and we’d see if we work our way through conference,” Murtha told a small group of reporters yesterday, when he cited concerns with buying more DDG-51s.
“They have said over and over again we don’t want them,” Murtha said about the Navy’s previous stance on the older destroyers. “We spent $600 million shutting down the [DDG-51] line, we spent $6 billion on research for the [DDG-]1000, now it makes no sense to me after spending $6 billion and $600 million, to open the line. We’ve got to open the line back up, and you’ve got to make improvements.”
He noted figures comparing the complete costs of the two shipbuilding options are not available, but predicted the DDG-51 costs would be high. And he pointed to higher personnel costs for the DDG-51, which requires a larger crew than does the DDG-1000.
Murtha acknowledged the new destroyer plan–spelled out in the Navy’s new FY ’10 program objective memorandum (POM ’10) multi-year budget request–does not have total buy-in at the Pentagon.
“We’ll see what the Defense Department says; they’ll have to be very convincing in order to convince our subcommittee and the House and the Senate,” Murtha said.
The HAC-D bill for FY ’09 includes no money for DDG-51s. It redistributes the $2.5 billion the Navy previously sought for buying a third DDG-1000 for other Navy efforts, including spending $450 million on DDG-1000 advance procurement. Other spending not requested by the White House covered by the $2.5 billion shift include: $1.6 billion for a 10th LPD-17 amphibious ship; $397.6 million for long-lead items for Virginia-class submarines; and $941 million for two T-AKE cargo ships.
The House-passed FY ’09 defense authorization bill, by comparison, also ignores the Navy’s previous request for buying the DDG-1000, but gives the service the option of using $400 million to either restart DDD-51 production or use for DDG-1000 advance procurement.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, the Navy’s old plan to buy one DDG-1000 in FY ’09 still has support. The Senate Armed Services Committee’s (SASC) authorization bill for the fiscal year includes the funding. Though the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee hasn’t marked up its version of the spending bill yet, its Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he supports buying the one DDG-1000 next fiscal year.
Murtha said yesterday that his stance on the DDG-51s could change if and when House and Senate appropriators conference on the bill, though he expressed concern with how that would impact the shipbuilding rundown.
“If you make a change here then you’ve got to make a substantial change in the overall markup for shipbuilding,” he said. “This will be our biggest problem, shipbuilding.”
Murtha said it will be “very difficult” for the defense appropriations bill to pass before FY ’09 starts unless House and Senate appropriations staff pre-conference during the five-week August recess that starts next week.
For the Air Force’s troubled aerial refueling tanker program, the HAC-D provides the full $893 million request and calls for the Pentagon to follow the GAO’s June 18 recommendations for how to recompete the contract between initial winner–a Northrop Grumman-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) team–and challenger Boeing [BA]. The bill also “directs that industrial base concerns be included in the evaluation of the tanker contract award,” a summary says.
“What we said to the Defense Department is, ‘Look folks, we don’t want another re-overturn, so follow the GAO advice,'” Murtha said.
While the bill includes no penalty if the Pentagon does not follow the GAO’s guidelines, Murtha said: “When we direct something, usually they pay attention.”
The HAC-D’s legislation calls for providing $523 million not requested by the White House to continue Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] F-22 fighter jet production line in FY ’10. The House-passed defense authorization bill also calls for adding advance-procurement funds for extending the Raptors’ line, though the SASC has called for leaving the decision to the next president.
“We think we did the right thing with F-22s,” Murtha said.
For the Army’s massive FCS modernization effort–steered by Boeing and SAIC [SAI]–the HAC-D bill adds to the Bush administration’s request. It boosts funding by $33 million to $3.6 billion in order to accelerate FCS unmanned-aerial vehicle and unmanned-ground vehicle programs.
Murtha said he supports a recent rejiggering of the FCS program, and wants to support segments of the multi-facet effort that are ready to execute.
The HAC-D’s bill takes aim at troubled programs. For the Army’s ARH it cuts $166 million, or 13 aircraft, because of delays and cost increases with the helicopter built by Textron‘s [TXT] Bell Helicopter unit.
For the Navy’s two-part presidential helicopter program it reduces requested funding by $212 million, because of uncertainty with Increment II, thus dropping Increment II funding to $100 million and leaving $735 million for Increment I aircraft. Lockheed Martin is partnered with Bell Helicopter Textron and AgustaWestland on the presidential helicopter.
The HAC-D’s bill includes additional increases to the White House’s request, tacking on $563.5 million for Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance assets and $300 million to fully fund advance procurement for a fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite. The measure also full funds the request for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but shifts around monies to continue funding a second-engine development effort not supported by the Bush administration.