The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) voted 61-0 to move its annual defense bill to the House floor, after a 14-hour markup that reversed several cuts the Pentagon tried to make and largely prioritized having more platforms and a less ready force over a smaller but more prepared military.
As the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act markup dragged late into Wednesday night, lawmakers reversed several key decisions that helped keep the Pentagon’s budget under the congressionally mandated $521 billion cost cap. The committee saved the A-10 close-air support fleet, bought nine additional MQ-9 Reapers, halted the Army’s decision to revamp the balance and size of its active and National Guard components, saved the cruiser fleet, saved three of the seven Airborne Warning and Control System set for divestment, and suggested purchasing more E/A-18E-F Super Hornets to accompany the additional E/A18G Growlers the committee already told the Navy to buy.
Drawing the most debate was the A-10 amendment from Rep. Rob Barber (D-Ariz.). Originally, HASC Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) tried to strike a compromise on the issue, allowing the Air Force to retire the single-mission platforms only if they were stored in a near-flyaway condition–in case more money were available to the Air Force a few years from now, or in case the United States found itself in a new conflict and needed more planes immediately. Barber’s amendment prohibits the Air Force from retiring the planes; requires the comptroller general to submit a study evaluating the Air Force’s current platforms’ cost to perform the close-air support mission, the capabilities of the platforms, and a determination as to whether any can carry out the mission as well as the A-10; and provides $635 million for operations, maintenance and upgrades of the fleet in FY ’15.
After Barber described his amendment, saying that troops from Arizona to Afghanistan have asked him to “keep the A-10 flying,” many others joined in. “Give us this amendment, not for us who are sponsoring it, but for the men and women on the ground,” said Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who noted the A-10’s replacement, the F-35, would not be operationally available for another seven to eight years and “the idea the U.S. is not going to be in combat for the next seven to eight years, it’s a dream.” Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), an Army National Guard veteran, called the platform “iconic” and said it has proven itself more than worth the cost of buying and maintaining the planes.
Readiness subcommittee chairman Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) agreed the platform was fantastic but said he could not support the proposal, which pulls the $635 million from the OCO budget. “These funds go to fund our retrograde [from Afghanistan]…but also the reset, bringing the equipment back, making sure it’s ready” for whatever its next mission may be, he said. Taking that money hurts other critical needs, both in platform depot maintenance and enduring operations in Afghanistan and other locations. “I, with reservations, am in opposition to this amendment,” Wittman said.
Tactical air and land subcommittee chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) also said he was worried about the loss of the platform but was more concerned about the topline the Pentagon had to operate under and the impact to both troops and the industrial base. He thanked McKeon for finding a middle-of-the-road approach and said he didn’t believe HASC had the flexibility or the resources to avoid “a massive shifting to avoid this outcome of the A-10.”
Still, despite opposition from the subcommittee chairs, as well as McKeon and HASC ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the amendment passed in a roll call vote at the end of the night, after which the committee broke out into applause for Barber and his amendment.
Another amendment barely passed at the end of the night that would take $120 million away from a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility in South Carolina and use it to purchase eight MQ-9 Reapers–the Air Force requested 12 more in its unfunded priorities list it sent to HASC last month. After some debate about the MOX facility and why it was slated to get the $120 million in the first place, McKeon asked members to table the issue for the time being. But amendment author Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) pushed for a roll call vote, which passed 32-29 with mostly Democratic votes.
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) had proposed an amendment that would fund the eight Reapers by taking the $120 million from the Defense Intelligence Systems Agency, Defense Contract Management Agency, Defense Media Activity and other headquarters operations. That amendment failed in a voice vote with so little support that Hunter did not ask for a roll call vote.
Another amendment by personnel subcommittee chairman Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Rep. Bill Enyart (D-Ill.) spared the National Guard from a controversial section of the Army’s helicopter swap program. During FY ’15, the Army could not reduce its active end strength below 490,000 soldiers or its National Guard below 350,000, it could not transfer any AH-64 Apaches from the Guard to the active Army, and it must report to HASC on the cost and readiness impacts of the Army’s proposed force structure changes, to include the helo swaps proposed in the Pentagon’s budget request.
With relatively little debate, the committee agreed to save three of the seven AWACS planes the Air Force wanted to divest, and it encouraged the Navy to buy additional Super Hornets in FY ’15 to supplement the production line of five Growlers the committee authorized the Navy to buy–which was one of the items on the sea service’s unfunded priorities list. Though a debate about the fundamental size and state of readiness of the fleet erupted during discussion of a bill to stop the Navy from laying up half its cruiser fleet as a cost-saver and a life-extension method, that measure ultimately passed as well.
What received no debate at all during the markup is equally interesting. The seapower and projection forces subcommittee section authorized the creation of a National Seabase Deterrence Fund to pay for the new ballistic missile submarine class outside of the Navy’s shipbuilding fund. Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) congratulated the committee on “doing something that people have been talking about for years”–which is to answer the question, if the submarines are a top Navy and national priority and would be build one way or another, “how do we pay for it without suffocating the rest of the shipbuilding account?” For all the talk this subject has gotten during hearings this year and in past years, there were no objections voiced to it, no questions asked and no alternatives proposed.
Pouring $800 million in to begin incrementally funding LPD-28–the 12th ship in the class of amphibious transport docks that the Navy did not ask for, despite the good it would do for both the Marine Corps and the industrial base–was not questioned either, even as members struggled to find ways to pay for their proposals as they offered amendments. And no one questioned the cuts to the Littoral Combat Ship program–the HASC bill allows the Navy to buy two in FY ’15 and begin advance procurement for two more, rather than buying three and advance procurement for one as the Navy had requested.
The bill will now go to the House floor for debate in two weeks. No provisions in it would be final until the Senate Armed Services Committee finalizes its bill and goes to a conference committee with HASC later this year.