By Emelie Rutherford
Lawmakers denied the Army’s request to shift around funding to refurbish existing Humvees instead of buying new ones, a move that likely will lead to the production of thousands more of the AM General vehicles.
The Army recently decided it has more of the stalwart battle trucks than in needs. The Pentagon, thus, asked Congress in April for permission to reprogram $560 million in already approved funding to recapitalize nearly 8,000 Humvees instead of buying new copies.
The House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D), though, denied the reprogramming request, sources said. Lawmakers are said to want more clarity from the Army on its plans for recapitalizing Humvees.
The HAC-D also denied the Army’s request to shift around $13.3 million to fund an analysis of its Humvee investment and an assessment of the industrial base’s ability to improve up-armored Humvees.
The Army has two existing programs to recapitalize soft-sided and up-armored Humvees; the thwarted $560 million reprogramming would have redirected vehicle procurement money to those two efforts. Service officials also have talked about a third Humvee recapitalization program that would have AM General and other companies compete to improve up-armored Humvees and outfit them with enhanced explosive-deflection features.
Industry officials said they join lawmakers in wanting more details about the Army’s plans to shift from buying new Humvees to only upgrading existing ones.
The Army received $1.3 billion in the FY ’10 budget for buying 8,120 Humvees, while seeking to buy none of the vehicles in FY ’11, which starts Oct. 1. The service had planned to obligate only a portion of the $1.3 billion in FY ’10 Humvee funding, for buying fewer than 3,000 vehicles, and had hoped to reprogram $573.3 million that had been pegged for buying 5,2467 additional Humvees; that reprogramming will not happen, though, following the HAC-D’s denial.
Army Secretary John McHugh told the HAC-D on March 23 that the service determined it exceeded its Humvee requirement after conducting a portfolio review. The service wanted to cap its FY ’10 buy at 2,662 vehicles, instead of 8,120, he said. “After that we expect the Humvee to still be a part of our vehicle fleet, but it will be much adjusted in its activity based on what we’ve experienced in Afghanistan,” McHugh told the HAC-D.
Additional Humvee sales to buyers beyond the U.S. Army could reach 9,000 vehicles.
The two Humvee requests denied by the HAC-D were within the Pentagon’s 34-page proposal to reprogram $2.8 billion in fiscal year 2010 and 2009 funding, which it send to the four congressional defense panels on April 8.