By Emelie Rutherford
The House is expected to take up legislation next week that would enable Boeing [BA] to secure a contract this month that it has long sought to sell the Pentagon 124 Super Hornet and Growler fighter jets over four years.
The Pentagon agreed in May to the cost-savings multi-year deal for the F/A-18E/Fs and E/A-18Gs, a setup several lawmakers sought for years (Defense Daily, May 17). Yet Congress must pass a bill this month making two technical changes for the Department of Defense (DoD) and Boeing to sign the contract by a Sept. 30 deadline, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told Congress last month.
So House Armed Services Committee members Reps. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), Todd Akin (R-Mo.), and Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) filed legislation to fix the problems; the bill would add statutory language saying the deal has all authorizations required under law and remove language saying the Pentagon had to agree to the multi-year deal by March 1, 2010, because Congress did not receive a multi-year certification from DoD until May 14.
The House is set to quickly consider the legislation on the suspension calendar on Sept. 14, the first day the chamber will be back in session following the August recess, according to a congressional aide.
The measure would have to be approved by the House, Senate, and President Barack Obama by the end of the month for the multi-year deal to go through, because the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization deal sets a deadline of Sept. 30, the final day of FY ’10.
The multi-year deal for 124 F/A-18s will save the government $590 million when compared to single-year procurements of the same number of aircraft, according to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. He sought the legislative relief addressed in the new legislation in an Aug. 4 letter to the heads of the House and Senate armed services and appropriations committees.
Akin has been a leading voice on Capitol Hill in recent years in calling for Pentagon to buy F/A-18s in a multi-year deal instead of in smaller year-by-year contracts.
Boeing offered DoD a multi-year contract in February that it said would generate a 10 percent savings to the government compared to traditional annual contracts, which is the minimum savings sought by the Pentagon for a multi-year deal. The Navy and Pentagon gave final approval to the arrangement in May.
Boeing builds the Super Hornet and Growler in St. Louis, Mo.