With all four defense committees having submitted their versions of the defense authorization and appropriations bills, Congress must now meet in conference to hash out their differences and put a bill on President Obama’s desk. In this series we will be covering the major battles you can expect between the committees before this fiscal year comes to a close.
It may be the biggest question going into the conference when it comes to weapons programs: will Congress force the Pentagon to buy F/A-18E/F Super Hornets or EA-18G Growlers?
In the last few years, Congress has done both, adding 11 Super Hornets in the fiscal 2013 spending bill and five EA-18G Growlers in last year’s bill — both actions the Navy supported via its unfunded priority list even though it’s not what the top brass in the Pentagon want, indicating an obvious continuing disconnect between the two.
That will continue for another year as appropriators appear dead set on adding aircraft — they just need to figure out which aircraft to buy. House appropriators set aside $660 million for seven EA-18G Growlers, whereas Senate appropriators are calling for $979 million to buy 12 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets.
It’s a clear indication that despite further progress with the F-35, there remain too many questions in lawmakers’ minds about just how close the Joint Strike Fighter is to making a real impact in the fleet. And Congress doesn’t seem terribly impressed with the Pentagon’s intention to patch over the “gap” in the coming years with service life extensions of legacy F/A-18A-D Hornets, something that seems entirely too expensive to lawmakers in exchange for not much extra service life per aircraft.