The House Armed Services Committee will release its full Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act language Monday morning, which will include the marked-up subcommittee language passed April 30 and May 1, as well as new language that does not fit into the jurisdiction of a single subcommittee.
Several issues are still unresolved after the subcommittee markups and will be interesting to follow as the full committee releases its bill on May 5 and marks it up May 7.
UCLASS
The seapower and projection forces subcommittee included in its language a provision that would force the secretary of defense to “to conduct a review of the requirements for a carrier-based unmanned aircraft system to extend the [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] and precision strike reach of the carrier air wing in [anti-access/area-denial] threat environments projected for 2025-2035, and to provide a report on the review to the congressional defense committees by December 30, 2014.”
Subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.) told reporters at an April 29 Defense Writers Group breakfast that he supported the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike program, and it was out of that support that he drafted this language.
“I’m not so arrogant as to say that I’m right and the Navy’s wrong, but I’m arrogant enough I guess to say I’m going to need you to take a second look at that,” he said. “I want it to be the right platform that we’re using.” Forbes said the Navy had done a good job ensuring the platform had proper endurance but wanted to make sure it was also survivable and had the correct payload–possibly to include weapons, as do manned platforms in the carrier air wings.
But subcommittee ranking member Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.) expressed his support for the Navy’s path forward as-is during the markup and said he worried the reporting requirements would slow down the program unnecessarily.
“The capabilities development document, which fully vetted the program requirements, was approved over a year ago in April of 2013. The recent request for proposals was reviewed and approved by both the secretary of the Navy and the [chief of naval operations],” he said. “The Navy believes that any additional requirements review would be duplicative and that the fence on the funding currently included in this mark may result in a one- to two-year delay in program execution, jeopardizing continued investment and participation by one or more industry participants. I look forward to working with the chairman to improve this provision at the full committee markup.”
Tactical vehicles
The tactical air and land subcommittee shifted money around, taking away from some “under-performing programs” and funding some items from the Unfunded Priorities List sent over by the service chiefs and combatant commanders. Staff members, however, would not elaborate on the winners and losers until the full committee bill comes out.
Among the changes the subcommittee’s language makes is to add funding for Abrams tanks upgrades, Stryker combat vehicle improvements, Hercules recovery vehicles and tactical wheeled vehicles beyond what the Army requested. But the language the subcommittee released makes no mention of additional funding for any of the programs.
The language so far does not specify which programs are “under-performing” or how steep a cut in funding they’ll see–or whether those cuts are large enough to offset all the unfunded priorities added to the authorization bill.
Subcommittee chairman Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said during his markup on May 1 that his $55.7 billion proposal “will address capability shortfalls and capacity concerns. The mark anticipates and prevents the avoidable or unwanted loss of defense industrial base capacity. This will ensure we equip our warfighters with the most advanced systems possible in order to meet the requirements of the Commandant Commanders in a constrained fiscal environment.”