By Emelie Rutherford
Senior lawmakers predicted President Obama will not veto the final Pentagon policy bill the Senate passed yesterday because it authorizes an aircraft engine program the Pentagon opposes.
The Senate voted late yesterday, via a 68-29 margin, to grant final congressional approval to the House-Senate compromise fiscal year 2010 defense authorization measure. Obama will decide whether to sign into law or veto the measure, which the House passed Oct. 8.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters he suspects Obama won’t veto the bill even though the White House objected to its authorization of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s second backup engine.
“I thought (Obama) should” veto the bill, McCain said. The senator added his hunch regarding administration officials “is they don’t veto.”
McCain, Obama’s former White House rival, reiterated his concern that the administration did not push lawmakers to back off support for the General Electric [GE]- Rolls-Royce alternate engine as strongly as it fought against continued funding of Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] F-22 fighter jet.
“There must have been some reason that the strength of their statement was different as far as the alternate engine is concerned (compared to ) the F-22,” McCain said.
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters he “would be totally shocked and surprised” if Obama vetoes the defense bill over the F-35 engine authorization.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the White House’s Office of Management in multiple missives to lawmakers have objected to the second-engine effort and said Obama would be advised to veto legislation that would “seriously disrupt” the overall F-35 aircraft program. Some lawmakers and aides consider those words to be a veto threat, while others do not.
Levin, who personally supports the alternate-engine effort, maintains the final House-Senate compromise legislation would not seriously disrupt the program, because it fully authorizes the administration’s $6.8 billion request for the high-profile aircraft effort. By contrast, an earlier House-passed bill supported diverting funding within the overall program to the second engine.
Administration officials “said that what troubled them about the engine is that the money was taken from the program,” Levin said yesterday. “It’s not taken from the program anymore….There’s no basis for a veto. There’s every reason to sign it immediately.”
Levin said there is “so much here that (administration officials) need and support” in the bill, much of it related to the current wars, that he can’t imagine Obama would refuse to sign it into law. The measure authorizes spending for FY ’10, which began Oct. 1.
House and Senate appropriators are still negotiating final FY ’10 Pentagon appropriations legislation. House Appropriations Defense subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) said yesterday final resolution on the appropriations negotiations is still delayed.
The latest word from the Obama administration on the alternate engine came last week.
Gates and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag sent defense appropriators letters reiterating their second-engine objections and saying Obama would be advised to veto legislation that would “seriously disrupt” the overall F-35 program. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell also told reporters last week Pentagon officials were “in the process right now of evaluating whether or not what (lawmakers) are doing or have done does adversely impact the overall (F-35) program.” (Defense Daily, Oct. 16)
The Pentagon authorization bill the Senate passed yesterday would not authorize the extension of two programs that appropriators could fund over Pentagon objections: Boeing‘s [BA] C-17 cargo aircraft and Lockheed Martin’s now-cancelled VH-71 presidential helicopter.
The House-passed Pentagon appropriations bill, but not the Senate bill, would operationalize five of the VH-71 choppers. The Senate-approved appropriations measure would fund 10 C-17s, while the House version would buy three of the cargo haulers.
McCain said yesterday he will continue to fight against buying additional C-17s, which will be built if funded in the appropriations bill even though they are not included in the authorizations legislation he helped craft.
“I will fight as hard as I can” against the Boeing aircraft, McCain said. “Will I succeed? Highly unlikely.”
“This is a long struggle against earmarking, against unnecessary weapons, against the cost overruns,” he added. “And I do have some confidence in Secretary Gates in that he’s willing to at least take this on to some degree, as opposed to some of his predecessors.”
C-17 supporters maintain the nation has deficient strategic airlift capability and needs more of the aircraft heavily used in theater.