By Emelie Rutherford
The Senate is expected to vote today on a temporary federal budget that would run until March 4 and grant the Navy permission to buy Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) from both companies competing to build them.
The Pentagon and rest of the government are running under a fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution (CR), passed by the House and Senate late last week, that funds the government at FY ’10 levels and expires today.
The Senate Appropriations Committee unveiled the new March 4 CR on Sunday, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed a cloture motion setting up a procedural vote today, which will likely be followed today by a vote on final passage.
Reid had tried and failed to garner support in the Senate last week for a $1 trillion-plus omnibus appropriations bill for the entire federal government for all of FY ’11.
The new March 4 resolution would grant the Navy permission to scrap plans to buy 10 LCSs from either the Austal USA or Lockheed Martin [LMT]- Marinette Marine, and instead use both designs and buy 10 copies of each. Under the new plan, which the House already has approved, the Navy would buy 20 instead of 19 LCSs over the next five years. But because the shipbuilders offered lower-than-expected prices in their bids, Navy officials said, the dual-buy approach would save the government $2.9 billion.
Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) has voiced concerns with the LCS proposal.
The Navy wants an answer from Congress, on whether it can award LCS contracts to both shipbuilders, by the end of the year.
The House already approved the LCS change in standalone legislation and within a CR for all of FY ’11, which the Senate is not considering.
Meanwhile in Congress, the policy-setting defense authorization bill for FY ’11 is before the Senate.
The House last Friday passed compromise authorization legislation that House and Senate lawmakers hashed out two days earlier. The chamber passed the defense authorization bill via a 341-48 suspension vote, a process that allows for limited discussion of the legislation.
That authorization bill no longer contains a specific authorization for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s second engine, developed by General Electric [GE] and Rolls-Royce.