Sens. Robert Casey (D-Pa.,) Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) have written their colleagues on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) in favor of continuing funding for Abrams tanks in the Fiscal Year 2013 budget.
The senators request SASC fund 33 M1A2 SEP Abrams tanks in FY 2013, which would keep the production line ticking over and avoid eroding the industrial base and job losses.
The April 18 letter to SASC Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) stressed the “strong concern” about the Army plan to end M1A2 tank production, which the authors said “places in jeopardy the nation’s armored combat vehicle industrial base and our national security.”
The Army did not request funds for tank production in the FY 2012 budget and said at the time it wanted to temporarily stop procurement and modernization of the tank until 2017. Congress restored funding, which the Army again in the FY ’13 budget did not request.
Last year, Casey wrote to Levin in support of funding for Abrams tanks, in that case supporting funding for 70 tanks for “in support of essential national security concerns” (Defense Daily, June 14).
The authors quoted the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has said that “capability is more important than size,” and that with a smaller Army the military must ensure that soldiers have the most “effective and survivable tanks in the world.”
The authors also point out that Army Secretary John McHugh acknowledged in March that the proposal would cause manufacturing jobs to be at stake.
The letter said the proposal said the impact would be that the “supplier base will wither, factories will close and thousands of highly skilled manufacturing jobs will be lost.” The cost to restart the program would be costly and it is not clear if the skilled workers would return, it said.
There are a number of studies with different figures as to the financial cost of closing and restarting the Abrams line. Without noting its source, the letter said “any interruption in the Abrams program would result in $3.4 billion in lost income for many communities throughout the nation.”
In late March, some 200 suppliers from congressional districts in some 43 states visited Washington, in support of keeping the tank line open. General Dynamics [GD], which produces the tank, has said that small business suppliers comprise 64 percent of their industry base.
While acknowledging the need to reduce federal spending and support efforts to rein in debt, the letter said the continued production of the tank is necessary to maintain ground superiority, and to ensure the “industrial base is able to meet our national security needs.”