The Senate Appropriations Committee’s $574.5 billion defense spending bill, which the defense subcommittee (SAC-D) approved Tuesday, contained a big surprise: $1 billion in Navy shipbuilding funds to accelerate construction of the Coast Guard’s new heavy icebreaker from 2022 to 2020.
The bill, which sets aside $515.9 billion for base expenses and $58.6 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding, is roughly $2 billion less than the president’s budget request. The full committee will meet on Thursday to mark up the proposed legislation, which is expected to be released that day.
Shipbuilding and aircraft procurement were major winners in the Senate bill, which bumped Navy shipbuilding funds by $2.1 billion and aircraft purchases for all services by $2.5 billion.
The committee included $20.5 billion total to buy 10 ships, including three ships that were not included in the president’s budget. Those funds would pay for two Virginia-class submarines, three DDG-51 destroyers, three Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), one LHA amphibious assault ship and one polar icebreaker, as well as advanced procurement for the Ohio replacement submarine and aircraft carrier replacement submarines.
That extra funding is a boon for the Coast Guard, which has repeatedly said that it would not be able to pay for a new icebreaker out of its own limited budget. Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] Ingalls Shipbuilding, which built the medium icebreaker Healy, has expressed interest in the program.
“I’m pleased that our committee has identified resources to procure a polar icebreaker, a much needed national security investment, for the first time since fiscal year 1990,” said Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and the defense subcommittee.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also praised the decision during the markup. As polar ice recedes, Coast Guard operations in the Arctic are ramping up, she said. Constructing a heavy icebreaker will insure the U.S. military isn’t left behind as other nations increasingly traverse the region.
“This is going to be noted around the globe,” she said.
An extra LCS provides some good news for manufacturers Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Austal, which produce the Freedom and Independence versions of the ship, respectively. Senate appropriators joined the House appropriations and authorizing committees in adding the third ship, leaving the Senate Armed Services Committee as the only defense panel to align with the president’s budget request for two ships. That could be an early sign that Congress may not be willing to back Defense Secretary Ashton Carter’s directive to cap the program at 40 ships and downselect to a single builder.
In the area of aircraft procurement, the bill includes money for several unfunded requirements listed as priorities by the service chiefs. The committee added $979 million for another 12 F/A-18 Super Hornets made by Boeing [BA]. It boosted funding for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by $507 million, allowing for the purchase of two additional F-35Bs and two F-35Cs.
It also increased funds for C-130J procurement by $160 million for the Air Force to purchase another two aircraft. The bill adds $103 million for the Air Force effort to replace its aging Compass Call fleet.
In addition, the committee boosted funding for rotorcraft, including $367 million for 15 UH-60 Black Hawks for the Army National Guard, $187 million for 28 UH-72 Lakotas for the Army, $150 million for two MV-22 Ospreys for the Marine Corps, and $75 million for the Air Force’s replacement for the UH-1N.
The bill safeguards United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) ability to use the Russian RD-180 rocket engine for military space launches. The committee included language that “requires all competitive launch procurements to be available to all certified launch providers regardless of the country of origin of the launch vehicle rocket engine,” the bill summary states. ULA is a joint Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture. SAC-D also increased funds for development of a new, domestically produced rocket engine or launch vehicle by $100 million, bringing the investment to $396.6 million.
Raytheon [RTN] scored a small victory with the committee’s addition of $56.2 million for Tomahawk missile procurement, which allows the company to maintain its minimum sustaining rate.
The committee also augmented missile defense programs. The Missile Defense Agency itself scored another $333.1 million on top of the president’s request as well as full funding for two prototype airborne laser demonstrations. Cooperative missile defense programs with Israel netted $600.7 million, a total $454 million above the budget request.