A House panel wants to boost the Pentagon’s proposed funding for a future bomber and existing Humvees and tanks, while calling for scrutiny of the Pentagon’s efficiencies initiative, Navy shipbuilding, and the Air Force tanker development.
The House Appropriations Committee’s (HAC) 349-page report accompanying the fiscal year 2012 defense appropriations bill calls for an array of policy and spending changes to President Barack Obama’s military spending request. The HAC is slated to mark up the bill today, and the House is poised to debate it next week.
The HAC is expected to make few changes today to the version of the bill its defense subcommittee approved, behind closed doors, on June 1. The legislation calls for cutting Obama’s defense budget request by $8.9 billion, down to $530 billion, while boosting the administration’s separate war-funding proposal by $842 million, to $118.7 billion.
The HAC’s report calls for a $50 million boost to the administration’s request for Army research funding for Humvee survivability improvements; those extra monies would be taken from requested funding for developing a multi-service Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV).
“The Committee is aware that significant improvements in (Humvee) survivability appear to be feasible by the application of blast venting technology, such as the so-called blast chimney,” the report says. “These improvements could lead to a (Humvee) with survivability equal to or better than the (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle) MRAP, weight considerably less than predicted for the JLTV, and at a cost significantly less than either.”
The HAC adds it expects the Pentagon’s future requests for Humvee and JLTV funding “will describe the capabilities to be provided by the various light tactical vehicles.”
The panel also raises concerns about the Army’s plans to end production of the M1A1SA Abrams Tank next month and the M1A2SEP variant in two years, before restarting a tank line in 2016. The HAC thus added $272 million to the Pentagon’s request for continued procurement of M1A2SEP tanks in FY ’12.
“The Committee understands that the issue is complex and worthy of a detailed analysis,” the report says, calling for a report from the Army on its tank procurement plans, including how the additional funds would be spent.
Other funding increases specified in the lengthy committee report include $100 million above Obama’s request for developing the next-generation bomber, raising research funding to $297 million. The report, though, includes no commentary on the bomber.
The HAC report spells out proposed funding reductions to the Pentagon’s request, including a $116 million reduction to the Army’s proposal for developing a new Ground Combat Vehicle. The panel also wants to cut $115 million for the purchase of 12 MQ–8B Firescout vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial vehicles. Other reductions, unveiled before the HAC-D’s markup, include a $435 million dip to the request for the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and $524 million cut for the Enhanced Medium Altitude Reconnaissance and Surveillance System proposal.
The committee is critical of the Pentagon’s efficiencies initiative, while led the administration to identify $10.7 billion in such savings in FY ’12, and $100.2 billion from FY ’12 to FY ’16.
The HAC says in its report it “finds that the majority of these savings have been taken in the broad categories of better business practices and reorganizations and believes that such savings often times never materialize.” The panel also states it found “more troubling” instances “in which underfunding valid requirements were claimed as efficiencies.”
“The Committee urges the Secretary of Defense to reassess the efficiency savings estimates, restore funding when required, and develop contingency plans to mitigate the effect on operations and readiness if the savings do not materialize,” the HAC report states.
The HAC is also critical of Navy shipbuilding, pointing to mishaps including a failed weld joint on an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that caused structural damage to a mast-mounted antenna. The panel calls in its report for the comptroller general to “review the Navy’s process for quality assurance in shipbuilding.”
“This review should identify the extent to which quality assurance processes identified known quality problems, including an examination of what analyses the Navy has performed and what actions have been taken to address identified problems,” the HAC states. It calls for additional elements in the review such as an examination of the extent to which the American Bureau of Shipbuilding plays a role in quality assurance in Navy shipbuilding.
For the Air Force KC-46A aerial-refueling tanker, which Boeing [BA] recently received the contract to build, the HAC wants to keep tabs on contract changes that could impacts its costs and schedule. The report states the Air Force secretary must report contract modifications worth at least $5 million to Congress no more than 30 days after the change is authorized.
The legislation the HAC will take up today does not fund the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s second engine, developed by General Electric [GE] and Rolls-Royce. The Pentagon killed the engine effort in April after Congress, for the first time, agreed to stop funding for it. The contracting team has pledged to spend its own money to continue developing the engine in FY ’12. The House-passed defense authorization bill included language intended to keep alive the alternate engine.
Overall, the bill before the HAC would cut Obama’s request for procurement, from $114.4 billion to $107.6 billion, and research and development, from $75.3 billion to $73 billion.