By Emelie Rutherford
House authorizing subcommittees began crafting the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2010 budget yesterday, proposing to match the Obama administration’s missile-defense request and boost its Special Operations Command (SOCOM) proposal to include the command’s wish-list of unfunded items.
The full House Armed Services Committee (HASC) will mark up the entire defense authorization bill Tuesday. Two key procurement panels–the Seapower and Expeditionary Forces and the Air and Land Forces subcommittees–are slated to mark up their portions today.
The Strategic Forces subcommittee approved legislation yesterday that would fully fund the administration’s $9.3 billion request for missile defense, with $7.8 billion slated for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the rest pegged for the military services.
Panel Chair Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who is in the process of being confirmed for a State Department position, said the panel’s proposal “emphasizes ballistic missile defense systems that address near-term threats to the United States, our deployed troops, and our allies.” The subcommittee recommended matching the White House’s proposed $900 million increase, compared to FY ’09 levels, for the Aegis BMD and THAAD programs.
Strategic Forces subcommittee Ranking Member Michael Turner (R-Ohio) and member Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said they have serious concerns about the White House’s proposed $1.2 billion reduction to missile-defense spending compared to FY ’09 levels, but said they will wait until the full committee markup to attempt any amendments.
“I cannot reconcile why the administration has decided to decrease missile defense funding while daily news reports, substantiated by our own intelligence services, articulate an increasing missile threat,” Turner said. He charged the $1.2 billion reduction has “forced a trade, or false choice, pitting national missile defense against theater missile defense,” and lamented cuts to the Airborne Laser, Kinetic Energy Interceptor, and Multiple Kill Vehicle programs.
The only proposed missile-defense funding change the subcommittee proposed making to the administration’s request is a shift of $20.5 million from a missile-defense- headquarters account to the David’s Sling short-range missile defense program shared by the United States and Israel.
The Strategy Forces panel, though, did recommend policy changes, including to make permanent a prohibition on deploying long-range interceptor missiles in Europe until the defense secretary certifies they will be operationally effective. Its mark also would mandate a long-term plan for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program from the Pentagon.
The panel also proposed requiring a report from the Pentagon on possible alternatives to the U.S.-Israeli Arrow-3 missile defense program if it does not proceed as planned, which some observers fear will happen.
For military space programs, the Strategic Forces subcommittee’s mark calls for reducing the administration’s requested funding for the Third Generation Infrared Satellite System, High Integrity GPS, and Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle efforts. It recommends increasing funding above the White House’s request for the Operationally Responsive Space program.
The Strategic Forces panel’s proposal would require the Pentagon to submit annual science and technology strategy reports to Congress.
Also, yesterday, the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats, and Capabilities subcommittee marked up its version of the defense authorization bill. It recommended funding all of the Pentagon’s $8.65 billion request for SOCOM and adding $308.4 million to cover the command’s entire unfunded-priorities list of items not in the Pentagon’s request
The top request on that SOCOM wish list is $85 million for modifying four MC-130W Combat Spear support-and-tanker planes to gunships; thus, combined with the bases-budget funding for SOCOM, the HASC panel’s proposed funding would ensure 12 of the Lockheed Martin [LMT] aircraft are converted to gunships.
“We did focus on SOCOM,” Terrorism Panel Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said. “We want to try to give them the tools and equipment they need to be able to do what we ask them to do.”
Covering the command’s unfunded requirements will help it “take the lead on irregular warfare,” he added.
The Terrorism subcommittee also recommended adding funding to the administration’s request to expand NATO’s special-operations capability, which Ranking Member Jeff Miller (R- Fla.) highlighted as a priority.
In the area of cybersecurity, the Terrorism panel wants to direct the Pentagon to establish a joint-program office for cyber operations capabilities. Its mark calls for the defense secretary to require the military services and agencies create a process for addressing hardware or software vulnerabilities to defense information-technology systems.
The Terrorism subcommittee’s mark also “encourages the (Defense) Department to invest in developing and demonstrating technologies for hybrid air vehicles, and establishes a pilot demonstration for an alternative process for acquiring new information technology capabilities,” Smith said in a statement.
The panel’s proposal includes a $150 million cut to the request for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aides said. All of the suggested DARPA reduction is for funding requests that could not be executed, they said. The agency’s $3.2 billion funding request was dropped to approximately $3 billion in the panel’s legislation.
Overall the Terrorism subcommittee called for boosting its portion of the defense authorization bill by a net of approximately $310 million, roughly the same amount as the added funding for SOCOM, aides said.