By Emelie Rutherford
The House and a Senate panel defied the White House yesterday and authorized adding money to the Pentagon’s policy bill for F-22 fighter jets and a second engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
Yet the future of the two matters the Obama administration has labeled as veto bait are far from certain, Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters while unveiling their panel’s version of the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill. Both senators opposed the F-22 funding, and Levin but not McCain backed adding the F-35 engine monies during close committee-level votes.
The SASC unanimously approved its defense authorization bill yesterday with a 26-0 vote, while the full House also passed its version of the legislation via a 389-22 vote. The Senate bill could hit the chamber’s floor in two weeks, Levin said.
The White House on Wednesday threatened to veto the House bill over two items not in the administration’s request: $369 million in advance-procurement funds to buy parts for F- 22 jets beyond the 187 the Pentagon wants, and $603 million for developing and buying the second-engine program for the F-35, a General Electric [GE]-Rolls Royce effort Congress consistently adds to the Pentagon budget. Lockheed Martin [LMT] builds the F-22 and F-35 airframes.
The SASC-approved bill includes $1.75 billion to fully buy seven F-22s beyond the Pentagon’s 187-jet cap. And the measure calls for spending $438.9 million to the administration’s request to continue the F-35 alternate-engine effort.
During the SASC bill markup, conducted behind closed doors, the F-22 monies were added via a 13-11 vote and the F-35 engine funds were inserted by a 12-10 count, Levin said during a press conference.
Levin said he does “not necessarily” expect a showdown with the White House over the two aircraft matters. He said he expects Senate floor amendments on both issues.
“I think we have a fair chance of winning on the floor” in the F-22 battle, Levin said. He noted the close committee vote and strong stances President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have taken against buying more F-22s.
“We should’ve terminated the F-22 and I voted that way,” Levin added.
He said the committee-level argument in favor of buying F-22s was based on the plane’s capability, a stance he described as “weak.”
McCain pledged to fight against the F-22 funding and the F-35 engine monies on the Senate floor. “I do take Secretary Gates’ comments very seriously,” McCain said.
McCain and Levin predicted Gates’ popularity in Congress will help the anti-F-22 fight.
The SASC measure includes language regarding exploring letting Lockheed Martin export to other nations a simplified version of the F-22, Levin said.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) sent Levin a letter yesterday encouraging him to support funding additional F-22s, aircraft that support thousands of jobs in Connecticut.
The White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy with the veto threat shortly before House floor debate on the defense authorization bill started Wednesday night. The “collective judgment” of military service leaders “suggests” 187 F-22s is sufficient, and continuing to fund the “unnecessary” F-35 alternate-engine program would delay the aircraft’s fielding, the statement says. The document also takes issue with bill language limiting the obligation of some F-35 funds until the second-engine monies are used.
The president’s advisors will recommend he veto the final bill if it contains the House-proposed F-22 funding or “would seriously disrupt the F-35 program,” the statement says.
On the House side, the F-35 second-engine funding was inserted into the bill early in its approval process on June 15 by the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee. The F-22 funds were added in the final minutes of the full-House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) markup on June 17 via an amendment from Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) that passed via a 31-30 vote. Most HASC Democrats who voted against the bill said they support continuing F-22 production but did not want to take funds for it from defense- environmental cleanup monies (Defense Daily, June 18).
Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), John Tierney (D-Mass.), and Donna Edwards (D-Md.) all crafted amendments early this week to remove the F-22 funding from the House bill; yet those amendments were either withdrawn or not allowed to proceed by the Democratically controlled House Rules Committee.
The SASC bill also, according to lawmakers and aides:
- recommends buying nine more F/A-18E/F Super Hornets than the administration wants, boosting the buy to 18 fighter jets;
- calls for maintaining the Air Force tanker schedule and funding, without taking a stand on proposals to compel a dual buy from both aircraft builders competing for the contract;
- heeds the White House’s desire to cancel the VH-71 presidential helicopter without recommending salvaging any of the work already completed on the program;
- supports the administration’s request for stopping the DDG-1000 destroyer program at three ships and building more DDG-51s;
- does not call for rewriting the $460 million Littoral Combat Ship cost cap, as the House bill does; and
- agrees with the administration’s plan to cancel the manned-ground-vehicle part of the Army’s Future Combat Systems modernization effort.
The SASC and House bills both heed the administration’s requested $1.2 billion cut in missile defense funding, compared to FY ’09 levels.
During House floor debate yesterday members shot down, by a 171-244 vote, a Republican amendment to boost missile defense funding by $1.2 billion and take the funds from defense-environmental cleanup coffers.
Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-Ariz.) failed amendment called for fielding 44 ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, instead of the 30 planned for use by the administration, and proceeding beyond the White House’s plans with truncated or canceled programs for the Airborne Laser, Kinetic Energy Interceptor, and Multiple Kill Vehicle.
Franks highlighted recent North Korean missile activity during House floor debate.
Yet House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee Chairwoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), in opposing the amendment, noted the bill approved by the HASC includes the Obama administration’s full $9.3 billion missile defense request. She said the measure would help build a “robust” defense against threats from North Korea while boosting funding, compared to FY ’09 levels, for “proven” systems such as Aegis ballistic missile defense and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense by $900 million.
Tauscher quoted Gates as saying, “the security of the American people and the efficacy of the missile defense system are not enhanced by continuing to put money into programs that in terms of their operational concept are fatally flawed or research programs that are essentially sinkholes for taxpayer dollars.”