A House panel will weigh a plan today to alter controversial weapons changes the Pentagon proposed by requiring the military to keep vehicle production lines running and salvaging an unmanned aircraft slated for termination.
The House Armed Services Committee’ (HASC) Air and Land Forces subcommittee wants to authorize additional funding for the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2013 budget request for a series of vehicle and aircraft programs, according to a draft of the policy-setting legislation it will mark up today. After the HASC subcommittees finish crafting their portions of the FY ’13 defense authorization bill today, the full committee will mark up the combined legislation May 9.
The Air and Land Forces panel is proposing adding authorization for more funding than the Pentagon wants for seven programs, including General Dynamics’ [GD] M1 Abrams tank and BAE Systems’ Bradley Fighting Vehicle, both of which are slated to have their production lines temporarily shut down in the coming years.
“It’s vastly expensive to shut down and then restart a production line,” HASC Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said in a speech Wednesday night highlighting his priorities for the defense authorization bill. “So to avoid those costs and losing the combat power of our ground forces, we will support a minimum sustained production of the Bradley and Abrams lines.”
The Air and Land Forces panel is calling for adding authorization for $181 million to the Pentagon’s $74.4 million Abrams request and $140 million to the $148.2 million Bradley proposal, according to a chart provided by committee staff.
The subcommittee also is calling for preventing the Pentagon from shutting down Northrop Grumman’s [NOC] Global Hawk Block 30 program. The panel wants to add authorization for $263.3 million to the Pentagon’s $75 million request for the unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.
The Air and Land Force panel further wants to authorize $180.4 million more than the Pentagon requested for General Atomics’ MQ-9 Reaper, in order to boost the proposed buy of the unmanned aircraft from 24 to 36 drones. It also is supporting a $62 million boost to the Pentagon’s request for BAE’s M88A2 Hercules recovery vehicle, to increase FY ’13 production. And the subcommittee wants to give the Pentagon authorization for $45 million in unrequested advance-procurement funding for Boeing‘s [BA] EA-18G Growler aircraft, in order to continue production in FY ’14.
The subcommittee also is proposing authorizing $250 million for a new National Guard and Reserve Equipment account.
Meanwhile, the HASC’s Readiness subcommittee, which will mark up today, wants to prevent the Pentagon from retiring three of the nine CG-47 Aegis cruisers it wants to put to rest early, according to a draft of its legislation released yesterday.
Four other HASC subcommittees–including those overseeing Navy shipbuilding and missile defense–approved their portions of the defense authorization bill during markup sessions yesterday. They made only slight changes from text they released the previous day (Defense Daily, April 26).
The Seapower panel added yesterday an amendment from Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) seeking a “comprehensive briefing” from the Navy secretary on the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program, which weathered bad press again this week after years of technical troubles.
“While the Navy has briefed the congressional defense committees on problems involving the LCS program, the committee believes that the Navy has not adequately informed Congress to the full extent possible on program deficiencies, including mechanical and structural failures,” Hunter’s amendment states. It adds the HASC is “concerned with the lack of transparency” regarding LCS issues raised in the annual report by the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation.
Also yesterday, the HASC’s Strategic Forces subcommittee removed two portions of its previously released legislation, leaving that pair of provisions to be addressed by the full HASC in two weeks. One of those sections calls for the Pentagon to report to Congress on missile-defense exports to nations including China, North Korea, and Iran. The other provision calls for the Pentagon to report to lawmakers on efforts to improve coordination of export controls based on a Counter Space Technology List crafted in coordination with the State Department.