Senate GOP defense hawks want to change Pentagon policy legislation so it calls for ending budget cuts, advances plans for an East Coast missile defense site, and increases oversight of high-profile Navy shipbuilding programs.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Republicans have a number of qualms with the fiscal year 2014 defense authorization bill their panel approved via a 23-3 voted on June 13. And chief among them is the $500 billion in decade-long sequestration cuts to planned defense spending, according to the committee’s report on the bill, which was unveiled Monday.
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SASC Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-Okla.) laments in the SASC’s report that the committee did not vote during its bill-writing “markup” session two weeks ago on an amendment he crafted to “cancel” the defense sequestration cuts for FY ’14.
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) did not allow a vote, during the closed markup, on Inhofe’s sequestration amendment because the budget matter is not within the SASC’s jurisdiction.
“However, I am not deterred and I am strongly considering offering this amendment again during the bill’s consideration on the Senate floor,” Inhofe argues in “additional views” he added to the SASC report.
Inhofe maintains the SASC’s $526.5 billion bill does not authorize “a sufficient sum to adequately confront our nation’s current and future threats.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a senior SASC member and its former ranking member, adds in the committee report that sequestration has “damaged our defense institutions” and he also plans to debate on the Senate floor ways to end the cuts.
Inhofe says he also wants the full Senate to consider an increase in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) war funding for the current year. He plans to offer an amendment that the committee killed–in a party-line vote–to encourage President Barack Obama’s administration to send Congress a supplemental appropriations request to cover “emerging” OCO requirement, including a $3.7 billion shortfall.
Inhofe and four SASC Republicans–Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Deb Fischer (Neb.), and David Vitter (La.)–lament the panel’s move to stop short of requiring the Pentagon build a facility with missile interceptors on the U.S. East Coast.
Inhofe noted, though, that the House-passed defense authorization bill calls for the actual construction of such a facility. He said it is “his hope” that when House and Senate negotiators craft a final bill the East Coast site will be support more than in the SASC bill.
The Pentagon–as required by the FY ’13 defense authorization act–is preparing to conduct environmental-impact studies on three possible missile-defense locations, with at least two on the East Coast. While SASC Republicans failed in their attempt to require such a site’s fielding, Inhofe and Ayotte did succeed in adding to the committee bill a requirement for fielding additional missile sensors in the United States to defend against the threat of ICBMs from Iran.
Still, they and Sessions, Fischer, and Vitter argue–in extended commentary in the SASC report–that deploying an X-band radar or comparable senor “does not go far enough.” They maintain “we also need to proceed as soon as possible with the deployment of an additional interceptor site on the East Coast to compensate for the loss of the planned third interceptor site in Poland,” referring to a now-defunct European missile site planned by former President George W. Bush.
The five Republicans assert “missile defense planners in the Pentagon have long understood the advantages provided by an additional missile defense site (beyond those in Alaska and California).” Levin and several SASC Democrats, though, repeatedly note senior military officials’ comments that do not endorse an additional U.S. interceptor site on the East Coast.
McCain also says in the SASC report that he “encourage(s)” his colleagues to support more oversight of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and Ford-class aircraft carrier programs.
In his “additional views” in the report, McCain says “major challenges abound that threaten whether this (LCS) program will indeed be able to deliver intended combat capability.”
“The decision to use a commercial hull has not resulted in a shortened fielding period; the two-variant seaframe acquisition has resulted in decreased commonality; and capabilities for the seaframes and mission modules are still unknown and untested,” he says.
“At this point program we need an honest, objective look at the requirements, capabilities, and current acquisition strategy for LCS,” he adds. He specifically calls for “a reporting requirement that would direct the secretary of the Navy to submit to Congress specific certifications on LCS acquisition milestones and capabilities before being authorized to obligate funds for LCS 21 and beyond.”
For the Ford carrier program, McCain says he is “concerned that the Navy is rushing to put the second ship, CVN-79, on contract before the costs of the first ship have stabilized.”
“I want to ensure the cost-saving efforts proposed by the Navy in its recent report to Congress will be achieved,” the senator writes. “This can be done without delaying the delivery of CVN-79 to the fleet. I strongly encourage my colleagues to consider measures that would require the Secretary of the Navy to have a greater degree of certainty about the design and cost of CVN-78 before awarding a construction contract for CVN-79.”
It is not clear when the full Senate will debate the defense authorization bill. Levin said last week he is hoping it will hit the floor in July, but acknowledged that plan is optimistic. FY ’14 starts Oct. 1.