The Senate Armed Services Committee passed its version of the Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act in a 25-1 vote, pushing a bill to the full Senate that seems to resemble the White House’s request more than its counterpart bill in the House.
The bill, though not yet released to the public, sticks to the $514 billion topline in the president’s Defense Department budget request, and it does not include an Overseas Contingency Fund placeholder, SASC Chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters Thursday afternoon.
It also includes a sense of the Senate, agreed to in a 22-3 vote, that the Senate must “develop a comprehensive, bipartisan approach as a substitute for sequestration,” Levin said.
In acquisition, the bill does allow the Navy to move forward with its plan to lay up half its cruiser fleet, and it allows the Army to begin with its aviation restructure plan as a national commission takes a closer look at the issues. It also allowed the Pentagon to retire its Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) subject to reporting requirements, Levin said. And it transfers funding from the Global Hawk Block 30 unmanned surveillance craft to the U-2 manned surveillance plane, though it does not require or ban the Air Force from retiring either, Levin said.
The House Armed Services Committee’s bill, however, prevented the military from making any of those moves in FY ’15.
The senators did break from the administration’s request in a few key areas. It found $320 million to save the A-10 Warthog fleet, though it does not fund wing upgrades–the House provided nearly double that amount for A-10 operations and upgrades.
SASC also provides some money for the refueling of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73) because it would be “unacceptably wasteful to retire a multibillion dollar ship.” The committee could not find the full sum needed, though, so it also gives the Secretary of the Navy the authorization to pull money from underexecuting programs to help pay for the carrier refueling planning and advance procurement in FY ’15.
Similarly, SASC could not find the full sum of money to buy 21 E/A18-G Growlers to keep the production line open, but it found $100 million to keep options open, Levin said.
Levin stressed that, unlike the House, “we did not cut the president’s budget on readiness.” Instead, SASC saved legacy platforms and found money to create decision space through personnel funding. Levin said the services were drawing down faster than anticipated and therefore there was money left in those accounts to support these platforms–but he stressed it was just the speed of the drawdown that the services had changed, not the troop totals they’re aiming for.
Levin said more information on the bill would be available Friday.