House votes to kill funding for more F-22s

[CommunityEditor]

President Barack Obama and top defense officials warned Monday that the 2010 defense budget will be vetoed unless Congress kills further purchases of the F-22 aircraft.

Continuing to procure more of the fighters is taking money away from more pressing needs, Obama said in a letter as the Senate begins debating S 1390, the 2010 defense authorization act.

The bill includes about $1.75 billion for the purchase of seven more F-22s that the Pentagon says it does not want or need.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, in their own letter to Congress, said continuing to spend money beyond 2009 on the F-22 would come “at the expense of other Air Force and defense programs.”

The letters were read on the Senate floor by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, who said the $1.75 billion being spent on the F-22 was taken from military personnel and operations and maintenance accounts, including accounts to cover the cost of active-duty bonuses and support and from the civilian payroll account.

Money also was “found” through an assumption that the military will be able to save money starting next year by reforming defense acquisition policies.

“Each of these places cannot afford these cuts,” Levin said, noting in particular that overhauling rules on weapons-buying could end up costing money in the short term rather than providing savings.

“Major savings, which we think will come, are not going to happen in the short term,” he said.

Levin said cutting uniformed and civilian personnel accounts would be a mistake, and likely would force the Pentagon to come back later for extra money to cover expenses.

Levin and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the armed services committee’s ranking Republican, support the Pentagon’s view that 187 F-22s are enough. As Senate debate began Monday on the bill, the first amendment under consideration is to cancel additional F-22 purchases.

“At some point, we have to come to the logical conclusion that a weapons system has come to an end,” Levin said.

This will be the first of many tests to see whether Congress is willing to terminate or reduce weapons programs. In this case, with contracts for F-22 pieces spread over 40 states, job protection in a weak economy is a major factor.

McCain said the votes “are not there” to kill the F-22, and that he hopes Obama’s letter “has a significant impact.”

Debate on the defense bill is expected to extend through early next week, with more than 300 amendments anticipated.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/07/military_defensebudget_vetothreat_071309w/

[CommunityEditor]

Defense companies that once feared big changes with Democrats in control of the White House and Congress can begin to relax.

The House Appropriations subcommittee on defense unveiled its version of the 2010 defense budget Thursday, a spending plan that resurrects some big-ticket weapons that appeared doomed by the budget drafted by President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Under the command of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., the subcommittee voted to keep alive the F-22 stealth fighter program, to buy more C-17 transport planes, to double the number of F/A-18 aircraft to be bought for the Navy, even preserve the disastrous VH-71 presidential helicopter program.

Despite resuscitating those programs, the subcommittee managed to trim $3.8 billion from Obama’s spending proposal. The subcommittee’s total is $636.8 billion.

The subcommittee voted in secret to approve the budget July 16, then Murtha offered explanations.

The budget is based on the need to balance short-term needs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan against longer-term threats, Murtha told reporters. National military strategy still requires the military to be able to fight two major wars, he said.

Gates has been arguing for greater focus on the wars the military is fighting now and seems most likely to fight in the future, and less emphasis — and less spending — on notional wars that might occur sometime off in the future.

Thus, Gates called for ending production of the F-22 and the C-17, and for canceling the presidential helicopter. He also sought to end the vehicle portion of the Army’s Future Combat Systems, cancel the airborne laser and the pull the plug on the Transformational Satellite.

Murtha’s subcommittee is the third of four defense spending panels to overrule the White House and the Pentagon on the F-22. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees did so, as well.

Two panels — House Armed Services and Murtha’s subcommittee — have defied the president on the C-17. So far, only the House appropriators have opted to rescue the VH-71 presidential helicopter.

“These guys have basically said, ‘No, you can’t end any programs.’ ” said Christopher Hellman, a defense budget analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Many lawmakers are loath to cut weapons programs because they are vital to maintaining jobs — and winning votes — at home, he said.

Murtha describes the subcommittee’s motivations differently: “We’re going to spend whatever we need to spend to take care of our troops and their families back home.”

The decision to keep spending on the F-22 — a plane Gates points out has never flown in combat — seems to put the House appropriators on a collision course with Obama. The president has vowed to veto defense bills that include F-22 funding.

But Murtha said, “It won’t come to that. We’ll work it out.” The House defense appropriation subcommittee voted to spend $369 million to buy parts and materials for 12 F-22s to be fully funded later.

Fighting Two Wars
Of Obama’s determination to end F-22 production, Murtha said, “I feel very strongly that they made a decision that leaves us at high risk” if the U.S. gets involved in two major wars at once.

“We want him to listen to us,” Murtha said, referring to Obama.

“We’re spending money as wisely as possible,” he said. “We’ll work with the White House.”

In the end, there will be no veto, he predicted.

Murtha acknowledged that a major defense review now underway might eliminate the requirement for U.S. forces to be able to fight two major wars simultaneously.

As for the presidential helicopter, Murtha said his subcommittee wants to spend $485 million to “operationalize five aircraft.” Obama wants to spend $85 million to shut the program down.

Murtha said that since the Navy has already spent $3.2 billion on the helicopter, “we’ve got to get something out of it. You can’t just cancel programs and not get something out of them. We’re trying to get at least a few helicopters that can be used by the president.”

The subcommittee added $674 million to buy three more C-17 cargo planes. Gates didn’t justify the addition, but he criticized the Defense Department, saying that unstable C-17 funding in past years has increased the cost of each plane.

The extra nine F/A-18s would add $495 million to the budget, increasing the total in 2010 to $1.7 billion. Murtha said the extra planes are needed because “we’ve got a shortfall down the road of F-18s.”

For Congress to add money to the defense budget for F/A-18s and C-17s “is not the way to do it. DoD should do it. We just felt it was necessary when we look at the threat,” Murtha said.

The subcommittee added $560 million to the budget to keep developing an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. For years, lawmakers have wanted a second engine, arguing it is dangerous to have thousands of planes reliant on a single engine that could develop problems. And for years the Pentagon has resisted, argued that developing a second engine is a waste of money.

For the Navy, the subcommittee added two ships to the budget, for a total of 10 at a cost of $15 billion. The added ships include a Littoral Combat Ship, for a total of four in 2010, and a Joint High Speed Vessel, for a total of two.

“This is the first time since 1992 that the shipbuilding account was funded for 10 or more ships,” the subcommittee said in a summary of its spending bill.

The appropriators went further than Gates and Obama in cutting missile defense. The Pentagon requested $7.8 billion, the appropriators voted to spend $7.2 billion. Details of the cuts are not yet available, but a subcommittee aide said the cuts included reductions in test programs where tests were not ready to be conducted.

$3.8B Cut
The $3.8 billion cut from the Gates spending plan came in part from “programs that were lagging behind” and were not spending money as quickly as they had been expected to, Murtha said.

Cuts were also made in operations and maintenance spending, he said.

The cuts include:

• $26 million from more than $810 million for Army heavy tactical vehicles.

• $193 million cut from nearly $1.2 billion for Army medium tactical vehicles.

• $532 million cut from about $6 billion sought for F-35s.

• $211 cut from the $2.5 billion Future Combat Systems program.

• $200 million cut from the $3.2 billion Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/07/defense_appropriations_f22_c17_072009/

[CommunityEditor]

A day after the U.S. Senate voted to halt production of F-22 stealth fighters, the House Appropriations Committee signaled it is likely to go along.

The committee voted July 22 to spend $369 million to buy another dozen F-22s, but Rep. David Obey, the committee chairman, said that has to change.

In light of the Senate vote and a threat from the White House to veto any bill that contains money for new F-22s, Obey said House appropriators must “recognize that conditions have changed” on the F-22.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said he tried to draft an amendment “to adjust for the F-22,” but he “couldn’t get it together fast enough” for the Appropriations Committee’s 9 a.m. markup and vote.

An aide said Murtha now plans to offer an amendment that would spend the $369 million on spare parts and engines for existing F-22s rather than on new ones, an aide said. The amendment would be proposed when the full House takes up the defense spending bill, probably July 30.

Obey said he was “dubious about moving forward” with F-22 funding still in the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill, and he called for “an attitude adjustment on both sides” of the F-22 issue.

Although some hailed Murtha’s and Obey’s comments as another nail in the F-22’s coffin, others said the plane is not dead yet.

It may be difficult to get the full House to vote against funding more F-22s, said Mandy Smithberger, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight. House lawmakers, who face re-election next year, may be reluctant to vote to eliminate a program that supports 95,000 jobs across the nation, she said.

On the other hand, there is a tendency for party-line votes in the House, said Travis Sharp of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

“If the Democratic leadership says they don’t want F-22 money in the appropriations bill, there will be extreme pressure on Democrats to keep the money out,” he said.

But “when it comes to weapons systems, you never want to say anything is dead. There are a number of opportunities for the F-22 to come back to life,” Sharp said.

The plane could be saved when the House and Senate appoint a conference committee to work out differences between their two Defense Authorization bills. The House includes money to begin building 12 more F-22s, the Senate does not.

F-22 money has yet to be removed from the House Defense Appropriations bill, and the Senate is in the early stages of drafting its version of the Defense Appropriations bill.

Overall, House appropriators voted to spend $636.3 billion on defense in 2010, almost $4 billion less than Defense Secretary Robert Gates requested in April.

Even if F-22s disappear from the budget, the Air Force will still receive money for aircraft it did not request.

The House appropriations bill includes:

• $674 million for three C-17 cargo planes not requested.

• $199 million for three C-37 VIP jets. The Air Force asked for $66 million to buy one of the 15-passenger Gulfstream aircraft.

• $354 million for three large C-40 VIP jets. The Pentagon asked for $154 million to buy one of these 110-passenger Boeing 737s.

• $1.7 billion to buy 18 F/A-18E/F fighters, which is nine more than the Pentagon sought.

• $649 million for three E-2D Hawkeye carrier-based early warning radar planes. The Navy wanted $507 million to buy two planes.

Lawmakers trimmed $532 million from the request to buy 28 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters: 14 for the Marine Corps, four for the Navy and 10 for the Air Force. The Pentagon asked for $6.1 billion and got $5.6 billion.

But the spending bill adds $430 million to the request for $3.6 billion for continued development of the F-35, and another $560 million not sought to continue developing an alternative engine for the plane.

The bill includes $440 million so the Air Force can keep trying to buy a new fleet of aerial refueling tankers. The committee said the service can choose either one vendor or two, and it urged the Air Force to buy 36 new tankers a year rather than 12 to 15 in earlier plans.

At that rate, it will take the Air Force 14 years to buy 500 new tankers. The current fleet is 513.

MAINTENANCE COSTS
The accelerated procurement rate is intended to head off rising maintenance costs on the current fleet of refueling tankers. The Air Force estimates that by 2040 it will cost $1.1 billion a year to keep the KC-135s flying. On average, they are already almost 50 years old.

The appropriations bill includes $485 million for VH-71 helicopters for the president’s fleet. The White House wanted $85 million to shut down the program, arguing that it is grossly over budget and behind schedule.

But Murtha argued that since the Navy has spent $3.2 billion on the helicopter and ought to insist on getting some usable helicopters out of it. The $485 million would be spent trying to make five VH-71s operational.

House appropriators approved spending $15.8 billion on 10 Navy ships, two more ships than the Navy requested.

And they approved $2.3 billion to continue development of the Army’s Future Combat Systems. The sum is $200 million less than requested and $1 billion less than the amount budgeted for this year.

Well over budget, substantially behind schedule and plagued with technical troubles, FCS is being restructured.

The $3.8 billion lawmakers trimmed from the Pentagon’s spending proposal come in part from programs that have not progressed as rapidly as scheduled and were not spending money as quickly as expected, according to Murtha.

The reductions include:

• $26 million cut from more than $810 million sought for Army heavy tactical vehicles.

• $193 million cut from nearly $1.2 billion for Army medium tactical vehicles.

• $200 million cut from the $3.2 billion Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

A number of programs were killed outright, including:

• The Warrior Information Network, saving $15 million.

• Combat search and rescue program, saving $80 million.

• Transformational Satellite, no funds were requested.

• The Multiple Kill Vehicle, no funds requested.


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/07/air_dn_House_approp_web_072209/

[CommunityEditor]

WASHINGTON — The politically savvy Defense Secretary Robert Gates scored big legislative wins when the Senate voted convincingly to end production of the high-priced F-22 jet fighter and killed an aircraft engine project that he says is notneeded.

Gates, a Republican holdover from the Bush administration, is on a campaign to change the way the Pentagon does business. In his sights are unnecessary or financially troubled weapons that siphon money away from the troops and gear required for he irregular wars now being fought in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yet getting Congress to go along with further deep cuts to costly programs remains a huge challenge as lawmakers fight to protect the jobs these projects create in their states and districts. Others have serious disagreements with the Obama administration’s strategic choices.

Case in point: House lawmakers want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars for equipment Gates doesn’t want, including more than $400 million for the VH-71 presidential helicopter that the Pentagon wants canceled for being behind schedule and vastly over budget.

“It’s the rarest occasion when a mature weapons system, with all the contracts and subcontracts, is terminated by the Congress of the United States,” Republican Sen. John McCain, who voted in favor of killing the F-22, said recently.

Those hoping the defense budget will be purged of Cold War-style weapons look to be disappointed.

Iran and North Korea are perceived threats in the short run, and superpowers China and Russia still loom as potential threats over time. That means the U.S. arsenal will remain loaded with aircraft carriers, ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines, tanks and long-range bombers — some of them, like the durable B-52, of Cold War-vintage.

What Gates wants is a better balance between the heavy weapons for a large-scale war and the needs of ground troops going into their ninth year of combat against unconventional foes. For too long, he and his senior advisers have argued, those pressing demands have taken a back seat.

“It would be nice to win our current wars,” Michael Vickers, the Pentagon’s top special operations official, said Thursday.

The grounding of the $65 billion F-22 program that played out last week was aided by special circumstances, according to defense policy analysts.

The Obama White House used substantial political capital to stop F-22 production at 187 aircraft, threatening to veto any legislation that included money for more new planes. It’s unlikely such an effort will often be repeated given the stuttering economy, health care reform and other serious challenges the administration needs Congress’ help with.

“They’ve got bigger fish to fry,” said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank, in Arlington, Va.

Lockheed Martin, the large and influential defense contractor that makes the F-22, did not lobby to keep the production line open. That’s perhaps because the company also builds the F-35, an aircraft built for ground attack missions that Gates says is better suited for the uncertainties of unconventional warfare.

The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps plan to buy more than 2,400 F-35s.

And the Air Force’s top leadership, which backed Gates on the F-22, may not be so cooperative with other moves to drop major weapons from its budget.

“It’s very hard for the stars to align in a constellation that allow a hardware program to be terminated,” said Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration budget official who specializes in defense issues. “They just happened to align very nicely here.”

The Senate’s decision on the F-22 is not the final word. There’s a push in the House of Representatives to buy more planes. But Rep. David Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has indicated the fight is all but over.

“I am considerably dubious about moving forward to fund the F-22 in light of the administration’s opposition to it,” he said Wednesday.

Obey’s committee, though, has challenged Gates’ recommendations on several other projects.

Its version of the 2010 defense budget includes money for the presidential helicopter, $674 million for the Air Force’s C-17 cargo jet, nine additional F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets, and $560 million for an alternative F-35 engine — a project the Senate also voted to end as Gates wanted.

The helicopter money was sought primarily by Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey, whose New York congressional district includes a Lockheed Martin Corp. factory where the aircraft are being assembled.

Lawmakers defend the moves, saying the Defense Department is being too quick to shut down programs U.S. taxpayers have invested heavily in. Close to $3.2 billion has been spent on the presidential helicopter and another $2.5 billion on the reserve engine, they say.

“You can’t keep spending [money] on research and not get anything out of it,” said Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat.

Gates would need at least two full terms as defense secretary to curb the influence Congress wields over the military’s procurement system, Thompson said.

“You’re not going to take politics out of the way we buy weapons,” Thompson said.

It may be a different story inside the Pentagon, said William Nash, a retired Army general and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

It is significant that Gates, backed by President Barack Obama’s veto threat, didn’t strike a back room deal and allow a few more planes to be built to mollify F-22 proponents in Congress, he said.

Top military leaders “saw that the secretary of defense and the president of the United States, having drawn a line, stuck with it,” Nash said. “That will bring a discipline, I think, into the building.”


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/07/ap_military_gates_072509/

[CommunityEditor]

In the face of a presidential veto, the House voted Thursday to strip funding for advance procurement of 12 additional F-22A Raptors from next year’s defense budget.

The House voted 261-165 to take the $368.8 million that was going to sustain an aircraft program that the Obama administration wants to end and spend it, instead, on spare engines for F-22 and C-17 aircraft, on aircraft defensive systems and weapons systems — leaving $64 million to shut down the F-22 production lines.

The vote brings HR 3326, the House version of the 2010 defense appropriations bill, more closely in line with the administration’s defense plans.

But it is not fully in sync, because the $640.4 billion defense funding bill still includes money for programs the White House opposes. For example, the bill includes $560 million for an alternative engine for the Joint Strike Fighter and $400 million for the VH-71 presidential helicopter program, both of which the administration opposes and also could lead to a veto of the bill, according to a White House policy statement issued July 28.

The squabble over terminating the F-22 does not seem to be over. Sentiment on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has not yet started writing its version of the 2010 budget, appears to run strongly in favor of keeping open the Raptor production line.

The House version of the defense bill includes $122.4 billion for military personnel, $154.2 billion for operations and maintenance, $104.8 billion for weapons procurement, $80 billion for weapons research and development, $128.2 billion for overseas contingency operations, $31.4 billion for other defense programs and $3.1 billion for revolving funds.

The total is $3.8 billion less than the Obama administration wanted, despite the weapons spending that White House officials have called unnecessary.

Final decisions on defense spending won’t be made until the fall.


Article: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/07/military_f22_funding_073009w/