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House panel OKs monthly stop-loss allowance

A $487.7 billion defense funding bill that includes a 3.9 percent military pay raise and a new allowance for service members placed under stop-loss orders was approved Wednesday by a House panel.

Behind closed doors, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee approved a fiscal 2009 defense funding bill that also makes changes in a wide range of weapons programs.

The 3.9 percent pay raise funded by the bill, slightly larger than the 3.5 percent raise requested by the Bush administration, comes as no surprise because lawmakers have made clear they want the Jan. 1 increase in basic pay and drill pay to be bigger than the average increase in private-sector pay.

The monthly $500 stop-loss allowance is a bit of surprise, coming after six years of complaints from active and reserve service members whose lives have been disrupted because of orders that delay retirement or separation due to military needs. The allowance would be retroactive to Oct. 1, 2001, and would pay $500 for any month in which a service member spent at least one day under stop-loss orders.

About 160,000 people would receive the payments, according to congressional aides. Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, the chief sponsor of House legislation to create the allowance, said she expects some opposition to the idea but still thinks it will have bipartisan support.

“I have to believe, regardless of party, that folks want to see troops fully compensated,” she said, predicting that paying people who make an extra sacrifice for the military should be a major morale booster in the ranks.

The subcommittee, chaired by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., funds the Pentagon’s biggest weapons programs, but not without leaving Congressional fingerprints all over them.

The bill is $4 billion lighter than President Bush’s request but is still $28.4 billion above fiscal 2008 spending levels.

The F-35 Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter, would receive the total amount requested, but Congress intends to distribute the funds as it sees fit within the program.

Though JSF would see a net gain of $785 million over the request, actual airframe production would take a $786 million hit in favor of bulking up other portions of the program, including $430 million for the development of a second engine despite continued Pentagon resistance and $320 million for risk-reduction testing. The $320 million includes money to restore two test aircraft to the would-be fleet that were removed from the program by the Pentagon last year.

Though the bill would provide the requested $893 million for the Air Force’s troubled aerial refueling tanker program, it also includes a scolding and a suggestion from Capitol Hill. The bill would direct the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which has assumed control over the re-competition of the $35 billion Air Force deal, to follow the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations when organizing the new competition and avoid further delays.

It also would direct the Pentagon to consider “industrial base concerns” in their evaluation, after months of complaints from Boeing supporters on and off the Hill who have argued that the aerospace giant’s offering would be better for national security and the economy, even though the original winners — Northrop Grumman and European partner EADS — plan to build the tankers in Alabama. The Air Force also would get 20 more F-22 Raptors and $523 million in advance procurement for another 20 planes under the bill.

The subcommittee rearranged shipbuilding funds, granting $1.6 billion for an additional LPD-17, $941 million for two T-AKE cargo ships and $397.6 million for long lead purchases in the Virginia-class submarine program. The spending will come at the expense of a third DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, to the tune of $2.5 billion, though the bill would also include $450 million for DDG-1000 advance procurement.

The Army’s Future Combat Systems family of vehicles would get a $33 million increase, but the $3.6 billion total funding comes with the subcommittee’s expectations that the massive program’s unmanned air and ground vehicle components will get particular attention in the coming fiscal year.

After years of accountability questions and schedule slips, the panel’s bill would pull funding for 13 aircraft — about $166 million — from the Army’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter program.

The troubled Presidential Helicopter program would also see a $212 million reduction, largely due to a lack of congressional confidence in the program’s second increment; the move would leave $735 million to continue the revamped Increment I and only $100 million for Increment II preparations.

To guard against continued programmatic problems, the Office of the Defense Department Inspector General would get $25 million more than requested to keep an eye on contractors. In an effort to slow Pentagon outsourcing, the measure would include $943 million to hire civilians in an effort to keep more work “in-house.”