Leaders to fight own panel's decision to buy more F-22s
By Megan Scully CongressDaily June 26, 2009
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., said Thursday they plan to fight a decision by their own committee to add seven F-22 Raptor fighter jets to its version of the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill when the measure heads to the floor next month.
During a closed-door markup, the committee voted 13-11 to authorize $1.75 billion to buy the Raptors, reversing the Pentagon's decision to end production of the stealthy fighters with the four in the fiscal 2009 war supplemental spending bill signed by President Obama Wednesday.
The House-passed version of the bill includes a $369 million down payment for 12 F-22s in fiscal 2011, but does not include any funding to buy Lockheed Martin Corp. aircraft next year.
Despite broad support for the fighter program, Levin said he believes they have a "fair chance" of stripping the additional fighters from the authorization bill and keeping the fleet at the 187 F-22s now planned.
The White House threatened earlier this week to veto any authorization measure that includes funding for more F-22s, which Defense Secretary Robert Gates has called unnecessary particularly as the Air Force begins to buy F-35 Joint Strike Fighters and relies more heavily on unmanned aerial vehicles.
But any efforts to strip the $1.7 billion out of the Senate committee bill would likely be met with stiff resistance from dozens of senators.
In January, 44 senators sent President Obama a letter just days before his inauguration imploring him to continue production of the F-22. They argued that the program, which employs 25,000 workers at 1,000 suppliers in 44 states, provides $12 billion in economic activity annually in the United States.
"Our debate and vote [on the F-22s] took place with full awareness of the administration's veto threat, and the result of the vote speaks for itself," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., a member of the Armed Services panel, said in a statement.
The planes are assembled at Lockheed Martin's plant in Marietta, Ga.
Meanwhile, McCain said he hopes the Senate will overturn the bill's authorization of $438.9 million for a second engine program for the Joint Strike Fighter. But Levin said he supports funding the alternate engine.
The White House has likewise threatened to veto the bill if it continues the second engine program, arguing that it is too costly and would delay fielding of the aircraft.
Former President George W. Bush made similar arguments in repeated attempts to terminate development of an alternate engine, only to be rebuffed by Congress.
Despite some differences with the administration, Levin said the bill endorses roughly 90 percent of the Pentagon's fiscal 2010 budget request.
Indeed, the panel approved the Pentagon's request of $9.3 billion for missile defense programs -- $1.2 billion less than this year's funding level -- and the termination of several programs, including the Multiple Kill Vehicle, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor and the second Airborne Laser.
As requested by the administration, the bill ends C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane production and cancels the manned ground vehicle portion of the Army's Future Combat Systems modernization program in favor of a new ground combat vehicle. But the bill also directs the Defense secretary to create a new program to develop a self-propelled howitzer to replace the Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon, which was developed as part of FCS.
The bill also approves the administration's decision to pull the plug on the VH-71 presidential helicopter and end the Transformational Satellite Communications program.
But the bill adds nine more F/A-18E/F Super Hornets than requested for next year. In its fiscal 2010 budget request, the Navy requested nine Super Hornets and 22 EA-18 Growler electronic attack aircraft, which are based on the same Boeing airframe.
Boeing, the plane's manufacturer, has been lobbying to expand the Super Hornet fleet. It sees an expansion as a way to mitigate the effects of a shortfall in strike-fighters within the Navy that is expected to peak in 2017 at 69 aircraft and continue until 2025, when the service's Joint Strike Fighters become fully operational.
But the Senate bill does not authorize another multiyear procurement for the Super Hornets, which Boeing had advocated. The House version of the bill gives the Navy the authority to pursue a multiyear contract with Boeing.
The company's proposed multiyear deal "did not meet the threshold of a multiyear" contract, which requires 10 percent cost savings, Levin said.