Defense News:
WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services Committee early Thursday voted to add billions to a list of Defense Department weapon programs from cuts, and signed off on a $495.9 billion base Pentagon budget and an $89.2 billion war account.
In a bipartisan 60-2 vote, the committee approved its version of the national defense authorization act (NDAA), which proposes keeping alive the Air Force’s A-10 attack plane fleet and endorses extra funding for additional fighter jets for the Navy and Marine Corps.
The marathon session ended just after 4:30 a.m. on Thursday, and featured little — and in some cases no — debate about the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan or a Republican-crafted overseas contingency operations (OCO) account opposed by many Democrats and the White House because it inflates defense spending without doing the same for domestic programs.
HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said the legislation “matches the president’s request and the level [Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin] Dempsey said was the ‘lower-ragged edge’ of what is necessary…”
…One politically charged item that could be a boost to US missile firms — but is opposed by Senate Democrats — is the House bill’s authorization for the Pentagon to spend $30 million on an East Coast missile defense site.
The committee also continued its strong support for the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program to develop an aircraft “capable of deep penetrating strike in contested environments,” states a committee document. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics are seeking the UCLASS contract.
There were other procurement wins for DoD and industry.
HASC approved language that would be a boon for the US rocket propulsion industry. That provision would push Air Force officials to “move faster than it is planning to end reliance on Russian rocket engines.”
To that end, the committee’s bill contains a provision altering Air Force space launch contracting. And the panel is proposing $184.4 million not requested for a new US rocket.
HASC members also handed wins to US missile defense, shipbuilding firms, and the Navy by approving cuts from other areas of the defense budget to add funds for other programs. That list including: $329.8 million for joint US-Israeli missile defense programs; $120 million for Navy destroyer modifications; and $279 million for the sea services LX(R) amphibious ship program.
While US defense companies came out the big winners in the panel’s bill, the committee did buck the services on some issues.
For instance, during the markup, the panel killed an amendment offered by Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Ct., that would have stripped Seapower subcommittee-crafted language on cruisers opposed by the Navy.
The subpanel’s section of the bill “prohibits removing the missile defense capabilities of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, as well as prohibiting their retirement, inactivation, or storage,” according to the subcommittee’s press release. Lawmakers also limited the term of cruiser overhauls to two years “to prevent unnecessary layup of these critical assets at a time of growing demand for missile defense capabilities…”
