House Appropriators Add Money For F-22s
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By John M. Doyle
House defense appropriators, defying a White House veto threat, on July 16 included $369 million in the fiscal 2010 defense spending bill to build more F-22 Raptors.
The Raptor appropriations, mirroring the actions of the House Armed Services Committee in its FY ’10 authorization bill, would fund parts acquisition as a down payment on 12 more of the stealth fighter aircraft.
The Pentagon and White House insist that no more than the 187 Raptors already funded by Congress are needed. And President Barack Obama has warned he will “veto any bill” that funds more F-22s.
After the House Appropriations defense subcommittee completed marking up the FY ’10 bill, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), the subcommittee chairman, told reporters he did not think Obama would have to veto the spending or authorization bills over the F-22.
“It won’t come to that,” Murtha said. “We will work it out. We want to work with [the Obama administration].”
The defense appropriations subcommittee also bucked the White House by including $560 million to fund continued development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter alternative engine program, which the Pentagon has been trying to kill off for years.
Murtha’s committee also put in an extra $400 million above the administration request to make operational at least five rotorcraft from the cancelled VH-71 presidential helicopter program.
“We think that will take care of five to seven helicopters,” Murtha said, adding, “you just can’t cancel programs and get nothing for it.” Murtha conceded, however, that the money in the subcommittee bill might not be enough to field that many helicopters. Defense Secretary Robert Gates pulled the plug on the VH-71 program, which was six years behind schedule with a projected cost of $13 billion, about $7 billion more than originally planned.
The subcommittee also included $440 million for the Air Force replacement aerial refueling tanker. Although Murtha has urged splitting the program between competitors Boeing and a Northrop Grumman-EADS team, the bill leaves that decision to the Defense Department, although it “encourages” the department to produce more than one aircraft a month.
The bill also allocates $3 billion to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $200 million below the administration’s request, due to “a chronic under execution of accounts.”
Photo: Lockheed Martin
