House Appropriations Panel Backs JSF

 

Jun 15, 2011 By Jen DiMascio aerospace daily and defense report

The House Appropriations Committee on June 14 approved a $649 billion bill to fund the Defense Department and the war in Afghanistan for fiscal 2012, adding a vote of confidence for the nation’s most expensive weapon system – the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The bill now includes a provision stating that the powerful House committee “remains committed to the success” of the F-35 program. The amendment was proposed by Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who represents the district that includes Lockheed Martin’s JSF production facility. The provision is a symbolic gesture, providing a marked departure from the days before the ban on earmarks and a crushing federal deficit put the crimp on appropriators’ ability to add funding where they saw fit. The bill nearly provides President Barack Obama’s full request for JSFs, at $2.7 billion for the program this year to purchase 32 aircraft, and withholding $75.7 million for premature software development. The full House is expected to debate the measure next week.

Rep. Norm Dicks (Wash.), the top Democrat on the committee, agrees with Granger, saying that he hoped the committee could have increased the purchase of JSFs.

“The point of it is, if we can get more planes into the program, the cost comes down,” Dicks says. “And we have all of these allies that are involved in this program.”

According to defense industry officials, the committee sought to add six additional F-35s but was rebuffed by the administration.

The House panel is leaning far in support of the program, which has been under fire recently for cost increases. The Pentagon is in the midst of a so-called “should-cost” review to figure out a reasonable baseline for the program, now worth more than $300 billion. And the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, Ashton Carter, recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee it may cost as much as $1 trillion to maintain the program over its lifespan – a figure that prompted many lawmakers to question whether the Pentagon is seeking alternatives (Aerospace DAILY, May 20). He also said the contractor could not make more than 32 aircraft in a year.

The appropriators continued to show their intent to support programs even in the absence of additional funding. They included an amendment “encouraging” engine upgrades for the M1 Abrams tank, sponsored by Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.). According to Bonner, the upgraded engine could provide up to a 14% improvement in fuel efficiency.

The panel wanted to add funding to develop the engine, but could not, says Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), the defense subcommittee chairman. And in an earmark-free era, the full committee also could not choose a think tank to carry out the next big war policy report.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) added a provision to the defense spending bill, calling for a study of Afghanistan and Pakistan along the lines of the Iraq Study Group report led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker, 3rd, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton and facilitated by the U.S. Institute of Peace. Wolf complains that because of the ban on earmarks, he could not specify in the bill that John Hamre, the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, could provide the report.