Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) (R) speaks with Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) before a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee on May 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON: The Senate Appropriations Committee is seeking $850 billion in defense spending, representing a massive increase from the $773 billion requested by the White House.
The budget increase was needed in part to reflect the large inflation spike that has emerged since the Pentagon’s budget request was delivered in late March, according to Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as well as Sen. Jon tester, D-MT., the head of the defense subcommittee.
“This legislation will keep America safe by giving our troops a well-earned pay raise, ensuring our servicemen and women are well-trained and well-equipped with the most up-to-date technology, and shifting resources toward programs that’ll maintain our fighting edge over adversaries like China and Russia,” Tester said in a statement. “Passing a budget on time is one of our best tools to fight inflation, so it’s critical that Congress gets this done quickly and avoids a continuing resolution, which would undermine our military and national security at a time when the world is looking to America for steadfast leadership.”
With the bill’s release, the battle lines are now drawn among the four key committees who will decide the defense budget’s topline figure, with House appropriators as standouts with a figure closer to the administration’s original request:
- House Appropriations Committee: $762 billion
- House Armed Services Committee: $839 billion
- Senate Armed Services Committee: $847 billion
- Senate Appropriations Committee: $850 billion
In Bill, F-35 Gets More Cash And Air Force Gets More C-130Js
Procurement of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program received a boost, with the committee adding $725 million for three F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing variants and three F-35C carrier variants for the Marine Corps. Appropriators also funded the Pentagon’s request for 61 F-35s, including 33 F-35 conventional variants for the Air Force, 13 F-35Cs for the Navy and Marine Corps, and 15 F-35Bs for the Marine Corps.
However, the committee pointed out that the Defense Department could face a $1.4 billion budget shortfall for F-35 procurement because the flyaway costs for the F-35 in production lots 15-17 are likely to be “significantly higher than budgeted for in the prior fiscal years.” That means procurement funds obligated in FY21-23 may not be enough to cover the actual cost of the aircraft once the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin come to a final contract agreement on lot 15-17 later this year, the committee wrote in the explanatory statement.
“The Committee believes that resources exist in prior years that are available for reallocation to partially address this aircraft pricing issue, to include non-recurring engineering efforts and ancillary mission equipment,” the explanatory report states, directing the F-35 program office to submit a list of unobligated balances from FY21 and FY22 that cold be reallocated to alleviate the shortfall.
For Air Force aircraft, the committee fully funded the service’s request for 24 F-15EXs, 15 KC-46 tankers and five MH-139A Grey Wolf helicopters. Appropriators also boosted a number of aircraft procurement programs beyond the Air Force’s request. For instance, it added about $298 million to increase procurement Combat Rescue Helicopter procurement by 10 HH-60Ws, for a total of 20 aircraft.
The committee added 16 C-130Js to the budget, at a total cost of $1.7 billion. And they fulfilled an unfunded requirement for four new Compass Call aircraft, increasing that budget like by about $554 million.
However, lawmakers also expressed concern about the Air Force’s decision to truncate several aircraft programs, as announced during the FY23 budget rollout — specifically the decision to cut the F-15EX program from 144 to 80 fighters and the reduction of the Combat Rescue Helicopter program from 113 to 75 HH-60Ws.
In response, Senate appropriators would force the Air Force to submit a report to Congress alongside the FY24 budget, laying out all of the aircraft procurement programs that will be truncated over the next five years, including the service’s rationale for the cuts and the operational impact.
Praise For Marines’ Strategy, Less So For Naval Aviation
Senate appropriators called out Marine Commandant Gen. David Berger’s Force Design 2030, characterizing it as “an example of disciplined financial management,” and offered their “strong support” for the effort. Force Design 2030 is Berger’s long-term strategy for overhauling how the Marine Corps fights in the future. It has picked up its fair share of critics, but clearly not so with the Senate panel.
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The committee is considerably less pleased with naval aviation. Lawmakers in their explanatory statement noted the numerous mishaps that have occurred in the past year and now want the Navy to take a more comprehensive look at the underlying problems. To that end, the panel is recommending an additional $400 million for aviation spare parts and directing the chief of naval operations and the commandant to brief them on the results of their analysis.
And for the service’s two major submarine programs, the Columbia class and Virginia class, the Senate panel called out the Navy’s construction performance for a “lack of transparency in providing credible cost estimates and schedules, as well as the Navy’s inability to adhere to cost estimates and construction build schedules.
“While the Navy is now providing more apparently credible schedules and cost estimates, the Committee remains concerned that past practices have all but guaranteed future budget requests for cost overruns,” the panel wrote in its explanatory statement.
With that in mind, the Navy secretary could be on the hook to provide lawmakers with the “most current cost and schedule estimates, by submarine, with the submission” of future budget requests.
Space Force Gets A Rocket Boost
Should this version of the bill pass, the Space Force would nab an investment jump of some $11.3 billion. Within that, procurement funding is increased by $421 million, going up to $4 billion from the Pentagon’s request of $3.6 billion. The research, development, test and evaluation pot was boosted to $16.5 billion, up $709 million from $15.8 billion.
One of the most significant plus-ups in the bill is to service missile warning/missile tracking research and development efforts. Space Force in FY23 put forward a new architecture comprising three different satellite constellations in multiple orbits for that mission, due to the increasing threat from hypersonic missiles: the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), a new constellation in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and the multi-billion flagship Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) constellation.
The SAC bill notes that despite being initiated in 2018, Next-Gen OPIR will not be operational until after the two new constellations. Therefore, the SAC is adding $400 million to the Tracking Layer, which has been renamed the Resilient Missile Warning Missile Track, for a total of $900 million. The MEO constellation gets an additional $300 million, bringing the total to $439 million.
In addition, SAC has added $432 million in procurement funds for SDA launches — which the service had requested in its unfunded priorities list for FY23.
A Focus On Artificial Intelligence Work
The bill would also see more funding for the Chief Digital and AI Office, which was stood up in June and formally established in the Pentagon’s FY23 budget request. In its explanatory statement, the committee gives more than $38.6 million in CDAO demonstration and validation funding and more than $50 million more for engineering and manufacturing development than the FY23 budget estimate.
The committee also recommended $200 million for improving tactical artificial intelligence capabilities in Combatant Commands, in line with the FY22 $200 million AI and Development Fund. Just like last year’s funding, the committee wants a proposed execution plan for how the money will be used.
The funding also aligns with DoD’s AI and Data Acceleration initiative announced last year by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks where operational data and AI flyaway teams of technical experts are sent to the military’s 11 COCOMs to help them better understand their data and create AI tools to streamline decision-making.
Extra Money For Army Procurement, IVAS Concerns Remain
The committee added back $1.2 billion to the Army’s ground vehicle procurement accounts. Appropriators added $602 million back to the Abrams tank upgrades line, which would allow the Army to upgrade 90 Abrams tanks, up from 44 in its budget request.
The committee increased the Stryker upgrades program by about $220 million, for a total of 175 hulls, up from 102 in the Army’s request. Lawmakers also want the Army to buy more of its new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles, adding $400 million for the service to buy 131 AMPVs, over the 72 that the service asked for in its budget. In the aviation account, the committee provided the Army $200 million more than its budget request to buy five additional CH-47 Chinooks. It also fully funded the Army’s request for AH-64 Apaches and UH-60 Black Hawks.
The committee also cut $350 million from the Army’s procurement plans for its Integrated Visual Augmentation System, the service’s augmented reality goggles, leaving the Army with around $50 million for procurement amid concerns about the effectiveness of the program.
However, appropriators did add $50 million to the IVAS research and development fund, and the report states that the committee “remains supportive” of IVAS development and testing.
“The Committee remains concerned that IVAS continues to face software, hardware, and user-acceptance challenges that the Army has not sufficiently addressed,” appropriators wrote. “While the Committee was encouraged by the Department of the Army’s 2021 decision to extend testing and evaluation for an additional 10 months, it notes that significant development challenges with IVAS 1.1 remain.”
Meanwhile, appropriators also added back $300 million in procurement funds for the Army’s Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular, a top 35 modernization priority for the Army despite the service zeroing out procurement in its FY23 request.
This story was produced by Andrew Eversden, Jaspreet Gill, Theresa Hitchens, Valerie Insinna, Justin Katz and Aaron Mehta
