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House and Senate appropriations conferees wrapped up negotiations on the $447.4 billion Defense spending bill during a brief meeting Thursday evening, readying the massive measure for a vote in both chambers next week.

The appropriators also agreed to make the Defense bill a vehicle for a continuing resolution, a stopgap measure Congress must pass by the end of this month to continue funding for most government agencies at fiscal 2006 spending levels through Nov. 17. Congress expects to pass only the Defense and Homeland Security spending bills by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

Appropriators had been opposed to attaching any measure to the Defense bill, amid fears that it could slow down the must-pass bill. But House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., said he has received assurances from GOP leaders that it will be a "clean" continuing resolution "with no extraneous issues, no anomalies."

During the closed-door meeting, conferees signed off on a final report that adds $2.1 billion to boost production of the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane by 10 aircraft, bringing the total Air Force C-17 fleet to 191 planes.

The new C-17s are considered "attrition" aircraft to replace older cargo planes, according to a statement released Thursday night by Missouri Sen. Jim Talent, a GOP incumbent in a close re-election battle. The cockpit, landing gear and other parts are made in St. Louis, where more than 2,000 Boeing employees work on the plane.

The conference report also appropriates $2.6 billion to cover the first year of production of two DD(X) next-generation destroyers, rejecting a House provision that would pay for only the first ship, a House committee aide said. The agreement to back two ships came a week after conferees on the fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill did the same, essentially granting the Navy's request for incremental funding of the next-generation destroyer.

The agreement made a winner of Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., whose home state of Mississippi includes Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Shipyard, one of two shipyards tapped to build the ship.

Meanwhile, House and Senate negotiators struck middle ground on wide differences on the $250 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, agreeing to buy two planes in fiscal 2007 and set aside advanced procurement money for 12 additional F-35s, a congressional aide said.

House appropriators trimmed $212 million from the fighter's procurement funding, allowing purchase of four of the five planes the Air Force hoped to buy next year. The Senate-passed bill would have cut more than $1 billion from the program, a move that would have delayed purchases of all five fighters.

The conference report also sets aside $3.5 billion for the Army's Future Combat Systems program, $400 million less than the Army's budget request, the congressional aide said. It also cut the Marine Corps' KC-130J program by $126 million, the troubled Transformational Satellite Communications System by $130 million, and the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle by $80 million.

In addition, conferees have decided to prohibit foreign sales of the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, Young said. The House bill would have lifted a nearly decade-old ban on overseas sales of the stealthy fighter.

After days of talks with the White House, appropriators agreed this week to add nearly $2 billion to fiscal 2007 Defense spending levels negotiated by both chambers last week. That caps Defense spending in the base appropriations bill to $4 billion below the Bush administration's request, the amount approved by the House.

The Senate had cut $9 billion from the Pentagon request to pay for non-defense programs, prompting the White House to issue a veto threat against any final bill that came in less than the House bill.

In addition to traditional spending accounts, the $447.4 billion bill includes a $70 billion emergency supplemental "bridge" fund -- $20 billion above the Pentagon request -- for wartime operations. The additional funding will help fill Army and Marine Corps coffers to repair and replace equipment lost or damaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.

COMMENTS

• Taxpayer, Your experience with the Air Force is not unique. I've been in federal Civil Service for 17 years, 15 which have been in finance, accounting and budget. I've worked for the Marine Corps, the Navy, and the Army Corps of Engineers (whose funding is not through the Defense spending bill). It’s the same everywhere. Even if the appropriations bill gets passed "early,” it still takes weeks at each level for money to be divided up at OMB, then down through the Pentagon, into the various claimants, headquarters, and down to the field activities. Training and travel really take a hit, and most of my mandatory training is squeezed into a few months. If Congress would stop taking the whole month of August off, maybe things would change. GovExec.com reader Posted September 26, 2006 7:34 AM
• Last year the Defense Department had its appropriation by Oct. 1 but we were not allocated funds at headquarters until late February. Does anyone find this ridiculous? No one is doing anything about it! Not only didn't we get funding until late February. But if the funds were not obligated by the end of June they were subject to being moved for other purposes. That gave us four months to do a year’s worth of work! Doesn't anyone find this ridiculous? Certainly not the chief of staff of the Air Force because it continues to get worse every year. I guess that is what happens when pilots are in charge and have no other qualifications for their job. We need to divide the military into fighters and administrators and let the capable do their jobs without each telling the other how to do things. This is not control of money -- it is a total lack of competence by those involved at the top who have no knowledge of how things get done. We had multi-million dollar contracts going bust and were told to rewrite them so only so much was funded each quarter. The cost of contracting is increased significantly and no audit is going to lay the blame at the failed policy and procedure followed by the chief of staff even though that is where the problem originates. Taxpayer Posted September 25, 2006 7:28 AM