House panel approves Defense spending bill

The House Appropriations Committee raced through the fiscal 2003 Defense spending bill Monday night at the breakneck speed of $18.6 billion per minute.

A grand total of $354.7 billion was approved for the upcoming year just 19 minutes after Appropriations Chairman C.W. (Bill) Young, R-Fla., gaveled the meeting to order.

The full panel followed the direction of its Defense Subcommittee almost to the last decimal point, unanimously adopting only two technical amendments and a third from Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Fla., to provide for research on pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, which mainly affects African-American men.

Notably the committee adopted a deal that ends the Army's controversial Crusader artillery system but adds $173 million for a future combat system for indirect-fire artillery.

In May, the Bush Administration, facing a total program cost of $11 billion, announced it would cancel the Crusader. Lawmakers and some in the Army protested that they were not consulted, and the Senate adopted a compromise along these lines last week.

Development of technology will continue, notably in Minnesota. Rep. Martin Olav Sabo, D-Minn., spoke in support of the deal, as did Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who nonetheless warned that the new system was undefined. He said he hoped the administration could have something buildable in "12 to 28 months."

The Appropriations Committee shifted the president's priorities a bit on other items, netting $2.1 billion less than the $356.8 billion the administration had requested. Funds were added for four KC-130 tankers, more Predator aerial vehicles and combat air patrol craft.

The total did not include the $10 billion contingency fund that President Bush had sought, but the House will act on it separately. When the appropriators get around to disbursing the contingency money among defense accounts, the House total will exceed the President's request, said Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.

The House defense total is more than half the $748 billion in discretionary budget authority passed by the House. Appropriators warned the total could change later in the session, because the Senate ceiling for discretionary spending is different, and the two will have to be reconciled.