Appropriators take aim at high-profile Pentagon projects

House and Senate appropriators took issue in the newly completed fiscal 2005 Defense appropriations bill with the Pentagon's management of several high-profile procurement and development projects, a number of which suffered budget setbacks.

The legislation hit all three services with funding cuts, restructuring plans and reporting requirements while targeting program management, delays and budget gimmicks to rein in the Pentagon's handling of more than $416 billion in appropriations.

Conferees trimmed $268 million in overhead costs from the Army's Future Combat System -- the centerpiece of Army transformation -- and imposed a specific spending profile for the program's remaining $2.9 billion in fiscal 2005.

And while the conference agreement fully funds the requested amount for the program's Non-Line-of-Sight Cannon, a system integral to the FCS, it directs that it be fielded by 2010.

The report also establishes a new $58 million funding line for the Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System, an FCS program element House appropriators had recommended for termination. Army officials told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday they plan to delay the $92 billion program by two years due to technologies that will take longer than anticipated to develop.

House and Senate appropriators also were critical of Air Force programs, including its "flawed and irresponsible" financial strategy for its C-17 multi-year procurement contract. The report language requires any future multi-year programs to be budgeted and executed as fully funded production projects.

Conferees also called on the Air Force to forfeit $158 million in fiscal 2005 aircraft procurement money to pay for an extra C-17 not included in the president's request.

Senate conferees agreed with their House counterparts on the Air Force's Space-Based Radar, slashing the president's $327 million request to $75 million and calling for a fundamental restructuring of the program.

Appropriators also put the Air Force's F/A-22 stealth fighter on notice, fully funding the $4.15 billion request but imposing on it an independent cost assessment of the program. Anticipating major milestone decisions in the near future, conferees called on the Pentagon's acquisition office to sponsor a new study of cost estimates and production plans for the estimated $43 billion fighter program, which has experienced frequent delays and cost overruns.

The Navy also took some knocks in the final bill, with conferees approving $1.176 billion in research and development funds for its new DD(X) destroyer, a reduction of roughly $255 million from the president's request.

In their report, House and Senate conferees worried that the Navy's next-generation surface combatant lacks technological maturity and that its research and development funding proposal for ship construction presents a potential rush to failure.

But they put the research and development money toward a $305 million advance procurement appropriation, of which $221 million is designated for the first ship and $84 million for the second.

However, the report also requires the Navy to fund future DD(X) construction requests through procurement, rather than through research and development accounts, and insists the Navy complete land-based testing of two of the ship's 12 key technologies before completing a major design review.

Conferees compromised on the Navy's "Improved Capabilities" program for its EA-6B electronic defender planes with a $55.7 million cut in fiscal 2005.