Subcommittee quickly moves Defense spending bill

The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee on Monday quickly approved the $440.2 billion fiscal 2006 Defense spending bill, including $50 billion to pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Action on the bill had been held up for weeks in hope that the Senate would continue floor debate on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization measure before the fiscal year ends this Friday.

But Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said fears among Pentagon brass that the military is rapidly spending money propelled him to move ahead with the spending bill.

"Since the fiscal year begins in less than one week, it was our judgment this bill should be marked up," Stevens said.

The subcommittee bill is $7 billion below the Pentagon's budget request, featuring cuts in several major defense programs. It makes several reductions in the Defense Department's research and development accounts, including a $270 million cut in the Joint Strike Fighter budget "due to instability in the aircraft's design," according to a subcommittee statement.

Appropriators also targeted two key space programs for substantial cuts because of concerns surrounding technological development. The subcommittee wants to trim the Transformational Satellite Communications budget by $250 million and Space Radar by $125.8 million. The subcommittee also put another major space program -- the Space-Based Infrared Systems High global satellite system -- on the chopping block, recommending a $100 million cut becasue of cost overruns.

The subcommittee also slashed funding for the Army's massive Future Combat Systems program by $100 million because of "excess management reserve and program overhead." Meanwhile, the bill adds funding to shipbuilding budgets, increasing advance procurement dollars for DD(X), the next-generation destroyer, by $50 million and adding $86.7 million to the CVN-21 aircraft carrier account to keep the program on schedule. But appropriators reduced funding for the T-AKE cargo carrier because of construction delays.

Stevens and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are working on an amendment that would require the Bush administration to conduct a study on deploying the National Guard during times of natural disaster. Details are still being worked out, but Stevens said the two senators are concerned about natural disaster planning, particularly in the event of a major earthquake in California. The issue of deploying the National Guard to disaster areas has been a subject of scrutiny since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast nearly a month ago.

Stevens said he is still hopeful Senate leaders will schedule a resumption of floor debate on the defense authorization bill, which was shelved in late July. But Stevens has spoken with Armed Services Chairman Warner and ranking member Carl Levin, D-Mich., about attaching their measure to the appropriations bill as an amendment. Nothing has yet been decided, Stevens said. The full committee will mark up the bill Wednesday, with floor debate as early as the end of the week, a spokeswoman for Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said Monday.