House continuing resolution includes funds for National Guard, F-22
Measure also provides $72 million to compensate military personnel who have had their terms of service involuntarily extended.
The House on Wednesday passed the fiscal 2009 Defense appropriations bill as part of a wider spending package, sending to the Senate a measure negotiated by House and Senate appropriators that provides $750 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment and keeps alive the F-22 Raptor fighter program.
The $487.7 billion measure, included in the continuing resolution funding most other government agencies at this year's levels, exceeds this year's $459.3 billion spending level but came in under the $491.7 billion sought by the Bush administration.
The defense measure also provides for a 3.9 percent military pay raise and directs $72 million to compensate military personnel who have had their terms of service involuntarily extended.
The measure pays for the 20 F-22 Raptors requested by the administration, but also adds $523 million in advanced procurement funding to begin producing another 20 of the stealthy Lockheed Martin fighters.
The Pentagon has no plans to continue the F-22 program beyond the 20 planes funded in fiscal 2009. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates did not request any funding to begin shutting down the aircraft's production lines, essentially letting the next administration decide what to do about the program and creating an opening for the aircraft's boosters in Congress to make a down payment for additional orders.
Meanwhile, appropriators stripped most of the $831.8 million requested by the Bush administration for its KC-45 aerial refueling tanker program after the Pentagon's recent decision to put off a new round of competition for the contract until the next administration is in place.
But the bill does include $23 million to keep the Air Force's tanker office in operation, as well as another $62.5 million to maintain the aging KC-135 tanker fleet, which has been flying since the 1950s.
The bill also adds $26 million to the Army's $3.6 billion request for its Future Combat Systems program.
House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., said Wednesday that the shipbuilding portion of the budget required the most compromises between House and Senate negotiators.
Appropriators agreed to allocate $1.5 billion for the DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, which the Navy signaled this summer that it wanted to cancel and then changed its position weeks later. An additional $1 billion needed to buy the destroyer would come from fiscal 2009 accounts.
The bill also contains $200 million in advanced procurement funding for a DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, an older but more affordable surface ship. The funding would keep the door open for the Navy to restart production of the DDG-51s.
The spending bill includes $933 million for an LPD-17 amphibious warfare ship -- roughly $700 million less than the total cost of the vessel. As with the DDG-1000, the bill directs the Navy to pay for the rest of the LPD-17 out of the final 2010 budget.