Senate passes Defense authorization bill

The Senate unanimously approved a $517.7 billion fiscal 2007 defense authorization bill Thursday after voting by a wide margin to reinstate the Air Force's multiyear procurement plan to buy 60 F-22A Raptor fighter jets -- despite strong Government Accountability Office warnings this week that doing so would drive up costs.

The 70-28 vote in favor of a multiyear F-22 procurement was a surprising defeat for Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., who has opposed the commitment while managing his last authorization bill. He was allied with Senate Armed Services Airland Subcommittee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., who also felt that the multiyear approach would end up costing more for taxpayers.

Under a multiyear plan, the Pentagon can spread payments over several years, allowing contractors to buy subsystems in bulk to save money. Traditionally, the Pentagon pays up front for an entire system.

The vote spelled a major victory for Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and the plane's main contractors: Lockheed Martin Corp., which assembles the aircraft at its Marietta, Ga., facility; Boeing Co., which makes the airframes in Seattle; and United Technologies' Pratt & Whitney unit, which supplies engines from its West Palm Beach, Fla., plant.

Chambliss mounted an aggressive campaign to build support for his amendment reinstating the multiyear plan, which Warner's committee rejected. He overcame strong warnings by GAO this week that the Raptors did not meet several requirements to qualify for a multiyear procurement program, including the likelihood of substantial cost savings.

Chambliss called the report "flat-out false," arguing that the multiyear procurement would save $250 million.

"Almost every time I'm in an Armed Services Committee hearing, someone makes a point that we need to think of ways to do things better, cheaper and with better acquisition processes in order to use the taxpayers' resources more wisely," Chambliss said in a statement Thursday. "That is exactly what my amendment does."

Lockheed Martin, too, stepped up its lobbying efforts to build support for the multiyear approach, which the House Armed Services Committee also rejected in its version of the authorization bill. In an e-mail sent to Senate offices last week, the defense giant promoted the multiyear plan as saving taxpayers between $235 million and $335 million.

While the Senate gave strong support to the Chambliss amendment, it will face an uphill battle in conference with the House. Warner and McCain, too, will most likely work to strip the amendment from the final legislation.

Before Thursday's vote, McCain stressed that his subcommittee had held many hearings on the issue, and concluded that the multiyear plan did not meet required criteria. Earlier this week, he blasted a multiyear buy for the F-22 as a "bad idea" and "illegal."

But the amendment won support of several influential Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Frist and Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. Airland Subcommittee ranking member Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., also voted for the amendment, as did Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn.

Lieberman, in a tight re-election battle, announced plans to tour Pratt & Whitney's East Hartford engine manufacturing plant only hours before casting his vote.

Maryland Democratic Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Paul Sarbanes also voted for the multiyear plan, in an apparent show of support for Lockheed Martin, which is headquartered in Bethesda.

Before completing work on the bill, the Senate also voted 98-0 to pass an amendment that would add $45 million for missile defense testing programs in reaction to this week's threats by North Korea to test long-range missiles.

"Congressional support for this amendment will send a strong message to any nation, particularly North Korea or Iran, that we will be constantly ready, 24/7, to knock down and destroy any missile that would be directed at the United States," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., whose state is home to the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.