Senate breaks with Obama, favors buying more C-17s
The White House strongly opposes the addition of the cargo planes, but has stopped short of threatening a veto over the program.
In a significant break with the Obama administration, the Senate on Wednesday signaled overwhelming support for keeping the C-17 cargo plane program alive for at least another year.
On a 64-34 vote, the Senate sustained a budgetary point of order on an amendment to the $636.6 billion fiscal 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would have scrapped $2.5 billion in the measure to buy 10 C-17s the White House says it doesn't want.
The amendment, offered by Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., would have shifted the $2.5 billion to the military's operations and maintenance accounts, which appropriators had trimmed by $3 billion to pay for other programs.
McCain said he plans to divide his amendment into two amendments to avoid a point of order, which was raised when he tried to move Air Force procurement funds to operations and maintenance accounts.
Soon after the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed a cloture motion in hopes of wrapping up action on the spending bill this week.
The White House has warned that it strongly opposes the addition of the Boeing Co. cargo planes, stressing that the 205 C-17s ordered are sufficient to meet current and future needs. Forcing the military to buy more of the aircraft, officials have argued, would jeopardize funding for other priorities.
But the administration stopped short of issuing a veto threat if the extra planes remain in the final bill, as the White House did for the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and other programs the Pentagon wants to terminate this year.
The Boeing planes, which are produced by 30,000 people in 43 states, have long benefited from widespread support on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have added 25 C-17s to the Air Force fleet over the last several years despite repeated attempts by the Pentagon to end the program.
Wednesday's vote marked an unusual defeat for McCain, who has crusaded this year to uphold the Pentagon's high-profile and unpopular program cuts, including ending F-22 production and a second engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has said he views the C-17s as a strategic necessity, stressing that it is the only major defense budget decision that he chose to reverse in his bill.