Panel nixes Bradley, Abrams funds transfer
Efforts to take money from the ground-vehicle programs are "premature," Armed Services leaders say.
The House Armed Services Committee has denied a second Pentagon request to transfer funding from ground vehicle modernization efforts to cover unexpected expenses this fiscal year.
In a Tuesday letter to Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale, Armed Services Committee leaders opposed diverting $343.2 million from efforts to upgrade the venerable Bradley Fighting Vehicle and the Abrams tank.
The funding transfer was part of a reprogramming request sent to Capitol Hill in July that proposed shifting nearly $4 billion from various defense programs to pay other bills. The committee approved nearly 300 other requests that were part of that reprogramming, but called efforts to take money from the ground-vehicle programs "premature."
The Pentagon must send reprogramming requests to the four congressional defense committees, but only one committee needs to reject a funding transfer for it to be considered denied.
Specifically, the Pentagon requested transferring $143.2 million from research and development efforts to improve the Bradley and Abrams, and another $200 million from the Bradley modification program.
"Continued upgrades to the M1 Abrams and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV) fleets will be necessary for the foreseeable future," House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., and ranking member Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon, R-Calif., wrote in the letter to Hale. "The committee believes that continued R&D work is essential to provide the Army with options for such upgrades."
Transferring that funding, they added, "would foreclose options for continued upgrades" for the Bradley and Abrams fleets.
Skelton and McKeon added that if excess funds are available for Bradley modification, the money should be used instead to accelerate the fielding upgraded fighting vehicles to Army National Guard units.
The decision follows a July 23 letter to Hale in which Skelton and McKeon denied a separate Defense Department request to transfer $153.9 million from the Bradley's accounts to cover operations and maintenance and other expenses.
In that letter, the two lawmakers expressed concerns about the Army's effort to field a new Ground Combat Vehicle, which ultimately will replace the Bradley. The committee believes the Army must continue upgrading the Bradley to bridge the gap until the service begins fielding the GCV in 2017.