Fireworks likely over Navy's shipbuilding budget

In an action assuring fierce congressional battles between now and the Fourth of July, the House defense appropriations subcommittee approved a spending bill Thursday that does not contain money to buy the extra ships that Senate heavyweights Trent Lott and John Warner added to a different Pentagon money bill.

Subcommittee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., told National Journal News Service after a closed-door markup of the fiscal 2001 defense appropriations bill that his panel added no shipbuilding money to President Clinton's request.

This action, if sustained by the full House and Senate, would sink the so far successful campaigns of Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., to authorize more spending than Clinton sought for shipbuilding at the yards in their home states, Ingalls and Newport News, respectively.

In a separate bill authorizing defense programs for fiscal 2001, which Warner's committee approved Tuesday, Ingalls Shipbuilding would get $500 million the Navy had not requested to accelerate construction of another amphibious assault ship, LHD-8, while Newport News Shipbuilding would receive more orders for $2 billion-a-copy Virginia-class submarines later on in this decade.

But appropriators, who decide how much money the Pentagon will actually have on hand each year, often have the last word in conflicts between authorized and actual spending. This means the center ring of the coming political circus over shipbuilding money is likely to pit Lott against Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who has taken a hard line against big additions to the Pentagon budget and is already at swordspoint with his majority leader on budget issues.

Stevens, who also heads the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, has not yet taken up the fiscal 2001 spending bill, but House sources familiar with his thinking said Thursday that he, too, is not inclined to add extra money for shipbuilding.

In an apparent attempt to push the LHD-8 past the point of no return by forcing the Pentagon to spend millions on it this year, special language was added to the fiscal 2000 supplemental spending provisions that are part of the Senate's military construction appropriations bill (S. 2521) now being debated on the floor. The language directs that "not less than $263 million shall be obligated for design, advanced procurement and advanced construction of components for LHD-8 by the shipbuilder not more than 60 days from the date of enactment of this act ...."

While declining to vote extra money for Navy ships, Lewis and his House panel added a billion dollars to the Army budget to accelerate its transition to a lighter, faster and more mobile force. The subcommittee approved this and other actions by voice vote, with only Rep. David R. Obey voting no, Lewis said.

The $288.6 billion the subcommittee approved in new budget authority for the Pentagon for fiscal year 2001 would rise toward $310 billion mark when military construction contained in a separate measure is counted.

"A significant change in the Army is long overdue," Lewis said in justifying the vote. His panel wanted to provide enough extra money to enable the Army to equip two brigades rather than one for the quick-reacting expeditionary roles Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, Army chief of staff, is trying to build.

Rep. John R. Murtha of Pennsylvania, ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said "the Army is broken" and termed the $1 billion addition a sign of congressional determination to restructure the service for the different threats of the 21st century. "We've got to make sure it doesn't go back to heavying up," Murtha said of the Army.

The House subcommittee took these other significant actions in the bill that now goes to the full committee but is not expected to reach the House floor until after the Memorial Day recess:

• Joint Strike Fighter. The panel increased funding for the development and demonstration phase from $261 million to $411 million to finance more extensive testing of the plane to be built for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

  The extra testing money would come from the subcommittee's decision to cut the Clinton Administration's request for pre-production money in the Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase from $595 million to $295 million. Lewis said the redirection of EMD funds would cause the JSF to slip about three months behind schedule but was advisable to minimize chances of flaws being discovered in later, more expensives phases of the plane's development.

  Under the subcommittee's timetable, the Pentagon could could not sign contracts with Boeing and/or Lockheed to take the JSF into advanced development until June 2001, rather than March, 2001, as planned.

• Bombers. The panel added $115 million to the President's request to equip B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers for modern warfare, with launching systems for precision weapons a major objective. Rep. Norman D. Dicks, D-Wash., took the lead in championing this modernization.
• F-22 fighter. In contrast to last year when the subcommittee caused an uproar by cutting production fundings for the Air Force fighter, the panel this year approved the full $3.96 billion request but repeated its demands that an F-22 equipped with Block 3.0 software pass a series of tests before production begins.
• F-15 fighters. Although the Air Force did not make any requests for these planes, the subcommittee added enough money to build five more F-15s. Lewis said this plane was lethal enough to operate successfully for another 20 years.
• Computer protection. In what Lewis said was only the start of increased funding to combat cyber attacks, the subcommittee added $150 million to the President's request for this effort. Lewis said the program is at the "homework" stage of deciding what approaches to take to protect military and civilian networks.