Senate puts more DoD dollars in Virginia, Mississippi

Two Senate Republican leaders, Trent Lott and John Warner, were among the big winners as the Senate Armed Services Committee divvied up $310 billion in fiscal year 2001 defense dollars behind closed doors.

Outlines of the authorization bill, which the panel finally released to the public Wednesday after three days of private meetings, showed that Ingalls Shipbuilding in Lott's home state of Mississippi would get $460 million President Clinton did not request to start building another amphibious assault ship, the LHD-8, earlier than the Navy had planned.

Warner's home state shipyard, Newport News Shipbuilding, would get a big chunk of submarine money under language in the bill that would allow the Navy to double its attack submarine construction to two a year later in the decade. Work on the $2 billion subs would be shared by the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics in Groton, Conn., homestate of another Armed Services Committee member, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., who stood smiling at a Wednesday afternoon news conference on the authorization bill.

Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, chairman of the Sea Power Subcommittee, did all right for herself, too, in the bill, which changes the administration's shipbuilding requests. The approved bill would boost money for the DDG-51 destroyer from the administration's request of $356 million to $500 million. The warships are built in her home state shipyard, Bath Iron Works, which is part of General Dynamics.

Warner also drove into the new defense budget the thin edge of a wedge to improve health care for veterans, even though he warned earlier this week that it could lead to huge costs if health benefits were greatly expanded for the military community. The major health benefit in the committee's authorization bill-Warner's own proposal-would enable veterans 65 years old and older to get prescription drugs at reduced prices.

If that new benefit becomes law, as seems certain, other expensive health care benefits for vets and civilian retirees seem sure to follow. As if to underscore that point, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat, said at the news conference that he hoped the prescription drug benefit would be extended to non-veterans on Medicare as well.

The Senate committee treated the Joint Strike Fighter as reported Tuesday by National Journal News Service: The plane's demonstration and validation funding would be boosted from the requested $261 million to $685 million, an increase of $424 million, in an attempt to make sure the high-tech systems were ready to advance to the pre-production phase.

The Pentagon could request Congress to reprogram the extra testing money into the later pre-production stage if the plane's high-tech systems proved their capabilities.

Warner hailed the bill as increasing defense spending, after allowing for inflation, "for the second year in a row, continuing to reverse the 14-year decline in defense expenditures."

The full Senate is likely to take up the bill by Memorial Day, with a conference committee expected to negotiate a final version with the House sometime later this summer.