House appropriators eye future combat system for cuts

House appropriators are poised to join authorizers in slashing $400 million from the Future Combat Systems budget, setting up what congressional sources predict will be a fight with the Senate over the future of the Army's most ambitious and pricey procurement program.

When they meet Tuesday to mark up the fiscal 2006 Defense appropriations bill, members of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee are expected to air the same concerns as their authorizing colleagues, who fear the Army has poorly defined and set unrealistic requirements for the program.

"The program's come too far, too fast," said a House aide familiar with FCS. "It is not as well-defined as it should be."

Democratic and Republican appropriators are concerned the program lacks "tangibility," the aide added.

Two years after FCS entered its design and development phase, many members think the program is not concrete enough to justify the administration's $3.4 billion request. Considered the technological core of the Army's transformation effort, FCS consists of 18 futuristic manned and unmanned systems tied together by a vast and complex network.

"Everything is on paper now, they have little cartoons," the aide said.

Without more details, appropriators do not want to push the ultimately $125 billion-plus program forward at its current pace. While appropriators plan to nearly copy House authorizers on the size of the FCS cut, they will not dictate specifically where the money should come from within the FCS budget.

In its mark, the Armed Services Committee directed the Army to take the money directly out of FCS-manned ground vehicle accounts. Meanwhile, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved the $3.4 billion for FCS after it included a provision codifying in law the Army's plan to use a traditional procurement contract for FCS, rather than continue with its less stringent, commercial-based contract approach. Congressional sources said the Senate committee will fight to retain the program's budget.

The Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee has not yet scheduled its markup, but the program has strong support on the panel, a source said.

In response to the House cuts in its prized program, the Army has written a one-page internal paper defending the program, which the service plans to field in increments over the next decade.

The House committee's mark does "immediate harm to the total redesign of the operational Army and cascade risk and resource penalties -- many of which are permanent -- into future budgets," according to the document. The cut, according to the paper, "dismantles the FCS program," which the Army stressed is meeting cost and schedule goals. Last year, appropriators and authorizers both agreed to cut $2.5 billion from the FCS request. Since then, the Army has reworked the program, adding previously unfunded technologies and pushing its schedule back four years. Because of the changes, the total FCS price tag grew from $92 billion to at least $125 billion.