House Appropriators Add Ships, Drop JASSM, Cut Delayed Programs

The House Appropriations Committee on June 7 voted to add one DDG-51 destroyer, two Littoral Combat Ships and one T-AKE amphibious cargo ship above President Bush's fiscal 2006 request, which already included four new U.S. Navy ships.

Meanwhile, other programs were cut under the committee's markup of its FY '06 defense spending bill compared with Bush's request, including $143 from ballistic missile defense, $126 million from the Space Radar, $400 million from the Transformational Communications Satellite program and the entire $150 million requested for the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile.

"This bill is really delicate in its balance," Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), chairman of the HAC defense subcommittee, said at the hearing.

Regarding JASSM, the committee made good on a warning issued in the FY '05 defense spending act. After continued test failures, the most recent being May 17, the committee recommended that the program be terminated. "The committee has lost the confidence it may have had in JASSM's ability to achieve even its minimal reliability and mission performance requirements," the HAC said.

JASSM contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. issued a statement noting that the HAC markup was just one step in the annual appropriations process and that it is confident the program will be fully funded.