A powerful Senate committee’s approval of President Barack Obama’s $128 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the budget year beginning in October yields a mixed impact on jet-engine builder Pratt & Whitney Co.
The war funding was approved Thursday as the Appropriations Committee voted unanimously for a $636 billion spending measure funding next year’s Pentagon budget. The war funding would implement Obama’s order earlier this year to add 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, which would bring the total number of U.S. forces there to 68,000 by the end of 2009.
Senate panel chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, would not say whether he believes $128 billion would be enough for military operations in the two countries.
“Well, we’re taking the word of the administration,” Inouye said after the panel session.
The panel also generally followed Obama’s recommendations to kill or cut several weapons systems, including the F-22 air-to-air combat fighter and the VH-71 replacement helicopter for an aging presidential transport fleet.
Pratt supplies engines for the F-22
Inouye also went along — for now — with administration’s effort to kill a program to develop an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, whose main engines are also built by Pratt in Connecticut.
The second engine is funded by a companion House bill and would be built by Pratt rivals General Electric Co. and Rolls-Royce in Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere.
Inouye has been a strong supporter of the second engine, and proponents are confident he will work to revive its funding during House-Senate talks.
Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have staked their prestige on killing several over-budget weapons systems, especially the F-22, which has its origins in the Cold War era and is poorly suited for anti-insurgent battles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But in twin victories for the Boeing Co., the Senate measure includes $2.5 billion to fund 10 C-17 cargo planes assembled in Long Beach, Calif., which were not requested, and $512 million for nine more F-18 Navy fighters than Obama requested. They would be assembled in St. Louis, Mo.
The measure also contains $20 million for the development of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate on the campus of the University of Massachusetts-Boston; the funding was inserted by Inouye at the request of John Kerry, D-Mass. (AP)
