With the Pentagon newly flush from a two-year funding deal, the House and Senate are now heading toward final negotiations on an annual defense authorization bill that will help direct how the money is spent.
Lawmakers will have to roll up their sleeves and settle disagreements over aircraft, ships and space policy in the coming weeks and months as part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act conference committee, which usually produces a final bill in the fall.
The legislation will set Pentagon priorities and policies for the final year of a deal struck by Congress to hike defense spending and give the military a chance to rebuild its forces.
The two chambers’ dueling versions of the NDAA diverge in three areas, and the conference negotiations could shift the cost of the roughly $717 billion bill by hundreds of millions of dollars and have profound effects for military operations for years to come.
No doubt the Pentagon will be watching closely as the House and Senate weigh aircraft programs and space reforms it has resisted. Here are the largest expected flashpoints.
JSTARS
The Air Force has been pushing back publicly over efforts to force a replacement of its fleet of 17 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar aircraft, or JSTARS, which could eventually cost $6.5 billion.
The E-8C aircraft fly over a battlefield and collect surveillance information for Army ground forces, but the Air Force says the aircraft are becoming obsolete due to advances in enemy air defenses. Secretary Heather Wilson recently compared the Gulf War-era JSTARS to early 20-ounce cellular phones and dial-up Internet service.
The House version of the NDAA mandates the service move ahead with replacing the Boeing aircraft and authorizes $623 million to do so. But the Senate has no such requirement, noted Mackenzie Eaglen, a resident fellow and defense budget analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
“Based on our analysis resulting from extensive committee oversight activity, we have concluded that completely walking away from this program imposes an unprecedented level of risk to our warfighters,” Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said during a floor speech.
The Senate Armed Services instead proposes blocking the Air Force from retiring the existing JSTARS aircraft while authorizing it to move ahead with its vision for a replacement system of drones, aircraft and space-based sensors.
“We’re just not sure that the replacement plan is really adequate and we want to be sure before we leave a proven platform that we’re not going to be in a place where we don’t have the assets and the resources that we need,” Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who sits on the committee, told the Washington Examiner.
The two chambers might not be far from a deal. King simply said “yes” when asked if the Air Force was off on its claim the aircraft would be shot down on the first day of any war.
Littoral Combat Ship
The Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship is another program the Pentagon wants to ramp down as it moves toward a new frigate design to replace the small surface ship, but lawmakers remain divided.
Commercial shipyards in Wisconsin and Alabama are clamoring for more LCS hulls, which cost about $646 million each, because they warn that less than two in 2019 will lead to layoffs and could leave them unprepared to build the frigate when needed.
Still, the Navy requested just a single ship for the coming year. Secretary Richard Spencer said it was “not optimal” but enough to sustain the shipyards where Lockheed Martin and Austal USA build the two variants of LCS.
The House has heeded the shipyards’ call with an NDAA authorization for three LCS hulls, while the Senate has proposed just a single ship.
“Those are the kinds of things that in the NDAA they’re interesting, they give you a sense of where Congress is headed but you need an appropriations [bill] to actually build ships,” said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They can authorize however many they want. What matters in the end is how much gets appropriated.”
The larger LCS buy for 2019 might win out. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., whose state is home to the Austal USA shipyard, has taken the reins of the Senate Appropriations Committee and will lead the writing of the annual defense spending bill.
“The Navy likes the littoral ships, they seem to be coming along pretty well. One is probably not enough,” Shelby said.
Space Force
The House has been ratcheting up the pressure on the Air Force over its handling of space operations by threatening to create a new military service to handle it.
The push was re-energized this year when President Trump began openly musing about creating what he called a Space Force. After the president’s backing, both Wilson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have eased back on their public opposition.
The NDAA proposed in the House would mandate a raft of new reforms for the service including the creation of a sub-unified U.S. Space Command within U.S. Strategic Command and a new numbered Air Force for space.
The moves spearheaded by the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee could lay the foundation for a future Space Force military service inside the Department of the Air Force, similar to how the Marine Corps exists within the Department of the Navy.
Meanwhile, the Senate has not made any moves toward a space service in the bill.
“I don’t think they have any real consensus on the Senate side on space reform and space reorganization. That has left a leadership void that the House strategic forces subcommittee has stepped into,” Harrison said.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wants to see more agreement on space reform before moving forward.
“I think this is one where you have to have Congress and the administration on the same wavelength. The Senate is probably going to be trying to work on a middle ground,” Rounds said.
Despite Trump’s enthusiastic comments, the White House has called the House proposals premature and Mattis has said the Pentagon needs to complete two space studies to fully understand what fixes are needed.
“The testimony we’ve seen so far from the administration feels they can handle it under the existing structure rather than creating more structure. But once again it will go to conference and we’ll make a decision there,” Rounds said.
