The House’s version of the Fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, approved overwhelmingly by the chamber yesterday, contains no funding for additional F-22 Raptors beyond 187 airframes. The move is one more step in securing a victory for the White House in its efforts to quash continued production of the stealth fighter. House appropriators had followed in the footsteps of their House authorizer counterparts by adding $369 million in their markup of the bill for advanced procurement of parts and materials for 12 F-22s that would be assembled starting in Fiscal 2011. But with the Senate’s action last week to strip additional F-22 funding from its version of the defense authorization bill, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chair of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, withdrew his support for more F-22 production and said he would work to remove the $369 million for Raptor production from the House appropriations bill and apply it instead to the existing F-22 fleet and other priorities. He succeeded. (For more, see yesterday’s Associated Press report and Reuters news wire service report.)
Three of four congressional committees with influence over defense policy have voted to change the official name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War—but final approval of the Pentagon rebrand is months away and not yet assured.