The Air Force’s share of the $26 billion “Opportunity, Growth, and Security” initiative—an add-on to the defense budget being proposed with the Fiscal 2015 budget—would be $7 billion “if we get it,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said Wednesday. Should the money come through, it would be directed to aircraft modifications, facilities repair, training range improvements, and “other modernization items,” James told attendees at a Bloomberg budget conference in Washington, D.C. It’s iffy, though: USAF only gets the money “if Congress passes offsets” from taxes and other programs to make the funds available, she said. Last week, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told reporters that it was still being decided whether to give Congress an unfunded priorities list. He said if one service did it, “we all will,” or no one will.
The Air Force is launching an effort to develop a new stand-off missile with a range of 1,000 nautical miles, or 1,150 miles, that would eventually be used for both air-to-air and air-to-surface missions.