UPDATE 1-Lockheed, Boeing warplanes get boost in US Congress
(Adds proposed cuts to Boeing/SAIC, Textron programs)
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, May 7 (Reuters) - Big-ticket warplane programs run by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N) received a boost Wednesday as the 2009 military budget wended its way through the U.S. Congress.
A House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee recommended $3.9 billion to buy 15 Boeing C-17 cargo planes, although the Bush administration sought none and the Senate Armed Services Committee did not fund any.
Likewise, the House's Air and Land Forces subcommittee recommended an additional $523 million as a down payment on 20 more Lockheed F-22 fighters in fiscal 2010.
The Bush administration had deferred decisions on both the C-17 and F-22 production lines, leaving the next president, to be elected Nov. 4 and take office in January, to decide their fate.
The military policy bill is to be debated by the full Armed Services Committee next Wednesday before it goes to a House vote. Then it must be reconciled with a companion measure in the Senate before it can be signed into law by the president.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie, the Hawaii Democrat who chairs the Air-Land subcommittee, said the recommendations were aimed at boosting congressional oversight of costly weapons programs.
TANKER
On the radar-evading F-22 fighter, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted last week to provide $497 million that could be used either to buy more aircraft or for shutting down the line.
The House Air-Land panel made no recommendation that would interfere with a $35 billion Air Force plan to acquire 179 aerial refueling aircraft built by Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) and Airbus parent EADS (EAD.PA), rather than by Boeing.
The panel recommended cutting $200 million, or 5.5 percent, of the $3.6 billion sought by Bush for the Army's keystone Future Combat Systems. The $160 billion program is run by Boeing and Science Applications International Corp (SAI.N).
A key goal was to cut program management costs, Abercrombie said in a statement, part of what he termed an effort to shift funding to Army near-term needs. The Senate Armed Services Committee had supported the Army's request.
The House Air-Land panel also recommended cutting $166 million for the $5.4 billion Army's Armed ReconnaissanCe Helicopter program led by Textron Inc's (TXT.N) Bell Helicopter unit.
The subcommittee urged continued funding, of $526 million, for an alternate engine being developed for Lockheed's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft.
The engine is being co-developed by General Electric Co (GE.N) and Rolls-Royce Group Plc (RR.L) over Bush administration objections that it is unnecessary.
It would vie in a projected $100 billion market against an engine built by the Pratt & Whitney unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N).
The Senate Armed Services Committee, for its part, recommended adding $465 million to support the alternate engine.
The Bush administration, for the third-straight year, sought to cancel the project in the $515.4 billion fiscal 2009 Defense Department budget request sent to Congress in February.
Congress has rejected efforts to kill the second engine for the past two years, largely on the grounds that competition would yield benefits to the military and more than offset development costs. (Reporting by Jim Wolf; Editing by Brian Moss and Tim Dobbyn)
