THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020464
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
House Republicans pulled together their version of the 1997 defense budget on Wednesday, adding about $13 billion to President Clinton's request. Their plan includes a new attack submarine that will be built at Newport News Shipbuilding beginning in 1999.
More than half the increase - $7.5 billion - would go for weapons. The Navy would receive roughly $1.6 billion of that total, with $504 million of it going for the new submarine. The money will purchase a nuclear reactor and other components that must be in place when construction begins.
The sub is the second in a new line that will begin with a ship to be built at Electric Boat of Groton, Conn., in 1998. The two yards are to split contracts for the first four ships in the line, then begin competing for contracts after 2002.
Beginning a marathon session to put finishing touches on the legislation, the House National Security Committee first endorsed separate bills that would require the government to deploy a national missile defense system by 2003 and would limit the president's power to place U.S. troops under foreign command.
In a bow to conservative Republicans, the latter bill's language would require the president to report when a deployment would require Americans to wear helmets, badges or other insignia of the United Nations.
Both subjects passed Congress last year and were included in the overall defense budget, which Clinton vetoed.
The plan finally endorsed by the committee would pump an extra $13 billion into the $254.4 billion Pentagon budget requested by Clinton for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. That would result in a defense budget about equal to this year's measure, when adjusted for inflation.
Among weapons the Republican spending increases would finance are 24 more Army Kiowa helicopters; 12 more Apache helicopters; ammunition; two more F-15 and F-16 fighters, C-17 transport, and V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft; and $83 million to make safety improvements in the Navy's fleet of F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, four of which have crashed this year.
The money will pay for a new digital flight control system that is supposed to keep pilots from overextending the plane's performance limits. Also being added are new sensors that will warn pilots if their engines are in danger of stalling because they're not receiving enough air.
The $7.5 billion weapons procurement increase would add to Clinton's $38.9 billion request, the lowest weapons budget in inflation-adjusted terms since the Korean War. The increase would be distributed almost proportionally among the services.
Rep. Ronald Dellums, D-Calif., the committee's ranking Democrat, said the measure appears to be looking backward at wars involving heavy weapons and massive forces instead of planning for peacekeeping and humanitarian operations that arise with increasing frequency.
``We are spending more money on our military accounts than is warranted,'' Dellums said. by CNB