For Immediate Release

June 16, 2004

DEFENSE BILL FUNDS BOEING TANKERS,
MMA PLANES, 7th STRYKER BRIGADE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Defense Appropriations Bill for the next fiscal year contains $100 million to launch the Boeing 767 air refueling tanker program – still to be negotiated by the Pentagon – in addition to $496 million in first-year funding for the Navy’s Multi-mission Maritime Aircraft and $950 million for the establishment of a 7th Stryker Brigade, Congressman Norm Dicks said Wednesday.          

            The legislation, providing funds for all Defense programs in the next fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, was approved today by the House Appropriations Committee.

             The funding to equip an additional Stryker Brigade – the Army’s new medium-weight, highly-mobile force utilizing the 8-wheeled Stryker combat vehicle – responds to the need for a European-based unit as U.S. forces are transformed in the region, Rep. Dicks said.  With a seventh brigade funded, the existing six units – including two at Fort Lewis – will remain intact, he said.

             The congressman asked the subcommittee to include funding for the tanker program in the next fiscal year in order to accelerate a newly-negotiated lease and/or purchase arrangement that was recently authorized by the House of Representatives.  According to that authorization, the Defense Department must negotiate a new acquisition plan with Boeing for the Boeing 767 tanker aircraft, must commission an external review of this new deal, and must then sign a contract before March of next year, Rep. Dicks said.

             “The inclusion of $100 million as the initial year funding for the tanker program will assure that it can begin as soon as the ink is dry on the contract,” Dicks noted.

             The other major Boeing program that will start with funding from this appropriations bill will be the development of the Multi-Mission Aircraft (MMA), the Boeing 737 replacement platform for the Navy’s older P-3C Orion maritime surveillance planes.  On Monday of this week, the Defense Department announced that the Boeing 737-based aircraft had been selected for the MMA mission, and indicated that it will procure 108 of these planes for a total cost of about $20 billion over the next 10 years. Several are expected to be based at Whidbey Island NAS, replacing the P-3C aircraft, he said.   The defense bill allocates $496 million for the MMA program in the next year, Rep. Dicks said.

             The bill also contains $225 million for three additional C-40C aircraft for the Air Force and $65 million for one Navy C-40C.  The C-40s are Boeing 737 airframes used by the military for personnel and air cargo transport.   The Navy’s C-40A aircraft are operated by the Naval Reserves at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island , among other locations.

             The defense bill funds several other Washington State programs this year, including:

  • $9 million for the National Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Test and Evaluation Center (NUTECH) at Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport
  • $2.5 million for upgrades to underwater ranges at Dabob Bay , Quinault, and Nanoose, utilized by the NUWC Keyport
  • $1.5 million to upgrade the electric utilities on Carrier Pier Delta at Navy Base Kitsap for dual carrier operations
  • $6 million for the Coastal MASINT (Measurement and Signature Intelligence) program operated by Battelle's Marine Sciences Laboratory in Sequim
  • $4 million for a Navy project entitled Security Enhancement through Mobile Devices at Sub Base Bangor , devised by the Mobilisa Corp. of Port Townsend.  Mobilisa will also receive $1 million to test its “Floating Area Network” on Navy destroyers
  • $2 million for the research into the oxygenation problems in Hood Canal to be administered by the University of Washington ’s Applied Physics Lab

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