CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
July 14, 2009 – 12:03 a.m.
Jet Advocates Flout Veto Threat
By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff
The Senate is heading toward a potential collision with the Obama administration as senators prepare for a pivotal vote on whether to continue producing F-22 fighter jets.
As Tuesday’s vote approaches, the plane’s supporters have been bolstered by letters from the leaders of three major labor organizations and phone calls from state National Guard leaders who want more F-22s in their inventories.
“The No. 1 priority is homeland defense, and to meet that mission, more F-22s are needed,” Army Maj. Gen. Bob Lee, the head of the Army and Air National Guard in Hawaii, said in an interview Monday.
President Obama wants to shut down the production line after 187 of the planes are delivered, and he requested none in his fiscal 2010 budget. He has threatened to veto any proposal that authorizes additional F-22s, as the Senate Armed Services Committee’s defense authorization bill (
But the F-22’s recent surge of support puts the Senate on the brink of bucking Obama on his first veto threat.
The committee’s chairman and its ranking member — Michigan Democrat Carl Levin and Arizona Republican John McCain — have offered an amendment to undo the panel’s support of the F-22. McCain acknowledged Monday that they did not have the votes to prevail, though he said he hoped that would change by Tuesday.
“We are really at a very interesting moment, if not a seminal one, in the history of this administration,” McCain said.
The Senate Armed Services Committee bill would authorize $1.75 billion for seven new F-22s. The companion bill the House passed last month (
Last month, the administration said it would veto the House bill over the F-22 issue. Obama delivered the same threat Monday in more personal form — a letter to McCain in which the president said the Pentagon had determined no more F-22s were needed.
“To continue to procure additional F-22s would be to waste valuable resources that should be more usefully employed to provide our troops with the weapons that they actually do need,” Obama wrote.
On Monday, Levin and McCain cited a letter by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that also backed termination of the F-22.
Mounting Resistance
Despite the support Obama has received from top-ranking civilians and officers in the Pentagon, a groundswell of support for the plane has developed in the military outside the nation’s capital.
Two letters in particular that were initially disclosed by Congressional Quarterly have had an impact on the debate. They were written last month in response to queries from Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss , a proponent of the F-22 from Georgia, where the planes are assembled.
In the first letter, Gen. John D.W. Corley, the chief of Air Combat Command, which operates the Air Force’s squadrons, wrote that the national military strategy would be put at “high risk” if more F-22s were not bought. Then the head of the Air National Guard, Lt. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, endorsed the jet’s “unique” capabilities. A National Guard spokesman stressed that Wyatt does not necessarily advocate additional procurement of F-22s over other options, but Wyatt’s letter said of the F-22, “I am fond of saying that America’s most important job should be handled by America’s top fighter.”
At its mid-winter meetings this year, the Adjutants General Association of the United States, an organization of state Guard chiefs, endorsed buying “at least 60” more F-22s.
Douglas Birkey, director of government relations for the Air Force Association, said the National Guard leaders have made a difference in the debate recently by making calls to senators.
“They are making the case for the F-22 as uniformed military leaders when few others are able to fill this void — and, as local citizens, the professional military opinion of these leaders carries a great deal of sway in their respective Senate delegations,” he said.
Labor Weighs In
Meanwhile, several labor unions have lent their powerful voices to the case for continued production. Democrats’ votes will be pivotal Tuesday, and the unions’ views could affect the vote, aides and members say.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers urged continued production in a letter to senators July 9. Four days later, the AFL-CIO and the United Steelworkers joined the battle in separate missives. All three letters expressed fears about the loss of jobs that the unions said would be the result of terminating the F-22.
“At a time when our nation is facing the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, we cannot afford to add tens of thousands of new workers to the unemployment lines,” said the Steelworkers.
The F-22 has critics on both sides of the aisle, but it also has backing from both parties.
Chambliss said he was encouraged by the recent trends. “We’ve got strong bipartisan support at this point, and we’ll be looking forward to expanding it,” he said.
The Senate is not expected to finish the bill until early next week.
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