By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff

President Obama doesn’t want them, the Defense secretary doesn’t want them, but the House Armed Services Committee is still doing a little semantic samba to hang onto parts of the troubled presidential helicopter program.

The committee approved a fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill (HR 2647) earlier this week that would ratify the administration’s request for $85 million to pay termination costs to Lockheed Martin and other contractors working on the VH-71 presidential helicopter program, which was canceled June 1, and start designing a new model called VXX.

The Pentagon had planned to buy 23 VH-71 choppers in two phases: five initial “Increment 1” helicopters, which have been built, followed by 18 more capable “Increment 2” models, which have not been produced. But Obama and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates chose this year to end the program because its estimated cost had doubled to more than $13 billion and its projected delivery date had slipped.

Now the committee has decided to take a different tack in its report accompanying the bill.

The as-yet-unreleased document “strongly suggests” that the Pentagon buy more “Increment 1” helicopters even though Gates and the Navy have said the interim models will not meet operational requirements and will not last long.

“The committee notes that this approach will leverage the investment already made by the taxpayer in developing a helicopter that would meet all normal requirements of the president,” the report states.

Members and aides said the report language was inserted principally at the behest of Roscoe G. Bartlett , R-Md.

Lockheed Martin’s political action committee and individuals associated with the company rank sixth on Bartlett’s career list of donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Bartlett said he is not aware of who his donors are and is not acting on the defense company’s behalf. Continuing to buy the interim helicopters makes sense, he said, because they perform sufficiently and are the least expensive option, apart from extending the life of the current squadron. “It will cost no more money to continue the program this year than to shut the program down this year,” said Bartlett.

But Gene Taylor , D-Miss., chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces, which has jurisdiction over the program, said the committee’s bill supports the president’s recommendation to move on to a new helicopter. The committee’s authorization of the president’s request is the key action, he said, not the report language. “We both know the difference between ‘directs’ and ‘strongly recommends,’ ” Taylor said.

Taylor said he believes the best course of action would be to use the five interim helicopters already built and extend the lives of the White House’s current fleet of 19 choppers, with which Obama has said he is content and appears in no rush to replace.

“If the president can wait, I can wait,” Taylor said.