Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee are lambasting appropriators who need to buy additional F-35 fighter jets in fiscal 2025 above the Pentagon’s budget request.
The House’s FY25 defense spending bill would procure 76 recent F-35s, eight greater than the 68 requested by the Defense Department. This puts the spending bill at odds with the House’s FY25 National Defense Authorization Act, passed 217-199 earlier this month, which might cut F-35 procurement right down to 58 aircraft.
“At a projected total lifecycle cost of over $2 trillion dollars, the F-35 is the most important program in DoD history despite routinely not meeting cost, schedule, and performance metrics,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the highest Democrat on the committee, said in a Wednesday statement with Rep. Donald Norcross of Latest Jersey, the highest Democrat on the tactical air and land forces panel.
“That is unacceptable program execution and Congress shouldn’t reward this behavior by buying additional aircraft above the President’s budget request,” the statement read.
Smith and Norcross highlighted that the Defense Department stopped accepting F-35 deliveries from manufacturer Lockheed Martin last 12 months “until the enterprise could successfully deliver, test, and field the following version of the Operational Flight Program” — a benchmark it has not yet met nearly a 12 months later.
The 2 Democrats and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., introduced a bipartisan amendment that may have cut F-35 procurement within the spending bill and produce it in sync with the 58 F-35s authorized within the National Defense Authorization Act.
However the House Rules Committee, which oversees amendment votes, opted not to place Smith’s proposed F-35 reduction on the ground for a vote. The brand new House Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., previously chaired the Rules Committee.
Smith’s proposed reduction of 18 fighter jets from the spending bill would have amounted to a roughly $2 billion procurement cut for the Air Force and Navy.
The Smith amendment would have shifted funds in the shape of $526 million to the Air Force to assist address F-35 performance issues with development, production and testing.
“It’s the duty of Congress to support the long-term viability of the F-35 program and make sure the vast sums of taxpayer money footing the bill are spent where they will ensure program success,” said Smith and Norcross. “A straightforward short-term reduction in acquisition rates would enable us to mitigate the known systemic problems, correct course and get the F-35 program and employees up and running at full speed.”
Lockheed Martin has faced intense bipartisan scrutiny from the Armed Services Committee for repeated F-35 delays, most recently with the Technology Refresh 3 upgrades. The TR-3 hardware and software upgrades would offer F-35s with higher displays, computer memory and processing power.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., attempted to amend the NDAA with a provision that may have authorized the defense secretary to seize mental property from Lockheed Martin and open it as much as competition, taking aim on the F-35′s software problems.
Moulton sought a vote on the amendment when the Armed Services Committee marked up the laws in May but needed to withdraw it after a Congressional Budget Office cost determination. But multiple committee members, including several Republicans, said they might support Moulton’s efforts to seize mental property from Lockheed Martin within the years ahead should F-35 issues persist.
Smith urged caution on Moulton’s efforts, despite his shared frustrations with Lockheed’s execution of the F-35 program.
“In law, we may need to compensate them for that, which could be really, really, really expensive,” Smith said.
Despite efforts from Smith and his fellow Armed Services Committee members to chop F-35 procurement next 12 months, appropriators may have the ultimate word on how most of the aircraft to purchase within the defense spending bill.
Further compounding the uncertainty, the Senate version of the FY25 NDAA would procure 68 F-35s — the identical number requested by the Pentagon. It stays unclear what number of F-35s Senate appropriators seek to acquire, as they’ve yet to release their FY25 defense spending bill.
Bryant Harris is the Congress reporter for Defense News. He has covered U.S. foreign policy, national security, international affairs and politics in Washington since 2014. He has also written for Foreign Policy, Al-Monitor, Al Jazeera English and IPS News.