WASHINGTON REPORT Senate Panel Cuts Super Hornet Buy, Puts Restrictions on F-35 Program

摘要

The Senate Armed Services Committee has taken a swipe at one of the Navy's most popular programs, agreeing to cut nine F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets next year to save $495 million. The panel, which released the details of its fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill June 17, said in a statement it could trim the Super Hornet request because Congress already had boosted its buys of the carrier-based fighters for fiscal 2011. The Super Hornet cut is part of the committee's effort to trim about $6 billion from the $670.8 billion request for the Defense Department's base budget and war accounts next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. In the days leading up to his panel's closed-door markup of the bill, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he had asked the Pentagon for recommendations on cuts, in light of President Barack Obama's plans to trim $400 billion from security accounts over the next 12 years.