Defense bill would boost artillery, AWACs funding at Oklahoma bases
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Key missions at Oklahoma military bases would gain hundreds of millions of dollars in a House defense spending bill currently under consideration in Congress. But the measure has drawn opposition from Democrats because of the social policy provisions it contains.
The legislation provides $200 million to accelerate the replacement of AWACS planes being retired at Tinker Air Force Base and $674 million for howitzers partially assembled in Elgin and used for training at Fort Sill, the Army post in southwest Oklahoma.
The bill also includes a pay raise averaging 30% for the most junior enlisted service members and a raise of 5.2% for other service members.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, called the bill “the most important thing we will do this year” before the panel approved it in late June.
Cole, whose district includes Tinker and Fort Sill, says investments in the E-7 plane and the Paladin howitzer reflect long-term struggles with the Defense Department over the future of warfare.
The impact of Ukraine on defense spending decisions
Former U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, Cole and Cole’s predecessor, Republican J.C. Watts, fought to preserve the role of field artillery at a time when others dismissed cannons as obsolete weaponry.
The administration of former President George W. Bush killed the Crusader artillery system before production in 2002, a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, saying it didn’t fit with the goal of making the Army lighter and more mobile. That system was supposed to replace the Paladin. Instead, the Paladin has been upgraded.
Cole said the increasing range and accuracy of the howitzer and its shells allowed for the comeback of artillery, along with the change in American military doctrine to focus again on competition among great powers, like China and Russia, rather than on terrorist groups. The war between Russia and Ukraine has helped make the case, he said.
“The extra interest in artillery is because the Russians and Ukrainians have demonstrated in their different ways how lethal and how important it is on the battlefield,” Cole said in an interview.
The House Appropriations Committee has boosted production of the Paladin in the past two years under Democratic and Republican rule, Cole said.
Cole and Inhofe also fought to protect the E-3 Sentry planes that made up the Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) fleet as the Air Force sought to retire them. Tinker hosts training and flight operations for the E-3, while the massive repair depot at the base maintains and upgrades the planes. About 4,000 personnel are assigned to the 552nd Air Control Wing at Tinker.
Inhofe, who was the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, ultimately agreed to a deal last year that allowed the Air Force to retire five planes immediately and conditioned the retirement of others on the progress of replacing them with the E-7.
The defense spending bill would give the Air Force $200 million to speed up the process.
Oklahoma has five major military installations: three Air Force bases, an Army post and an Army ammunition plant.
Proposed bill faces opposition from Democrats
Cole predicted that the bill would not become law before Oct. 1, the start of the next fiscal year, meaning the Defense Department — and likely most other federal departments and agencies — will have to operate under the current spending limits.
Legislation approved last month to head off a debt limit crisis requires Congress to pass its annual spending bills by Jan. 1 or face cuts of 1% in non-entitlement spending. Should that kick in, the Defense Department would lose the $28 billion increase proposed for next year and take a 1% cut to its current budget, Cole said.
That adds urgency to the task, but Cole said the defense bill has hurdles to clear in the House and in the Senate because of the provisions added by the new GOP majority in the House on social policy.
These additions have been controversial because of their provisions on climate change, diversity and abortion.
"I don’t think we’ll get many Democratic votes on this,” Cole said.
During committee debate, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said the bill was “loaded with extremist policy riders” that won’t survive the legislative process and “riddled with Republican culture war riders that undermine and politicize the military.”
Wasserman Schultz said the bill cuts diversity, equity and inclusion programs and does so with language “that reeks of the homophobic policies of the past.” She said it also cuts funding meant to combat sexual assault.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said, “Some dare lament our military’s emphasis on diversity and inclusion. I have news for anyone who shares those sympathies — diversity of background and culture is, and has long been the preeminent strength of our nation’s military.”
Cole said his father served in the Air Force when the U.S. military was racially integrated in the 1940s and considered it one of the best things that ever happened.
“I am not insensitive to the importance of cultural change,” Cole said.
However, he said, there is a feeling among many Americans that money meant for weapons and training “is going to everything from climate change to social experiments and advocacy.”
There was also heated debate in the committee on whether the Defense Department should pay travel expenses for women service members who go to other states for an abortion. The Republican bill would reverse current Pentagon policy and ban funding for the travel expenses.
Members of the two parties differ on whether certain social policies are hampering military recruiting. Cole said there was agreement that pay in the military was a recruiting problem and that housing problems had hurt.
The lowest level enlisted members “only make about $11 bucks an hour on a 40-hour week,” he said.
Under the bill, “the base pay is pushed up from about $21,000 to $31-32,000, enough to make a big difference,” Cole said.
“We’re competing in a tight economy in terms of labor and lots of other things … Pay, living conditions, opportunities for the family — those things count.”
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: House defense bill would boost key military missions at Oklahoma bases
