Congress threw its support behind the Pentagon’s effort to design new hypersonic weapons and fully funded the Air Force’s two high-speed missile programs in the fiscal 2020 defense policy and spending bills. Lawmakers want the military to speed up testing and development of hypersonic capabilities, ...
Congress
The Senate sent the fiscal 2020 defense spending bill to the White House in an 81-11 vote Dec. 19, moving forward a $738 billion defense appropriations package that comes nearly three months into the fiscal year. The House approved the legislation Dec. 17. President Donald ...
Congressional authorizers want to restrict Air Force funding until the service provides more information on its effort to replace the B-52’s engines. But the joint fiscal 2020 defense policy bill would withhold 25 percent of the Air Force’s total 2020 money until USAF Secretary Barbara ...
Lawmakers want the Air Force to study whether it could buy multiple years’ worth of Lockheed Martin’s Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range at once to save money. The service looks to boost that stockpile for potential conflict with faraway and advanced enemies like Russia and ...
Congressional appropriators raised a red flag about the future of missile defense and related satellites in the joint fiscal 2020 spending bill, saying the multiple Pentagon offices working on those problems need to do a better job of bringing their ideas together. Central to their ...
The Senate on Dec. 17 approved the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act by a vote of 86-8, sending the bill to the White House where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law. Also on Dec. 17, the House approved a $1.4 ...
Lawmakers on Dec. 16 struck a deal for a $1.4 trillion bipartisan, bicameral spending plan to fund the government through fiscal 2020, including $695.1 billion for the Defense Department.
The draft 2020 defense policy bill prohibits the Air Force from transferring any low-rate initial production F-35 strike fighters to the adversary air role until the Chief of Staff submits a report to Congress detailing the service’s plan for modernizing its organic aggressor fleet. “It ...
Two US Air Force legends will be promoted, one posthumously, under the draft fiscal 2020 defense policy bill. The bill includes language honorarily promoting retired Lt. Col. Dick Cole, the last living Doolittle Raider who died earlier this year, to colonel. It also honorarily promotes ...