C-17A Funding Close to being Finalized

After beating back two attempts in the past week to end Boeing's C-17 program, Senate and House representatives are now meeting to finalize a national defense budget that will likely include funding that keeps the Long Beach plant and its 5,000 workers operating through 2012.
Deliberations will revolve around House and Senate versions of the defense bill, which vary in the number of planes.

The House earlier this year approved money for production of just three C-17s, while the Senate version, approved late Tuesday, includes $2.5 billion for 10 C-17s.
A compromise must be reached between the competing bills before it reaches President Obama's desk in mid to late October, though strong support for the plane in both chambers of Congress suggests the final bill will include funding for the 10 planes.

On Tuesday, as Senators overwhelmingly voted down an attempt by Sen. John McCain to end funding for the program, Long Beach-area Congresswoman Laura Richardson was appointed to the bipartisan committee tasked with finalizing a defense bill in coming weeks.
Reached Wednesday, Richardson, whose district includes the C-17 plant, said negotiators are likely to concur with the Senate's request for 10 planes and possibly more.

"I believe we'll get a much larger number than the three the House initially approved," Richardson said from Washington just minutes after meeting with Congressman John Murtha, who is leading negotiations on the House side. "The three included earlier was more of a placeholder number put in at the time to get the bill moved forward. I believe the final number will be more in line with the Senate, and we've submitted a letter signed by 60 House members urging the president to support at least those 10 planes."

Richardson, one of Congress' most junior members, will sit in negotiations with such noted lawmakers as Senators McCain, Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who helped rally support in recent months for continued C-17 production.

Boeing officials, meanwhile, remain cautiously optimistic that the defense budget sent to President Obama will include money for the 10 jets, but acknowledge that the number may be scaled back slightly at the request of the White House and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who argue that no more C-17s are needed beyond the 205 already ordered since 1993.

But despite the White House stance, Obama has not threatened to veto additional C-17 funding, which keeps the plant and its suppliers in 44 states operating through 2012. Without new orders, Boeing had planned to shutter the facility by mid-2011.

"We greatly appreciate the support the C-17 continues to receive," said Boeing Spokesman Jerry Drelling. "We look forward to continuing to work with both (the Air Force) and the Congress to ensure this valuable airlifter is available to support our war fighters and our nation's future airlift requirements."

The C-17 has seen heavy action in recent years, delivering troops and supplies to combat zones in Iraq and Afghanistan and ferrying relief supplies for humanitarian missions that include the recent typhoon in Samoa, Hurricane Katrina, a 2008 Pakistani earthquake that left more than 120,000 homeless and the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004.

The jet has also been called into service in recent days delivering a new fleet of heavily armored vehicles to bases in Afghanistan, where they will supplement and eventually replace the current fleet of Humvees. In an effort to continue C-17 production beyond 2012, Boeing is working with several foreign customers that include Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

More than a dozen C-17s have also collectively been sold to the United Kingdom, Qatar, Canada and Australia in recent years, and a NATO-led consortium based in Hungary this week took delivery of a third C-17 to support missions in Europe.

The Indian Air Force has also expressed interest in purchasing as many as 10 C-17s in coming years, but negotiations are in very early stages and any aircraft are not likely to be built before 2013, providing a strong incentive for the Senate to fund production through 2012 in light of a federal study estimating closure and re-opening of the plant would cost in excess of $1 billion.

Boeing estimates it needs about 12 orders annually to justify high labor and production costs and reassure its suppliers of the need to continue investing in C-17 parts.

(Kristopher Hanson - Long Beach Press Telegram)