Passed The Senate Armed Services Committee 23-3

The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) last week passed a markup bill of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2014 (FY'14) which is supportive of many military aviation programs.

In a news release, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) (pictured), the ranking Republican on the committee, said that the bill authorizes a 1 percent across-the-board pay raise for all members of the armed forces and protects working-age military retirees and their families from increased healthcare fees, deductibles, and copayments.

“I am very concerned about the impact of sequestration to the readiness of our forces, including the maintenance and repair of aircraft at military depots," Inhofe said. "As such, we added $210 million to the president’s request to restore some of the lost workload from this year."

Among the provisions in the bill is language that would require the Secretary of the Air Force to produce a report on the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) to assess certain aspects of the current CAP aircraft program to include fleet size, mission requirements and operating locations in order to address the drastic cuts to the program, along with a provision to fund modernization of the avionics of all C-130H aircraft. 

The bill also supports increasing the production rate of the all three variants of the F-35, authorizes continued modernization and development of our bomber fleets to include the B-1 and B-52, and begins Long Range Strike design and development.

The bill must still be considered by the full senate, and be reconciled with a version that will be crafted in the U.S. House of Representatives.

FMI: http://inhofe.senate.gov