House Votes Halt to Building B-2s : Measure, in Conflict With Senate, Orders Cut in Stealth Bomber Cost

The House, recoiling from the estimated $70-billion price tag for the stealth bomber, voted Wednesday to halt production of the controversial aircraft while the Air Force searches for ways to make it cheaper.

By a vote of 257 to 160, the House adopted a proposal authored by Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) and Rep. Mike Synar (D-Okla.) that would require the expensive bomber program to be completely revamped before Northrop Corp. receives any new money for production in fiscal 1990, which begins Oct 1, 1989.

The action puts the House and Senate on a collision course in deciding the fate of the controversial boomerang-shaped bomber. On Tuesday, the Senate went strongly on record favoring continued production of the plane once it has completed the initial performance tests that began with its first successful flight two weeks ago.

Defeat Dellums’ Plan

While the House-passed measure represents a major setback for President Bush, it was much more acceptable to the Administration than an alternative authored by Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) that would have killed the stealth program outright. In fact, Aspin’s proposal clearly helped defuse support for Dellums’ amendment, which was defeated, 279 to 144.

Nevertheless, the House also rebuked the Administration’s military planners by defeating a proposal that would have permitted the bomber production to proceed without any interruption. The vote against that proposal, authored by Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), was 243 to 176.

The stealth program calls for an eventual fleet of 132 of the bombers, also known as the B-2.

At the White House, presidential spokesman Roman Popaduik expressed regret that the House had adopted a measure that would delay the B-2 program and would, he said, weaken the U.S. bargaining position in arms control talks with the Soviet Union.

He added that the President still hopes to eliminate the production halt from the 1990 defense spending bill before the legislation leaves Congress.

No matter how the issue is resolved in negotiations with the Senate, House members said the B-2 vote puts the Administration on notice that the stealth bomber faces considerable political opposition in Congress and gives President Bush a rare opportunity to make some hasty, last-minute changes in the program in order to shore up congressional support.

“The message today is that Northrop, the Air Force and the Administration have got to get this program in order,” said Synar, a leading critic of stealth. He predicted that Congress will kill the program if the Air Force fails to develop a more economical strategy for producing the aircraft by the time the Congress debates the matter again next year.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a staunch stealth supporter, agreed. “I don’t think anybody on the B-2 team should relax after this,” he said. “They have got to get the cost under control and they have got to see that it works.”

Synar said the House vote must be viewed as a rebuke to the Administration for keeping the cost of the stealth bomber program secret until just recently, a rebuke to the Air Force for failing to properly oversee the program and a rebuke to Northrop for allowing costs to run amok. Referring to Northrop, he declared: “This corporation needs a major overhaul--not only B-2 but everything else they’re involved in.”

The House-passed amendment authorizes the immediate expenditure of about $1.9 billion for continued research and development of the stealth, but halts the expenditure of any more money for production until the Air Force develops a plan to scale down the cost of the program.

Aspin said he has been told by Air Force officials that they already are drafting a plan to trim back on the bomber’s cost, and it could be ready within several months if the House measure becomes part of the final defense spending bill enacted by Congress for fiscal 1990.

Thus it is possible that the Aspin proposal would not disrupt the production schedule. No new production contracts are expected to be signed between the government and Northrop until next spring, at the earliest, according to experts on the Armed Services Committee.

If the Air Force succeeds in revising the B-2 program to the satisfaction of Congress, the House bill would then permit the Air Force to spend a total of $3.7 billion on the bomber in fiscal 1990. The government already has paid Northrop for 13 aircraft, and this bill would permit the production of at least two more.

Form Coalition

Until Aspin’s amendment was offered earlier this week, it appeared the House was moving rapidly to kill the stealth program. Opposition to the bomber came from an unusual coalition of liberals who generally oppose all nuclear weapons and fiscal conservatives who were shocked by the rapidly escalating cost of the bomber.

Dellums, a liberal, argued that the nation cannot afford to put $70 billion into military hardware at a time when the deficit-ridden government cannot afford to create new programs to deal with the scourges of drugs, crime and poverty. “It staggers the imagination what we could do to save the children of America with this money,” he said.

He also boasted that the support his amendment received from conservative Republicans proved that opposition to stealth “is not a radical, commie-pinko proposal.”

Dellums also asserted that the concept of a bomber that could evade Soviet radar in a retaliatory strike is now obsolete since both superpowers will have fired nuclear missiles by the time the aircraft reached its target. “We will have already annihilated the planet, so it’s going to get there too late for victory,” he said.

Conservatives including Rep. Ronald K. Machtley (R-R.I.) argued that the B-2 is robbing other important defense programs and undermining national security. “We are voluntarily buying into disarmament with the B-2,” he said.

But stealth proponents countered that the new bomber is a vital element of the U.S. strategy of nuclear deterrence and a key part of arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. In addition, they sought to prove that the $70-billion price tag--$22 billion of which has already been spent for early research and development--is no greater than what was spent on previous American bombers.

Rep. David Dreier (R-La Verne) recalled that the same cost arguments were made against the B-52 bomber when it was first debated in Congress in the 1950s. According to statistics collected by the proponents, the B-52 accounted for 1.4% of the nation’s defense procurement budget at the time it was purchased, the B-1 was 1.6% and the B-2 will be 1.3%.

Meanwhile, the House also voted 224 to 197 for an amendment by Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) that would trim $500 million from the money set aside for deploying MX missiles on rail cars. But the money was expected to be restored in the final legislation that will be worked out.

The government is investigating possible fraud in Northrop’s stealth bomber program. Details in Business.