Conferees Work Out A Deal To Salvage Part Of The VH-71 Program

Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said Friday House and Senate conferees working on the defense appropriations bill have agreed to restore $100 million to continue work on a scaled-down version of the beleaguered VH-71 program. The helicopter had been the planned replacement for the aircraft designated "Marine One" when the President is on board.

Hinchey (pictured, above) said the compromise was worked out with Senate leaders for the helicopter in an updated FY2010 defense appropriations bill, despite a threatened Presidential veto. "At my initiative, the House defense appropriations bill has funded that compromise and as a result, it is very much alive," Hinchey had said earlier in the day in a statement to Reuters. The amount is less than the $485 million he had wanted for the program, but Hinchey said it would preserve 250 jobs at the Lockheed plant in his district where the helicopter was being built.

An unnamed Capitol Hill source told the news service that the President's veto threat could be softening. "It's hard to imagine a veto," the source said, noting that congressional Democrats plan to add language to increase the debt ceiling and add a jobs creation package to the defense bill.

Hinchey and Representative John Murtha (D-PA) had said scrapping the program now would be a waste of the $4 billion already invested by the taxpayers. Hinchey had tried to convince lawmakers to continue working on the a full, but scaled-down version of the program, but that was met with opposition in the Senate.

VH-71 File Photo

Both the full House and Senate are expected to vote on the conference report next week. President Obama did not make good on his threat to veto the 2010 defense authorization bill which included funding for the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

FMI: http://appropriations.house.gov/