|
 |
 |
|
Senate panel upholds Global Hawk drone retirement
The Senate Armed Services Committee did not change a Pentagon plan to retire the Global Hawk Block 30 drones, upholding one of the more contentious budget-cutting decisions the Pentagon made.
The Senate panel’s decision to leave the Northrop Grumman drone terminated in its version of the Defense authorization bill puts the committee at odds with the House, which retained funding for the Global Hawk drone in the Defense bill that passed last week.
The Pentagon killed the unmanned Global Hawk Block 30 variant in its 2013 budget proposal, saying that the program cost too much money and that the drones could be replaced by the long-flying, manned U-2 planes.
The program was one of the major weapons systems killed by the Pentagon as part its plans to cut $487 billion over the next decade.
But the bill that passed the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday did not. The committee used $545 million from the Global Hawk program to pay for other things in the budget, such as helping offset the $1.4 billion added to reverse cuts the Air National Guard.
If the Global Hawk drones aren’t added back to the bill on the Senate floor, the issue will come to a head in conference committee, because the House and the Senate have to reconcile bills that are nearly $4 billion apart in size.
