March 28, 2024

Construction Funds to Pax in ’15 Appropriations

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Construction at the Atlantic Test Range at NAS: Patuxent River is among the projects included in the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2015, announced Congressman Steny Hoyer.  The legislation also includes funding to address the backlog of claims at the Veterans Benefits Administration.

In the first official congressional action on the Pentagon’s proposed 2015 budget House lawmakers rejected cuts in housing allowances and commissary funding, and rejected cost increases to Tricare beneficiaries, according to the Army Times. The House Armed Services Committee did not address the DoD’s proposed 1 percent basic pay raise for troops next year, which could result in another smaller-than-expected pay increase in January.

The Pentagon would be required to establish an office to specifically manage unmanned systems if proposed language in a new Asia-Pacific Region Priority bill passes, reports USNI News. The legislation states, “It is the policy of the United States to maintain an independent organization within the Department of Defense to develop and coordinate the unmanned air, land and sea capabilities of the United States to ensure unity of effort and the prudent allocation of resources in accordance with military needs.” The bill must be approved by the House and the Senate before being signed into law by the President.

USNI further reports that the House Armed Services Committee wants to suspend the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft program and directs the Pentagon to fund a study for a future carrier-borne unmanned strike aircraft. The Navy’s FY 2015 budget submission included $403 million to develop the program, which the service plans to deploy by 2020. If the bill is signed, UCLASS funds would be delayed until the study’s conclusion. The bill criticized the Navy for not complying with 2012 strategic guidance in the development of the current UCLASS effort.

With Amazon Web Services receipt of security approval, the Defense Information Systems Agency launched its internal, secure milCloud platform to bring the Pentagon in line with the rest of the government in moving to the cloud, reports C4ISR & Networks. There is a huge DoD demand for cloud services and military cloud spending could reach $2.6 billion by fiscal 2018, an increase from $414 million in fiscal 2013.

Star and Stripes provides a summary of NavSec Ray Mabus’  live question-and-answer session with sailors and Marines last week. In short, deployments are up, the budget is down, and retirement benefits will remain untouched.

Three Lockheed Martin unmanned technology systems progressed from research and development to operational readiness, reports MarketWatch. The Indago vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) quad-rotor and its handheld ground control station (GCS) will provide a mobile surveillance application and a new Commercial Avionics Suite delivers the same performance and reliability at a lower cost.

A House Armed Services subcommittee released legislation to conduct comprehensive reviews of military intelligence programs, according to Defense News. The bill contains no authorized funding numbers for intelligence, special operations and cyber security, but it appears that it largely supports the Pentagon’s 2015 budget request in each area. Those funding levels will be decided next week by the full Armed Services Committee.

The Pentagon granted access to Navy aircraft carriers and other support to make sure the new “Godzilla” movie’s depiction of sailors and other service members was as accurate as possible, reports The Navy Times. Service personnel reviewed the script and the Navy allowed filmmakers to film interior and exterior scenes aboard three aircraft carriers: the Ronald Reagan, the Carl Vinson and the Nimitz.

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