Bad Budget News for FCS?

The Senate Budget Committee squirreled away $2.37 billion in the $3.5 trillion fiscal 2010 federal budget for the next generation Air Force aerial refueling tanker -- the only Defense Department project that the Senate allocated a separate funding line to in the entire bill.

The money for the tanker is just a down payment on the program. The bill says the Air Force will receive "not less" than $13 billion to buy the tankers during the next five years.

Northrop Grumman won the $35 billion tanker contract in February 2008 in a fierce competition with Boeing, which then lodged -- and won -- a protest in June 2008.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the House Armed Services Committee in January that he plans to reopen the tanker competition this spring. But press reports last month said it could be axed by Gates or the White House as the result of an overall review of big-ticket programs, including the $160 billion Army Future Combat Systems program and the Air Force F-22 fighter.

The fate of these programs will be known when the Pentagon releases its detailed, proposed fiscal 2010 budget later this month.

Fencing off a total of $13 billion for the tanker is not good news for the troubled FCS program because there are only so many billions of dollars to spread around, and though Gates has put a wall of secrecy around the 2010 budget process, rumors persist that FCS will get the axe.

If it wins the tanker re-competition, Boeing plans to build the planes in Seattle, and if Northrop wins, it plans to build its tanker in Mobile, Ala.

I know you will be shocked by this, but two key members of the Senate Budget Committee just happen to hail from those two states, Democrat Patti Murray from Washington and Republican Jeff Sessions from Alabama.