Defense bill sends funds to Pax River and Indian Head

Senate action expected next

Friday, Dec. 18, 2009

Southern Maryland's military installations are close to getting an early Christmas gift from Washington.

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2010 that includes $32.1 million for the region's military bases and related research activities.

Most of the money is earmarked for specific programs at Patuxent River Naval Air Station and Naval Support Facility Indian Head.

"Pax River and Indian Head are invaluable assets to our nation's defense and security," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md., 5th) in a statement that lauded the research, development, testing and evaluation conducted at the Southern Maryland.

He also praised the workforce training investments in the engineering field, saying such commitments ensure the installations will remain critical military assets long into the future.

The spending bill includes $13.5 million for projects at Pax River and Webster Field. They include:

ï $5 million for NAE Interoperability with the Carrier Strike Group, intended to reduce the cost of testing by enabling aircraft systems to interact with shipboard systems virtually.

ï $4 million toward improved capabilities for irregular warfare platforms to upgrade Special Operation Forces vehicles and platforms with more advance intelligence-surveillance-reconnaissance capabilities.

ï $2 million for Joint Mission Battle-Space to support net-ready key performance parameters. The money will help procure and integrate the Navy's tactical data links and command and control systems to create a joint battle space environment to test and analyze key performance measures.

ï $1.5 million for the Multi-Mission Helicopter Avionics Mission System, which is currently in development to replace legacy aircraft that are at the end of their useful life.

ï $1 million for heavy-lift helicopter research at the University of Maryland.

The money is on top of more than $11 million included in an omnibus appropriations bill signed into law on Wednesday to build an additional special communications engineering facility at Webster Field.

The defense spending bill includes $17 million for Indian Head, including:

ï $5 million to design safe and cost-effective manufacturing processes for next generation energetics, which is important to ensuring the production of new explosives and propellants.

ï $4 million for an advanced energetics initiative to research and develop smaller, lighter, more lethal, safer and adaptive munitions.

ï $3.5 million for energetics science and technology workforce development.

ï $3 million for underwater explosives and warhead research that can defeat both submarines and surface targets, such as mines.

ï $1.5 million to establish a technology transfer office to assist with the transfer of commercially useful technologies from federal laboratories to the private sector.

The Senate must approve the spending bill before it is sent to President Barack Obama (D), who is expected to sign the measure.

abrody@somdnews.com