In a last-minute move before the fiscal year 2007 defense budget is “locked,” Pentagon officials have approved a plan that will add $1.1 billion to Air Force accounts over the next six years, according to budget documents.

The plan would add funds for anticipated fuel costs and work on the joint Single Integrated Air Picture program, while also stating delays are afoot for the Airborne Laser initiative, according to program budget decision 723.

Additionally, the internal Pentagon budget missive shifts funds for an effort aimed at upgrading C-130 airlifter avionics systems and adds $66.3 million to Air Force accounts over fiscal years 2007 and 2008 to fund the Pentagon’s portion of a new program to equip NATO-operated AWACS aircraft with an advanced infrared countermeasure system.

The PBD also directs the Air Force to move $112 million over the future years defense plan to U.S. Strategic Command that will allow STRATCOM to step up its efforts to combat potential adversaries’ use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its forces.

More broadly, the PBD includes a range of cuts across the services and Defense Department from FY-06 through FY-11.

PBD 723 slashes $4 billion from the Army and Navy and moves $3.5 billion into a wide range of new initiatives, many of which are designed to support combatant commanders, InsideDefense.com reported Jan. 3.

Pentagon comptroller Tina Jonas signed the document three days after Christmas. It orders small adjustments to hundreds of programs between FY-06 and FY-11, but does hand down several larger moves, including an increase of about $2.5 billion for fuel costs. Air Force accounts are increased by $1.1 billion, most of which is to pay for jet fuel.

In total, PBD 723 trims $72 million from FY-06 and increases spending between FY-07 and FY-11 by $804 million. Between FY-07 and FY-11, the Army absorbs a $2.1 billion reduction and the Navy takes a $2.2 billion hit. Defense-wide programs, including numerous joint efforts, receive a $2.4 billion boost in the PBD.

The Jonas-approved budget decision lacks detailed descriptions of the program-specific funding cuts it orders. For the ABL program, the document takes a cryptic tone, stating only that the comptroller has approved a move to “delay procurement of the Airborne Laser to reflect changes in the system’s research and development.” It was not clear by press time (Jan. 5) what kind of funding reduction was handed down by Jonas as part of the program’s procurement delay.

A spokesman for the Missile Defense Agency’s ABL program told Inside the Air Force Jan. 4 that “no one here has seen” PBD 723, but stressed program officials do not feel OSD’s move will alter their planned testing schedule.

A spokeswoman for Boeing, the program’s lead contractor, also said the contractor has yet to catch word of the PBD language.

Asked how the delay would affect Boeing’s work on the plane-mounted laser, in an e-mail she said only that “the Airborne Laser program has successfully met program milestones for two consecutive years, in 2004 and 2005. As such, the program is on track to execute milestones scheduled for this year.” At press time (Jan. 5), the Boeing spokeswoman had not yet responded to a reporter’s inquiry about how the PBD might affect milestones slated for the future.

The next major step that officials have penciled into program plan is physically integrating the laser onto a Boeing 747 aircraft. According to a program schedule presented at a Dec. 13 conference in Washington by Col. Rodney Couick, the ABL deputy director, the laser disassembly and installation should be wrapped up by the middle of FY-07.

Many ABL observers are anxiously awaiting a demonstrated shooting down of a short-range ballistic missile, slated for calendar year 2008. The shoot-down date, however, has been moved several times over the years.

Meanwhile, the largest chunk of the $1.1 billion plus-up would be earmarked for Air Force fuel needs. To keep planes’ full of fuel, the PBD tacks on $430 million in FY-07, $301 million in FY-08, $225 million in FY-09, $512 million in FY-10 and a heftier $1.07 billion in FY-11.

Additionally, the PBD moves $30 million in FY-07 dollars that were previously intended for Air Force procurement coffers to the service’s research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) account for an effort to upgrade avionics systems on its C-130 airlifters. The new plan “ensures that two C-130 aircraft are in combined developmental test/operational test . . . concurrently, thereby decreasing risk to the overall program,” the budget document states. That move is aimed at ensuring that more test flights can be accomplished and a spare aircraft is available.

That move, Pentagon officials believe, will pare down the effort’s overall test time “from 28 months to 19 months . . . and provide operational aircraft 8 months earlier,” according to the PBD.

The budget missive also adds $16.1 million in FY-07 to Air Force RDT&E fund to pay for work on the Air Force’s Single Integrated Air Picture Program. That move is a reaction to a recommendation handed down in September by the Pentagon’s Joint Battle Management Command and Control (JMBC2) Overarching Integrated Product Team.

Further, the PBD directs the Air Force to transfer $112 million over the FYDP to STRATCOM, which will allow the command to increase its efforts to combat potential enemies’ pursuit and use of illicit weapons. Last January, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tapped the STRATCOM chief with coordinating all U.S. military efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, the first time the mission has been made a key responsibility of a combatant commander, sister publication Inside the Pentagon reported Feb. 3, 2005.

Rumsfeld’s move was aimed at shoring up what analysts call a “serious weakness” in the U.S. military’s approach to dealing with weapons of mass destruction recently exposed in the search for such weapons in Iraq, ITP reported. Under the move, Nebraska-based STRATCOM became the military’s “focal point to integrate and synchronize capabilities” for a wide-ranging set of protections to deal with chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological weapons, according to a Pentagon document obtained at that time by ITP.

The Joint Staff has since signed off on a list of WMD-related requirements drawn up by STRATCOM officials.

Those developments cleared the way for the command to take the lead in the military’s counter-WMD efforts, but with one crucial hitch: “The mission assignment was not properly resourced,” the new PBD states.

As a remedy, the recently approved plan directs the Air Force, as the executive agent for the mission, to begin transferring millions of dollars to the command in FY-07. The transaction, according to the PBD, will be facilitated like this: $21 million will be moved from the service to STRATCOM in FY-07; another $22 million in FY-08; another $22 million in FY-09; $24 million in FY-10; and $23 million in FY-11.