By Jessica Wehrman
The Columbus Dispatch
WASHINGTON — The House passed a $585 billion defense policy bill yesterday that includes a provision aimed at strengthening Ohio’s bid to become a hub for unmanned aerial vehicles.
The bill passed 300-119, with all Ohioans supporting it except Rep. Marcia Fudge, D-Cleveland.
The bill included a measure that asks the Defense Department to work with federal and state agencies on the development of unmanned aircraft in the national airspace. That measure directs the secretary of defense to quickly correct any misunderstandings on access to special-use airspace.
The provision, pushed by Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, could make it easier for officials from Ohio and Indiana to promote their regional unmanned-aircraft-system center and test complex by clarifying how the airspace over Indiana’s Camp Atterbury can be used. Turner said the provision “ensures all of Ohio’s airspace resources are recognized and utilized to their maximum capacity.”
“Our region is an epicenter for innovative research in the expanding field of unmanned aerial systems,” he said.
The bill also includes a measure that would make it easier to hire college students for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Air Force Research Laboratory.
And it includes $120 million for Abrams battle-tank upgrades, according to Turner’s office -- work done at the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, also known as the Lima Army Tank Plant.
Congress has waged a nearly annual war with the Obama administration over the Lima tank plant, with the administration at one point proposing to close the plant for a few years until new tanks were needed.
Finally, the bill includes a provision that would reject a request by President Barack Obama to conduct another round of base realignment and closures in 2017.
The bill now heads to the Senate where passage is expected next week.
The legislation endorses Obama’s latest request to Congress in the 4-month-old war against extremists who brutally rule large sections of Iraq and Syria. The bill provides $5 billion for the stepped-up operation of airstrikes and the dispatch of up to 1,500 more American troops.
It also reauthorizes the Pentagon plan to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels battling the forces of President Bashar Assad. That mandate expires Thursday, but the legislation would extend it for two years.
Still, war-weary lawmakers expressed considerable unease about a slippery slope for the U.S. military after years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“We’re getting more deeply involved in the war in Iraq and Syria,” complained Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.
The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, insisted that U.S. involvement was limited.
“The train-and-equip mission is just that,” Smith said. “I don’t want U.S. combat troops fighting this ground war. ... By training and equipping the Syrians and Iraqis, we can empower them to fight their own ground war with our support from the air.”
Unity on a new legal justification for U.S. military operations against the extremists remains elusive in Congress, underscored by the divisions displayed across the Capitol.
The bill would provide the core funding of $521.3 billion for the military and $63.7 billion for overseas operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite Obama’s objections, the measure maintains the prohibition on transferring terror suspects from the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States.
The Pentagon sought cuts in military benefits. Lawmakers compromised by agreeing to make service members pay $3 more for co-pays on prescription drugs and trimming the growth of the off-base housing allowance by 1 percent instead of the Pentagon’s deeper 5 percent recommendation.
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.