Sikorsky receives the first two GE Aerospace T901 engines at its West Palm Beach, Florida facility for integration on a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter. (Photo: Sikorsky)
The Senate Appropriations Committee has backed most of the Army’s divestments as part of its new transformation initiative, while its defense spending bill rebukes a plan to end development of the new T901 helicopter engine and adds funds to upgrade more AH-64D Apaches to the newer E-model.
The bill also directs the Army to provide regular briefings on its transformation plan, citing concern with the “disjointed rollout” and stating the committee has yet to receive “sufficient details regarding the analysis behind, and the purpose of, specific ATI decisions despite several months of attempted dialogue.”
“The committee is a willing partner to the Army, as demonstrated in its recommendations in this bill for certain budget line item consolidation and divestment of certain systems. However, the Department of the Army’s disjointed rollout of the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI), lack of transparency and delay of formal budget documentation and analytic briefings, make it difficult for the committee to make fully informed decisions on implementing and resourcing all of the Army’s requested initiatives,” the panel writes in the report accompanying its bill.
The Senate Appropriations Committee on July 31 voted 26-3 to advance its $852.5 billion fiscal year 2026 defense spending bill, approving a $21.7 billion topline increase that boosts funds for shipbuilding, munitions and Ukraine aid.
As part of the new ATI plan, the Army has detailed an intent to cut “obsolete” programs including the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV), Humvee, AH-64D Apache, Gray Eagle UAS and the M10 Booker and potentially ending development of the T901 engine out of the Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP), the Future Tactical UAS (FTUAS) and the Robotic Combat Vehicle (RCV).
“By and large, we are allowing the Army to move forward with canceling some of these programs,” a senior Senate GOP aide told reporters.
The Army has said its “invest to divest” strategy leading ATI accounted for shedding $4.9 billion of older and “ineffective” equipment in its FY ‘26 budget request, while looking to spend $8.9 billion on higher-priority efforts such as buying more drones and accelerating development of the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft and the new M1E3 Abrams tank.
“Some of these proposals have merit and should be pursued, such as greater integration of unmanned aerial systems and counter-unmanned aerial systems into lower level units. Others raise concerns, like the abrupt cancellation of other programs, some of which the Army identified as top priorities only months prior. Such actions have created unpredictability for the other military services that were jointly invested in them, public and private industry and international partners,” Senate appropriators wrote in their bill report.
Senate appropriators’ bill restores $175 million in funding for the ITEP program, after the Army targeted it for a cut, with the senior Senate GOP aide citing it as a “critical program to increase power and efficiency” on Army helicopters.
GE Aerospace, which developed the T901 as the future engine for the Army’s UH-60 Black Hawk and AH-64 Apache helicopters, has said the fate of the ITEP program is dependent on how FY ‘26 funding shapes out.
While the Army included Boeing’s AH-64D Apache among its planned divestments, Senate appropriators added $360 million to remanufacture 12 of the aircraft into the E-model configuration.
Gen. James Mingus, the Army vice chief of staff, previously said the Army wasn’t planning to upgrade any more AH-64Ds into newer E-models.
Outside of those two program increases, Senate appropriators’ defense bill appears to support the Army’s cuts for JLTV, Humvee, the M10 Booker, Gray Eagle, FTUAS and RCV.
“We’re not forcing the Army to buy any Humvees, but we are investing in some anti-lock brake retrofit kits since the existing Humvee fleet is going to be with the Army for many decades to come,” a senior Senate GOP aide said, with the bill including a $25 million add for the kits.
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s bill directs Army senior leaders to begin quarterly briefings to the congressional defense committees within 30 days of the legislation’s passage that would detail the service’s “harmonized operational and investment strategy” for ATI.
The briefings are expected to cover threat assessments that informed proposed changes, force structure impacts, acquisition strategy and investment timelines, defense industrial base impacts and implications for the Joint Force.
The House Appropriations Committee backed the Army’s M10 Booker cancellation while rebuking its JLTV, Gray Eagle, ITEP and FTUAS cuts.
Both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees’ respective versions of the National Defense Authorization Act support many of the Army’s planned ATI-related changes, while also calling on the service leaders to provide more details.
A version of this story originally appeared in affiliate publication Defense Daily.