Schumer: Senate committee approves defense bill with funding for two Lockheed Martin helicopter contracts

OWEGO, N.Y. — The U.S. Senate’s Appropriations Committee has approved a bill that includes nearly $450 million for two helicopter programs for which Lockheed Martin’s site in Owego has contracts.

The committee approved the Department of Defense Appropriations Act that includes $348 million for the Presidential Helicopter program and $100 million for the Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) program.

U.S. Senators Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) made the announcement in a news release posted Friday on Schumer’s website.

Bethesda, Md.–based Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), a defense contractor, is working with Stratford, Conn.–based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX), on both programs.

The full U.S. Senate will now consider the defense-spending measure, along with the funding allotment for the two helicopter programs, the lawmakers said.

With Senate approval, the proposal would bring the total amount of funding appropriated for the new fleet of CRHs to $433.5 million and provide the first allocation of funding for the Presidential Helicopter program, according to the news release.

These two appropriations follow last month’s U.S. Air Force (USAF) announcement that it had awarded a $1.28 billion contract to Sikorsky Aircraft and Lockheed Martin Owego to begin building a new fleet of 112 CRHs.

That contract could rise to a level of $8 million, the lawmakers said.

It also followed the announcement in May that the U.S. Navy had awarded a $1.24 billion contract to Sikorsky Aircraft and Lockheed Martin Owego to begin building a new fleet of 21 Presidential Helicopters.

The appropriation in the measure currently under consideration would help Lockheed keep both programs on or ahead of schedule, the lawmakers said.

In their news release, Schumer and Gillibrand called on their Senate colleagues to take up the bill and pass it.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com