Durbin: Senate Passes Defense Appropriation Bills; Approves Funding for Illinois Projects
Legislation includes $5 million for conversion at Bronzeville
Washington, D.C. B U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Defense Subcommittee, today said the Senate has approved a defense spending bill that includes several Illinois defense projects as well as several other provisions affecting the state.
The projects, included at Durbin=s requests, were contained in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 defense appropriations bill approved by the full Senate last night. The bill now goes to the President for review. The following projects are included in the bill, among others:
$ Chicago Academy at Bronzeville: $5 million to complete conversion of the former Eighth Regiment national Guard Armory into classrooms to accommodate up to 600 Chicago Public Schools high school students.
$ Unutilized Plant Capacity at Rock Island Arsenal: $15.8 million for this Army program designed to offset drastic fluctuations in workload levels at Department of Defense facilities. Last year, Durbin included language in the FY 2000 defense appropriations bill that requested funding for this program in the future. This level is $11.5 million over the President=s budget request.
$ Advanced Materials Intelligent Processing Center, Evanston: $5 million to fund efforts to decrease the cost of military hardware made with composites by intelligent processing systems. Northwestern University is the project=s leader.
$ LITENING II Precision Attack Targeting Systems (PATS), Rolling Meadows: $113.4 million for procurement of these targeting pods. Without this equipment Air National Guard aircraft cannot perform precision strikes and are therefore incapable of conducting current missions. The manufacture of LITENING II is performed at Northrop-Grumman in Rolling Meadows.
$ Magnetic Bearing Cooling Turbine, Loves Park: $6 million to accelerate the testing and fielding of magnetic bearing cooling turbine technology-based environmental control systems. This magnetic levitation technology will save money because the bearings ill be unlikely to wear out. The work on these systems is performed by Barber-Colman in Loves Park.
$Airborne Reconnaissance, Barrington: $7 million to provide the Global Hawk with the sensor capability to cover larger areas in dual band and provide precision target location directly from the imagery. The sensor technology work is performed at Recon/Colman in Loves Park.
$ Military Gator, Moline: $5 million to Deere and Company for this rugged, highly mobile diesel vehicle, which can be dropped from military aircraft, to expedite casualty evacuation and resupply.
$ Combat Identification Dismounted Soldiers, Schaumburg: $5 million to Motorola for this system that helps avoid friendly-fire casualties among U.S. soldiers.
$ SINCGARS Radios for the Army National Guard: $20 million for the Army National Guard in Illinois and several other states to procure these radios to modernize their communications and improve their ability to deploy soldiers.
$ Mobile Parts Hospital, Chicago/Rock Island@ $8 million to develop technology for producing spare vehicle parts at the point of need. The Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute and the Rock Island Arsenal play key roles in this program.