Introduction
The President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY2026) has been released, which, as forecast, does not include funds to continue the E-7 program as a replacement to the aging E-3 fleet. The Department of Defense cited rising costs and a slow delivery timeline as principal reasons for cancelling the program, concerns that make the program especially vulnerable within a budget request that represents a decrease in spending power compared to the previous year.
This is a point of understandable distress amongst air power practitioners & experts, particularly those whose interests include air dominance and/or command and control. Interested and distressed parties may inquire “is there any future for the E-7 in the U.S. Air Force?” The answer is, in true Air Force fashion, “it depends.” In this case, the future of the U.S. Air Force’s E-7 program depends upon Congress.
A Civics Review
It is appropriate that Congress should control the E-7’s fate, as Article I Section 8 of the Constitution provides Congress the authority to “raise and support Armies” and to “provide and maintain a Navy,” while Article I Section 9 stipulates that “[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” Congress puts these responsibilities to action primarily through two annual pieces of legislation: the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and the Defense Appropriations Act, the latter passed either as a standalone bill or as part of a larger “omnibus” appropriations bill.
The annual NDAA sets the number of personnel that each military service shall maintain; directs the DOD and military services to do things such as conduct studies, produce plans, or enact policies; prohibits the DoD and military services from doing things such as divesting platforms or enacting policies, and; authorizes – though does not require nor directly enable – the DoD or military services to procure specific platforms in specific quantities. As such, the NDAA may be interesting, but is not a likely vehicle through which Congress might “save” the E-7.
To implement any of the activities authorized by the NDAA, the DoD and military services rely on funding provided through the Defense Appropriations Act. While the base text of the Defense Appropriations Act outlines topline spending amounts by service (e.g., Air Force, Navy) and category (e.g., Procurement, Research, Development, Test, and Engineering [RDT&E]), the accompanying Report prescribes exact dollar amounts to be expended for each individual effort (e.g., $500M for E-7 RDT&E). In practice, the Defense Appropriatons Act Report is typically largely aligned with the President’s Budget Request and the year’s NDAA, though perfect alignment is never achieved. In cases of misalignment, the Defense Appropriations Act and accompanying Report represents the final word on what funds will be appropriated and expended for a given purpose in a given year. Requested or NDAA-authorized expenditures without an accompanying appropriation cannot receive funds, and funds appropriated for a specific purpose must be obligated against that purpose regardless of whether such an expenditure was authorized by the NDAA or whether it aligns with the wishes of the President, DoD, or military service. Considering this, the Defense Appropriations Act Report is the most likely path through which the E-7 may be saved against the wishes of the Department of Defense.
As a final wrinkle, Congress frequently fails to pass a Defense Appropriations Act before the previous act expires. In these cases, Congress typically passes a Continuing Resolution (CR), which extends the most recent Defense Appropriations Act at current levels for a specified period.
Paths Forward
Advocacy from within and outside of the Air Force was not sufficient to maintain DoD-level support for the E-7 program against the backdrop of a constrained resource environment. Without DoD support, funding to continue the E-7 program was not included in the President’s Budget Request. This puts the fate of the E-7 in the hands of Congress, where politics will likely play a larger role in the future of the platform than will military necessity.
Having been omitted from the President’s Budget Request, funding for the E-7 could reasonably have also been omitted from the Defense Appropriations Acts put forward in the House and Senate; however, the President’s Budget Request for FY2026 was delivered four months late. As a result, the House Appropriations Committee had already completed and passed their version of the FY2026 Defense Appropriations Act and Report before the contents of the President’s Budget Request were known. Relevant to this discussion, the Report includes $500M for the U.S. Air Force to continue RDT&E for the E-7, effectively fully funding the continuation of the program through FY2026.
Saved in Appropriations
As described above, Congress may require the DoD to continue the E-7 program in contravention to the President’s Budget Request through the Defense Appropriations Act Report. While the House version of the Report includes funding for the E-7, this is not yet law. To become law, identical versions of the Defense Appropriations Act and Report must be passed by both the House and Senate and be signed into law by the President or, if vetoed by the President, overridden with a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress.
Appropriations acts control the flow of money across the country, and as such are highly politically charged bills. Parochial, lobbied, and other competing interests generally prevent the Senate from directly considering House-passed Defense Appropriations Acts, and instead the Senate will typically draft and pass their own version of the bill and report. Differences between the House and Senate versions of the bills and reports are resolved via a conference, wherein leadership from the appropriations committees and relevant subcommittees make deals and compromises to produce a Defense Appropriations Act and Conference Report that can pass in identical form in both the House and Senate. Once the Defense Appropriations Act is signed into law, the Conference Report is the ultimate authority on all expenditures to be made by the DoD and its components over the coming fiscal year.
To save the E-7, Congress would need to include continued RDT&E funding for the program in the Conference Report, and must pass a conferenced Defense Appropriations Act into law. It is somewhat likely that full funding for the E-7 will be included in a conference report if one is ultimately produced, as the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK), is a supporter of the E-7 program in part because he expects the platform to be based at Tinker Air Force Base, which falls within his congressional district. Representative Cole may find a conference ally in Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a Senate appropriator who has similarly supported the E-7 program recently expressed skepticism about the DoD’s plans to abandon the platform. These are key supportive appropriators to watch as the process unfolds. Other appropriators with historic interest in the program include Representative Stephanie Bice (R-OK), though she is not in a position of leadership within the House Appropriations Committee, nor is she assigned to the Subcommittee on Defense. Still, parochial interests may inspire Representative Bice to advocate for the program to her appropriations peers.
Killed in Appropriations
Just as the E-7 may live by appropriations, it may die by appropriations. To be killed in appropriations, all that is necessary is that the House and Senate Appropriations Committees send their respective Defense Appropriations Acts and Reports to conference, and the resulting Conference Report does not include funding for the E-7. While it is unlikely that conferees will harbor any ill will toward the E-7 itself, this outcome is certainly possible if the conferees choose to pay deference to their same-party President and his budget request, rather than meticulously considering other political or military merits of each funded item in the House and Senate reports. Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Subcommittee for Defense, may be among those inclined to support the DoD’s budgetary request during conference, especially considering that the performing-the-duties-of DoD Comptroller, Bryn Woollacott MacDonnell, recently ascended to her post from Representative Calvert’s staff. As the most senior defense appropriator in the House of Representatives, he is another key appropriator to watch.
Like the previous scenario, the E-7 program will only be truly ended by a Defense Appropriations Act if that act becomes law. The future of the E-7 may look somewhat different if Congress instead passes a long-term continuing resolution (or a series of shorter CRs) for FY2026.
Saved in a Continuing Resolution
The most straightforward type of CR is often referred to as a “clean” CR, which extends only the effective dates of the previous appropriations act. E-7 RDT&E is funded under the existing CR, and will continue to be funded under any clean CR that becomes law in lieu of an FY2026 Defense Appropriations Act. True “clean” CR’s do not exist, as each CR comes with certain “anomalies” that alter the appropriations act being extended. These anomalies may do any number of things from adjusting the amount of money to be appropriated to certain programs to affording the DoD broad authority to rewrite funding tables as the Department sees fit. If a clean CR that extends current funding levels into FY2026 or a CR containing an anomaly that explicitly appropriates funds for E-7 RDT&E is passed, this would extend the E-7 program for the duration of the CR.
Allowed to be Killed in a Continuing Resolution
As mentioned above, the most recent CR afforded limited reprogramming authority to the DoD. If Congress funds the DoD via another long term CR rather than a Defense Appropriations Act and the DoD is afforded similar latitude to what was enjoyed under the current CR, it is possible that the DoD will act in accordance with their request and will discontinue funding for the E-7 program. In this scenario, Congress will have effectively ceded its responsibility for determining how DoD funding is to be expended to the DoD itself. Congress, in this case, would not kill the E-7 through any positive act, but rather will allow the DoD to end the program on its own accord.
Final Thoughts
Without DoD support to include funding for the E-7 in the President’s Budget Request, the E-7 program is reliant on congressional appropriators for its future. These appropriators may, through a Defense Appropriations Act, extend or end the E-7 program. Alternatively, Congress may not pass an FY2026 Defense Appropriations Act at all, and instead may extend appropriations at their current levels for some length of time. Should this be done with minimal interference, the E-7 program will likely continue. Should Congress choose to offer significant reprogramming authority to the DoD as part of a long-term CR, the DoD will likely seize the opportunity to end the program in accordance with stated intent.
In the event that Congress chooses to save the E-7 program in FY2026, the program will continue for another year. This may offer some hope to supporters of the program; however, this is no guarantee that the E-7 program will be continued over a longer term. The President’s Budget Request for FY2027 will likely be provided to Congress in March of 2026. If this request is delivered on time and again does not include funding for the E-7, the program will face the same uphill climb going into FY2027 that it faces today looking ahead to FY2026. Ultimately, the E-7 will require strong, sustained, and widespread Congressional support to be continued in future years, and there is little evidence that this support currently exists. Continued advocacy for airborne C2 from within the U.S. Air Force and from external interested parties, such as the Air and Space Forces Association or Boeing, will be critical to cultivating this support, should the program last long enough to require it.
Photo by Mark Stebnicki on Pexels and Tomas Del Coro on Flickr https://flickr.com/photos/45549579@N05/12196609265
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.
Leave a Reply to Morgan “Rum” Huttes Cancel reply