AMENDMENT NO. 7 OFFERED BY MR. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

The Clerk read as follows:

Amendment No. 7 offered by Mr. Dicks:

At the end of title V, add the following:

SEC. 502. TIER III MINUS UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE.

In addition to the amounts authorized to be appropriated by title I, there is authorized to be appropriated an additional $22,000,000 for the tier III minus unmanned aerial vehicle.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Combest] has a perfecting amendment to my amendment.

• My amendment would authorize an additional $22 million for the endurance unmanned aerial vehicle known as Darkstar. This funding is needed to recover from the loss of the first vehicle during flight testing, which took place just before we marked up this bill in committee. At that time, we did not have good information from the Department of Defense on the impact of the crash, so the report accompanying the bill includes language which reserved the committee's right to revisit this issue as better information became available. While the accident investigation is still not quite completed, DOD has been able to provide a good estimate of what the cost impact is likely to be. DOD has determined that there will be a delay in getting the second aircraft ready for flight, and in carrying out the necessary set of flight tests once testing is resumed. During this period, a substantial engineering team must be sustained and the amendment will provide the funds necessary to do that. I urge the adoption of this amendment.

• Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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