Provided further, That not less than $62,100,000 shall be transferred to `Other Procurement, Army' for the procurement of Up-armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles and associated equipment:
Then in the DoD FY05, [HR 4200, S 2401] introduced 4/22/04 & signed into law 10/28/04, they authorized, under Sec. 112, $610,000,000 to be used for up-armored Humvees (and add-on armor) with the restriction of procurement at a rate up to 450 such vehicles each month.
You're saying they put sec 112 in to make sure the money went towards the humvees, not argument here.
What I'm saying is that with the wording "at a rate up to" essentially put a ceiling on how many Humvees the DoD can buy per month. When that Solider asked Rummy the question in Kuwait the press jumped on Rummy and made it look like he wasn't pushing hard enough to get the new Humvee made. But when he's limited by a bill from Congress on how many he can buy per month, the press leaves that part out, how is Rummy not doing all he can?
Yes, the 450 per month provision was designed to keep the production rates from being about 1/2 that per month and spread out over a fiscal year. You can kind of do the math. $610MM/$225K/vehicle/450per month and you see that even now sufficient funds are not nearly available to keep the plants moving. There was also a Meehan-Simmons resolution in the house going back to March that demanded that the plants be pushed to capacity with whatever production funds were available. That had no teeth, but it had the meaning which carried in to the wording you referenced. Also note that section b below it which gives the secretary some discretion as to balancing the load. ... Anyway, take a look at the Evanoff article shown on post #58. It is highly accurate on the topic. The plants have not and are not at capacity.