House appropriators are recommending cutting most of the fiscal year 2021 funding the Air Force proposed for Advanced Battle Management System on-ramp events while also criticizing the service's nontraditional execution of the program. The Air Force asked for $302 million to fund ABMS research and development in FY-21 - $75 million of which is intended for the exercises. At a cost of $25 million each, the service holds three on-ramps per fiscal year so defense industry partners can demonstrate the maturity of their products for possible integration with the ABMS system to enable joint all-domain command and control. But according to a report accompanying its mark of the FY-21 defense spending bill, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee is dissatisfied with the Air Force's justification for the on-ramp budget and recommends cutting $50 million. "The committee cannot ascertain any specific requirement or other programmatic justification for conducting this number of exercises, nor does the committee have adequate confidence in the cost estimate of $25 million per exercise," the report, obtained by Inside Defense, states.
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