Senior defense officials are expected by tomorrow evening to make a number of key decisions that will allow the Pentagon to fit all of its programs within the $533.7 billion budget for 2010 set by the White House.

Senior service officials recently said they could live with about 60 more F-22s, down from the previous 381-plane requirement.

The Obama administration is expected by mid-April to decide the fate of the program.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters he will try to amend the 2010 defense spending bills to require the Air Force to buy more.

He spoke during a March 11 conference in Washington sponsored by Aviation Week and McAleese & Associates.

He declined to talk about specific numbers that any amendment might include, but he did highlight the 60 new fighters that service officials have recently discussed.

Another lawmaker at the conference, Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, Chairman of the House Armed Services Air and Land Subcommittee, said he has been told that per-plane F-22 costs are now $170 million, around $20 million per plane higher than current estimates.

Abercrombie also criticized the Pentagon for its handling of the Air Force's KC-X tanker competition. He said some key lawmakers in both chambers are debating using legislation that would force the Air Force to purchase both planes involved in the competition. Boeing is competing against a partnership of Northrop Grumman and EADS.

Abercrombie said buying both tankers would make strategic sense, since "they both do different things." He said the Boeing and Northrop–EADS planes could simply be stationed in different parts of the world.

He said both contractor teams have "acted in good faith," so a split buy would be fair to both.

John T. Bennett wrote this for http://www.defensenews.com

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