Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

4. Department of Defense · Notable · Needs Congress

Double EC-37B electronic warfare aircraft from 10 to 20

Partially done

114 4. Department of Defense

“Increase the number of EC-37B electronic warfare aircraft from 10 to 20 in order to achieve a minimum capacity to engage growing threats from China across the electromagnetic spectrum.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    Aircraft, not just money. The FY 2027 P-1's Air Force aircraft-procurement table carries the program under its P-1 name, **Compass Call** (line 21): zero aircraft in FY2025 actuals, **2 aircraft enacted for FY2026 at $400,000K**, and **3 requested for FY2027 at $660,000K**. The same exhibits show where the reconciliation act's $474,000,000 landed, and it is not on the buy line: line 21 carries no P.L. 119-21 money at all, while the P-1's "FY 2026 PL 119-21 Spend Plan" column carries **$334,969K against Compass Call modifications** (line 53, Budget Activity 05, modification of in-service aircraft) and **$25,200K against Compass Call post-production support** (line 77, Budget Activity 07), and the FY 2027 R-1 shows the program's entire FY2026 RDT&E line — PE 0207253F, **$90,241K** — funded from P.L. 119-21 with nothing discretionary, falling to a $66,514K discretionary request for FY2027. Against a program of record of 10 that is a funded expansion past 10, enacted in part — which is what `partial` records. It is not `done`: five airframes bought or requested is half of the ten the Quote's doubling would need, the FY2027 three are a request rather than an appropriation, and no allowlisted source read states the current fleet size, so the 10-to-20 count in the Quote still cannot be tested against a delivered inventory figure.

  2. Partially done

    Section 20007(8) of the reconciliation act (P.L. 119-21) appropriated $474,000,000 "to increase EA-37B production", available until 2029. The EC-37B named in the Quote was redesignated EA-37B (Compass Call) before the window opened, so this is the same aircraft. The appropriation increases production; it does not state a fleet size, and nothing on an allowlisted host says the fleet has reached 20.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

The naming change is the whole search problem here: “EC-37B” returns nothing in any enacted text (0 hits in P.L. 119-60, 119-21 and 119-75), while “EA-37B” returns the appropriation above.

  • The claim that media.defense.gov refused us was wrong and is withdrawn (2026-09-06). media.defense.gov can be read, and the budget exhibits were never on it: they are on comptroller.war.gov and open without difficulty. The wall was a wrong host plus a wrong way of asking, and it cost this item a Primary for a year.
  • The name drifts twice (2026-09-03). “EC-37B” returns nothing in enacted text; “EA-37B” finds the reconciliation appropriation; and the budget exhibits use a third name again — the P-1’s Air Force table carries the buy as “Compass Call”, and “EA-37B”, “EC-37B” and “Compass Call” all return zero hits in the FY 2027 Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System book, which does not carry the program as a Major Weapon System line at all. A keyword search on either designation over the budget documents would have produced a confident false negative; the P-1 finds it by the program’s nickname.
  • The quantities above are the first fleet-relevant figures on this item from a Primary source, and the P-1 and R-1 together account for $450,410K of the reconciliation act’s $474,000,000 across three Compass Call lines.
  • The fleet total still cannot be stated, and the search that says so is bounded (2026-09-06). The exhibit that does publish per-type inventory counts is the FY 2027 Force Structure Changes Exhibit (2026-05-20), and it states them plainly for the types it covers — “Reduction in AH-64D aircraft from 11 in FY 2027 to 0 by FY 2029”, “decrease from 586 UH-60L aircraft in FY 2026 to 511 in FY 2027”. Tested against those known lines, its zero hits for “Compass Call”, “EA-37” and “EC-37” are a fact about its scope, not a failure to read it: the exhibit covers retirements and divestments only, and Compass Call is neither. The Air Force’s own justification books, which carry the P-40 prior-year quantities that would give a program total, are on www.saffm.hq.af.mil; the host exists but refuses every way we have of asking, so it is a genuine wall and the one still standing on this item.
  • What is still missing for done: an allowlisted statement of the current EA-37B inventory. The P-1 gives buys, not fleet size.
Action
expand
Object
EC-37B electronic warfare aircraft fleet
ID
213