WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has begun consulting the U.S. Congress on plans to sell to South Korea remotely piloted Global Hawk surveillance planes and related ground stations, two people familiar with the matter said.

Among those briefed have been the Senate’s and House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committees, which have jurisdiction over arms sales, the people familiar with the matter said.

There was no immediate word on when formal notification of a proposed sale might take place, nor on the potential overall value.

South Korea has been under pressure to boost surveillance capabilities over North Korea after two attacks against it killed 50 people last year, driving tensions on the Korean peninsula to the highest levels in decades.

Talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear programme in return for aid have stalled since 2008 and the United Nations imposed new tough sanctions after Pyongyang conducted its second nuclear test and missile tests the following year.

Northrop Grumman, which builds the high-flying, long-endurance airframe, said Seoul was considering buying four RQ-4 Global Hawk “Block 30″ drones, which can carry intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance payloads.

Associated ground stations would be included in such a sale, Gemma Loochkartt, a company spokeswoman, said by email on Wednesday. Deliveries could take place in 2014 and 2015 if a government-to-government deal is signed this year, she said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has begun consulting Congress on plans to sell to South Korea remotely piloted Global Hawk surveillance planes and related ground stations, two people familiar with the matter said.

Among those briefed have been the Senate’s and House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committees, which have jurisdiction over arms sales, the people familiar with the matter said.

There was no immediate word on when formal notification of a proposed sale might take place, nor on the potential overall value.

Northrop Grumman, which builds the high-flying, long-endurance airframe, said Seoul was considering buying four RQ-4 Global Hawk “Block 30″ drones, which can carry intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance payloads.

Associated ground stations would be included in such a sale, Gemma Loochkartt, a company spokeswoman, said by email on Wednesday. Deliveries could take place in 2014 and 2015 if a government-to-government deal is signed this year, she said.

The Block 30 airframes sell for roughly $30 million apiece, not including their payloads. Raytheon Co’s “Enhanced Integrated Sensor Suite” lets the aircraft scan large swaths and transmit imagery from 60,000 feet in near real-time using electro-optical, infrared and radar-imaging sensors.

The State Department declined to comment pending formal notification of a proposed sale to Congress. The U.S. Air Force, which would broker the deal, and South Korea’s embassy in Washington also had no immediate comment.

WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) – The United Arab Emirates has trimmed what had been billed as a possible $7 billion purchase of an advanced U.S. missile defense system but there are no major obstacles to its completion, Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) lead executive on the deal said on Wednesday.

UAE officials have identified some elements of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense “that they think they can do without right now,” Dennis Cavin, a Lockheed vice president for missile defense programs, told Reuters.

The system would be designed to defend against ballistic missiles that could be fired by Iran, which is at odds with the West over its nuclear program.

Iran has test-fired missiles that it says are capable of hitting its foe, Israel, and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

The UAE would be the first overseas buyer of THAAD, the only system in any countries’ arsenal said to be capable of thwarting short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Raytheon Co (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) builds its radar.

Cavin said he now expected the UAE to sign a deal with the U.S. government for THAAD, as the Lockheed-built system is known, within a few months, later than he had previously projected.

“They have made some adjustments,” he told Reuters after updating reporters on the company’s missile defense programs along with three other Lockheed executives.

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – A U.S. Senator seeking the sale of Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) F-16C/D fighters to Taiwan said Tuesday that he was exploring legislative action designed to overcome any Obama administration refusal to meet Taipei’s longstanding request for the planes.

“This is an area where Congress could legislate to fulfill this requirement,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said in a conference call with reporters after touring Lockheed’s F-16 production line in Fort Worth, Texas.

“The administration’s decision will not be the final word,” he said. He cited the possibility of attaching an amendment to a defense policy bill expected to reach the Senate floor in October or November. Such a move would face long odds of making it into law, including a possible presidential veto.

Taiwan is seeking 66 new F-16C/D models to upgrade its aging air force. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the administration will make public by Oct. 1 what if anything it is prepared to do to help modernize Taiwan’s air force.

Cornyn said he did not know whether recent published reports that the administration has decided against supplying new F-16s were true.

He said there was “popular” congressional support for an F-16 sale despite the opposition of Beijing, which deems Taiwan a rogue province subject to unification with the mainland by force if necessary.

“I hope that we can come to some resolution that would be in the best interests of the United States and in the best interests of our ally Taiwan and in the best interests of the 2,300 people who work here in Fort Worth to produce the airplane,” he said.

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) – A U.S. Senator seeking the sale of Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) F-16C/D fighters to Taiwan said Tuesday that he was exploring legislative action designed to overcome any Obama administration refusal to meet Taipei’s longstanding request for the planes.

“This is an area where Congress could legislate to fulfill this requirement,” Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said in a conference call with reporters after touring Lockheed’s F-16 production line in Fort Worth, Texas.

“The administration’s decision will not be the final word,” he said. He cited the possibility of attaching an amendment to a defense policy bill expected to reach the Senate floor in October or November. Such a move would face long odds of making it into law, including a possible presidential veto.

Taiwan is seeking 66 new F-16C/D models to upgrade its aging air force. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the administration will make public by Oct. 1 what if anything it is prepared to do to help modernize Taiwan’s air force.

Cornyn said he did not know whether recent published reports that the administration has decided against supplying new F-16s were true.

He said there was “popular” congressional support for an F-16 sale despite the opposition of Beijing, which deems Taiwan a rogue province subject to unification with the mainland by force if necessary.

“I hope that we can come to some resolution that would be in the best interests of the United States and in the best interests of our ally Taiwan and in the best interests of the 2,300 people who work here in Fort Worth to produce the airplane,” he said.

WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Army has given ATK (ATK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) another shot at a potential $850 million contract to keep on running a military ammunition plant in Virginia that had been awarded to rival BAE Systems (BAES.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The Army Materiel Command, facing a hearing in a formal protest, said Friday that it had decided to re-evaluate the rival proposals and would make a new decision based on the results.

ATK on May 23 had challenged the award to the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, a nonpartisan arm of the U.S. Congress that reviews bid disputes on federal contracts.

The company, also known as Alliant Techsystems Inc, argued that the Army had improperly evaluated its proposal and had failed to do a certain type of technical trade-off analysis as promised, according to InsideDefense.com, an online trade publication that was the first to report the Army decision.

The Army “will decide in the near future concerning how it will conduct the re-evaluation,” Boyd Collins, a spokesman for the materiel command, said in a statement to Reuters Monday.

It did not yet have an estimated time in mind for announcing the outcome, he added.

In May, BAE beat ATK for an initial 10-year, $850 million contract to run the Radford Army ammunition plant in Virginia. It is the only U.S. producer of nitrocellulose, the feedstock for ammunition used by the military, police officers, hunters and other recreational shooters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Teams led by BAE Systems Plc

(BAES.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and General Dynamics Corp (GD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) each won contracts on Thursday worth more than $439 million to develop technology for the first fleet of U.S. Army ground combat vehicles designed from scratch for battlefields characterized by roadside bombs.

An SAIC-led team that included Boeing Co(BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall was passed over.

BAE is partnered in its effort with Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). General Dynamics is partnered with Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Raytheon Co (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The rival teams are to “develop competitive, affordable and executable designs for a new Army Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) over the next 24 months,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

The Pentagon’s top arms buyer, in a memo signed on Wednesday, approved the Army’s technology development strategy and said that a fixed-price type contract with incentive fee was appropriate for this phase of the program.

BAE Systems Land and Armaments won a $450 million contract and General Dynamics Land Systems was awarded a $439.7 million deal for the same phase of the program, the Defense Department said in its daily contract digest.

WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Teams led by BAE Systems Plc (BAES.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and General Dynamics Corp (GD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) each won contracts on Thursday worth more than $439 million to develop technology for the first fleet of U.S. Army ground combat vehicles designed from scratch for battlefields characterized by roadside bombs.

An SAIC-led team that included Boeing Co(BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall was passed over.

BAE is partnered in its effort with Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz). General Dyanmics is partnered with Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Raytheon Co (RTN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

The rival teams are to “develop competitive, affordable and executable designs for a new Army Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) over the next 24 months,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

The Pentagon’s top arms buyer, in a memo signed on Wednesday, approved the Army’s technology development strategy and said that a fixed-price type contract with incentive fee was appropriate for this phase of the program.

BAE Systems Land and Armaments won a $450 million contract and General Dynamics Land Systems was awarded a $439.7 million deal for the same phase of the program, the Defense Department said in its daily contract digest.

The SAIC-led team was very disappointed by the outcome, said Melissa Koskovich, a SAIC spokeswoman. “Before we can evaluate where we go from here, we will ask the government for a complete debrief,” she said.

WASHINGTON, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Lockheed Martin Corp’s (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) F-35 developmental test fighter aircraft have been authorized to return to flight after a precautionary grounding early this month, though early-production models remain grounded, the Pentagon’s F-35 program office said Thursday.

The United States is developing three models of radar-evading F-35s with eight international partners – Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway. It would be the Pentagon’s costliest arms purchase at more that $382 billon over the coming two decades.

An Air Force Safety Investigation Board continues to review the failure of an “Integrated Power Package” aboard an F-35A assigned to Edwards Air Force Base, California, on Aug. 2, the office said in a statement.

The investigation indicates that a valve did not function properly, the statement said. The integrated power package provides power to start the engine and generates cooling for the aircraft.

“Monitoring of valve position is a mitigating action to allow monitored operations,” the program office said, referring to a return to flight of the developmental test aircraft — but not the two early-production planes now parked at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, whose flights would be unmonitored.

The production aircraft will not return to air or ground operations “until there’s a permanent resolution to the valve issue in place,” said Joseph DellaVedova, a spokesman for the F-35 program office. (Reporting by Jim Wolf, Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With as much as $1.5 trillion in federal funds hanging in the balance, the mammoth healthcare and defense industries are scrambling to lobby a special congressional committee tasked with slashing the deficit — but in markedly different ways.

The 12-member bipartisan joint “super committee” is expected to focus heavily on both pricey government health insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the Pentagon budget, which accounts for about half of non-mandated federal spending.

But the similarities end there.

The Pentagon is warning of Doomsday if the committee fails to act through a combination of spending reductions and revenue increases, triggering automatic cuts of about $600 billion each in defense and non-defense accounts.

Some health care groups, by contrast, might even prefer the committee to fail, reasoning that spending cutbacks are a fact of life and known reductions are preferable to unknown ones. They’ll seek instead to ensure key interests are protected.

The differing approaches by two major sectors of the U.S. economy reflect their divergent circumstances and histories. Health care groups are used to being on the firing line; the Defense Department has seen a decade of handsome budget increases since the 9/11 attacks.

The ultimate winners and losers may owe the outcome partly to the persuasive power of public relations experts, campaign-style coalition-building and lobbyists, some of the most formidable forces on Capitol Hill.