June 25 (Bloomberg) -- The Senate Armed Services Committee today added money to the Pentagon’s fiscal 2010 budget to buy seven more Lockheed Martin Corp. F-22 fighters and a backup engine for the Lockheed Joint Strike Fighter that would be built by General Electric Co., panel chairman Carl Levin said.

The Pentagon opposes both spending proposals and the Obama administration threatened to veto any legislation that contains them.

Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the armed services panel, said at a press conference said he was confident opponents of the additional aircraft, including himself, “have a fair chance of winning” when the full Senate votes on the defense bill. No date for that vote has been set.

The committee, meeting in closed session, voted 13-11 to approve money for the additional aircraft, Levin said. The $1.75 billion for the fighters was added as an amendment to the measure that would authorize $680.4 billion in spending by the defense department. The Pentagon wants to cap the F-22 program at 187 planes.

The panel voted 12-10 to add $438.9 million for the backup engine for the F-35, said Levin. He said he supported this amendment.

The committee is finishing work on its version of the U.S. military budget for the year beginning Oct. 1.

Second to Differ

Levin’s panel became the second congressional committee to differ with the Pentagon’s request on the two programs. The House Armed Services Committee approved a budget that added $369 million as a down-payment on 12 more F-22s and $603 million for the F-35 backup engine, which would be built by Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE and Rolls-Royce Group Plc.

The full House approved these actions today when it passed the overall budget bill on a 389-22 vote.

The White House Office of Management and Budget told Congress in a letter yesterday that it objects to the added spending items. The Defense Department says it has enough F-22s, the letter said. It also said that the current F-35 engine “is performing well” and spending on a second engine is “unnecessary.”

The threat to veto the legislation, the first issued by the Obama administration, was repeated in a statement today by Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. “There is simply no military need” for the additional F-22s and the backup engine, he said in an e-mail statement. “If they end up in the final bill, it could result in a presidential veto.”

Gates Rebuke

The decisions on the F-22 are a rebuke to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Gates in April curtailed the F-22 fighter program at 187, denying the Air Force request to buy at least 60 more. On June 18, he described the House Armed Services Committee’s decision that day to continue production of the plane “a big problem.”

“To be blunt about it, the notion that not buying 60 more F-22s imperils the national security of the United States I find completely nonsense,” Gates told reporters then.

Gates declined to say whether he would recommend that President Barack Obama veto the entire defense budget if funding remained for the F-22.

“I’m not going to go that far at this point,” he said. “I think describing it as a ‘big problem’ suggests where I am on it.”

The F-22, designed at height of the Cold War to counter the Soviet Union, was the focus of a lobbying campaign as Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed and its subcontractors said halting production at the 187 aircraft already on order could jeopardize 95,000 jobs in 44 states.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Capaccio at acapaccio@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 25, 2009 18:02 EDT