U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein made some headway in her fight to keep Boeing’s C-17 cargo jet plant in Long Beach operational.

The Senate’s supplemental appropriations panel Tuesday approved $227 million in emergency funding for the C-17. Earlier this year, $100 million was approved in a House supplemental appropriations bill.

“The C-17 is the cornerstone of our nation’s ability to move personnel and equipment around the world,” Feinstein (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “I hope that this funding is the first step in ensuring that more C-17s will be built in the coming years.”

Jack Kyser, the chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, said that the project’s best chance for survival could be what he called the current “modus operandi” of Congress backing a series of emergency funding allocations, rather than approving longer-term funding.

“Reality is starting to set in up in Washington,” he said. “The C-17s are racking up more hours than they initially planned for over in Iraq and Afghanistan and there’s now a scramble to get more built. Getting funding like this may be the best and most effective way to keep the jets rolling out in Long Beach from here on out.”

There is no funding set aside for C-17 production past 2007 and an additional $1.6 billion would be needed to continue production until that time.

California politicians, concerned about the loss of jobs and tax revenues, have long argued for continued funding of the plane. Their campaign received a boost last week when Air Force Chief of Staff General T. Michael Moseley told a defense appropriations subcommittee that the Boeing jet is “worth its weight in gold.”

According to Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Sen. Feinstein’s office, the funding measure may be introduced for approval by the full Senate in a couple of weeks. If it passes, a joint conference subcommittee would attempt to reconcile the bill with the House measure in about a month.