Defense Approps Poised For House Debate

The House plans to debate the defense appropriations bill this week, after a likely contentious hearing on amendments Monday night.

The House Rules Committee had scheduled a hearing last week to prepare the fiscal year 2014 spending measure for floor debate later in the week. It delayed the meeting, though, as House members pushed back on Chairman Pete Sessions’ (R-Texas) plan to only allow a limited number of amendments to be considered by the full chamber.

Sessions wanted to avoid allowing unlimited amendments as members were offering controversial proposals–which would consume significant floor time–related to the National Security Agency and U.S. policy in troubled nations including Syria and Egypt. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) reportedly pushed back on Sessions’ plan to limit amendments. Amash’s office did not respond to queries on Friday.

The Rules committee, though, announced Friday afternoon that it rescheduled the hearing on the defense bill for Monday at 5 p.m. And House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday that the Pentagon spending measure was indeed destined for the House floor this week.

House members had submitted 155 amendments to the Rules panel by a deadline of last Tuesday, and an additional 20 late proposals before the weekend. The Rules committee will decide if all or just some of them will be debated and voted on by the full House.

Multiple proposals were offered related to sequestration, the $500 billion in decade-long cuts to planned defense spending that started in March. Those include an amendment from Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and John Conyers (D-Mich.) to reduce funding for the Ohio-class submarine replacement program by 10 percent to help the Pentagon prepare for sequestration.

The HAC-approved bill would set the Pentagon’s base budget at $512.5 billion for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

It trims $3.4 billion from the Pentagon’s proposal, including a research-and-development cut of $1.1 billion and weapons-procurement reduction of $750 million (Defense Daily, June 13).

It likely faces White House opposition, though, because it adheres to House Republican budget plans that President Barack Obama rejects. Both the HAC bill and the Pentagon budget proposal do not reflect sequestration. They instead adhere to different, partisan plans for trimming the federal budget in other ways that lessen the blow to the Pentagon.