The House is preparing to vote Thursday on a full budget bill for the Pentagon over the next seven months that is intended to help it grapple with a $42.67 billion “sequestration” cut triggered last Friday.
The House Appropriations Committee (HAC) released the legislation–complete defense and military-construction appropriations bills for the rest of fiscal year 2013 attached to a bare-bones “continuing resolution” (CR) funding most the government–on Monday, in advance of expected House floor debate Wednesday and Thursday. The measure would replace the CR that has funded federal agencies since FY ’13 started last October and expires March 27. That existing CR has frustrated Pentagon officials because it sets their funding near FY ’12 levels and does not allow them to execute the FY ’13 defense budget as they want–notably not allowing a planned boost in operation and maintenance funding.
The new defense appropriations bill and the rest of the CR introduced Monday are “subject to sequestration cuts,” HAC Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said in a statement. Yet the legislation also would “prioritize (Department of Defense) DoD and Veterans programs, and allow the Pentagon some leeway to do its best with the funding it has,” he said.
President Barack Obama signed an order last Friday night initiating the decade-long sequestration reductions, of $1.2 trillion to defense and non-defense spending–even as he pledged to continue trying to negotiate an alternate deficit-cutting plan with congressional Republicans. Until FY ’13 ends on Sept. 30, the sequestration cut works out to $42.67 billion to defense spending, according to a report from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) submitted to Congress on March 1, the day of Obama’s sequestration order.
The FY ’13 sequestration cuts, by law, would be made in an across-the-board manner to non-exempt Pentagon accounts–by 13 percent in FY ’13, according to the OMB report. Yet the new defense appropriations bill would set funding within the lower sequestration amount, making the so-called salami-slicing cuts unnecessary.
The House Rules Committee will meet Tuesday to vet the new CR before it hits the House floor Wednesday, and Democrats are expected to air some concerns with the measure. HAC Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) said Monday that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle support the full defense and military-construction appropriations bills attached to the CR; yet she said she is “disappointed” the measure would lock most of the government into spending levels near those from FY ’12.
Still, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested to reporters last Friday she might support the CR. Though she had not seen the GOP plan released this week, she said she wanted to avoid a government shutdown and wants to give the Pentagon more leeway to move around funding in FY ’13.
Obama signaled at a White House press conference last Friday that he would be open to signing a new CR if it factors in the sequestration cuts–even though he opposes those reductions–because he doesn’t want a government shutdown after the current CR expires (Defense Daily, March 4).
The House’s new FY ’13 defense appropriations bill already has been agreed to, behind the scenes, by the Republican HAC and Democratic Senate Appropriations Committee.
The measure includes a $518.1 billion base defense budget, not including war funding. That’s the same as the FY ’12 level and $2 billion more than the Pentagon previously requested. The bill, though, would change funding levels closer to what the Pentagon may need in FY ’13. For example, it includes $173.5 billion in operation and maintenance funding–which, though $1.4 billion less than the Pentagon had requested, is a full $10.4 billion above current enacted levels.
The new defense bill further includes a slight drop in procurement funding but boost in research monies, compared to what the Pentagon requested. It includes $70 billion for research and development, which is $521 million above the request and $2.5 billion below last year’s level. Equipment procurement would receive $100.4 billion in the bill–$1.3 billion less than the Pentagon proposal and $4.2 billion below FY ’12.
The appropriations measure would allow the Pentagon to reprogram FY ’13 funding and enter into multi-year contracts for weapon systems including Virginia-class submarines, F/A-18E/F fighter jets, DDG–51 destroyers, CH–47 Chinook helicopters, and V–22 Osprey aircraft.
The legislation also includes “savings and reductions,” according to the HAC. Those include “$4.0 billion in savings from rescissions of unused prior-year funding; $515 million for unjustified Army growth funding; and $500 million for excess inventory of spare parts and secondary items,” according to the committee.
The HAC says the new CR also calls for some changes to current law to “prevent catastrophic, irreversible, or detrimental changes to government programs, or to ensure good government and program oversight.” Those include a requirement for all federal agencies to submit “spending plans” to Congress “to ensure transparency and the proper use of taxpayer dollars.”
The March 1 OMB report details how sequestration would impact various Pentagon accounts, if the cuts remain in FY ‘13. For example, the Navy’s $22.47 billion shipbuilding account would be reduced by $1.75 billion, and $22.8 billion in Air Force aircraft procurement would be cut by $1.78 billion.