The 2015 defense authorization bill won’t be passed by the end of the fiscal year like it ideally should, but the Senate Armed Services Committee leadership is doing what it can to ensure swift passage right after the November elections.
SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Wednesday that they were working both with their House Armed Services Committee counterparts and with Senate leadership to make progress, even though the Senate’s version of the defense bill has been awaiting floor debate and votes since June 2.
Congress will adjourn Friday until after the elections, leaving just a short lame-duck session in December to get the bill passed through the Senate, conferenced with the House and then re-passed by both chambers again.
“We’re having informal meetings this week with the House and Senate conferees,” Levin told reporters. “We’re going to get it done, we’re determined to get it done. It’s not the best way, to put it mildly, to get a bill passed, but we’re determined to get this bill passed and we’re confident we will.”
Last year, with the Senate running out of time to pass the bill in December, the House and Senate held similar informal meetings in lieu of the formal conference committee to draft a compromise bill that both chambers could pass without allowing floor amendments. Levin and Inhofe said they don’t want a repeat of the no-amendments process again but are seeking to limit amendments for quicker passage.
“We also are working very hard to see if we can come up with a unanimous consent agreement which would identify a number of relevant amendments [allowed] in order to get this resolved more quickly after the break,” Levin said. Limiting debate would persuade Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) “to bring it up earlier rather than later in the lame duck session. We’ll see if we can put together a UC (unanimous consent) which says how many amendments would be in order so we can try to persuade [Reid] that we can get this done earlier rather than later.”
Inhofe added that, with Reid’s help, senators have been encouraged to file their amendments now instead of waiting until the last minute.
“We have a lot more amendments that are ready to go, and I think we’re going to be ready to go with the bill as soon as we get back, whatever day that turns out to be, after the election,” he said.
Levin added that, while he was confident the bill would be passed by the end of the calendar year, there was some added urgency to get the bill done before mid-December: the ongoing efforts against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Congress appears set to pass a continuing resolution this week that, in addition to funding the government at fiscal year 2014 levels through Dec. 11, would also authorize the president to begin a train-and-equip program to help moderate Syrian rebels fight ISIS. Because that military authorization will be wrapped up in the temporary funding bill, the authorization would also be temporary, meaning that if the NDAA or a CR extension is not passed by Dec. 11, the assistance to Syrian rebels would have to stop for a few days or weeks until the NDAA could pass through Congress–an outcome Levin said he obviously hopes to avoid.