The Senate kicked off debate of the fiscal year 2016 defense authorization bill Wednesday, and Democrats are already fighting a mechanism that would allow the Defense Department to bypass spending limits set in the 2011 Budget Control Act.
The National Defense Authorization Act recommends the full $612 billion requested in the president’s budget, but to keep funding levels under BCA caps, $38 billion from the base budget was transferred to the wartime spending account.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I), ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), offered an amendment that would block the Pentagon from spending the additional Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding until an agreement had been reached that eliminates BCA spending limits.
Adding $38 billion to OCO was not the preferred option of SASC chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.). The move limits Pentagon’s longterm planning ability and does not repeal sequestration, he said in his opening remarks.
“Believe me, our committee would have done so if the NDAA were capable of it, but it is not, he said. “The NDAA is a policy bill. It deals only with defense issues.”
The best the committee could do was include an authority in the bill that would allow the Defense Department to transfer the $38 billion back to the base budget should Congress reach an agreement to raise the spending limits, he said.
Reed said that he couldn’t vote for the bill because of the OCO maneuver, even as he acknowledged that it contained needed reforms and authorizes the funding needed to train and equip the military.
He was skeptical that the additional OCO money would be a one-time-only tactic. Congress would likely be loathe to decrease the OCO account in future years even if the BCA is repealed, and using wartime funding for base budget needs could open the door to more “exotic and esoteric” things funded through the account, Reed said.
“I think we’re doing a little wink wink,” he said.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) offered an amendment that would authorize $371 million to replace the 50 caliber machine guns on Stryker vehicles with 30mm cannons. The upgrades are necessary to protect Army troops who are conducting exercises with Eastern European nations in the backyard of an increasingly aggressive Russia, he said.
Photo: U.S. Army
The Army had planned to upgrade to the 30mm cannons in 2020, but “2020 is too far in the future,” he said. The service assigned the requirement to a program manager in April.
Reed said while the need for lethality improvements may be valid, the Defense Department and congressional defense committees have yet to vet the requirement.
“This is the first step in a multi-year program,” he said. “We’re not sure at this point how much money we’d have to commit to production, training and logistics.”
The funding for the lethality upgrades would be offset by anticipated foreign currency gains.
Neither the Reed nor Portman amendments had been up for a vote at the time of publication.