Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are weighing legislation to give the Pentagon more flexibility to administer across-the-board “sequestration” cuts set to kick in this Friday.

Capitol Hill insiders were pessimistic yesterday that Democrats and Republicans will agree on a plan this week to stop the $1.2 trillion in longterm cuts to defense and nondefense spending from starting at week’s end, predicting the reduced spending levels could continue for weeks, if not longer. Still, multiple legislative proposals will be debated this week–on and off the House and Senate floors–to stop or change the sequestration cuts. Those include new bills being unveiled this week from House and Senate Republicans.

Senate Republicans are expected to offer a bill that could grant the Pentagon and other federal agencies more flexibility to choose where to make the sequestration spending cuts. Under current law, from March through September the cuts would tap $46 billion in defense spending by indiscriminately cutting Pentagon program and activity accounts by 13 percent. Legislation to give the Pentagon more flexibility to make targeted cuts could shield vulnerable military spending and help prevent ripple-effect cost increases to programs. Yet some lawmakers fear such a deal would make the sequestration cuts seem less atrocious and thus hurt lawmaker’s efforts to stop them later in March, and also are uncomfortable giving the executive branch so much budgeting authority.

“I didn’t spend all those thousands of hours…(and) two weeks on the floor of the Senate on the (defense) authorization bill, to say (to the administration), ‘Oh, do whatever you want,’” Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) member Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters yesterday at the Capitol.

“I will adamantly oppose just giving it over to the executive branch,” McCain said. Instead, he favors new legislation he and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) will offer this week to replace the FY ’13 sequestration cuts with other savings.

SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) also said he opposes such legislation to allow the Pentagon to decide where the sequestration cuts would be made.

“It would be a real abdication of the power of the purse,” Levin told reporters yesterday. “I don’t think the Congress could just give a pot of money to the executive branch and say, “Here, spend it how you want.’ I just don’t think it’s in keeping with our responsibilities.”

Levin said he doubts such a measure would help the Pentagon anyway, “because the size of the cuts would still be there.” Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters last week that would does not favor such a measure, saying: “Even if you said you can do it wherever you want, we would have to go after just about every dollar that isn’t obligated in order to get those cuts that quickly.” He added that “if it makes sequestration more likely to either occur or persist, I think it’s a bad deal, the flexibility.” 

The Senate Republican leadership’s legislation, which had not been unveiled yet as of press time, is not expected to pass the Democrat-led chamber. It would be an alternative to the bill Senate Democratic leaders announced two weeks ago and plan to take up this week. That measure, which also is not expected to pass, would replace the sequestration cuts this calendar year with a $110 billion package made up of higher taxes on wealthy Americans and other tax reforms, as well as alternative cuts that include $27.5 billion in multi-year defense reductions.

Meanwhile, new legislative proposals are emerging this week.

Ayotte said the bill she will offer with McCain and Graham would replace the FY ’13 defense and non-defense sequestration cuts with alternative spending reductions. She declined to detail the replacement savings yesterday, before the legislation was unveiled, but said “there will be some defense cuts.” Ayotte said she, McCain, and Graham will describe the proposal to Senate Republicans today.

The new legislation is different from a plan the three senators had supported–which gained no traction–to offset the first year of the sequestration cuts to the Pentagon by freezing the size of the federal workforce.

In the House, Armed Services Committee Seapower subcommittee Chairman Randy Forbes (R-Va.), who has been voicing concerns about Navy reductions under sequestration, unveiled yesterday a bill to cancel the Pentagon’s share of the sequestration cuts, which is roughly $500 billion.

“The security of our nation and our men and women in uniform must not continue to bear the brunt of the two-plus-year failure of Congress and the president to agree on the appropriate way to reduce the federal debt and deficit,” Forbes said in a statement announcing his legislation, which is not expected to advance far in the legislative process.

Still, on Capitol Hill yesterday there were no obvious signs of a break in the impasse between the two parties over if and how to stop sequestration. Many Democrats insisting on increasing revenues in an alternative plan, which Republican leaders say should only include spending cuts.

Congressional insiders are predicting sequestration will start on Friday, but then be addressed later, after the public sees the impacts of sequestration. That action could come in subsequent legislation to fund the federal government after a continuing resolution (CR) for fiscal year 2013 expires March 27. That FY ’13 appropriations legislation could be debated in the House next week.

House Republican appropriators want to pass an FY ’13 appropriations package that keeps the $46 billion sequestration reduction for defense but, like the potential Senate GOP plan, gives the Pentagon more flexibility in deciding what aspects of its budget to cut.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) and Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) have talked about inserting such flexibility into a FY ’13 government-funding measure as well. Yet Senate Democrats are not expected to support such a change unless the flexibility also is granted to other federal agencies impacted by the sequestration cuts, which would total $85 billion for the next seven months. And, obviously, Democrats such as Levin oppose the concept because of the power it would grant the executive branch and because it could make sequestration seem manageable.

The White House is not expected to support such FY ’13 appropriations legislation that would both factor in the sequestration cuts and make them more palatable.

Legislative leaders reiterated their stances on sequestration yesterday and Sunday, as lawmakers returned to Capitol Hill after last week’s recess.

“Unfortunately, Republicans would rather let devastating cuts go into effect than close a single wasteful tax loophole,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) argued on the Senate floor yesterday. 

House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) office blasted President Barack Obama’s handing of sequestration on Sunday, issuing a statement saying: “You’re going to see President Obama at campaign-style rallies again this week, demanding higher taxes and blaming Republicans for his ‘sequester’ mess.” Boehner often points to two bills House Republicans passed last year to offset sequestration with cuts to domestic funding Democrats want to shield, such as for food stamps. He and many Republicans blame the sequestration idea on Obama.  

The White House, which opposes sequestration, released detailed information on Sunday illustrating how the cuts would impact all 50 states.

Obama plans to deliver an address on sequestration in Newport News, Va., today, at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ [HII] Newport News Shipbuilding. Because of the sequestration threat, the Navy has delayed the mid-life overhaul of the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) aircraft carrier there and would put off completing the overhaul of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) if the cuts kick in.

Obama also plans to meet today at the White House with lawmakers including McCain and Graham. McCain told reporters he did know what they would discuss, but suspected sequestration could be a topic.