By Emelie Rutherford
Congress has signed off on part of the Pentagon’s reprogramming request–to internally shift billions of dollars in the absence of a war supplemental funding bill–but has put conditions on some of the requested funds.
The Pentagon asked lawmakers May 27 for permission to shift $9.66 billion–via two reprogramming requests–to cover Army personnel and operational costs as it waits for the supplemental funds, which the House has not yet passed.
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and Senate Armed Services Committees (SASC) both approved the full reprogramming last week. However, the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) and Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee (SAC-D) agreed last week to allow the Pentagon to reprogram $5.7 billion–the full amount of one of the reprogramming requests, intended to cover uniform personnel’s pay. The money shift, that has already gone through, moves the funds from Navy and Air Force personnel accounts to Army and Army National Guard accounts.
The Pentagon has been warning that the Army personnel account would run out of funds to pay soldiers by June 15 without the internal rejiggering.
“A reprogramming request that was urgent was approved last Wednesday for $5.7 billion,” a SAC-D spokesman said in a statement. “It allows the Army military (and Army National Guard) salaries to be paid this week.”
Yet for the Pentagon’s other $3.96 billion reprogramming request, defense appropriators were more tempered.
The HAC-D and SAC-D agreed to allow the Pentagon to reprogram $1.6 billion in operation and maintenance funds, to cover Army civilian salaries. Yet when the SAC-D faxed the Pentagon the $1.6 billion reprogramming approval yesterday, it said the funds could be shifted early next month if–and only if–the war supplemental bill isn’t enacted before Congress’ July 4 recess.
“There was no good reason to approve the [$1.6 billion] reprogramming at this time,” the SAC-D spokesman said. “In fact, it is not a good idea to approve the reprogramming if we think Congress is going to enact the supplemental this month–which we certainly hope it will. In essence, we would be allowing DoD to transfer funds between the services which they don’t need; this would cut down on congressional oversight.”
SAC-D Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) and ranking member Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) agreed to the conditional $1.6 billion reprogramming because of a “plea last Friday from DoD to give the department approval so it could be assured that funds would be available if the supplemental isn’t enacted,” the spokesman said.
Asked why the HAC-D did not agree to the Pentagon’s full $9.66 billion reprogramming request, a spokesman for that panel said: “If the subcommittee would have approved the entire request, it would have exhausted DoD’s transfer authority for the entire fiscal year.”
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters yesterday that DoD is “taking some prudent planning measures just in case” the supplemental doesn’t come through.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England sent a memo throughout the department earlier this week “asking for all the departments to begin planning for a possible shutdown, and all the departments are due to report back to him by June 30th with a plan as to what they would do to shut things down,” Morrell said.
“He’s additionally, I think, asked that we figure out who sort of the essential civilian personnel is that would have to remain working even without pay in the event of a shutdown,” Morrell added.