A Senate panel wants to authorize the Pentagon to spend nearly all of the funding it requested in fiscal year 2014 for Army and Air Force weapons programs and naval tactical aviation.
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) will begin marking up its version of the FY ’14 defense authorization bill Wednesday, and will include in its overall package the report the Airland subcommittee approved Tuesday. Airland Chairman Joe Manchin (R-W.Va.) said his panel’s measure would “support virtually all of the major weapons and equipment programs in the (Pentagon’s) base (budget) as requested.” The version the Airland subcommittee took up Tuesday morning recommends only a slight decrease–of $93.2 million–in authorized funding for the programs under its purview.
The Airland panel oversees most Army and Air Force programs–with exceptions such as special operations and strategic airlift–as well as Navy and Marine Corps tactical-aviation efforts. The subcommittee’s policy legislation also fully authorizes all Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding that falls under its jurisdiction and was requested by the Pentagon, Manchin said.
The Pentagon’s base and OCO budget requests falling under the Airland panel’s umbrella total $49 billion, which includes $37.1. billion in procurement and $11.9 billion in research and development monies.
“As it stands right now, the (Airland) chairman’s mark recommends a net decrease to the base budget request of only $93.2 million; this equates to a less than 1/10th of 1 percent reduction to the department’s request,” Manchin said at the outset of the Tuesday markup.
“I believe members will find the recommended reductions are minor but fully justified programmatically, sufficiently prudent, and do not create unacceptable strategic risk, today or in to the future,” he said.
The panel did not release its report to the public, though it did break with tradition and open the doors of its markup session to the public. The full SASC will meet mid-day Wednesday to mark up the full defense authorization bill, after the Seapower subcommittee holds its markup session in the morning. The full committee will finish by the end of the week. It then will brief reporters on the bill that it will forward to the full Senate for consideration.
Manchin said the Airland panel strove to control the cost of programs under its jurisdiction because of multiple factors–including unavoidable fiscal constraints, “our interest in providing funding stability for department programs,” and a Senate moratorium on earmarking funding for senators’ pet projects.
He said the subcommittee’s measure would “authorize the (Defense) Department to manage programs to realize significant savings.” It further would “require the retention of important intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance” systems, he added.