While Air Force officials have said over the past year they have a substantial amount of excess infrastructure that a new base closure round could address, the Army hasn’t been as clear about its interest in a new BRAC round. According to written testimony from Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army would benefit from a new round as well, primarily due to reductions in the service’s end strength slated to occur over the next several years …
DOD Education Activity’s 194 schools, which serve 84,000 students, will attempt to ensure military dependents receive an accredited school year in the face of furloughs for teachers and support personnel, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said Monday. “We’re mindful that we need to protect the education of military children,” Little told reporters …
Senate leaders may take a different approach than the House to the continuing resolution it unveiled Monday, but with both sides intent on avoiding the threat of a government shutdown, any changes that could hold up progress of the measure to keep the government running through September 30 are unlikely. The House measure provides budget relief for the Pentagon by providing individual spending bills for defense and military construction that reflect DOD’s fiscal 2013 priorities, rather than relying on a continuing resolution that is largely based on the previous year’s enacted appropriations …
With the $85 billion sequester for fiscal 2013 going ahead, the main hope for mitigating it this year will come as Congress takes up a new continuing resolution to keep the government running past March 27. As long as Democrats insist on a balanced approach to replacing the across-the-board spending reductions that includes alternate cuts as well as tax increases, the two parties almost certainly will not strike a deal to eliminate them …
The House introduced a spending measure Monday that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year while restoring some of the military’s operations and maintenance funding shortfall that has prompted the services to drastically curtail spending on readiness activities through the end of fiscal 2013. The legislation — which includes individual appropriation bills for defense and military construction-veterans affairs along with a continuing resolution for the remainder of the government — would shift $10.4 billion into DOD’s operations and maintenance accounts to fund priorities such as training, weapons maintenance, civilian personnel and the defense health program that would be threatened under a full-year continuing resolution …
A solicitation from the Army’s Energy Initiatives Task Force to build a 15-megawatt solar plant at Fort Detrick, Md., generated about 100 inquiries and pushed the deadline to respond to the request for proposals back one month to March 28. “This is the first RFP project that’s put out by the Energy Initiatives Task Force,” Army spokesman Dave Foster told the Frederick News Post. “They want to be sure they get it right.”
President Obama on Friday said he would accept a continuing resolution to keep the government open beyond March 27 that does not offset the sequester, making it unlikely that either party will threaten a government shutdown over the measure. The stopgap bill funding the last six months of fiscal 2013 would need to provide $1.043 trillion in federal spending, the cap set in the August 2011 agreement to raise the debt ceiling, Obama said …
Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter sent letters to the governors of 10 states slated to endure the harshest impacts from sequestration, alerting them to the direct and indirect consequences $40-plus billion in across-the-board spending reductions will heap on their states’ military installations. The 10 states projected to suffer the most are California, Virginia, Texas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Alabama, and Washington. All states will be affected, but those 10 will bear the largest brunt …
President Obama signed an order Friday night to carry out the $85 billion sequester of fiscal 2013 spending, making official the across-the-board spending cuts that are widely projected to undercut military readiness. Along with the order, the Office of Management and Budget submitted a report to Congress detailing the cuts for each agency. Over the course of the entire fiscal year, the sequester requires a 7.8 percent reduction in discretionary defense spending, or $43 billion …
In his first press conference as defense secretary held on the day sequestration initially went into effect, Chuck Hagel bluntly outlined the consequences for each of the services. “The Navy will gradually stand down at least four wings. The first wing will stand down in April. Effective immediately, Air Force flying hours will be cut back. This will have a major impact on training and readiness …