Posts Tagged ‘appropriations’

Before passing a $606 billion fiscal 2013 defense spending bill Thursday evening, the House approved language prohibiting funds from being used to plan or implement a new base closure round. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Rob Wittman, echoed a provision he added to the defense authorization bill in May. The amendment may be overkill, since both chambers’ versions of the authorization bill ignore DOD’s request for BRAC rounds in 2013 and 2015, but it certainly underscores the lack of tolerance for another BRAC round among House members …

On a 414-2 vote, the House passed a bill requiring the White House to explain how $109 billion in automatic cuts to fiscal 2013 spending would be implemented across defense and domestic programs. The administration would have 30 days to report how it will address the cuts at the “program, project and activity level …

The Pentagon on Monday released $180 million to widen U.S. Route 1 through Fort Belvoir for a project intended to ease access to the Northern Virginia post for patients, service members and civilian workers at the new Fort Belvoir Community Hospital. The funds were disbursed by the Office of Economic Adjustment under a $300 million appropriation in the fiscal 2011 defense spending bill for transportation projects needed to improve access to medical facilities affected by BRAC 2005 …

While there is no reason to brace for the threat of a government shutdown — at least not yet — chances are that Congress will need to pass a continuing resolution by the end of September so that federal agencies can continue operating into the new fiscal year. Lawmakers would need to pass one or more stopgap spending measures to keep the government open through December, as the most likely scenario for funding the government in fiscal 2013 is for lawmakers to compile an omnibus spending package during a lame-duck session following the November election …

An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office concluding that DOD’s long-term budget greatly exceeds the spending caps imposed in the Budget Control Act is based on the assumption that Congress will reject many of the plan’s cost savings proposals, press secretary George Little told reporters Thursday. Little listed a series of proposals that CBO struck from its assessment of the cost of DOD’s short and long-term budgets — raising TRICARE fees, limiting military pay raises, controlling growth in weapons acquisitions costs and shifting some costs to the department’s warfighting account …

The White House’s top budget official continued to spar with Republican lawmakers over the looming budget sequester, belittling some members’ demands for the administration to explain how hundreds of billions of dollars in across-the-board cuts would affect government programs. “The truth is that no amount of planning or reports will turn the sequester into anything other than the devastating cut in defense and domestic investments that it was meant to be …

Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients has agreed to testify before the House Armed Services Committee about the $500 billion in automatic defense cuts set to go into effect starting in January, according to the committee. For much of the year, Committee Chairman Buck McKeon has been pressing the Pentagon and White House to explain how the cuts would be carried out and whether or not budget officials had started planning to implement the sequester. Zients is scheduled to appear before the committee with a senior DOD official on Aug. 1, reported the Hill newspaper. On July 18, the committee is holding a hearing on how the spending cuts will affect the defense industry.

As the calendar advances toward January 2013, when the first $55 billion in automatic cuts is due to be extracted from fiscal 2013 defense spending, lawmakers have seemed content to engage in a flurry of activity without making any serious effort to launch bipartisan discussions to nullify the across-the-board spending cuts. Instead, they have preoccupied themselves primarily with voting on amendments requiring the administration to spell out how the sequester would be implemented, along with highlighting industry studies about the catastrophic economic fallout of imposing $500 billion in defense cuts …

At a news briefing Friday marking the completion of his first year at the helm of the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recounted many of the military’s successes since he was sworn in. He highlighted several operational achievements, including the return of troops from Iraq, the start of a drawdown of forces from Afghanistan and the fall of Libyan ruler Muammar Gadhafi. Panetta also listed a number of policy milestones, including the development of a long-term budget that meets the goal of cutting $487 billion in spending over 10 years, the crafting of a new defense strategy …

Senate Republicans are proposing that lawmakers form House-Senate working groups to jump start negotiations on a deficit reduction package to replace the $500 billion in automatic spending cuts set to be imposed on the Pentagon starting in January. Sen. Kelly Ayotte is seeing how much the support the idea attracts, and has not yet made plans to go ahead, reported the Hill newspaper. Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, told the publication that Democratic lawmakers in both houses also have talked about the possibility of setting up working groups …