Posts Tagged ‘Congress/DOD’

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday endorsed several of President Obama’s nominees for senior Pentagon posts, including Frank Kendall III to be undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and Erin Conaton to fill DOD’s top personnel and readiness post. Kendall, currently the acting undersecretary for the post, would fill the vacancy created when Ashton Carter was sworn in as deputy defense secretary in October. Starting in March 2010, Kendall served as the principal deputy undersecretary for the department, which is responsible for overseeing DOD’s installations and environment office. Conaton would become undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness; she currently is undersecretary of the Air Force. Conaton would replace Clifford Stanley, who resigned in November after coming under investigation by the department’s inspector general following multiple complaints of mismanagement. Conaton would serve as the senior policy advisor to the defense secretary on recruitment, career development, pay and benefits, health affairs, and quality-of-life programs for troops and their families. The candidates still need to be confirmed by the Senate …

The White House has said it “strongly objects” to language in the House version of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill limiting the Army to reducing its end strength by 15,000 per year and the Marine Corps to 5,000 per year in FYs 2014 to 2017. The Pentagon proposed cutting the Army by 72,000 and the Marine Corps by 20,000 over that time period. “The timing and pace of the planned reductions to the Army and Marine Corps are tied to anticipated changes in operational demand based on the nation’s current commitments as well as the new defense strategy, which emphasizes a smaller and leaner force …

A bipartisan coalition of 13 senators is asking the Senate Armed Services Committee to require DOD to report on the impact of proposed force structure adjustments before launching such actions. The request follows the dispute triggered by the far-reaching set of force reductions the Air Force included in its fiscal 2013 budget request affecting more than 60 installations. “We have not been provided clear and objective metrics by which the reductions and restructuring proposed at specific installations have been selected …

Military construction programs would receive $10.6 billion under the draft fiscal 2013 spending bill approved Tuesday by the Senate Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, a $2.4 billion drop from current year funding. The bill’s recommendation falls $568.9 million below the administration’s budget request, with the shortfall coming out of funds for active component military construction. That account would receive $7.1 billion, a decline of $2.6 billion from FY 2012 …

The Obama administration is objecting to language in the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill that would extend liability protections for undiscovered contamination afforded developers of installations closed via BRAC to all installations closed after Oct. 24, 1988. The provision essentially would extend the indemnity now provided by Section 330 of the 1993 defense authorization bill to bases closed outside of the BRAC process …

The White House objected Tuesday to restrictions in the House version of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill precluding the Pentagon from planning for a new base closure round and realigning key missions at three particular Air Force bases. The base closure provision bars the department from proposing, planning for or carrying out an additional BRAC round. The other provisions prohibit the department from shuffling elements of the Air Armament Center at Eglin AFB, Fla., Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, and the Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom, AFB, Mass. …

Defense advocates in Congress are becoming resigned to the prospect that the two parties will be unable to reach a deal to reverse government-wide automatic spending cuts before they begin to take effect in January. As a result, DOD may suffer cuts up to $55 billion in fiscal 2013 beyond the spending reductions already being imposed on the defense budget. Even if lawmakers fail to overturn the sequester in a lame-duck session at the end of the calendar year, the additional cuts could be somewhat limited if Congress strikes a deficit-reduction deal in the first several months of 2013 …

The House Armed Services Committee wants the Defense Department to consider using direct solar devices such as daylighting systems and light pipe technology to help the military conserve energy and increase its energy security, according to an amendment to the report accompanying the House version of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill. Direct solar devices convert sunlight into useable light within a building or other enclosed structure without converting the sunlight into another form of energy …

House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon forcefully defended the changes his panel made to the administration’s budget request in completing the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized the House for flouting the spending caps imposed by last August’s Budget Control Act. “In your criticism of my proposal for the department’s FY13 authorization bill, you are clearly operating under some misconceptions …

Defense spending would grow by $2.1 trillion over the next 10 years under the budget proposed by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney when compared to the Pentagon’s latest long-term spending plan. Romney has proposed spending 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product on the military, reported the Hill newspaper. That level of investment would allow DOD spending to rise by $100 billion in fiscal 2013, according to Travis Sharp, an analyst with the Center for a New American Security. Under either the administration’s request or the House Republican plan, defense spending would remain flat or drop slightly. Romney has called for adding 100,000 personnel and building more ships, according to the story.