Posts Tagged ‘Congress/DOD’

The new defense secretary should undertake “a new and comprehensive review of all aspects of Pentagon strategy, capabilities, and budget in order to create a new long term defense posture,” according to a letter to Chuck Hagel from five former deputy defense secretaries. The letter — from John Deutch, John White, John Hamre, Rudy de Leon and William Lynn III — comes as “the Pentagon now faces crippling uncertainty about its future financial resources to support force structure, readiness and training operations, and for critical modernization programs,” and calls for DOD to engage Congress on possible future defense budget reductions …

The House on Wednesday approved a spending bill to keep the government open through the end of the fiscal year that also provides flexibility to the Pentagon to alleviate some of the funding shortfall in its operations and maintenance account. Most Democrats opposed the bill, saying it locks in the $85 billion sequester and fails to provide similar flexibility to non-defense agencies to mitigate the across-the-board spending cuts …

Senate Democrats said Tuesday they would accept the spending level in the fiscal 2013 continuing resolution introduced by the House, signaling they would not seek to hold up a measure to keep the federal government running over an effort to rescind the $85 billion sequester. While Senate Democrats indicated they would not attempt to alter topline funding in the continuing resolution, they likely will consider shifting some funding among agencies …

Actions required to complete base closures, including cleanup activities, could be delayed as the Army faces a funding shortfall in fiscal 2013 due to the sequester, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Delays in completing documents, permits, policy approvals, contracts and other actions are expected due to civilian furloughs and reductions to the contractor personnel who oversee and carry out the BRAC program, Odierno stated in the written testimony he submitted to the House Military Construction-Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee …

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 …

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 …

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 …