Posts Tagged ‘Congress/DOD’

Lawmakers on the six subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee are expected to tackle a number of high-profile issues when then mark up the fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill this week — including the military’s handling of sexual assault, women in combat and oversight of drone strikes — but initiatives proposed by the Pentagon to help curb spending likely will be ignored. For starters, the Readiness Subcommittee is almost certain to leave out authorization for a base closure round in 2015 as DOD has requested …

In a process the Air Force calls “back-casting,” budget officials plan to take the service’s budget priorities for fiscal 2015 and apply them to funding levels in FY 2013 and 2014 in an effort to eliminate spending that no longer is needed. Officials believe the approach will help to smooth the transition to successive budget requests, as well as help the service manage sequestration, reported InsideDefense.com.

Key components of military strength, including force structure, acquisition programs and missions, likely would bear the brunt of cutbacks under a range of budget scenarios expected to be offered following a review of defense strategy now underway at the Pentagon. Defense officials would prefer to include base closures and changes to military compensation as ways to slash the budget over the next eight years, but they realize Congress probably won’t endorse those initiatives …

The draft spending allocations for fiscal 2014 released last week by the House Appropriations Committee protect spending on defense, military construction-veterans affairs and homeland security at the expense of domestic programs. The allocations provide a total of $625 billion in FY 2014 for those three national security funding measures, representing a cut of only $4 billion — or less than one percent — from the current enacted level …

“It is literally lights out at our military bases,” Rep. Mike Turner said Thursday from the House floor in an effort to dramatize the impact of sequestration. Turner brought a photo of employees standing in a darkened hallway at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where the lights had been turned off in an effort to save money. In an interview earlier this month, the commander of the 88th Air Base Wing outlined the cuts Wright-Pat is being forced to take to address a 40 percent reduction — more than $30 million — in its budget …

The two spending bills that fund the Pentagon in fiscal 2014 would be shielded from the dramatic cuts that would be imposed on domestic agencies under the draft allocations for appropriations bills released Thursday by the House Appropriations Committee. The committee would allocate $512.5 billion for defense spending next year, representing a moderate cut from the $526.6 billion request submitted last month by the White House …

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s announcement Tuesday that civilian employees would be forced to take 11 days of unpaid leave during the last three months of the fiscal year provided exceptions for significant segments of the workforce, including workers at DOD schools and the Navy’s four public shipyards. About 11,000 teachers, aides and other workers at DOD Education Activity schools will be limited to a maximum of five days of furloughs, which will be taken at the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year …

The House Military Construction-Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee marked up the first spending bill for fiscal 2014 on Wednesday, but it still is unclear how the two chambers will clear individual spending bills and bring them to conference this year, reports CQ. The hurdle is the wide chasm between the House and Senate over the FY 2014 topline for discretionary spending …

The House’s draft fiscal 2014 military construction-veterans affairs spending bill calls for spending $9.9 billion on military construction and family housing programs, a $646 million reduction from the enacted level for FY 2013. After accounting for sequestration, though, only an estimated $8.8 billion is available for those programs this year. Overall, the draft bill provides $73.3 billion, a $1.4 billion increase above this year’s enacted level …

Many of the Pentagon’s 800,000 civilian workers will be forced to take 11 days of unpaid leave by Sept. 30, three fewer days than employees had been expecting, after officials determined that the ability to reprogram funds into DOD’s operations and maintenance accounts earlier this year provided sufficient flexibility to reduce the number of furlough days. Employees will take one furlough day per week beginning July 8, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday during a town hall meeting at the Mark Center in Alexandria, Va. …