Posts Tagged ‘Congress/DOD’

A White House report spelling out the impact of $109 billion in automatic spending reductions in defense and domestic programs will not be released until late this week. The White House missed the report’s Sept. 6 statutory deadline because of “the time needed to address the complex issues involved in preparing the report,” spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Friday. The first tranche of government-wide spending cuts are set to go into effect on Jan. 2 …

The leading proponent of legislation that would create a civilian BRAC commission to expedite the disposal of thousands of unneeded federal properties is pushing the General Services Administration to adopt his proposal, citing this week’s appointment of Dorothy Robyn, DOD’s installations chief, to commissioner of GSA’s Public Buildings Service as a possible first step toward that goal. “We are hopeful that Dr. Robyn’s experience working with the DOD’s BRAC process will encourage greater innovation and cost efficiency within the GSA by utilizing CPRA [Civilian Property Realignment Act] to streamline the process and ensure the effective and efficient sale or consolidation of these properties …

Thursday marked 30 days since President Obama signed legislation requiring the administration to detail how it would carry out the automatic spending reductions in defense and domestic programs imposed under sequestration, but by the evening the White House had not released any information about the looming cuts. The Sequestration Transparency Act, which passed with bipartisan support, requires the White House within 30 days to spell out at the “program, project and activity level” what kinds of cuts would result if they are implemented. Unless lawmakers reach a deal to replace the fiscal 2013 reductions slated to go into effect Jan. 2 …

Any compromise reached by lawmakers to avert $500 billion in further defense cuts still would require some reductions in DOD spending, according to industry officials. “We know that there’s still a gap to close in terms of the overall budget deficit,” Dennis Muilenburg, head of Boeing Co.’s defense and security unit, told Reuters. “Certainly the defense budget, being one of the large components of the overall federal budget, will have to be considered in that process …

Pentagon officials have not put together a detailed plan to identify about $55 billion in additional fiscal 2013 savings because planning won’t provide much help in coping with the effects of sequestration, Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told an audience of government and industry representatives from around the world on Wednesday. “We have looked at a few samples of programs and different areas and it varies from being relatively easy to absorb, where you’re simply doing a level of effort that’s a little bit lower, to something that’s fairly significant in its impact on contracts …

The Senate will not take up the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill before lawmakers break for the November elections, leaving that chamber’s consideration of the annual policy bill for a lame-duck session. As a result, Congress likely won’t clear a final version of the measure until late in the year, as has been the case in the past two years …

Dorothy Robyn, who oversaw the effort to carry out the recommendations from BRAC 2005 as DOD’s installations chief, will leave the department shortly to become commissioner of the General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service, the unit that manages the federal government’s real estate portfolio. Robyn, who has been deputy undersecretary for installations and environment since July 2009, will join GSA “in the coming weeks,” according to a memo Dan Tangherlini, GSA’s acting administrator, sent employees on Tuesday …

At 15 percent, the unemployment rate for military wives in 2010 was more than twice as high as the rate for their civilian counterparts, according to a new study from Congress’ Joint Economic Committee. Sen. Bob Casey, the committee’s chairman, released the report Tuesday to build support for legislation he introduced that would offer a tax credit to any military spouse who needs to renew or transfer a professional license following a change in their family’s duty station …

The Pentagon has not asked the garrison commander of Joint Base Lewis-McChord to craft contingency plans for how the base would accommodate automatic spending cuts slated to go into effect in January and, as a result, he is not certain how the looming cuts would be carried out at the base located south of Tacoma, Wash. “We’re hoping for the best,” Col. Charles Hodges told the News Tribune …

The most immediate impact of sequestration would be felt by civilian defense employees, with an estimated 108,367 workers losing their job in the weeks following imposition of a $55 billion cut in DOD spending starting on Jan. 2, according to a new analysis from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Overall, most defense programs would be slashed by 10.3 percent, budget analyst Todd Harrison said during a press briefing last week. DOD’s civilian workforce would suffer a 13.7 percent cut, however, since the reductions would occur three months into the fiscal year …