Posts Tagged ‘Congress/DOD’

The leaders of the House and Senate reached agreement Tuesday on a six-month continuing resolution for fiscal 2013 that would fund the federal government from October to March and avoid talk of a government shutdown during the run-up to the November election. The agreement means that lawmakers can focus during a lame duck session on the automatic spending cuts set to go into effect in January and the Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the year …

The Air Force’s far-reaching plan to trim the force structure of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve would be shelved for one year, under the fiscal 2013 spending bill approved Tuesday by the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. The panel largely ignored the Air Force’s effort to shed aircraft and personnel, including the Guard’s C-27Js. Senate appropriators included more than $800 million in the measure to sustain the Air Force’s existing force structure over the coming year …

The federal law requiring employers to provide 60 days’ notice to workers of impending layoffs does not apply to the potential budget sequester until federal agencies announce which contracts would be affected, the Labor Department ruled Monday. As a result, contractors should refrain from giving employees notices before automatic spending cuts are imposed starting Jan. 2. “Although it is currently known that sequestration may occur, it is also known that efforts are being made to avoid sequestration …

House and Senate leaders are expected to reach agreement shortly on a spending measure that will fund the federal government for the first six months of fiscal 2013. While the announcement of a deal on a continuing resolution is expected before lawmakers leave Washington this week for their August recess, a vote would not be held until they return in September, reported CQ Today. A deal so far in advance of the Oct. 1 start of the new fiscal year would be highly unusual, but with the election coming up, lawmakers in both parties appear ready to eliminate one partisan issue from the political races …

If Congress blocks cuts to the Air National Guard proposed by the Air Force for fiscal 2013, the service will need to make even more stringent reductions in force structure the following year, Air Force Secretary Michael Donley said last week during remarks at the Capitol Hill Club. “The challenges that we face going forward will not get easier … so the things that we are unable to resolve in FY ’13 are in effect doubling down on further adjustments for FY ’14 …

An independent assessment of the nation’s realignment plans for the Asia-Pacific region generally supports the Pentagon’s current approach, and recommends DOD go ahead with plans to transfer 9,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam and other Pacific locations. Completing the study, conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was one of the requirements Congress included in the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill before lawmakers would reconsider funding the Marine Corps realignment to Guam …

The military’s campaign to increasingly adopt renewable energy should survive Republican attempts to block the initiative, according to a poll of Washington experts. More than 70 percent of National Journal’s Energy & Environment Insiders said lawmakers’ effort to limit the use of biofuels would not survive the conference report for the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, reported Government Executive. Both versions of the measure include provisions blocking DOD from purchasing alternative fuels if the cost would exceed that of petroleum-based fuels …

The Pentagon would need three or four months to assess what impact the need to cut $55 billion in fiscal 2013 spending would have on the department’s civilian workforce, the DOD official responsible for civilian and military personnel policy told the House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee Thursday. Under federal reporting requirements, if the automatic cuts are expected to result in layoffs, DOD would need to give workers 60 days’ notice and Congress an additional 45 days’ warning, Frederick Vollrath, DOD’s acting assistant secretary for readiness and force management, told the panel …

Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) will hold a series of town hall-style meetings next week in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and New Hampshire to bring attention to the devastating impacts that would result if $500 billion in automatic cuts are imposed on Pentagon spending starting next year, the lawmakers said on Wednesday. With their concentration of military installations and defense industry, the states would bear the brunt of the budget sequester, but they also are key battleground states in the presidential election …

Negotiations on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government after the new fiscal year starts Oct. 1 may be relatively easy as segments of both parties say a six-month stopgap spending measure may be the best solution to avoid partisan bickering during the run-up to the election. Conservative Republicans earlier expressed a willingness to pass a bill funding the government at a level reflecting the $1.047 trillion discretionary cap in the Budget Control Act — a key demand of Democrats — in return for letting the new Congress set final fiscal 2013 funding levels …