Posts Tagged ‘military construction’

Many federal agencies are likely to be funded through a continuing resolution in fiscal 2014 because of the sharp differences between spending levels the two chambers are using to draft individual appropriations measures. On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committees approved topline figures for each of the 12 spending bills totaling $967 billion. At the same time, Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has said her committee would be moving bills based on a $1.058 billion topline, a figure which ignores the spending caps triggered under sequestration …

With the Army expected to decide shortly how it will rebalance its force structure as it reduces its active-duty end strength by 72,000 soldiers, House appropriators are concerned the service may commit to spending money on building new facilities after it already spent billions of dollars since 2005 on military construction to accommodate the population shifts generated by the last BRAC round. “Army planning to potentially add combat maneuver battalions and supporting units at certain installations in support of Army 2020 may result in a sizeable obligation to the Army’s budget at the same time the Army is trying to reduce the size of its force structure …

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 …

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 …

The House kicks off the fiscal 2014 appropriations process next week when the military construction-veterans affairs spending bill is marked up in subcommittee. The markup will provide the first peek into how appropriators in the Republican-led House will divvy up spending next year under the $967 billion discretionary spending cap established by recent budget legislation. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, intend to ignore the sequester and allocate a topline spending level of $1.058 trillion …

While the $37 billion hit the defense budget is taking in the current fiscal year is harming military readiness overall, fiscal 2013 military construction projects largely have not been affected, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told lawmakers Thursday. “We believe we can absorb most of the sequestration reductions with available … savings. We don’t intend to reduce the scope of any construction projects. At least [right] now we don’t believe that will be necessary,” Hale told the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee …

Until a deal is reached between Democrats and Republicans over topline discretionary spending for fiscal 2014, the House may consider only a small handful of individual spending bills, including defense and military construction-veterans affairs. As things stand now, House appropriators favor a government-wide spending level of $967 billion for next year, which reflects an assumption that the spending caps under sequestration will remain in effect. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, plan to set fiscal 2014 discretionary spending at the pre-sequester level of $1.058 trillion, a $91 billion difference …

The Obama administration’s decision to deliver a fiscal 2014 budget request that ignores the $52 billion sequester cut slated to be imposed on defense spending next year leaves it uncertain how the department’s new budget will be determined. The best case scenario is that Congress and the White House reach a long-term deficit reduction agreement — perhaps as part of the negotiations needed to lift the nation’s debt ceiling before the end of the summer — that replaces the automatic spending cuts …

At a House hearing Friday primarily focused on the Pentagon’s request to hold a round of base closures in 2015, lawmakers were not particularly vociferous in their opposition to BRAC, but the DOD witnesses still found themselves needing to convince a skeptical appropriations subcommittee about the rationale for a new round. In characterizing the extent to which the military has spare capacity at its installations, Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, painted the most vivid portrait when she described her service’s reliance on attrition to trim its end strength by 80,000 soldiers by 2017 …