Posts Tagged ‘military construction’

Officials from Havelock, N.C., and Craven County emerged from a presentation Tuesday from the county’s Washington lobbyist with a new to-do list to help preserve the long-term future of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Shawn Edwards, vice president of Cassidy and Associates, told the officials to launch an effort to secure a major project at Cherry Point within the next five years that would be vital to the Pentagon, reported Havelock News. Edwards also emphasized the need to ensure the installation’s bombing ranges in Carteret County remain free of encroachment. The meeting reinforced the need for Havelock and Craven County to work more closely. “I think it kind of opens eyes,” Craven County Commissioner Lee Allen said. “If we don’t work together, we all lose together.”

House and Senate appropriators continue to make progress on individual spending bills in an attempt to construct an omnibus package to fund the federal government for the last six months of fiscal 2013. A decision as to whether Congress will take up an omnibus spending bill to keep the government open past March 27 will be made by party leaders, though, and almost certainly hinges on how negotiations to avert sequestration and raise the nation’s debt limit unfold …

Florida Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R) will remain chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the 113th Congress, after earning a waiver to Republican term limits for the second consecutive term. Texas Rep. John Culberson (R), chairman of the military construction and veterans affairs spending panel, also will continue to lead his subcommittee in the next Congress, the Appropriations Committee announced this week …

With attention on Capitol Hill focused on averting the fiscal cliff, it’s becoming increasingly likely that lawmakers will resort to passing a second, six-month continuing resolution to fund the federal government through the end of fiscal 2013. Lawmakers most likely would approve the second stopgap measure right before the current one runs out on March 27 …

House leaders are considering holding a vote shortly on a $1.047 trillion omnibus spending bill for fiscal 2013. The House and Senate appropriations committees have reached agreement on four or five of the 12 spending bills, including the defense measure, reported the Hill. One point of contention is the topline spending level for the package …

An amendment the Senate may consider when it takes up the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill would limit DOD’s use of the LEED certification system for rating the sustainability of new building construction. The amendment, filed by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), comes in response to complaints from domestic wood producers that the most popular green building ratings system favors foreign products such as bamboo …

Passage of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill is essential if the Defense Department is to carry out its missions, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said Tuesday. If Congress fails to enact the measure shortly, “it could seriously hamper our ability to plan and to operate. Without this legislation, the department will face a number of adverse effects,” Little told reporters. The department, for example, could not start “important new military construction projects, including critical infrastructure upgrades …

Staff for the House and Senate Appropriations committees are nearing completion on an omnibus spending bill to fund the government through the end of fiscal 2013 even though congressional leaders have not yet indicated whether they are interested in clearing the package, or simply extending the current stopgap funding bill. Appropriators are pushing for the omnibus — which would combine individual spending bills for each of the 12 appropriations subcommittees — because it would mean work done earlier in the year preparing each of the bills would not go to waste …

A change in House Republican rules that would have permitted earmarks for military construction projects and other “directed spending” funneled to government agencies did not go forward last week due to overwhelming opposition from fellow members. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), known for pushing the “Bridge to Nowhere,” planned on offering an amendment to Republican conference rules allowing an earmark directing funding to the federal government, a state or a unit of local government if the sponsor is identified, the earmark is initiated in committee and it falls within the appropriations subcommittee’s budget allocation …

Tuesday’s election did not change the leadership slots on the military construction appropriations subcommittees in either the House or Senate, although several committee members will depart each of the panels at the end of the 112th Congress. Two senators, one from each side of the aisle, will be leaving that chamber’s milcon spending panel due to retirement — Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) …