Congress had not produced a compromise National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2020 as of Friday morning, prolonging a lack of authorization for key nuclear modernization programs.
It was a week of whiplash predictions from top defense authorizers Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who in the aggregate appeared less certain of a deal at deadline for Weapons Complex Monitor than when they returned from Thanksgiving recess.
Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, insisted all week that compromise was imminent. On Thursday, he even told reporters on Capitol Hill that there could be a deal before Friday. Yet also on Thursday, Inhofe warned that House Democrats and the White House were not as close to an accord as he thought earlier in the week.
Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters Thursday morning that NDAA conferees from both chambers of Congress “have a couple of areas that are not resolved as much as I thought they were yesterday.” Inhofe would not discuss specifics of the hangup. He did say that he spoke on the phone with President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening when the president returned from the NATO Summit in London, and had an in-person meeting with Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Thursday morning.
Fiscal 2020 began on Oct. 1 without a new congressionally approved NDAA in place. Inhofe said that “everyone is aware” of the impending deadline to complete negotiations and pass the bill by Dec. 13, which was at deadline the Senate’s last scheduled legislative day before the Christmas holiday.
This comes as Congress is also striving to pass full-year appropriations bills. It has yet to send any such legislation to the president, instead passing stopgap spending measures. The second and latest continuing resolution expires on Dec. 20.
Smith told reporters Thursday that there have been multiple “hiccups” on the road to an NDAA compromise, but that he also believed a resolution was possible as soon as Friday.
The NDAA sets policy and spending limits for defense programs, including the nuclear-weapon stewardship and cleanup managed by the Department of Energy. The Senate and House Armed Services committees both approved versions of NDAA that set defense environmental spending for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management at about $5.6 billion. Defense environmental is the largest bloc of funding for the nuclear cleanup office.
During fiscal 2019, DOE defense environmental spending was $6 billion, and the White House requested $5.5 billion for 2020.
The Office of Environmental Management was funded in full at $7.2 billion for fiscal 2019. The Trump administration requested $6.5 billion for fiscal 2020. The House of Representatives approved $7.2 billion and the energy and water bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee would raise that to almost $7.5 billion. That bill, like nearly all appropriations measures, is waiting on a vote by the full Senate.
Smith declined to delve into the details of his negotiating priorities on Thursday.
“I am not going to answer any more questions about this, until we finalize the bill,” Smith told reporters, including Weapons Complex Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily. “And then I’ll answer questions about what is actually in it, and why.”
Vivienne Machi, staff reporter for Weapons Complex Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily, contributed to this story from Washington.
