The full House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on its version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA) this week. The Senate Armed Services subcommittees and full panel, meanwhile, will mark up their version of the annual military policy bill, which authorizes work and sets spending limits for Department of Energy nuclear-weapon programs.
The Senate’s markups will be almost entirely conducted at the “secret” level of clearance and closed to the public. They begin at 5 p.m. today with the Senate Armed Services airland subcommittee, followed by the other six subcommittees on Tuesday. Only the personnel subcommittee markup is open to the public. The Senate Armed Services Committee will then mark up the bill on Wednesday and Thursday, with time set aside Friday if work remains.
The House Rules Committee is set to approve rules of debate for the NDAA by Tuesday, after which the bill and all approved amendments can move to the floor.
The House’s 2019 NDAA passed the chamber’s Armed Services Committee earlier this month on a party-line vote. The measure authorized $65 million in funding for the new low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead called for in the Donald Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. There is strong Democratic opposition to the proposed weapon in the Senate, where Republicans do not have enough votes to pass a bill without some support from the other party.
The House HDAA approved about $15 billion in total 2019 spending for the National Nuclear Security Administration, DOE’s semiautonomous nuclear stockpile steward. The about matches what the House Appropriations Committee would provide for the agency this year, under a separate spending bill approved last week and not scheduled for a vote on the House floor at deadline Sunday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
