The leader of the Senate Armed Services Committee plans to introduce a stripped-down version of the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act next week as a last-ditch effort to push colleagues to reach consensus on a number of partisan issues that have gummed up final negotiations on the full bill.
“This is sincere, but this is only in the event that we don’t pass a bill,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chair James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told two reporters, including Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s affiliate publication Defense Daily, Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Inhofe plans to introduce the skinny bill on Oct. 29.
“Who knows? They [the House of Representatives] may decide to do impeachment, and we’ll be stuck on the floor for two weeks and run out of time and then our [military doesn’t] even get paid,” Inhofe said.
The crucial funding authorities center around military pay, but the bill also would provide funding for long-lead work on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, according to a Senate Armed Services Committee summary viewed by Defense Daily. The Pentagon planned this year to prep the fighter for its nuclear mission to carry B61 bombs, the Air Force’s budget request shows.
A source close to the Armed Services Committee said other authorizations could make it into the skinny NDAA as well, but it is not clear yet what they would involve.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) on Thursday said he would prefer that Congress pass a full NDAA.
“I still believe that we’re going to get the bill [NDAA] done, that we’re not going to go with this smaller bill,” Smith said during a Ploughshares Fund event in Washington, D.C.
If NDAA conferees do not reach agreement on a full authorization bill and the skinny NDAA passes instead, it is unlikely the authorizing committees would revisit the outstanding authorizations this budget cycle. Lawmakers are already “well into” planning for fiscal 2021 budget cycle, Inhofe said.
Still, Inhofe expressed optimism that the conferees will agree on a full bill for fiscal 2020, which began Oct. 1. Sources on Capitol Hill have said the sticking points remain largely on extremely partisan issues, such as funding the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
“We’re at probably 80 percent of being able to pass a bill,” Inhofe said. “Hopefully this will be motivation for them to get to the other areas like the border.”
The NDAA sets spending limits and policy for defense programs, including the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The House’s full bill would authorize $15.8 billion in fiscal 2020 for the civilian nuclear weapons agency, more than $600 million under the NNSA’s nearly $16.5 billion funding request. The Senate bill would authorize $29 million more than the NNSA asked for, at just over $16.5 billion.
The slow roll on the NDAA mirrors Congress’ unfinished business in appropriations for fiscal 2020.
The House in June passed all but two of its appropriations packages, including a multi-agency “minibus” covering the NNSA. The Senate Appropriations Committee in September advanced a raft of spending measures, including its own energy and water development bill. However, the full chamber has yet to pass any of them. Instead, Congress passed a stopgap continuing resolution that keeps the government open through Nov. 21.
The Senate is scheduled on Oct. 28 to take up a minibus covering agencies including the Departments of Justice, Interior, Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development. If the Senate can pass that bill, they could then move on to consider another minibus package that would fund the Pentagon and DOE.
Under the continuing resolution, the NNSA is funded month to month at the annualized equivalent of about $15.2 billion: 8.5% lower than the request of $16.5 billion. The 2020 DOE energy and water appropriations approved by the House would do better than that, at $16 billion. While 4% lower than requested, the House proposal is still about a 4.5% raise from current funding.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, approved a $17 billion NNSA budget that is even more than the $16.5 billion the chamber’s Armed Services Committee authorized in its full NDAA.
The original version of this article was published in Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily.
