Pat Host
Defense Daily
House and Senate conferees working on the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill have not reached a deal to move forward while Republican lawmakers decided to pursue a continuing resolution (CR) instead of passing a spending bill during the lame duck session.
House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Thursday money remains the sticking point in defense authorization conference negotiations. Smith said the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) request submitted earlier this week by the White House increases the administration’s budget request to $616 billion. House Republicans, Smith said, want $628 billion while Senate Republicans stuck to $610 billion.
Smith said he could live with $619 billion as it preserves the rest of the bill and they got rid of a lot of “bad stuff.” Spokesmen for both Smith and his counterpart, Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), said late Thursday a deal had not been reached.
The House National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2017 would authorize $13.3 billion for the Department of Energy’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, including $9.6 billion for nuclear weapons activities and $1.9 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation. The Senate legislation would authorize $12.9 billion for the agency, including $9.2 billion for weapons activities and $1.9 billion for defense nuclear nonproliferation.
Both versions of the legislation seek authorization for $340 million to continue construction of the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility at DOE’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which would convert 34 metric tons of weapon-usable plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel under a bilateral nonproliferation deal that Russia terminated early last month. The White House has threatened to veto both versions of the NDAA over MOX, as the Obama administration has proposed to terminate the project in favor of an alternative plutonium dilution and disposal option.
Smith said Republican lawmakers are going to attempt to push a CR through because they’ll have more power come Jan. 20. Retiring Senate Appropriation Committee Chairman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said in a statement railing against another CR that the new CR would extend current government funding through March 31.
This is bad news for both Democrats and the Pentagon as Republicans not only get President-elect Donald Trump in office but also retain their advantage in both the House and Senate. The Defense Department is negatively affected because not only can new starts not begin in a CR, but program ramp ups planned for FY ’17 will not take place until an appropriations bill is actually passed.
On the Senate floor Thursday, Senate Armed Service Committee (SASC) Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), criticized the CR, saying this is the eighth consecutive year Congress has failed to pass a defense spending bill on time.
