The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) said Tuesday the final, conferenced version of the fiscal year defense authorization likely won’t be completed until after the Nov. 3 election.
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the outgoing HASC ranking member, noted the conference committee will need to particularly work on settling differences between the House and Senate’s version of the $740.5 billion defense policy bill on the renaming of bases named after Confederate leaders and details of a new Pacific Deterrence Initiative.
“There are further negotiations that have to occur. And part of that negotiation is talking with the White House about the shape of [the base renaming] provision. Is there a way to get everybody to ‘good’? Of course there is. Is it likely to happen before the election? No, it’s not,” Thornberry said during a discussion at the Defense News virtual conference.
While both versions of the 2021 NDAA passed with provisions for renaming bases, President Donald Trump has threatened to veto the bill if the provision is included in the final version.
The NDAA conference delay has been expected with only a handful of working days left on the legislative calendar before lawmakers break for an October recess, while Thornberry said he expects quick progress when Congress returns following the election.
The House and Senate passed their respective versions of the bill in July. Both would authorize $20 million for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the amount requested by the agency for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
House appropriations legislation passed in July, though, would give the NNSA only about $18 billion – still a significant step up from the current spending approval of over $16.5 billion. The Senate has yet to issue appropriations bills for any federal agency.
The House NDAA authorizes $5.7 billion for defense nuclear cleanup, by far the largest tranche of money for the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s mission to remediate 16 nuclear-weapon sites dating to the Manhattan Project and Cold War. The Senate passed a bill with $5.1 billion for that account.
In its separate DOE funding bill, the House approved no less than $7.5 billion for Environmental Management. That would be far above the $6.1 billion requested by the White House.
