This story, originally published April 18 was updated to correct the dates of the scheduled markups.
WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services Committee will take up the 2017 policy bill next week, but with a budget resolution stalled, it is unclear how much money it will have to authorize for Defense Department programs.
The National Defense Authorization Act does not set spending levels, but the committee tends to fall in line with the House budget resolution and set a guide for appropriators. Last year, it skirted statutory budget caps by paying for base budget items through the wartime overseas contingency operations (OCO) account, which triggered a showdown with the White House.
On Tuesday Wednesday, the HASC military personnel, tactical air and land forces, seapower and projection forces subcommittees hold their markups of the 2017 NDAA. The HASC readiness, emerging threats and capabilities, and strategic forces subcommittees hold their markups Wednesday Thursday. The full committee was set for April 27.
HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry and the chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, Rep. Rodney Freylinghuysen, were in talks last week to figure out an appropriate top-line as a House budget resolution that hewed to last year’s budget deal at $1.07 trillion remained stalled.
Some hawkish lawmakers have been seeking an increase for defense, claiming the president’s budget request underfunded defense by at least $18 billion and should have used more OCO to avoid budget caps. One idea on the table was that after elections, an emergency supplemental spending measure could bridge the gap, but Thornberry and Freylinghuysen said lawmakers were still deciding on a course.
“We’re still working through and what the plan may be today, it may be different next month,” Thornberry said. “We’re still working … and you’ve still got appropriators, the Senate, lots of steps to go.”
“We sort of got away from supplementals, so the OCO account in the minds of some people represents a supplemental, and has always been something of consternation to some people, and that it is a fund that is quite fluid,” said Freylinghuysen, R-N.J. “We always make sure our war-on-terror account is fully justified.”
Whether Republicans might seek to raise defense through OCO remains an open question. Rep. Tom Cole, a member of the House Appropriations Committee and a GOP strategist, called it strong possibility.
Though key Senate Democrats have said they will seek parity on the non-defense side for any defense increase above the budget deal — a path that would rankle the GOP’s fiscal hawks — the Democratic position is, Cole said, “politically unsustainable” following terrorism attacks in Europe, and “a pipe dream.”
“That’s up to them, if they want to imperil the defense of the country so they can spend more money domestically, and I think it’s politically unsustainable,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Defense needs to get what defense needs to get, and Brussels and Paris should tell people we still live in a dangerous world, let alone Russia and China.”
The HASC’s most senior Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith, of Washington state, said he would like the NDAA top-line to stick to the budget deal, at $610 billion. (That is $551 billion base budget and $58.8 billion in OCO.)
Last year, Smith opposed the NDAA as Democrats sought a deal with the GOP that raised defense and non-defense equally. This year, he said he and other Democrats have not committed to whether they would support a policy bill that raises defense above the budget deal using OCO — though they will take a firmer stance on the matter when it comes to the defense spending bill.
“On the appropriating side, that’s a different question,” Smith said. “Part of why we have flexibility on the authorizing side is because they look to be sticking to the $1.07 trillion on the appropriating side.”
In the upper chamber, the Senate Appropriations Committee last week adopted spending allocations which allow its 12 subcommittees to write their spending bills. The numbers reflect the $1.07 trillion in base discretionary spending allowed under last year’s budget deal.
Email: jgould@defensenews.com
Twitter: @reporterjoe
