Defense Budget Alert

House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-TX) said today he and his GOP colleagues have yet to decide whether they will support the fiscal year 2020 defense authorization bill slated for consideration tomorrow, but he does have plans to offer amendments that would increase total defense spending and block Democratic efforts to cut nuclear weapons programs.

House authorizers are backing several items on the Navy's unfunded priority list, including more than $800 million in backlogged submarine and surface ship maintenance, according to the House Armed Services Committee's "chairman's mark" of the fiscal year 2020 defense policy bill.

Lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee, acting on concerns the Defense Department is investing too little in science and technology, have drafted legislation that would mandate accountability should the S&T portfolio be cut in the future.

The House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee is aiming to repeal the cost caps currently in place on the Navy's new Ford-class aircraft carriers, arguing the caps have not successfully maintained cost.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford said today the Pentagon should be cautious about increasing the size of the military at the expense of investments in new technologies critical to maintaining longstanding advantages over China and Russia.

The Senate Appropriations Committee today proposed legislation that would allocate nearly $1.7 billion in emergency supplemental funding to support recovery efforts at Tyndall Air Force Base, FL, and Offutt AFB, NE.

The absence of a broad budget deal in Congress is being highlighted by the release of a White House letter opposing the defense spending bill crafted by House Democrats.

This week, for the first time in 10 years, the Senate Armed Services Committee will be marking up its version of the defense authorization bill ahead of its House counterpart, a timing shakeup that has distinct pros and cons for lawmakers, according to former congressional staffers.

The Defense Department is laying the groundwork for a fiscal year 2021 budget request that would prop up its base budget by plowing $65 billion previously forecast as war spending into routine appropriation accounts, including nearly $20 billion for weapons investment, repeating a central strategy of the Trump administration's FY-20 budget request.