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Category: Defense

Will We See More Appropriations and Senate “COVID 4.0” This Week?

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After adopting a four-bill spending package for FY2021 last week, the House is currently scheduled to take up an even larger seven-bill “minibus” later this week, H.R. 7617.The legislation combines the FY2021 Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy and Water Development, Labor-HHS-Education, Financial Services-General Government, Homeland Security, and Transportation-HUD measures.  As we noted last week, the Senate has yet to move on even a single spending bill.

Meanwhile, over the on the Senate side of the Capitol, we may finally see this week a set of proposals that represents the Senate Republican wish list for a “COVID 4.0” relief package.  The Senate Republican leadership had hoped to unveil something last week but could not work out differences among themselves and with the White House.  The goal is to unveil a proposal this week so that they can start negotiating with the Democratic House, which passed the the HEROES Act in May as its marker for negotiations.  There is pressure to act as quickly as possible as a number of benefits from the CARES Act are scheduled to expire very soon, including expanded unemployment benefits.

Spending Bills Move to the House Floor

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After a flurry of activities in subcommittee and full committee the last two weeks, the vast majority of FY2021 spending bills is scheduled to move to the House floor this week and next for consideration by the full chamber.  Rather than considering them individually, the bills will be grouped into two different “minibus” legislative packages.

The first grouping of bills, H.R 7608, is made up of four pieces of legislation and it is slated for consideration later this week:  State-Foreign Operations; Agriculture; Interior; and, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs.  A summary of the package, prepared by the House Democratic staff, is available here.

The second batch, H.R. 7617, is currently scheduled for floor action next week.  This second minibus pulls together seven of the eight remaining spending measures:  Defense; Commerce-Justice-Science; Energy and Water; Financial Services; Homeland Security; Labor-HHS-Education; and, Transportation-Housing.  A summary of the different parts of the large bill is available here.

Should these packages pass, only the Legislative Branch would remain unapproved in the House by the end of next week.

Defense, CJS Bills Approved; Last Two Bills Slated for Today

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The House Appropriations Committee cleared three more FY2021 spending bills yesterday, all by votes of 30 – 22:  Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-Housing Urban Development.  Yesterday’s action leaves the last two bills for FY2021 for committee action today, the Homeland Security and Financial Services-General Government measures.

The Senate has yet to take up any of its bills.

Michael Kratsios Appointed to Key Defense Research Position

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US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has named Michael Kratsios to be Acting Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. Until now, Kratsios has been serving as the White House Chief Technology Officer, and will replace former-NASA Administrator Michael Griffin in his new role.

Prior to starting at the White House, Kratsios held several positions in the financial sector of increasing scope and responsibility. He has a BA from Princeton and was a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

House Spending Bills Continue to Move Along

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The House Appropriations Committee cleared this morning two more FY2021 spending bills:  Legislative Branch and Interior.  The committee has now approved five of the 12 bills for the year.  It is slated to take up the remaining seven measures next week, with the Energy and Water Development and Labor-HHS-Education bills teed up for Monday.  On Tuesday, the following are currently on the agenda:  Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-Housing.  The Homeland Security and Financial Services-General Government spending measures are scheduled for Wednesday.

While the report accompanying the Defense bill is not yet publicly available, we do know several details about various accounts funded by the DOD.  These include, for example:

  • Overall basic research:  $2.62 billion (0.7% increase)
  • Overall applied research:  $5.92 billion (2.5% decrease)
  • Army basic research:  $570.6 million (0.7% decrease)
  • Army applied research:  $1.23 billion (2.0% decrease)
  • Navy basic research:  $638.9 million (1.8% decrease)
  • Navy applied research:  $1.04 billion (10.2% decrease)
  • Air Force basic research:  $527.3 million (4.1% decrease)
  • Air Force applied research:  $1.53 billion (7.7% decrease)
  • Defense-wide basic research:  $884.7 million (6.8% increase)
  • Defense-wide applied research:  $1.95 billion (2.0% decrease)
  • DARPA (Total):  $3.51 billion (1.5% increase)

In addition, we will provide details about the other spending bills of relevance as they become available.