Order Code RL33999
Defense: FY2008 Authorization
and Appropriations
Updated July 30, 2007
Pat Towell, Stephen Daggett, and Amy Belasco
Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
The annual consideration of appropriations bills (regular, continuing, and supplemental) by
Congress is part of a complex set of budget processes that also encompasses the
consideration of budget resolutions, revenue and debt-limit legislation, other spending
measures, and reconciliation bills. In addition, the operation of programs and the spending
of appropriated funds are subject to constraints established in authorizing statutes.
Congressional action on the budget for a fiscal year usually begins following the submission
of the President’s budget at the beginning of each annual session of Congress.
Congressional practices governing the consideration of appropriations and other budgetary
measures are rooted in the Constitution, the standing rules of the House and Senate, and
statutes, such as the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974.
This report is a guide to one of the regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each
year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate
Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense. For both defense authorization and
appropriations, this report summarizes the status of the bills, their scope, major issues,
funding levels, and related congressional activity. This report is updated as events warrant
and lists the key CRS staff relevant to the issues covered as well as related CRS products.
NOTE: A Web version of this document with active links is
available to congressional staff at [http://apps.crs.gov/cli/cli.aspx?
PRDS_CLI_ITEM_ID=221&from=3&fromId=73].
Defense: FY2008 Authorization and Appropriations
Summary
The President’s FY2008 federal budget request, released February 5, 2007,
included $647.2 billion in new budget authority for national defense. In addition to
$483.2 billion for the regular operations of the Department of Defense (DOD), the
request includes $141.7 billion for continued military operations, primarily to fund
the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, $17.4 billion for the nuclear weapons and
other defense-related programs of the Department of Energy, and $5.2 billion for
defense-related activities of other agencies.
The $483.2 billion requested for DOD’s “base” budget — that is, the request for
regular operations excluding the cost of ongoing combat activity — is $46.8 billion
higher than the agency’s base budget for FY2007, an increase of 11% in nominal
terms and, by DOD’s reckoning, an increase in real purchasing power of 8.0%, taking
into account the cost of inflation.
The House passed on May 17 its version of H.R. 1585, authorizing $1.2 billion
more than the President’s request. The bill would cut hundreds of millions of dollars
from several technologically advanced weapons programs while increasing funds for
improvements in U.S. forces’ near-term combat capabilities.
The Senate Armed Services Committee reported its counterpart bill, S. 1547,
on June 5. The Senate substituted the text of that measure for the House-passed text
of H.R. 1585 when it began debating the latter bill on July 9. After several days of
debate dominated by Democratic-led efforts to force a withdrawal of U.S. combat
troops from Iraq, the Majority Leader, Senator Reid, set the bill aside indefinitely on
July 18.
On July 25, the Senate passed H.R. 1538 after amending that bill to incorporate
two provisions of the defense authorization bill being debated by the Senate: the so-
called Dignified Treatment for Wounded Warriors amendment, itself an amended
version of S. 1606, and a provision of the authorization bill that would authorize a
3.5% military pay increase, effective October 1, 2007.
In related action, the House Appropriations Committee marked up the FY2008
defense appropriations bill on July 25. The (unnumbered) bill would appropriate
$459.6 billion for DOD’s “base” budget, excluding the cost of military construction
which is funded in a separate bill (H.R. 2642, S. 1645) and excluding projected
FY2008 war costs, which the house plans to deal with a separate bill, in September.
According to the Committee, the defense funding bill would provide $3.5 billion less
than the President requested for operations within the scope of that legislation. The
House may take up the bill on the floor during the week of July 30.
Senate action on the FY2008 defense appropriations bill has not yet been
scheduled.
This report will be updated as events warrant.
Key Policy Staff
Area of Expertise
Name
Telephone
E-Mail
Acquisition
Valerie Grasso
7-7617
vgrasso@crs.loc.gov
Aviation Forces
Christopher Bolkcom
7-2577
cbolkcom@crs.loc.gov
Arms Control
Amy Woolf
7-2379
awoolf@crs.loc.gov
Arms Sales
Richard Grimmett
7-7675
rgrimmett@crs.loc.gov
Base Closure
Daniel Else
7-4996
delse@crs.loc.gov
Pat Towell
7-2122
ptowell@crs.loc.gov
Defense Budget
Stephen Daggett
7-7642
sdaggett@crs.loc.gov
Amy Belasco
7-7627
abelasco@crs.loc.gov
Gary Pagliano
7-1750
gpagliano@crs.loc.gov
Defense Industry
Daniel Else
7-4996
delse@crs.loc.gov
Michael Davey
7-7074
mdavey@crs.loc.gov
Defense R&D
John Moteff
7-1435
jmoteff@crs.loc.gov
Edward Bruner
7-2775
ebruner@crs.loc.gov
Ground Forces
Steven Bowman
7-7613
sbowman@crs.loc.gov
Andrew Feickert
7-7673
afeickert@crs.loc.gov
Health Care; Military
Richard Best
7-7607
rbest@crs.loc.gov
Richard Best
7-7607
rbest@crs.loc.gov
Intelligence
Al Cumming
7-7739
acumming@crs.loc.gov
Military Construction
Daniel Else
7-4996
delse@crs.loc.gov
Military Personnel
David Burrelli
7-8033
dburrelli@crs.loc.gov
Military Personnel;
Charles Henning
7-8866
chenning@crs.loc.gov
Reserves
Lawrence Kapp
7-7609
lkapp@crs.loc.gov
Steven Hildreth
7-7635
shildreth@crs.loc.gov
Missile Defense
Andrew Feickert
7-7673
afeickert@crs.loc.gov
Naval Forces
Ronald O’Rourke
7-7610
rorourke@crs.loc.gov
Nuclear Weapons
Jonathan Medalia
7-7632
jmedalia@crs.loc.gov
Peace Operations
Nina Serafino
7-7667
nserafino@crs.loc.gov
Readiness
Amy Belasco
7-7627
abelasco@crs.loc.gov
Space, Military
Patricia Figliola
7-2508
pfigliola@crs.loc.gov
War Powers
Richard Grimmett
7-7675
rgrimmett@crs.loc.gov
Contents
Most Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Defense Appropriations: Highlights of the House Appropriations
Committee Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Defense Authorization: Highlights of Senate Floor Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Prospective Senate Amendments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Administration Objections to the Senate
Committee-Reported Authorization Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Status of Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Facts and Figures: Congressional Action on the FY2008 Defense
Budget Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
FY2008 Defense Budget Request and Outyear Plans: Questions of
Affordability and Balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Potential Issues in FY2008 Global War on Terror Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
FY2008 GWOT Request: Assumptions Similar to FY2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Broad Definition of Reconstitution or Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Force Protection Funding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Questions Likely About Funding For Joint Improvised Explosive Device
Defeat Fund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Oversight Concerns About Cost to Train and Equip Afghan and Iraqi
Security Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Coalition Support and Commanders Emergency Response Program . . . . . 30
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Military Construction Overseas and Permanent Basing Concerns . . . . . . . 31
Congressional Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Potential issues in the FY2008 Base Budget Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Bill-by-Bill Synopsis of Congressional Action to Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Congressional Budget Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
FY2008 Defense Authorization: Highlights of the House Bill . . . . . . . . . . 40
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Other FY2008 Defense Budget Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Defense Authorization: Highlights of House Floor Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Administration Objections to the House Version of H.R. 1585 . . . . . . . . . 50
FY2008 Defense Authorization: Highlights of the Senate Armed
Services Committee Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Force Expansion and Pay Raise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Tricare and other Health Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Ballistic Missile Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
FCS and other Ground Combat Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Nuclear Weapons and Long-range Strike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Acquisition Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Other Provisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
For Additional Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Overall Defense Budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Military Operations: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Elsewhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
U.S. Military Personnel and Compensation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Defense Policy Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Defense Program Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Appendix: Funding Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
List of Tables
Table 1A. Status of FY2008 Defense Authorization, H.R. 1585/S. 1547 . . . . . 11
Table 1B. Status of FY2008 Defense Appropriations Bill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Table 2. FY2008 National Defense Budget Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Table 3. Congressional Budget Resolution, H.Con.Res. 99/ S.Con.Res.
21, Recommended National Defense Budget Function (050) Totals . . . . . 14
Table 4. FY2008 Defense Authorization, House and Senate Action by Title . . . 15
Table 5. FY2008 Department of Defense and Military Construction
Appropriations, House and Senate Action by Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Table 6. House and Senate 302(b) Allocations of FY2008Total Discretionary
Budget Authority, Defense vs Non-Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Table 7. DOD’s Global War on Terror, FY2006-FY2008 by Function . . . . . . . 24
Table 8. House Floor Action on Selected Amendments: FY2008
Defense Authorization Bill, H.R. 1585 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Table A1. Congressional Action on Selected Army and Marine Corps
Programs: FY2008 Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Table A2. Congressional Action on Shipbuilding: FY2008 Authorization . . . . 66
Table A3. Congressional Action on Selected Aircraft Programs:
FY2008 Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Table A4. Congressional Action on Missile Defense Funding:
FY2008 Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Table A5. Congressional Action on Selected Army and Marine Corps
Programs: FY2008 Appropriations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Table A6. Congressional Action on Shipbuilding: FY2008 Appropriations . . . 75
Table A7. Congressional Action on Selected Aircraft Programs:
FY2008 Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Defense: FY2008 Authorization
and Appropriations
Most Recent Developments
The House Appropriations Committee marked up the FY2008 Defense
Appropriations Bill (as yet unnumbered) on July 25, approving a total spending
figure of $459.6 billion. That total is roughly equal to the spending ceiling allocated
to the Defense Subcommittee by the House Appropriations Committee by a
resolution adopted June 5 pursuant to Section 302 (b) of the Congressional Budget
Act, which would cut about $3.5 billion from the President’s request for this bill. The
House may act on the defense bill during the week of July 30.
The bill does not address the President’s request for an additional $141 billion
to fund ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will be dealt with
in a separate bill.
Senate Appropriations Committee action on the defense appropriations bill has
not been scheduled. However, the committee’s resolution making its initial 302 (b)
allocations among its subcommittees, adopted June 14, allocated $459.3 billion to
the Defense Subcommittee, the same amount as had been allocated to its House
counterpart.
The Senate began debating the FY2008 National Defense Authorization Act,
H.R. 1585, on July 9, after substituting for the House-passed language, the language
of S. 1547, the version of the defense authorization bill reported by the Senate Armed
Services Committee on June 5. After several days of debate focused on amendments
related to the deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq, Senator Reid, the Majority Leader,
pulled the defense bill from the floor after the Minority Leader, Senator McConnell,
indicated that the most controversial Iraq-related amendments would not be adopted
unless supporters could muster 60 votes in favor.
The House passed its version of H.R. 1585, on May 17, by a vote of 397-27.
Action has also begun on related appropriations bills. The House approved the
FY2008 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, H.R. 2642,
on June 15. The bill includes $21.4 billion for DOD military construction and family
housing programs. The Senate Appropriations Committee reported its version of the
bill, S. 1645, on June 18. (For full coverage, see CRS Report RL34038, Military
Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies: FY2008 Appropriations, by
Daniel H. Else, Christine Scott, and Sidath Viranga Panangala.)
CRS-2
Defense Appropriations: Highlights of the House
Appropriations Committee Bill
The FY2008 defense appropriations bill approved July 25 by the House
Appropriations Committee would provide $459.6 billion for the DOD base budget
(excluding funds for military construction). According to the committee, this would
amount to a reduction of $3.55 billion from the corresponding portion of the
President’s budget request.
Although the Appropriations Committee approved a smaller total amount than
the President requested, it was able to include within its total several major
initiatives, because it made cuts from the request totaling more than $9 billion
which, the committee said, would not adversely effect Pentagon operations.
Among the funds the Committee excluded from the bill are $1.7 billion worth
of requests it deferred for consideration as part of the separate bill, to be marked up
in September, that will fund ongoing combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
during FY2008. Among the items the Committee put off for inclusion in the cost-of-
war bill are requests for night vision equipment, ammunition, trucks and equipment
to protect cargo planes from anti-aircraft missiles.
The Committee also made cuts in the President’s request totaling nearly $7
billion which it described either as reflecting facts of life or as an incentive for the
Pentagon to manage service contracts more aggressively, to reduce costs. Among the
major reductions included in this total are:
! $1.6 billion cut from the Army’s $28.9 billion request for operations
and maintenance on grounds that the service managed its budget for
FY2007 in ways that, according to the Committee, inflated its
FY2008 budget request by that amount, without providing Congress
any justification for the increase;
! $1.2 billion, a 5% reduction in the amount requested for service
contracts, a savings the committee said could be achieved by more
alert Pentagon oversight;
! $630 million in the Navy and Air Force training budgets for units
that had been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan;
! $510 million to reflect a Pentagon civilian payroll that was smaller
than the budget assumed;
! $551 million trimmed from various budget accounts that had a track
record of unspent funds at the end of a fiscal year;
! $300 million in the Marine Corps procurement budget that the
Committee described as “excess to requirements;”
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! $420 million to reduce the cash balance carried by the Army’s
revolving fund that is used to operate various maintenance and
support activities.
Force Expansion. The Committee approved the funds requested for the
FY2008 portion of DOD’s plan to add 92,000 active-duty personnel to the Army and
Marine Corps by FY2012. The bill includes $1 billion to pay for adding to the force
7,000 soldiers, 5,000 Marines and 1,300 National Guard personnel in FY2008.
It also would provide the $6.3 billion requested to buy equipment for the
additional units that are being formed. However, the Committee warned the services
to include in future budget requests only enough additional equipment for the
additional troops funded in that year’s budget.
Quality of Life Initiatives. The Committee’s reductions to the President’s
request made room, within an overall spending total lower than the request, for
several initiatives to improve the quality of life of the troops.
To provide a military pay raise of 3.5%, rather than the 3% in the budget
request, the bill would provide $2.2 billion, which is $310 million more than
requested.
It also would add $558 million to the amount requested for military family
support programs, providing a total of $2.9 billion. The Committee’s increase
includes $439 million for family advocacy programs that assist service members and
their families in the prevention and treatment of domestic violence and assists the
families of severely wounded service members. The increase also includes $82
million (in addition to the $525 million requested) to increase the capacity of DOD’s
network of childcare centers and to extend their operating hours and an additional
$38 million ( in addition to the $1.6 billion requested) for DOD’s network of schools
for service members’ dependents.
The Committee said that, in the course of cutting its personnel budget to pay for
new weapons, the Air Force had made too large a reduction in the budget for routine
personnel transfers, thus risking a decline in the quality of life and the availability of
professional development opportunities for career service members. Accordingly, the
Committee added $364 million to the Air Force’s so-called “permanent change of
station (PCS)” account, offsetting the cost by cutting the same amount from the $744
million requested to continue development of the F-22 fighter.
Facilities Improvements. The bill would add $1.25 billion to the Army’s
budget request for maintenance and upgrade of facilities and the improvement of
community services at dozens of bases in the United States and overseas. The
committee said the additional work was required to support the Army’s wide-ranging
program to reorganize its combat units and to reposition some of them.
The bill also would add $142 million to the $126 million requested to improve
perimeter security at DOD facilities.
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Shipbuilding Increase. The committee added $3.6 billion to the total of
$14.4 billion requested for ships.1 That net increase included $1.7 billion for an LPD-
17-class amphibious landing transport, in addition to the one ship of that class in the
budget. The increase also included $1.4 billion to buy three supply and ammunition
ships designed to replenish Navy warships in mid-ocean.
The committee also added to the bill $588 million to buy a nuclear propulsion
system to be used in a Virginia-class attack submarine funded in some future budget.
The committee expressed the hope that this addition would help the Navy achieve its
long-standing goal of buying two subs per year.
The bill would provide, as requested, $1.8 billion for a submarine, $2.7 billion
to continue work on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the cost of which is being
spread across several years, and all but $30 million of the $1.8 billion requested to
continue building the first two of a new class of destroyers, designated DDG-1000.
The committee’s additions to the shipbuilding budget request were partly offset
by funding only one of the three requested Littoral Combat Ships, a reduction of
$571 million, and by providing $76 million of the $210 million requested in the
Army’s budget for a small, high-speed troop transport vessel.
Selected Other Major Weapons Program Changes .The Committee
added to the budget request $1.1 billion to equip an eighth Army brigade with Stryker
armored vehicles. That addition was partly offset by a cut of $228 million from the
amount requested to buy a Stryker version equipped with a 105 mm. cannon. The
committee said development and testing of that vehicle had been delayed.
The Committee also added $705 million to the $3.4 billion requested to
continue development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The addition included $480
million to continue development of a alternative engine for the plane. The bill also
would provide the $2.4 billion requested to buy 12 F-35s.
The bill would add to the budget request $925 million for equipment for
National Guard and reserve units.
Among the significant reductions to the President’s request made by the
Committee are the following:
! $406 million cut from the 3.6 billion requested to continue work on
Future Combat Systems, the Army’s plan to renovate its combat
units with 14 types of digitally-linked sensors and manned and
unmanned vehicles;
! $175 million requested to develop a conventional high-explosive
warhead for the Trident II, submarine-launched ballistic missile (a
1 The budget request includes $13.7 billion in the Navy’s shipbuilding account. But it also
includes $456 in a separate fund to buy supply and cargo ships and $210 million in the
Army’s budget to buy a small, high-speed troop transport vessel.
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reduction partially offset by the Committee’s addition to the bill of
$100 million to develop a weapon that could strike distant targets
quickly and precisely);
! $468 million for production of a new, armed scout helicopter;
! $100 million of the $290 million requested to develop a helicopter
to rescue downed pilots behind enemy lines (because the Pentagon’s
selection of a winning bidder for the contract is under legal
challenge);
! $298 million from the $8.8 billion requested to develop ballistic
missile defenses.
Defense Authorization: Highlights of Senate Floor Action
The Senate had the FY2008 defense authorization bill under consideration July
9-13 and July 16-18 when the legislation before it was H.R. 1585, the version of the
bill passed May 17 by the House. However, for all practical purposes, the legislative
text the Senate was debating during that period was a not-yet-adopted amendment to
the bill (S.Amdt. 2011) which would substitute for the House-passed language of
H.R. 1585, the language of S. 1547, the version of the defense authorization bill
reported June 5 by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Although the Senate had
not yet adopted the substitute amendment during this period, the other amendments
it considered all were drafted as amendments to the substitute amendment (i.e., as
amendments to the text of S. 1547).
Debate over the deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq dominated the early days of
Senate action on H.R. 1585. The context for the Senate’s consideration of Iraq-
related amendments to the bill was an administration report on the Iraqi
government’s progress toward 18 benchmarks of progress toward improved domestic
security and political reconciliation in that country. The report, which was released
by the White House on July 12 but had been the subject of widespread press coverage
for some days before its publication, was the first of two mandated by the FY2007
supplemental funding bill (H.R. 2206/P.L. 110-28).2
The report concluded that the Iraqi government had made “satisfactory
progress” toward eight of the 18 specified benchmarks, including constitutional
reform, the creation of regional governments and the allocation of $10 billion for
economic reconstruction, among others. But it also found that the Iraqi government
had not made satisfactory progress toward eight other benchmarks, including several
that are related to political reconciliation, such as liberalization of the “de-
Ba’athification” process, enactment of legislation that would fairly distribute revenue
from the country’s petroleum resources, and disarmament of sectarian militias.3
2 See CRS Report RL33900, FY2007 Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, Foreign
Affairs, and Other Purposes, by Stephen Daggett, et al, pp. 18-22.
3 For background on the status of domestic security and economic and political
(continued...)
CRS-6
The President and supporters of the Administration’s Iraq policy said there were
signs that the U.S. strategy in Iraq is succeeding and that, in any case, Congress
should take no action prejudicial to the strategy until it receives the second report on
Iraqi progress toward the benchmarks, due September 15.4
Also contributing to the context in which the Senate considered Iraq-related
amendments to the defense bill was a CRS analysis which concluded that the Defense
Department’s monthly obligations to pay for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and
related areas had risen from an average of $8.7 billion in FY2006 to $12.0 billion in
the first half of FY2007.5
During Senate debate on the authorization bill (July 9-13, 16-18), the Senate
agreed by unanimous consent that several controversial, Iraq-related amendments
would require 60 votes for adoption — in effect anticipating that the amendments
would not come to a vote without the 60 votes needed to win a cloture vote.
However, on July 18, after the Senate rejected 52-47 a motion to invoke cloture on
an amendment by Senators Levin and Reed that would have mandated the withdrawal
of most U.S. troops from Iraq by April 30, 2008, Senator Reid sought unanimous
consent for the Senate to take up the Levin-Reed proposal and other Iraq-related
amendment with each to be the subject of an up-or-down vote to be decided by a
simple majority. When that proposal was objected to, Senator Reid set aside the
authorization bill.
The Levin-Reed amendment would have required the President to begin
withdrawing most U.S. forces from Iraq 120 days after enactment of the bill with
most of the troops out of the country by April 30, 2008. U.S. troops would be
allowed to remain in Iraq as a “limited presence” (of unspecified size) only to train
Iraqi Security Forces, to protect U.S. personnel and installations, and to conduct
targeted counterterrorism operations.6
Following are highlights of other Senate floor action on the Defense
Authorization bill:
Troop Deployment Duration Amendments. While the Senate was
debating the defense authorization bill, it considered several amendments that dealt
3 (...continued)
reconciliation in Iraq, see CRS Report RS21968, Iraq: Government Formation and
Benchmarks, by Kenneth Katzman, CRS Report RL34064, Iraq: Oil and Gas Legislation,
Revenue Sharing, and U.S. Policy, by Christopher M. Blanchard, and CRS Report RL31339,
Iraq: Post-Saddam Governance and Security, by Kenneth Katzman.
4 Press conference by president George W. Bush, July 12, 2007,
[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712-5.html]
5 See CRS Report RL33110, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on
Terror Operations Since 9/11, by Amy Belasco.
6 On the motion to invoke cloture on the Levin-Reed amendment, 53 senators voted aye, but
the Majority Leader, Senator Reid, subsequently changed his vote to “nay” so that, under
the Senate’s rules, he would be eligible to offer a motion to reconsider the vote, if and when
the Senate resumes action on the defense authorization bill.
CRS-7
with the fact that Army units are being deployed in Iraq for longer tours of duty (and
are being sent back to Iraq after shorter periods at home) than the service’s policy
calls for. The Army’s goal is to deploy troops into an operational theater for no more
than 12 months at a time and to allow time between deployments (called “dwell
time”) of at least two years for active-duty soldiers and five years for reserve and
National Guard troops. But to sustain the number of personnel currently deployed
in Iraq, Afghanistan and related theaters, the Army has had to deploy units for 15
months at a time and units are being returned to the combat areas so quickly that
some units’ dwell time is no longer than their previous deployment.
On July 11, the Senate rejected three amendments bearing on the issue of
deployment duration and dwell time.
! An amendment by Senator Webb that would have required that
active-duty units be allowed a dwell time of at least the same
duration as their preceding deployment and reserve component units
be allowed a dwell time at least three times as long as their
deployment was withdrawn after a cloture motion was rejected on a
vote of 56-41.
! An amendment by Senator Hagel that would have required that
Army troops (including reserve component personnel) be deployed
for no more than 12 months at a time and that active-duty and
reserve Marines deploy for no more than seven months at a time
(which is the Marine Corps goal) was rejected by a vote of 52-45,
the Senate having agreed that the amendment would require 60 votes
for adoption.
! An amendment by Senator Graham, expressing the sense of
Congress that Army personnel should be deployed for no more than
15 months at a time was rejected by a vote of 41-55.
Improving Health Care for Wounded Warriors. By a vote of 94-0, the
Senate adopted an amendment by Senator Levin and others that incorporated a
modified version of S. 1606, the Dignified Treatment for Wounded Warriors Act,”
which the Senate Armed Services Committee had reported on June 18. The bill was
the committee’s response to press accounts of poor treatment of outpatients at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Among the provisions of this
amendment (which was modified, prior to its adoption, by the Senate’s adoption of
eight second-degree amendments), are these.
! The bill would require the secretaries of Defense and Veterans
Affairs to develop a comprehensive policy on the care of service
members transitioning from the DOD health care system to the VA
and would establish an interagency office to implement a system of
electronic medical records to be used by both departments.
! The bill would require various pilot projects to test alternative
systems for rating the level of disability of wounded service
CRS-8
members and veterans, which could replace the separate disability
rating systems currently used by DOD and VA.
! In addition, the amendment provides that service members who are
retired because of medical disability, and who receive a DOD
disability rating of 50% or more, would be authorized to continue
receiving the medical benefits available to active duty personnel for
three years after the retired member leaves active duty.
! To develop improved methods for diagnosis, treatment and
rehabilitation of service members with Traumatic Brain Injury or
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, the amendment would authorize $50
million.
On July 25, the Senate passed as a freestanding bill, by unanimous consent, the
Wounded Warrior amendment to the defense bill, as it had been amended on the
Senate floor. The language of the Senate amendment was substituted for the text of
H.R. 1538, a House-passed bill that was similar in scope to S. 1606, the freestanding
Senate bill that had been the basis for the Senate’s Wounded Warriors amendment.7
As passed by the Senate, H.R. 1538 also was amended to authorize a 3.5% military
pay raise effective October 1, 2007, as would be authorized by the Senate version of
the defense authorization bill.
Other Amendments Acted Upon. The Senate also adopted the following
amendments to the defense authorization bill.
! An amendment by Senator Sessions declaring it to be U.S. policy to
deploy, as soon as technologically possible, a defense against
ballistic missiles launched from Iran was adopted by a vote of 90-5.
! An amendment by Senator Lieberman requiring a report on the
Iranian government’s support for attacks against coalition forces in
Iraq was adopted by a vote of 97-0.
! An amendment by Senator Dorgan that would increase to $50
million the reward offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden was
adopted by a vote of 87-1.
! An amendment by Senator Cornyn expressing the sense of the
Senate that it is in the national security interests of the United States
that Iraq not become a failed state and a haven for terrorists was
adopted by a vote of 94-3.
7 See CRS Report RL34110, Comparison of “Wounded Warrior” Legislation: HR 1538 as
Passed in the House and the Senate, by Sarah A. Lister, Sidath Viranga Panangala, and
Richard A. Best Jr.
CRS-9
Prospective Senate Amendments. If and when the Senate resumes
consideration of H.R. 1585, it could take up any of several amendments already filed
that would address various aspects of the Administration’s Iraq Policy:
! Several amendments would take various approaches to requiring the
withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq.
! An amendment by Senators Warner and Lugar would require the
President to prepare by October 16, 2007 a plan that would
“refocus” U.S. force in Iraq away from policing sectarian violence
and toward protecting Iraq’s borders, conducting counterterrorism
missions against al-Qaeda in Iraq, protecting U.S. forces and
facilities, and training Iraqi Security Forces “to assume full
responsibility for their own security.”
! An amendment by Senators Clinton and Byrd would sunset the
current legislative authorization for the use of military force in Iraq.
! An amendment by Senators Salazar and Alexander that would revise
the mission of U.S. forces in Iraq along the lines recommended by
the Iraq Study Group.
! An amendment by Senator Feinstein and others that would close the
Guantanamo Bay detention facility;
! An amendment by Senators Leahy and Spector that would grant
detainees the right of habeas corpus;8
! An amendment by Senators Graham and Kyl that would delete from
the bill a provision (Section 1023) that would revise the procedures
for judicial treatment of detainees.9
The Senate also may consider an amendment by Senators Spector and Kerry
barring courts from using presidential signing statements as a source of authority in
interpreting acts of Congress.10
Administration Objections to the Senate Committee-Reported
Authorization Bill. In a Statement of Administration Policy issued July 10, the
Office of Management and Budget objected to several features of S. 1547, which the
Senate was debating as the text of H.R. 1585. It stated that the President would veto
any bill that mandated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by a date certain.
8 See CRS Report RL33180, Enemy Combatant Detainees: Habeas Corpus Challenges in
Federal Court, by Jennifer K. Elsea and Kenneth R. Thomas.
9 See CRS Report RL33688, The Military Commissions Act of 2006: Analysis of Procedural
Rules and Comparison with Previous DOD Rules and the Uniform Code of Military Justice,
by Jennifer K. Elsea.
10 See CRS Report RL33667, Presidential Signing Statements: Constitutional and
Institutional Implications, by T. J. Halstead.
CRS-10
The OMB statement also said the president’s advisors would recommend a veto
if the final version of the bill included any of several other provisions including a
provision that would revise procedures for judicial disposition of detainees (the
provision that would be eliminated by the Kyl/Graham amendment), and any
provision that would grant detainees the right of habeas corpus.
Overview of Administration FY2008 Budget Request
On February 5, 2007, the White House formally released to Congress its
FY2008 federal budget request, which included $647.2 billion in new budget
authority for national defense. In addition to $483.2 billion for the regular operations
of the Department of Defense (DOD), the request includes $141.7 billion for
continued military operations abroad, primarily to fund the campaigns in Iraq and
Afghanistan, $17.4 billion for the nuclear weapons and other defense-related
programs of the Department of Energy, and $5.2 billion for defense-related activities
of other agencies. (Note: The total of $647.2 billion for national defense includes an
adjustment of -$275 million for OMB scorekeeping. DOD figures for the base
budget do not add to the formal request in OMB budget documents).
The requested “base” budget of $483.2 billion for DOD — excluding the cost
of ongoing combat operations — is $46.8 billion higher than the agency’s base
budget for FY2007, an increase of 11% in nominal terms and, by DOD’s reckoning,
an increase in real purchasing power of 7.9%, taking into account the cost of
inflation.
In requesting an additional $141.7 billion to cover the anticipated cost for all
of FY2008 of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Administration has
complied with Congress’ insistence that it be given time to subject that funding to the
regular oversight and legislative process. Nevertheless, since the Administration has
requested that these funds be designated as “emergency” appropriations, they would
be over and above restrictive caps on discretionary spending, even though the
FY2008 combat operations funding request of $141.7 billion is 29% as large as the
regular FY2008 DOD request.
Status of Legislation
Congress began action on the annual defense authorization bill with the House
Armed Services Committee approving its version of the bill (H.R. 1585) in a session
that began May 9, and with House passage on May 17. The Senate Armed Services
Committee marked up its version, S. 567, on May 24 and reported the measure as a
clean bill (S. 1547) on June 5.
CRS-11
Table 1A. Status of FY2008 Defense Authorization, H.R. 1585/S. 1547
Full Committee
Conference
Markup
Report Approval
House
House
Senate
Senate
Conf.
Public
House
Senate
Report
Passage
Report
Passage
Report
House
Senate
Law
H.Rept.
S.Rept.
5/17/07
5/9/07 5/24/07
110-146
110-77
397-27
5/11/07
6/5/07
Table 1B. Status of FY2008 Defense Appropriations Bill
Subcommittee
Conference Report
Markup
Approval
House
House
Senate
Senate
Conf.
Public
House
Senate
Report
Passage
Report
Passage
Report
House
Senate
Law
7/12
Facts and Figures: Congressional Action on the
FY2008 Defense Budget Request
The following tables provide a quick reference to congressional action on
defense budget totals. Additional details will be added as congressional action on the
FY2008 defense funding bills proceeds.
! Table 2 shows the Administration’s FY2008 national defense
budget request by budget subfunction and, for the Department of
Defense, by appropriations title. The total for FY2007 also
represents, in part, requested funding. It includes $93.4 billion in
FY2007 supplemental appropriations that the Administration
requested in February 2007. In May, however, Congress actually
approved $99.4 billion for the Department of Defense, $6.0 billion
more than the Administration had asked for.
! Table 3 shows the recommendations on defense budget authority
and outlays in the House and Senate versions of the annual budget
resolution, H.Con.Res. 99 and S.Con.Res. 21. These amounts are not
binding on the Armed Services or Appropriations committees.
! Table 4 shows congressional action on the FY2008 defense
authorization bill by title. Technically, this table shows the budget
authority implications of the provisions of the bill. For mandatory
programs, the budget authority implication is the amount of budget
authority projected to be required under standing law. The table
also follows the common practice of the House and Senate Armed
CRS-12
Services Committees, which is to show as the “budget authority
implication” of the bill, the amounts expected to be available for
programs within the national defense budget function not subject to
authorization in the annual defense authorization bill. Except for
some mandatory programs, the authorization bill does not provide
funds but rather authorizes their appropriation. Appropriations bills
may provide more than authorized, less than authorized, or the same
as authorized, either in total or for specific programs.
Appropriations bills may provide no funds for programs authorized
and may provide funds for programs not authorized. In practice,
defense appropriations bills often follow the amounts authorized,
however.
! Table 5 shows congressional action on the FY2008 defense and
military construction appropriations bills. The table does not show
funding for defense-related activities of agencies other than the
Defense Department, except for about $1.0 billion for the
intelligence community. In particular, it does not include $17.4
billion requested for defense-related nuclear energy programs
(nuclear weapons and warship propulsion) of the Energy
Department.
! Table 6 shows House and Senate Appropriations Committee
allocations of funds under Section 302(b) of the Congressional
Budget Act, for defense and military construction/veterans affairs
appropriations bills compared to allocations for other, non-defense
bills. The “302(b)” allocations are a key part of the appropriations
and budget process. A point of order holds against any bill that
exceeds its 402(b) allocation. In recent years, appropriations have
trimmed allocations for the defense appropriations bill, freeing up
more money for non-defense appropriations. The effect on defense
was mitigated by the available of emergency appropriations for
defense. In effect, emergency appropriations for war costs have been
used indirectly to finance higher non-defense appropriations.
CRS-13
Table 2. FY2008 National Defense Budget Request
(billions of dollars)
FY2007
FY2007
FY2007
FY2008
Supp
Total
Enacted
Request
Request* with Supp
Department of Defense
Base Budget
Military Personnel
111.1
—
111.1
118.9
Operation and Maintenance
127.7
—
127.7
143.5
Procurement
81.1
—
81.1
100.2
Research, Development, Test, & Evaluation
75.7
—
75.7
75.1
Military Construction
8.8
—
8.8
18.2
Family Housing
4.0
—
4.0
2.9
Revolving & Management Funds
2.4
—
2.4
2.5
Other Defense Programs*
23.7
—
23.7
23.3
Offsetting Receipts/Interfund Transactions
-1.8
-1.8
-1.4
General Provisions/Allowances
3.6
—
3.6
-0.3
Subtotal — DOD Base Budget
436.4
—
436.4
483.2
War-Related Funding
Military Personnel
5.4
12.1
17.5
17.1
Operation and Maintenance
39.1
37.5
76.6
73.1
Procurement
19.8
25.3
45.2
36.0
Research, Development, Test, & Evaluation
0.4
1.4
1.9
2.9
Military Construction
—
1.9
1.9
0.9
Family Housing
—
—
—
0.0
Revolving & Management Funds
—
1.3
1.3
1.7
Other Defense Programs*
0.1
1.3
1.4
1.3
Intelligence Community Management
0.0
0.1
0.1
—
Iraqi Freedom Fund
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.1
Afghanistan Security Forces Fund
1.5
5.9
7.4
2.7
Iraq Security Forces Fund
1.7
3.8
5.5
2.0
Joint IED Defeat Fund*
1.9
2.4
4.4
4.0
Subtotal — DOD War-Related
70.0
93.4
163.4
141.7
OMB vs DOD Scorekeeping Adjustment
—
—
—
-0.3
Total DOD (Base and War-Related)
506.4
93.4
599.8
624.6
Department of Energy Defense Related
17.0
—
17.0
17.4
Department of Energy
15.8
—
15.8
15.9
Formerly utilized sites remedial action
0.1
—
0.1
0.1
Defense nuclear facilities safety board
0.0
—
0.0
0.0
Energy employees occupational illness comp.
1.1
—
1.1
1.4
Other Defense Related
5.2
—
5.2
5.2
FBI Counter-Intelligence
2.5
—
2.5
2.5
Intelligence Community Management
0.9
—
0.9
1.0
Homeland Security
1.5
—
1.5
1.4
Other
0.3
—
0.3
0.3
Total National Defense
528.6
93.4
622.0
647.2
Sources: FY2007 enacted calculated by CRS based on congressional conference reports and
Department of Defense data; FY2007 supplemental from Department of Defense; FY2008 request
from Department of Defense and Office of Management and Budget. DOD Base and War-Related
Total and National Defense Total reflect OMB figures that differ slightly from DOD estimates.
*Note: FY2007 supplemental amount is shown here as requested. The final amount enacted in H.R.
2206, P.L. 110-28
CRS-14
Table 3. Congressional Budget Resolution, H.Con.Res. 99/
S.Con.Res. 21, Recommended National Defense Budget
Function (050) Totals
(billions of dollars)
FY2007
FY2008
FY2009
FY2010
FY2011
FY2012
Administration Projection
Budget Authority
622.4
647.2
584.7
545.0
551.5
560.7
Outlays
571.9
606.5
601.8
565.3
556.4
549.5
House-Passed (H.Con.Res. 99)
National Defense Base Budget (Function 050)
Budget Authority
525.8
507.0
534.7
545.2
550.9
559.8
Outlays
534.3
514.4
524.4
536.4
547.6
548.2
Allowance for Overseas Operations and Related Activities (Function 970)
Budget Authority
124.3
145.2
50.0
—
—
—
Outlays
31.5
114.9
109.4
42.3
13.6
4.5
Senate-Passed (S.Con.Res. 21)
Budget Authority
619.4
648.8
584.8
545.3
551.1
559.9
Outlays
560.5
617.8
627.0
572.9
558.4
551.8
Conference Report (S.Con.Res. 21)
National Defense Base Budget (Function 050)
Budget Authority
525.8
507.0
534.7
545.2
550.9
559.8
Outlays
534.3
514.4
524.4
536.4
547.6
548.2
Overseas Deployments and Other Activities (Function 970)
Budget Authority
124.2
145.2
50.0
—
—
—
Outlays
31.9
115.9
109.8
41.7
13.6
4.5
Sources: CRS from H.Con.Res. 99; S.Con.Res. 21; Office of Management and Budget.
CRS-15
Table 4. FY2008 Defense Authorization, House and Senate Action by Title
(budget authority in millions of dollars)
House
Senate
House
House
vs
Senate
Senate
vs
Request
Passed
Request
Request Reported
Request
Department of Defense Base Budget
Military Personnel
116,279.9 115,489.9
-790.0 116,279.9 120,228.0 +3,948.1
Operation and Maintenance
142,854.0 142,514.1
-339.9 142,854.0 143,492.2
+638.2
Procurement
100,223.0 102,678.6 +2,455.6 100,223.0 109,859.5 +9,636.5
Research, Development, Test, & Evaluation
75,117.2
73,456.3
-1,660.9
75,117.2
74,659.0
-458.2
Military Construction & Family Housing
21,165.2
21,224.3
+59.1
21,165.2
21,781.4
+616.2
Other Programs*
23,530.9
25,162.6 +1,631.7
25,149.7
25,220.2
+70.5
Revolving & Management Funds
2,453.1
2,887.2
+434.1
2,496.0
2,458.2
-37.8
Unallocated Reductions/Inflation Savings
—
-205.0
-205.0
—
-1,627.0
-1,627.0
Subtotal, Discretionary
481,623.3 483,208.1
+1,584.8 483,285.0 496,071.5 +12,786.5
Offsetting Receipts/Interfund/Trust Funds
1,791.0
1,707.0
-84.0
2,586.5
2,586.5
—
Subtotal — DOD Base Budget
483,414.3 484,915.1
+1,500.8 485,871.5 498,658.0 +12,786.5
Other Defense-Related
Atomic Energy Defense-Related
17,319.3
17,027.3
-292.0
16,927.1
16,925.2
-1.9
Defense-Related Activities
—
—
—
4,159.0
4,159.0
—
Department of Homeland Security
1,142.0
1,142.0
—
—
—
—
Department of Justice (FBI)
2,437.0
2,437.0
—
—
—
—
Selective Service
22.0
22.0
—
—
—
—
Intelligence Community Management
705.4
705.4
—
—
—
—
Maritime Administration
154.4
154.4
—
—
—
—
National Science Foundation
67.0
67.0
—
—
—
—
Department of Commerce
14.0
14.0
—
—
—
—
CIA Retirement & Disability
262.5
262.5
—
—
—
—
Radiation Exposure Trust Fund
31.0
31.0
—
—
—
—
Subtotal — Other Defense-Related
22,154.6
21,862.6
-292.0
21,086.2
21,084.3
-1.9
Total National Defense Base Budget
505,568.8 506,777.7
+1,208.8 506,957.7 519,742.3 +12,784.6
War-Related Funding (Title IV of H.R. 1585; Titles XV and XXIX of S. 1547)
Military Personnel
17,070.3
17,471.8
+401.5
17,070.3
12,922.0
-4,148.3
Operation and Maintenance
73,099.1
72,219.1
-880.0
72,867.5
72,015.5
-852.0
Procurement
35,956.6
36,327.5
+370.9
35,956.6
28,303.4
-7,653.1
Research, Development, Test, & Evaluation
2,857.4
2,151.1
-706.2
2,857.4
1,950.3
-907.0
Military Construction
907.9
695.5
-212.4
907.9
752.7
-155.3
Revolving & Management Funds
1,681.4
1,681.4
—
1,690.4
1,689.6
-0.8
Defense Health Program
1,022.8
1,022.8
—
1,022.8
1,022.8
—
Drug Interdiction
257.6
257.6
—
257.6
257.6
—
Inspector General
4.4
4.4
—
4.4
4.4
—
Iraqi Freedom Fund
107.5
107.5
—
107.5
107.5
—
Afghanistan Security Forces Fund
2,700.0
2,700.0
—
2,700.0
2,700.0
—
Iraq Security Forces Fund
2,000.0
2,000.0
—
2,000.0
2,000.0
—
Joint IED Defeat Fund
4,000.0
4,000.0
—
4,000.0
4,500.0
+500.0
Strategic Readiness Fund
—
1,000.0 +1,000.0
—
—
—
Other War-Related Programs
—
—
—
373.7
323.7
-50.0
Department of Energy Non-Proliferation
50.0
50.0
—
—
—
—
Department of Justice (FBI)
101.1
101.1
—
—
—
—
Coast Guard (via transfer, non-additive)
[225.0]
[225.0]
—
—
—
—
Subtotal — War-Related
141,816.1 141,789.8
-26.2 141,816.1 128,549.6 -13,266.5
Total Including War-Related
647,384.9 648,567.5
+1,182.6 648,773.7 648,291.9
-481.9
Sources: CRS, from H.Rept. 110-146, DOD, OMB, House Armed Services Committee, S.Rept. 110-77.
*Note: Shows “Budget Authority Implication” amounts in committee reports. “Other Programs” includes defense health,
drug interdiction, chemical demilitarization.
CRS-16
Table 5. FY2008 Department of Defense and Military Construction
Appropriations, House and Senate Action by Title
(budget authority in millions of dollars)
House vs
Request
House
Request
Senate
Conference
Defense Appropriations Bill
Title I: Military Personnel
105,403.7
105,017.8
-385.9
—
—
Title II: Operation and Maintenance
142,854.0
137,134.5
-5,719.5
—
—
Title III: Procurement
99,623.0
99,604.6
-18.4
—
—
Title IV: Research, Development,
Test, & Evaluation
75,117.2
76,229.1
+1,111.9
—
—
Title V: Revolving & Management
Funds
2,453.8
3,841.8
+1,388.0
—
—
Title VI: Other Programs*
25,749.7
26,098.7
+349.0
—
—
Title VII: Related Agencies
967.9
945.8
-22.1
—
—
Title VIII: General Provisions (Net)
53.0
-198.8
-251.8
—
—
Title IX: Additional Appropriations
(War-Related)
140,758.0
—
-140,758.0
—
—
Subtotal
592,980.3
448,673.5
-144,306.8
—
—
Subtotal Excluding Title IX
452,222.3
448,673.5
-3,548.8
—
—
Scorekeeping (Health Accrual)
10,921.0
10,921.0
—
—
—
Subtotal with Health Accrual
463,143.3
459,594.5
-3,548.8
—
—
Military Construction Appropriations in Military Construction/VA Bill
Military Construction
18,232.7
18,439.5
+206..8
—
—
Family Housing
2,932.5
2,932.5
—
—
—
Subtotal — Military Construction
21,165.2
21,371.9
+206..8
—
—
Sources: Department of Defense, National Defense Budget Estimates, Fiscal Year 2008, March 2007, Table
3-1; House Appropriations Committee report on FY2008 Military Construction/VA Appropriations bill, H.R.
2642, H.Rept. 110-186, June 11, 2007; House Appropriations Committee, pre-markup draft of committee report
on FY2008 defense appropriations, unnumbered, released July 25, 2007.
*Note: “Other Programs” include defense health, chemical agents and munitions destruction, drug interdiction,
joint improvised explosive device defeat fund, rapid acquisition fund, and office of the inspector general.
CRS-17
Table 6. House and Senate 302(b) Allocations of FY2008
Total Discretionary Budget Authority, Defense vs Non-Defense
(millions of dollars)
FY2008
House
FY2008
Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee/
FY2007 FY2008
House
vs.
Senate
vs.
Bill
Enacted Request 6/8/2007 Request 6/14/2007 Request
Defense
419,612 462,879
459,332
-3,547
459,332
-3,547
Military Construction, Veterans
Affairs
49,752
60,745
64,745
+4,000
64,745 +4,000
Total Defense and Mil
Con/VA
469,364 523,624
524,077
+453
524,077 +453
Total Other/Non-Defense
Discretionary
403,354 409,225
428,976 +19,751
428,976 +19,751
Total Discretionary
872,718 932,849
953,053 +20,204
953,053 +20,204
Source: House Appropriations Committee, “Report on the Suballocation of Budget Allocations for
Fiscal Year 2008,” H.Rept. 110-183, June 8, 2007; Senate Appropriations Committee, “Allocation
to Subcommittees of Budget Totals from the Concurrent Resolution for Fiscal Year 2008,” S.Rept.
110-86, June 18, 2007.
FY2008 Defense Budget Request and Outyear
Plans: Questions of Affordability and Balance
Several aspects of the Department’s FY2008 budget request and its projected
budgets through FY2013 raise questions about the affordability of DOD’s plan as a
whole and about the balance of spending among major elements of the defense
budget.
(1) DOD’s funding plan for FY2008-FY2013, excluding the cost of military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, projects that the department’s base budget will
increase in real purchasing power, after adjusting for inflation, by 8.0% between
FY2007 and FY2008 and by another 3.5% in FY2009 before declining slightly over
each of the following four years. But the tightening fiscal squeeze on the federal
government may put strong downward pressure on the defense budget; and the
unbudgeted funds needed for ongoing military operations abroad may compound the
problem. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Congressional Budget
Office (CBO) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) agree that the
current mix of federal programs is fiscally unsustainable for the long term.11 The
nation’s aging population combined with rising health costs are driving an increase
in spending for federal entitlement programs which, in turn, will fuel rising deficits
compounded by a steadily increasing interest on the national debt. The upshot is that,
if total federal outlays continue to account for about 20% of the GDP and federal
11 See CRS Report RL33915, The Budget for Fiscal Year 2008, by Philip D. Winters. See
also OMB, Budget of the United States Government for Fiscal Year 2008, February 2007,
pp. 16-21; CBO, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2008-2017, January
2007, pp. 10-11; GAO, The Nation’s Long-Term Fiscal Outlook: January 2007 Update,
GAO-07-510R.
CRS-18
revenues remain at about their current level, total federal spending on discretionary
programs, in terms of real purchasing power, would have to be sharply reduced to
meet the goal of a balanced federal budget by 2012 and then to cover the rising costs
of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security resulting partly from the retirement of
baby boomers.
To protect DOD from this fiscal vise, some have recommended that the defense
budget (excluding the cost of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan) be
sustained at 4% of GDP — a share of the national wealth that DOD last claimed in
FY1994.12 But that proposal would have to overcome the thus far intractable
political challenges of increasing federal revenues, reducing discretionary non-
defense spending, and/or restraining the growth of entitlement costs.
(2) Although the Administration has submitted a budget proposal to cover the
cost of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in FY2008 that is separate from
its “base” budget request for the year, it may be difficult, as a practical matter, for
Congress to subject the request for cost-of-war appropriations to the same oversight
it applies to regular, annual defense spending requests. If the congressional defense
committees mark up the FY2008 defense funding bills on their usual schedules, as
the House and Senate Armed Services committees are doing with respect to the
annual defense authorization bill, they will have had to review in less than four
months both the President’s $482 billion request for the base DOD budget and the
additional $142 billion requested for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The burden
may be compounded by the fact that the congressional defense committees may not
have time-tested analytical tools with which to scrutinize the request for ongoing
combat operations, as they do for reviewing the base budget. Moreover, for most of
that four month period, Members of Congress, and the defense funding committees
in particular, have been deeply preoccupied with debate over the Administration’s
FY2007 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill (H.R. 1591) to pay for combat
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, legislation that has become the vehicle for
congressional efforts to reduce the involvement of U.S. troops in Iraq.
In addition, since DOD does not include the forecast cost of ongoing operations
in its projections of defense budget requests in future years, except for a $50 billion
placeholder for FY2009 included in the FY2008 request, Congress has not been
given a clear sense of how severely the federal government’s overall fiscal squeeze
may constrain future defense budgets.
(3) DOD projects that its total budget will remain approximately constant, in
real terms, from FY2009 through FY2013. But for years, most of the major
components of the defense budget have shown a steady cost growth, in excess of the
cost of inflation. Thus, the relatively flat defense budgets planned would have to
accommodate other types of costs that also seem to be escalating almost
uncontrollably, notably including (1) the rising cost of health care for personnel still
on active service, retirees and their dependents, (2) operations and maintenance costs
that have been increasing since the Korean War at an average of 2.5% per year above
12 Baker Spring, “Defense FY2008 Budget Analysis: Four Percent for Freedom,” The
Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder no. 2012, March 5, 2007.
CRS-19
the cost of inflation, and (3) new weapons that are expected to dramatically enhance
the effectiveness of U.S. forces, but which carry high price tags to begin with and
then, all too often, substantially overrun their initial cost-estimates.13
(4) One of the most powerful drivers of DOD’s internal cost squeeze, the steady
increase in the cost of military personnel, would be compounded by the President’s
recommendation — in line with congressional proposals — to increase active-duty
Army and Marine Corps end-strength. Between FY1999 and FY2005, the cost of
active-duty military personnel, measured per-service-member, grew by 33% above
inflation, largely because of congressional initiatives to increase pay and benefits.
A large fraction of the increased cost is due to increases in retired pay and greatly
expanded medical benefits for military retirees.
This year, the Administration has proposed (and the congressional defense
committees have urged for years) an increase in active-duty end-strength that would
add 92,000 soldiers and Marines to the rolls, thus increasing the services’ fixed costs
by at least $12 billion annually (once the start-up costs of the policy have been
absorbed). At the same time, the Navy and Air Force are cutting personnel levels to
safeguard funds for weapons programs. The Air Force is cutting about 40,000 full-
time equivalent positions and the Navy about 30,000. One issue is whether these cuts
will be used, directly or indirectly, not to pay for Air Force and Navy weapons
programs, but for Army and Marine Corps end-strength increases.
(5) The Navy’s ability to sustain a fleet of the current size within realistically
foreseeable budgets may especially problematic. After years of criticism from
Members of Congress who contended that the Navy was buying too few ships to
replace vessels being retired, the service released in February a long-range
shipbuilding plan that would fall just short of the Navy’s current goal of maintaining
a fleet of 313 ships. But the plan assumes that the Defense Department, which
bought seven ships in FY2007 and is requesting the same number in FY2008, would
buy between 11 and 13 ships in each of the following five years. The plan assumes
that amount appropriated for new ship construction would rise from a requested
$12.5 billion in FY2008 to $17.5 billion in FY2013 (in current-year dollars).14
Considering the fiscal demands likely to put downward pressure on future
defense budgets, funding the Navy’s plan may be challenging. But even if the Navy
got the annual shipbuilding budgets it plans to request, it might not be able to buy all
13 In a review of 64 major weapons programs, the GAO found that their total cost had grown
by more than 4.9% annually, in real terms. The total estimated cost of the 64 programs in
FY2007 was $165 billion more (in FY2007 dollars) than had been projected in FY2004. See
GAO-07-406SP, Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Weapons Programs, March
2007, p. 8. According to the GAO analysis, a major reason for that unbudgeted cost
increase was that many programs depend on technologies that promise transformative
combat effectiveness, but which have not been adequately developed before they are
incorporated into the design of a new weapon. Ibid., p. 9.
14 Although most Defense Department shipbuilding is funded in the “Shipbuilding and
Conversion, Navy” (SCN) appropriation, certain types of non-combatant vessels are funded
in other appropriation accounts, particularly the National Defense Sealift Fund, which is
under Revolving and Management Funds.
CRS-20
the ships it plans as quickly as it plans to do so, because of escalating costs and
delays in some of the new types of ships slated to comprise the future fleet. In the
past, Navy cost and schedule forecasts later proven to be overly optimistic have led
to long-range shipbuilding plans that promised increases in shipbuilding budgets in
the “out-years” that have not been realized. Unachievable shipbuilding plans may
discourage the Navy and Congress from weighing potential tradeoffs between, on the
one hand, construction of promising new designs and, on the other hand, building
additional ships of types already in service and upgrading existing vessels.
(6) The services’ plans to modernize their tactical air forces suffer from the type
of excessive budgetary and technological optimism that also afflicts the shipbuilding
plan. Roughly midway through a 40-year, $400 million effort to replace the post-
Vietnam generation of Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps fighter planes with
versions of the Air Force’s F-22A, the Navy’s F/A-18E/F, and the tri-service F-35
(or Joint Strike Fighter), the services’ plans have been buffeted by escalating costs,
slipping schedules and external budget pressures. In the case of the F-22A, this
produced a current budget plan that will buy only 183 planes rather than the 381 the
Air Force says it needs. Similarly, the Navy and Marine Corps have reduced the total
number of F-35s they plan to buy from 1,089 to 680.
Adjustments like this are easier to make with aircraft budgets that fund dozens
of units annually costing tens of millions of dollars apiece than it is with shipbuilding
budgets that fund a handful of units each year, many of which cost upwards of a
billion dollars apiece. But while it may be easier for the services to deal with the
consequences of optimistic tactical aircraft recapitalization plans than it is for the
Navy to manage the shipbuilding program, there is a similar underlying problem. If
the services’ long-range plans assume budgets, costs, technical breakthroughs and
production schedules that will not be realized, a service may delay and, ultimately,
increase the cost of upgrades to planes already in service that will have to be kept
combat-ready until the new craft are fielded:
The military services accord new systems higher funding priority, and the legacy
systems tend to get whatever funding is remaining after the new systems’ budget
needs are met. If new aircraft consume more of the investment dollars than
planned, the buying power and budgets for legacy systems are further reduced
to remain within DOD budget limits. However, as quantities of new systems have
been cut and deliveries to the warfighter delayed, more legacy aircraft are
required to stay in the inventory and for longer periods of time than planned,
requiring more dollars to modernize and maintain aging aircraft.15
15 Government Accountability Office, Tactical Aircraft: DOD Needs a Joint and Integrated
Investment Strategy, GAO-07-415, April 2007, p. 13.
CRS-21
Potential Issues in FY2008
Global War on Terror Request16
For the seventh year of war operations since the 9/11 attacks, DOD is requesting
$141.7 billion, 29% of the amount it is requesting for all routine DOD activity in
FY2008. For the first time since the 9/11 attacks, the Administration has submitted
a request for war funding for the full year to meet a new requirement levied in the
FY2007 John Warner National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 109-364).17 Since
FY2003, Congress has funded war costs in two bills, typically a bridge fund included
in the regular DOD Appropriations Act to cover the first part of the fiscal year and
a supplemental enacted after the fiscal year has begun.18
The Administration’s FY2008 Global War on Terror (GWOT) request of $141.7
billion is similar to its FY2007 funding request for FY2007 war costs with certain
exceptions: funds are not included to support the higher troop levels announced by
the president in January 2007, lesser amounts are requested to train Afghan and Iraqi
security forces and no funds are requested to increase the size of the Army and Navy
(see Table 7). In testimony, Secretary of Defense Gates characterized the FY2008
GWOT request as “a straightline projection for forces of 140,000 in Iraq” because
funding for the surge is only included through September 30, 2007, the end of
FY2007.19 This could prove to be an issue if the Administration decides to extend
the current troop increase of about 36,000 past this fall.
According to DOD, the FY2008 war request includes $109.7 billion for Iraq and
$26.0 billion for Afghanistan and other counter-terror operations.20 According to
DOD, the request supports a total of 320,000 deployed personnel including 140,000
in Iraq and 20,000 in Afghanistan. DOD does not explain the difference between the
160,000 military personnel deployed in Iraq and in Afghanistan and the additional
160,000 deployed elsewhere supporting those missions.21
16 Prepared by Amy Belasco, Specialist in the U.S. Defense Budget.
17 Section 1008, P.L. 109-364.
18 See Table A1 in CRS Report RL33110, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global
War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, by Amy Belasco; in FY2003, war funds were
provided in the FY2003 Consolidated Appropriations (P.L. 108-7) as well as the FY2003
Supplemental see also CRS Report RS22455, Military Operations: Precedents for Funding
Contingency Operations in Regular or in Supplemental Appropriations Bills, by Stephen
Daggett.
19 Senate Appropriations Committee, Hearing on Supplemental War Funding, February 27,
2007, transcript, p. 11.
20 DOD, FY2008 Global War on Terror Request, February 2007, p. 74. [http://www.dod.mil/
comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Global_War_On_Terror_
Request.pdf].
21 DOD, FY2007 Emergency Supplemental Request for the Global war on Terror, February
2007, pp. 15-16, pp. 76-80; [http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_
supplemental/FY2007_Emergency_Supplemental_Request_for_the_GWOT.pdf]; DOD,
(continued...)
CRS-22
Congressional Action. The House authorized slightly more than the funding
level requested — $141.8 billion, and largely endorsed DOD’s priorities. The chief
exceptions are a shifting of procurement funds from various programs deemed lower
priority to the Mine Resistant Ambush Program in order to increase that program to
$4.5 billion, the in-theater requirement. According to reports, the MRAP vehicle, a
truck with a V-shaped hull has proven effective in withstanding IED attacks.
In its report, the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) transfers much of
the funding in Title XV funding for OIF and OEF to titles which fund the base
budget, arguing that this better differentiates between DOD’s war-related and base
budget requests. To carry this out, Thus, DOD’s war request is reduced from $140.5
billion to $127.5 billion, a $13 billion decrease; however, DOD’s base budget is
increased by $12.8 billion.
The transfers include not only funds for higher troop levels and operations and
maintenance — endorsed as permanent rather than temporary war-related increases
by the president in January 2007 — but also procurement funds where the rationale
for the transfer is less clear. While the committee expresses some concern that
growth in the size of the Army and Marine Corps may “come too late to impact the
war in Iraq,” the transfers to the base budget are intended to capture “integrated”
costs and not obscure the “true cost that the actual end strength presents.”22
FY2008 GWOT Request: Assumptions Similar to FY2007
DOD’s justification language and funding levels for the FY2008 GWOT request
are almost identical to those included in its FY2007 Supplemental request in several
categories such as military operations and reconstitution of war-worn equipment,
citing the same force levels and the same examples. DOD’s request for $70.6 billion
in FY2008 funds special pays, benefits, subsistence, the cost of activating reservists,
and the cost of conducting operations and providing support for about 320,000
deployed military personnel serving in and around Iraq and Afghanistan assuming the
same operating tempo as in FY2007.23 In addition, the FY2008 GWOT request does
not include the $5.6 billion additional cost for the 36,000 increase in force levels or
“surge” announced by the president on January 10, 2007 that is currently underway.
Assuming no plus-up cost in FY2008 could become an issue should it become
clear that the higher force levels will persist into the Fall and the new fiscal year as
21 (...continued)
FY2008 Global War on Terror Request, February 2007, pp. 15-16, and pp. 63-67;
[http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Glob
al_War_On_Terror_Request.pdf]
22 S.Rept. 110-77, pp. 433 and 325.
23 DOD, FY2008 Global War on Terror Request, February 2007, pp. 15 and 17; online at
[http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Glob
al_War_On_Terror_Request.pdf].
CRS-23
appears to be expected by commanders in the field according to recent press reports.24
An estimate by the Congressional Budget Office projected that the President’s surge
proposal could cost between $11 billion and $15 billion in FY2008 if the higher
troop levels were sustained for 12 months — about half way through FY2008 — and
if more support troops were required than the several thousand that DOD is
anticipating.25 On the other hand, should force levels begin to decline, additional
funds would not be necessary.
Congressional Action. The House cut $881 million from DOD’s $6 billion
request for the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or LOGCAP, which provides
base camp services on the grounds that a 14% increase was not justified given the
fact that the FY2008 request is predicated on a straight-line projection from FY2007
— without the temporary increase in military personnel this year. At the same time,
the House added $401 million to the Military Personnel request to cover the cost of
an additional 36,000 Army and 9,000 Marine Corps personnel suggesting that the
committee expects the higher levels in FY2007 to persist.26
Reflecting readiness concerns, the House sets up a Defense Readiness
Production Board whose mission is to identify critical readiness requirements. DOD
is also given authority to use multiyear procurement contracts of up to $500 million
authority for items deemed of critical readiness importance without statutory
approval and even if DOD would not save money (Section 1701 to Section 1708,
H.R. 1585). The bill also authorizes $1 billion for these purposes.27
The SASC transfers $4.1 billion from DOD’s GWOT request in Title XV for
higher Army and Marine Corps force levels adopted originally to meet OIF/OEF needs
to the base budget, with the rationale that these increases or “over strength” are no
longer appropriately considered temporary emergency expenses. The committee
reduces the DOD O&M request from $72. 9 billion to $72.0 billion but most of that
reflects a transfer of $712 million to the base budget to “grow the force” although
DOD’s overview justification did not identify any FY2008 GWOT funding for this
purpose.28
24 “Commanders In Iraq See ‘Surge’ into 08,” Washington Post, May 9, 2007.
25 CBO, Cost Estimate for Troop Increase Proposed by the president, February 1, 2007, p.
4; online at [http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7778/TroopIncrease.pdf].
26 H.Rept. 110-146, p. 469.
27 H.Rept. 110-146, pp. 481-482.
28 S.Rept. 110-77, p. 489 and pp. 515-516, and DOD, FY2008 Global War on Terror
Request, February 2007, p. 75.
CRS-24
Table 7. DOD’s Global War on Terror,
FY2006-FY2008 by Function
(billions of dollars)
Type of Expense
FY2006 FY2007 FY2007 FY2007 FY2007 FY2008
FY2008
Enacted
Bridge
Supp.
Total
Total
Req.
Req. vs.
Enacted
Req.
with
Req. vs
FY2007
Req.
FY06
Total w/
Req.
Incremental Pay and
67.2
30.5
39.2
69.8
2.6
70.6
0.8
Benefits and operating and
support Costs
Temporary Troop Plus-up
0.0
0.0
5.6
5.6
5.6
0.0
-5.6
and Increased Naval
Presence
Reconstitution or Reset
19.2
23.6
13.9
37.5
18.4
37.6
0.0
Force Protection
5.4
3.4
8.0
11.3
6.0
11.2
-0.1
Joint Improvised Explosive
3.3
1.9
2.4
4.4
1.0
4.0
-0.4
Device Defeat Fund
Accelerating Modularity
5.0
0.0
3.6
3.6
-1.4
1.6
-2.1
Infrastructure & equipment
0.0
0.0
1.7
1.7
1.7
0.0
-1.7
for Perm. Inc. in Size of
Army and MC
Equip and Train Afghan
4.9
3.2
9.7
12.9
8.0
4.7
-8.2
and Iraq Security Forces
Coalition Support
1.2
0.9
1.0
1.9
0.7
1.7
-0.2
Commanders Emergency
0.9
0.5
0.5
1.0
0.1
1.0
0.0
Response Fd
Military Construction
0.2
0.0
1.1
1.1
0.9
0.7
-0.4
Overseas in Iraq and
Afghanistan
Military Intelligence
1.5
0.8
2.7
3.5
2.0
2.7
-0.8
Non-DOD Classified and
5.6
5.1
3.6
8.8
3.2
5.9
-2.8
Non-GWOT
Regional War on Terror
0.0
0.0
0.3
0.3
0.3
0.0
-0.3
GRAND TOTAL
114.4
70.0
93.4
163.4
49.0
141.7
-21.7
Sources: DOD, FY2008 Global War on Terror Request, February 2007, Table 2, p. 75, online at
[http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Global_War_On
_Terror_Request.pdf]. Table 2 does not reflect FY2007 Supplemental amended Administration’s
request submitted on March 9, 2007.
Broad Definition of Reconstitution or Reset
As in FY2007, DOD is requesting $37.6 billion for reconstitution which appears
to encompass a broader set of requirements than the standard definition of reset —
the repair and replacement of war-worn equipment when troops and equipment are re-
deployed or rotated.29 Within reconstitution, DOD includes not only equipment repair
29 For DOD definition, see DOD, Financial Management Regulation, Volume 12, Chapter
(continued...)
CRS-25
and replacement of battle losses and munitions, but also replacement of “stressed”
equipment, upgrading of equipment with new models, additional modifications, and
new or upgraded equipment as well an expansion of the supply inventory ($900
million) that assumes that currently high stock levels will need to be continued.
Of the $37.6 billion reconstitution request, $8.9 billion is for equipment repair
including $7.8 billion for the Army $1.3 billion for the Marine Corps, amounts similar
to DOD’s request in FY2007 and fairly similar to earlier DOD projections.30 The
remaining $28.7 billion is for procurement. In a report to Congress in September
2006, DOD estimated that equipment replacement in FY2008 would be about $5.0
billion for the Army and about $500 million for the Marine Corps, levels substantially
below the $21.1 billion for the Army and $7.2 billion for the Marine Corps requested
for FY2008.
This four-fold increase in Army and ten-fold increase in Marine Corps
reconstitution requirements in FY2008 may reflect both an expanded definition of
what constitutes war-related equipment replacement and a DOD decision to request
more than one year’s requirement in FY2008 as in the FY2007 Supplemental where
requirements were front loaded according to OMB Director, Rob Portman.31 With the
exception of force protection equipment (much of which is funded in O&M), DOD
appears to characterize all of its FY2008 war procurement request as reconstitution
(see Table 7) including upgrades and replacement of current equipment that would
normally considered part of peacetime modernization.
With over $8 billion in war-related procurement funds from previous years still
to be put on contract, Congress could choose to delay some of the items requested by
DOD, as was the case in Congressional action on the FY2007 where some requests
29 (...continued)
23, pp. 23-21; [http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/fmr/12/12_23.pdf]; CBO defines
reset as the repair or replacement of war-worn equipment; see CBO, Letter to Rep. Skelton,
“The Potential Costs Resulting from Increased Usage of Military Equipment from Ongoing
Operations,” March 18, 2005; available online at [http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/61xx/doc
6160/03-18-WornEquip.pdf].
30 In a September 2006 report to Congress, DOD estimated repair requirements at $8.0
billion for the Army and $830 million for the Marine Corps in FY2008, see Office of the
Secretary of Defense, Long-Term Equipment Repair Costs: Report to the Congress,
September 2006, pp. 24-25; DOD, Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, Global War on Terror Request,
Exhibits for FY2008, all appropriations, Military Personnel, Operation and Maintenance,
Construction, Revolving and Management Funds, Procurement, Research, Development,
Test & Evaluation, February 2007; [http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/defbudget/
fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Global_War_On_Terror_Request/FY_2008_GW
OT_Request_-_Funding_Summary_(All_Appropriations).pdf] Department of the Army,
Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Emergency Supplemental, Global War on Terrorism
(GWOT)/Regional War on Terrorism (RWOT), Exhibit O-1, pp. 2 and 7.
31 Testimony of OMB Director Rob Portman before the House Budget Committee, Hearing
on the FY2008 DOD Budget, February 6, 2007, p. 41 of transcript.
CRS-26
were deemed “premature” or not emergencies.32 The FY2008 war request may also
reflect a response to the concerns of Service witnesses raised in testimony over the last
year or two that Congress would need to appropriate funds for equipment replacement
for two years after forces are withdrawn.33
In both FY2007 and FY2008, the services request includes replacement for
various aircraft and helicopters — both battle losses and anticipated replacements for
“stressed” aircraft. Under DOD’s standard budget guidance, the services are only to
request new major weapon systems for combat losses that have already been
experienced unless they get specific approval for an exception, which appears to be
the case for both the FY2007 and the FY2008 requests where the services have
requested replacements for “stressed” aircraft rather than combat losses. In the case
of the FY2008 request, particularly, DOD would not have information about combat
losses. In response to congressional doubts, the administration withdrew its request
for six new EA-18 electronic warfare aircraft and two JSF aircraft in the FY2007
Supplemental.
Another issue is whether replacing older aircraft no longer in production with
new aircraft just entering or scheduled to enter production is a legitimate emergency
requirement since systems would not be available for several years. Under their
expanded definition, DOD’s request includes replacement of MH-53 and H-46
helicopters with the new V-22 tilt rotor aircraft, replacement of an F-16 with the new
F-35 JSF, and replacement of older helicopters with the Armed Reconnaissance
Helicopter, a troubled program not yet in production which the Army is considering
terminating.34 In addition, the FY2008 request includes replacement of stressed
aircraft with 17 new C-130Js, modification upgrades to C-130 aircraft, F-18 aircraft,
AH-1W and CH-46 helicopters.
Congressional Action. With a few exceptions, the House supported the
Administration’s procurement request. The exceptions include the transfer of funds
from various programs deemed lower priority to provide an additional $4.1 billion for
the Mine Resistant Ambush program (see below) as well as cuts to the Air Force’s F-
35 and C130J aircraft requests and the Army’s request for Armed Reconnaissance
helicopters. On the other hand, the House added $2.4 billion for additional C-17
cargo aircraft.
32 CRS calculation based on BA appropriated and Defense Finance Accounting Service,
Supplemental & Cost of War Execution reports as of February 28, 2007; see CRS Report
RL33900, FY2007 Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, Foreign Affairs, and Other
Purposes, by Stephen Daggett, Amy Belasco, Connie Veillette, Curt Tarnoff, Pat Towell,
Rhoda Margesson, Susan B. Epstein, and Bart Elias.
33 House Armed Services Committee, Costs and Problems of Maintaining Military
equipment in Iraq, January 31, 2007, hearing transcript; House Armed Services Committee,
Army and Marine Corps Reset Strategies for Ground Equipment and Rotorcraft, hearing
transcript, June 27, 2006.
34 House Armed Services Committee, Air Land Subcommittee, “Opening Statement at
Markup by Chair Neil Abercrombie,” May 2, 2007.
CRS-27
In its report, the SASC reduces GWOT funding for procurement from $36.0
billion to $28.3 billion including the following.
! $4.6 billion in transfers to the base budget;
! $1.9 billion in program cuts, primarily delays in troubled programs
such as the V-22 (-$493 million), UH-1Y/Ah-1Z (-$123 million), and
C-130J aircraft (- $468 million); and
! $4.7 billion in program adds, echoing House action by adding $4.1
billion for the Mine Resistant Ambush Program (MRAP), now a high
priority because of its success in protecting soldiers against
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
The programmatic cuts also reflect committee questions about DOD’s plan for rapid
production buildups for these programs.35 The committee’s transfer of procurement
to the base budget may be designed to give greater visibility to the full spending on
individual programs. Since most of DOD’s FY2008 GWOT procurement request
reflects anticipated replacement needs and upgrades rather than war losses, and with
production lead times of two to three years, the committee may believe that the war-
related connection for the requests are less clear.
Force Protection Funding
DOD’s FY2008 request includes about $11 billion in funding for force protection
in both FY2007 and FY2008 primarily for body armor, armored vehicles, protecting
operating bases and surveillance operations. The FY2008 request is almost identical
to FY2007 and includes:
! $3.5 billion to purchase an additional 320,000 body armor sets
reaching a cumulative total of 1.7 million original and upgraded sets
meeting 100% of total requirements as well as the new Advanced
Combat helmet, earplugs, gloves and other protective gear;
! $7.0 billion for protection equipment and activities including
munitions clearance, fire-retardant NOMEX uniforms, unmanned
aerial vehicles, aircraft survivability modifications, route clearance
vehicles; and
! funding for more uparmored HMMWVs ($1.3 billion), armored
security ($301 million) and mine protection vehicles ($174 million);
and
! $441 million for Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles, a truck
with a V-shaped hull which has proven effective against IEDs.36
35 S.Rept. 110-77, pp. 511 and 513.
36 DOD lists $700 million in force protection funding for armored vehicles in its justification
but this appears to be an understatement; see FY2008, Exhibit P-1 for listing of individual
items; DOD, Fiscal Year (FY) 2008, Global War on Terror Request, Exhibits for FY2008,
(continued...)
CRS-28
There has been considerable controversy in Congress about whether DOD has
provided adequate force protection in a timely fashion with Congress typically adding
funds for more body armor, more uparmored HMWWVs, and other force protection
gear. In the FY2007 Supplemental, Congress added $1.8 billion to DOD’s request for
the Mine Resistant Ambush Vehicle (MRAP) making for a total of $3.0 billion, an
armored truck with a V-shaped hull that has proven effective in withstanding
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).37 This controversy re-surfaced in consideration
of the FY2008 Supplemental request where DOD’s request of $441 million is well
below requirements and production capacity.
Congressional Action. The House authorized $4.6 billion for Mine Resistant
Ambush Vehicles (MRAPs), an increase that would meet the in-theater requirement.
To fund the additional $4.1 billion, the House took funds from programs deemed
lower priority such as a $1 billion transfer from Bridge to Future Networks, an
upgraded command and communication support system. In addition, the House
required DOD to submit reports every 30 days on MRAP requirement, contracting
strategy, and other matters.38
Like the House, the SASC added $4.1 billion to DOD’s request for MRAP for
total funding of $4.5 billion. At the same time, the committee raises concern about the
differences between the Army and Marine Corps MRAP strategies with the Army
envisioned 1:7 replacements for uparmored HMMWVs and the Marine Corps a 1:1
replacement. The SASC endorses most of DOD’s force protection request and
increases funding for night vision devices to meet an unfunded Army requirement.39
Questions Likely About Funding For Joint Improvised
Explosive Device Defeat Fund
In FY2008, DOD is requesting an additional $4.0 billion for the Joint Improvised
Explosive Device Defeat Fund, similar to the FY2007 level, for a special new transfer
account set up in recent years to coordinate research, production and training of ways
to combat Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), the chief threat to U.S. forces. With
36 (...continued)
a l l a p p r o p r i a t i o n s , F e b r u a r y 2007; [http:// www. d e f e n s e l i n k. mi l /
c o m p t r o l l e r / d e f b u d g e t / f y 2 0 0 8 / f y 2 0 0 7 _ s u p p l e m e n t a l / F Y 2 0 0 8 _ G l o b a l
_War_On_Terror_Request/FY_2008_GWOT _Request_-_Funding_Summary
_(All_Appropriations).pdf]. For MRAP funding, see Other Procurement accounts of each
service and Defensewide and Procurement, Marine Corps in Office of the Secretary of
Defense, Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Global War on Terror Request, Exhibits for FY2008,
Exhibit P-1, Procurement, February 2007; [http://www.defenselink.mil/comptroller
/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Global_War_On_Terror_Request/FY
_2008_GWOT_Request_-_Funding_Summary_(All_Appropriations).pdf].
37 CRS calculation based on H.Rept. 110-107, conference report on H.R. 1591, April 24,
2007; see Congressional Record, April 24, 2007.
38 H.Rept. 110-146, pp. 427 and 466-467.
39 S.Rept. 110-77, pp. 509-510.
CRS-29
the funding approved in the FY2007 Supplemental (H.R. 2206/P.L.110-28), the Joint
IED Defeat Fund would receive a total of $9.1 billion.40 If the FY2008 request is
approved, the total would reach $13.1 billion.
Although Congress has been supportive of this area and endorsed DOD’s request
in the FY2007 Supplemental, both houses have raised concerns about the management
practices of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO)
including its financial practices, its lack of a spending plan, service requests that
duplicate JIEDDO work, and its inability to provide specific information to Congress.
In the original FY2007 Supplemental conference report, the conferees note that
Congress “will be hard-pressed to fully fund future budget requests unless the
JIEDDO improves its financial management practices and its responses” suggesting
that the FY2008 request could be met with some skepticism.41 The FY2008 GWOT
justification is almost identical to that for the FY2007 Supplemental.
Congressional Action. The House endorsed DOD’s request for an additional
$4 billion for the Joint IED Defeat Fund. The SASC approved the request but also
transferred $500 million funded in the base budget for that fund to Title XV
considering all funds in the fund to be war-related. In response to concerns raised by
the GAO as well as the appropriators about the management of the funds, including
duplication with service programs, lack of an overall strategy, and organizational
structure, the SASC requires a management plan for the office from DOD within 60
days of enactment. The SASC also calls on the office to provide $50 million in funds
and work with other DOD offices on blast injury research and treatment on medical
responses to IEDs as well as requiring a report on these efforts by March 1, 2008.42
Oversight Concerns About Cost to Train and Equip Afghan
and Iraqi Security Forces
For training and equipping, the FY2008 GWOT request includes an additional
$2.7 billion to expand Afghanistan’s 31,000 man Army and 60,000 man police force
and an additional $2.0 billion for more equipment and training for Iraq’s 136,000 man
Army and 192,000 man police force. Including the funds in the FY2007
Supplemental would bring the total to $19.2 billion for Iraq and $10.6 billion for
Afghanistan.
Although the FY2008 GWOT requests are considerably lower than the amounts
requested for FY2007 — $2 billion vs. $5.5 billion for Iraq and $2.7 billion vs. $7.4
40 This includes $1.5 billion in FY2005, $3.3 billion in FY2006, and $4.3 billion in FY2007
including the FY2007 Supplemental; see DOD, FY2007 Emergency Supplemental Request
for the Global war on Terror, February 2007, p. 28.
41 H.Rept. 110-107, p. 133; H.Rept. 110-60, p. 106; S.Rept. 110-37, pp. 25-27; in the
Congressional Record, May 24, 2007 (p. H5806), House Appropriations Chair Obey
includes materials instructing DOD to follow the committee reports for H.R. 1591 unless
the final version of H.R. 2206 differs; there was no conference report on the final version
of H.R. 2206.
42 S.Rept. 110-77, pp. 516-517 and Sec. 1510, S. 1510.
CRS-30
billion for Afghanistan — Congress has voiced concerns about the progress and the
total cost to complete this training. While the final version of the FY2007
supplemental dropped a House-proposal to set a 50% limit on obligations until various
reports were submitted, OMB is required to submit report every 90 days on the use of
funds and estimate of the total cost to train Iraq and Afghan Security forces within 120
days of enactment. The FY2007 Supplemental also requires that an independent
organization assess the readiness and capability of Iraqi forces to bring “greater
security to Iraq’s 18 provinces in the next 12 -18 months....” 43
Congressional Action. The House endorses the funding request but requires
various reports on progress in training Iraqi security forces within 90 days of
enactment and every three months thereafter (Sec. 1225, Title XII) as well as requiring
a report on progress toward security and stability in Afghanistan within 90 days of
enactment (Sec. 1232, Title XII).
Like the House, the SASC approves DOD’s funding request but requires
quarterly reports, prior congressional notification of transfers from the funds, and the
concurrence of the Secretary of State for assistance provided from the Afghanistan
Security Forces Fund or the Iraq Security Forces Fund.44
Coalition Support and Commanders Emergency Response
Program
In FY2008, DOD requests $1.7 billion for coalition support for U.S. allies like
Pakistan and Jordan which conduct border counter-terror operations, and for the U.S.
to provide lift to its allies. DOD also requests $1 billion for the Commanders
Emergency Response Program (CERP) where individual commanders can fund small-
scale development projects, in both cases funding levels similar to FY2007.
While Congress has consistently supported the CERP program, it has voiced
skepticism about the amounts requested for coalition support. In FY2007, for
example, Congress has proposed cutting the Administration’s request for $950 million
to $500 million on the grounds that DOD has not defined the use of these funds for
a new “Global train and equip” program authorized in FY2006.45
Congressional Action. The House reauthorized CERP but did not set a
funding limit on the program and did not address coalition support limits.
Unlike the House, the SASC sets a $977 million cap for the Commanders’
Emergency Response Program (CERP), DOD’s request. The SASC also supports the
$1.4 billion limit on coalition support to reimburse allies and a $400 million limit on
“lift and sustain” funds to provide support services to nations supporting OIF and OEF
operations as requested (see S. 1510, Sec. 1532 and Sec. 1533).
43 H.Rept. 110-107, Sec. 1313 and Sec. 1320 of H.R. 1591 and H.Rept. 110-60, p. 101; see
also Congressional Record, May 24, 2007, p. H5776ff.
44 S.Rept. 110-77, p.506, sections 1511 and 1512.
45 H.Rept. 110-107, p. 126; see also H.Rept. 110-37, p. 22.
CRS-31
Military Construction Overseas and Permanent Basing
Concerns
For war-related military construction and family housing, DOD requests $908
million in FY2008 compared to $1.8 billion in FY2007. Although the funding level
is lower than the previous year, the same concerns about permanent basing in Iraq are
likely to arise. Some of the FY2008 projects have been requested previously — such
as building bypass roads, power plants and wastewater treatment plants in Iraq and
providing relocatable barracks to replace temporary housing and constructing fuel
storage facilities to replace temporary fuel bladders.46
Although Congress approved most of the projects requested in the FY2007
supplemental, the FY2007 supplemental included a prohibition on obligating or
expending any funds for permanent stationing of U.S. forces in Iraq. In the past,
Congress has rejected projects similar to those requested in FY2008 as insufficiently
justified or as implying some kind of permanency.
Congressional Action. The House reduced the FY2008 GWOT request for
military construction by $212 million, rejecting utility projects such as power plants
and wastewater collection facilities perceived as indicating a permanent presence.47
The House extends the congressional prohibition on using funds for permanent basing
in Iraq or to control Iraqi oil resources (Sec. 1222, H.R. 1585).
The SASC approved all DOD’s requests for projects in Iraq and Afghanistan but
transferred $169 million requested for state-side projects to the base budget.48 Like the
House, the SASC also extends the provision prohibiting the United States from
establishing permanent bases in Iraq or taking control of Iraqi oil resources (Sec.
1531, S. 1547).
Potential issues in the
FY2008 Base Budget Request
Following is a brief summary of some of the other issues that may emerge during
congressional action on the FY2008 defense authorization and appropriations bills,
based on congressional action on the FY2007 funding bills and early debate
surrounding the President’s FY2008 budget request.
! Military Pay Raise. The budget request would give military
personnel a 3% pay raise effective January 1, 2008, thus keeping pace
with the average increase in private-sector wages as measured by the
46 DOD, FY2008 Global War on Terror Request, February 2007, p. 58-60; available at
[http://www.dod.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/fy2007_supplemental/FY2008_Glob
al_War_On_Terror_Request.pdf].
47 H.Rept. 110-146, p. 470.
48 S.Rept. 110-77, pp. 587-588.
CRS-32
Department of Labor’s Employment Cost Index (ECI). Some,
contending that military pay increases have lagged civilian pay hikes
by a cumulative total of 4% over the past two decades or so, have
called for a 3.5% raise to close that so-called pay-gap. Defense
Department officials deny any such pay-gap exists, maintaining that
their proposed 3% increase would sustain their policy of keeping
military pay at about the 70th percentile of pay for civilians of
comparable education and experience. Congress mandated military
pay-raises of ECI plus ½% in FY2000-2006. But for FY2007, the
Administration requested an increase of 2.2%, equivalent to ECI, and
Congress ultimately approved it, rejecting a House-passed increase
to 2.7%.
! Army and Marine Corps End-Strength Increases. The budget
request includes $12.1 billion in the FY2008 base budget and an
additional $4.9 billion in the FY2008 war-fighting budget toward the
Administration’s $112.3 billion plan to increase active-duty end-
strength by 65,000 Army personnel and 27,000 Marines by 2013.
Most of the additional personnel are slated for assignment to newly
created combat brigades and regiments, which would expand the pool
of units that could be rotated through overseas deployments, thus
making it easier for the services to sustain overseas roughly the
number of troops currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This
recommendation marks a new departure for the Administration,
which has resisted for several years calls by the congressional defense
committees for such an increase in troop-strength. On the other hand,
the proposal might be challenged by Members who wonder how the
services, in a time of tightening budgets, will afford the roughly $13
billion annual cost of the additional troops. The proposal also might
be opposed by Members skeptical of future extended deployments on
the scale of the current missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
! Tricare Fees and Co-pays. For the second year in a row, the
Administration’s budget proposes to increase fees, co-payments and
deductibles charged retirees under the age of 65 by Tricare, the
Defense Department’s medical insurance program for active and
retired service members and their dependents. The increases are
intended to restrain the rapid increase in the annual cost of the
Defense Health Program, which is projected to reach $64 billion by
FY2015. The budget request also reduces the health program budget
by $1.9 billion, the amount the higher fees are expected to generate.
The administration contends that these one-time increases would
compensate for the fact that the fees have not be adjusted since they
were set in 1995. The Administration also is requesting a provision
of law that would index future increases in Tricare fees to the average
rate of increase in health care premiums nationwide. As was the case
last year, the Administration proposal is vehemently opposed by
organizations representing service members and retirees, which
contend that the Defense Department has failed to adequately
consider other cost-saving moves and that retiree medical care on
CRS-33
favorable terms is appropriate, considering the unique burdens that
have been borne by career soldiers and their dependents. Any future
Tricare fee increases, some groups contend, should be indexed to
increases in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rather than to the much
more rapid rise in health insurance premiums. Last year, Congress
blocked the proposed fee increases for one year and established a
study group to consider alternative solutions to the problem of rising
defense health costs. That panel is slated to issue interim
recommendations in May, 2007.49
! National Guard Representation on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A
number of National Guard units have been stripped of equipment
needed for other units deploying to Iraq, leaving the units at home ill-
prepared either to train for their military mission or to execute their
domestic emergency role as the agent of their state governor. Some
Members of Congress and organizations that speak for the Guard
contend that this situation reflects the regular forces’ dismissive
attitude toward Guard units, which should be counterbalanced by
making the Chief of the National Guard Bureau a member of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, and elevating him to highest military rank — general
(4 stars) — from his current rank of lieutenant general (3 stars).
Congress has rejected these proposals before, but in March a
congressionally chartered commission studying National Guard and
reserve component issues endorsed the higher rank, while opposing
the Joint Chiefs membership.
! National Guard Stryker Brigades. Governors, Members of
Congress and National Guard officials from several states have called
on Congress to equip additional Guard combat units with the Stryker
armored combat vehicle, which currently equips five active-duty
Army brigades and one National Guard brigade (based in
Pennsylvania). Stryker brigades deployed in Iraq report the eight-
wheeled armored cars to be rugged under fire and agile; and because
they move on oversize tires rather than metal caterpillar tracks like
the big M-1 tanks and Bradley troop carriers that equip some Guard
units, Strykers would be more versatile in domestic disaster-response
missions, since they could travel on streets and roads without tearing
them up. Perhaps as important as the Stryker units’ vehicular
capability is the surveillance and information network that is part of
a Stryker brigade. It cost about $1.2 billion to equip the Pennsylvania
Guard unit as a Stryker brigade.
! Future Combat Systems. The FY2008 budget request contains $3.7
billion to continue development of the Army’s Future Combat System
(FCS), a $164 billion program to develop a new generation of
networked combat vehicles and sensors that GAO and other critics
49 See CRS Report RS22402, Increases in Tricare Fees: Background and Options for
Congress, by Richard A. Best Jr.
CRS-34
repeatedly have cited as technologically risky. That critique may
account for the fact that, last year, Congress cut $326 million from
the Administration’s $3.7 billion FY2007 request for the program.
Ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan also highlight the
concern of some that FCS will be a more efficient way to fight the
kind of armored warfare at which U.S. forces already excel while
offering no clear advantage in fighting the sort of counter-insurgency
operations that may be a major focus of U.S. ground operations for
some time to come.50 Particularly because the FY2008 request
includes the first installment of procurement money for FCS ($100
million), critics may try once again to slow the project’s pace, at least
for the more technologically exotic components not slated for
deployment within the next five years.
! Nuclear Power for Warships. Congress may use the FY2008 bills
to continue pressing the Navy to resume the construction of nuclear-
powered surface warships. All U.S. subs commissioned since 1959
have had nuclear-powerplants because they give subs the extremely
useful ability to remain submerged, and thus hard to detect, for weeks
at a time. All aircraft carriers commissioned since 1967 also have
been nuclear-powered ships. But because nuclear-powered surface
ships cost significantly more to build and operate than oil-powered
ships of comparable size, the Navy has built no nuclear-powered
surface vessels since 1980, and has had none in commission since
1999. Proponents of nuclear power long have contended that this
focus on construction costs has unwisely discounted the operational
advantages of surface combatants that could steam at high speed for
long distances, without having to worry about fuel consumption. In
recent years, they have cited rising oil prices to argue that nuclear-
powered ships may not be much more expensive to operate than oil-
fueled vessels. In 2006, a Navy study mandated by the FY2006
defense authorization bill (P.L. 109-163, Section 130) concluded that
nuclear power would add about $600 million to $700 million to the
cost of a medium-sized warship, like the Navy’s planned CG(X)
cruiser, and that such a ship’s operating cost would be only 0-10%
higher than an oil-powered counterpart, provided crude oil costs
$74.15 or more, per barrel (as it did a various times during 2006).51
Congress might add to the FY2008 bills provisions that would require
certain kinds of warships to be nuclear-powered in the future.
Alternatively, it might require the Navy to design both oil-powered
and nuclear-powered versions of the CG(X), the first of which is
slated for funding in the FY2011 budget.
50 See CRS Report RL32888, The Army’s Future Combat System: Background and Issues
for Congress, by Andrew Feickert.
51 See CRS Report RL33946, Navy Nuclear-Powered Surface Ships: Background, Issues
and Options for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS-35
! Littoral Combat Ships. Congress will closely scrutinize the Navy’s
most recent restructuring of its plan to bulk up the fleet with a large
number of small, fast Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) intended to use
modular packages of weapons and equipment to perform various
missions. In FY2005-FY2007, Navy budgets funded six LCSs being
built to two different designs by two contractors, Lockheed and
Northrop Grumman. The Navy plans to select one of the two designs
which would account for all the LCSs built beginning in FY2010. But
in March 2007, responding to escalating costs in the first few LCS
ships under construction, the Navy restructured the program,
cancelling contracts for three of the ships already funded and
reducing the number of LCS ships requested in the FY2008 budget
from three to two. In the FY2008 defense bills, Congress might
endorse the Navy’s action, add funds for additional ships in FY2008,
or take additional steps to ensure that LCS construction costs are
under control before additional ships are funded.52
! Virginia-Class Submarines. Members may try to accelerate the
Navy’s plan to begin in FY2012 stepping up the production rate of
Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarines from one ship per
year to two. Because of the scheduled retirement after 30 years of
service of the large number of Los Angeles-class subs commissioned
in the 1980 and 1990s, the Navy’s sub fleet will fall short of the
desired 48 ships (out of a total fleet of 313 Navy vessels) from 2020
until 2033. In addition to approving the Navy’s FY2008 request for
$1.8 billion to build a sub for which nuclear reactors and other
components were funded in earlier years and $703 million for
reactors and components that would be used in subs slated for
funding in future budgets, Congress may add more so-called “long
lead” funding for an additional sub for which most of the funding
would come in FY2009 or FY2010. The Navy says it would need an
additional $400 million down payment in FY2008 to make it feasible
to fund an additional sub in FY2010.53 But Navy officials also argue
that buying an additional sub before 2012 could throw future Navy
budgets out of balance.
! F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter). Congress may reject the
Administration’s proposal to drop development of the General
Electric F-136 jet engine being developed as a potential alternative to
the Pratt & Whitney F-135 engine slated to power the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter. Congress has backed development of an alternate
engine for the F-35 since 1996 and last year rejected the
Administration’s proposal to terminate the program, adding $340
million to the FY2007 defense funding bills to continue the alternate
52 See CRS Report RL33741, Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Oversight Issues
and Options for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
53 See CRS Report RL32418, Navy Attack Submarine Force-Level Goal and Procurement
Rate: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS-36
engine program.54 Defense Department officials, noting that they
would save $1.8 billion by ending the alternate engine program,
contend that because of improvements in the process of designing
and developing jet engines, it would not be imprudent to rely on a
single type of engine to power what likely will be the only U.S.
fighter plane in production after about 2015. Many Members are
skeptical of that argument, citing the poor reliability demonstrated in
the late 1970s by the Pratt & Whitney F-100 engine that powered
both the F-15 and F-16, a problem the caused Congress to mandate
development of an alternative (GE-built) engine. Supporters of the
dual engine approach also contend that competition between the two
engine manufacturers produced significant savings in F-15 and F-16
engine costs, a claim disputed by some analyses.
! C-17 Production and C-5 Upgrades. There appears to be strong
support in Congress for fielding a larger fleet of long-range cargo jets
big enough to heavy Army combat gear than Defense Department
plans would fund. As in past years, the result may be a combination
of congressional actions that would (1) restrict the ability of the Air
Force to retire older C-5A planes and (2) fund additional C-17 planes,
beyond the 190 the Air Force plans to buy. In March 2006, the
Defense Department’s first “post 9/11” review of its long-range
transportation needs concluded that the services’ long-range airlift
needs could be met, with acceptable risk, by the Air Force’s plan to
upgrade fleet of 109 C-5s (divided between “A” and newer “B”
models) and to buy a total of 180 C-17s. Rejecting the department’s
analysis on several grounds, Congress barred retirement of any C-5s
and added 10 C-17s to the FY2007 defense funding bills. The most
conspicuous change in this issue since then has been the
Administration’s decision to enlarge the Army and Marine Corps, a
move which, arguably, requires a larger airlift fleet.55
! Air Force Tanker Procurement. The $315 million requested in
FY2008 to develop a new mid-air refueling tanker to replace the Air
Force KC-135s well into their fifth decade of service may become a
vehicle for congressional action intended to bolster the position of
either Boeing or the team of Northrop Grumman and Airbus, who are
competing for the contract in a contest scheduled to be decided late
in 2007. Immediately at issue is a contract for 179 refueling planes.
But follow-on contracts may bring the number of planes ultimately
purchased to 540. 56
54 See CRS Report RL33390, Proposed Termination of Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) F136
Alternate Engine, by Christopher Bolkcom.
55 See CRS Report RS20915, Strategic Airlift Modernization, by Christopher Bolkcom.
56 See CRS Report RS20941, Air Force Aerial Refueling, by Christopher Bolkcom.
CRS-37
! New Nuclear Warhead. Differences over the future role of nuclear
weapons in U.S. national security planning may crystalize into a
debate over the $119 million requested in the FY2008 national
defense budget to continue development of a so-called Reliable
Replacement Warhead (RRW), which is intended to replace warheads
that were built in the 1970s and 1980s and have been kept in service
longer than initially planned. That total includes $89 million for the
National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of
Energy and $30 million for the Navy. The new warhead is intended
to be easier to maintain than aging types now in service and to be
deployable without breaking the moratorium on nuclear test
explosions the U.S. government has observed since 1992. Supporters
argue that RRW is needed because of concerns that maintenance of
currently deployed warheads may prove increasingly difficult in the
long term. On the other hand, critics of the RRW program contend
that fielding new warheads of an untested type might build political
pressure to resume testing eventually. Moreover, they contend, that
the program to extend the service life of existing warheads without
testing has proven successful for more than a decade and should
become even more reliable because of advances in understanding of
the physics of current weapons. Since the funds requested in FY2008
would allow the RRW program to cross a critical threshold, from
design and cost analysis to the start of detailed development work,
Members who want to rein in the program have a strong incentive to
use the FY2008 funding bills to do it.57
! Non-Nuclear Trident Missile Warhead. Months after Congress
denied most of the $127 million requested in FY2007 to develop a
non-nuclear warhead for the Trident long-range, submarine-launched
ballistic missile, the administration has requested $175 million for the
program in FY2008. The argument in favor of the program is that it
would allow U.S. forces to quickly strike urgent or mobile targets
anywhere in the world, even if no U.S. forces were located nearby.
On the other hand, some skeptics of the program argue that the
system would require precise, virtually real-time intelligence about
targets that may not be available and that other countries — including
some like Russia and China that are armed with long-range, nuclear-
armed missiles — might misinterpret the launch of a conventionally-
armed U.S. missile as an indication that they were under nuclear
attack. Some Members may try to slow the program, as Congress did
last year.58
57 See CRS Report RL32929, The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program: Background
and Current Developments, and CRS Report RL33748, Nuclear Warheads: The Reliable
Replacement Warhead Program and the Life Extension Program, both by Jonathan Medalia.
58 See CRS Report RL33067, Conventional Warheads for Long-Range Ballistic Missiles:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Amy F. Woolf.
CRS-38
! Missile Defense Budget. If only because it is the largest acquisition
program in the budget, the $8.9 billion requested in FY2008 for the
Missile Defense Agency would draw close scrutiny because of the
stringent budget limits within which the defense committees are
working. But there also may be some efforts to cut that request that
are rooted in the long-running debate that continues over how soon
missile defense would be needed, and over the relative effectiveness
of the many anti-missile systems under development. Efforts are
likely to reduce funding for some of the more technologically
challenging programs, such as the Airborne Laser (ABL), which has
encountered several delays and for which the Administration has
requested $549 million in FY2008.59 Another possible target for
congressional cuts is the $300 million requested to begin work on a
third anti-missile site in Eastern Europe. Touted by the
Administration as a defense against a possible threat from Iran, the
proposal to field anti-missile interceptors in Poland has been
denounced by Russia.
! Revisiting BRAC. Because of well-publicized cases of inadequate
care received by some Iraq War veterans at Walter Reed Army
Medical Center, which is slated for realignment as one of the
recommendations made by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure
(BRAC) Commission, and approved by President George W. Bush,
critics of some other BRAC actions may be encouraged to try to slow
or reverse those decisions. If successful, such efforts might unravel
the entire base closure process, which was designed to prevent
Members from politicking to save any one particular base from
closure. Since 1989, the requirement that Congress and the President
deal with each of the four sets of recommended closures as a package,
on a “take it or leave it” basis, has highlighted the potential savings
of the entire package of closures while preventing supporters of any
one base from rounding up support for saving their site from closure
on the grounds that, considered in isolation, closing it would save
very little. But since the furor over Walter Reed has at least prompted
some public calls for reconsidering that particular BRAC decision,
critics of other closures may argue that changes in circumstance since
2005 require a re-look at other parts of the BRAC package. In
addition, jurisdictions anticipating a large population influx as they
acquire organizations formerly housed at installations being closed,
may seek impact assistance to expand their transportation, utility,
housing and education infrastructures.
! Contract Oversight. Because of several recent cases in which high
profile weapons acquisition programs have been hobbled by
escalating costs and technical shortcomings, Members may want to
review the management of individual programs and the evolution
59 See CRS Report RL32123, Airborne Laser (ABL): Issue for Congress, by Christopher
Bolkcom and Stephen A. Hildreth.
CRS-39
over the past decade or so of the Defense Department’s acquisition
management process with an eye toward using the FY2008 funding
bills to strengthen the government’s hand in dealing with industry.
Secretary of the Navy Donald C. Winter and Chief of Naval
Operations Adm. Michael G. Mullen have declared that the Navy
intends to reclaim some of the authority over ship design it has ceded
to industry and Members may look for ways to jump-start that effort
as they deal with, for instance, the troubled Littoral Combat Ship
(LCS) program. Similarly, Members intent on imposing
congressional priorities on the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS)
may question the amount of managerial discretion the Army has
vested in the Lead System Integrator: a private entity — in this case,
a team of Boeing and SAID — hired to manage a large, complex
program that consists of more than a dozen vehicles and sensors
linked by a computer network. One rationale for the outsourcing to
industry of management roles previously filled by Pentagon
acquisition managers is that the Defense Department no longer has
the in-house expertise needed to manage such complicated
acquisitions. Some Members may want the Defense Department to
come up with a long-term plan to restore enough in-house expertise
to make the government a smarter customer.60
Bill-by-Bill Synopsis of
Congressional Action to Date
Congressional Budget Resolution
Congress has completed, work on the annual congressional budget resolution,
which includes recommended ceilings for FY2008 and the following four fiscal years
on budget authority and outlays for national defense and other broad categories (or
“functions”) of the federal government. These functional ceilings are neither binding
on the Appropriations committees nor do they formally constrain the authorizing
committees in any way. But the budget resolution’s ceiling on the so-called “050
function” — the budget accounts funding the military activities of DOD and the
defense-related activities of the Department of Energy and other agencies — may
indicate the general level of support in each chamber for the President’s overall
defense budget proposal.
The House version of the budget resolution (H.Con.Res. 99), adopted March 29,
2007 by a vote of 216-210 that broke basically along party lines, recommended for
FY2008 a ceiling of $507 billion in budget authority for the 050 function and an
additional allowance of $145 billion for “overseas deployments and other activities.”
Together, the two amounts add up to an overall ceiling on defense-related budget
authority in FY2008 of $652 billion, essentially the amount the President requested.
60 See CRS Report RS22631, Defense Acquisition: Use of Lead System Integrators (LEIS)
— Background, Oversight Issues, and Options for Congress, by Valerie Bailey Grasso.
CRS-40
The House budget resolution also included non-binding policy recommendations that
(1) opposed the Administration’s request to increase retirees’ medical fees and (2)
called for a reduction in the administration’s $9.8 billion budget request for missile
defense.
The Senate version of the budget resolution (S.Con.Res. 21), adopted March 23
by a vote of 52-47 that basically followed party lines, recommended for FY2008 a
ceiling on defense-related budget authority of $649 billion, slightly less than the total
that was requested for both the regular FY2008 defense budget and the cost of
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The conference report on the budget resolution (S.Con.Res. 21) set budget
authority ceilings of $507 billion for the 050 function and an additional $145 billion
for overseas deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Appropriations designated as being
necessary for overseas deployments in excess of $145 billion would be exempt from
budget caps in the House. In the Senate, they would be subject to a point of order
which could be waived by a supermajority of 60 votes.
The conference report also accepted the House-passed provisions opposing the
proposed increase in retirees’ medical fees and calling for a reduction in the missile
defense budget. Both chambers adopted the conference report on May 17, the House
by a vote of 214-209 and the Senate by a vote of 52-40.
FY2008 Defense Authorization: Highlights of the House Bill
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the effort of some Members
of Congress to force a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is one of the most
contentious issues on the country’s political agenda, the version of the FY2008
defense authorization bill passed May 17 by the House (H.R. 1585) includes no
provisions relating to any deadline for ending U.S. deployments in Iraq. However, the
bill would require several reports on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The bill would require the top U.S. military commander in Iraq and the U.S.
ambassador to provide Congress with a detailed assessment of the situation in that
country covering various issues, including an assessment of Iraqi security forces and
a review of trends in attacks by insurgents and Al Qaeda fighters on U.S. and allied
forces.
The bill also includes several provisions focused on operations in Afghanistan,
including a requirement the Secretary of Defense send Congress a detailed plan for
achieving sustained, long-term stability in that country. The bill also would require
creation of a special inspector general to oversee U.S.-funded reconstruction efforts
in Afghanistan, paralleling the office that has uncovered instances of waste and fraud
in Iraqi reconstruction efforts.
In addition, the bill would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
to review the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Organization, created to coordinate
efforts to neutralize roadside bombs and car bombs, which have been responsible for
more U.S. troop fatalities in Iraq than any other factor. The bill also would cut from
CRS-41
the military construction request $212 million for facilities such as powerplants and
wastewater treatment plants which, the House Armed Services Committee said in its
report on H.R. 1585 (H.Rept. 110-146), implied an intention to continue U.S.
deployments for a prolonged period.
Other FY2008 Defense Budget Issues. Some of the hundreds of changes
the House made to the President’s FY2008 defense request in H.R. 1585 reflect
broader themes, some of which the House has struck in its action on earlier defense
budget requests:
The bill would fund the proposed expansion of the active-duty Army and Marine
Corps and would compensate the troops more generously. After years of rejecting
recommendations by many Members to increase the number of ground troops, the
Administration has launched a plan to increase the permanent end-strength of the
Army and Marine Corps by a total of 92,000 troops by 2012. H.R. 1585 would
authorize the two services to accelerate the buildup, but would not require them to do
so. In addition to funding that end-strength increase, the bill would increase military
pay by 3.5%, instead of the 3.0% increase requested, and would bar for the second
year in a row a proposed increase in medical care fees for retirees.
It would mandate several actions intended to improve the quality of military
medical care, particularly for service members in outpatient status. The bill
incorporates the text of H.R. 1538, the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007,
passed by the House March 28, 2007, among the provisions of which are (1)
requirements for more proactive management of outpatient service members, (2)
requirements for regular inspections of housing facilities occupied by recovering
service members and reports on other aspects of military medical care, and (3) a one-
year ban on the privatization of jobs at any military medical facility.
The bill would shore up current combat capabilities, in part with funds diverted
from the budget request for technologically advanced weapons programs that promise
increased military capability in the future. It would add funds to the requests for anti-
missile systems designed to protect forces in the field from the sort of short-range and
medium-range missiles deployed (or nearly deployed) by potential adversaries such
as North Korea and Iran. At the same time, it would slice funding from the amounts
requested for the Airborne Laser and for development of space-based anti-missile
weapons, more innovative weapons intended for use against long-range missiles that
those adversaries have not yet fielded. Similarly, it would cut several hundred million
dollars from the request for the Army’s Future Combat System program, targeting
some of its more exotic elements, while adding funds to expand production of Stryker
armored combat vehicles and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) troop
carriers. It also would extend production of the C-17, long-range, wide-body cargo
jet, adding funds for 10 more airplanes.
The House bill would slow some acquisition programs to allow a more orderly
process of setting their requirements and testing their effectiveness. For instance, the
bill would require an operationally realistic test of the communications and sensor
network that is essential to the Army’s FCS program before the system goes into
production. It also would defer production of a medium-range cargo plan, the Joint
Cargo Aircraft, until the Pentagon completes a study of its requirement for aircraft of
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that type. In addition, the bill would slow development of a new troop carrier, slated
to replace the High-Mobility, Multi-purpose, Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), until
some of the technologies slated for use in the new vehicle are more mature.
The bill also would slow some programs that might draw adverse international
reactions. It would reduce funding for development of a new Reliable Replacement
Warhead (RRW) and for construction of a new production facility for plutonium to
be used in nuclear warheads, programs some have said would complicate U.S. efforts
to bar the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It also would eliminate funding to deploy
anti-missile interceptors in Europe, a plan to which Russia has objected. In addition,
the bill would reduce funding for development of a non-nuclear warhead for Trident
submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the launch of which — some critics warn —
might be mistakenly interpreted as the launch of a nuclear attack.
Some other highlights of H.R. 1585 include the following:
! Tricare Fee Freeze. As the FY2007 authorization bill did, this bill
would bar for one year proposed increases in Tricare fees (including
pharmacy fees). The House Armed Services Committee noted that a
commission appointed to study alternative Tricare cost controls is not
scheduled to complete its work until the end of the year. The bill also
would authorize an increase in Tricare funding by $1.9 billion, the
amount by which Pentagon officials reduced the Tricare budget
request in anticipation of the higher fees.
! Health Care Improvements. The bill would create an initiative to
improve care of service members suffering traumatic brain injury,
which is a relatively frequent result of roadside bomb attacks on U.S.
vehicles in Iraq. It also would allow the Navy to reduce its number of
medical personnel by only 410, rather than the reduction of 900 the
budget assumed. The bill also incorporates the provisions of H.R.
1538, the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act of 2007, passed by the
House March 28 which, among many other provisions, would do the
following: mandate the assignment of case managers to outpatient
service members and require regular reviews of their cases; create
toll-free hotlines on which service members and their families can
report deficiencies in military-support facilities; establish
standardized training programs for Defense Department personnel
engaged in evaluating wounded service members for possible
discharge on grounds of disability; establish a separate fund to
support the treatment of wounded or injured service members and
their return to service or their transition to civilian life; mandate
development of policies to reduce the likelihood that personnel in
combat will experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or
other stress-related illnesses; require regular inspections of all living
quarters occupied by service members recovering from wounds; and
prohibit for one year any effort to convert jobs at a military medical
facility from military to civilian positions. In addition, the bill would
require a long-term longitudinal study of health and behavioral
problems experienced by service members deployed in Iraq and
CRS-43
Afghanistan. It also would require that the annual budget for Walter
Reed Army Medical Center not be reduced below the level spent in
FY2006 until replacement facilities are available to provide the same
level of care provided at Walter Reed in that year.
! National Guard and Reserve Issues. The bill would elevate the
chief of the National Guard Bureau, a position that currently carries
with it the rank of lieutenant general, to the rank of general, and
would designate that officer as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense
and the Secretary of Homeland Security. However, the bill would not
make the Guard Bureau chief a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
as some supporters of the National Guard have advocated. The bill
also would authorize an addition of $1.1 billion to the $1.1 billion
requested for equipment for the National Guard and reserve
component forces, an increase intended to address equipment
shortfalls. budget in order to fill Guard and reserve equipment
shortages. The chief of the National Guard Bureau has estimated that,
for the Guard alone, equipment shortfalls would cost $2 billion to fill.
In addition, the bill would authorize the addition of $30 million to
upgrade the engines on F-16s flown by National Guard squadrons.
The bill also would require the Secretary of Defense to send Congress
quarterly reports on the readiness of National Guard units to perform
both their wartime mission and the domestic missions the would be
called on in response to a natural disaster or domestic disturbance. It
also would require the Army to submit to Congress a report on the
desirability of equipping additional National Guard units with Stryker
vehicles.
! Training. The bill would authorize an additional $250 million for
training not covered by the budget request. The committee warned
that the readiness of ground combat forces in particular was suffering
because their training was focused heavily on the type of mission they
would perform in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than on the full
spectrum of missions they might have to execute.
! Maintenance and Readiness. The bill would add to the budget
request $165 million for additional major overhauls of ships, planes,
vehicles and electronic equipment beyond what the budget would
cover. It also would create a $1 billion Strategic Readiness Fund to
allow the services to address equipment shortages that resulted in
critical readiness shortfalls. To better focus attention on readiness
problems, the bill would create a Defense Readiness Production
Board to identify shortages of equipment or supplies anticipated to
last for two years or longer. It also requires DOD to report the current
readiness of ground forces and prioritize the steps that will be taken
to improve the state of readiness.
! Special Forces Priorities. Several provisions of the bill reflect a
concern by some Members that the services’ special operations forces
have been emphasizing “direct action” (efforts to kill or capture
CRS-44
terrorists) at the expense of “indirect action” (training other countries’
security forces and developing working relationships with them to
help set conditions that inhibit the spread of terrorism). The bill
would require the Special Operations Command to send Congress an
annual report on its plan to meet its requirements for indirect action.
It also would authorize additional funds for “irregular warfare
support” research aimed at better understanding radical Islamist
strategies and the cultures in which terrorists seek a foothold.
! Civilian Employees. The bill would change the rules governing so-
called A-76 cost competitions to determine whether functions
currently performed by federal employees should be contracted out
to private companies. The House Armed Services Committee said
that the changes, which would tend to advantage federal employees
in such a contest, were needed to ensure a fair and balanced cost
comparison. The bill also would require a recently created personnel
system for civilian DOD employees to provide rights of collective
bargaining and appeal rights which are provided by the civil service
system. It also would impose limits on the new system’s “pay for
performance” compensation rules.
! Armored Troop Carriers. The bill would increase by $4.1 billion
— to $4.6 billion — the amount authorized to equip Army, Marine
Corps and Special Operations units with Mine Resistant Ambush
Protected (MRAP) vehicles, shaped and armored to better protect
troops from roadside bombs. It approved the requests for $2.3 billion
to buy armored HMMWV vehicles and $1.1 billion for add-on armor
to protect personnel in other vehicles from roadside bombs.
! Ground Combat Vehicles. The bill would cut $857 million from the
$3.56 billion requested to continue developing the Army’s Future
Combat System (FCS), a networked set of ground vehicles,
unmanned aircraft and sensors that would make up the next
generation of ground combat equipment. FCS supporters contended
that the cut would cripple the program; but proponents of the
reduction contended that the cuts were aimed at more exotic
components not slated to enter service for years, sparing elements of
FCS that would be available sooner. The bill also approved the
request for $4 billion to upgrade M-1 tanks and Bradley armored
troops carriers currently in service. It would authorize $88 million of
the $288 million requested for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a
Marine Corps effort to develop a new amphibious combat vehicle,
work on which has been suspended pending a DOD review.
! Communication Programs Slowed. The bill would cut $2.1 billion
from the $2.6 billion requested for the Joint Network Node (JNN), an
effort to develop for ground troops an internet-based mobile voice,
video and data link that would be used pending development of a
more ambitious communications network system designated
Warfighter Information Network - Tactical (WIN-T). The House
CRS-45
Armed Services Committee contended that JNN could not usefully
absorb the amount requested. Moreover, the committee insisted that
JNN, which had been launched as an interim system start managed
under relatively informal procedures, begin to operate under the more
demanding procedures applied to major systems purchases and that
the procurement of future lots of the system by competed. The bill
also would cut $102 million from the $222 million requested to
develop the follow-on communication system, WIN-T. On the other
hand, the bill authorized the $964 million requested to develop a
satellite-based, long-range communications network linked by lasers.
! Combat Jets. The bill would authorize production 11 of the 12 F-35
tri-service fighters requested. It would use the $230 million thus
saved from the $2.7 billion F-35 procurement request plus $250
million diverted from the $3.5 billion R&D request to continue
development of an alternative jet engine, a project the budget would
terminate. The bill also would authorize the amounts requested for 20
Air Force F-22 fighters ($3.2 billion, plus $744 million for R&D) and
18 EA-18Gs, which are electronic-jamming versions of the Navy’s
F/A-18E/F fighter ($1.3 billion, plus $273 million for R&D). It would
authorize 33 of the 36 F/A-18E/Fs requested ($2.6 billion, a $182
million reduction from the request).
! Long-Range Cargo Jets. The bill would add to the budget $2.4
billion for 10 additional C-17 wide-body, long-range cargo jets.
DOD’s budget would have ended production of the planes, as would
its FY2007 budget, which Congress also overrode to keep the C-17
production line running. In addition, the bill would repeal existing
law that bars DOD from retiring any of its C-5 cargo jets. The bill
would allow the Air Force to begin retiring older C-5s once the
production of C-17s, plus remaining C-5s comprised a total
long-range cargo fleet of 299 planes.
! Shipbuilding. The bill included a provision requiring that all new
classes of cruisers, submarines and aircraft carriers be
nuclear-powered, although the requirement could be waived in any
case in which the Secretary of Defense determined it not to be in the
national interest. The bill added to the budget request $1.7 billion for
a San Antonio-class amphibious landing transport (in addition to the
$1.4 billion requested for one of the ships), $400 million for a T-AKE
class supply ship (in addition to the $456 million requested for one),
and $588 million to buy the nuclear power plant and other
components of an additional Virginia-class submarine, for which the
bulk of the funds would have to be provided in a future budget (in
addition to the $1.8 billion approved as requested for one sub and the
$703 million requested for another set of long-leadtime sub
components). The bill also authorized $7ll million for two smaller
warships, designated LCS, which is what the Navy wanted after it
dropped from its FY2008 budget request funding for a third ship of
the class because of escalating costs in construction of earlier ships
CRS-46
of the type. The committee also directed the Navy to report on the
underlying causes of the LCS cost-overruns and on steps that were
being taken to prevent their recurrence. The bill also authorized the
amounts requested to begin work on a nuclear-powered carrier ($2.7
billion), to complete two DDG-1000-class destroyers that were partly
funded in the FY2007 budget and to buy components for use in future
ships of this type ($2.8 billion), and to complete a helicopter carrier
designed to support amphibious landings, some funds for which were
provided in the FY2007 budget ($1.4 billion).
! Missile Defense. The bill would cut a total of $764 million from the
$8.8 billion requested for the Missile Defense Agency. The largest cut
in a single missile defense program was $250 million cut from the
$548 million requested to continue development of an airborne laser
(ABL). The bill also would cut $160 million from the $300 million
requested to field in Eastern Europe a third cluster of anti-missile
interceptor rockets. The cut would block construction of the planned
launch silos in Poland. The bill also would authorize a total of $2.5
billion, slightly more than was requested, for Patriot and Aegis
systems designed to protect U.S. forces and allies against short-range
and medium-range missiles currently deployed by North Korea, Iran
and many other countries. It would deny $10 million requested to
begin development of space-based anti-missile interceptor missiles.
! Nuclear Weapons and Non-proliferation. The bill would cut $45
million from the $119 million requested to develop a new nuclear
warhead — the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) — to replace
aging warheads current deployed. The House Armed Services
Committee said it wanted to slow development of the new weapon
pending a report on future U.S. nuclear weapons deployments, which
the bill would create a blue-ribbon panel to prepare. The bill also
would authorize $142 million of the $175 million requested to
develop a non-nuclear warhead for the Trident submarine-launched
missile. The committee wanted to defer production of the weapon
pending study of how it would be used and how the risk could be
minimized that launch of a conventionally-armed Trident would be
misinterpreted as nuclear attack.
! Roles and Missions. The bill would require the Defense Department
to review every four years the division of labor — the allocation of
“roles and missions” — among the four armed services and other
Pentagon agencies, identifying the “core competencies” of each
service or agency. It also would make several changes in the Defense
Department’s long-range budget and weapons planning processes
with the aim of ensuring that future weapons programs be given the
go-ahead only if they met the requirements of an agreed-on mission
and were to be used by an organization with the appropriate core
competency to perform that mission. The bill also would direct the
Secretary of Defense to decide whether or not to designate one of the
armed services to manage all medium altitude and high altitude
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unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) programs, for the sake of efficiency.
Air Force officials have contended that their service should get that
role, a move the other services have strongly opposed.
! Prospective Ban on Future Use of LSIs. The bill would prohibit the
awarding of new contracts for any Lead System Integrator (LSI) on
a major system, as of the start of FY2011. The bill would require the
Secretary of Defense to send Congress by October 1, 2008 a plan to
develop among government acquisition employees the skills needed
to perform “inherently governmental functions” in managing major
acquisition programs.
! Environmental Issues. The bill would require future periodic
revisions of long-range national strategic plans to take account of the
impact on U.S. interests of global climate change. The committee
said that the strategic, social, political and economic consequences of
climate change could increase political instability in parts of the
world. The bill also would require GAO to report on the extent to
which the readiness of U.S. forces has improved as the result of
several waivers from various environmental laws granted to the
Defense Department.
Defense Authorization: Highlights of House Floor Action
House debate on H.R. 1585, which began on May 16 and was concluded May 17,
was governed by a rule (H.Res. 403) that allowed consideration of 50 amendments
covering a wide range of subjects.
Iran Policy. The House rejected two amendments that would have restricted the
use of funds authorized by the bill to plan or carry out military operations against Iran.
An amendment by Representative Andrews of New Jersey that would have prohibited
the use of funds authorized for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to plan
military operations in Iran was rejected by a vote of 202-216. An amendment by
Representative DeFazio, rejected by a vote of 136-288, would have prohibited the use
of funds authorized by the bill from being used for military action against Iraq unless
(1) Congress specifically authorized such an attack or (2) there was a national
emergency resulting from an Iranian attack on U.S. territory, forces or allies.
Ballistic Missile Defense. The House also rejected (1) an amendment by
Representative Tierney that would have cut an additional $1.1 billion from the $8.1
billion authorized for ballistic missile defense (rejected 127-299) and (2) an
amendment by Representative Franks that would have added $764 million to the
missile defense authorization (rejected 199-226). Immediately before it passed the
bill, however, the House adopted by a vote of 394-30 a motion to recommit the bill
to committee with instructions that it be amended to increase the missile defense
authorization by $205 million for projects that would integrate U.S. and Israeli missile
defense programs. A motion to “recommit with instructions” has the practical effect
of an amendment.
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Guantanamo Detainees. An amendment by Representative Moran, requiring the
Pentagon to report to Congress on the capacity of detention facilities at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, and on the number and status of detainees at that facility, was adopted by
a vote of 220-208. An amendment by Representative Holt requiring that the
interrogation of detainees by military personnel be videotaped was rejected by a vote
of 199-229.
BRAC Consequences. An amendment by Representative Moran, specifically
overriding the deadline set by the BRAC process for completing all job relocations
resulting from the most recent round of base closures and realignments, would
prohibit any movement of military or civilian personnel from leased office space in
Arlington, Virginia to Fort Belvoir, Virginia until the secretary of the Army certifies
to Congress that the necessary improvements have been made in the transportation
infrastructure near the latter site.
Following (Table 8) is a summary of House action on selected amendments
offered during floor action on H.R. 1585.
Table 8. House Floor Action on Selected Amendments:
FY2008 Defense Authorization Bill, H.R. 1585
Sponsor
Summary
Outcome
Saxton,
Requires DOD to perform federal background checks for
Included in
LoBiondo,
all unescorted visitors who seek entry to a military
an en bloc
Smith, Andrews
installation or facility, and employees of vendors and/or
amendment;
contractors who do business on a military installation or
Agreed,
facility. The background checks will require a search in the
voice vote
FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database,
confirmation that they are not on a terrorist watch list, and
collaboration with DHS to verify US citizenship status.
Snyder
Increases the funding for the Army National Guard military
Included in
personnel account to fund the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration
an en bloc
Program by $50,000,000, with an offsetting reduction of
amendment;
$50,000,000 from the Air Force JSTARS program.
Agreed,
voice vote
Andrews
Requires DOD to use renewable energy to meet at least
Included in
25% of its electricity needs by 2025, unless the Secretary
an en bloc
determines a waiver is in the best interest of DOD.
amendment;
Agreed,
voice vote
Andrews
Prohibits funds authorized in the bill for the wars in Iraq
Rejected,
and Afghanistan from being obligated or expended to plan
202-216
a contingency operation in Iran .
Franks, Cantor,
Increases by $764 million the amount authorized for
Rejected,
Putnam
ballistic missile defense.
199-226
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Sponsor
Summary
Outcome
Johnson, Jr.,
Increases by $169,000,000 the amount authorized for
Included in
Hank (GA)
construction of medical support facilities at Fort Belvoir,
an en bloc
VA, and Bethesda (MD) Naval Medical Center, to be
amendment;
offset by unspecified reductions in other construction
Agreed,
authorized by the bill.
voice vote
DeFazio,
Prohibits funding authorized by the bill or any other act
Rejected,
Paul, Hinchey,
from being used to take military action against Iran without
136-288
Lee
specific authorization from Congress unless there is a
“national emergency created by an attack by Iran upon the
United States, its territories or possessions or its armed
forces.”
Moran
Requires the Office of the Secretary of Defense to submit a
Agreed,
report identifying the current capacity at Department of
220-208
Defense facilities to securely hold and try before a military
commission the detainees currently held at Guantanamo
Bay. The report shall include the Department’s estimated
number of detainees that will be 1) charged with a crime, 2)
subject to a release or transfer, or 3) held without being
charged with a crime, but whom the Department wishes to
detain. The report shall also describe actions required by
the Secretary and Congress to ensure that detainees who are
scheduled for release are released no later than December
31, 2007.
Woolsey
Requires the Secretary of Defense to issue a report on the
Rejected,
continued use, need, relevance, and cost of weapons
119-303
systems designed to fight the Cold War and the former
Soviet Union .
Moran
Requires that the transportation infrastructure necessary to
Included in
accommodate the large influx of military personnel and
an en bloc
civilian employees to be assigned to Fort Belvoir, VA, as
amendment;
part of the BRAC process, be substantially completed
Agreed,
before the relocation of these employees.
voice vote
Jackson-Lee
Requires the Secretary of Defense to study and report back
Included in
to Congress on the financial and emotional impact of
an en bloc
multiple deployments on the families of those soldiers who
amendment;
serve multiple tours as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and
Agreed,
Operation Enduring Freedom.
voice vote
Jackson-Lee
Requires the Secretary of Defense to take the necessary
Included in
steps to ensure that Army National Guard and Reserve
an en bloc
ROTC scholarships are available to students attending
amendment;
historically black colleges and universities, and
Agreed,
Hispanic-serving institutions.
voice vote
LaHood
Allows a member of the Armed Forces to request a
Included in
deferment of a deployment to a combat zone if their spouse
an en bloc
also is deployed to a combat zone and the couple has minor
amendment;
dependent children.
Agreed,
voice vote
CRS-50
Sponsor
Summary
Outcome
Allen
Requires the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress on
Included in
the Department’s policies on administering and evaluating
an en bloc
multiple vaccinations within a 24-hour period to active
amendment;
duty members and members of the reserve components and
Agreed,
to perform a study on the safety and effectiveness of
voice vote
multiple vaccinations within a 24-hour period.
Tierney
Reduces the $8.1 billion authorized for Missile Defense
Rejected,
Agency (MDA) activities by $1.084 billion from specified
127-299
programs.
Holt
Requires the videotaping of interrogations and other
Rejected,
pertinent interactions between military personnel and/or
199-229
contractors and detainees arrested and held. Provides
access to detainees for representatives of the International
Red Cross and Red Crescent, the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights, and the UN Special Rapporteur on
Torture.
King
Stipulates that the bill’s prohibition on the establishment of
Rejected,
permanent military bases in Iraq in should not be construed
201-219
to prohibit the from establishing a temporary military base
or installation by entering into basing rights agreements
with Iraq.
Michaud,
Includes emergency contraception in the Basic Core
Included in
Langevin,
Formulary, a list of drugs that must be included at all
an en bloc
Ryan, Harman ,
military health care facilities.
amendment;
Shays, Davis,
Agreed,
Sanchez
voice vote
(Loretta)
Lipinski
Requires the Department of Defense, to the maximum
Included in
extent deemed feasible, to install energy efficient lighting
an en bloc
during the normal course of building maintenance or
amendment;
whenever a building is significantly altered or constructed.
Agreed,
voice vote
Braley
Requires the Secretary of Defense to conduct a study of (1)
Included in
the feasability of a pilot program on family support services
an en bloc
for National Guard and Reserve members, and (2) the
amendment;
feasibility of entering into a contract with a private sector
Agreed,
entity to enhance support services for children of National
voice vote
Guard and Reserve members who are deployed.
Walz
Requires the Department of Defense to study and report
Included in
back to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees
an en bloc
within nine months on the participation rate of service
amendment;
members in the federal tuition assistance program and to
Agreed,
assess the extent to which the program affects retention
voice vote
rates.
Administration Objections to the House Version of H.R. 1585
In a Statement of Administration Policy issued May 16, the Office of
Management and Budget objected to several features of H.R. 1585 including the
CRS-51
addition of funds for C-17 cargo planes and other systems not requested, the reduction
in the amounts requested for the Army’s FCS program and others systems, and the
increase from 3% to 3.5% in the annual military pay increase.
The Administration statement specifically warned that the President’s senior
advisers would recommend he veto the final version of the authorization bill if it
included provisions in the House-passed bill that would restore some of the collective
bargaining and grievance rights for DOD civilian employees that had been eliminated
in a recently created personnel system. In the same terms, the statement warned of a
veto if the final bill included provisions of H.R. 1585 that would tighten some existing
restrictions and impose additional restrictions on the Defense Department’s purchases
from foreign companies.
The statement, which was released before House passage of the bill, also warned
of a veto if the House adopted amendments to the bill that would limit the
Administration’s options for dealing with Iran or with detainees at Guantanamo. It did
not specifically say that a veto would be triggered by the amendments regarding Iran
and Guantanamo that the House adopted.
FY2008 Defense Authorization: Highlights of the Senate
Armed Services Committee Bill
The version of the FY2008 defense authorization bill reported June 5 by the
Senate Armed Services Committee (S. 1547) would trim $481.9 million from the
President’s budget, authorizing $648.3 billion. Unlike its House counterpart, however,
the Senate committee shifted billions of dollars between those parts of the bill funding
the Pentagon’s “base budget” — its routine, peacetime expenses — and those parts
funding current combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (namely, Titles XV and
XXIX).
Saying it wanted to clearly identify the cost of the war, the committee transferred
from the cost-of-war sections of the bill to the base budget sections a total of $16
billion. Most of those funds are to cover procurement and military personnel activities
associate with the planned expansion and modernization of the Army and Marine
Corps over the next several years.
On the other hand, the committee shifted from the base budget to Title XV nearly
$4.7 billion to cover expenses it said should be attributed to the cost of war. That
amount included $4 billion to accelerate production of MRAP vehicles intended to
better protect troops against roadside bombs and $500 million (in addition to the $4
billion requested) for the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).
The Senate committee’s bill also would make $2.5 billion in cuts which, the
panel said, would have no adverse impact on Pentagon operations. These reductions
included the following.
CRS-52
! $1.6 billion based on the assumption that lower-than-anticipated
inflation would result in lower-than budgeted costs;
! $682 million which, the committee said, agencies could offset with
funds drawn from unobligated funds left over from prior
appropriations; and
! $208 million intended to reduce the cash balances carried by the
revolving funds that are used to operate several maintenance and
other support activities.
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the bill includes no
provisions calling for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, it would require reports
on several aspects of the U.S. involvement in that region. One provision would
expand the scope of a provision of the John Warner National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2007 that requires the Pentagon to report to Congress the
estimated cost of “resetting” Army units that have been deployed in Iraq of
Afghanistan. The new provision would require that report to include the cost of
resetting the additional units deployed in recent months as part of the troop “surge.”
Another provision of S. 1547 would require that the effect of the troop surge be
factored into another report that was mandated by the FY2007 authorization bill, an
analysis by the GAO of the impact of the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan on the
ability of the Army and Marine Corps to provide the forces needed to carry out the
plans of regional commanders for other contingencies.
S. 1547 would require that DOD report to Congress every six months on the
strategy for achieving U.S. goals in Afghanistan. It also would require reports on (a)
U.S. strategy for encouraging Pakistan to eliminate safe havens for violent Islamist
extremists near its border with Afghanistan and (b) DOD’s efforts to ensure that the
governments of Iraq and neighboring states will protect Iraqi refugees as well as
DOD’s plans to promote protection of such refugees after a drawdown of U.S. troops.
In addition, the bill would require the secretaries of State and Defense, in
coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, to report on the threat posed
to the United States by ungoverned areas as well as on the intelligence capabilities and
skills needed to manage that threat, and what needs to be done to improve the two
departments’ capabilities for that purpose.
Force Expansion and Pay Raise. Like H.R. 1585, the Senate Committee’s
bill supports the Administration’s proposal to expand the active duty Army and
Marine Corps by a total of 92,000 active-duty personnel (compared with their pre-9/11
end-strength) by 2012. The Senate committee bill also would authorize $12.3 billion
in the DOD base budget requested to pay, train, and equip the additional troops
brought into the services by the end of FY2008.
But the Senate Armed Services Committee also expressed concern that the
planned increase might be completed too late to ease the burden imposed on U.S.
forces by deployments to Iraq and that by the time the additional combat units were
ready to deploy, they might no longer be required. On the other hand, the committee
warned, planned manpower reductions in the Navy and Air Force might go too far and
CRS-53
too fast, with those services sacrificing needed personnel to free up funds for new
weapons.
Like the House bill, S. 1547 would compensate the troops more generously than
the budget recommended, authorizing a military pay raise of 3.5% rather than the 3%
raise the administration proposed, at an additional cost of $302 million. In its formal
Statement of Administration Position on H.R. 1585, the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) cited the House bill’s authorization of a 3.5% pay raise as one of many
features of that bill to which it objected.
Tricare and other Health Issues. The Senate committee bill also rejected
the Administration’s proposal to increase Tricare medical insurance fees and
copayments and pharmacy fees for military retirees. It would add $1.9 billion to the
budget for the DOD health care system to compensate for the loss of revenue from
higher fees, which the budget had assumed. The committee said the proposed fee
hikes were premature, pending the report of a DOD Task Force on the Future of
Military Health Care and a GAO audit of DOD health care costs and proposed cost-
saving measures, both of which were mandated by the FY2007 defense authorization
bill. The committee included in the bill a provision requiring that drugs sold through
the Tricare retail pharmacy system be priced at federally discounted prices.
The committee also directed the Secretary of Defense to reevaluate the Navy’s
plan to reduce its corps of medical professionals by more than 900 billets in 2008-12,
in light of the planned addition of 26,000 active-duty personnel to the Marine Corps.
The committee expressed concern over the results of an Army study of the
mental health of soldiers and Marines deployed in Iraq which found that soldiers
deployed more than once experienced higher levels of stress, that lengthy deployments
were associated with higher rates of mental illness and marital problems, that the
suicide rate among soldiers who had been deployed to Iraq in 2003-06 was nearly half
again as high as the Army-wide suicide rate, and that approximately 10% of soldiers
and Marines interviewed reported mistreating non-combatants in Iraq or damaging
their property needlessly.
In its report on S. 1547, the panel directed DOD to report what it was doing to
address the Army study’s findings. The committee also instructed the Secretary of
Defense to assess the effectiveness of assigning mental health professionals to combat
battalions, in hopes of reducing the stigma associated with seeking mental health
services in the military.
On June 14, after it had reported the authorization bill, the Senate
ArmedServicesCommittee reported the Dignified Treatment of Wounded WarriorsAct
(S. 1606), intended to correct shortcomings in DOD’s medical care for outpatients
which had been spotlighted by news reports of problems at Walter Reed Army
Medical Center. On July 12, the Senate adopted by a vote of 94-0 an amendment to
the defense authorization bill that consisted of a modified version of the text of S.
1606.
CRS-54
In its report on S. 1547, the Senate Armed Services Committee also directed the
Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Office (JIEDDO) to spend at least $50
million in FY2008 to fund research on the diagnosis and treatment of blast injuries.
Ballistic Missile Defense. Like the House bill, S. 1547 would reduce overall
funding for ballistic missile defense and would reduce funds for more technologically
advanced defenses against prospective long-range threats while adding funds for
defenses against short-range and medium-range missiles currently deployed by some
hostile countries and capable of striking U.S. forces and allies overseas.
Within a total of $10.1 billion authorized for anti-missile defense (a reduction of
$231 million from the request), the bill would add a total of $315 million to the
amounts requested for systems several defenses against current missile threats,
including the Army’s Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD and the Navy’s Aegis Standard
Missile-3. The largest of several reductions that bill would make to the amounts
requested for more technologically challenging systems was a cut of $200 million
from the $548.8 million requested for the Airborne Laser. The bill also would deny
$10 million requested as an initial step toward developing space-based anti-missile
interceptors.
The bill also would deny the $85 million of the $310 million requested to begin
deployment of anti-missile interceptors in Poland and an associated radar in the Czech
Republic. Calling the proposed deployment “premature,” the committee included in
the bill a provision requiring a federally funded research and development center
(FFRDC) to assess the options for missile defense on Europe. (For a summary of
actions taken on funding levels for principal missile defense programs, see Table A4
in Appendix A)
Another provision would bar deployment in Alaska of more anti-missile
interceptors than the 40 already authorized until the secretary of Defense certifies to
Congress that the anti-missile system has demonstrated in realistic flight tests that it
has a high probability of being operationally effective. Other provisions would require
that the Pentagon’s director of Operational Test and Evaluation have the same access
to test data for missile defenses as for other weapons and that the GAO continue to
report to Congress annually on the missile defense system’s progress toward meeting
its cost, performance and schedule goals.
FCS and other Ground Combat Systems. In contrast to H.R. 1585, which
would cut $867 million from the $3.7 billion requested for the Army’s Future Combat
Systems program, S. 1547 not only approved the request for FCS, but added to it $115
million. Most of the increase was earmarked to resume work on a armed and cargo-
carrying robot vehicles that the Army had dropped from the project, a change the
Senate Armed Services Committee criticized as being budget-driven.
FCS, currently envisioned as a set of 14 types of manned and robotic ground
vehicles, unmanned aircraft and sensors knit into an integrated fighting unit by a dense
web of data links, embodies the thrust of the Army’s plan to modernize its combat
force. The wide divergence between the House and Senate bills over the FCS funding
level for FY2008 apparently is rooted in a profound disagreement between the House
and Senate Armed Services committees over the program’s future.
CRS-55
In its report on H.R. 1585, the House panel said that the Army might not be able
to afford FCS given the cost of enlarging the force, resetting combat units that have
been fighting in Iraq and paying for other improvements launched in the context of the
post-9/11 world — large costs that were not foreseen when the Army launched FCS
in 1999. On the other hand, the Senate committee, in its report on S. 1547, hailed FCS
as the answer to the Army’s need for lethal combat units that could quickly be
transported to distant trouble spots, and warned against relying on “marginal
modernization of the current force.”
The Senate committee’s bill also would authorize the $1.4 billion requested to
upgrade existing Bradley troop carriers and the $1.3 billion requested to upgrade M-1
tanks. It would add $775 million to the $1.4 billion requested to buy new Strykers —
large wheeled fighting vehicles more lightly armored than Bradleys.
In addition, the bill would cut $100 million from the $288 million requested to
continue development of the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, an
amphibious troop carrier. The House bill cut $200 million from the request for the
program, which DOD has suspended for review.
Nuclear Weapons and Long-range Strike. The Senate committee bill
would authorize $195 million of the $238 million requested to develop a the Reliable
Replacement Warhead (RRW), a nuclear warhead for the Trident II submarine-
launched missile that is intended to be easier to maintain than the weapons currently
in service. But the committee emphasized that this did not mark a commitment to
acquire the new warhead and the bill would allow the funds to be used only for
preliminary design work and cost estimation.
A decision whether to proceed with the new warhead, the committee said,
should await a fundamental review of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and should be
made only in the context of actions to reaffirm a U.S. commitment to nuclear
nonproliferation. The bill would require the next presidential administration to
conduct a nuclear posture review, which would be the first one since 2001. It also
would express the sense of Congress that the United States should take several steps
to assert its commitment to nonproliferation, including ratifying the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected on October 13, 1999.
S. 1547 denied a total of $208 million requested for two efforts to develop long-
range, non-nuclear weapons intended to quickly strike targets anywhere around the
globe. One of the projects was an effort to develop a non-nuclear warhead for the
Trident submarine-launched missile and the other was to develop a Common Aero
Vehicle, a rocket-launched, unmanned, maneuverable space craft intended to carry a
half-ton payload thousands of miles in 30 minutes. A launch of either of those
weapons might easily be confused with the launch of a nuclear-armed missile, the
committee said. As an alternative, the committee added to the budget the same amount
it had cut from the two programs — $208 million — for a new program, Prompt
Global Strike, to explore a wide range of non-nuclear options for carrying out that
mission. But the committee insisted that any such weapon be distinctively different
from existing U.S. nuclear weapons.
CRS-56
Acquisition Reform. The bill includes several provisions intended to reduce
the risk of weapons acquisition programs running over budget or behind schedule.
For example, one provision could potentially limit the use of multi-year contracts for
weapons programs. Many Pentagon managers and defense industry officials argue that
a multi-year contract yields a lower unit-price because the contractor can plan for a
stable production run over several years. But critics say they are hard to oversee and
make it difficult for DOD to put pressure on poorly performing contractors. S. 1547
would allow a multi-year acquisition contract only if it resulted in savings of 10% (in
most cases) compared to the anticipated cost of purchasing the same number of items
in a series of annual contracts.
Another provision would require the manager of a major acquisition program to
notify senior DOD officials of any changes in the program that call into question the
rationale for those officials’ prior certification that the program had reached
“Milestone B” in the Pentagon’s acquisition process. Milestone B certification is, in
effect, the point at which DOD leaders authorize development of a specific product
with the aim of purchasing it.
The bill would designate DOD’s senior civilian acquisition and budget officials
as advisors to the Joint Requirements Oversight Council, a committee comprising the
second ranking officers in each service under the chairmanship of the vice-chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which reviews the criteria set for major acquisitions.
It also would require GAO to report to the Armed Services and Appropriations
committees on any recommended changes in DOD’s acquisition process.
Other Provisions. Other highlights of S. 1547 include the following.
! The bill would require a comprehensive review of the “space posture”
of the United States for the period 2009-2019. The committee
expressed concern that most military space capabilities are
undergoing modernization simultaneously and that all of them are
behind schedule and over budget.
! It would increase from lieutenant general to general the rank of the
Chief of the National Guard Bureau, as recommended by a
congressionally-chartered Commission on the National Guard and
Reserves.
! It would require DOD to assess the risks of projected climate change
to the department’s facilities, capabilities and missions.
! It would require within 90 days of enactment a technical assessment
by DOD’s senior civilian technology and weapons testing officials
of commercially available body armor. Press reports have highlighted
claims by one manufacturer that his body armor, called Dragon Skin,
is superior to the armor currently purchased by the Army.
! It would require the secretary of defense to contract with a non-profit,
non-partisan organization to conduct a study of the process for
CRS-57
interagency coordination among government agencies concerned with
national security.
For Additional Reading
Overall Defense Budget
CRS Report 98-756, Defense Authorization and Appropriations Bills:
FY1970-FY2007, by Thomas Coipuram Jr.
FY2008 Defense Budget: Issues for Congress - Seminar Slides, by Stephen Daggett,
Ronald O’Rourke, David F. Burrelli, and Amy Belasco. February 12, 2007,
MM70099, [http://www.crs.gov/products/multimedia/MM70099.shtml].
CRS Report RL33405, Defense: FY2007 Authorization and Appropriations, by
Stephen Daggett.
CRS Report RL33900, FY2007 Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, Foreign
Affairs, and Other Purposes, by Stephen Daggett, Amy Belasco, Connie
Veillette, Curt Tarnoff, Pat Towell, Rhoda Margesson, Susan B. Epstein, and
Bart Elias.
CRS Report RL33427, Military Construction, Military Quality of Life and Veterans
Affairs: FY2007 Appropriations, by Daniel H. Else, Christine Scott, and Sidath
Viranga Panangala.
Military Operations: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Elsewhere
CRS Report RL33837, Congressional Authority To Limit U.S. Military Operations
in Iraq, by Jennifer K. Elsea, Michael John Garcia, and Thomas J. Nicola.
CRS Report RL33803, Congressional Restrictions on U.S. Military Operations in
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Somalia, and Kosovo: Funding and Non-Funding
Approaches, by Amy Belasco, Hannah Fischer, Lynn J. Cunningham, and Larry
A. Niksch.
CRS Report RS20775, Congressional Use of Funding Cutoffs Since 1970 Involving
U.S. Military Forces and Overseas Deployments, by Richard F. Grimmett.
CRS Report RL33110, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on
Terror Operations Since 9/11, by Amy Belasco.
CRS Report RL33298, FY2006 Supplemental Appropriations: Iraq and Other
International Activities; Additional Hurricane Katrina Relief, by Paul M. Irwin
and Larry Nowels.
CRS Report RL32170, Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad,
1798-2006, by Richard F. Grimmett.
CRS-58
CRS Report RL33532, War Powers Resolution: Presidential Compliance, by Richard
F. Grimmett.
U.S. Military Personnel and Compensation
CRS Report RL33571, The FY2007 National Defense Authorization Act: Selected
Military Personnel Policy Issues, by Charles A. Henning, David F. Burrelli,
Lawrence Kapp, and Richard A. Best Jr.
CRS Report RL33537, Military Medical Care: Questions and Answers, by Richard
A. Best Jr.
CRS Report RL33446, Military Pay and Benefits: Key Questions and Answers, by
Charles A. Henning.
CRS Report RL33449, Military Retirement, Concurrent Receipt, and Related Major
Legislative Issues, coordinated by Charles A. Henning.
CRS Report RL31334, Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi
Freedom: Questions and Answers About U.S. Military Personnel, Compensation,
and Force Structure, by Lawrence Kapp and Charles A. Henning.
Defense Policy Issues
CRS Report RS22443, Border Security and Military Support: Legal Authorizations
and Restrictions, by Stephen R. Vina.
CRS Report RL33153, China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy
Capabilities - Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL31404, Defense Procurement: Full Funding Policy - Background,
Issues, and Options for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke and Stephen Daggett.
CRS Report RS22149, Exemptions from Environmental Law for the Department of
Defense: Background and Issues for Congress, by David M. Bearden.
CRS Report RS21754, Military Forces: What is the Appropriate Size for the United
States?, by Edward F. Bruner.
CRS Report RS22266, The Use of Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance: Legal
Issues, by Jennifer K. Elsea.
Defense Program Issues
CRS Report RL32123, Airborne Laser (ABL): Issues for Congress, by Christopher
Bolkcom and Steven A. Hildreth.
CRS Report RL32888, The Army’s Future Combat System (FCS): Background and
Issues for Congress, by Andrew Feickert.
CRS-59
CRS Report RS22120, Ballistic Missile Defense: Historical Overview, by Steven A.
Hildreth.
CRS Report RL32347, “Bunker Busters”: Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Issues,
FY2005-FY2007, by Jonathan Medalia.
CRS Report RL33067, Conventional Warheads for Long-Range Ballistic Missiles:
Background and Issues for Congress, by Amy F. Woolf.
CRS Report RL31673, F-22A Raptor, by Christopher Bolkcom.
CRS Report RL33240, Kinetic Energy Kill for Ballistic Missile Defense: A Status
Overview, by Steven A. Hildreth.
CRS Report RS20851, Naval Transformation: Background and Issues for Congress,
by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL32418, Navy Attack Submarine Force-Level Goal and Procurement
Rate: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL32109, Navy DDG-1000 (DD(X)) and CG(X) Ship Acquisition
Programs: Oversight Issues and Options for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL33955, Navy Force Structure: Alternative Force Structure Studies of
2005 - Background for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL32665, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background
and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RS20643, Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class (CVN-21) Aircraft Carrier
Program: Background and Issues for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL33741, Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) Program: Oversight Issues
and Options for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL32513, Navy-Marine Corps Amphibious and Maritime Prepositioning
Ship Programs: Background and Oversight Issues for Congress, by Ronald
O’Rourke.
CRS Report RL31957, Nonproliferation and Threat Reduction Assistance: U.S.
Programs in the Former Soviet Union, by Amy F. Woolf.
CRS Report RL32572, Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, by Amy F. Woolf.
CRS Report RL32929, The Reliable Replacement Warhead Program: Background
and Current Developments, by Jonathan Medalia.
CRS Report RL33745, Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense - Background and Issues
for Congress, by Ronald O’Rourke.
CRS-60
CRS Report RL33543, Tactical Aircraft Modernization: Issues for Congress, by
Christopher Bolkcom.
CRS Report RL32476, U.S. Army’s Modular Redesign: Issues for Congress, by
Andrew Feickert.
CRS Report RL31623, U.S. Nuclear Weapons: Changes in Policy and Force
Structure, by Amy F. Woolf.
CRS Report RS21048, U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF): Background and
Issues for Congress, by Andrew Feickert.
CRS Report RL33640, U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments,
and Issues, by Amy F. Woolf.
CRS-61
Appendix: Funding Tables
Table A1. Congressional Action on Selected Army and Marine Corps Programs: FY2008 Authorization
(amounts in millions of dollars)
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Helicopters
House deletes proc $ and recommends
terminating program. Senate shifts $131
Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter
—
468.3
82.3 —
—
32.3
—
337.3
182.3 —
—
— mn from proc, with $31 mn going to OH-
58D program and $100 for ARH R&D.
Title XV
29
222.6
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
—
— House and Senate delete funds
House eliminates Title XV requested funds
Light Utility Helicopter
—
230.5
— —
230.5
—
—
230.5
— —
—
— as well
Senate shifts $370 mn from Title XV to
UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter
42
705.4
87.9 42
705.4
87.9
52 1,257.9
87.9 —
—
— base budget
Senate shifts $370 mn from Title XV to
Title XV
39
527.4
— 39
527.4
—
39
157.0
— —
—
— base budget
CH-47 Helicopter
6
190.9
11.2
6
190.9
11.2
6
196.9
11.2 —
—
— —
Senate shifts $516 mn from Title XV to
CH-47 Helicopter Mods
23
579.8
— 23
579.8
—
23 1,110.4
— —
—
— base budget
Title XV
21
635.6
— 21
635.6
—
21
121.1
— —
—
— —
AH-64 Apache Helo Mods
—
711.7
193.7 —
711.7 193.7
—
711.7
193.7 —
—
— —
Title XV
—
25.0
— —
—
25.0
12
417.8
— —
—
— —
CRS-62
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Weapons & Tracked Combat Vehicles
Senate transfers $1.4 bn from Title XV to
M-2 Bradley Vehicle Mods
—
182.6
— —
182.6
—
— 1,585.1
— —
—
— base budget
Title XV
—
1,450.5
— —
1,402.5
—
48.0
— —
—
— —
Senate cuts $53 mn from SEP, shifts $1.3
M -1 Abrams Tank Mods
18
641.9
27.6 18
641.9
27.6
253 1,892.1
27.6 —
—
— bn from Title XV to base budget
Title XV
—
1,640.7
— —
1,640.7
—
337.6
— —
—
— —
House cuts $228 mn for gun production
delay, adds $294 mn program increase.
Senate transfers $403 mn from Title XV to
Stryker Armored Vehicle
127
1,039.0
142.5 —
1,104.9 142.5
127 2,099.9
182.5 —
—
— base budget, adds $658 mn for additional
vehicles in base budget. Senate adds $40
mn in R&D for active protection system.
Senate shifts $403 mn for 100 vehicles
Title XV
—
402.8
— —
402.8
—
29
117.0
— —
—
— from Title XV to base budget, adds $117
mn for 29 vehicles to Title XV
2,696.
House cuts $867 mn, 24%, from R&D;
Future Combat System
—
99.6 3,563.4 —
99.6
—
99.6 3,678.4 —
—
—
1
Senate adds $115 mn
Wheeled Vehicles
Hi Mob Multi-Purpose Veh.
—
986.4
— —
986.4
—
—
986.4
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
1,321.6
— —
1,321.6
— 6,690 1,321.6
— —
—
— —
HMMWV Recapitalization
—
—
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Program
Title XV
—
455.0
— —
455.0
—
—
455.0
— —
—
— —
Family of Medium Tact. Veh.
—
1,852.8
2.0 —
1,852.8
2.0
— 1,852.8
2.0 —
—
— —
Title XV
—
185.1
2.0 —
185.1
2.0 3,181
185.1
2.0 —
—
— —
Firetrucks & Associated
—
36.0
— —
36.0
—
—
36.0
— —
—
— —
Equipment
CRS-63
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Title XV
—
9.0
— —
9.0
—
10
9.0
— —
—
— —
Family of Heavy Tactical Veh.
—
483.0
1.9 —
483.0
1.9
—
563.7
6.9 —
—
— Senate adds $5 mn R&D
Title XV
—
1,136.5
1.9 —
1,136.5
1.9 2,747 1,136.5
1.9 —
—
— —
Senate shifts $302 mn from Title XV to
Armored Security Vehicle
—
155.1
— —
155.1
—
—
592.3
— —
—
— base budget
Title XV
—
301.9
— —
228.3
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Mine Protection Vehicle Family
—
199.1
— —
133.1
—
—
199.1
— —
—
— House shifts $66 mn in proc to Title XV
Title XV
—
174.4
— —
87.2
—
155
174.4
— —
—
— —
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
—
—
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Veh
House and Senate add $1.5 bn for Army
Title XV
—
—
— —
1,552.0
— 1,552 1,552.0
— —
—
— MRAPs
Truck, Tactor, Line Haul
—
83.9
— —
83.9
—
—
83.9
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
276.0
— —
228.1
—
—
276.0
— —
—
— —
Modification of In-Service
—
32.7
— —
32.7
—
—
32.7
— —
—
— —
Equipment
Title XV
—
1,094.8
— —
1,094.8
—
— 1,094.8
— —
—
— —
Radios
Senate shifts $1.4 bn from Title XV to base
SINCGARS Family
—
137.1
— —
137.1
—
— 1,143.0
— —
—
— budget, but trims $375 mn from total
Title XV
—
1,370.3
— —
615.8
—
—
—
— —
—
— House cuts $754 mn
House cuts $28 mn as Joint Network Node
not ready for full production. Senate shifts
Bridge to Future Networks
—
499.1
16.5 —
471.6
16.5
— 2,125.2
16.5 —
—
— $2.6 bn from Title XV to base budget, but
cuts $1 bn from Joint Network Node.
House cuts $2.1 bn as Joint Network Node
Title XV
—
2,560.6
— —
445.3
—
—
—
— —
—
— not ready for full production
CRS-64
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
House cuts $20 mn, in part to reflect
Radio, Improved HF Family
—
81.4
— —
61.0
—
—
81.4
— —
—
— revised request
Title XV
—
433.4
— —
325.0
—
—
433.4
— —
—
— House cuts $108 mn
Joint Tactical Radio System
—
—
853.7 —
— 853.7
—
—
853.7 —
—
— R&D in Navy
(JTRS)
Marine Corps
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
—
—
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Veh
House and Senate add $2 bn proc, House
Title XV
—
—
— —
1,989.0
35.8
— 1,939.0
— —
—
— adds $36 mn R&D
Light Armor Vehicle Product
—
32.1
— —
32.1
—
—
32.1
— —
—
— —
Improvement Program
Title XV
—
113.0
— —
113.0
—
—
113.0
— —
—
— —
155 mm Towed Howitzer
—
200.9
— —
200.9
—
—
200.9
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
36.0
— —
36.0
—
—
36.0
— —
—
— —
Combat Vehicle Modification Kits
—
194.9
— —
194.9
—
—
194.9
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
4.9
— —
1.1
—
—
4.9
— —
—
— —
Night Vision Equipment
—
42.5
— —
42.5
—
—
42.5
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
142.7
— —
107.7
—
—
142.7
— —
—
— House cuts $35 mn to transfer to MRAP
CRS-65
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Radio Systems
—
179.8
— —
89.4
—
—
179.8
— —
—
— House cuts $90 mn
House cuts $35 mn to transfer to MRAP,
Title XV
—
464.6
— —
429.6
—
—
299.6
— —
—
— Senate cuts $165 mn due to slow execution
5/4 Ton Truck HMMWV
—
160.7
— —
160.7
—
—
180.7
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
46.7
— —
46.7
—
—
46.7
— —
—
— —
Physical Security Equipment
—
12.4
— —
12.4
—
—
12.4
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
640.0
— —
340.0
—
—
640.0
— —
—
— House cuts $300 mn for transfer to MRAP
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Armed Service Committee Report on H.R. 1585, H.Rept. 110-146, May 11,
2007; Senate Armed Services Committee Report on S. 1547, S.Rept. 110-77, June 5, 2007.
CRS-66
Table A2. Congressional Action on Shipbuilding: FY2008 Authorization
(amounts in millions of dollars)
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Comments
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procuremen R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
CVN-21 Carrier Replacement
1
2,848.4
232.2
1
2,848.4
232.2
1
2,828.4
232.2
—
—
— —
House adds $588 mn adv proc, Senate adds
Virginia Class Submarine
1
2,498.9
224.0
1
3,086.9
224.0
1
2,968.9
224.0
—
—
— $470 mn in adv proc for building 2 boats in
FY2010
Carrier Refueling Overhaul
—
297.3
— —
297.3
— —
297.3
—
—
—
— —
Missile Submarine Refueling
—
230.4
— —
230.4
— —
230.4
—
—
—
— —
Overhaul
Request is for 2nd increment of funding for
DD(X)/DDG-1000 Destroyer
—
2,953.5
503.4 —
2,953.5
512.4 —
2,953.5
503.4
—
—
— 2 ships started in FY2007.
Senate cuts $30 mn for premature request
DDG-51 Destroyer
—
78.1
— —
78.1
— —
48.1
—
—
—
— for close out costs
House cuts 1 ship, $200 mn, Senate cuts 1
LCS Littoral Combat Ship
3
910.5
217.5
2
710.5
217.5
2
480.0
217.5
—
—
— ship, $431 mn
LPD-17 Amphibious Ship
1
1,398.9
4.3
2
3,098.9
4.3
1
1,398.9
4.3
—
—
— House adds $1.7 bn for 2nd ship
Request is for 2nd increment of funding to
LHA(R) Amphibious Ship
—
1,377.4
5.9 —
1,377.4
5.9 —
1,377.4
5.9
—
—
— complete 1st ship of class.
Outfitting
—
419.8
— —
419.8
— —
379.8
—
—
—
— Senate cuts $40 mn
Service Craft
—
32.9
— —
32.9
— —
32.9
—
—
—
— —
LCAC Service Life Extension
—
98.5
— —
98.5
— —
98.5
—
—
—
— —
Prior Year Shipbuilding
—
511.5
— —
511.5
— —
511.5
—
—
—
— —
In National Defense Sealift Fund. House
T-AKE Cargo Ship
1
456.1
—
2
912.2
—
2
912.2
—
—
—
— adds $456 mn for 2nd ship
Total Navy Shipbuilding
7 14,112.2 1,187.3
8 16,656.3 1,196.3
7 14,517.8 1,187.3
—
—
— —
CRS-67
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Comments
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procuremen R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Joint High Speed Vessel (Army)
1
210.0
24.0
1
210.0
24.0
1
210.0
24.1
—
—
— —
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Armed Service Committee Report on H.R. 1585, H.Rept. 110-146, May 11,
2007; Senate Armed Services Committee Report on S. 1547, S.Rept. 110-77, June 5, 2007.
CRS-68
Table A3. Congressional Action on Selected Aircraft Programs: FY2008 Authorization
(amounts in millions of dollars)
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D Procuremen
R&D Procurement
R&D Procurement
R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
House adds $240 mn in R&D for 2nd
engine, cuts $125 mn program decrease.
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, AF
6
1,421.7 1,780.9
6
1,421.7 1,895.9
6 1,421.7 2,001.2 —
—
— Senate adds $240 mn for 2nd engine, cuts
$20 mn for excess fee
Title XV
1
230.0
— —
—
— —
—
— —
—
— House and Senate delete funds
House adds $240 mn in R&D for 2nd
engine, cuts $125 mn program decrease.
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Navy
6
1,232.2 1,707.4
6
1,232.2 1,592.4
6 1,232.2 1,927.7 —
—
— Senate adds $240 mn for 2nd engine, cuts
$20 mn for excess fee.
F-22 Fighter, AF
20
3,579.4
743.6 20
3,579.4
743.6
20 3,579.4
743.6 —
—
— —
C-17 Cargo Aircraft & Mods, AF
—
471.8
181.7 —
471.8
181.7 —
471.8
181.7 —
—
— —
Title XV
—
72.0
— 10
2,492.0
— —
72.0
— —
—
— House adds $2.4 billion for 10 aircraft
C-130J Cargo Aircraft, AF
9
686.1
74.2
9
686.1
74.2
9
686.1
74.2 —
—
— —
House cuts $132 mn, Senate cuts $468 mn
Title XV
17
1,356.3
— 17
1,224.3
—
13
888.3
— —
—
— for 4 aircraft
KC-130J Aircraft, Navy
4
256.4
—
4
256.4
—
4
256.4
— —
—
— —
Title XV
7
495.4
—
7
495.4
—
7
495.4
— —
—
— —
House cuts $200 mn as program decrease.
KC-135 Tanker Replacement
—
—
314.5 —
—
114.5 —
—
174.5 —
—
— Senate cuts $140 mn and directs use of prior
(KC-X), AF
year funds for execution.
F-15 Mods
—
19.2
— —
19.2
— —
19.2
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
152.9
— —
130.9
— —
130.9
— —
—
— House cuts $22 mn
C-130 Aircraft Mods, AF
—
522.4
— —
534.4
— —
536.4
— —
—
— —
Title XV
—
86.3
— —
86.3
— —
86.3
— —
—
— —
CRS-69
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D Procuremen
R&D Procurement
R&D Procurement
R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
C-5 Cargo Aircraft Mods, AF
—
398.7
203.6 —
403.4
205.6 —
398.7
203.6 —
—
— —
Title XV
—
75.0
— —
75.0
— —
75.0
— —
—
— —
Global Hawk UAV, AF
5
577.8
298.5
5
577.8
298.5
5
577.8
298.5 —
—
— —
EA-18G Aircraft, Navy
18
1,318.8
272.7 18
1,318.8
272.7
18 1,318.8
272.7 —
—
— —
Senate shifts $714 mn for 12 aircraft from
F/A-18E/F Fighter, Navy
24
2,104.0
44.9 24
2,104.0
44.9
36 2,817.5
44.9 —
—
— Title XV to base budget
Title XV
12
713.5
— —
531.5
— —
—
— —
—
— House cuts $182 mn
V-22 Tilt Rotor Aircraft, Navy
21
1,959.4
118.0 21
1,959.4
118.0
21 1,959.4
118.0 —
—
— —
CV-22 Tilt Rotor Aircraft, AF
5
495.0
16.7
5
495.0
16.7
5
495.0
16.7 —
—
— Senate deletes funds
Title XV
5
492.5
—
5
492.5
— —
—
— —
—
— —
UH-1Y/AH-1Z
20
518.5
— 20
518.5
—
20
518.5
— —
—
— —
Senate deletes — says not to ramp up
Title XV
6
123.4
—
6
123.4
— —
—
— —
—
— production rate
MH-60S Helicopter, Navy
18
503.6
44.0 18
503.6
44.0
18
503.6
44.0 —
—
— —
Title XV
3
88.0
—
3
88.0
—
3
88.0
— —
—
— —
MH-60R Helicopter, Navy
27
997.6
78.2 27
997.6
78.2
27
997.6
78.2 —
—
— —
Title XV
6
205.0
—
6
205.0
—
6
205.0
— —
—
— —
E-2C Hawkeye Aircraft, Navy
—
57.3
22.7 —
57.3
22.7 —
57.3
22.7 —
—
— —
T-45 Goshawk Trainer, Navy
—
32.5
— —
32.5
— —
32.5
— —
—
— —
JPATS Trainer Aircraft, AF
39
245.9
12.6 39
245.9
12.6
39
245.9
12.6 —
—
— —
JPATS Trainer Aircraft, Navy
44
295.3
— 44
295.3
—
44
295.3
— —
—
— —
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Armed Service Committee Report on H.R. 1585, H.Rept. 110-146, May 11,
2007; Senate Armed Services Committee Report on S. 1547, S.Rept. 110-77, June 5, 2007.
CRS-70
Table A4. Congressional Action on Missile Defense Funding: FY2008 Authorization
(millions of dollars)
Senate
FY2008
House-
House vs
Senate
vs
Request
Passed
Request Reported Request Comments
RDT&E Missile Defense Agency
0603175C Ballistic Missile Defense Technology
118.6
108.6
-10.0
122.6
+4.0 Senate adds $4 mn for printed components
Senate adds $105 mn for THAAD, $35 mn for
0603881C Ballistic Missile Defense Terminal Defense Segment
962.6
962.6
—
1,127.6
+165.0 Arrow, $25 mn for short-range missile
House cuts $160 mn and Senate cuts $85 mn
0603882C Ballistic Missile Defense Midcourse Defense Segment
2,520.1
2,360.1
-160.0
2,435.1
-85.0 from European site
House cuts $250 mn and Senate cuts $200 mn
0603883C Ballistic Missile Defense Boost Defense Segment
548.8
298.8
-250.0
348.8
-200.0 from Airborne Laser
0603884C Ballistic Missile Defense Sensors
778.2
728.2
-50.0
778.2
— House cuts $50 mn for excessive cost
0603886C Ballistic Missile Defense System Interceptor
227.5
177.5
-50.0
227.5
— House cuts $50 mn as program reduction
0603888C Ballistic Missile Defense Test & Targets
586.2
586.2
—
586.2
— —
House and Senate cut $50 mn from BMDS
0603890C Ballistic Missile Defense Systems Core
482.0
432.0
-50.0
432.0
-50.0 Core
House cuts $170 mn as program decrease,
0603891C Special Programs - MDA
323.3
153.3
-170.0
173.3
-150.0 Senate cuts $150 mn.
House adds $78 mn for production capability,
interceptors, and BSP Upgrade, Senate adds
0603892C AEGIS BMD
1,059.1
1,137.1
+78.0
1,134.1
+75.0 $75 mn.
House cuts $75 mn due to schedule, Senate
0603893C Space Tracking & Surveillance System
331.5
331.5
—
276.5
-55.0 cuts $55 mn
0603894C Multiple Kill Vehicle
271.2
229.2
-42.0
271.2
— House cuts $42 mn as program reduction
House and Senate cut $10 mn from space test
0603895C Ballistic Missile Defense System Space Programs
27.7
17.7
-10.0
17.7
-10.0 bed
CRS-71
Senate
FY2008
House-
House vs
Senate
vs
Request
Passed
Request Reported Request Comments
0603896C Ballistic Missile Defense Command and Control, Battle
Management, and Communication
258.9
258.9
—
258.9
— —
0603897C Ballistic Missile Defense Hercules
53.7
53.7
—
53.7
— —
0603898C Ballistic Missile Defense Joint Warfighter Support
48.8
54.8
+6.0
48.8
— House adds $6 mn as program increase
0603904C Ballistic Missile Defense Joint National Integration Center
104.0
104.0
—
104.0
— —
0603906C Regarding Trench
2.0
2.0
—
2.0
— —
0901585C Pentagon Reservation
6.1
6.1
—
6.1
— —
0901598C Management HQ - MDA
85.9
85.9
—
85.9
— —
Subtotal R&D, Missile Defense Agency
8,795.8
8,087.8
-708.0
8,489.8
-306.0 —
RDT&E Army/Joint Staff
0604869A Patriot/MEADS Combined Aggregate Program (CAP)
372.1
372.1
—
372.1
— —
0203801A Missile/Air Defense Product Improvement Program
30.2
30.2
—
30.2
— —
0605126J Joint Theater Air and Missile Defense Organization
53.7
53.7
—
53.7
— —
Subtotal R&D, Army, Joint Staff
402.4
402.4
—
402.4
— —
Procurement Army
7152C49100 Patriot System Summary
472.9
484.7
+11.8
547.9
+75.0 Senate adds $75 mn for 25 extra missiles
0962C50700 Patriot Mods
570.0
570.0
—
570.0
— —
Subtotal, Procurement
1,042.9
1,054.7
+11.8
1,054.7
+75.0 —
Total Missile Defense R&D & Procurement
10,241.1
9,544.9
-696.2
9,544.9
— —
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Armed Service Committee Report on H.R. 1585, H.Rept. 110-146, May 11,
2007; Senate Armed Services Committee Report on S. 1547, S.Rept. 110-77, June 5, 2007.
CRS-72
Table A5. Congressional Action on Selected Army and Marine Corps Programs: FY2008 Appropriations
(amounts in millions of dollars)
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Helicopters
House deletes proc funding and terminates
Armed Recon Helicopter
—
468.3
82.3 —
— 129.3
—
—
— —
—
— program. Shifts $68 mn to R&D
Light Utility Helicopter
—
230.5
— —
230.5
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter
52
887.5
87.9 52
887.5
87.9
—
—
— —
—
— —
CH-47 Helicopter
6
190.9
11.2
6
190.9
11.2
—
—
— —
—
— —
CH-47 Helicopter Mods
—
579.8
— —
579.8
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
AH-64 Apache Helo Mods
—
711.7
193.7 —
713.2 193.7
—
—
— —
—
— —
Weapons & Tracked Combat
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Vehicles
M-2 Bradley Vehicle Mods
—
182.6
— —
182.6
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
House cuts $52.9 mn in proc, adds $7.5 mn
M -1 Abrams Tank Mods
18
641.9
27.6 18
589.0
35.1
—
—
— —
—
— R&D
House adds $1.1 bn in proc for additional
Stryker Armored Vehicle
127
1,039.0
142.5 127
1,912.9 142.5
—
—
— —
—
— (10th) brigade, cuts $228 mn for delay in
gun fielding
Future Combat System
—
99.6 3,563.4 —
102.1 3,157.1
—
—
— —
—
— House cuts $406 mn from R&D
Wheeled Vehicles
Hi Mob Multi-Purpose Veh.
—
986.4
— —
987.4
—
—
—
— —
—
— House adds $1 mn
HMMWV Recapitalization
House adds $5 mn
—
—
— —
5.0
—
—
—
— —
—
—
Program
Family of Medium Tact. Veh.
—
1,852.8
2.0 —
1,852.8
2.0
—
—
— —
—
— —
Firetrucks & Associated
—
36.0
— —
36.0
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Equipment
CRS-73
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Family of Heavy Tactical Veh.
—
563.7
1.9 —
563.7
2.9
—
—
— —
—
— —
Armored Security Vehicle
—
281.4
— —
283.9
—
—
—
— —
—
— House adds $2.5 mn
Mine Protection Vehicle Family
—
199.1
— —
199.1
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Mine Resistant Ambush Protection
—
—
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Veh
Truck, Tactor, Line Haul
—
83.9
— —
83.9
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Modification of In-Service
—
32.7
— —
32.7
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Equipment
Radios
SINCGARS Family
—
137.1
— —
150.1
—
—
—
— —
—
— House adds $13 mn
House shifts $134 mn from proc to R&D
Bridge to Future Networks
—
499.1
16.5 —
368.1
16.5
—
—
— —
—
— trims $3 mn
House cuts $20 mn in proc as in
Radio, Improved HF Family
—
81.4
— —
61.0
—
—
—
— —
—
— authorization
Joint Tactical Radio System
—
—
853.7 —
— 853.7
—
—
— —
—
— —
(JTRS)
Marine Corps
—
—
—
—
Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
—
—
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Veh
Light Armor Vehicle Product
—
32.1
— —
32.1
—
—
—
— —
—
— —
Improvement
155 mm Towed Howitzer
—
200.9
— —
179.9
—
—
—
— —
—
— House cuts $21 mn for 6 units
House cuts $78 mn due to decreased tank
Combat Vehicle Modification Kits
—
194.9
— —
116.4
—
—
—
— —
—
— company requirement
CRS-74
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
House cuts $2 mn for decreased tank
Night Vision Equipment
—
42.5
— —
40.6
—
—
—
— —
—
— company rqmnt
House cuts $3.6 mn for decreased tank
Radio Systems
—
179.8
— —
176.2
—
—
—
— —
—
— company rqmnt
House cuts $23.6 mn for decreased tank
5/4 Ton Truck HMMWV
—
180.7
— —
157.1
—
—
—
— —
—
— company rqmnt
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Appropriations Committee, pre-markup draft of committee report on FY2008
defense appropriations, unnumbered, released July 25, 2007.
CRS-75
Table A6. Congressional Action on Shipbuilding: FY2008 Appropriations
(amounts in millions of dollars)
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Comments
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procuremen R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
CVN-21 Carrier Replacement
1
2,848.4
232.2
1
2,828.4
234.7 —
—
— —
—
— House cuts $20 mn in proc
Virginia Class Submarine
1
2,498.9
224.0
1
3,086.9
250.0
House adds $588 mn in adv proc to buy 2
—
—
— —
—
— per year by 2012, $26 mn in R&D
Carrier Refueling Overhaul
—
297.3
— —
297.3
— —
—
— —
—
— —
Missile Submarine Refueiling
—
230.4
— —
230.4
—
—
—
—
— —
—
—
Overhaul
DD(X)/DDG-1000 Destroyer
—
2,953.5
503.4 —
2,923.5
511.4
House cuts $30 mn in proc for dual band
—
—
— —
—
— radar, adds $8 mn in R&D
DDG-51 Destroyer
—
78.1
— —
78.1
— —
—
— —
—
— —
LCS Littoral Combat Ship
3
910.5
217.5
2
339.5
229.0
House deletes $571mn for 2nd ship, adds
—
—
— —
—
— $11.5 mn R&D
LPD-17 Amphibious Ship
1
1,398.9
4.3
2
3,091.9
4.3 —
—
— —
—
— House adds $1.7 bn for additional ship
LHA(R) Amphibious Ship
—
1,377.4
5.9 —
1,375.4
5.9 —
—
— —
—
— —
Special Purpose
—
—
— —
4.5
— —
—
— —
—
— —
Outfitting
—
419.8
— —
405.0
— —
—
— —
—
— —
Service Craft
—
32.9
— —
32.9
— —
—
— —
—
— —
LCAC Service Life Extension
—
98.5
— —
98.5
— —
—
— —
—
— —
Prior Year Shipbuilding
—
511.5
— —
511.5
— —
—
— —
—
— —
T-AKE Cargo Ship
1
456.1
—
4
1,866.1
—
House adds $1.4 bn for 3 ships — funded in
—
—
— —
—
— National Defense Sealift Fund in Title V
CRS-76
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Comments
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procurement
R&D
Procuremen R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
Total Navy Shipbuilding
7 14,112.2 1,187.3
10 17,169.9
— —
—
—
—
—
— —
Joint High Speed Vessel, Army
1
210.0
24.1
1
76.0
24.1
House cuts $134 mn for funding in advance
—
—
—
—
—
— of need
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Appropriations Committee, pre-markup draft of committee report on FY2008
defense appropriations, unnumbered, released July 25, 2007.
CRS-77
Table A7. Congressional Action on Selected Aircraft Programs: FY2008 Authorization
(amounts in millions of dollars)
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Comments
Procurement
R&D Procuremen
R&D Procurement
R&D Procurement
R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, AF
6
1,421.7 1,780.9
6
1,421.7 2,137.4
House adds $240 mn for alternative engine,
—
—
— —
—
— $116 mn for other R&D
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Navy
6
1,232.2 1,707.4
6
1,232.2 2,038.9
House adds $240 mn for alternative engine,
—
—
— —
—
— $92 mn in other R&D
F-22 Fighter, AF
20
3,579.4
743.6 20
3,579.4
379.6 —
—
— —
—
— House cuts $364 mn R&D, shifts to MilPers
C-17 Cargo Aircraft & Mods, AF
—
471.8
181.7 —
375.8
181.7
House cuts $96 mn — $50 mn deferred to
—
—
— —
—
— FY08 supplemental, $46 mn provided in
FY07 supplemental
C-130J Cargo Aircraft, AF
9
686.1
74.2
9
686.1
74.2 —
—
— —
—
— —
KC-130J Aircraft, Navy
4
256.4
—
4
253.5
— —
—
— —
—
— —
KC-135 Tanker Replacement (KC-
—
—
314.5 —
—
314.5
—
—
—
— —
—
—
X), AF
F-15 Mods
—
19.2
— —
19.2
— —
—
— —
—
— —
C-130 Aircraft Mods, AF
—
522.4
— —
332.4
—
House cuts net of $190 mn — shifts $60 mn
from proc to R&D, defers $97 mn to FY08
—
—
— —
—
— supplemental, says $36 mn provided in FY07
supplemental
C-5 Cargo Aircraft Mods, AF
—
398.7
203.6 —
344.4
203.6
House cuts $54 mn of which $49 mn in
—
—
— —
—
— FY07 supplemental
Global Hawk UAV, AF
5
577.8
298.5
5
466.8
260.5
House cuts $111 mn proc for delay of initial
—
—
— —
—
— production and $38 mn from R&D for
execution delays
EA-18G Aircraft, Navy
18
1,318.8
272.7 18
—
274.7 —
—
— —
—
— —
F/A-18E/F Fighter, Navy
24
2,104.0
44.9 24
2,089.1
50.9 —
—
— —
—
— —
CRS-78
Request
House
Senate
Conference
Comments
Procurement
R&D Procuremen
R&D Procurement
R&D Procurement
R&D
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
#
$
$
V-22 Tilt Rotor Aircraft, Navy
21
1,959.4
118.0 21
1,959.4
118.0 —
—
— —
—
— —
CV-22 Tilt Rotor Aircraft, AF
5
495.0
16.7
5
495.0
16.7 —
—
— —
—
— —
UH-1Y/AH-1Z
20
518.5
— 20
414.5
—
House cuts $104 mn in proc due to new
—
—
— —
—
— building strategy
MH-60S Helicopter, Navy
18
503.6
44.0 18
503.6
40.0 —
—
— —
—
— —
MH-60R Helicopter, Navy
27
997.6
78.2 27
997.6
78.2 —
—
— —
—
— —
E-2C Hawkeye Aircraft, Navy
—
57.3
22.7 —
52.6
22.7 —
—
— —
—
— —
T-45 Goshawk Trainer, Navy
—
32.5
— —
32.5
— —
—
— —
—
— —
JPATS Trainer Aircraft, AF
39
245.9
12.6 39
245.9
12.6 —
—
— —
—
— —
JPATS Trainer Aircraft, Navy
44
295.3
— 44
295.3
— —
—
— —
—
— —
VTUAV, Navy
3
37.7
— —
—
— —
—
— —
—
— House eliminates proc funds
Sources: CRS from Department of Defense, Procurement Programs (P-1), FY2008, February 2007; Department of Defense, RDT&E Programs (R-1), FY2008, February 2007;
Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY2008, February 2007; House Appropriations Committee, pre-markup draft of committee report on FY2008
defense appropriations, unnumbered, released July 25, 2007.