The Biden Administration submitted its budget (late) on May 28th; now it’s time for Congress to do its thing.
Appropriations
House Appropriations Committee on Defense (HAC-D) subcommittee markup happened on June 30th. The result met the president’s request and Chairwoman Betty McCollum’s goal of $706 billion. This total will be supplemented by another $10 billion, which is funded in the MILCON/VA Appropriations subcommittee; which included just over $10 billion during markup. Appropriations full committee markup occurred on July 13th. On July 29th, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4502, a FY22 7-bill appropriations package or minibus. The package included Labor-HHS-Education; Agriculture-FDA; Energy and Water Development; Financial Services and General Government; Interior-Environment; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Transportation-HUD.
Senate Appropriation subcommittee markups begin at the start of August and will include Agriculture-FDA; Energy and Water Development; and MilCon-VA. Senate Appropriation Committee-Defense (SAC-D) and State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs (SFOPS) are planning for September markups.
In previous years, defense discretionary and non-defense discretionary were tied dollar for dollar. The Biden administration increased non-defense by 16% and defense by 1.6%. As a result, it’s likely that the Senate is going to have to have a compromise level with Republicans.
NDAA
The Senate Armed Service Committee (SASC) marked up the NDAA on July 21st. During the markup the committee voted, in a bipartisan manner, to increase the defense budget by $25 billion. There appears to be wide support for the DoD budget increase in both the House and the Senate. Democrats are prepared to lose some votes during the process and will pick up republican support. While, SASC does not have final say in the dollar amount, the Appropriation Committees appear to be on board.
On the other side of the Capitol, House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Smith said they won’t markup the NDAA until September. This puts the policy bill behind the funding bill and eliminates its ability to “set funding levels,” one of the NDAA’s chief functions.
What does this all mean?
At this point, a continuing resolution (CR) will be necessary to fund the entire government from the October 1st start of the new fiscal year. The likelihood that it extends into the new year is possible, although in recent years, the Christmas break has been fertile ground for deal making.
Appropriations and the NDAA directly impact Amentum’s important, global missions. We stand ready to implement programming and support our customers based the final legislative packages.
NOTE: Appropriations are decided by Congress and lay out federal spending.
The Energy and Water Development appropriations bill funds the Department of Energy programs, including cleanup and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The NDAA lays out the annual budget and expenditures for DoD and includes the Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs.
