The annual bill that sets policy for the U.S. military — determining everything from which weapons to buy to how much troops are paid — is late for the 18th straight year, and lawmakers are racing to get it done before the new Congress takes over in January.
The bill, which authorizes Pentagon activities from the start of each fiscal year on Oct. 1, has been late every year since 1997. With Congress set to leave soon for a recess stretching through the November elections, it’s going to be late again.
Though the House passed its bill in May, the Senate has yet to take up the companion measure approved by the Armed Services Committee that month.
“We’re not going to get it done this week,” Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Wednesday.
Instead, key lawmakers from both chambers have been meeting informally to resolve differences between the two versions and move quickly to get a compromise measure for President Obama to sign into law before the end of the calendar year.
“We’re laying the groundwork to hit the ground running” after the elections, said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking Republican on the panel. “I think we’re going to be ready to go with the bill as soon as we get back.”
The massive bill is one of the most important “must-pass” measures for Congress, especially in wartime, since it sets policy for the Pentagon and national security activities of the Department of Energy. It governs how many troops are in the armed forces and how much they are paid, which and how many weapons to buy and which to scrap, along with guiding how ongoing operations are conducted, such as the war in Afghanistan and the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
An example of the pressure on lawmakers to pass the bill can be found in the president’s request for authority to train and arm Syrian rebels to help fight against the Islamic State. Though the House on Wednesday agreed to give Obama the authority as an amendment to a stopgap funding bill, and the Senate is expected to follow suit before leaving town, the authority runs out when the bill expires Dec. 11.
“We don’t want a gap in that,” Levin said.
Senators also are pushing new rules requiring the Pentagon to identify contractors that are critical to military operations and set clear standards for reporting cyberattacks. The rules are the result of information that Chinese hackers have penetrated the computer networks of contractors critical to moving U.S. troops and equipment around the world in time of crisis.
“We are doing everything we know how to get this passed,” Levin said of the bill, adding that senators were discussing an unanimous consent agreement to limit the number of amendments for quicker floor consideration in the Senate.
Among the key differences in the two bills is how much of a pay raise to give service members. House lawmakers opted for a 1.8 percent raise, but senators accepted Obama’s recommendation of 1 percent.
The two bills also differ on detainees, with the House version continuing a ban on transferring detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States.
But aides expect the differences to be ironed out in time for a compromise bill to pass.
“There’s nothing in there, I don’t think, that is an existential threat to passage,” a senior House Armed Services Committee aide said.
