Key Senate and House lawmakers are racing to reach agreement on a defense policy bill before time runs out on the 113th Congress.
“We’re still working it. We’re not there yet,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Tuesday. “Hopefully we can reach an agreement, get a bill to the floor, but I don’t have any sense as to when that will be.”
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. If a final measure isn’t sent to President Obama before the 114th Congress convenes Jan. 6, lawmakers will have to start over.
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 the national security activities of the Department of Energy. It governs how many troops are in the armed forces, how much they are paid and what benefits they receive, 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.
As key lawmakers meet informally to resolve differences between the two chambers, Pentagon officials are mounting a last-ditch lobbying campaign for cuts to military benefits and permission to close unneeded bases — both of which they say are needed to free up scarce money to preserve military readiness.
“We need Congress to act. And the longer we defer the tough choices, the tougher they will be to make down the road and the more brutal the outcome,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Saturday, echoing comments made by Deputy Secretary Bob Work just days earlier.
Lawmakers in both chambers have rejected a new round of base closures, saying the Pentagon first needs a better understanding of its property needs.
Benefits are among the key differences in the two bills. House lawmakers opted for a 1.8 percent raise for service members, but senators accepted Obama’s recommendation of 1 percent.
The Senate bill also more closely tracks the administration’s plans to slow the growth of housing allowances, but, like the House measure, rejects the Pentagon’s requests for healthcare enrollment fees for retirees and cuts to commissary subsidies.
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.
