The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday introduced its fiscal 2017 defense appropriations bill, which funds the Defense Department’s national security needs at $577.9 billion – $5.2 billion higher than the fiscal 2016 enacted level and $1.6 billion more than former President Barack Obama’s request.
The bill, scheduled for consideration this week on the House floor, proposes $516.1 billion in base discretionary funding and $61.8 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding. “The bill closely reflects the Defense Appropriations bill the House passed last summer, and is consistent with the final National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2017,” the House Appropriations Committee said in a press release. Obama signed the fiscal 2017 NDAA last December, shortly before leaving office.
An explanatory statement accompanying the bill — the result of a conference agreement between the House and Senate — noted that as part of the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons modernization program, both the budget request and the final bill would grant $113.9 million for the Air Force’s Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent Program and $95.6 million for the service’s Long-Range Standoff nuclear cruise missile. Intercontinental ballistic missiles would receive $113.7 million and the Navy’s Ohio-class submarine replacement program would receive $773.1 million in the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.
The federal government through April 28 is operating under a short-term budget resolution that has frozen federal funding at fiscal 2016 levels. President Donald Trump is expected to release his budget plan for the federal government by the middle of this month.
