The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee anticipates bipartisan support for the panel’s version of the next defense authorization bill, while adding he wants to see provisions for the Pentagon’s chief management officer and troop movement from Germany addressed at Wednesday’s markup hearing.
“I am hopeful, I would say very hopeful, that at the end of the full committee markup this week that there will be widespread bipartisan support for the product,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), the HASC ranking member, told reporters on Monday. “It’s not the way I would have written it. I do have some issues. But on the other hand, we see I think both sides trying to work together and not being needlessly provocative. And if that attitude holds us up through the full committee markup and the House floor, then we can get to conference with bills that are very easily ‘conference-able’ and get the conference report done on time.”
Thornberry spoke a day before Democrats including House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) were scheduled to attend a White House briefing about U.S. intelligence reports — reported on this week in the media — that Russia may have offered bounties on U.S. soldiers to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Deciding how, or whether, to respond to those intel reports in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) might prolong the House committee’s traditionally drawn-out open markup.
The chairman’s mark for the committee’s fiscal 2021 NDAA, released over the weekend, includes cuts to the F-35 program and adjustments to various shipbuilding programs to fund advanced procurement of a second Virginia-class submarine.
The Navy had been at risk of getting money for only one of the attack subs to help fill out the $20 billion budget proposal for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). But the House bill authorizes funds for both, which ultimately must come from Congress’ appropriations committees.
It also provides a $700 million authorized boost to the $5 billion the Department of Energy requested for defense environmental cleanup.
The House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to mark up the full NDAA starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday.
“We saw last year far more extraneous issues on our bill than normal,” Thornberry said. “Last year, we had a ton of stuff that was not in our jurisdiction, and we see some of that this year already. I’m afraid it may get worse because there are so few legislative vehicles moving with any prospect of being signed into law.”
