$662B defense authorization bill clears Senate - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

$662B defense authorization bill clears Senate

The U.S. Senate has passed a $662 billion defense authorization bill for 2012 that includes $527 billion for the Pentagon’s annual base budget.

Approved by a 93-7 vote, the legislation also provides $117 billion for war spending, $1 billion less than the Pentagon’s request. Another $17.5 billion is included for defense programs overseen by the Department of Energy.

With the clock running out on this year’s legislative session, the bill now moves to conference committee with the House, where various disagreements will have to be resolved before a final version can go to the president for his signature.

The Senate version contains provisions concerning how the government detains terror suspects. A compromise on the detainee language came late in the day Dec. 1, after days of intense debate over whether U.S. citizens suspected of being terrorists could be detained indefinitely by the U.S. military. The White House had earlier threatened to veto the bill over such provisions; it was unclear whether the new language would mollify the president.

To get the bill passed, the Senate dropped 71 pending amendments at the last minute. But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said they could be introduced next week under a separate piece of legislation.

Among the abandoned amendments was a measure sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, which directed the president to sell 66 new F-16 C/D fighter aircraft to Taiwan.

After modification, the amendment read, “the president shall carry out the sale of no fewer than 66 F-16 C/D multirole fighter aircraft to Taiwan.”

In September, the White House said it would permit the upgrade of Taiwan’s F-16 A/Bs, but said no decision had been made regarding Taipei’s pleas to buy more advanced F-16 C/Ds.

During floor debate, Cornyn complained his amendment was being held up unnecessarily.

“Although the bill had strong bipartisan support, some of my colleagues said they preferred not to offer that amendment on that particular legislative vehicle but said that if I came back on an appropriate legislative vehicle they would support it,” he said. “If there is a more appropriate legislative vehicle than the defense authorization bill, I hope someone would point that out to me.”

Lockheed Martin builds F-16s in Cornyn’s state.

The top-line spending level authorized in the bill meets the spending limits put in place by the Budget Control Act, signed into law in August.

At $527 billion, the bill provides the same level of funding agreed to by Senate appropriators earlier this fall.

The House-passed versions of the defense authorization and appropriations bills were passed before the debt-ceiling agreement and therefore exceed the spending caps of the Budget Control Act.

To meet the spending caps, the Senate trimmed several procurement and R&D programs. It also shifted billions out of the base budget and into the separate war-spending bill.

Of the many amendments, few had to do with defense hardware programs.

One amendment that passed directs the Army to make the National Guard’s C-23 Sherpa aircraft that it is retiring available to states first before trying to sell them elsewhere. If the state decides to take the aircraft, the Army has to transfer them free of charge, according to the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

The amendment still allows that state’s National Guard crews to fly the aircraft, but how that would work is still unclear as it would no longer be a DoD asset.

A separate C-23 amendment, sponsored by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, was among those abandoned right before the bill’s passage. It would have put restrictions on the Army’s ability to divest its C-23 Sherpa aircraft fleet.

The Senate also approved an amendment sponsored by Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which would authorize transfer of two high-speed ferries to the Navy. His amendment allows the Navy to provide the Department of Transportation no more than $35 million for the Huakai and Alakai, passenger ferries originally intended for use in Hawaii before the overseeing company went bankrupt.

The bill includes a measure that would make the head of the National Guard a member of the Chiefs of Staff, a move Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has said he opposes.

The Senate also passed an amendment that would accelerate the Pentagon’s deadline for a complete and validated full statement of budget resources, moving it up three years to September 2014.