The Defense Department finally has its authorization bill for fiscal year 2014, even if it came about in an unusual fashion: the House of Representatives had to pass two distinct defense bills this year, one in June and one in December. The Senate never voted on the first, and the second passed in a late-night vote right before leaving for the holiday recess, amid great frustration among both Democrats and Republicans about how the process played out.
The bill that is finally headed to the president’s desk for signature authorizes $526.8 billion for base defense programs, $80.7 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations funding, and $17.6 billion for national security programs in the Department of Energy. These numbers are slightly higher than the spending caps set out in the Bipartisan Budget Agreement passed Wednesday, so appropriators will now use the guidance laid out in the defense bill to craft a spending bill that adheres to the new caps.
Though many Republican senators agree the content of the bill was fine, they left the Capitol after the 11:15 p.m. Thursday vote with a great sense of frustration over how the final language was crafted. When the first defense bill came to the Senate floor in November, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) limited the amendments to just a handful–two competing amendments to reform the military judicial system and its handling of sexual assault cases in particular, and two competing amendments on transfers of detainees out of Guantanamo Bay. At the time, Reid said his reason for doing so was so that no senators could use the must-pass bill to force debate on unrelated issues. When the second defense bill came to the Senate floor the week of Dec. 15, no amendments were allowed because the House had already adjourned for the year, and Reid noted that even changing “one comma” would result in the bill not passing by the end of the year.
For Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), this year was a low point since joining the Senate in 2010.
“In the past the first few defense authorizations I’ve worked on, it’s been a pretty open amendment process, so I was able to bring amendments, argue amendments on the floor,” she said after the Thursday night vote. “So this one was very different, and I think if we go to the normal way we do things then we won’t have any problems.”
Asked if she intended to change how the Senate Armed Services Committee does business next year–particularly its practice of saving hot-button issues for floor debate rather than settling them during the much more genial committee debates during the spring–she said no.
“No, I think some issues are better served on the floor just because they’re such broad-reaching issues that people have a variety of opinions of them on the floor,” she said, with those topics including personnel issues and ones that touch both defense and foreign policy. “So it wouldn’t surprise me if certain issues we did keep to the floor for next year. But I think if we had an amendment process that allowed people to bring their amendments forward, we wouldn’t have issues on that. And it’s usually a very limited number of issues, most issues we’re able to resolve in the committee.”
That being said, Ayotte added that she appreciated the effort by SASC chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), as well as House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), who behind closed doors meshed their two bills along with about 80 amendments that had been proposed in the Senate but not allowed to be brought to the floor for debate.
Higher up in the Senate, Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said that he too did not foresee any procedural changes in how the Senate handles the defense bill next year, either in the timing or the process of considering the bill on the Senate floor.
“I don’t think that things are going to change much until we have an election in November,” he said Thursday night. Of the bill text itself, he said, “I think it’s not a terrible bill, but this is a terrible way to do business.”
Despite the heightened tensions surrounding this year’s bill, SASC leadership was quick to praise the bill.
“Though this bill should have been considered earlier and under regular order in the Senate, we were able to address the interests of many members by adopting 79 Senate amendments that made the final bill even better,” Inhofe said in a statement he released immediately after the vote. “Our constitutional duty in Congress is to provide for the nation’s defense, and this year’s NDAA contains many provisions that fulfill this solemn responsibility. It supports the well-being of our men and women in uniform and their families and strengthens congressional oversight of the President and the Defense of Department.”
Levin agreed, saying in a statement that, “This bill ensures that important pay and benefits, including combat pay, will continue; includes powerful and important new tools in our fight against military sexual assault; and makes progress toward the day we can close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay.”