The White House has requested that Congress’ consideration of a short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown include a provision allowing planned funds for the Columbia-class nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine program to avoid delays.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has sent Congress a list of requested anomalies for an expected continued resolution (CR), as lawmakers are set to return from the August recess and pick up work on final appropriations legislation.
“Although the crucial work continues to reach a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, it is clear that a short-term continuing resolution will be needed next month. As part of our responsibility to prudently plan for a short-term CR, OMB is providing Congress with technical assistance needed to avoid severe disruptions to government services in the first quarter of the fiscal year. We urge Congress to include these anomalies along with the critical emergency supplemental needs the administration transmitted earlier this month in any forthcoming CR, as they have done on a bipartisan basis many times in the past,” an OMB spokesperson said in a statement to Defense Daily.
The anomaly for the Navy’s Columbia-class program is intended to support construction of the second strategic ballistic missile submarine, according to a copy of the request obtained by Defense Daily, with OMB stating an exception is required in the CR to avoid delay in future deployment plans by up to 20 months.
Anomalies allow for exceptions to a CR’s’ restrictions locking in spending at the previous fiscal year’s spending levels and blocking the Pentagon from starting new programs.
The Senate will return next week and the House on Sept. 12, and pick up work on final spending bills with the end of the fiscal year looming.
The House Appropriations Committee advanced its own defense spending bill with a party line vote in June, after Democrats objected to the legislation’s nearly $2 billion cut to multi-year procurement for select munitions and a slew of GOP-led proposals Democratic members criticized as “needlessly divisive” (Defense Daily, June 22).
In late July, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted near unanimously to advance its own $831.8 billion FY ‘24 defense spending bill, which includes $8 billion for emergency spending above the defense spending cap mandated by the debt ceiling agreement (Defense Daily, July 27).
The debt limit deal passed in June also requires a one percent cut on all spending if all 12 FY ‘24 appropriations bills are not approved by the end of calendar year 2023 (Defense Daily, June 2).