Sponsored by Lincad
————————————————————————-
25 Jul 19. Budget deal advances despite GOP worries over costs, smaller boost for military. House lawmakers on Thursday advanced a two-year, $2.7trn budget plan with $738bn in military funding in fiscal 2020 over the objections of conservative colleagues who objected to the increased federal spending levels. The measure — which passed 284-149 — has the support of President Donald Trump and leaders from both chambers, but drew the support of only 65 Republicans in the final vote. That’s roughly one-third of the House GOP membership.
Senate lawmakers are expected to take up the matter next week. The measure is designed to prevent a partial government shutdown this fall and stabilize appropriations plans for all aspects of federal agencies until after next year’s presidential election.
On the House floor Thursday, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., called the deal a critical step forward in restoring regular budget order and predictability not just for military programs, but for all of the government.
“There is no secret we have big differences between the Democratically controlled House and White House and the Republican-controlled Senate,” he said. “Despite those differences, we have to function. We have to be able to fund the government and meet our responsibilities to the American people.”
Ahead of the vote, Trump worked to bolster Republican support for the measure, which would increase Defense Department spending by more than 3 percent over fiscal 2019 levels. He tweeted that the new budget plan “greatly helps our Military and our Vets.
White House officials (and Republican congressional leaders) had pushed for even more in defense spending recent weeks, while congressional Democrats had insisted any military funding increase be offset with additional non-defense spending.
In the end, the non-military money in the new budget deal will grow by about $10bn more than defense spending over the next two years, and the military spending for fiscal 2020 will fall about $12bn short of the White House’s hopes.
Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., and chairman of the Republican Study Committee, in a statement called the compromise plan “a massive spending deal that will further in debt future generations and remove reasonable safeguards to prevent the growth of government and the misuse of taxpayer dollars.” (Source: Defense News)
25 Jul 19. Trump vetoes congressional action to block Saudi arms sales. Donald Trump on Wednesday vetoed three congressional resolutions meant to block his administration from bypassing Congress to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Congress passed the measures as a reassertion of Congress’s power after the Trump administration declared an emergency and later cited threats from Iran and Saudi Arabia’s status as bulwark against its influence in the Mideast. The sale includes precision-guided bombs and related components.
The Trump administration also cited an impact on the global supply chain ― specifically allies United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, France, Spain and Italy, which have co-production licensing agreements for some of the systems.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Robert Menendez, led the effort with backing from Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul. The effort channeled frustration on Capitol Hill over civilian casualties in the U.S.-backed and Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen as well as the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
After Trump’s veto, Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, condemned the “arms sale fiasco” and vowed to continue the fight against it. “These weapons are going to continue fueling a reckless and brutal campaign of violence and exacerbating the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe,” Engel said in a statement.
Separately, a pair of U.S. senators met earlier in the day with Princess Reema bint Bandar, the new Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, to express concerns about “the bombings of civilian targets and worsening humanitarian crisis in Yemen, the lack of accountability for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the unprecedented level of domestic repression under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” according to a readout of the meeting.
The two were Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism, and Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin, who is also the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. (Source: Defense News)
25 Jul 19. U.S. Senate confirms Milley as chairman of Joint Chiefs. The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm four-star Army General Mark Milley as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Donald Trump’s most senior uniformed military adviser.
The vote was 89-1 for Milley, now the Army Chief of Staff, to replace Marine General Joseph Dunford.
Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley was the only dissenting vote.
Milley, 61, served in Iraq, Afghanistan and in other countries before becoming the Army’s top officer in August 2015.
His appointment follows several other Pentagon leadership changes during Trump’s tumultuous presidency.
Earlier this week, the Senate confirmed Army Secretary Mark Esper, a military veteran and former defense industry lobbyist, as Trump’s second secretary of defense, ending seven months – the longest period ever – that the Pentagon had been without a permanent top official.
There were three acting secretaries of defense in the interim, including Esper and Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing Co executive who withdrew from consideration as defense secretary last month after reports emerged of domestic violence in his family.
Also this week, Trump’s nominee to be vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Air Force General John Hyten, has been facing questions about whether he would be confirmed because he is being investigated for an alleged sexual assault.
At his confirmation hearing this month, Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee he would not be “intimidated into making stupid decisions” and would give his best advice to Trump regardless of pressure.
U.S. officials have said Milley has a good rapport with Trump, who announced his plan to nominate Milley last year, months sooner than expected.
Milley is due to assume his new post on Oct. 1, the end of Dunford’s term. (Source: Reuters)
25 Jul 19. New Pentagon Secretary Approves Of Proposed Budget Deal’s $738bn FY ’20 Defense Topline. Newly appointed Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Wednesday he is pleased with the $738bn fiscal year 2020 Pentagon topline included as part of a proposed two-year budget deal. Esper, in his first remarks to reporters following his Senate confirmation, said he had “no complaints” about the potential spending level, despite it coming at $13bn below the White House’s original budget request.
The White House and Democratic lawmakers reached a proposed agreement this week on a $1.4trn two-year budget deal that would lift the debt ceiling for two years and avoid sequestration (Defense Daily, July 23).
Esper called the $738bn a “good number,” adding his priority is to avoid unpredictable funding and continuing resolutions that would set back programs across the services.
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Esper as DoD’s first permanent secretary in seven months, while he noted there are still 14 Senate-confirmed positions that remain filled by officials serving in an acting capacity.
“People in acting jobs, when you don’t feel the full confidence of the role, sometimes folks tend to not behave as confidently because you’re unsure and you don’t want to bind the person who may actually be confirmed,” Esper said. “We need to get staffed up quickly.”
Esper said his former role as Army Secretary is one position that is likely to be filled relatively soon with an official nomination for Under Secretary Ryan Mccarthy to serve as his successor McCarthy’s nomination is expected in “a matter of days,” according to Esper. (Source: Defense Daily)
25 Jul 19. HASC GOP Leader Urging Colleagues to Support Two-Year Budget Deal Despite Lower Defense Topline. The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) is pushing his GOP colleagues to support a new two-year budget deal secured this week by the Trump administration and House Democrats, but acknowledged the lower funding topline for defense and impact on the U.S. government’s overall debt may become sticking points. HASC Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) told reporters July 24 that although he would have preferred more than the $738bn topline allocated for defense in H.R. 3877, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, the “predictability” of passing a budget and the ability to get funding to the U.S. military on time “is a really significant factor.”
Thornberry and his Republican colleague in the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), both rapidly announced their support for the proposed bill after it was reached Monday evening, despite vocally advocating for a $750bn budget topline as proposed in the initial FY ’20 Presidential budget request. The proposed act includes $738bn for defense in fiscal year 2020, and $741.5bn in FY ’21.
The House passed its version of the FY ’20 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with a $733bn topline earlier this month, while the Senate-passed version funded defense spending at $750bn.
Thornberry noted that the increased funding numbers over the House-passed NDAA – which funded the Defense Department at $733bn – to the proposed bill would mostly fall victim to inflation rates. However, “I don’t think I’ve met anybody at DoD or industry who doesn’t agree with the fact that 738 on time is more valuable than 750 in December or January, after you’ve gone through a [continuing resolution] and had all of the uncertainty that goes with that.”
The two-year deal would also help lawmakers avoid building a budget for fiscal year 2021 during a presidential election year that will likely prove distracting, Thornberry added. “Who knows the chaos that’s coming next year.”
The House will “most likely” vote on the bill Thursday, Thornberry said. Sources on the Hill said if it passes the House, members will likely leave Washington, D.C., Thursday evening for their annual August recess, one day earlier than scheduled.
The Senate would then take it up for a vote before its members leave for recess Aug. 2. Lawmakers are expected back Sept. 9.
Thornberry said he continues to work to persuade other HASC members to support the bill.
“I think most will – I hope – and we’re still having those conversations,” he said.
Some committee members have already come out against it. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), who sits on the HASC Strategic Forces subcommittee and is also a member of the House Freedom Caucus that advocates for more conservative positions within the chamber, said in a Wednesday floor speech that he will vote against the “financially irresponsible” bill.
“Numerous Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretaries of Defense have warned that America’s debt is our greatest national security threat, because debt and an ensuing national bankruptcy and insolvency have the ability to damage America’s military and national security more than any enemy ever has,” Brooks said. “I agree with and heed their warnings.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a progressive HASC member, said Tuesday evening that he appreciates that the budget deal lifts the debt ceiling and “moves us past the austerity of the Budget Control Act.” But he remains concerned about the increased level of defense spending since President Trump took office, and has not yet said whether he will vote for the bill. (Source: Defense Daily)
24 Jul 19. Proposed Two-Year Budget Deal Banishes Sequester Threat, But Investments Could Suffer in 2021. As lawmakers on Capitol Hill largely laud a proposed agreement between the White House and House Democratic leaders that would eliminate the threat of sequestration and lift the debt ceiling for two years, analysts wondered if defense-related procurement funding may suffer under efforts to reach a bipartisan compromise.
H.R. 3877, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019, includes $738bn under the “050” account for Defense Department and defense-related Energy Department funds in FY ’20, and $741.5 bn in FY ’21. That includes $667bn in base funding and $72bn for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding in 2020, and $672bn for 2021 base funding and $69bn for OCO.
The deal was announced and celebrated separately July 22 by President Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other stakeholders. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, McConnell called it “the best possible deal under the circumstances” of a divided Congress that is working to avoid automatic spending cuts triggered by the 2011 Budget Control Act and the looming threat of a continuing resolution or worse sequestration cuts.
House leaders will work to pass the bill before members leave for August recess July 26, while the Senate has until Aug. 2 to pass it before its members depart for the month. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee as well as its defense subcommittee, told reporters Tuesday that if the bill is passed in Congress before the August recess, appropriators will quickly get to work deciding on allocations for the various subcommittees.
“We hope to hit the ground running when we come back early September,” he said. Congress is scheduled to return from recess Sept. 9.
The bill provides a 3 percent increase in defense spending over FY ’19 enacted levels, and only a flat $3bn increase in 2021 with no inflation adjustment. That equates to about a 2 percent cut to the previously projected FY ’21 funding, noted Jim McAleese of McAleese and Associates in a Tuesday email.
Lockheed Martin [LMT] President and CEO Marillyn Hewson called the proposed budget deal “an encouraging step in the process to continue to” support the modernization of national defense assets in an earnings call Tuesday. However, “We will have to see how it plays out in terms of what that means for Lockheed Martin,” she noted.
The Aerospace Industries Association’s president Eric Fanning applauded the two-year budget deal in a Tuesday statement, but warned that future agreements “should avoid the unconventional use” of OCO funds – which he considers “not a reliable way to fund enduring programs.”
Byron Callan of the Capital Alpha Partners had a more mixed reaction to the budget proposal, noting in a Tuesday email to investors that the included funding numbers “are all just a plan and all plans can be overtaken by events.”
“There are enough geopolitical pots simmering that any one of them could boil over and generate new DoD spending demands,” Callan noted.
He expressed concern about the flat topline for fiscal year 2021, and that the Defense Department’s five-year Future Years Budget Plan (FYDP) released last March put the defense topline for FY ’21 at $746bn – nearly $5bn more than the level set in the proposed act.
Callan estimated that the $738bn topline would include about $245 bn for investment funds and $13bn for military construction, assuming that operations and maintenance would be funded at the Senate version’s level. That would mean R&D would remain flat in FY ‘20 compared to FY ’19 – where investment took up $244bn – and the FY ’21 proposed budget is likely smaller than what is listed in the FYDP due to reductions in procurement and RDT&E efforts, he added.
Analysts at the Cowen Washington Research Group also noted the potentially light procurement and R&D numbers for 2021, but considered that OCO needs may drop by that timeframe, leaving room in FY ’21 budget “to juice investment.”
What’s more, “Congress can always manufacture growth in a low-growth environment,” the analysts said.
Progressive Democrats and fiscal conservatives are expected to dislike the bill, and passage before Congress leaves Washington, D.C., during August recess remains uncertain, though leaders pledged to make it happen. However, “I make no apologies for this two-year caps deal,” McConnell asserted Tuesday, adding, “The alternatives were much worse.”
From the Senate’s perspective, “We like the defense number,” McConnell said. The Senate version of the fiscal year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act included a $750bn topline — $12bn less than what is included in the new agreement. That being said, the House version of the NDAA included $733bn.
Most important to consider is “what you avoid” with the agreement. “You avoid multiple shortterm CRs, potentially multiple short-term debt ceilings,” McConnell said. “I think the absence of chaos is to the advantage of both sides.”
The top GOP members of both the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) issued statements Monday evening declaring their support for the bill, even while they lamented the fact that the topline was not $750bn.
SASC Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said while he is “disappointed” in the total for defense funding, “Without this agreement, we cannot guarantee on-time funding for the training, resources and equipment our service members need.”
HASC Ranking Member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) expressed similar sentiments in his statement, noting, “While I believe that our military needs more funding than this agreement provides… we cannot underestimate the incredible benefit of funding our troops on time for the second year in a row.”
“This agreement has my strong support and I urge all of my colleagues to vote for it,” Thornberry added. (Source: Defense Daily)
22 Jul 19. ‘Near-final’ budget deal could prevent government shutdown, stabilize military funding. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have reached a “near-final agreement” on a two-year budget deal that has increases for defense and domestic top lines.
If the deal holds, it could prevent another partial government shutdown this fall and provide budget stability that defense leaders have been begging lawmakers for in recent years.
The agreement would also “permanently end” budget caps already set to expire in 2021 ― long a priority for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle ― and suspend the debt limit until July 31, 2021, according to a source close to the talks. That would mark a retreat for the White House, which reportedly sought to extend the caps another two years.
President Donald Trump was upbeat Monday about the status of budget talks, saying, “We’re having very good talks,” with Pelosi and other congressional leaders.
“Very important that we take care of our military. Our military was depleted and in the last two and a half years, we’ve un-depleted it, to put it mildly,” Trump said. “We have made it stronger than ever before. We need another big year.”
Top lines for defense and nonmilitary spending were not immediately disclosed. Senate Republicans have already advanced legislation backing $750bn in defense spending for fiscal 2020 (a figure supported by the White House to maintain military readiness) while House Democrats have moved a slimmer, $733bn military funding plan.
Previous budget deals modified budget caps for equal increases in defense and nondefense accounts, and the source said the near-final deal includes “parity.” It’s unclear whether in this case that means a percentage or dollar increase and what the starting point would be for that increase.
Mnuchin and Pelosi are “down to some technical language issues,” and the former ― who has emerged as the White House’s lead negotiator on the budget impasse ― “has been keeping the president and congressional Republicans updated regularly” on the progress of the negotiations, the source said.
The administration backed off its reported priority of $150bn in spending cuts, as negotiators settled on $75bn in offsets instead. The near-final agreement contains items from the same bipartisan offset package from the last bipartisan caps agreement, the source said.
Still, past budget deals have advanced in Congress only to be upended at the last moment by President Donald Trump, who has proclaimed in the past that nonmilitary spending must be trimmed to rein in wasteful government spending. Trump has not yet publicly commented on this proposal.
Republicans in both the House and Senate have argued the fiscal 2020 defense budget should not go below that $750bn mark, citing congressional testimony from defense officials that 3 to 5 percent year-over-year budget growth is needed.
The amount reflects focus on great power competition, as called for in the 2018 National Defense Strategy. The last two budgets were more focused on replenishing depleted munitions stocks and addressing readiness concerns that were the result of statutory budget caps.
Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Army Secretary Mark Esper, cited the long-term risk from China in testimony last week in support of both the president’s budget request and the need for a two-year budget deal.
“I cannot overstate how important it was for [the Department of Defense] last year to receive the budget on time,” Esper said. “It really allowed us to accelerate the readiness gains we made, to advance our modernization efforts, and do all those things that the National Defense Strategy tells us to do.”
The retreat from the possibility of a one-year continuing resolution, which lawmakers and the administration had openly discussed, is a win for the Pentagon. While short-term stopgap CRs are nothing new, CRs do lock in spending at the previous year’s level and bar new programs from starting as well as production increases.
A “clean” CR would have provided $716bn. However, since the budget cap for defense is $576bn for 2020, the CR would have violated statutory budget caps by approximately $71bn and triggered a sequester of that amount in January 2020.
The White House and congressional negotiators are racing against the clock to reach a budget deal to ease statutory spending caps and avoid a government shutdown that would start Oct. 1.
With the House taking a recess at the end of the week, Pelosi has only days to muscle through any potential deal, while the Senate has another week before its summer recess begins. (Source: Defense News)
24 Jul 19. DoE Faces Fight to Hit Requested 2020 Nuclear Weapons Budget, Even After Caps Deal. The just-announced budget caps deal provides $2.5bn more in base defense spending than the 2020 budget the House has already approved, and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would need a 25% share of the extra funding to reach the White House’s preferred civilian nuclear-weapons budget.
To get the money, the semi-autonomous Department of Energy agency will either have to compete with the entire Department of Defense, get the money from elsewhere within DoE as the Trump administration proposed in March, or make do with less funding that it wanted.
Announced Monday, the spending agreement could be voted on by the House as soon as Thursday. The deal would permit $666.5bn in base defense spending for 2020. In appropriations bills passed in June, the House provided about $664bn in base defense spending, of which the NNSA, Department of Environmental Management (EM) and other DoE defense programs represent a roughly $22.5bn share.
In its 2020 Energy and Water budget bill, the House rejected the administration’s proposal to increase funding for the NNSA while decreasing funding for EM and other DoE programs. The lower chamber approved $15.9bn for NNSA — some $600m below the request — while EM got roughly $6bn, or about $470m above the request.
The Senate could vote on the caps deal next week, after the House leaves Washington for its annual August recess. The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to produce any 2020 spending bills, and if it waits until after the upper chamber’s scheduled August recess to do so, it would have under three weeks to write, debate and pass the bills, then iron out any differences with House appropriators. (Source: Defense Daily)
————————————————————————-
About Lincad
Lincad is a leading expert in the design and manufacture of batteries, chargers and associated products for a range of applications across a number of different sectors. With a heritage spanning more than three decades in the defence and security sectors, Lincad has particular expertise in the development of reliable, ruggedised products with high environmental, thermal and electromagnetic performance. With a dedicated team of engineers and production staff, all product is designed and manufactured in-house at Lincad’s facility in Ash Vale, Surrey. Lincad is ISO 9001 and TickITplus accredited and works closely with its customers to satisfy their power management requirements.
Lincad is also a member of the Joint Supply Chain Accreditation Register (JOSCAR), the accreditation system for the aerospace, defence and security sectors, and is certified with Cyber Essentials, the government-backed, industry supported scheme to help organisations protect themselves against common cyber attacks. The majority of Lincad’s products contain high energy density lithium-ion technology, but the most suitable technology for each customer requirement is employed, based on Lincad’s extensive knowledge of available electrochemistries. Lincad offers full life cycle product support services that include repairs and upgrades from point of introduction into service, through to disposal at the end of a product’s life. From product inception, through to delivery and in-service product support, Lincad offers the high quality service that customers expect from a recognised British supplier.
————————————————————————-