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Week ahead: House takes up defense appropriations amid sequestration fight
The House will vote on the defense appropriations bill this week as the warnings over the threat of $500 billion in defense cuts continue to get louder on Capitol Hill.
House Republicans are expected to attack Democrats and President Obama over sequestration during the debate on the 2013 defense appropriations bill, which will likely take several days of votes to wade through potentially hundreds of amendments.
The House is also planning to vote on a bill that would require reports from the Obama administration explaining how the sequester cuts would be implemented. The bill received a seal of approval from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Friday.
And the House Armed Services Committee is holding a high-profile hearing with the chief executives of some of the biggest defense contractors, where they are expected to lay out how devastating the cuts would be to the defense industrial base.
It all adds up to a busy week on Capitol Hill, where talk about sequestration has grown amid added pressure from defense hawks and the industry.
There are also a host of controversial issues in the bill, such as an attempt to ban military sponsorships of sporting events like NASCAR, as well as other fights than can expected to get contentious debates on the House floor.
The bill was given an open rule, meaning that hundreds of amendments will likely be filed, and a good chunk of those could get a vote.
Away from the House floor, the Wednesday hearing in the Armed Services Committee with top defense executives is the first of two high-profile hearings the panel has scheduled to try and get traction on the sequestration cuts.
Two weeks after the industry leaders testify, the committee is holding a hearing on sequestration with acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients and Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
Four industry heads will appear Wednesday: Lockheed Martin’s Bob Stevens, EADS North America’s Sean O’Keefe, Pratt and Whitney’s David Hess and Williams-Pyro’s Della Williams.
Stevens has already been a vocal critic of sequestration, and he threatened that his company might send out layoff notices to all 100,000-plus employees right before the November election due to sequestration.
The industry leaders won’t be the only big names coming before the committee this week.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey will testify before the committee Thursday about the recent national security leaks, the first time the two have come to Capitol Hill to talk about the disclosures. The hearing, however, is for members only, and closed to the public.
The House Armed Services Committee has another three hearings to cap a busy week: one Wednesday on Afghanistan historical perspectives and two Friday on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament and on Navy shipbuilding.
The Senate Armed Services Committee will convene Thursday to consider three Defense Department nominations, Gen. Mark Welsh to be Air Force chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Frank Grass to be National Guard chief and Lt. Gen. John Kelly to be commander of U.S. Southern Command.
