The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense advanced its FY20 funding bill on September 10. The legislation provides $694.9 billion for the Department of Defense, which is $20.5 billion above the FY19 enacted level and $3 billion below the FY20 requested amount. The funding is broken out into $622.5 billion in base funding, $70.7 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations, and $1.7 billion in emergency funding for hurricane recovery efforts.
The bill is in accordance with the recent budget deal that established topline spending levels for the federal government in FY20 and FY21. The House already passed its version of the FY20 defense spending bill, but that legislation was drafted prior to the budget agreement and does not meet the higher spending limits provided by that deal. The differences will be sorted out in conference.
A summary of the Senate bill is available here. The Democrat minority also released its own summary of the bill, available here.
The draft bill will be considered by the full Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.
UPDATE (September 12, 2019): The full Senate Appropriations Committee approved the bill on September 12 by a vote of 16-15.
As editor of International Military Markets, North America, Shaun has cultivated a deep understanding of the vast defense markets in the United States and Canada. Shaun's perspective on defense procurement and budget issues has been cited in a variety of defense periodicals, including Defense News and National Defense Magazine. Further, Shaun played an integral role in the development of Forecast International's U.S. Defense Budget Forecast product, which offers an unprecedented level of insight into the Pentagon's acquisition budget. In addition to providing original analytical content for the U.S. Defense Budget Forecast, Shaun oversees an internal defense budget forecasting process involving Forecast International's team of skilled systems analysts following release of the DoD's annual budget request. Shaun is also in charge of managing Forecast International's Weapons Inventory database.
