New DoD Rule Might Cripple Silicon Valley Efforts: Sen. McCain

New DoD Rule Might Cripple Silicon Valley Efforts: Sen. McCain
New DoD Rule Might Cripple Silicon Valley Efforts: Sen. McCain

WASHINGTON: The day before Defense Secretary Ash Carter heads to St. Louis to promote outreach to the high tech communities, Sen. John Mccain blasted a proposed new DoD rule that “would have the unfortunate effect of undermining many of the key objectives” of Carter’s efforts to entice Silicon Valley to do much more business with the Pentagon.…

‘Last Bill That Works:’ End Of An Era For National Defense Authorization Act?

‘Last Bill That Works:’ End Of An Era For National Defense Authorization Act?
‘Last Bill That Works:’ End Of An Era For National Defense Authorization Act?

Bill Greenwalt played a major role in crafting the defense policy bill — the National Defense Authorization Act — each year for almost a decade, helping to squire the bill through the personalities and politics of the ever-fractious Senate. Now the muzzle is off — he’s a defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute —…

Redefining Energy Security in the 21st Century

The following commentary appeared in our sister publication, Breaking Energy. While we don’t usually write about the Defense Department’s energy use (except when it’s a casus belli or a major budget item in aggregate) this piece addresses a fundamental issue of American foreign and domestic policy: climate change and foreign sources of energy. The Editor.…

The Sky’s Not Falling On Satellite Exports: The Ghost Of Anti-China Paranoia Past

The U.S. aerospace industry got an early Christmas present this week, when House and Senate conferees approved defense authorization legislation that gives the President discretion to determine export jurisdiction for satellites. The legislation next will be voted on by the full Congress, and signed by the President. That process will conclude a necessary-but-not-sufficient, long-awaited first…

Air Guard Cut, More Ships OKd, Satellite Exports Eased In Defense Policy Bill

[Updated Friday 12/21] CAPITOL HILL: It looks like the country’s getting a defense bill for Christmas, with provisions on everything from boosting cybersecurity to sanctioning Iran to loosening export controls on satellites. In what passes for high efficiency in Congress these days, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees completed their conference on the National…

Guard Association Decries ‘End Run’ To Push Cuts Through Conference – BREAKING

[Updated and corrected 11:45 pm] WASHINGTON: The powerful National Guard Association of the US today denounced an unnamed “handful of House Armed Services Committee members” who, it says, are trying to use the ongoing House-Senate conference on the National Defense Authorization Act to reinstate cuts to the Air National Guard. The Air Force proposed reducing…

Short-timer Gen. Schwartz Urges Senate To Vote On Air Force Nominations

WASHINGTON: Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, nearing the end of his 40-year career, hit back aggressively today at a series of congressional moves to obstruct the promotion of top Air Force leaders, including Schwartz’s successor as Chief of Staff, and to undo what the service believes are essential force structure changes. Schwartz was dismissive of…

EXCLUSIVE: HASC Try To Protect Air Guard May Mess Up C-5 Plans, Association Warns

WASHINGTON: Both chambers of Congress have resoundingly rejected the administration’s proposed cuts to the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve – but the language that the House passed is so sweeping that it may inadvertently block the modernization of the very Guard and Reserve forces it was written to protect, according to Hill sources…

Army Mulls $1.7 Billion Effort To Replace 3,000 M113s

WASHINGTON: On the margins of the $550-plus billion defense budget, the Army and the defense industry are quietly working on a program that could potentially replace 3,000 geriatric armored vehicles. So far, in this year’s budget, Congress is going along, but the real money — and the real battle — loom in the years to…

Why Senate, House Authorizers Both Added Dough For Armor

WASHINGTON: It’s spring, and 70-ton Marine Corps M1 tanks rumble through the flowers in southern Afghanistan (pictured above), while at home, both chambers of Congress are adding funds for armored vehicles to the Pentagon spending bill. It may seem counter-intuitive that a nation shifting from hearts-and-minds counterinsurgency to “AirSea Battle” in the Pacific would need…

SASC NDAA Freezes Air Guard Cuts, Pakistan Aid; Rejects Tricare Fee Boost

THE CAPITOL [updated 9:40 pm with details from Senate press release]: The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously passed its mark-up of the annual defense spending bill, rejecting all proposed cuts to the Air National Guard, cutting the Defense Department’s civilian and contractor workforce by 5 percent over five years, and restricting aid to Pakistan. The…

Critics Knock NDAA As Sequestration Looms; Export Reforms Do Pass

WASHINGTON: The House passed the annual defense spending bill this afternoon, 299 votes to 120, after two days of amendments and debate that hit election-year hot buttons hard but largely ignored substantive military issues or the looming threat of sequestration. “If January comes and the Budget Control Act remains in effect as currently written, everything…

Defense Budget That Breaks Spending Agreement Passed By House

WASHINGTON — The House passed a defense budget Friday that exceeds the deal cut by Congress and President Barack Obama last summer, and that would have to be paid for with cash taken from poverty programs, health care and the federal workforce.

Bill To End Indefinite Detention Fails In House

WASHINGTON — A judge may have found unconstitutional the law that allows people to be held indefinitely without trial by the military, but the House of Representatives voted Friday to keep it anyway.