Transcripts For CSPAN3 Joe Gould On The Week Ahead In Congress 20170708

Reporter with defense news. What does the Defense Authorization bill and what is in the version, the 2018 version approved by the House Armed Services committee . The House Armed Services passed it, the national Defense Authorization act for 2018 earlier or late last month, and what it is, is the bill the annual defense policy bill. It gets reconciled with the senate version. In this case they authorized about 696 billion in defense budgeting and related policy provisions for the pentagon. So thats 696 billion figure though, it exceeds the cap set in the budget control act. How will congress reconcile that . Well, thats a huge question. The budget cap for defense in this case is a number, it is 549 billion. So what it would take to ease the spending cap is a change in the law and a change in the law takes 60 votes in the senate. 60 votes in the senate takes sena Senate Democrats. So what we know is that Senate Democrats have leverage in this deal, that theyre likely to press for more on the nondefense side of the budget, which is likely to lower the defense side of the budget. So thats 596 number that were talking about is likely to come down. What sort of investments does this bill call for in shims aps planes and things like that . What is interesting in this bill is weve heard from the white house, from the president definitely on the campaign trail about a largescale military buildup, but we dont really see that in this bill. The white house number was about 603 billion excluding war time funds, special war time funds. So the republicans who were pro defense have criticized it as too little. But we do see a number of ships, jets, even structures that exceed what the Trump Administration has asked for. The headline at defense. Com with a picture of the chairman of the committee Max Thornberry, the House Armed Services panel overwhelmingly approving the defense measure, but it also includes a new branch of the military, the space corps. How did this come about . What would that entail . Sure. Thats thats actually a fairly controversial provision within the bill that was discussed at mark off. So mike rogers, republican from alabama who chaired the strategic portion of the subcommittee and his democratic counterpart jim cooper both expressed some frustration with the pace at which the u. S. Is keeping up with russia and china in the militarization of space. What they want to do is break out a new space corps, its own force, sort of subordinate to the air force but outside of the air force. Theres been pushback from other members of the Armed Services committee, not just democratics, republicans who say that this needs more study. The air force itself feels like it is an additional layer of bureaucracy. Of course, it is going to have to get reconciled with the senate Armed Services Committee Version of the bill which doesnt contain that. It passed out of committee overwhelmingly. How about when it goes to the house floor, the same sort of support . Tell us what may be ahead in the Senate Debate on authorization. Typically the authorization bill if it passes in the house, it gets a wide array of support. Right now as were talking i think theres 90 plus amendments that the rules committee is considering. Next week they plan to meet on tuesday to hear from the House Armed Services Committee Chairman Max Thornberry and a ranking member, adam smith. And then on wednesday theyre going to the rules committee that is are going to consider amendments and whether theyre in order to be considered on the floor. So what were weve been told to expect is Floor Consideration on thursday and potentially a vote on friday, although thats in the hands of the house leadership. Joe gould covers congress for defense news. You can read his reporting at defensenews. Com