Defense authorization process seen as endangered

Over the past several years, the House and Senate defense authorizing committees have been hard-pressed to pass a bill before their Appropriations Committee counterparts, a phenomenon congressional observers say endangers the authorization process and threatens to marginalize the power and oversight of the Armed Services committees that steward such legislation.

The yearly defense authorization bill establishes policies that determine how the Pentagon will spend money included in yearly defense appropriations. Ideally, the authorization bill is passed before the appropriations bill goes through the same process. But over the past decade, that sequence often has been reversed.

This year is no exception. The fiscal 2004 Defense appropriations bill was enacted in September, although House and Senate authorizers continue to conference their defense authorization legislation in an effort to resolve a half-dozen outstanding policy issues.

"Clearly they are in danger of making themselves moot," said Christopher Hellman, director of the Project on Military Spending Oversight at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation and a former Congressional staff member.

Hellman noted while Congress has failed to pass other authorization bills in the past, there has always been a defense authorization bill, and it would be unprecedented for the Armed Services Committees not to pass one annually.

Senate and House rules dating from the 19th century have established the distinction between authorization and appropriation bills and set the pace for their passage. Until the 1950s, most authorization laws were permanent and rarely included provisions that authorized specific appropriations.

But this practice left lawmakers with minimal oversight of government programs and policy, and so the process was changed to include temporary authorization of appropriations for new programs. The trend accelerated over the past five decades, although the reinstitution of expired authorizations often has been delayed, sometimes for extended periods, resulting in numerous unauthorized appropriations.

In the mid-1980s, in response to concern over the perceived failure of the reauthorization process, lawmakers amended the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to require CBO to report in January each year on the programs and activities funded without an authorization of appropriations, as well as those for which an existing authorization is set to expire.

As the 1990s closed, lawmakers succeeded in renewing several major authorizations that had lapsed over the past decade, including those for the Justice Department, the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Science Foundation.

They also extended some major authorizations slated to expire at the end of 2002, including those for the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, which are reauthorized annually, as well as agriculture programs, the Food Stamp program and international security and military assistance.

But this year, several unresolved defense policy issues imperil the defense authorization bill. A number of changes proposed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., would strengthen the domestic U.S. industrial base in the defense sector.

Although the House has agreed to dilute several of the more contentious provisions of the bill-at the request of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz-strong opposition still comes from other administration agencies, defense companies, U.S. allies and, most important, Senate authorizers.

Another sticking point is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's proposal to revamp civil service laws governing Pentagon employees. Critics of the plan, including Senate Armed Services member Susan Collins, R-Maine, say the effort lacks necessary checks and balances to allow for a fair personnel system. Veterans' benefits and the highly politicized issue of base realignment and closure also threaten to stymie the conference.

"If you look at what's hanging up the authorization bill, it's not the funding; it's things like domestic content and base closures, issues by and large avoided in appropriations legislation because they are not germane," Hellman said. "Appropriators only have to agree on the numbers, and in this day and age, when you're not looking at cutting anything, that is a much easier task."

The fiscal 2004 National Defense Authorization Act will be Hunter's first as chairman. Congressional observers say this alone should behoove him to quickly resolve outstanding issues and complete the authorization conference. Others, though, lay blame on the Senate for refusing to compromise on a handful of issues, including the defense industrial base provisions.

A spokesman for the House Armed Services Committee insisted the defense authorization process would prevail.

"There always has been a defense authorization bill, and there always will be," the spokesman told CongressDaily. "There are always weighty measures within the authorization bill, and they deserve and receive lengthy debate."

The spokesman noted the stalled process is typical, and the defense authorization bill contains important policy provisions beyond the appropriators' purview.

"On monetary issues, we consult with the appropriators and vice versa during markup," he said. The committee's imprint on the recent House markup of the president's fiscal 2004 emergency supplemental spending package was strong, he added.

But Jon Etherton, vice president for legislative affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association and a seasoned veteran of the legislative process, said this year's authorization conference has been anything but typical.

"You need an authorization process to address policy issues effectively, but unless things improve, that process will lose its credibility," he said.

Etherton credited former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, with elevating the stature of defense authorizers when he took the helm of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1981. Tower, who also served on the Senate Budget Committee at the time, incorporated specific line-item authorizations into the annual bill and implemented more direct guidance on spending Pentagon funds.

But that integrity has eroded over the past decade, Etherton said, particularly since the Republicans took control of both houses in the 1990s.

Ultimately, if faith is lost in the authorization process, such legislation is likely to migrate to the Defense Appropriations committees.

"It's possible that defense authorizations in the future may start with the authorizing committees but may end up on the appropriations side," Etherton said.

Such a development would bode well for defense policy issues writ large, he said. "The appropriators are not policymakers, and they really lack the staff and the resources to address these more intractable defense policy issues."