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Summary

On April 9, 2009, the White House sent Congress a request for $83.4 billion in supplemental appropriations for defense, foreign affairs, domestic fire fighting, and some other purposes for the remainder of FY2009. Of the total, $75.5 billion is for Department of Defense and intelligence activities related to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; $3.7 billion, offset by $3.4 billion of rescissions, is for other defense programs, including border security measures; $7.1 billion is for international affairs; $250 million is for domestic fire fighting; $137 million is for national security-related programs in the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice, $2.9 million is for National Security Council Operations, and $72 million is for the Legislative Branch for Capitol Hill Police radios. Most recently, the Administration has added a request for funding to respond to the recent swine flu outbreak. On April 28, the White House announced that it was requesting $1.5 billion in additional funding swine flu preparedness, including funds for antiviral medication stockpiles, vaccine development, and other measures. On April 27, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey and other key legislators said they were considering adding funds to the supplemental for swine flu preparedness. The Administrations new request for defense and foreign affairs is in addition to $70 billion in FY2009 supplemental funding that Congress approved in June, 2008. P.L. 110-252, which was signed into law on June 30, included a supplemental defense bridge fund of $65.9 billion to cover costs of military operations through the first several months of FY2009 and also appropriated $4.0 billion in supplemental FY2009 funds for foreign affairs. Amounts for defense in the bridge fund and in the regular FY2009 defense appropriations act, (P.L. 110-329, Division C), were expected to be sufficient to finance Army and Marine Corps operations through about June of this year. In testimony before the House Budget Committee on March 18, 2009, Defense Department Comptroller Robert Hale urged Congress to approve supplemental funding before the Memorial Day recess in order to avoid financial disruptions. If approved, the new request, together with the enacted $65.9 billion bridge fund, will bring total supplemental defense funding for FY2009 to $145 billion. Though this is a substantial amount, it is significantly less than $170 billion that Congress provided in FY2007 and $187 billion in FY2008. The decline does not reflect the withdrawal of forces from Iraq, which has only begun. Rather, the change is due almost entirely to a reduction in the amount requested for weapons procurement, which falls from $64 billion in FY2008 to $28 billion in FY2009. A large part of the decline in procurement, in turn, is due to a substantial cut in acquisition of Mine Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) vehicles, which were purchased in very large numbers in FY2008. The House Appropriations Committee plans to mark up its version of the bill on May 7. On May 4, Chairman Obey released a summary of his proposal, which reflects subcommittee recommendations. The defense portion of the bill includes unrequested funds for C-17 and C-130 cargo aircraft but not for a new Air Force aerial refueling tanker, which might have been quite controversial. The bill requires a report assessing the performance of the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan in meeting standards in five areas. The Administration has opposed linking aid to Pakistan to achievement of specific benchmarks, though officials have not yet reacted specifically to the Obey proposals. Funding to support the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison has evoked some questions in congressional hearings. And Representative Murtha, the Chairman of the defense subcommittee, has been critical of the Defense Department request for funding to support more troops for border security with Mexico.

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