The Insider

The Congressional Budget Office posted a blog entry this morning on a report it released yesterday, called "The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023."

The report predicts that "the federal deficit will drop to $845 billion in 2013 -- its smallest size since 2008. Even so, under current law annual deficits and federal debt will stay at historically high levels relative to the economy through 2023, and lawmakers face key budgetary decisions this year that could have a substantial effect on that budget outlook," the blog post states, adding that on defense:

By CBO's estimate, budgetary resources for defense (other than spending for military personnel) will be cut by around 8 percent across the board, and nondefense funding that is subject to the automatic reductions will be cut by between 5 percent and 6 percent. According to that estimate, discretionary outlays will drop by $35 billion and mandatory spending will be reduced by $9 billion this year as a direct result of those procedures; additional reductions in outlays attributable to the cuts in 2013 funding will occur in later years. The deficit for 2013 will depend in part on whether those cuts are allowed to take place, are canceled (in whole or in part), or are replaced with other measures designed to reduce the deficit.

If lawmakers chose to prevent those automatic cuts each year without making other changes that reduced spending by offsetting amounts, the deficit would total nearly $900 billion in 2013, more than $40 billion higher than under current law. Over the 2014-2023 period, total deficits would exceed $8 trillion -- over $1 trillion more than is projected in CBO's current baseline.

Top Republicans from the House and Senate Armed Services committees plan to unveil their thoughts today on how to avert "the automatic defense cuts known as sequestration," according to press releases sent out by a few of them.

The press briefing is slated for 1:45 today at the Senate Radio/TV Gallery in the Capitol.

Participants include:

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA)

Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jim Inhofe (R-OK)

Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)

Senator John McCain (R-AZ)

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-TX)

Congressman Mike Turner (R-OH)

Changing the Navy's official name to include the Marine Corps would not have much adverse budgetary effect, according to a brief Congressional Budget Office report released last week.

Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Paul Broun (R-GA) introduced a bill on Jan. 3 that would redesignate the Department of the Navy the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps. CBO's Jan. 31 analysis states:

CBO anticipates that the bill would have very little effect on most U.S. Naval or Marine Corps installations since signage, service flags, and other items bearing the emblems or names of the Navy or Marine Corps generally do not reference the Department of the Navy and would not need to be replaced. In addition, since the commanding officers of U.S. military installations and other senior-level positions within the department change on a relatively frequent and routine basis, the budgetary impact of the bill would be small if purchasing of materials, such as stationery, were coordinated with those changes of command and appointments. CBO anticipates that the cost of implementing this bill would be less than $500,000 a year, over the next several years, from appropriated funds.

Enacting the bill would not affect direct spending or revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos, during his Senate confirmation hearing in September 2010, reluctantly suggested that a name change might be warranted, as Inside the Navy reported at the time:

Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) a former Marine, Naval Academy graduate and Navy Secretary, pushed the subject when he questioned Amos during his Sept. 21 nomination hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Webb argued that the change would overturn more than 200 years of tradition.

Amos noted that general officers have historically avoided being drawn into the debate, which he called a "political effort."

"It's probably not appropriate for the commandant of the Marine Corps as a service chief to weigh in," he said.

However, he added, "Do I need to dig into this a little bit more here and reveal myself?"

Webb prodded him, asking if there might be budgetary benefits for the Marine Corps in such a change.

Amos responded with a gloss of the Corps' history, noting that at one time the Marine Corps commandant was not even considered a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"This whole process has been evolutionary since the beginning of the Department of the Navy," he said. "I think if you talk to the Marines out there … where we are in 2010 today, because of where we have evolved, we are a pretty formidable force for our nation. And I think just viscerally … the average fleet Marine would look at the secretary [of the Navy] and say, 'Yeah, I'd like him to be called the secretary of the Navy and the secretary of the Marine Corps.'"

While he acknowledged Webb's concerns about breaking tradition, he added, "We paid a pretty healthy price in the last nine to 10 years of combat and we feel pretty relevant right now."

View the full story.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today criticized the Defense Department's “culture of inefficiency” and questioned whether the White House's nominee to be defense secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), has the chops to grapple with problems in the Pentagon's process for buying major weapons.

The Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act (WSARA) of 2009 has led to improvements, but there is more work to be done, according to McCain. "Whether Senator Hagel would serve as the right leader at the Department of Defense to foster needed cultural change in the Department’s procurement practices is unclear," McCain said in a floor statement. "What we do know," he added, "is that the right person must embrace the following principles."

DOD must set realistic requirements early and manage changes to those requirements aggressively; improve the department's ability to price risk; improve its workforce for cost estimating, technical- and systems-engineering and developmental testing; use appropriate contract types; better incentivize productivity and innovation; and take other steps, McCain said. His full statement is online.

Georgetown University's law school plans to hold a symposium later this month on "big data" and its impact on national security:

Big Data is transforming national security capabilities. Despite massive data-storage capacity and sophisticated analytical tools for processing data from myriad sensors, the rate of data collection is outstripping our ability to analyze it. Compounding this challenge is an outdated and piecemeal legal and policy framework governing how data is collected, stored, shared, and used. "Swimming in the Ocean of Big Data" will demystify Big Data, address its challenges and potential, and chart a legal and policy framework for an evolving technology.

National Security Agency General Counsel Rajesh De will be the keynote speaker, according to the announcement.

Inside the Air Force reports this morning that the Federal Aviation Administration likely will move forward later this month with an effort to establish six test sites across the country where unmanned aircraft would be integrated into the national airspace.

The FAA is expected to advance its plan following President Obama's Feb. 12 State of the Union Address, according to a congressional aide. ITAF further reported:

Sean Snyder, a military legislative assistant to Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), told Inside the Air Force on Jan. 29 that he expects the next step in the process of integrating Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) into the national airspace to begin as soon as late February. That step requires the FAA to accept information from states with potential test site locations, enabling the agency to select six sites. Hanna, a member of the Unmanned Systems Caucus along with Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) and Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), crafted legislation that allowed for the establishment of the sites.

"I think we're looking at mid-to-late February at the earliest and I think the big things that are going to help move that forward are if Congress can put together some legislation that would help to ease the privacy concerns," Snyder said.

FAA spokesman Les Dorr did not return a request for an update on the integration process by press time (Jan. 31) but has told ITAF on multiple occasions that the agency continues to work on a screening information request for the six test sites.

Privacy concerns related to integrating unmanned aircraft into the national airspace sprung up in late 2012 and have rapidly moved to the forefront of the UAS integration discussion. ITAF previously reported that those issues cropped up for the FAA after it was hit with several lawsuits and received Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Now, in an effort to further smooth the path for UAS integration, some members of Congress are considering putting together legislation that would address the public's privacy concerns, Snyder said.

Read the full story.

Related coverage from Inside the Air Force:

FAA: Congress May Have To Wait Until 2013 For UAS Test-Site Solicitation
Inside the Air Force - 12/14/2012

House, Senate Pressure FAA To Speed Up UAS Test Site Selection
Inside the Air Force - 11/30/2012

The Congressional Research Service released a report this week delving into the legal issues surrounding the use of unmanned aircraft in the national airspace:

Under the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, P.L. 112-95, Congress has tasked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) with integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UASs), sometimes referred to as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, into the national airspace system by September 2015. Although the text of this act places safety as a predominant concern, it fails to establish how the FAA should resolve significant, and up to this point, largely unanswered legal questions.

For instance, several legal interests are implicated by drone flight over or near private property. Might such a flight constitute a trespass? A nuisance? If conducted by the government, a constitutional taking? In the past, the Latin maxim cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum (for whoever owns the soil owns to the heavens) was sufficient to resolve many of these types of questions, but the proliferation of air flight in the 20th century has made this proposition untenable. Instead, modern jurisprudence concerning air travel is significantly more nuanced, and often more confusing. Some courts have relied on the federal definition of "navigable airspace" to determine which flights could constitute a trespass. Others employ a nuisance theory to ask whether an overhead flight causes a substantial impairment of the use and enjoyment of one's property. Additionally, courts have struggled to determine when an overhead flight constitutes a government taking under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

View the full CRS report, originally obtained by Secrecy News.

And access InsideDefense.com's comprehensive coverage of remotely piloted vehicle issues.

After two rounds of questions, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) brought the nomination hearing of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to be the next defense secretary to a close at 5:45 this afternoon. The hearing began at 9:30 this morning, and only broke twice for floor votes.

Hagel withstood a barrage of questions from skeptical committee Republicans, many of them touching on the former senator's support for Israel.

Committee members have until 5 p.m. Friday to submit any remaining questions for the record, and Hagel has until 5 p.m. next Monday to answer them.

View Hagel's prepared testimony and other pre-written documents from the hearing.