House appropriators to mark defense bill in closed session this week

(This story has been updated with additional information.)

The House Appropriations defense subcommittee will convene in closed session Thursday to mark up its version of the fiscal year 2019 defense spending bill, following a trend in legislative secrecy that troubles those who advocate for increased government transparency.

The decision to keep the public out of the mark-up follows a closed hearing the subcommittee held with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in April.

"The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee’s markups are typically closed," Kevin Boland, a spokesman for Subcommittee Chairman Kay Granger (R-TX) told Inside Defense. "This allows members to discuss classified information that will help them make the best possible funding decisions."

The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, meanwhile, is scheduled to hold a closed hearing with senior Pentagon officials Wednesday to discuss defense innovation and research funding. The subcommittee is not scheduled to consider their version of the bill until the week of June 25. 

Additionally, the Senate Armed Services Committee, which hashed out its version of the FY-19 defense authorization bill in a closed session late last month, is expected to send the legislation to the full Senate this week. 

Declassification expert Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy, said the recent spate of closed hearings and briefings “certainly looks like a growing trend in favor of legislative secrecy.”

“Every closed session is a missed opportunity for public participation and oversight,” he said. “Sometimes it is necessary, especially when it concerns classified programs. It may even produce a superior outcome to the extent that it promotes thoughtful deliberation and compromise. But in real life, a closed session means that the press and the public are largely shut out of the process while contractors and their lobbyists still seem to be plugged in.”

Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee in April the Pentagon is trying to walk a narrow line between sharing information with the public and exposing weaknesses to adversaries.

“I want more engagement with the media,” he said April 12.  “What I don’t want is pre-decisional information, or classified information or any information about upcoming military movements or operations, which is the normal lose lips sink ships kind of restriction.”

But Laicie Heeley, a defense budget analyst at the Stimson Center, said she has observed a downward spiral of transparency at the Pentagon, brought on partly by the need to use the Overseas Contingency Operations account to circumvent the 2011 Budget Control Act.

“Pentagon transparency is decreasing -- there's no question,” she said. “But it's not just a budget problem -- it's also a key part of the Trump administration's posture -- 'don't 'tell our enemies our plans' -- and, it's concerning. Particularly because as this stance is normalized, we see even more information becoming clouded.”