The full House passed the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill last night by a 277-147 vote.
The vote count is not enough to override a presidential veto, which the administration has theatened to do if a certain provision isn't removed.
That provision calls for shifting $18 billion in the Defense Department's overseas contingency operations account to the base budget in the hopes that a new administration will add emergency supplemental funds before the OCO budget runs dry next April. The OCO account is the primary source of funding for troop operations in the Middle East and elsewhere. As Inside Defense previously reported:
If presented with the bill, President Obama's senior advisers would recommend that he veto it, according to a White House statement of administration policy issued May 17.
"The bill's funding approach attempts to unravel the dollar-for-dollar balance of defense and non-defense funding increases provided by the Bipartisan Budget Act (BBA) of 2015, threatening future steps needed to reverse over $100 billion of future sequestration cuts to DOD," the statement reads, adding: "By gambling with warfighting funds, the bill risks the safety of our men and women fighting to keep America safe, undercuts stable planning and efficient use of taxpayer dollars, dispirits troops and their families, baffles our allies, and emboldens our enemies.”
The OCO-to-base funding shift also has the support of House appropriators. Senate authorizers, however, did not adopt the same funding scheme in their approach.
"Not only is this approach dangerous, but it is also wasteful," according to the White House. "The bill would buy excess force structure without the money to sustain it, effectively creating hollow force structure that would undermine DOD's efforts to restore readiness."
The bill's support among House Democrats has been tenuous at best, with many worried about the OCO provision, according to a congressional aide:
"It's a Ponzi scheme which will have to be paid next year with a supplemental," the aide said. "And that is incredibly problematic especially considering the new administration, and it's very risky given the return of the [Budget Control Act of 2011] and the sequester in the years that follow."
Smith is also concerned about language that could make it more difficult to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo Bay, the aide said, noting that the bill does a number of good things as well.
Smith has been "supportive of the bill because he sees the need to push the bill forward," the aide said, noting that if the committee did not pass the bill then there is a bigger problem. "He is right now still supportive of the bill, but we will not know where he finally stands until we get off the floor because the floor could make this bill much more difficult for him."