THE DAILY WHIP: FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2015

***Members are advised that the GOP Leadership has announced that votes may occur as early as 9:30 a.m. today.

Complete Consideration of H.R. 1735 - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 (Rep. Thornberry – Armed Services). The bill would provide for the authorization of funding for the Department of Defense and other related agencies, programs, and operations for Fiscal Year 2016. It authorizes approximately $605.6 billion in discretionary budget authority in total. This includes $495.8 billion for the Department of Defense base budget and $17.6 billion for the defense-related activities of the Department of Energy.

The bill also includes $89.2 billion in discretionary budget authority for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), shifting $38 billion in funding from the President’s base defense request into the OCO war funding account. This gimmick goes around the sequester-level defense spending cap, while leaving the non-defense sequester-level cap in place. Because of this, the White House has issued the attached SAP stating that the President’s senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.

By including this fiscally irresponsible tactic to increase defense spending while maintaining sequestration’s cuts to domestic programs, House Republicans are turning a bipartisan bill that has passed 53 years in a row into a partisan package that Democrats cannot support. If Republicans want to lift the spending caps of the sequester, then they should work with Democrats to enact a budget that replaces the dangerous and irrational sequester on both defense and non-defense spending with a balanced solution.

The legislation maintains the current restriction on domestic transfers of Guantanamo detainees and prevents the use of funds for construction or modification of U.S. facilities to house Guantánamo detainees. The bill reverts to a more onerous certification standard for the transfer of Gitmo detainees and prohibits transfers to any country in which a previously transferred detainee was confirmed to have re-engaged in armed conflict.  It also includes a further restriction on transferring detainees to a “combat zone,” which is defined broadly by an IRS statute.

House Republicans adopted an anti-immigrant amendment, stripping out language that was adopted on a bipartisan vote by the Armed Services Committee related to the consideration of allowing “DREAMers” to enlist and serve in the Armed Forces.  This amendment, which only further damages our broken immigration system, is just another in a long line of Republican efforts to demagogue “DREAMers” – the hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children and know no other home than the U.S. Members are urged to VOTE NO.

The Rule provides for no further general debate and makes in order the following remaining amendments:

En Bloc Amendment #6 (20 minutes of debate)
En Bloc Amendment #7 (20 minutes of debate)
En Bloc Amendment #8 (20 minutes of debate)

The following amendments had recorded votes pending as of last night:

Rohrabacher Amendment
Lamborn Amendment
Blumenauer Amendment
Lucas Amendment
Nadler Amendment

A full list of the 135 amendments made in order can be found HERE.

Bill Text for H.R. 1735:
PDF Version

Background for H.R. 1735:
House Report (HTML Version)
House Report (PDF Version)