The conference report on H.R. The President signed the bill on December 23, 2011 ( P.L. 112-74 ). The Senate Armed Services Committee's initial version of the FY2012 defense authorization bill ( S. 1253 ), reported on June 22, like the authorization bill passed by the House on May 26, 2011 ( H.R. Defense Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2219 ), that would have reduced the President's requested base budget by $8.9 billion. However, the bill would have provided $842 million more than the President's $117.8 billion OCO request, resulting in an overall net reduction of $8.1 billion to the President's request. The first legislative action during the year that applied the BCA-mandated spending reduction to FY2012 defense budget was taken by the Senate Appropriations Committee on September 7, 2011, when it adopted discretionary spending ceilings for each of its 12 subcommittees that required the defense subcommittee to cut $25.9 billion from the President's request for programs funded by the defense appropriations bill. On September 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported a version H.R. The Senate never acted on that bill, but a House-Senate compromise on DOD funding, which largely tracked the Senate committee-reported bill, was enacted as Division A of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2012 ( H.R. The House agreed to the conference report on December 16 by a vote of 296-121. The Senate approved it December 17 by a vote of 67-32. The bill was signed by the President on December 23, 2011 ( P.L. On the other hand, the FY2012 request for so-called Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO, i.e., operations in Iraq and Afghanistan), which is $117.8 billion, would have amounted to an inflation-adjusted decrease of 27%. One of BCA's provisions sets a cap on discretionary appropriations for so-called "security agencies"—a category that includes the DOD base budget, the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security, and the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Agency, as well as the Department of State and various international activities funded by other federal agencies. FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540; S. 1253; S. 1867)

On May 26, 2011, by a vote of 322-96, the House passed its version of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. Viewed in the aggregate, the House version of the bill would have made only minor changes to President Obama's funding request for programs covered by the authorization bill: The DOD base budget request would have been trimmed by $1.7 million, while the $1.1 billion the bill would have added to the request for war costs was accounted for almost entirely by the House committee's addition to the DOD budget of $1.1 billion for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund, a program which the Administration's budget had funded through the State Department. The Senate Armed Services Committee's initial version of the FY2012 authorization bill ( S. 1253 ), reported on June 22, 2011, would have authorized $6.4 billion less that the Administration requested for FY2012, of which $5.9 billion would have been cut from the base budget. On November 15, 2011, to match the BCA-mandated FY2012 spending cuts for DOD and other security agencies, the committee reported a second version of the bill, S. 1867 , that would have cut $27.3 billion from the President's request, and would have authorized $28.4 billion less than the House-passed bill (see Table 4 ). 1540 , which cuts the Administration's authorization request by a total of $26.6 billion, was adopted by the House December 14, 2011, by a vote of 283-136. 112-10 ) that was enacted on April 15, 2011, two months after the FY2012 budget request was published. On December 2, 2011—the day after the Senate passed its version of H.R.
President Obama's FY2012 budget request, sent to Congress on February 14, 2011, included $670.9 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Department of Defense (DOD), of which $553.1 billion was for the so-called "base budget" of the department (that is, the cost of routine, peacetime operations excluding the cost of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan). The remaining $117.8 billion in the DOD budget request was to cover the cost of so-called "overseas contingency operations (OCO)," including operations in those two countries.
However, the Budget Control Act (BCA) enacted in early August 2011 set ceilings on FY2012 discretionary budget authority that required a reduction of $35.7 billion from the total requested for so-called "security agencies"—a category that includes the DOD base budget, the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and State as well as the Energy Department's Nuclear National Security Agency and the international activities of other agencies.
Before the BCA was enacted, the House had passed its version of the FY2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540), which would have authorized $1.8 billion more than was requested for DOD in February. The bill was passed on May 26, 2011, by a vote of 322-96. Also prior to the enactment of the BCA, the Senate Armed Services Committee reported on June 22, 2011, an initial version of the authorization act (S. 1253) which would have authorized $6.4 billion less that the Administration requested for FY2012.
To take account of the BCA-mandated reduction, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved on November 15, 2011, a second version of the FY2012 authorization bill (S. 1867) that would have reduced the FY2012 national defense authorization by a total of $27.3 billion. After debating that bill, the Senate passed the text of it on December 1, 2011, as an amended version of the House-passed H.R. 1540. The conference report on the FY2012 authorization bill, which cut the President's request by $26.6 billion, was adopted by the House on December 14 and then by Senate on December 15. The President signed H.R. 1540 on December 31, 2011 (P.L. 112-81).
The version of the FY2012 Defense appropriations act (H.R. 2219) passed by the House on June 14, 2011, would have reduced the President's requested base budget by $8.9 billion. However, the bill would have provided $842 million more than the President's $117.8 billion OCO request, resulting in an overall net reduction of $8.1 bill to the President's request.
The first legislative action during the year that applied the BCA-mandated spending reduction to the FY2012 defense budget was taken by the Senate Appropriations Committee on September 7, 2011, when it adopted discretionary spending ceilings for each of its 12 subcommittees that required the defense subcommittee to cut $25.9 billion from the President's request for programs funded by the defense appropriations bill. On September 15, the Senate Appropriations Committee reported a version of the House-passed defense appropriations bill (H.R. 2219) that would have cut $29.3 billion from the Administration request.
The Senate never acted on H.R. 2219, but a House-Senate compromise on DOD funding, which largely tracked the Senate committee-reported bill, was enacted as Division A of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY2012 (H.R. 2055). The House agreed to the conference report on December 16 by a vote of 296-121. The Senate approved it December 17 by a vote of 67-32. The bill was signed by the President on December 23, 2011 (P.L. 112-74).