	Most Recent Legislative Action

On March 21, 2013, Congress sent to the White House H.R. 933, the Consolidated and Continuing Appropriations Act, which the President signed into law (P.L. 113-6) on March 26, 2013. Division C of that legislation was a fully detailed DOD appropriations act for FY2013 that provided $597.1 billion for programs funded by that bill. Including funds provided for military construction in Division E of H.R. 933, the bill provided a total of $607.7 billion in discretionary budget authority for DOD. The Administration had not allocated that reduction among specific DOD appropriations accounts as of May 15, 2013. For discretionary DOD budget authority, the request included $613.93 billion, of which $525.45 billion is for "base" defense budget costs—that is, day-to-day operations other than war costs—and the remaining $88.48 billion was for "Overseas Contingency Operations" (OCO)—that is, military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The base budget request was $5.2 billion less than was appropriated for the base budget in FY2012 and $45.3 billion less than the FY2013 request the Administration had projected in February 2011 ( Figure 1 ). That reduction from the previously planned FY2013 request—and additional planned reductions of more than $50 billion per year compared to DOD's February 2011 budget projections through FY2021—reflected the Administration's plan to reduce federal spending as required by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, enacted on August 2, 2011 ( P.L. 112-25 ). For the 10-year period covered by the BCA (FY2012-FY2021), the Administration's revised spending plan reduced DOD budgets by a total of $486.9 billion. In subsequent years, the BCA sets lowered spending caps to achieve the required savings. Overseas Contingency Operations Highlights

The Administration's $88.5 billion request for FY2013 war costs (OCO) amounts to $26.6 billion less than Congress appropriated for war costs in FY2012. This reduction reflects:
the cessation of U.S. combat operations in Iraq by the end of the first quarter of FY2012; and the reduction of the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, by the end of FY2012, to 68,000 personnel, thus ending the "surge" into that country of 33,000 additional U.S. troops announced by President Obama on December 1, 2009. Bill-by-Bill Analysis

	FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act

The compromise final version of the FY2013 NDAA, signed by the President on Jan. 2, 2013 ( P.L. For DOD's base budget, the final bill would authorize $527.5 billion, practically splitting the difference between the $528.6 billion that would have been authorized by the House-passed version of the bill, and the $525.8 billion that would have been authorized by the Senate-passed version. NDAA: The Broad Outlines

Compared with annual defense authorization bills enacted in the previous decade, both H.R. (See Table 7 . ) (See Table 8 . ) However the Senate bill and the enacted version of H.R. The Administration's FY2013 budget request, unveiled in February 2012, would provide less than half of the amount earlier projected for FY2013—$564.9 million—and would defer construction of the first of the new ships until FY2021. 4310 authorized the amounts requested for SSBN(X). FY2013 DOD Appropriations Bill

		DOD Appropriations Overview

The FY2013 DOD appropriations bill reported by the House Appropriations Committee May 25, 2012 ( H.R. By the same token, the House-passed appropriation is consistent with the defense funding cap set by H.Con.Res. 5856 reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 2, 2012, would provide $596.64 billion—$155.0 million less than the Administration's request and $1.06 billion less than the House-passed version ( Table 14 ). 933 ). Reduction in Personnel Transfers

The enacted version of FY2013 DOD appropriations bill ( H.R. Depot Maintenance 'Carryover'

The enacted version of the FY2013 defense appropriations bill—like the versions passed by the House and reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee - cut the Administration's budget request in an effort to reduce what the committees described in their reports as an excessive backlog of scheduled maintenance work by the services' depots, which perform major overhauls of aircraft, ground vehicles, engines, electronic equipment and other major items. Ground Combat Vehicle46

The enacted version of the appropriations bill—like the House-passed and Senate committee-reported versions of H.R. 5856 , H.R. In its report on the H.R. 4310 ; P.L. 5856 . 933 .
President Obama requested $613.9 billion in discretionary budget authority for the Department of Defense in Fiscal Year 2013, which is $31.8 billion less than had been appropriated for the agency in FY2012. The end of U.S. combat in Iraq and the declining tempo of operations in Afghanistan accounted for the bulk of the overall reduction: The budget request for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)—DOD activities in those two countries—was $88.5 billion, which is $26.6 billion less than was provided for those operations in FY2012.
However, the Administration's $525.4 billion request for DOD's so-called "base budget"—funds for all DOD activities other than OCO—was $5.2 billion less than was provided for FY2012 and $45.3 billion less than the FY2013 base budget the Administration had projected a year earlier, in February of 2011. The proposed reduction in the base budget—and planned reductions of more than $50 billion per year through FY2021, compared with the FY2011 projection—reflected the Administration's effort to reduce federal spending as required by the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, enacted on August 2, 2011 (P.L. 112-25). All told, the Obama Administration's February 2012 projection would reduce DOD budgets by $486.9 billion over a 10-year period (FY2012-FY2021), compared with its February 2011 plan. (See "
FY2013 Defense Budget Overview.")
According to the Administration, the FY2013 DOD budget request was consistent with the initial spending caps set by the BCA. However, both H.R. 4310, the version of the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by the House on May 18, 2012, and H.R. 5856, the companion DOD appropriations bill for FY2013, reported by the House Appropriations Committee on May 25, 2012, exceeded the Administration request for those bills —by $3.7 billion in the case of the authorization bill and by $3.1 billion in the case of the appropriation bill.
On the other hand, S. 3254, the version of the NDAA reported June 4, 2012, by the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the version of the DOD appropriations bill (H.R. 5856) reported by the Senate Appropriations Committee on August 2, 2012, kept FY2013 DOD funding within the initial BCA caps.
Neither the House nor the Senate considered either an NDAA or a DOD appropriations bill for FY2013 that conformed to the lowered BCA caps on defense spending.
The compromise version of the authorization bill (H.R. 4310), enacted on January 2, 2013 as P.L. 112-239, would authorize $544.9 billion for DOD's base budget—roughly splitting the difference between the House and Senate bills—and would authorize $88.5 billion for war costs.
In general terms, the House-passed and Senate committee-reported versions of the first DOD appropriations bill for FY2013 (H.R. 5856) paralleled the House and Senate versions of the FY2013 NDAA, respectively. However, the Senate did not act on that bill. For nearly the first six months of FY2013, DOD and other federal agencies had been funded by a continuing resolution (H.J.Res. 117; P.L. 112-175). On March 21, 2013, Congress sent to the White House H.R. 933, the Consolidated and Continuing Appropriations Act, which the President signed into law (P.L. 113-6) on March 26, 2013. Division C of that legislation is the Department of Defense Appropriations bill for FY2013 (See "DOD Appropriations Overview"). Although the amount provided by that section of the bill was $287.4 million more than the Administration's request for programs covered by that division of H.R. 933, the overall level of DOD funding provided by H.R. 933 (including funds provided for military construction in Division E) exceeded the request by $323.8 million.
Since the total DOD funding level for FY2013 of $607.7 billion exceeds the BCA spending cap, that law requires that DOD funds be reduced (or "sequestered) by $35.0 billion before the end of the fiscal year. As of May 15, 2013, the Administration has not allocated the required reduction among specific DOD programs. All FY2013 appropriations amounts cited in this report reflect the amounts appropriated by H.R. 933 prior to sequestration.