NDAA still up in the air

New deal said in development

A deal on national defense authorization appears to be moving closer, now that Congress has crossed several major hurdles: approval of a budget and debt ceiling blueprint and election of a House Speaker.

President Obama vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 on Oct. 23. It was only his fifth veto. Several other presidents have vetoed the huge defense policy bills in the past; for example, George W. Bush vetoed the NDAA in 2007.

Obama and other Democrats objected to $38 billion in overseas contingency funding that they said would be diverted to domestic defense needs to avoid sequestration. That exemption was viewed as a way to avoid a bipartisan deal on reducing sequestration for all agencies.

As of press time, the House had scheduled a vote to override the veto on Nov. 5; however, it was rumored that it might be canceled. An override vote is unlikely to be successful in any case.

There also was talk of a new defense authorization bill in the works. To make the new bill comply with the budget deal, Congress would have to authorize $607 billion for defense, down from $612 billion in the vetoed NDAA.

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Washington Insider:

Correction: The Set-Aside Alert edition of Oct. 23 should have identified former House Speaker Rep. John Boehner as a Republican from Ohio. We apologize for the error.