Lawmakers move to cut DOD transfer authority over border barrier 'abuse'

摘要

The Democrat-led House Appropriations defense subcommittee, still smarting from the Pentagon's recent unilateral budget transfers to build barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, has drafted a bill that would reduce and restrict the Pentagon's future ability to reprogram funds. The bill "responds to the Department of Defense's abuse of congressionally granted reprogramming privileges by reducing transfer authority from the $9.5 billion requested to $1.5 billion, and reducing thresholds for prior approval reprogrammings," according to a statement from committee Democrats. The bill would reduce two separate DOD transfer authorities: general transfer authority, which would drop from the current level of $4 billion to $1 billion, and Overseas Contingency Operations transfer authority, which would be cut from $2 billion to $500 million.