It's becoming clearer that the Dept. of Defense construction budget faces deep cuts for 2015. The Senate Appropriations Committee on May 22 approved a measure that slashes DOD construction 33%, to $6.6 billion.

That total is roughly the same amount the House approved for DOD in the military construction-veterans affairs bill that it passed on April 30. It also equals President Obama's request.

The Senate panel's bill provides $4.3 billion to fund military mission-critical construction projects worldwide, $2.9 billion below 2014 levels. It allocates $1.19 billion for family housing projects, $325 million less than fiscal 2014.

On the plus side, the committee's bill boosts the VA major construction projects account 64%, to $562 million. That's the same level the House recommended and Obama requested.

The milcon-VA bill is the first fiscal-2015 spending measure that the Senate panel cleared. Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) says that she hopes to complete markups on all 12 of the 2015 bills in early July.