If a new round of mandatory budget cuts hits the Dept. of Defense in fiscal year 2016, military construction spending would rise from projected 2015 levels but then fall in 2017, the Pentagon has predicted.
In a report issued April 16, DOD says if budget sequestration kicks in for 2016, it would result in $7.2 billion for military construction, including aid for DOD family housing. That total would be up 9% from the $6.6 billion President Obama requested for those programs in 2015 but down sharply from 2014’s $9.9 billion in appropriations.
DOD also said that, compared with its current 2016-2019 budget projections, a sequester would trim milcon and family housing spending by a total of $6.2 billion over that four-year span.
The 2013 sequester pared military construction accounts by 7.8%. That meant a combined $1 billion cut in Army, Navy-Marines and Air Force building programs.
The two-year sequester relief contained in the December 2013 budget deal worked out by Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) did give DOD and non-defense agencies a break from sequestration in 2014 and 2015.
Nevertheless, mil con is facing a tough 2015. The House Appropriations Committee on April 9 approved a bill slashing FY15 military construction spending 33%, to $6.6 billion. The committee’s mark equals the cut President Obama proposed in his budget request in March.
Senate appropriators had not drafted their 2015 milcon bill as of April 21.
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As ENR's former Washington Bureau Chief, Tom Ichniowski wrote about the federal government since the George H.W. Bush administration, and covered at least five major highway bills. A recognized expert on government policy on infrastructure and regulation, Tom is also a Baltimore native and Orioles fan who grew up rooting for Brooks and Frank Robinson. He is a graduate of Columbia College and Columbia’s graduate school of journalism, where he once used “unrelentless” in a headline.
