The FY06 Defense Appropriations Bill could be taken up by the Senate for consideration as soon as Thursday afternoon.
For those of you keeping score, there are now both subcommittee prints and full committee prints of the Senate Appropriations bill out in the wild. One manager's amendment was accepted during markup, and according to a summary floating around there are over 20 technical corrections and amendments that were adopted as part of the package -- some had to do with research and development.
Additionally, it is looking increasingly likely that the Authorization bill could be added to the Appropriations bill as an amendment. (See various news sources for more specific details.) Generally, Subcommittee Chairman Stevens said that he would not object if Chairman Warner and Ranking Member Levin were able to limit debate on the Authorization amendment and the Senate was able to get the entire measure off the floor by the end of next week. (Note that there is a recess scheduled that could apply necessary pressure to wrap up consideration.)
More than 200 Amendments were still pending on the authorization bill when it was pulled from the floor in July -- including the Kennedy-Collins Amendment. Agreements would need to be reached to limit the number of second degree amendments to the proposed first degree authorization amendment to the appropriations bill.
No agreements have been reached at the moment and Warner and Levin are still working on moving the authorization bill as a free standing bill.
Posted by Jason Van Wey at September 28, 2005 11:46 PM | TrackBack