According to press reports and staff rumblings, it does appear that the FY06 Authorization bill will once again have floor consideration in the Senate. Democratic Leader Reid sent a letter to Majority Leader Frist clearing the way for a UC on the bill. We anticipate that the UC could take the form offered previously by Senator Frist, with a set number of amendments on each side under a time agreement. Consideration could occur as soon as next week.
During Chairman Warner's attempts to attach the Authorization bill to the Appropriations bill, we noticed that a version of the Kennedy-Collins amendment appeared in the second degree amendment manager's package. (You had to dig deep in the congressional record to find it, but it was there.) This indicates that staff had come to an agreement to include the K-C amendment. The language included the same $40 million adopted in the Appropriations bill, but lacked the Sense of the Senate portion of the amendment. We therefore anticipate that when the bill does reach the floor in the coming days that the modified K-C amendment (without the SoS portion) will be cleared, thus authorizing the higher level for SMART/NDEP, the URIs, and DARPA.
Even though this is now looking unlikely, someone asked at the last meeting what happens if a UC agreement is not reached and there is no authorization bill. If things sour again and the UC isn't reached, we believe that the authorization committee would have to put together a small package of must-pass provisions and that package would be attached to some sure-to-move bill.
We will continue monitoring the bill and will let you know when things start moving.
Yesterday afternoon, the Kennedy-Collins Amendment was filed to the FY06 Appropriations Bill.
The new appropriations amendment is Senate Amendment 1991 (S.AMDT.1991) and was filed by Senator Kennedy with 9 co-sponsors:
Sen Collins, Susan M. [ME] - 10/3/2005
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY] - 10/3/2005
Sen Dole, Elizabeth [NC] - 10/3/2005
Sen Mikulski, Barbara A. [MD] - 10/3/2005
Sen Snowe, Olympia J. [ME] - 10/3/2005
Sen Bingaman, Jeff [NM] - 10/3/2005
Sen Lieberman, Joseph I. [CT] - 10/3/2005
Sen Reed, Jack [RI] - 10/3/2005
Sen Sarbanes, Paul S. [MD] - 10/3/2005
Additional Senators are expected to sign on today -- some that are co-sponsors of the authorization amendment.
Senators Kennedy and Collins are actively seeking cosponsors for this new amendment to the appropriations bill. Please notify your Senators that this appropriations amendment (S.AMDT 1991) has been filed and urge them to co-sponsor.
Text of the amendment follows if you click bleow
TEXT OF AMENDMENT AS FILED:
SA 1991. Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Ms. COLLINS, Mrs. CLINTON, Mrs. DOLE, Ms. MIKULSKI, Ms. SNOWE, Mr. BINGAMAN, Mr. LIEBERMAN, Mr. REED, and Mr. SARBANES,) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2863, making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2006, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the appropriate place, insert the following:
SEC. __. (a) ARMY PROGRAMS.--Of the amount appropriated by title IV under the heading ``RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION, ARMY'', up to $10,000,000 may be used for Program Element 0601103A for University Research Initiatives.
(b) NAVY PROGRAMS.--Of the amount appropriated by title IV under the heading ``RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION, NAVY'', up to $10,000,000 may be used for Program Element 0601103N for University Research Initiatives.
(c) AIR FORCE PROGRAMS.--Of the amount appropriated by title IV under the heading ``RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION, AIR FORCE'', up to $10,000,000 may be used for Program Element 0601103F for University Research Initiatives.
(d) DEFENSE-WIDE ACTIVITIES.--Of the amount appropriated by title IV under the heading ``RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION, DEFENSE-WIDE''--
(A) up to $10,000,000 may be used for Program Element 0601120D8Z for the SMART National Defense Education Program; and
(B) up to $10,000,000 may be used for Program Element 0601101E for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency University Research Program in Computer Science and Cybersecurity.
(e) SENSE OF SENATE.--It is the sense of the Senate that it should be a goal of the Department of Defense to allocate to basic research programs each fiscal year an amount equal to 15 percent of the funds available to the Department of Defense for science and technology in such fiscal year.
The FY06 Defense Appropriations Bill (H.R.2863) is still on the floor of the Senate. No votes are expected on the bill until Wednesday; however, a unanimous consent agreement was reached Monday that all amendments must be filed by Tuesday morning.
Chairman Warner still hopes that an agreement can be reached to bring up the Authorization Bill (S.1042) separately, but as a fall back position filed S.1042 as an amendment to H.R.2863. Additionally, Chairman Warner and Ranking Member Levin filed a manager's package of 81 authorization amendments they had been able to clear.
I will be checking today to see if the Kennedy-Collins Authorization Amendment (S.AMDT 1401) was cleared in that package and will report back.
Senate leadership hopes to pass H.R. 2863 by the end of the week.