Pete Domenici: “I strongly support S. 1122, the Defense appropriations bill for FY 2000. As scored with adjustments, the pending bill…”

“I strongly support S. 1122, the Defense appropriations bill for FY 2000. As scored with adjustments, the pending bill provides $264.9 billion in total budget authority and $176.9 billion in new outlays for the Department of Defense and related activities. When adjusted for outlays from prior years and other actions, the bill totals $263.9 billion in BA and $254.6 billion in outlays. There are some major elements to this bill that are important for the Senate for review. The bill is consistent with the Bipartisan Balanced Budget Agreement and the discretionary spending cap. In fact, in both budget authority and outlays the bill is below the amount that the Congressional Budget Resolution for fiscal year 2000 would contemplate for the Defense Subcommittee's allocation. This is in recognition of the fact that readiness items originally planned for fiscal year 2000 were accelerated into fiscal year 1999 in the 1999 Emergency Kosovo Supplemental, which the President has signed into law. As a result, for budget authority, this bill is $3.1 billion below the allocation originally contemplated for it; for outlays it is $2.2 billion below.”