Congress’ 2016 Defense Appropriations bill, as contained in the FY2016 Omnibus, provides funding for military salaries, operations to fight terror, and military readiness, among many other things. Below are highlights from the FY2016 defense appropriations bill signed into law by the President on December 18, 2015.
PROCUREMENTS
Congress appropriated $111 billion for new equipment and upgrades. According to the House Committee on Armed Services, some of the equipment purchases will include:
- 68 F-35 Joint-Strike Fighters
- 102 Blackhawk Helicopters
- 64 Remanufactured Apache Helicopters
- Three Littoral Combat Ships
- Two Attack Submarines
- Two DDG-51 Guided Missile Destroyers
- Seven EA-18G Growlers and five F-18E/F Super Hornets
- 12 KC-46 Tankers
Contracts for Small Businesses
The Department of Defense (DoD) is proactive in expanding its contract oppurtunities to small businesses. It will dedicate part of its FY 2016 budget to soliciting and hiring small businesses and research institutions. Through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), DoD designates research and development areas and solicits proposals from small businesses, specifically. Simiarly, the Small Business Technology Transfer (SBTT) program unites science and commercialization by awarding contracts to small business formally collaborating with research institutions in early stages of tech development.
Enhanced Sructiny of Cleared Indidivuals
Intelligence agencies are now required create a program, likely within the next five years, to automatically aggregate all publically-available information on cleared individuals. The “Enhanced Personnel Security Systems” will collect all information on clreaed indidivuals from government sources, publicly-available sources, commercial data sources, consumer reporting agencies, social media, and elsewhere. Targeted information will be that relating to an individual’s
- criminal or civil legal proceedings;
- financial information, especially that relating to the credit worthiness; and
- information “that may suggest ill intent, vulnerability to blackmail, compulsive behavior, allegiance to another country, change in ideology, or that the covered individual lacks good judgment, reliability, or trustworthiness.”
The inforamtion will be reviewed at least two times in a five-year period.
GUANTANAMO BAY
Gitmo detainees won’t be coming to the U.S. anytime soon. Congress expressly prohibited any DoD dollars from being use to “transfer, release, or assist in the transfer or release” of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the U.S. Furthermore, no Gitmo prison-equivalent is permitted to be built in the U.S. using DoD money. Futhermore, this year’s Intelligence Authorization Act–also contained in the FY 2016 omnibus—bans detainee relocations to Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and Lybia, further thwarting the President’s mission to close Gitmo.
The “BLACK BUDGET”
Also contained in the FY2016 Omnibus bill was the FY2016 Intelligence Authorization Act, which authorizes monies to be spent on intelligence-related activities, also known as the “black budget.” However, exact amounts for these covert activies are a closely-guarded secret. While the totals are known to congressional appropriations committees and a select few in the executive branch, they are not disclosed publically. The black budget includes funding for intelligence missions at the CIA, National Reconnaissance Office, and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, among others.
In 2013, NSA-leaker Edward Snowden provided the Washignton Post with black budget totals, which totalled $52.6B for FY2013.
The Director of National Intelligence disclosed the aggregate amount of appropriations requested by the office for Fiscal Year 2016, which totaled $53.9 billion.
