The House Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel has introduced a bill that would authorize $517.1 billion in discretionary spending and $58.6 billion in overseas contingency operations funds for fiscal year 2017.The committee said Tuesday the FY 2017 defense policy bill reflects a $3 billion increase from the enacted FY 2016 discretionary funding and would move approximately $15.7 billion from the OCO budget to the Defense Department’s base funding.
The OCO-backed base budget are “targeted to requirements identified by the services – readiness efforts, infrastructure, and equipment recapitalization and modernization, such as additional flying and steaming hours, training time, and facilities and aircraft repairs,†the committee said.
The defense policy bill would allocate $120.8 billion in total budget to purchase new weapons systems and other equipment in support of military readiness efforts.
The proposed equipment procurement budget includes $21.6 billion in funds for the procurement of 15 ships for the U.S. Navy, $8.3 billion for 74 F-35 fighter jets, $2.8 billion for 15 KC-46 tanker aircraft, $1.35 billion for 16 F/A-18E/F Super Hornet planes and $1.8 billion for 11 P-8A Poseidon aircraft.
The committee’s proposed bill also includes the following appropriations:
- $132.6 billion for service personnel and salary
- $209.2 billion for operations and maintenance
- $70.8 billion for research and development efforts
- $34 billion for the Defense Health Program and military family initiatives
