National Security Legislative Wrap-up, June 4-8 2007

The full House is expected to consider the Fiscal Year 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill next week and the State, Foreign Operations bill the week after that. The Senate is not expected to consider the Defense Authorization bill for three more weeks, but the Senate's schedule is always uncertain.

KEY NATIONAL SECURITY BILLS IN 2007

- ENERGY AND WATER APPROPRIATIONS BILL:

On June 6, the full Appropriations Committee approved the Subcommittee's bill with no change. The bill is expected to go to the floor of the House of Representatives on June 13.

- STATE, FOREIGN OPERATIONS APPROPRIATIONS BILL:

On June 5, the House State, Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee marked-up or wrote its version of the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriations. At $34.2 billion, the level of funding is 2 percent less than the level requested by President Bush but 10 percent more than Fiscal Year 2007. The bill eliminates all $391 million requested for Iraq assistance and cut the Millennium Challenge Corporation from $3 billion to $1.8 billion. It funds the $1 billion plus request for Afghanistan assistance and provides $2.7 billion for economic assistance, $4.5 billion for military assistance overseas and $4.2 billion for the HIV/AIDS initiative.

The bill is then expected to be considered by the full Appropriations Committee on June 5 and the full House on June 20.

- DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BILL:

The full Senate is scheduled to consider the bill in late June.