Levin: Don’t expect amendments to defense bill

It’s unlikely that lawmakers in the House and Senate will have a chance to propose amendments to a joint 2015 defense policy bill, one of the measure’s top negotiators said Tuesday.

“I just think it’d be extremely difficult,” Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) told reporters. “It’s always desirable to have amendments, obviously, but the longer this goes, the more difficult it is as a practical matter.”

The senator said he would “much prefer an open amendment process, so the consequences are, it’s not the ideal way to legislate.”

The full House passed its version of the defense policy blueprint in May. The Senate Armed Services Committee unveiled its draft of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that same month, but it did not receive any floor time.

Congress has passed an NDAA before the Dec. 31 deadline for 52 consecutive years. But it almost didn’t happen last year, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) waited until days before the Christmas break to bring the measure to the floor. The move prompted Republicans to protest that there wasn’t enough time to consider their amendments.

A second-consecutive year with a closed bill process is likely to set off a similar reaction among the GOP, and could also spark frustration among Senate Democrats, who have privately expressed frustrations about Reid’s tight grip on the legislative process.

“It’s not a great precedent to proceed this way but that’s the position we’re in and we’re going to make the best of it because we need a bill,” Levin said.

Levin, who is retiring at the end of the Congress, said that in the future both the House and Senate Armed Services panels should “try to do what we tried to do,” which is get their respective measures called to the floor as soon as possible.

“If that’s not what fate holds for you, for various reasons, then you make the best of it and try to get a bill,” Levin said.

Levin the earliest a joint policy bill could be brought up would be the week of Dec. 1, after the Thanksgiving break.

“Hopefully we can get it done so that it can be taken up the first week if the leadership wants to take it up the first week.”

He said the “vast majority” of the difference between the House and Senate bills had been resolved but declined to provide examples.

“My hopes aren’t waning” for getting a bill done, Levin said. “We’re not there yet, that’s what it amounts to.”