CRS Insights
FY2016 Military Construction Appropriations: President's Request and House Markup Compared
Daniel H. Else, Acting Section Research Manager (delse@crs.loc.gov, 7-4996)
April 24, 2015 (IN10262)
The Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of the military departments (Army, Navy, and Air Force) are
empowered by statute (10 U.S.C. §2802
) to carry out military construction projects, land acquisitions, and defense
access road projects (as described under 23 U.S.C. §210) as are authorized by law. Such authorization is usually
given in the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Military construction projects are defined in statute as
including "surveys and site preparation; acquisition, conversion, rehabilitation, and installation of facilities;
acquisition and installation of equipment and appurtenances integral to the project; acquisition and installation of
supporting facilities (including utilities) and appurtenances incident to the project; and the planning, supervision,
administration, and overhead incident to the project."
Military construction is normally funded through Title I of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related
Agencies appropriations bill and provides funding for the planning, design, construction, alteration, and
improvement of facilities used by active and reserve military components worldwide. It capitalizes military family
housing and the U.S. share of the NATO Security Investment Program and finances the implementation of
installation closures and realignments. Military construction appropriations have been joined with those for the
Department of Veterans Affairs, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the Court of Veterans Appeals, the
Armed Forces Retirement Homes, and Arlington National Cemetery since the 108
th
Congress. Title IV of the bill
funds construction outside of the United States supporting Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)/Global War
on Terrorism (GWOT) pursuant to Section 251(b)(2)(A)(ii) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit
Control Act of 1985 (for more information on the act, see CRS Report R41901, Statutory Budget Controls in
Effect Between 1985 and 2002, by Megan S. Lynch). This separate title was created by the congressional
committee to segregate construction supporting OCO and to designate those appropriations as emergency
spending, removing them from the budget caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-25).
On February 2, 2015, President Barack Obama sent to Congress a proposed FY2016 Department of Defense
budget request of $585.3 billion in discretionary budget authority to fund both base budget programs and Overseas
Contingency Operations. A small portion of that request, $8.4 billion (1.4%), was requested for military
construction purposes. On April 21, 2015, the House Committee on Appropriations reported its markup of the
annual appropriations bill. Table 1 displays the new budget authority for military construction and OCO
construction that has been requested by the President and recommended by the House Committee on
Appropriations.
Table 1. FY2016 Military Construction Presidential Request and House Markup
Dollars in thousands
Appropriations Account FY2015 Enacted FY2016 Request FY2016 House
Title I, Military Construction
Military Construction, Army 528,427 743,245 663,245
Military Construction, Navy and Marine
Corps
1,018,772 1,669,239 1,349,678
Military Construction, Air Force 811,774 1,389,185 1,237,055
Military Construction, Defense-Wide 1,991,690 2,300,767 1,931,456
Total, Active Components 4,350,663 6,102,436 5,181,434
