www.crs.gov | 7-5700
May 22, 2018
FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act: An Overview of
H.R. 5515, as Reported
The FY2019 National Defense Authorization Act approved
by the House Armed Services Committee in the early hours
of May 10, 2018, is closely aligned to President Trump’s
FY2019 DOD budget request. The bill (H.R. 5515) would
authorize discretionary appropriations totaling $708.1
billion for national defense-related activities of the
Department of Defense (DOD) and other federal agencies.
As reported by the House committee, H.R. 5515 would
authorize $16.0 billion more than the $692.1 billion
authorized by the FY2018 NDAA (P.L. 115-91) and $1.2
million less than the Administration requested for national
defense-related programs. (See Table 1.)
Of the total that the FY2019 bill would authorize, $639.1
billion is identified as funding so-called base budget
activities: activities that DOD and other national defense-
related agencies would pursue even if U.S. forces were not
engaged in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and
elsewhere. The bill also would authorize additional DOD
appropriations totaling $69.0 billion—to be designated as
funding for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO)—that
would cover the incremental cost of those ongoing
operations in the Middle East as well as any other costs that
Congress and the President agree to designate as OCO.
In Line with Revised Spending Cap
As reported by the House committee, H.R. 5515 is
consistent with the spending limits (or caps) on national
defense programs originally established by the Budget
Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25) and amended most
recently by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA; P.L.
115-123). The cap applies to discretionary base budget
appropriations for military programs of DOD, defense-
related atomic energy programs of the Energy Department,
and other defense-related programs, such as the FBI’s
counter-intelligence operations.
The FY2019 national defense cap is $647.0 billion.
However, that cap covers programs that fall outside the
scope of the NDAA, such as counter-intelligence operations
of the FBI, for which the Administration requested a total
of $8.0 billion. Thus, the portion of the national defense
spending cap applicable to spending authorized by the
NDAA is $639.1 billion—the amount that H.R. 5515 would
authorize.
Base Budget, OCO Transfers
Despite the near parity between the Administration request
and H.R. 5515 in terms of the total FY2019 authorization
amounts, the bill would shift amounts totaling
approximately $5.0 billion either from the base budget to
OCO or vice-versa.
The bill would authorize as part of the base budget $2.7
billion that had been requested as OCO funding for the
European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). All told, the
Administration requested $6.5 billion in FY2019 for the
EDI, which is a series of moves intended to beef up U.S.
combat power in Europe in response to ominous Russian
actions, including the occupation of the Crimea.
Largely offsetting that shift from OCO to base budget was
the bill’s assignment of the OCO designation to
authorizations for Operation and Maintenance (O&M)
funds totaling $2.3 billion, funds the Administration had
included in its request for base budget authorization.
Table 1. National Defense Authorizations
(amounts in billions of dollars of discretionary budget authority)
National Defense Budget
(Budget Sub-function)
2018 Enacted
NDAA
(P.L. 115-91)
FY2019
Reported
H.R. 5515
$ Difference
(FY18 Enacted/
FY19 Reported)
% Difference
(FY18 Enacted/
FY19 Reported)
Atomic Energy Defense
Activities (053)
Defense-Related Activities (054)
Overseas Contingency
Operations (OCO)
Sources: FY2018 data from H.Rept. 115-404, Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2018;
FY2019 data from draft Report of the House Armed Services Committee to Accompany H.R. 5515, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2019,
accessed at https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules.house.gov/files/CRPT-115HRPT-676.pdf.
