Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

A Detailed Analysis of the Fiscal 2010 War Supplemental

by Laicie Olson [contact information]

July 30, 2010

By Louis Hellman and Laicie Olson

The final version of the fiscal 2010 war supplemental was approved by the House on July 27, 2010 by a vote of 308-114.

After some amount of back and forth, the Senate’s original version of the bill, passed May 27, was approved by the House. The bill contains $58.8 billion in spending, including $37.1 billion for the war, over $13 billion for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange, $5.1 billion for FEMA, and $2.9 billion for Haiti disaster relief, as well as a host of smaller expenditures.

The House passed two amendments to the bill, adding some $22.8 billion in domestic spending (fully offset by $23.5 billion in rescissions). The amendments were later rejected by the Senate, never making it in to the final bill.

The bill was the subject of controversy for some time, becoming a flash point for pro- and anti-war members of Congress and invoking impatient calls for action from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. In the final vote, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D-WI), despite steering the bill through committee, voted “no.”

Brief Summary

Major Expenditures in the Final Bill

• $37.12 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

• $33.4B is for DoD, with the remaining
• $3.7B for State and foreign assistance programs

• $2.9 billion across various departments and agencies for Haiti
• $5.48 billion in domestic disaster relief

• $5.1B goes directly to FEMA

• $13.37B in compensation for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange
• The remaining ~$130M is comprised of about $1B in smaller discretionary expenditures both domestically and internationally, balanced by an almost equal amount of cuts and rescissions.

Major Expenditures in Failed House Amendments

• $1 billion youth summer jobs program and a $4.6 billion settlement of the Cobell v. Salazar and Pigford v. Vilsack class action lawsuits
• $10 billion for an Education Jobs Fund that will prevent impending local teacher layoffs
• $4.95 billion to address the current year shortfall in the Pell Grant Program
• $701 million for border security
• $304 million for the Gulf Coast oil spill (the Senate bill carried $162 million)
• $50 million for The Emergency Food Assistance Program
• $163 million to improve elementary and secondary schools on DoD installations
• $180 million in loan guarantees, split evenly between nuclear and renewable energy programs
• $16.5 million for the replacement of the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood.
• $538 million to strengthen waste, fraud and abuse prevention and enforcement for Medicaid, Medicare and the IRS.

The Final Supplemental – Chapter by Chapter

H.R.4899, also known as the Disaster Relief and Summer Jobs Act of 2010, contains $58,962,089,000 of total spending split across three Titles. Title I contains the vast bulk of the spending, and accounts for the $58.8M number that has been widely reported in the media.

TITLE I

Chapter 1 – Dept. of Agriculture

Total spending: $149,580,000 (plus $950,000,000 in loan authorizations)

Including:

• $31.58M in emergency farm loan subsidies supporting $950M in loan authorizations
• $18M for the Emergency Forest Restoration Program due to natural disasters in 2010
• $150M in Food for Peace Title II Grants to Haiti
• -$50M in rescissions from a 2002 Biomass Crop Assistance Program

Chapter 2 – Dept. of Commerce

Total spending: -$57,500,000

Along with disaster relief, this chapter seems designed to offset funds to be used elsewhere in the bill.

Highlights:

• -$111.5M in emergency rescissions from the federal Digital-to-Analog Converter Box program (Americans unable to watch TV? Now that would have been an emergency. Thankfully it seems we overestimated the number of 30 year-old television sets out there.)
• $49M for emergency disaster relief and infrastructure restoration

Chapter 3 – Dept. of Defense

Total Spending: $32,787,401,000

This is the meat-and-potatoes of the bill, where the majority of Iraq and Afghanistan funding is found. For the full details of each individual appropriation, the text of chapter 3 can be read here.

Military Personnel: $1,787,447,000

• Army: $1,429,809,000
• Navy: $40,478,000
• Marine Corps: $145,499,000
• Air Force: $94,068,000
• Army Reserves: $5,722,000
• Navy Reserves: $2,637,000
• Marines Reserves: $34,758,000
• Air Force Reserves: $1,292,000
• Army National Guard: $33,184,000

Operation and Maintenance: $24,586,296,000

• Army: $11,719,927,000
• Navy: $2,735,194,000
• Marine Corps: $829,326,000
• Air Force: $3,835,095
• Defense-wide: $1,236,727,000
• Army Reserves: $41,006,000
• Navy Reserves: $75,878,000
• Marines Reserves: $857,000
• Air Force Reserves: $124,039,000
• Army National Guard: $180,960,000
• Air National Guard: $203,287,000
• Afghanistan Security Forces Fund: $2,604,000,000
• Iraq Security Forces Fund: $1,000,000,000

Procurement: $4,954,817,000

• Army: $2,304,531,000

• Aircraft: $219,470,000
• Weapons and Tracked Combat Vehicles: $3,000,000
• Ammunition: $17,055,000
• Other: $2,065,006,000

• Navy: $327,576,000

• Aircraft: $296,000,000
• Other: $31,576,000

• Marine Corps: $162,927,000

• Air Force: $847,507,000

• Aircraft: $174,766,000
• Other: $672,741,000

• Defense-wide: $189,276,000
• Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle Fund: $1,123,000,000

Research and Development: $273,748,000

• Navy: $44,835,000
• Air Force: $163,775,000
• Defense-wide: $65,138,000

Revolving and Management Funds: $1,134,887,000

• The entirety goes to the Defense Working Capital Funds

Other: $127,367,000

• Defense Health Program:$33,367,000
• Counter-drug Activities: $94,000,000

General: -$77,161,000 (rescission)

Chapter 4 – Dept. of Defense – Civil

Total spending: $217,000,000

This chapter is composed entirely of funding for natural disaster responses within the US.

Chapter 5 – Dept. of the Treasury, District of Columbia

Total Spending: $690,000

Highlights:

• $690K for costs related to Haiti
• -$1.8M rescission from the Office of the Inspector General (it is running a surplus)
• $1.8M to study the ongoing financial crisis

Chapter 6 – Dept. of Homeland Security

Total Spending: $5,165,000,000

Along with a substantial appropriation for FEMA, this chapter contains a paragraph chiding DHS for only hiring 24 out of 144 positions in border security.

Highlights:

• $50M for Haiti response
• $5.1B for FEMA for shortfalls from natural disasters in the past year

Chapter 7 – Depts. Of Labor, Health and Human Services

Total Spending: $242,000,000

More Haiti and disaster response funding.

Highlights:

• $22M for increased Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission salaries
• $220M for Haiti relief

Chapter 8 – House of Representatives

Total Spending: $13,130,000

This chapter is completely unrelated to the war in any way, although the small appropriation for John Murtha’s widow is hard to condemn.

Highlights:

• $174K for the late Rep. John Murtha’s widow, Joyce
• $12.956M for emergency acquisition of a new radio system for the US Capitol Police

Chapter 9 – Depts. of Defense, Veterans Affairs

Total Spending: $14,034,028,000

Highlights:

• $657M for military construction
• $13.37B in compensation for Vietnam veterans who suffer from a variety of health issues due to exposure to Agent Orange

• President Obama requested this appropriation specifically, and it’s politically treacherous and morally difficult to oppose. Clearly, the funding is needed and does not qualify as “pork” or “waste.” Still, the question must be asked: why, especially with a political softball measure such as this, is it being included as an emergency supplemental appropriation? Could it not be spun off into its own bill, or included in a non-emergency package?

Chapter 10 – Dept. of State, numerous others

Total Spending: $6,176,760,000

This chapter is a big grab-bag of spending. Lots of Haiti spending, diplomatic programs, and some other tidbits.

Highlights:

• $1.326B for Diplomatic and Consular Programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Haiti, and Mexico (some counts towards war funding)
• $857.6M in various Haiti relief efforts

• Includes $212M debt forgiveness

• $45M to fight H5N1 (bird flu) and H1N1 (swine flu) worldwide
• $2.49B in economic support to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Haiti, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jordan, Vietnam, and El Salvador (some counts towards the war)
• $165M global refugee assistance
• $1.181B emergency funding for the War on Drugs (some of this is for Iraq and Afghanistan)

Chapter 11 – Depts. Of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development

Total Spending: $41,000,000

This chapter rescinds some unused funds in the Transportation Department and provides $100M more in disaster relief funding.

TITLE II

Depts. of Commerce, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, Labor, and the EPA

Total Spending: $193,000,000

Title II is another grab-bag of expenditures, mostly consisting of various grants, salaries, and the like (none of which appear to be war-related), as well as $125M for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill cleanup.

TITLE III

Title III consists of only a few items that completely offset each other, making total spending 0.

What the House Would Have Added

Amendment 1 adds one title and totals $5.6 billion, while offsetting $7.15 billion through revenue increases by changing tax rules.

TITLE V

• $4.6B to settle two class-action lawsuits. One, Pigford v. Glickman is a racial discrimination case against the Dept. of Agriculture, while the other, Cobell v. Salazar, concerns accusations of federal mismanagement of Indian trust assets.
• $1B to support youth summer jobs programs
• -$5.3B (estimated revenue increase) by changing rules surrounding Grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs)
• -$1.85B (estimated revenue increase) by limiting eligibility for a tax credit surrounding biofuels, specifically disallowing crude tall oil

Amendment 2 adds one title and $17.2 billion in additional spending, while offsetting the remaining cost of both amendments with $16.35 billion worth of cuts, rescissions, and revenue increases.

TITLE IV

Chapter 1 – Multiple departments

Total Spending: $16.66 billion

Total Offsets: $11.58 billion

This chapter contains virtually all the spending in the amendment, as well as a majority of the offsets. The money is dispersed to a variety of domestic programs, with the offsets, much of it unused or unobligated balances, just as varied.

Expenditures:

• $180M (supporting a possible $18 billion) split evenly between loans encouraging advances in nuclear and renewable energy technology
• $701M for border security, including salaries, new hires, new bases, equipment maintenance and upgrades, training, and $50M for Operation Stonegarden
• $10B for an Education Jobs Fund, saving an estimated 140,000 jobs
• $4.95B in Pell Grants (college loans)
• $16.5M for a replacement Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood, TX
• $50M for the Emergency Food Assistance Program
• $300M for Defense-wide Operation and Maintenance
• $163M for schools on military bases
• $142M related to the Gulf oil spill

  Offsets:

• -$2.2B in highway contract authority
• -$2B from various old Defense appropriations
• -$2B funds preparing for flu pandemic
• -$979M from Dept. Agriculture
• -$800M from grants to Dept. Education

• This cut was particularly controversial, as it slashes funding to President Obama’s signature Race to the Top education program. Obama had threatened to veto the entire bill if the cut remained.

• -$511.6M from Dept. of Housing and Urban Development for disaster relief
• -$500M from DoD construction bids that saved money
• -$317M from Dept. Commerce
• -$300M from a Defense Health Program (elsewhere in bill)
• -$300M from DoD appropriations elsewhere in bill
• -$262M from stimulus bill to DoD
• -$200M unused to build a border fence
• -$190M in unused Corps of Engineers funding
• -$177M from scrapped Marine procurement
• -$160M from Dept. Energy biomass program
• -$150M from the Millennium Challenge Corporation
• -$100M from the General Services Administration
• -$80M from stimulus funding for Dept. of Interior, the EPA, and the Forest Service
• -$70M from the Civilian Stabilization Initiative
• -$53.8M from the DNDO
• -$47M in unused disaster funding
• -$40 from Dept. of State stimulus funding
• -$36 from FEMA
• -$33M unused from the National Park Service and the Fish & Wildlife Service
• -$18M unused from Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• -$11M appropriated for the Federal Highway Administration in 1989 (!)
• -$8M unused from FAA
• -$7M from the Coast Guard
• -$6.6M from the TSA
• -$6.1M from stimulus funding for the VA
• -$6M from Dept. of Health and Human Services
• -$5M from funding for the Architect of the Capitol

Chapter 2 – FTC

Total Offsets: $2.4 billion over ten years (projected)

This chapter strengthens the FTC’s ability to prevent brand-name pharmaceutical companies from paying competitors manufacturing generic versions of those same drugs in order to delay their manufacture, known as “pay-for-delay.” According to the CBO, this would save the federal government $2.4 billion over the next decade in lowered Medicare, Medicaid, and military drug payments.

Chapter 3 – Medicaid

Total Offsets: $2.1 billion over ten years (projected)

This chapter makes a clarification to the calculation formula for Average Manufacturer Price, altering rebates received for Medicaid purchases of outpatient drugs. This is projected to save $2.1 billion over the next decade.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4 guarantees collective bargaining rights for emergency first response employees. It contains no spending or offsets.

Chapter 5 – Multiple Departments

Total Spending: $538 million

Total Offsets: $807 million (projected)

This chapter allocates $538 to various departments to combat waste and fraud in government spending. It is claimed that every $1 invested this way will yield $1.50 in savings, making for a projected $807 offset.

Chapter 6 – General Provisions

This chapter contains no spending, but it does mandate that

“None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography.”

That’s a relief.