Military Affairs in Congress
- ️John Pike
The four congressional defense committees, when they approve a bill, release committee reports with long data tables detailing their recommended changes to the defense budget at the individual line-item level. To resolve potential difference between the House and Senate, these committee report data tables are consolidated into a conference report joint explanatory statement. Unlike the dollar figures referring to broad accounts in appropriations law, DoD is not directly bound by law to comply with these detailed budget line items. There is, however, an expectation that DoD will make every effort to abide by the recommendations in the appropriations committees conference report joint explanatory statements (which are built from the committee reports). The committee reports, therefore, serve as de facto sets of instructions from the legislature to the Executive Branch.