CRS INSIGHT
Presidential Vetoes of Annual Defense Authorization Bills
October 1, 2015 (IN10368)
Pat Towell, Specialist in U.S. Defense Policy and Budget (ptowell
crs.loc.gov, 7-2122)
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter is recommending that President Obama veto the conference report on H.R. 1735, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY2016, Carter told reporters on September 30, 2015. If Obama were to veto the measure, it would mark the fifth time since 1961, when Congress enacted the first annual defense authorization bill, that a president has vetoed that measure. Prior to 1986, when military construction projects were authorized in separate legislation, an annual military construction bill was vetoed by President Johnson in 1965 and by President Ford in 1976.
In each of those six cases, after the veto of an initial bill, Congress passed—and the President signed into law—a new bill, essentially identical to the vetoed legislation except for the elimination of provisions to which the President had objected.
Carter, and other Administration officials, object to the fact that H.R. 1735 would circumvent the defense spending cap set by the Budget Control Act of 2011 by including in the authorization for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) authorization for appropriation of $38 billion intended to cover costs in DOD's so-called "base budget."
Additional data on the legislative history of each of the bills is available in CRS Report 98-756, Defense Authorization and Appropriations Bills: FY1970-FY2015, by Nese F. DeBruyne.
FY1979 Defense Authorization Act
The first authorization bill for FY1979 that Congress sent to the White House (H.R. 10929), was vetoed by President Jimmy Carter on August 17, 1978. In his veto message, President Carter objected to the bill's authorization of $1.93 billion for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Citing plans to request a less expensive, conventionally-fuelled carrier in the next DOD budget, President Carter complained that, in order to fit the nuclear-powered ship into the agreed budget level, Congress denied funds the Administration had requested for weapons that would beef up the defense of NATO. See "Veto of the Department of Defense Appropriation Authorization Bill," Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter 1978, vol. 2 (Washington: GPO, 1978), pp. 1447-1449.
After the House sustained the veto on September 7, 1978, Congress passed a second FY1979 authorization bill—which did not authorize funding for the carrier—which President Carter signed into law on October 20, 1978 (P.L. 95-486).
FY1989 National Defense Authorization Act
On August 3, 1988, President Reagan vetoed the first authorization bill for FY1989 that Congress sent to the White House (H.R. 4264). In his veto message, the President contended that U.S. leverage in arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union would be weakened by several elements of the bill including a 20% reduction from the budget request for ballistic missile defense, a requirement to retire two missile-launching submarines, and a slowdown of efforts to
