S 1867 Becomes HR 1540

I missed this last Friday when I was looking at the Congressional Record for Thursday. After passing S 1867, the Senate also passed HR 1540, the House passed version of the DOD authorization bill. The passage of HR 1540 was one of those political games that Congress frequently plays; the Senate substituted the language of the just passed S 1867 for the language of the House version of the bill. BTW: no vote, no debate, just maneuvering.

Typically the Senate does this before the debate on a bill starts, but it achieves the same end. HR 1540 will go to Conference unless the House agrees to accept the Senate version of the bill. He House will take this up on the floor tomorrow. According to the Majority Leader's web site it is listed as “Motion to go to Conference on H.R. 1540” so it certainly looks like this will go to Conference. The floor action in the House will go quick tomorrow.

The new Senate language for HR 1540 was published in yesterday’s Congressional Record. It is also available on the GPO site. We’ll have to wait to see what comes out of the Conference Committee.