ASA Calls Upon the House Appropriations Committee to Reprogram Military Construction Funding

ASA, along with the Construction Industry Procurement Coalition (CIPC), called upon the House Appropriations Committee Leadership for consideration of raising the reprogramming threshold with respect to military construction.  More specifically, our concerns lie with the limits on appropriated funds permitted to be reprogrammed for Military Construction (MILCON) and family housing projects. This is causing a serious disruption, at a time when materials and labor costs are rising. It is making cost estimates increasingly challenging to accurately forecast, and thus putting projects at risk. Currently, the reprogramming limit for MILCON projects is the lesser of 25 percent of the project funded amount or $2.0 million, and this has remained unchanged since 1982. This limit is in contrast with the threshold for variations in authorized project costs, which is currently 25 percent of the appropriated amount or $12 million, whichever is less. This was last updated in 2018.  We believe it is important to provide the military services with an appropriate level of flexibility to proceed with construction contracts without disruption or delay, especially in our current inflationary circumstances. In addition to cost estimating challenges, it is not uncommon in the private or public sector to encounter unanticipated environmental issues during construction; thus, we also support the flexibility Congress has provided for paying for unanticipated environmental hazard remediation issues that may arise.