The Senate Appropriations Committee Approves ASA Request on Military Construction

Last Thursday, July 28, 2022, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved an ASA request on military construction in the FY 23 Appropriations Bill.  ASA, along with the members of the Construction Industry Procurement Coalition (CIPC), sent a letter to the House and Senate Appropriators requesting the committee’s 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, causing a serious disruption, at a time when materials and labor costs are rising, somewhat volatile in some materials, thereby 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 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.

ASA believes 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 environment. 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.