After coming close to irrelevancy as the end of the current session of Congress fast approaches, the Senate Armed Services Committee may manage to get its 2006 defense authorization bill to appear again on the Senate floor—but it’s not on the schedule for Monday. Lawmakers have resolved a major sticking point: too many amendments. (DR, 10/18/05) Democrats finally agreed with Republicans that Senators must limit add-ons to relevant amendments. That means Democrats must find another way to legislate a commission to review the Administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…