The Pentagon portion of the Fiscal Year 2021 Omnibus Appropriation bill is voluminous, and we’ll be combing through it for interesting tidbits.

The first to catch our eye, because it’s on Page 5, is a discussion of the Unfunded Requirements (sometimes called Unfunded Priorities) lists forwarded to Congress by each military service and agency in the Pentagon. Unfortunately, a few years ago, this annual practice was enshrined in statute. Congress uses these lists to justify adding items to the Pentagon budget that didn’t make it through the annual scrub of the more than $700 billion budget by the Defense Department Comptroller or the Office of Management and Budget.

So it’s interesting that this symbiotic practice is lightly criticized in the Pentagon portion of the Omnibus.

“It is noted that, in some instances, appropriations provided in prior fiscal years to address unfunded requirements remained unobligated for several years after they were appropriated. Subsequently, those unobligated appropriations were proposed for realignment purposes other than those requested by the Department of Defense and intended by the Congress. While it is understandable that requirements evolve and associated funding requirements change during execution of the budget, such unexecuted and/or reallocated appropriations suggest that additional details regarding the execution of appropriations provided specifically for unfunded requirements identified by the Department of Defense are warranted Therefore, it is directed that any submission of unfunded requirements with the fiscal year 2022 President’s budget request be accompanied by updated execution data that speaks to the extent to which the unfunded requirements that received appropriations in fiscal year 2021 were fulfilled or partially fulfilled.”

Now, this can be read as Congress hectoring the Administration to execute the funds precisely as they were appropriated. Or for an increase in transparency. Or both. Regardless, it will be interesting to see the data on what “unfunded requirements” are receiving additional appropriations, but the money is not actually being spent.

You can bet we will be digging into the new information next year.