Intelligence Budget Requests for 2014 Disclosed

Some $4 billion is being cut from the National Intelligence Program this year as a result of sequestration, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee at a hearing today. He said that the consequences will be severe. Acquisition programs will be “wounded,” ongoing programs will have to be curtailed, and the ensuing degradation of intelligence capabilities will be “insidious” with unforeseeable effects, he said.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence disclosed yesterday that the FY 2014 budget request for the National Intelligence Program (NIP) is $48.2 billion.  However, this figure excludes the pending funding request for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), so it cannot be directly compared to previous budget allocations, such as the $53.9 billion that was appropriated in FY 2012, or the $52.6 billion that was requested for FY 2013. A summary of the FY 2014 budget request is here.

The Secretary of Defense also disclosed the FY 2014 budget request for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP) yesterday, which was $14.6 billion. It also did not include the funding request for Overseas Contingency Operations.  This is a slight decline from the $14.7 billion base request for the MIP last year.  (An additional $4.5 billion was known to have been requested for OCO in the past fiscal year.)

Total intelligence spending (NIP plus MIP) peaked in Fiscal Year 2010, and has been on a downward slope since then. Intelligence budget disclosures from the last several years are tabulated here.

The NIP intelligence budget request was publicly disclosed for the first time in February 2011, in response to a requirement enacted by Congress in the FY 2010 intelligence authorization act. The MIP intelligence budget request was disclosed for the first time in February 2012, even though there was no specific statutory requirement to do so.