*** The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee marked up the Senate version of the Pentagon's funding bill on Sept. 10. The bill calls for $694.8 billion in overall spending, divided between $622.4 billion in base funding, $70.7 billion in contingency funding and $1.7 in emergency funding. The bill also seeks $341 million in additional cybersecurity spending and $436 million for the DOD's 5G efforts.
*** The U.S. Senate confirmed James Byrne to serve as deputy secretary of Veterans Affairs by a vote of 81 to 11. As deputy secretary, Byrne is the senior official in charge of the $16 billion, 10-year project to modernize the agency's homegrown electronic health record system by implementing a commercial solution based on Cerner's software. Byrne has been acting in the deputy role since August 2018.