Congress left town for the five-week August recess with several legislative priorities still on the to-do list for the fall, not the least of which are the annual Pentagon policy and spending bills, two sprawling pieces of legislation that typically are placed on the "must-pass" list. But lawmakers will be in town for less than three weeks in September, followed by another lengthy preelection recess, potentially pushing work on these two measures into the end-of-year lame-duck session. That will likely cause some headaches for the Defense Department (DoD) and the military services when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
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