As the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015 for the second time and sent the newest compromise version along to the Senate for consideration next week, the language that could land on the president’s desk for signature is vastly different from what the Pentagon requested in February.
After some argument over the rule that allowed lawmakers to debate the NDAA for an hour on the House floor but make no amendments, the defense bill sailed through House with little controversy–except for that surrounding the authorization of some involvement of U.S. troops against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria without an explicit authorization of use of military force from Congress. Members on both sides of the aisle praised the bill and called for swift passage by the Senate next week. Senate leadership will try to get the bill to the floor and passed without any amendments, though it is unclear if all senators will allow that to happen.
The compromise bill that was crafted by Senate and House armed services committee staffs includes $520.5 billion in base budget spending and $63.7 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations spending, which is consistent with administration requests. However, billions of that was shifted around during the markups, House floor debate and the committee compromise processes.
The lawmakers added $800 million for a 12th San Antonio-class LPD amphibious transport dock that the Navy did not ask for, along with incremental funding authority to help pay for the ship over the span of several years. Lawmakers added $795.1 million to refuel the aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73), which the Navy was going to skip to save money in its tight shipbuilding budget. They added $450 million to buy five additional EA-18G Growlers instead of letting the Navy close the production line.
Also contrary to the military’s wishes, lawmakers prohibited the Air Force from retiring its A-10 Warthog close-air support plane fleet. They also added $331.1 million for operations and maintenance support for the A-10 fleet, and current training hours and maintenance levels may not be reduced unless the defense secretary deems that A-10 maintenance is taking away from the Air Force’s ability to maintain other platforms. If that determination is made, the secretary may submit a reprogramming request to use some of the money for maintenance on other aircraft.
The committees added $220 million to develop an alternative to Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines, $120 million for M1 Abrams tank upgrades, $348.8 million for Israeli missile defense programs and $103 million to upgrade six Army National Guard UH-40 Black Hawk helicopters above the levels requested by the Pentagon.
To pay for these additions and increases, the committees found billions to cut–a total of $472 million in cuts due to unjustified program growth, $303.8 million in cuts due to schedule delays and requests found to be ahead of need and $114.7 million in rejected benefits reform ideas. Lawmakers cut $2.7 billion from the Pentagon’s Counterterrorism Partnership Fund, though that was largely because separate money was added to fund a train-and-equip program for Syrian rebels rather than funding that through the CTPF.