The House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee (HAC-D) on Wednesday advanced its $706 billion fiscal year 2022 spending bill by voice vote, with the full committee set to take up the legislation on July 13.
The bill, which matches the president’s $715 billion requested Pentagon budget when combined with the separate $11 billion proposal for military construction, received no additional amendments during Wednesday’s closed markup session.
HAC-D released the bill on Tuesday, which detailed plans to boost procurement spending by $1.7 billion over the president’s budget request, restore funding for a second new Navy destroyer and cut the sea-launched nuclear cruise missile program (Defense Daily, June 29).
“The defense appropriations bill provides resources requested by the Secretary of Defense to protect our national security, maintain a strong industrial base to support good paying jobs, and counter the rising threats from our adversaries, including China,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the full appropriations committee, said in a statement.
Republicans are likely to oppose the bill when it comes before the full committee, following weeks of scrutiny that the topline doesn’t meet a call for 3 to 5 percent budget growth, while progressive lawmakers have cited concerns that defense spending has grown too large and funds should be reallocated to other domestic priorities.
The bill also marks the return of “community project funding items,” otherwise known as earmarks, with HAC-D releasing the list of funded efforts in the bill following the markup.
All the earmark projects that received funding went to various research and development accounts, to include the following:
- Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.): $5 million to the Navy for a Coastal Equity and Resilience Hub at Georgia Tech in Atlanta
- Rep. John Carter (R-Texas): Nearly $3 million to the Air Force for development of cyber security methodologies at Texas A&M University
- Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.): $3.6 million to the Army for the Center for Excellence in Military Health and Performance Enhancement at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge
- Rep. David Price (D-N.C.): $4 million to the Defense-wide RDT&E account for the Assessing and Tracking Tactical Forces Initiative at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.): Nearly $2 million for the Defense-wide RDT&E account for an automating engineering technology program at Kansas City Kansas Community College
- Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas): $1 million for the Defense-wide RDT&E for the Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Park at the University of Texas at San Antonio
For the Navy, HAC-D’s bill also adds $915 million above what was requested for a total of $23.5 billion to cover two total destroyers, two SSN-774 attack submarines, one frigate and several other platforms.
The bill also restores procurement funding for the Army’s CH-47F Block II program and added funding to cover six MQ-9 Reaper drones for the Air Force after the service requested no such funds in its budget (Defense Daily, June 29).