House appropriators on Tuesday released their $833.1 billion fiscal year 2025 defense spending bill, breaking with the House Armed Services Committee and deciding against funding a second Virginia-class submarine while boosting F-35 procurement by eight aircraft.
The House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee (HAC-D) will meet on Wednesday to mark up their bill, which adheres to the one percent defense spending cap mandated by last year’s debt limit deal and the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
“Every dollar counts within the topline limitation imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. Therefore, this bill withholds funds from initiatives and programs that are wasteful, inefficient, or do not contribute directly to our national security,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), the HAC-D chair, said in a statement on Monday.
Democrats on the Appropriations Committee have already come out in opposition to the legislation, with HAC-D Ranking Member Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) stating the Republicans’ bill “once again…prioritizes extremist social policy views over the well-being of our service members and the security of our nation.”
“Instead of building on the bipartisan conclusion to the Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations process, the Fiscal Year 2025 Defense Appropriations bill includes the same outrageous policy riders that were rejected by Congress only two months ago,” McCollum said. “Our service members and their families deserve better than a bill that caters to MAGA extremists over the readiness of our national defense.”
Along with the inclusion of GOP-led “poison pill provisions,” Democrats cited their objections to the bill’s $916 million cut to funding for the civilian DoD workforce and the Republicans’ decision not to include the requested $300 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance initiative.
Republican appropriators noted the legislation also cuts $18 billion from “unjustified and unnecessary items included in the president’s budget request,” to include $621.2 million for climate change initiatives and redirects the funding “address warfighting needs, counter China, and support our servicemembers and their families,” while the bill text released Tuesday does not contain full spending details or where program cuts were made.
Overall, HAC-D’s bill funds $294.3 billion for operations and maintenance, a $2 billion cut to the budget request, $165.3 billion for procurement, $1.4 billion below the request, and $145.9 billion for research and development, an increase of $2.7 billion from the budget submission.
The $31.6 billion in the bill for shipbuilding includes procurement of only one Virginia-class attack submarine, aligning with the Navy’s funding request to fund only one platform but deviating from the House Armed Services Committee’s plans.
HASC’s version of the FY ‘25 National Defense Authorization Act, approved by the committee on May 22, supports an additional $1 billion for procurement of a second Virginia-class submarine (Defense Daily, May 13).
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), ranking member on the HASC Seapower Subcommittee, previously told reporters he was optimistic House appropriators would also support funding a second attack submarine (Defense Daily, May 23).
“There’s definitely been very strong communication at the staff level and member level, in terms of the House Appropriations committee process. And I would just say that I’m feeling very bullish in terms of my conversations with our partners in the HAC-D realm in terms of supporting what we did with adding the Virginia-class submarine,” Courtney said at the time.
HAC-D’s defense spending bill, however, does align with HASC’s decision in its FY ‘25 NDAA to zero out $1 billion in requested funds for another planned Constellation-class frigate while the class is delayed by several years.
Another significant debate awaits on House appropriators decision to fund 76 F-35 aircraft in its draft defense spending bill, whereas HASC moved to authorize 58 of the fighter jets in its FY ‘25 NDAA, which was a cut of 10 F-35s from the Pentagon’s budget request.
Overall, HAC-D’s bill funds $9.2 billion covering 44 F-35As for the Air Force, two more than requested, 13 F-35Bs for the Marine Corps and 19 F-35Cs for the Navy, six more than requested.
The HAC-D draft defense spending bill also includes $2.1 billion for 20 CH-53K helicopters, adding an additional aircraft above the request, $465 million for six CH-47F Block II Chinooks for the Army and $3.3 billion for continued development of the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program.
After HAC-D meets to consider the bill, the full House Appropriations Committee is set to hold its markup of the legislation on June 13.
The pushback from Democrats so far is similar to last year’s appropriations where a slew of conservative GOP-led policy riders in the HAC-D’s original version of the bill, including blocking funds for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and climate-related policies at DoD, were ultimately removed from the final legislation (Defense Daily, March 22).
The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to consider its version of the FY ‘25 NDAA on June 12 and 13, where Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-Ala.) is likely to pursue his push to increase the defense topline by $55 billion (Defense Daily, June 4).
Senate appropriators have also signaled an openness to potentially considering increases to the topline as well.
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), the Senate’s top defense appropriator, said earlier in May the Pentagon will require a “bigger number” for its FY ‘25 topline than the nearly $850 billion requested and cautioned the imposed spending cap could hinder modernization efforts (Defense Daily, May 8).
Meanwhile, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Appropriations Committee, has offered some support for exploring a potential defense topline boost, while reiterating she is “going to insist on parity for non-defense spending.”