The Senate Armed Services’ Committee’s (SASC) $923.3 billion defense authorization bill will wait for a floor vote until after the July 4 recess, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the Senate’s president pro tempore, said on June 18.
Murray told reporters after the body’s weekly policy lunches that she and other Democrats will not agree to a defense increase while other domestic needs remain unmet. Murray wants concomitant increases for those needs as well.
SASC passed its version of the fiscal 2025 defense authorization bill on June 13 on a vote of 22 to 3–a bill opposed by SASC Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) for violating the Fiscal Responsibility Act cap on a one percent spending increase (Defense Daily, June 14). Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also voted against the bill.
The bill authorizes $878.4 for the Pentagon, $33.4 billion for Department of Energy nuclear weapon programs, and $11.5 billion for defense-related programs outside of the defense authorizers’ jurisdiction.
That $25 billion topline increase is $30 billion less than Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the SASC ranking member, has sought (Defense Daily, May 29). Wicker has backed a build of three attack submarines per year, a 357-ship Navy by 2035, and a growth in defense spending from three percent of gross domestic product to five percent.
Among the areas of the $25 billion topline increase are $4 billion more for munitions, such as Lockheed Martin [LMT] Standard Missile variants for the U.S. Navy and Precision Strike Missiles for the U.S. Army, which are to replace the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and which are to have a range of 300 miles.
Republican Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) is calling for a floor vote on the SASC bill. Asked on June 18 what led to the $25 billion increase, rather than the $55 billion advocated by Wicker, Thune replied, “I’m guessing it was the art of the doable.”
“I assume that on the committee getting that number probably took an amount of negotiation, but it’s a four percent increase over the president’s budget,” he said. “$25 billion is a good starting point. A lot of folks, Roger Wicker included, believe it needs to be more, but I think getting that substantial plus-up is a victory.”
“I wish it would be on the floor,” he said. “I think [Senate Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer’s gonna probably, like he typically does, short circuit the process and push this to the end of the year. But we oughta move it across the floor of the Senate even if we don’t get an outcome until later after we conference with the House because I think this needs to be given the priority in light of the threat matrix that we’re facing around the world.”