Speaking at Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., the site where the original members of the alliance signed the North Atlantic Treaty, Biden framed it as “a historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine.”

“The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy will provide Ukraine with equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems in the coming months,” he said. “The United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defense systems.”

The United States, Germany and Romania will donate additional Patriot batteries while the Netherlands donates Patriot components. Additionally, Italy will donate a SAMP-T system.

The five countries noted in a statement that they are working on a “further announcement this year of additional strategic air defense systems for Ukraine.”

The U.S. and various allies also “intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of tactical air defense systems, including NASAMS, HAWKs, IRIS T-SLM, IRIS T-SLS and Gepard systems,” according to the joint statement.

Biden’s announcement comes weeks after the U.S. moved Ukraine up to the front of the queue for Patriot and NASAM interceptors.

“Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the frontlines,” he said.

The White House has said that Ukraine will receive many of these interceptors by the end of the summer. Over the next 15 months, Kyiv will take precedence over several other countries seeking to buy U.S. air defense systems. The administration has not divulged which countries will face delays in acquiring interceptors as a result of the decision, except to note that the decision will not impact Taiwan or Israel.

Biden’s announcement comes one day after a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, killing at least 31 people. The barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with 40 missiles, wounding more than 150 people, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is in Washington this week for the summit.

Other NATO member countries are expected to announce additional security packages for Ukraine at the summit this week.

“Together we’ve built a global coalition to stand with Ukraine,” said Biden. “Together we’ve provided significant economic and humanitarian assistance. And together we’ve supplied Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself: tanks, armored vehicles, air defense systems, long-range missiles and millions of munitions.”

“The United States and nearly two dozen allied partners have signed a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine,” he said.

The House’s FY25 defense spending bill would procure 76 new F-35s, eight more than the 68 requested by the Defense Department. This puts the spending bill at odds with the House’s FY25 National Defense Authorization Act, passed 217-199 earlier this month, which would cut F-35 procurement down to 58 aircraft.

“At a projected total lifecycle cost of over $2 trillion dollars, the F-35 is the largest program in DoD history despite routinely not meeting cost, schedule, and performance metrics,” Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee, said in a Wednesday statement with Rep. Donald Norcross of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the tactical air and land forces panel.

“This is unacceptable program execution and Congress should not reward this behavior by buying additional aircraft above the President’s budget request,” the statement read.

Smith and Norcross highlighted that the Defense Department stopped accepting F-35 deliveries from manufacturer Lockheed Martin last year “until the enterprise could successfully deliver, test, and field the next version of the Operational Flight Program” — a benchmark it has not yet met nearly a year later.

The two Democrats and Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., introduced a bipartisan amendment that would have cut F-35 procurement in the spending bill and bring it in sync with the 58 F-35s authorized in the National Defense Authorization Act.

But the House Rules Committee, which oversees amendment votes, opted not to put Smith’s proposed F-35 reduction on the floor for a vote. The new House Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., previously chaired the Rules Committee.

Smith’s proposed reduction of 18 fighter jets from the spending bill would have amounted to a roughly $2 billion procurement cut for the Air Force and Navy.

The Smith amendment would have shifted funds in the form of $526 million to the Air Force to help address F-35 performance issues with development, production and testing.

“It is the duty of Congress to support the long-term viability of the F-35 program and ensure the vast sums of taxpayer money footing the bill are spent where they can ensure program success,” said Smith and Norcross. “A simple short-term reduction in acquisition rates would enable us to mitigate the known systemic problems, correct course and get the F-35 program and workers up and running at full speed.”

Lockheed Martin has faced intense bipartisan scrutiny from the Armed Services Committee for repeated F-35 delays, most recently with the Technology Refresh 3 upgrades. The TR-3 hardware and software upgrades would provide F-35s with better displays, computer memory and processing power.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., attempted to amend the NDAA with a provision that would have authorized the defense secretary to seize intellectual property from Lockheed Martin and open it up to competition, taking aim at the F-35′s software problems.

Moulton sought a vote on the amendment when the Armed Services Committee marked up the legislation in May but had to withdraw it after a Congressional Budget Office cost determination. But multiple committee members, including several Republicans, said they would support Moulton’s efforts to seize intellectual property from Lockheed Martin in the years ahead should F-35 issues persist.

Smith urged caution on Moulton’s efforts, despite his shared frustrations with Lockheed’s execution of the F-35 program.

“In law, we would possibly have to compensate them for that, which would be really, really, really expensive,” Smith said.

Despite efforts from Smith and his fellow Armed Services Committee members to cut F-35 procurement next year, appropriators will have the final word on how many of the aircraft to buy in the defense spending bill.

Further compounding the uncertainty, the Senate version of the FY25 NDAA would procure 68 F-35s — the same number requested by the Pentagon. It remains unclear how many F-35s Senate appropriators seek to procure, as they have yet to release their FY25 defense spending bill.

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee unveiled their draft of the massive defense authorization bill Friday morning, just as House lawmakers narrowly adopted their version of the measure, mostly along party lines in a 217-199 vote.

After the full Senate amends its committee’s draft over the next few weeks, the two chambers will begin negotiations over a compromise bill to send to the president’s desk later this year.

The legislation, which has passed Congress annually for more than 60 years, includes a host of pay authorizations, program changes and policy updates that impact almost every corner of the Defense Department. As such, the bill is closely watched by Pentagon planners and military advocates all year long, and it commands significant attention from lawmakers both on and off the military oversight committees.

Here’s a look at the major differences in the House and Senate bills, and the debates ahead.

Total defense spending

While the authorization bill doesn’t provide direct funding for military operations (the annual appropriations bill does that), the overall spending levels prescribed in the measure typically set the tone for debate over how much money the Defense Department will get next year.

In the House, that total is about $884 billion, in line with a debt ceiling agreement between the White House and Congress last summer to cap spending increases for fiscal 2025 at 1%.

The Senate authorization bill comes in at $923 billion, a 5% boost in overall defense spending, including $12.5 billion in emergency funding for military disaster recovery construction in Guam following Typhoon Mawar last year.

The roughly $25 billion extra in non-Guam funding provided in the Senate bill would allow the Defense Department to pursue several additional shipbuilding, procurement and military construction priorities.

“If you look at this bill overall, you would definitely see that the pivot to the Indo-Pacific is also a pivot to sea power, and more and more focus is going to be on the sea power investments,” Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who chairs the committee’s sea power panel, told reporters after the markup.

For instance, the extra spending in the bill partially helps fund a second Virginia-class attack submarine against the Navy’s wishes; the service requested a single attack submarine for FY25 due to production delays in the industrial base. The Senate bill authorizes $1.1 billion in partial funding for the second submarine, slightly more than the House version.

The Senate bill also allows for an extra $4 billion in munitions procurement across the services, including to expand capacity for production lines for items like the Precision Strike Missile as well as the Standard Missile-2 and -6 weapons.

Another $3.1 billion would go toward military construction projects for the unfunded priorities lists submitted by various services and combatant commands.

Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the committee, successfully offered the amendment to increase defense spending beyond the FY25 debt ceiling caps, arguing that the U.S. needs to spend more on the military to compete with China and Russia. However, the increase was less than the extra $55 billion he initially sought for FY25.

The committee’s chairman, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., voted against his panel’s authorization plan because of the high spending total. But a majority of Republicans and Democrats on the committee backed the increase in a 22-3 vote. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., also voted against it.

Negotiating a final defense spending total will likely involve input from the White House and chamber fights over nondefense program funding, potentially complicating and lengthening the compromise process.

Junior enlisted pay raises

House lawmakers made quality of life for younger service members a major focus of their authorization bill, highlighted by a 15% average pay raise for troops E-4 and below. Supporters say the move will raise basic pay for all troops above $30,000, an adjustment meant to ensure military families aren’t facing financial strain while serving.

But the White House has strongly opposed the targeted pay boost, which could cost about $3 billion next year and more than $24 billion over the next five years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Administration officials back a 4.5% pay raise across the board for all troops (both the House and Senate also support that) but advised waiting on extra money for enlisted troops until next year, after a Pentagon study on military compensation is complete.

Despite including more overall defense funding in their bill, Senate lawmakers only offered an extra 1% boost for troops E-3 and below on top of the across-the-board pay raise.

That would give most junior enlisted troops a few hundred dollars extra next year, as opposed to the several thousand dollars in salary increases in the House plan. However, Senate officials also added an extra $1 billion to potentially boost junior enlisted pay even further. The committee still needs to work out the details of those pay table changes.

Sorting out which plan survives congressional negotiations could have a major impact on young military families’ finances.

And that’s not the only pocketbook issue to be discussed by negotiators. House lawmakers also backed increases to service members’ housing stipends that were omitted by Senate bill authors. And the House draft includes an expansion of the military Basic Needs Allowance, money designed to provide additional support to families struggling to cover food and household costs.

Social issues

Most of the social issues expected to cause controversy in bill negotiations this summer come from the House draft of the authorization bill.

In floor work this week, Republican lawmakers added riders ending the Pentagon’s abortion access policy for troops stationed in states where the procedure is outlawed. They also included provisions to freeze hiring for diversity jobs in the military, limit care for transgender troops, and bar discussion of “radical gender ideology” or ”critical race theory” in training sessions.

Those moves drew the ire of Democratic lawmakers in the House, many of whom backed the bill when it came out of committee but opposed it because of what they called tangential social issue fights.

Republicans did not need Democratic support to advance the bill out of the House, but will need to reach a compromise on those issues in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Similar provisions included in last year’s House drafts were ultimately stripped out by negotiators.

The Senate draft again includes a push to require women to register for the Selective Service System, currently only mandated for men aged 18 through 25. House members have opposed that idea in recent years.

The committee voted 34-25 along party lines to send the $833 billion bill to the House floor with Democrats objecting to the provision that would shut down the pier, which will cost anywhere between $230 and $320 million according to Pentagon estimates.

The amendment from Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., bans the Defense Department from building or maintaining a pier or Joint-Logistics-Over-the-Shore capabilities “in the vicinity of Gaza.”

“The pier has been plagued by prolonged delays, hijacked humanitarian aid, additional costs and debilitating damages,” Clyde said ahead of the vote. “President [Joe] Biden’s Gaza pier has been a total failure. It’s not provided anywhere near the expected amount of aid to the Palestinians as promised by this administration.”

The Appropriations Committee adopted Clyde’s amendment by voice vote over objections from Democrats, who also opposed the final bill due to a series of socially conservative policy riders and a lack of Ukraine aid.

Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the top Democrat on the committee, noted that the Defense Department does not intend to continue its Gaza pier operation through FY25, which begins in October.

“A month ago, the head of the United Nations World Food Program announced that northern Gaza has entered a full-blown famine,” said McCollum. “This operation is only for a limited period of time and it ends in August when the weather and the seas will make it untenable to continue.”

Democrats on the Appropriations Committee also criticized a provision in the defense spending bill that bans funding for United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Another provision in the bill would prevent the president from withholding weapons deliveries to Israel and force the Pentagon to deliver the single shipment of roughly 3,500 air-to-ground munitions that Biden withheld in April.

Lawmakers on Wednesday also added two other amendments defunding the Gaza pier to the FY25 defense policy bill, separate legislation that the full House is expected to vote on Friday. The House adopted the provisions from Republican Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Warren Davidson of Ohio as part of a bipartisan package of amendments that both parties agreed to by voice vote.

The House on Wednesday added another amendment to the defense policy bill by voice vote that would bar the Defense Department from using funds to rebuild Gaza, though there’s no money allocated to do so in the defense spending bill. Lawmakers adopted the amendment from from Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., by voice vote over Democratic objections.

The House narrowly passed another Mast amendment 204-199 that would bar the Pentagon from evacuating Palestinian refugees to the United States, though the Defense Department has no plans to undertake such an operation.

Biden announced the pier to deliver aid to Gaza during his State of the Union address in March because of Israel’s ongoing restrictions on food, water, fuel and medicine deliveries through the land crossings. The pier sits on the coast at the end of the Israeli military’s Netzarim Corridor, which now divides the Gaza Strip in two.

Twenty aid agencies warned in May that deliveries from the pier have been inadequate to compensate for the low level of assistance through land crossings. And the UN World Food Program recently paused distribution of aid from the pier, citing safety concerns for its staff after rocket attacks on its warehouses.

Additionally, three U.S. troops sustained noncombat injuries in May while setting up the pier. Shortly thereafter, adverse weather conditions tore the pier apart and forced the military to repair it.

While the statement praised the House Armed Services Committee for its “strong, bipartisan” work on the $884 billion bill, it raised objections to some of its provisions on shipbuilding, the creation of an Army drone corps, missile defense and pricing transparency for defense contractors.

The White House also said it “strongly urges” Congress to create an Indo-Pacific Security Assistance Initiative, which the bill does not include despite a Pentagon request. The Pentagon’s proposal would mirror a similar program used to arm Ukraine.

“The administration looks forward to continuing to work with Congress to set appropriate and responsible levels of defense and non-defense spending to support the security of the nation,” according to the statement from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. “The administration looks forward to working with Congress to address our concerns.”

Despite its specific objections, the White House did not issue a veto threat on the bill. That could change if the House adopts some of the socially conservative policy riders introduced by the right-flank of the Republican caucus during amendment votes later this week.

Republicans opted for this approach last year with a bill that only narrowly passed the House after they voted to add amendments from the right-wing Freedom caucus that turned the usually bipartisan bill into a partisan endeavor. Lawmakers dropped those provisions during conference negotiations with the Senate before passing a bipartisan compromise bill for FY24 in December.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to mark up its version of the FY25 defense policy bill later this week.

House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the committee’s top Democrat, both asked the Rules Committee on Tuesday to focus on non-divisive provisions as they decide which of the 1,386 proposed amendments to put on the floor for votes.

“The bill we are presenting today is truly bipartisan,” said Rogers, noting his committee advanced it 57-1 last month. “As you consider which amendments to make in order, I would respectfully request that you focus on amendments that advance the security of our nation and the needs of our servicemembers.”

And Smith said that “any effort to go after reproductive healthcare, any effort to go after the rights of the LGBTQ community, are going be problems, as is any effort to block the efforts of DoD to have a truly inclusive military.”

Shipbuilding loggerheads

In addition to possible partisan divides over social issues, the Armed Services Committee has found itself at loggerheads with defense appropriators over their draft spending bill that overrides numerous provisions in the defense policy bill.

For instance, the draft FY25 defense spending bill – which the Appropriations Committee is set to mark up on Thursday – does not fund the policy bill’s $1 billion authorization in incremental funding for a second Virginia-class attack submarine.

In doing so, defense appropriators have sided with the White House and Navy in their decision to fund the procurement of just one Virginia-class submarine for FY25 due to production delays instead of the usual two vessels.

“The authorization of incremental funding for a second [Virginia-class submarine] would result in a significant unplanned bill in FY26, competing for funding with additional [submarine industrial base investments] and Columbia-class submarines,” noted the White House statement. “This will force the Navy to make reductions in other priorities to accommodate the balance of funds for the second FY25″ submarine.

Instead, the Biden administration “encourages Congress to fully support the near-term submarine industrial base investments proposed in the president’s FY25 budget request.”

Authorizers on the Armed Services Committee argue the decision to drop a second Virginia-class vessel in FY25 will set back companies further down the submarine supply chain. At the same time, the defense policy bill cuts $1.17 billion in procurement of a frigate for FY25 – drawing further objections from the White House.

Additionally, the White House took aim at a provision that would block the retirement of guided-missile cruisers.

“Divesting ships on a case-by-case basis allows the Navy to prioritize investments,” noted the statement. “The USS Shiloh and USS Lake Erie are currently in a condition that renders modernization and restoration to full operational capability cost-prohibitive.”

Army and missile defense

The White House also said it “strongly opposes” a provision in the defense policy bill creating a drone corps within the Army, arguing it “would create an unwarranted degree of specialization and limit flexibility to employ evolving capabilities.”

Additionally, it “strongly opposes” another provision requiring the establishment of a third continental missile interceptor site on the east coast by 2030.

“There is no operational need for such a site to protect the homeland against potential ballistic missiles originating from Iran or” North Korea, noted the statement.

Instead, the White House notes that the Defense Department will field 20 Next-Generation Interceptors in silos in Alaska by 2028 to defend all 50 states.

Defense contractor pricing data

Another provision the White House “strongly opposes” raises the cap at which prime defense contractors must obtain certified cost or pricing data from a subcontractor to $5 million, up from the current $2 million.

“This would reduce the incentive for sole-source prime contractors to negotiate contracts with their subcontractors, such as for spare parts, to keep costs under control, creating unnecessary risk for taxpayers,” notes the White House statement.

The Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, is also lobbying against this provision.

Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the group’s senior government affairs manager, said the provision would allow prime contractors to provide the Pentagon with “historical data, which is old data, and wouldn’t justify the current price hike.”

“That makes the contracting officers’ jobs even harder when they’re trying to figure out if the price is reasonable and fair – and they already have a hard time trying to figure that out under the current system,” Hedtler-Gaudette told Defense News.

The plan, unveiled Wednesday by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., would ultimately raise U.S. defense spending from 3% to 5% of gross domestic product in the years ahead, a massive surge likely to come in well above $1 trillion per year.

Much of the proposed long-term spending in Wicker’s plan would go toward revitalizing the struggling defense-industrial base, which the senator argues is necessary to successfully counter an “axis of aggressors” comprised of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

He hopes additional industrial base funding will enable the U.S. to drastically bolster the size of its Navy and Air Force fleets as well as munitions production and the nuclear arsenal.

“This will enable the United States to fix our failing defense infrastructure, field a new generation of equipment and maintain American technological leadership,” Wicker wrote in the proposal. “This [3%] of GDP spent on defense is nearing historic lows not seen since the peace dividend of the 1990s.”

The document lays out many of Wicker’s short- and long-term priorities as the Senate Armed Services Committee prepares to mark up its FY25 defense policy bill next month. The House Armed Services Committee advanced its defense policy legislation last week, an $883.7 billion bill in line with the FY25 defense spending caps lawmakers agreed to last year.

Some of the additional $55 billion Wicker seeks to add above the FY25 spending caps mirrors the unfunded priorities lists each military service and combatant command submitted to Congress earlier this year.

For instance, Wicker wants an additional $2 billion to “disperse and harden [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] infrastructure,” another $2.25 billion for “Guam disaster recovery and resilient rebuild,” and $500 million for a Guam defense system.

Additionally, Wicker is seeking $500 million to create “regional contingency stockpiles” to help Indo-Pacific Command overcome logistical challenges in the event of a conflict in the area.

“Prepositioned stocks generally must be expanded in the western Pacific,” the document notes. “In particular, the Army Prepositioned Stocks program has been perennially underfunded — by almost $1 billion this year.”

Wicker’s proposal also calls on the Pentagon to create a weapons stockpile in Taiwan, which Congress authorized in the FY23 defense bill, mirroring the U.S. war reserve stockpile in Israel.

It also seeks to allocate $1.5 billion in replenishment funds to allow the Defense Department to send Taiwan weapons from U.S. stockpiles. The foreign aid bill Congress passed in April included $1.9 billion in FY24 funding for the department to do this, but the House defense policy bill did not include an additional $500 million in FY25 Taiwan aid that the Pentagon asked for as part of its proposed Indo-Pacific Security Initiative.

Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, lead the defense appropriations panel and have also said they want to increase FY25 defense spending above the debt ceiling deal’s FY25 spending caps.

But Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said earlier this month that if defense spending rises, she will insist that nondefense spending also grow, which Republicans have historically opposed.

Total defense spending for FY24 came in at $953 billion following passage of the foreign aid bill, well above the $886 billion national security caps Congress laid out in the base budget for that fiscal year.

The 5% target

Over the longer term, Wicker’s proposal to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP places particular emphasis on growing the defense-industrial base.

“The defense industrial base itself is a weapon,” the proposal states. “The Department of Defense needs a much larger and more capable workforce for defense industrial base issues.”

“For surface ships, the Navy needs to embark immediately upon a comprehensive industrial base investment strategy, just as it has done for the submarine industrial base,” it continues. “As with the submarine industrial base, this investment strategy will require around $20 billion over a period of five years.”

These funds would go toward “extensive funding for workforce development, supply chain resiliency, long-lead item production, development and insertion of additive manufacturing techniques, supplier base diversification and shipyard modernization and expansion.”

Wicker also calls on the Navy to “begin work on a fifth nuclear shipyard, which will likely cost over $20 billion.”

The document faults the Navy for failing “to provide a consistent demand signal to industry” but argues that with the right funding it can meet and even exceed the 355-ship goal by 2035.

Similarly, it notes “the Air Force plans to retire almost 1,000 aircraft over the next five years, including nearly 400 fighters.”

“It has not replaced its aircraft fast enough to keep the fleet from shrinking precipitously, even as the mission demands remain steady or increase,” it reads.

Accordingly, Wicker’s proposal calls on the Air Force to purchase “at least 340″ aircraft above its current plan over the next five years while accelerating production of B-21 bombers and doubling its planned quantity from 100 to 200.

“The Air Force should aim to arrest its shrinking fighter force structure by reversing its plans to retire capable F-15E and F-22 fighters over the next five years and by purchasing at least 340 aircraft above its current plans over the next five years,” the proposal notes.

Additionally, the document cites “a well-known shortage of munitions that will require both additional funding and additional creativity to remedy.” It calls for an additional $7 billion to $10 billion annually for the munitions-industrial base over the next decade.

The document also details a series of industrial base recommendations to grow the U.S. nuclear arsenal. These include extended production of the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine; setting up NATO-style nuclear burden-sharing agreements with Australia, Japan and South Korea; and restoring nuclear capability on B-52 bombers.

Wicker has also co-sponsored a bill to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The legislation’s other sponsor, Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., hopes to include it in the Senate’s FY25 defense policy bill.

The Armed Services Committee voted 57-1 to advance the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act to the House floor after considering more than 700 amendments during a roughly 12-hour markup. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., cast the single vote against the legislation.

The bill adheres to the spending caps from last year’s debt ceiling deal, allowing a 1% increase over the $874.2 billion FY24 defense policy bill.

“This bill is also the product of hundreds of hours of oversight done by all members and staff over the past few months,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said ahead of the committee vote. “It is a good bill that will help revitalize the defense industrial base and build the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and our other adversaries.”

The legislation would incrementally fund a second attack submarine for FY25 against the Pentagon’s wishes, block certain aircraft retirements and maintain restrictions on downsizing the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

The Navy, citing industrial base delays, only asked for one Virginia-class submarine for FY25 in a break from the two-per-year cadence. But the defense bill provides $1 billion toward funding for the second submarine and intends to provide additional funds for the vessel in future fiscal years.

Meanwhile, the bill would procure 58 F-35 fighter jets for FY25, 10 less than the Pentagon requested amid growing congressional frustration with manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Ma., floated – then withdrew – an amendment that would have authorized the defense secretary to seize intellectual property from Lockheed Martin and open it up to competition, taking aim at the F-35′s software problems.

Moulton was not able to hold a vote on the amendment after a Congressional Budget Office cost determination but that didn’t stop lawmakers from excoriating Lockheed Martin.

“We all know that the F-35 program is behind schedule,” said Moulton. “It’s way over budget grossly and it’s not delivering the programs ready to fight that we need.”

Several Republicans, including Reps. Morgan Lutrell of Texas as well as Carlos Gimenez and Cory Mills of Florida, also said they may support Moulton’s efforts in the years ahead.

But Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the committee, cautioned that “it’s no small thing for the government to confiscate intellectual property.”

“In law, we would possibly have to compensate them for that, which would be really, really, really expensive,” said Smith.

Additionally, the bill would block the Air Force’s effort to retire 32 Block 20 F-22 Raptors, also made by Lockheed Martin, through FY27. It would also pause the Air Force’s plans to retire 26 F-15E Strike Eagles, made by Boeing.

The bill also prevents efforts to retire the B83 nuclear gravity bomb, which is at least 80 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and requires the military to deploy at least 400 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

It also establishes a chief talent management officer at the Pentagon to improve recruitment, retention and workforce development for military personnel and civilian employees alike.

The committee also adopted an amendment that would automatically register all male U.S. residents ages 18 to 26 into the Selective Service amid a drop in mandatory registrations from eligible individuals in recent years. The committee adopted the amendment from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., by voice vote.

The committee also voted down multiple amendments. For instance, it overwhelmingly voted 46-11 against an amendment from Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., that would have abolished the requirement for military services and combatant commands to submit annual unfunded priorities lists to Congress.

They also struck down 48-10 an amendment from Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., that would have banned the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine.

Quality of life

This year’s committee draft of the authorization bill had a specific focus on military quality of life issues, after panel lawmakers spent the last 15 months reviewing ways to address frequent complaints among troops and family members.

“No service member should have to live in squalid conditions. No military family should have to rely on food stamps to feed their children,” said Rogers. “And no one serving this country should have to wait weeks to see a doctor or a mental health specialist.

“This bill will go a long way toward fixing that.”

The measure contains a dramatic overhaul of the military’s pay tables, giving a pay bump of nearly 20% to junior enlisted troops next year. The move would bring almost every service member’s base pay to more than $30,000 a year, a move lawmakers hope will limit the financial strain on younger military families.

The authorization bill also includes increases to troops’ housing allowances (bringing them up to 100% of regional housing costs) and expands eligibility for the military’s Basic Allowance for Subsistence stipend.

And lawmakers also inserted language in the defense bill improving pay and benefits for Defense Department child care workers, to help with recruiting and retention of those posts.

Those reforms are included alongside a 4.5% pay raise for all troops next year, which would be the third consecutive year of increases of more than 4% for the military.

Not including that salary hike, the cost of the quality of life reforms total about $4.2 billion, a significant section of the constrained authorization bill total. But supporters said the moves are needed now to ensure that the services can keep pace on recruiting and retention issues.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is scheduled to take up its version of the legislation in June.

Language included in the House Armed Services Committee’s draft of the annual defense authorization bill would mandate the automatic registration of all males between ages 18 and 26 living in America in the Selective Service System, the federal database used for a military draft in case of a national emergency.

The system hasn’t been used for that purpose for 52 years, but men who fail to register can face a host of legal consequences, including forfeiture of eligibility for federal programs and possible jail time.

But the number of individuals who have skipped registering has increased in recent years, in large part because registration options were removed from the federal student loan process two years ago. That had accounted for nearly a quarter of all registrations in prior years.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., sponsored the automatic registration language and called it both a money-saving and common-sense reform.

“By using available federal databases, the [Selective Service] agency will be able to register all of the individuals required and thus help ensure that any future military draft is fair and equitable,” she said during debate on the idea Wednesday night.

“This will also allow us to rededicate resources — basically that means money — towards reading readiness and towards mobilization … rather than towards education and advertising campaigns driven to register people.”

The Selective Service System costs roughly $30 million a year. Lawmakers have proposed a number of reforms to the database in recent years, including adding women and completely eliminating the agency altogether, but none have made it through Congress.

The latest proposal was approved unanimously by the committee but still must advance through the full House and Senate before it can become law. The authorization bill, which contains a myriad of military budget and policy priorities, is expected to be finalized by the two chambers sometime this fall.

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., Rob Wittman, R-Va., and 118 other lawmakers made the case in a May 1 letter to the chamber’s top defense appropriators as Congress drafts its FY25 defense budget.

“Preserving a consistent production schedule is essential for shipyard and industrial base stability, and to meet the Navy’s operational requirements,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Defense Appropriations Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., and Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., the panel’s top Democrat.

“This is exactly why Congress has strongly supported and defended the consistent two-per-year build rate of Virginia-class attack submarines since 2011.”

The Navy has said it needs to procure two Virginia-class attack vessels and one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine per year to meet its requirements. The AUKUS agreement, in which the U.S. will transfer at least three and as many as five attack submarines to Australia in the next decade, would require a production boost of 2.3 to 2.5 Virginia-class vessels per year, on average.

However, industry has not been able to keep pace with production requirements, producing at an average rate of roughly 1.2 Virginia vessels annually. The Navy has said the production constraints have prompted it to request one vessel amid a defense budget topline capped at $895 billion under the terms of last year’s debt ceiling deal.

“The proposal to request one attack submarine is contrary to the Department of Defense’s National Defense Industrial Strategy, which cites procurement instability as a systemic challenge,” Courtney and his colleagues wrote.

“Sustainable production of the Virginia-class program, and the development of a follow-on attack submarine program, is key to maintaining our undersea advantage in the years ahead. To that end, we respectfully request that you fully restore procurement for two Virginia-class submarines in FY 2025.”

Courtney’s Connecticut district includes General Dynamics Electric Boat, which makes the vessels. He told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a Tuesday hearing that procuring only one submarine instead of the usual two disrupts suppliers lower down the supply chain.

“I talked to supply chain companies who are hitting the pause button on claimed investments,” Courtney said Tuesday. “This has a real ripple effect when that signal shows instability.”

Courtney made the case that despite the COVID-era supply chain shocks and labor shortages, production tempo and capacity is increasing in both his district and at Virginia’s Newport News shipyard.

He noted on Monday that Electric Boat hired 5,300 new workers last year to retain 88% of its workforce and is on track to hire an additional 5,200 workers in 2024. Newport News also hired 8,300 more workers in 2022 and 2023, he added.

“While the FY25 budget request includes substantial investments in the nationwide submarine industrial baes, there is no alternative to stabilize the supply chain other than consistent procurement of two Virginia-class submarines in FY25,” the lawmakers’ letter states.

The foreign aid package Congress passed in April included $3.3 billion in submarine industrial base funding to shore up production of Virginia and Columbia class vessels. Wednesday’s missive notes that this includes “the first increment of funding to begin construction on the second boat” in the Columbia class program to replace the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines.

“The program remains on a razor thin schedule with little margin for absorbing delays resulting from technical challenges or funding-related issues,” the lawmakers wrote.

The full Republican conference unanimously picked Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., to chair the committee. Although fellow defense appropriator Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., had also expressed interest in the position, Cole was the only candidate to formally run for the post.

Cole will step down as chairman of the House Rules Committee, which controls the floor agenda. Like Granger before him, he currently sits on the defense appropriations subcommittee and has historically favored large military budgets. He described the Biden administration’s fiscal 2025 defense budget proposal of $895 billion as insufficient during a hearing with Navy and Marine Corps leaders on Wednesday shortly after his appointment.

“I think this budget is too low,” Cole said. “I think that’s been consistently true with the administration. I also recognize we’re under the constraints of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and that’s going to make it difficult for us to do some things I think we need to do.”

Cole was referring to last year’s debt ceiling agreement that capped discretionary spending levels. Under that agreement, the Defense Department receives more discretionary funding than all other federal agencies combined.

“I look forward to hitting the ground running tomorrow and am committed to engaging with the entire conference to deliver the necessary appropriations bills in a timely matter,” Cole said in a statement on Tuesday after the House Republican Steering Committee, which controls panel assignments, nominated him as appropriations chairman.

Congress did not pass a full FY24 defense spending bill until March, nearly six months into the fiscal year that began in October.

Granger, who is not running for reelection in November, said she is stepping down as appropriations chairwoman early in part because “an election year often results in final appropriations bills not getting enacted well until the next fiscal year.”

Cole told the Nebraska Examiner that he expects Congress will have to fund the government with a stopgap spending bill through the upcoming presidential election instead of full FY25 appropriations legislation at the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

Whether Congress passes the FY25 spending bills before January depends on President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees, respectively.

“The winner will probably decide,” Cole told the Nebraska Examiner. “Do we want to finish business this calendar year, which is always the best thing to do, win or lose, or do you want to kick it into next year?

“I hope we don’t do that, but that’s the way I see it unfolding right now.”

As appropriations chairman, Cole will have to balance the demands of traditional Republican defense hawks and fiscal conservatives more closely aligned with Trump’s America First wing of the party. Cole also favors Ukraine aid and has consistently voted in favor of it, though Trump and a growing number of Republicans oppose additional assistance for Kyiv.

While House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has said the House would act on Ukraine aid, he has so far ruled out putting the Senate’s $95 billion foreign aid bill — which also includes assistance for Israel and Taiwan — on the floor. The Senate passed that bill 70-29 in February.

Johnson has yet to reveal a formal plan for Ukraine aid. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has threatened to force a vote removing Johnson as speaker, should he move forward with a Ukraine package.

Last year’s effort instigated by a small band of right-wing Republicans to oust former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., plunged the House into weeks of chaos as the conference struggled to select a new leader.

Further complicating matters, House Republicans will be down to a one-vote majority after Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., leaves Congress later this month.