The US Capitol. (Photo by Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Senate Appropriations Committee today is marking up its version of the defense spending bill, recommending $826 billion for the Defense Department as well as $8 billion in emergency appropriations slated for aid to Taiwan, military readiness and a variety of unfunded priorities, according to a draft version of the report accompanying the legislation.
If the bill makes it through the Senate’s legislative process lacking many of the conservative riders added to its counterpart in the House, then it will set up a contentious conference between the two chambers where a Republican-controlled House must compromise with the Democrat-controlled Senate. POLITICO first reported on the contents of the Senate panel’s draft report.
The $8 billion in emergency appropriations is broken down into $2 billion for unfunded requirements; $1.9 billion to increase military readiness; $1.5 billion for acquisition program cost increases stemming from inflation and other economic factors; $1.1 billion reserved for sending military aid to Taiwan; $1 billion to address “high priority defense industrial base capacity shortfalls” and boost associated supply chains as well as $500 million to address anticipated fuel funding shortfalls.
In their report, Senate lawmakers have also lined up behind the Marine Corps in its endeavors this year to boost amphibious ship production. The panel recommends $500 million in advance procurement funding for the next San Antonio-class vessel, LPD-33.
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“The committee believes that Navy leaders must make a concerted effort to manage existing Navy shipbuilding production lines to ensure they are sustained, modified, or expanded to meet evolving Navy requirements in a manner that promotes shipbuilder, supplier, and workforce stability, and reverses the growing gap between the Navy’s fleet requirements and the size of the fleet,” according to the report.
House and Senate authorizers recommend fully funding the $1.9 billion warship while House appropriators did not include any funding for the warship, which the Marine Corps insists is essential but was ultimately not included in the White House’s formal budget request.
Elsewhere the appropriators zero out funding the Air Force’s Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP), the latest twist in an ongoing fight over an engine development effort that could, in theory, lead to an alternative engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
The Air Force decided to kill AETP in its FY24 budget request, but the effort has gained vocal — if temporary — support from F-35 prime Lockheed Martin, the House Armed Services Committee and, most notably, the House Appropriations Committee, which added back in $150 million in its late June markup. Appropriators from the two chambers will now need to hash out a final solution on AETP during conference.
While the panel does not provide any report language on AETP, the appropriators do call out funding for Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) engine that will power the secretive Next Generation Air Dominance system, recommending $595 million in funding for the former.
“The committee believes that in order to ensure visibility into cost and performance, and to provide traceability of appropriated funding, NGAP should be budgeted for in an individual, dedicated program element,” according to the report. “Therefore, the Committee establishes a new budget line for NGAP … and directs the Secretary of the Air Force to retain this program element structure in the fiscal year 2025 and future President’s budget requests.”
On the Pentagon’s all-encompassing Joint All Domain Command and Control efforts, the panel writes that it “remains concerned” that the Pentagon hasn’t “placed adequate emphasis on the acquisition and resourcing strategy.” Further, they say the department’s current efforts are “diffuse, limiting oversight entities’ ability to clearly identify what discrete activities comprise JADC2 related work.”
“Therefore, the committee recommends centralizing all Defense-Wide JADC2 resources and Joint Fires Network resources into a consolidated Program Element to increase unity of effort, traceability, and accountability,” according to the report.
Also on the Hill today, the Senate is continuing to debate its version of the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The House passed its policy bill on the House floor earlier this month and is working to advance its spending bill through the legislative process.