The House has removed $300 million in Ukraine aid from its fiscal year 2024 defense appropriations legislation and is set to consider the funding as a separate bill.

The move is a bid from Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to shore up enough Republican support to pass the House’s $826.5 billion defense spending bill, with a group of conservative members having signaled their opposition to continued Ukraine aid.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks to guests before an evening parade at Marine Barracks Washington, Washington D.C., May 18, 2018. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Olivia G. Ortiz)

“It is never a bad thing to have all members of the House take a vote on a question. It is especially helpful in this instance to give all members the chance to be heard. Some of my Republican colleagues are supportive of the overall defense appropriations bill but want to vote separately on Ukraine. Conversely, the vast majority of my friends across the aisle support funding to Ukraine but are opposed to the defense appropriations bill. Voting on this issue separately…gives everyone a chance to be recorded on this important topic,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Rules Committee, said on the floor Thursday ahead of a procedural vote on the Ukraine aid bill.

The Rules Committee met late Wednesday night to approve removing the $300 million in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) funds, which followed bipartisan votes in the House earlier in the day against GOP amendments to the defense spending bill aimed at blocking further aid (Defense Daily, Sept. 27).

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), ranking member on the Rules Committee, on Thursday noted the House “overwhelmingly” rejected those measures, which included voting 104 to 330 against an amendment from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) to cut the $300 million for USAI from the bill and 93 to 339 to block Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) proposal prohibiting any further weapons aid to Ukraine.

“Instead of accepting that loss, extreme MAGA Republicans are blackmailing Kevin McCarthy. And here we are rigging the rules to undo that vote. They want to overturn the will of this House. They refuse to accept the fact that they lost,” McGovern said. 

The House on Thursday afternoon voted 217 to 211 in favor of the rule to allow for floor debate on the separate bill with the $300 billion in USAI funds, which are used to award contracts to industry to meet Ukraine weapons needs, with a vote on final passage expected later Thursday evening.

The lower chamber must still vote on final passage of its FY ‘24 defense spending bill on Thursday, which is likely to be opposed by Democrats over objections to the legislation’s nearly $2 billion cut to multi-year procurement for select munitions and its inclusion of a slew of GOP-led proposals they’ve criticized as “needlessly divisive” (Defense Daily, June 22).

A group of over two dozen conservative GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), recently sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young detailing their opposition to the Biden administration’s supplemental spending request seeking $24 billion in continued aid for Ukraine (Defense Daily, Sept. 22). 

“The vast majority of Congress remains unaware of how much the United States has spent to date in total on this conflict, information which is necessary for Congress to prudently exercise its appropriations power. It is difficult to envision a benign explanation for this lack of clarity,” the Republican lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Derek Chollet, counselor to the State Department and nominee to be the next under secretary of defense for policy, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing on Thursday morning that ceasing U.S. security assistance would have a “devastating” impact on Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s ongoing invasion.

“The impact if the U.S. were to stop providing significant support to Ukraine would be devastating. It would be devastating, first and foremost, to Ukraine, which is putting good use to the assistance we’ve been providing them, but also to this very, very impressive alliance that has been formed over the last 20 months. [Around 50] countries are contributing in some way to the effort in Ukraine. And these are countries not just from Europe, these are countries all around the world that are providing some form of military assistance,” Chollet said. “I think it is absolutely vital that we maintain our robust assistance to Ukraine.”

The Biden administration in August sent Congress a new supplemental spending request, which includes $5 billion in further USAI funding and another $4.5 billion to replace DoD weapons stocks and reimburse the department for services, education and training provided to Ukraine (Defense Daily, Aug. 10).

House Republican leaders last week rolled out their one-month continuing resolution (CR) deal to avoid a government shutdown, which exempted defense funds from a spending cut but did not include further Ukraine aid, with the proposal receiving immediate pushback from Democrats and some GOP members (Defense Daily, Sept. 18).

The Senate on Tuesday unveiled their own bipartisan CR proposal to keep the government open through Nov. 17, which included $4.5 billion for Pentagon-related Ukraine aid efforts (Defense Daily, Sept. 26).