The Biden administration has said it “strongly opposes” the House’s fiscal year 2024 defense spending bill for not fully supporting multi-year munitions procurement requests and its inclusion of divisive GOP-led policy proposals.
The White House’s statement of administration policy, which includes threatening to veto the bill as it stands, arrives as the House is set to consider the $826.5 billion defense appropriations legislation this week.
While the administration notes it “strongly supports” the bill’s inclusion of multi-year procurement (MYP) funding for Kongsberg’s Naval Strike Missile, Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] GMLRS rocket and PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors as well as the Air Force’s LRASM and JASSM missiles, the White House calls out the House Appropriations Committee’s (HAC) decision not to support such requests for RTX’s [RTX] AMRAAM and SM-6 missiles and the “lack of support for $1.9 billion of Economic Order of Quantity (EOQ) funding in FY 2024.”
“MYPs are the cornerstone of the department’s Critical Munitions Strategy and are necessary to meet operational needs of the warfighter. MYPs allow for greater stability in the munitions industrial base and workforce, reducing lead times and costs while increasing the number of munitions in the Department’s inventory. Further, without EOQ, the department cannot execute MYPs to generate projected cost savings and ensure the availability of high quantities of munitions necessary to support the readiness requirements of the United States and its allies and partners,” the White House wrote.
HAC advanced its FY ‘24 defense spending bill with a party line vote in June, with many Democrats having objected to the legislation’s nearly $2 billion cut to multi-year procurement for select munitions (Defense Daily, June 22).
“In many cases, reductions were made because the department failed to justify the request. One example is the department’s request for economic order quantities for certain munitions tied to multi-year procurement,” Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), chair of the HAC’s defense subcommittee, said during the panel’s markup of the bill. “Because of the poor justification, other urgent unfunded needs, and sufficient enduring support for the munitions industrial base, the bill does not fund this request.”
The Pentagon is seeking congressional appropriators’ support for multi-year buys after defense authorizers included a provision in the current National Defense Authorization Acts allowing such contracts to help replenish or boost stockpiles’ select critical munitions.
Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, nominee to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cited the new multi-year procurement authority as critical to ensuring the Pentagon is able to meet its munitions stockpile requirements during his July confirmation hearing (Defense Daily, July 11).
The White House’s opposition to GOP-led policy proposals in the House’s defense spending bills aligns with Democratic members who have criticized the legislation as “needlessly divisive” for including provisions to block Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-related programs at the Pentagon as well as prohibiting the use of funds to assist those seeking abortion-related services, among other items.
“Including divisive policy provisions within an appropriations bill also dramatically increases the threat of a continuing resolution, which would further damage America’s national security,” the White House said. “Access to reproductive healthcare is critical to servicemembers and their families, and the Department’s ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force, of which nearly 20 percent are women.”
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), the top Democrat on the HAC’s defense subcommittee, has previously said the spending bill is unlikely to become law with the current GOP-proposed policies in the legislation (Defense Daily, June 15).
The House Rules committee is set to meet on Tuesday afternoon to begin the lower chamber’s consideration of the defense spending bill before bringing it to the floor.
The Senate Appropriations Committee in late July voted near unanimously to advance its own $831.8 billion FY ‘24 defense spending bill, which includes $8 billion for emergency spending above the defense spending cap mandated by the debt ceiling agreement (Defense Daily, July 27).
With the House and Senate still working through final FY ‘24 spending bills, the White House in late August detailed its request for a short-term stopgap funding bill to avoid a government shutdown, which included seeking a provision allowing planned funds for the Columbia-class nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine program to avoid delays (Defense Daily, Aug. 31).