Report

Analyzing House Defense Bills

By John G. Ferrari | Elaine McCusker

American Enterprise Institute

July 13, 2023

Key Points

  • The House defense authorization and appropriations committees have completed an import­ant step in providing the fiscal year 2024 policy and funding bills that the nation and its service members need.
  • Though the two committees generally adhered to the budget caps imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, their different priorities, particularly on procurement programs, are worth noting.
  • With a limited number of joint legislative days on the calendar before the end of the fiscal year, leadership focus and momentum for the next steps toward floor debate and timely conference negotiations with the Senate are crucial to enacting compromise bills on time and avoiding damag­ing continuing resolutions.

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Introduction

Following the recent enactment of the Fiscal Responsi­bility Act of 2023, which included discretionary budget caps for fiscal years (FY) 2024 and 2025, the defense authorizers and appropriators have been working to produce their FY2024 bills.1 The House, as has been the case for the past several years, has completed its ver­sions, consisting of three bills (the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill; the Military Construction and Veter­ans Affairs Appropriations Bill, or MILCON/VA; and the National Defense Authorization Act).2

To understand how each committee made changes to the president’s budget (PB) request, we had to adjust certain parts of each bill to conform to the accounting mechanisms in the PB. For example, the PB places all funding for chemical demilitarization in the procurement account, with subaccounts for oper­ation and maintenance (O&M) and research, develop­ment, test, and evaluation (RDTE), while the House Appropriations Committee (HAC) splits this funding between the O&M and RDTE accounts. Additionally, the HAC rescinded close to $805 million from prior year appropriations, which is removed below to com­pare FY2024 only. Sometimes funds were added or deleted across multiple appropriations; those were allocated proportionally. These and other small vari­ances will be why the numbers do not exactly match the bill summaries or texts.

First, a few general comments about the two com­mittee bills: The authorization bill passed out of committee on a bipartisan vote of 58–1.3 In contrast, the appropriations bill was approved on a partisan vote of 34–24.4 Both committees state priorities for their respective bills, which broadly include speed and agility of decision-making and innovation, read­iness of the force, and support for service members and their families.

Other similarities between the two bills include emphasis on deterring China, the Defense Innovation Unit (though with different focuses and funding levels), and a huge number of new required reports and brief­ings. Among the bills’ key differences—in addition to the differences in authorized versus appropriated fund­ing described below—are HAC movement of Mexico to the US Southern Command area of responsibility, committee concerns and direction about end-strength shortfalls, treatment of multiyear procurement, the future shape of the defense civilian workforce, and the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) proposal to eliminate the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office in the department.

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Notes

  1. Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, Pub. L. No. 118-5.
  2. US Department of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), “DoD Budget Request,” https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials; House Committee on Appropriations, 118th Cong., Rep. on Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2024 (Comm. Print 2023), https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP00/20230622/116151/HMKP-118-AP00-20230622-
    SD002.pdf    ; House Armed Services Committee, “H.R. 2670—National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024: Chairman’s Mark,” June 2023, https://armedservices.house.gov/sites/republicans.armedservices.house.gov/files/FY24%20NDAA%20
    CHM%20Mark%20Package.pdf    ; and House Committee on Appropriations, 118th Cong., Rep. on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill, 2024 (Comm. Print 2023), https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP00/20230613/115866/HMKP-118-AP00-20230613-SD002.pdf.
  3. Mallory Shelbourne, “HASC Advances NDAA Authorizing 10 Ships, Creating SLCM-N Program,” US Naval Institute News, June 22, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/06/22/hasc-advances-ndaa-authorizing-10-ships-creating-slcm-n-program.
  4. US House Appropriations Committee Majority, “Committee Approves FY24 Defense Bill,” press release, June 22, 2023, https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-approves-fy24-defense-bill.