Congress passes defense spending bill after months of delays

Congress early on Saturday handed the fiscal 2024 protection spending invoice, practically midway via the fiscal 12 months that started in October and hours after funding for the Protection Division and a number of other different companies expired on Friday.

The $825 billion invoice will enable the Pentagon to launch the initiatives and start the procurement of key weapons programs it had deliberate for this 12 months. For greater than 5 months, Congress had funded the Protection Division at FY23 ranges by way of a collection of stopgap measures, avoiding a authorities shutdown however hampering these initiatives and procurement plans.

“We made modifications and selected efforts that embody countering China, creating next-generation weapons and investing within the high quality of lifetime of our service members,” Home Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, stated earlier than the chamber’s vote. “I’m proud to say this invoice strengthens our nationwide safety and funds important protection efforts.”

The Home voted 286-134 to cross the invoice as a part of a broader appropriations bundle that adheres to spending caps imposed by final 12 months’s debt ceiling deal. Granger, who just isn’t operating for reelection, introduced shortly after the vote that she is stepping down as Appropriations chairwoman, anticipating one other drawn-out finances course of for FY25.

The Senate then handed the bipartisan spending bundle 74-24. President Joe Biden has dedicated to signing the invoice.

The invoice consists of $33.5 billion to construct eight ships and allocates funds for 86 F-35 and 24 F-15EX fighter jets in addition to 15 KC-46A tankers. There’s additionally a mixed $2.1 billion for the Military’s Lengthy-Vary Hypersonic Weapon and the Navy’s Standard Immediate Strike hypersonic weapon system.

It additionally funds multiyear contracts to obtain six important munitions: the Naval Strike Missile, the Guided A number of Launch Rocket System, the Patriot Superior Functionality-3, the Lengthy Vary Anti-Ship Missile, the Joint Air-to-Floor Standoff Missile and the Superior Medium-Vary Air-to-Air Missile.

Multiyear contracts are normally reserved for big-ticket purchases like ships and plane, however the Pentagon hopes utilizing them for munitions will guarantee demand stability, which in flip encourages protection contractors to ramp up manufacturing capability. The American defense-industrial base has struggled to rapidly replenish the billions of {dollars} value of munitions drawn down from U.S. stockpiles for Ukraine.

The invoice additionally consists of $300 million for the Ukraine Safety Help Initiative, which permits the Pentagon to position contracts for brand spanking new tools to ship Kyiv. That quantity is lower than the $60 billion in safety and financial assist for Kyiv offered within the Senate’s overseas support invoice.

The Senate handed the help invoice for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in a 70-29 vote in February, however Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has refused to place it to a ground vote amid opposition from former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Johnson has additionally confronted anger from the proper flank of his caucus for working with Democrats to fund the federal government. Related grievances prompted a small group of Republicans to instigate the ouster of his predecessor, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., triggering three weeks of Home dysfunction because the caucus struggled to pick out a brand new chief.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., filed an identical measure to oust Johnson shortly after the Home handed the spending bundle. Nevertheless it’s unclear whether or not she or anybody else within the caucus will really set off a vote to take away Johnson when Congress returns in April after a two-week recess. Placing a Ukraine support bundle on the ground would seemingly anger Greene and different right-wing lawmakers.