Senate committee adds $21 billion to defense bill

The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a defense bill on Thursday that added $21 billion to the budget, heeding requests to invest more in national security but pushing back against a spending cap that had been agreed to by House Republicans and the Biden administration last year.

The Senate bill cleared this week includes $852.2 billion for the Defense Department, which is up from the $833 billion for the Pentagon passed by House appropriators in June.

The House version is in line with a 1 percent spending bump from the previous fiscal year, meeting an agreement that Biden reached with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in 2023 to reduce spending in exchange for a GOP hold at the time on raising the debt ceiling.

The Senate version is a more than 3 percent increase from the last fiscal year, but the $21 billion in additional funding is being considered an emergency expense, meaning it does not break the Biden-McCarthy agreement.

The Senate defense funding bill will now head to the floor for full chamber consideration. The full Senate also has yet to vote on its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which lays out priorities for the money. The House passed its NDAA in June, which includes several culture war amendments.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the new investments in the funding bill “builds on our efforts in the National Security Supplemental to strengthen our defenses in key regions, deter conflict, promote stability, and ultimately, keep our nation safe.”

“With new investments to ensure our military remains the best in the world while supporting our servicemembers and standing with our allies,” she added in a statement.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, said the defense funding bill was bolstering U.S. strength.

“This strong, bipartisan budget will accelerate investments to allow our military to stay ahead of the threat of China, provide certainty for our servicemembers,” he said in a statement.

Still, it’s not clear if far-right Republicans in the House, who have long pushed back against increases in spending, will accept the emergency funds for defense.

The committee’s passage comes after Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) in May called for a “generational” investment in national defense, with a boost of an additional $55 billion in fiscal 2025 and an ultimate aim of spending 5 percent of gross domestic product, or economic output, on the budget in the next five to seven years.

Wicker and other Democratic and Republican lawmakers have grown concerned with the global security environment in recent years, pointing to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Israel’s fight against Iranian-backed groups in the Middle East and China’s threats in the Indo-Pacific.

The Senate funding bill includes $500 million to the Indo-Pacific security fund to combat China, along with $37 billion to build seven battleships as the U.S. tries to catch up to a larger Chinese Navy.

It also includes some $4 billion for force protection and operations in Europe and more than $17 billion for the Middle East area of operations, boosting the Biden administration’s March budget request slightly.

The bill funds several priority weapon programs, including the nuclear missile replacement Sentinel program and the B-21 raider nuclear bomber, along with hypersonic weapons research, and the purchase of Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.