As of mid-afternoon July 17, at least 666 prospective amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) have been filed by senators as the chamber prepares over the next two weeks to deliberate and adopt its version of the proposed $886.3 billion Fiscal Year 2024 United States’ defense budget.
How many will be debated on the floor, however, is uncertain.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of amendments filed, and as usual, we'll have to figure out which amendments get offered,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told The Epoch Times. “That’s always a negotiation process. But our hope is to wrap it up before we leave in August.”
Race to Oct. 1
Both chambers’ preliminary defense spending plans top out at the same $886.3 billion top-line figure submitted by President Joe Biden in March and were adopted in near-unanimity by each chamber’s armed forces committee; 58–1 in the House on June 22 and 24–1 in the Senate on July 23.Differences between the adopted House defense budget and the version that the Senate will approve will be resolved in conferences between the chambers to present one NDAA for adoption, ideally before the new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
How those differences are ironed out, and how many of the GOP’s “culture war” amendments will be in that merged NDAA when it next appears on the House floor, will be a closely watched backroom battle between the chambers presumably before Congress returns to full session on Sept. 5.
The House version of the NDAA presented on the floor last week was already larded with “culture war” components targeting DEI, critical race theory, transgender health care, and other “woke” Pentagon policies implemented under the Biden administration.
But Conservatives, spearheaded by the House Freedom Caucus, added dozens more proposed add-ons they said were necessary to derail the Biden administration’s alleged campaign to “politicize” by institutionalizing “wokeism” in Pentagon training, promotions, and human resources programs.
Two Senate Add-Ons Target DOD Abortion Policy
The biggest NDAA “win” celebrated by conservatives was adopting Rep. Ronny Jackson’s (R-Texas) add-on that repeals a DOD policy instituted in October 2022 to reimburse expenses for service members who travel to obtain an abortion from a state where the procedure is restricted to a state where it is permitted.Mr. Jackson argued the policy is in direct violation of Section 1093 of U.S. Code Title 10 “which restricts funds made available to the DOD from being used for abortions.” It was adopted 221–213 in a near-total partisan vote.
House conservatives said they were inspired to push for the measure despite heated opposition by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who has blocked more than 260 flag-level Pentagon promotions in protest of the policy.
The NDAA the Senate will see on its floor—Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) says the defense budget debate will begin July 18—does not have any of the “culture war” amendments in the House NDAA, nor the DOD abortion travel repeal.
Many Republicans doubt either measure will be introduced onto the floor. “Hopefully [Democrats] will relent, and we'll get some amendments” up for debate, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told The Epoch Times on July 14. “But they’re not going to be accepted. It’s a … charade.”
The add-on submitted by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) would authorize “administrative absence to a member of the armed forces who requests such an absence … to receive non-covered reproductive health care; accompany a spouse or other dependent who receives non-covered reproductive health care” for up to 21 days.
Under the proposed measure, abortion qualifies as “non-covered reproductive health care.” It seems to amend the federal code regarding travel and transportation allowances to incorporate the policy as law rather than a DOD directive.
‘Conscience Protections,’ DEI, Vaccine Damages
The vast majority of the prospective amendments address “Inside Baseball” type of issues ranging from procurement protocols, to cyber security, to hypersonic weapons development, to mortgage programs for active-duty military.Among senators with the most proposed Senate NDAA amendments are Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) with 31, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) with 29, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) with 27, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) with 23.
Mr. Lankford is sponsoring a prospective amendment that would provide “conscience protections” for military health care providers against “any adverse action against a member of the Armed Forces who … declines to perform, assist, refer for, or otherwise participate in a particular medical procedure, counseling activity, or course of treatment because of a sincere religious belief or moral conviction of such member or because the particular medical procedure, counseling activity, or course of treatment would, in the professional medical judgment of such member, be harmful to the patient.”
Mr. Cruz has filed a proposed NDAA add-on that seeks “remedies” for those discharged from the military in “adverse action” over the DOD’s COVID-19 mandate. Under his prospective measure, “The Secretary of Defense may not issue any COVID-19 vaccine mandate as a replacement for the mandate rescinded” under last year’s NDAA and prohibits DOD from taking “any adverse action against a covered member based solely on the refusal of such member to receive a vaccine for COVID-19.”
Among Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) prospective NDAA add-ons is a measure demanding DOD “cease all diversity, equity, and inclusion instruction until the Secretary of Defense submits” to Congress “all curricular, instructional, and guided discussion materials used by any teacher or instructor for the purposes of diversity, equity, and inclusion instruction, including any materials used in the stand-down to discuss extremism in the ranks.”
Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) has submitted a proposed amendment that replicates the add-on banning transgender surgeries for minors adopted in the House NDAA. Mr. Budd’s measure calls for prohibiting coverage under the TriCare program—the DOD’s health provider—for “certain medical procedures for children that could result in sterilization.”
Sen. Steve Daines’s (R-Mont.) prospective measure would ensure no DOD funds are “used to host, advertise, or otherwise support an adult cabaret performance”—aka, drag shows—on military installations.
The 666th proposed NDAA amendment lodged by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) prohibits DOD from requiring defense contractors to “provide information relating to greenhouse gas emissions’ and is among a bevy of similar prospective measures targeting the Biden administration’s “green energy” policies or exempting DOD activities from them.
Among other prospective defense budget amendments that could be debated on the Senate floor in the coming two weeks is Sen. Eric Schmidt’s (R-Mo.) prohibition on funds for “any advertising or marketing agency” that “advise the censorship or blacklisting of news sources based on subjective criteria or political biases, under the stated function of “fact checking'' or otherwise removing “misinformation.”
Sen. James Risch’s (R-S.D.) prospective amendment authorizing the Biden administration to impose sanctions on “any foreign person” who “engages in, or has engaged in … any dealings with, or has provided material support to or for, a military or intelligence facility of the People’s Republic of China in Cuba” is among several addressing China’s spying operations out of Cuba.
Several potential amendments, including one filed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), clarify who can declare war and who can’t. Paul’s proposal maintains that “Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty [NATO] does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war before the United States engages in war.”
Ukraine and NATO
At least six proposed NDAA amendments seeking to eliminate a $300 million allocation for Ukraine and stop the Biden administration from transferring cluster munitions to Kyiv failed in the House. Many, nevertheless, could be debated again on the Senate floor with similar proposals filed for its version of the defense budget.Among Mr. Lee’s 31 potential amendments are measures prohibiting the president from signing “any agreement, communique, or other document with the official signature of the United States that provides long-term security guarantees for Ukraine,” cuffing the president and Pentagon’s “drawdown capacity” on the Congressional fund created to funnel support to Ukraine, the probation of force against the Russian Federation without Congressional approval, and a requirement for the DOD to annually produce a “report on the contributions of allies to the common defense.”
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), along with Mr. Scott and Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) are co-sponsoring a proposed ‘Independent and Objective Oversight of Ukrainian Assistance Act’ as an NDAA amendment. The prospective add-on seeks to “promote economic efficiency and effectiveness in the administration of the programs and operations” with oversight that will “prevent and detect waste, fraud, and abuse in such programs and operations.”
Mr. Risch and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) are cosponsoring a proposed ‘Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukraine Act’ or ‘REPO for Ukraine Act’’ as a proposed NDAA amendment that calls for the “confiscation and repurposing of Russian sovereign assets” as punishment for “a premeditated, second illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-Ore.) proposed amendment is a prospective resolution that states, “it is the sense of the Senate that ... the President authorized the transfer of cluster munitions to Ukraine during a transitional period in light of a temporary shortfall of 155mm artillery shells, and Congress supports the President’s plan to cease the transfer of cluster munitions once a sufficient supply of unitary 155mm artillery shells becomes available.”
Sen. Tim Kaine’s (D-Va.) prospective NDAA add-on is also a proposed resolution that a president “shall not suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw” the United States from NATO without congressional approval.
