Additional Background courtesy of Majority Whip Tom Emmer

The FY25 Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act:

The final FY25 NDAA builds on the wins House Republicans secured last year to strengthen our military, deter our adversaries, and end Democrats’ efforts to inject wokeness into the military. It fully funds our national defense while rejecting the Senate’s effort to increase spending above previously agreed upon levels. The negotiated bill focuses resources on improving the lives of our servicemembers, and their families, who sacrifice so much to protect our nation. It takes important steps to address the security threats America faces from adversaries including China, Iran, and foreign terrorist organizations and revitalizes our defense industrial base. Critically, it refocuses our military on lethality, stopping the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to force their far-Left agenda on our nation’s warfighters.

• Fully funds our national defense while cutting costs and improving efficiency.
  • Authorizes $895.2 billion for national defense discretionary programs, an increase of $9 billion or 1% over the FY24 enacted level, rejecting the Senate’s effort to increase spending by $28 billion over previously agreed to levels, and in line with Fiscal Responsibility Act.
  • Saves taxpayers $31 billion, or 4%, of current DoD spending levels by cutting inefficient programs, obsolete weapons systems, and unnecessary Pentagon bureaucracy.
  • Requires all DoD components to undertake an annual independent audit and reduces funds available to such components by 1.5% if it fails to undertake the audit.
• The FY24 NDAA (P.L. 118-311) banned critical race theory (CRT) in the military, gutted DEI at the Department of Defense (DoD), and included the Parents Bill of Rights to ensure military parents’ right to review curriculum, meet with teachers, and provide consent before any medical exams or screenings at school. The FY25 bill builds on those gains to end the radical woke ideology being forced on our servicemen and women and restores the focus of our military on lethality.
  • Permanently bans DoD from funding transgender medical treatments for children.
  • Prohibits funding for the teaching, training, or promotion of CRT in the military, including at service academies and DoD schools.
  • Guts DEI bureaucracy by extending the DEI hiring freeze, prohibiting DoD from contracting with advertising firms like NewsGuard that blacklist conservative news sources, and banning funding for DoD’s politically biased Countering Extremism Working Group.
  • Counters antisemitism by prohibiting the sale of goods at DoD commissaries and exchanges from any entities that have or are engaged in a boycott of Israel and preventing DoD from using or citing casualty data from Hamas and other terrorist organizations.
  • Prevents a military Green New Deal by prohibiting DoD from requiring the use of zero emission vehicles for official travel and issuing new climate changes rules that give preference to weapon systems with lower climate impacts or hamper the defense industrial base.
  • Protects the rights of servicemembers by requiring DoD to implement unanimous jury verdicts for courts-martial.
• Improves servicemember quality of life to address military recruitment, retention, and readiness.
  • Authorizes a 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted servicemembers and supports a 4.5% pay raise for all other servicemembers.
  • Addresses chronic underfunding of housing maintenance to address poor conditions like sewage overflows, gas leaks, and mold.
  • Ensures access to medical care, including mental health services and specialty providers.
  • Increases access to childcare by authorizing $176 million for construction of new childcare centers.
  • Supports military spouses by making it easier to find and maintain employment.
  • Improves DoD schools by authorizing over $110 million to build new schools for children of servicemembers.
  • Enhances career transition assistance, including ensuring the Transition Assistance Program includes a pathway to aid retiring members of the reserve components.
  • Address the Biden-Harris’ Administration’s failure to reach annual recruiting goals by extending military recruitment bonuses, increasing funding and support for JROTC programs, and expediting the processing of medical records to get recruits into the service quicker.
• Deters Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aggression.
  • Authorizes $15.6 billion, $5.7 billion more than requested in Biden’s budget, for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to enhance U.S. deterrence and defense posture in the Indo-Pacific region and over $490 million in INDOPACOM Commander priorities left unfunded in the Biden budget.
  • Increases funding for innovative new technologies needed to deter the CCP, including hypersonics and AI.
  • Prevents Chinese espionage by prohibiting contracting with the subsidiaries of any Chinese civil-military companies to include any subsidiaries, the sharing of sensitive missile defense information with China, and Chinese nationals from being admitted to nuclear facilities.
  • Bolsters Taiwan’s defense and supports our Indo-Pacific allies and partners.
• Increases oversight and accountability of the DoD.
  • Ensures the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter meets performance requirements.
  • Cracks down on contractor waste by cutting over $3.9 billion in weapons programs that have not met development milestones or are experiencing excessive cost growth.
  • Enhances congressional oversight of DoD programs.
• Improves military readiness, strengthens our industrial base, and supports the deployment of innovative and new technologies to ensure our warfighters are prepared for whatever lies ahead.
  • Blocks the Biden-Harris Administration’s plan to reduce the number of U.S. Special Forces and request to divest certain aircraft.
  • Increases funding to develop and procure counter drone systems.
  • Supports investments in shipyard infrastructure and industrial base.
• Provides unprecedented levels of support for, our ally, Israel, and the resources necessary to counter our adversaries.
  • Declares that it is the policy of the United States to ensure Israel has adequate stocks of air defense interceptors to defend itself against Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
  • Authorizes full funding for joint U.S.-Israel cooperative missile defense programs (Iron Dome, Arrow, David’s Sling).
  • Reverses the Biden-Harris Administration’s decision to cease production of the Standard Missile 3 Block IB interceptor for the Navy’s Aegis missile defense system, which has played a key role in defending Israel from Iranian ballistic missile attacks.
  • Extends the prohibition on closing Guantanamo Bay and moving terrorists to prisons in the U.S.
• Strengthens our nuclear posture, improves missile defense, and accelerates delivery of space capabilities to deter the rapidly expanding Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals and space capabilities.
  • Fully funds modernization of the nuclear triad and invests in nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles.
  • Continues support for investments in innovative commercial space solutions that would increase our capacity and resilience in space.
• Continues DoD support of law enforcement operations along our southwest and maritime borders.
  • Fully supports deployment of National Guard troops to augment Border Patrol activities at the southwest border.
  • Authorizes $90 million for construction of a new Joint Inter-Agency Task Force South (JIATF-S) Command and Control Facility to detect and interdict illegal migrants and narcotics.
  • Increases funding by $10 million for DoD counternarcotics activities.
  • Expands DoD’s authority to assist law enforcement in the interdiction of narcotics traffickers.

NOTE BY EDITOR DONNA WESTFALL: Congressman Jared Huffman voted NAY.