A pair of senior House Armed Services Committee members suggested on Tuesday that finalizing the fiscal yr 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will likely be done and not using a formal conference negotiation with the Senate, attributable to a delay in initiating the method.
While the House has moved to start conferencing on the NDAA and named its negotiators, the Senate has yet to achieve this and differences between the 2 current versions of the defense policy bill will now likely need to be settled by passing the laws between the 2 chambers.
“Just from a timeframe and the way the Senate operates, in the event that they don’t assign and go to conference by the top of this week, it makes it incredibly difficult to get [NDAA negotiations] done before the top of the yr without the ping pong,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chair of HASC’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, said on the Politico Defense Summit in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
The “ping pong” process Wittman referred would involve the leaders of HASC and the Senate Armed Services Committee meeting to settle major differences between the 2 chambers’ bills and present a negotiated final NDAA, which the House, for instance, could amend and send to the Senate, which if amended again can be sent back to the House.
Typically, a gaggle of House and Senate lawmakers meet for formal negotiations to decide on a final conferenced agreement for the bill that features compromises and priorities from each side and is then taken up by the 2 chambers.
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), the highest Democrat on HASC’s Seapower Subcommittee, noted on Tuesday that HASC’s staff has been working on NDAA conference items for the last two months to organize for the negotiation process to finalize the laws.
“I feel there’s been an actual narrowing of the problems that have to type of get flushed out. I feel we would favor doing it the old-fashioned way like Schoolhouse Rock, where the 2 sides conference. However the last two years, we did do a ping pong and successfully got the bill across the finish line,” Courtney said.
The House named its NDAA conference negotiators in September, with HASC Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) last week urging the Senate to do the identical and start the method.
“For the primary time in two years, we’ve got the chance to return to regular order and hold a conference to work out the differences between the House and Senate bills. Unfortunately, for over seven weeks, the Senate has refused to comply with a conference and name their conferees. It’s vital that Congress come together to enact an NDAA that can construct the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force we’d like to defend our nation. The Home is able to get to work – I urge the Senate to hitch us,” Rogers said in a press release.
The House narrowly passed its $886 billion version of the NDAA in mid-July with a 219-210 vote, which followed days of debate over Republican proposals that included adopting measures along party lines to reverse Pentagon policies on abortion and block diversity programs (Defense Day by day, July 14).
Democrat leaders on HASC, including Rating Member Adam Smith (D-Wash.), denounced the typically bipartisan laws that they said was now “an ode to bigotry and ignorance.”
In late July, the Senate voted 86-11 to pass its own $886 billion version of the bill, which followed a much less contentious debate than in comparison with the House’s process (Defense Day by day, July 28).
“What is going on within the Senate is a stark contrast from the partisan race to the underside we saw within the House, where House Republicans are pushing partisan laws that has zero probability of passing,” Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during floor remarks on the time.
Recent House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has previously stated that he would love to pass a final version of the FY ‘24 NDAA in December (Defense Day by day, Oct. 25).
Wittman said on Tuesday that Johnson, who served on HASC, is “committed to creating sure we get the NDAA done.”
“I do know that he understands what he has to balance there within the interest of all the conference in addition to, you understand, what needs to be done in an effort to get it through not only the House however the Senate. But I feel he’s focused on ensuring that we get it done in a form that gets as many votes on our side of the aisle as possible,” Wittman said.