Funding our military and ensuring our national security

I have some great news: last week, my colleagues and I on the House Armed Services Committee passed – with overwhelming bipartisan support – the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The NDAA is a piece of legislation Congress passes every year that sets recommended funding levels and policies for the Department of Defense (DOD)  and national defense policy.

Because it’s a must-pass bill, the NDAA is a major opportunity for me to legislate and get provisions passed into law. And as a former CIA officer and Pentagon official, it’s also something I take very seriously.

On Wednesday morning, my Armed Services Committee colleagues and I began marking up the bill, which is a process where we debate and vote on amendments before deciding whether to send it to the full House for consideration.

It was a long day, but when we finally voted on the bill at 12:15 AM that night, I had successfully added 34 provisions to the legislation, including:

• PFAS-free military purchasing: Prohibits the DOD from purchasing certain products that contain PFAS, including things like food packaging and cleaning products
• Chinese Autonomous Vehicles: Requires DOD to submit a report to Congress assessing the national security risks of Chinese autonomous vehicles operating in the U.S.
• Bioindustrial Manufacturing: Allows the President to take action to ensure sufficient supplies of pharmaceutical ingredients and decrease our dependence on other countries
• Restrictions on U.S. officials training foreign militaries: Requires DOD to provide a report to Congress on former DOD officials working for foreign adversaries and existing post-employment restrictions
• Cancer testing for DOD firefighters: Requires DOD to provide cancer screenings to its firefighters during their annual physicals

Moving this legislation forward with bipartisan support is a major step towards carrying out one of Congress’ most important responsibilities: funding our military and ensuring our national security.

The bill now heads to the full House, where additional amendments will be introduced and debated before a final vote. After that, it will also need to be passed by the Senate. As this plays out over the next couple months, I’ll be working closely with my colleagues to ensure those provisions are included into the final bill.

If you’re interested in seeing this process for yourself, you can check out the full recording HERE. And if you want to see some of what I said about my amendments, you can see them HERE and HERE.

– Rep. Elissa Slotkin