Defense Authorization Highlights and Conference Issues

Key Points

• To pass the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, House and Senate defense authorization conferees must reach important agreements on funding levels and policy issues in a short time.
• The two bills contain substantial commonalities on doing more to defend Taiwan, but they diverge on the path for Navy shipbuilding and military construction.
• Both bills express support for Ukraine but do not add funding beyond the steady-state security assistance effort, setting up a potential political confrontation on the use of emergency supplemental spending.
• If history is a guide, many controversial political issues unrelated to defense will be discarded, and a compromise bill will eventually pass with wide bipartisan support.

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Now that the Senate has passed its version of the fiscal year 2024 defense authorization bill on a mostly bipartisan vote of 86–11, it is useful to compare the upper chamber’s version with that of the House, which was passed on a partisan vote of 219–210 in mid-July.¹

While many are focusing on the controversial political issues that will be part of conference negotiations on the bills but that are not related to military capabilities, this report compares and contrasts key authorization levels and strategic policy provisions between the two bills and, where relevant, between the bills and the president’s budget (PB) request.² Given that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has been reliably passed into law for the past 62 years, this year should be no exception. The most controversial provisions will likely be eliminated during the conference process so the bill can eventually become law.

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Notes

1. US Senate Committee on Armed Services, “Reed and Wicker File Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act,” press release, July 11, 2023, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/press-releases/reed-and-wicker-file-fiscal-year-2024-national-defense-authorization-act; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, S. 2226, 118th Cong., 1st sess. (2023); and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, H.R. 2670, 118th Cong., 1st sess. (2023).
2. US Department of Defense, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), “DoD Budget Request,” https://comptroller.defense.gov/Budget-Materials; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, S. Rept. 118-58, 118th Cong., 1st sess., July 12, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/crpt/srpt58/CRPT-118srpt58.pdf; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, H. Rept. 118-125, 118th Cong., 1st sess., June 30, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/118/crpt/hrpt125/CRPT-118hrpt125.pdf; National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, S. 2226; and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024, H.R. 2670.