According to the Defense News, the bill includes $33.5 billion to build eight ships and allocates funds for 86 F-35 and 24 F-15 EX fighter jets as well as 15 KC-46A tankers. There’s also a combined $2.1 billion for the Army’s Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon and the Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic weapons system.
The bill retains $300 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the Pentagon to place contracts for equipment to send Kyiv. House Republican leaders had initially removed the $300 million in Ukraine aid amid opposition from the right flank of their caucus when they narrowly passed their version of the defense spending bill 218-210 in September.
Read more: The Netherlands Provides €350 Million Aid Package to Ukraine, Including Ammunition for F-16 Aircraft
But even with the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds back in the bill, the $300 million is far less than the $60 billion in security and economic support for Kyiv provided in the Senate’s foreign aid bill. The Senate passed the aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan 70-29 in February but House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has so far refused to put it on the floor amid opposition from former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Separately, the compromise defense spending bill includes funding for multiyear contracts to procure six critical munitions: the Naval Strike Missile, the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, the PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3, the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile, the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile and the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile.
The FY24 defense policy bill, which Congress passed in December, authorizes multiyear contracts for six additional munitions outside the Pentagon’s request. But the FY24 defense spending bill does not fund those additional multiyear contracts.
War games hosted by the House China Committee in April found the U.S. would rapidly run out of munitions — including the SM-6, Naval Strike Missile and Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile — in a war with Beijing in the Pacific. That committee endorsed multiyear munitions buys as part of a series of 10 bipartisan recommendations on Taiwan it drafted in May.
Additionally, the bill provides an $800 million boost to the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit, for a total budget of $983 million in FY24. It also provides $200 million for Replicator, the Pentagon’s effort to buy and field thousands of drones by next August.
Finally, the legislation cuts funding for the Defense Department civilian workforce by $1 billion.
Read more: Denmark Announces New Aid Package Including Caesar SP Howitzers, Mortars, Shells for Ukraine
