U.S. Senate Passes Annual Defense Authorization Bill

The United States Senate’s overwhelmingly bipartisan passage Thursday of its version of the annual defense authorization bill set up a clash with the House, where two weeks ago, the GOP majority narrowly approved an NDAA laden with controversial culture war measures.

The Senate’s Democratic leaders believe the strong support for their bill on both sides of the aisle — the final vote was 86-11 — will give them the upper hand during the reconciliation process.

Both Oklahoma senators voted for the bill, which they say reflects an evolving shift away from America's war-on-terror mentality of the past 20 years and back to a focus on preparing for more conventional warfare.

“In a conventional war,” said Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), “we gotta have a lot of technology to defend ourselves on land, on sea, and in the air.”

Sen. Mullin, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, says that means making significant investments in technology and infrastructure. He says some of those investments will be made in Oklahoma. 

"We’ve got a lot of infrastructure investment,” said Mullin in an interview last week, “be it from Vance to Altus to Tinker.”

According to a Senate fact sheet, the bill would provide $78 million for Tinker Air Force Base’s 3-bay KC-46 depot maintenance hangar and $76.6 million for Fort Sill’s Microgrid and Backup Power project.

Other Oklahoma items in the Senate NDAA include:

1. $5 million for OSU’s Counter-UAS Center of Excellence
2. $8.4 million for Vance Air Force Base’s Consolidated Undergraduate Pilot Training Center planning and design
3. The bill contains a prohibition on divesting of T-1A training aircraft until the U.S. Air Force can certify that simulators are equally or more effective than the current program, which keeps Vance AFB’s flying training mission alive
4. $1.194 million for McAlester Army Ammunition Plant’s new Water Treatment Plant planning and design
5. The bill meets the President’s Budget Request for munitions procurement across all service branches, including $150.8 million for 155MM ammunition, some of which is made at McAlester Army Ammunition Plant
6. $5 million plus up for OU’s Additive manufacturing of aerospace parts research partnership
7. $400K for The Army National Guard Ardmore Readiness Center’s vehicle maintenance shop

“We have items for every single one of our bases and post in Oklahoma in this national defense authorization,” said Senator James Lankford (R-OK) in a recent interview.

Senator Lankford notes there's also a 5.2 percent pay raise for all service members.

He and Mullin say there's no room for partisanship when it comes to supporting our men and women in uniform and keeping pace with adversaries like China.

“We are not trying to get into a war with China, nor should we try to,” Lankford said. “The United States doesn’t try to get into a war with anyone but we’ve got to remain strong and not ignore threats that are coming at us.”

As for the divisive culture war items inserted by the Freedom Caucus into the House version of the bill — restricting the Pentagon’s abortion policy, diversity initiatives, and gender-affirming health care — Mullin says they're unlikely to survive reconciliation.

“A lot of that stuff is probably going to be pulled out, unfortunately,” said Mullin, “because there’s a lot of good stuff in there.”

Beyond those controversial issues, there is a great deal of overlap between the two bills, including the total price tag: $886 billion.