Congress’ 65-year defense bill streak could be in jeopardy

Congress’ annual defense authorization bill is on shaky ground this year amid partisan infighting, threatening to upend the legislation’s unblemished 65-year streak of passage.

The must-pass Pentagon policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is facing an uphill climb due to its historically high $1.15 trillion request — a figure that climbs to $1.5 trillion should the Trump administration get its desired third reconciliation bill passed by Congress, also a tough climb.

Democrats feel the bill’s topline must be cut by hundreds of billions of dollars — and they want guardrails around Washington’s ongoing war against Iran — before they vote yes. That’s setting up a showdown with the Trump administration, which is not letting up on its desired dollar figure or close to a peace deal with Tehran that satisfies Democrats.

Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said the distance between a “nightmare scenario,” in which the NDAA is not enacted, and the opposite, a defense bill bundle that includes a third reconciliation bill, is the widest gap she’s ever seen.

“The politics are absolutely dismal between the two branches right now,” she told The Hill.

She expressed fears that the NDAA would become increasingly difficult to pass if the streak is broken this year, as “we are living in a norm-shattering time of great disruption, including in politics.”

“Once red lines are crossed, it is difficult to go backward. I fear the necessary and bipartisan NDAA is fragile in this new era but hope I’m wrong,” Eaglen added.

The NDAA’s bumpy path was made clear in June when the House Armed Services Committee passed its version in a 44 to 12 vote, with an unusually small number of Democrats — half on the panel — voting in favor of the bill. Typically, only one or two Democrats on the historically bipartisan committee would oppose the bill as it heads to the House floor.

Then in July, the full House passed its NDAA by a narrow 216 to 212 vote, marking a departure from the broad bipartisan coalitions that have traditionally carried the defense legislation through Congress. A handful of Demcrats joined Republicans to pass the bill .

The Senate’s path has proved even more difficult. In July, senators failed to advance their version of the NDAA after a procedural vote of 50 to 46 , falling short of the 60 votes needed to succeed.

Democrats tanked it over concerns about top-line defense and non-defense spending levels. They also cited the then-resumption of the Iran war and Trump’s failure to ask Congress to authorize the conflict, which began on Feb. 28, as a major reason behind their opposition.

At the time, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) called the Democratic vote to block the NDAA from coming up for debate “unprecedented.”

One defense industry expert with knowledge of deliberations over the bill said Republicans are likely to hold firm on the $1.15 trillion figure, a hill Democrats can use to extract numerous concessions in conference. But even with that give-and-take, the bill could still face a veto from President Trump.

“I think there’s a lot of things the Democrats will ask for, including possibly some language on Iran, but I think that it still becomes harder to pass,” they said.

As of late this month, House and Senate lawmakers are pursuing informal negotiations on a path forward.

The defense insider said Congressional staff have finished their work on the bill and unresolved issues have moved to the staff director level. The legislation is then to be taken up by the “Big Four” — the chair and ranking member of the House and Senate defense committees — once lawmakers come back to Capitol Hill after the November midterm elections. The goal is to have the bill completed by Thanksgiving, they said.

Another piece of the puzzle is the Pentagon’s push to have Congress formally authorize the agency’s name change from Department of Defense to “Department of War.”

The building’s top spokesman this week argued in favor of codifying the name change, with both the House and Senate Armed Services committees adopting measures in their draft bills that would do so.

Democrats, however, have called the switch unnecessary and accused the administration of engaging in semantics.

Other culture-war language in the bill could be dropped during negotiations, with language dealing with the conflict in Iran added in.

Most pressing is the war in Iran — the cost of which has gone up to $47 billion, an increase of more than $3 billion since last month — as Trump mulls launching strikes against Tehran after the U.S. midterm elections.

The Senate in September defeated a House-passed resolution directing Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from the conflict. But growing dissatisfaction among GOP senators over the president’s handling of the war, combined with the chamber possibly being overtaken by the Democrats after the midterms, marks a fresh chance to rein in the administration.

Lawmakers also appear determined to come together and get the bill over the finish line.

“It’s very important,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told Punchbowl News of the NDAA’s passage. “You know, we’re in very dangerous times. There’s a lot going on. We have to come together and get it done.”

Michael Herson, the president of lobbying firm American Defense International, predicted the process is going to be bumpy, “but it has been bumpy the last several years” and that the NDAA ultimately will be passed, keeping its streak in place.

“I haven’t given up hope on that,” he added.