The House released its fiscal 2027 defense policy bill Tuesday, outlining Congress’ plans for the government’s largest agency to address rising electricity costs, chemical cleanups and critical mineral supply chains.
The draft of the National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 8800, is sponsored by House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
The bipartisan proposal will be marked up June 4, and members are likely to debate and vote on hundreds of amendments before the bill heads to the floor.
As one of Congress’ “must-pass” bills, the NDAA could serve as a legislative vehicle for additional bipartisan bills that lawmakers want to pass before the end of the calendar year. That could include a yet-to-be-finalized deal on permitting reform, an authorization for year-round sales of E15 fuel, disaster relief funding and other priorities.
For now, the House’s $1.15 trillion proposal matches the Trump administration’s request for discretionary funding for the Department of Defense. The Senate will likely release its version of the NDAA this summer. Ultimately, however, it will be up to the House and Senate Appropriations committees to decide the final funding level.
This year’s NDAA acknowledges the rising cost of electricity associated with growing energy demand from “emerging technologies and related infrastructure.” It proposes that DOD take action to ensure it can mitigate the impact of higher energy costs on servicemembers and the military itself.
Lawmakers also included provisions on advanced nuclear energy, solar panel acquisition, wildland firefighting, environmental remediation and efforts to make installations more resilient to severe weather and energy disruptions.
The legislation does not appear to include language on offshore wind projects, which the Trump administration has targeted, citing concerns about their impacts on military readiness.
It also does not appear to contain language to revive a defunct energy diplomacy bureau at the State Department. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are working on a separate proposal to do just that.
Spotlight on critical minerals
The overarching focus of the House’s fiscal 2027 NDAA is on bolstering military supply chains and the broader defense industrial base. A senior committee aide told reporters Tuesday that the industrial base has “atrophied” over the years — including with regard to minerals essential for weapons, batteries and other energy technologies.
“In some cases, manufacturing capacity just doesn’t exist,” said the aide, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “In the critical minerals area, we just don’t have an industry there, and we’re rapidly trying to build one because our adversary, China, controls 90 percent of the critical mineral refining capacity in the world.
“That’s a problem for our defense supply chains,” said the aide.
The NDAA would authorize a new workforce development initiative to help create jobs in the mining, processing, refining and recycling of critical minerals. It would include partnerships with universities and potentially the creation of related scholarships.
One section would reform restrictions on the sourcing of certain critical materials and create a preferred status for companies that manufacture those materials in the United States.
There is also language directing DOD to take action to “help mitigate the impact of China’s current ban and restrictions on exports of critical minerals.”
Nuclear energy
The House Armed Services Committee is re-upping last year’s support for nuclear energy in the NDAA, in part by proposing to amend existing law to explicitly include nuclear energy as part of DOD’s energy policy.
Lawmakers are requesting a cost-benefit analysis on using advanced nuclear energy across various “critical infrastructure hubs.”
The bill also raises the question of what to do with nuclear waste. The issue, the bill states, “has not yet been fully addressed in planning or coordinated with the Department of Energy or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”
“The committee is concerned that an approach focused solely on storage of used nuclear fuel may create future operational, logistical, and policy challenges as nuclear power deployments expand,” lawmakers wrote. The legislation would require a report that outlines a framework for managing used nuclear fuel from advanced nuclear energy projects.
The bill also expresses concern about the security of nuclear installations on military bases, especially given the sprint to provide more nuclear power under congressional and executive directives in recent years.
“The committee is concerned that compressed schedules and novel deployment constructs could inadvertently deprioritize integrated security design and sustainment planning,” the bill states.
Renewables and resilience
Lawmakers added a prohibition on the purchase of solar panels, modules or inverters manufactured by foreign entities of concern such as China.
They also want to receive a briefing on hydrogen fuel-cell power systems, as well as hydrogen-powered aircraft.
The legislation would authorize more than $615 million for projects across seven states and Puerto Rico under DOD’s Energy Resilience and Conservation Investment Program. It would require a briefing assessing the grid resilience of DOD sites in the face of severe weather.
The NDAA contains language expressing concern about DOD’s compliance with a requirement that installations have a minimum number of firefighting personnel.
Another section would make DOD’s wildland firefighting program, known as FireGuard, mandatory. That change would make its congressional mandate and funding stream more reliable.
Chemicals and cleanups
The legislation would authorize $7.2 billion for the military’s environmental cleanup efforts. It also proposes $246.9 million for environmental restoration at formerly used DOD sites — more than the administration requested — and $8.96 million for defensewide environmental restoration, matching the White House’s request.
Lawmakers express concern in the bill with the way DOD is managing the congressionally mandated process of investigating contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, which have contaminated hundreds of installations.
The committee wants to require an assessment of the pace of the Pentagon’s efforts to prioritize PFAS-related studies and how the department is distributing related funding.
“The pace of remediation remains a significant concern,” the bill states.
