Review - House to Consider HR 4365 – FY 2024 DOD Spending

Last night the House Rules Committee completed their development of a rule for the consideration of HR 4365 [removed from paywall], the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024. They provided a structured rule (limited debate of specifically approved amendments) with 184 amendments approved for consideration. These include two cybersecurity related amendments and two chemical related amendments.

Moving Forward

The House is scheduled to begin consideration of HR 4365 today. There is a possibility that the Rules Committee will meet again this afternoon to consider additional amendments that may be added for consideration tomorrow. It is unlikely that there will be significant support for this bill by Democrats. It currently looks like there will be sufficient Republican support to pass the bill.

Commentary

While this bill in its current form has little chance of consideration, much less passage, in the Senate (and that will only get worse after the partisan amendment process we will see in the House this week), there was never any chance that the Senate would actually take up the House language. The first thing the Senate will do is substitute the language from S 2587 for the House language and amend things from there. The heavy lifting of getting language that can pass in both the House and Senate will be accomplished in a conference committee. That process will not be completed by the September 30^th deadline to keep the military funded. A continuing resolution will be necessary.

 

For more details about the amendments of interest here, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/house-to-consider-hr-4365 - subscription required.