Amendments Made in Order – HR 8070, FY 2025 NDAA

Earlier today, the House Rules Committee met to formulate the rule for the consideration of HR 8070, the FY 2025 National Defense Authorization Act. The rule allows for a structured rule with limited debate on a limited number of amendments. Neither the proposed resolution (which forms the rule upon which the House will vote), nor the Committee Report for that resolution (which includes the list of amendments approved for consideration) have been published on the HR 8070 page on the Committee’s website.

The Committee has annotated a number of the 1387 amendments listed on the page as being proposed for floor consideration of HR 8070 as being ‘Made in Order’. While this is not the official listing in the Committee Report, it should accurately affect which amendments will be listed in the report.

I have listed proposed amendments below that are marked as ‘Made in Order’ and appear to be of potential interest here in three separate categories: Cybersecurity Related Amendments (4), Space Related Amendments (4), and Vehicle Technology Related Amendments (4). The CFATS related amendment that I discussed last week has not been marked ‘Made in Order’; I will discuss that in the commentary below.

Cybersecurity Related Amendments

Panetta (CA), Bacon (NE), Trone (MD), Wagner (MO), Rodgers (WA), Schneider (IL)	Bi-Partisan	Revised Creates a foreign military officer subject matter expert exchange program with key Middle East partners in areas such as artificial intelligence, military doctrine and spending, cyber resiliency, counterterrorism, and more.
Green (TN)	Republican	Mandates that the Department of Defense produce a report to Congress on the feasibility of furnishing the national guard of every state a cyber unit to ensure the state has the ability to quickly respond to cyber attacks.
Joyce (OH)	Republican	Revised Authorizes the “Project Spectrum” program within the Office of Small Business Programs of the Department of Defense to provide Department of Defense suppliers that are small or medium businesses, through an online platform, digital resources and services that increase awareness about cybersecurity risks and help such entities to comply with the cybersecurity requirements of the defense acquisition system.
Banks (IN)	Republican	Revised Requires the Secretary of Defense to provide a plan for the growth of the Hacking for Defense program.

Space Related Amendments

Gottheimer (NJ), Titus (NV), Moskowitz (FL)	Democrat	Revised Expresses support for joint U.S.-Israel cooperation in the space arena between NASA and the Israel Space Agency, including joint U.S. Air Force and the Israeli Air Force’s newly created Space Force in areas of research, development, test, and evaluation.
Himes (CT), Crawford (AR), Bergman (MI)	Bi-Partisan	Cislunar Space Domain Awareness capabilities and the need to ensure the safety of flight of civil and commercial missions in cislunar space. Directs the Chief of Space Operations to deliver a report on three things: requirements for cislunar, the department’s plan for researching and developing technologies for cislunar, and how the department coordinates with the Cislunar Technology Strategy Interagency Working Group regarding the progress made on the objectives laid out in the November 2022 National Cislunar Science and Technology Strategy.
Pettersen (CO), Crow (CO)	Democrat	Revised Expresses a Sense of Congress that the Space Force continue its commitment to accelerating the development of very low earth orbit (VLEO) space capabilities.
Donalds (FL)	Republican	Revised Directs the U.S. Space Force to submit a report pertaining to its current and future potential use of nuclear thermal propulsion space vehicles and nuclear electric propulsion space vehicles, and how these nuclear-powered space vehicles can bolster America's national security.

Vehicle Technology Related Amendments

Bergman (MI)	Republican	Revised Authorizes $10 million for Fuel Cell Multi-Modular Use (FC-MMU) utilizing hydrogen in FY25.
Buchanan (FL)	Republican	Revised Requires the Comptroller General of the United States to conduct a study to assess ways unmanned vehicles can reduce overall operating expenses and costs at the Department of Defense.
Ivey (MD)	Democrat	Revised Directs the GAO to study, and issue a report on, the potential threats to US interests posed by Iran, China, Russia, and other adversarial States through the antagonistic use of extraterrestrial satellites for combat, incapacitation of other satellites, cybersecurity intrusions, debilitation of critical infrastructure, and other aggressive purposes.
Walberg (MI), Dingell (MI)	Bi-Partisan	Requires the Secretary of Defense to conduct a study on the national security risks of highly automated vehicles associated with foreign adversary countries operating or testing in the United States.

Moving Forward

Since the Committee has not ‘published their rule resolution’ on their web site, it cannot technically be considered tomorrow. House rules are made to be waived, so that may not stop things from proceeding, but this is a short week for the House and it will certainly make it more difficult to finish up this bill before the House leaves Thursday night for a week campaigning and raising money in their home districts.

Commentary

While I have frequently noted that it looked like the only way that the CFATS reauthorization or reinstatement was going to bypass the Sen Paul (R,KY) logjam in the Senate was for it to be included as an amendment to a must pass bill, there has always been a problem with that path forward; it is not actually ‘allowed’ in the rules of the House or the Senate to have an amendment that is not related to the bill for which it is offered. That standard is frequently ignored, but looking at the list of amendments not ‘Made in Order’ it looks like the Committee tried to pay more attention to that requirement than frequently seen in the recent past.

There does remain on bill that would more closely meet that requirement for a CFATS amendment, the Homeland Security Spending bill. While spending bills are not technically allowed to include purely legislative language, that requirement is frequently ignored. More importantly, the CFATS program was originally authorized in a DHS Spending bill and periodically reauthorized in those bills until a stand alone bill was passed in 2014. The big problem with that is that a standalone DHS spending bill has not made it to the President’s desk in a long time. That means that we probably cannot expect to see a CFATS amendment in a spending bill until a consolidated spending bill is crafted, but that could be next spring. The CFATS program will have lost most of its people long before that.

Perhaps, we are going to have to rely on old fashioned politics to break through Sen Paul. This could simply require Sen Shumer to meet with Paul and determine what he wants in trade for not objecting to the consideration of HR 4470. In his original objection he wanted the Senate to take up an amendment related to duplicate regulations. Shumer did not want to reward Paul for his objection (or encourage others to take the same tack), so he did not agree. Perhaps it is time to reward Paul for his perseverance. CFATS really does need to be reinstated, and that would be a small price for the nation to pay.