House Armed Services Committee kicks off mark-up

The House Armed Services Committee has convened to finalize its version of the fiscal year 2022 defense authorization bill, a legislative debate that will consider more than 700 amendments and is expected to last well into the night and possibly tomorrow morning.

Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) has set a budgetary topline for the bill in line with President Biden’s request for $753 billion in total defense spending, but there is expected to be a bipartisan push to include an additional $25 billion, aligning the bill with one already passed by Senate authorizers.

Yesterday, Smith said he still supports Biden’s requested budget, but softened his earlier opposition to a GOP-backed effort to increase the topline.

"We just spent $6 trillion in the last year dealing with COVID and we've got proposals on the table to spend another, I think, almost $5 trillion on a variety of different other priorities," Smith said. "I don't support the argument [that says] . . . 'Oh my gosh, we can't spend another $25 billion because we have all these other priorities.' We've spent a lot of money on all those other priorities."

The committee is also expected to debate dozens of amendments related to Afghanistan.

Additionally, Smith said the bill will include provisions related to constraining the cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and an initiative to support an alternate engine competition.

Watch Inside Defense for further news throughout the day, and view the amendments as they become available.