Overview

The Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2023, enacted as Division C of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117-328), provides $788.5 billion in discretionary budget authority, which amounts to $36.0 billion (4.8%) more than the Biden Administration's $752.4 billion request for programs covered by the act. Compared to the corresponding funding legislation for FY2022, the FY2023 bill provides an increase of $68.9 billion (9.6%) for defense programs (Table 1).¹

The annual Department of Defense appropriations act provides discretionary budget authority for nearly all military-related activities of the Department of Defense (DOD) except the construction of facilities and the provision of family housing for authorized military personnel, which typically are funded in separate appropriations legislation.²

Neither the House nor the Senate passed a freestanding FY2023 defense appropriations bill. The House Appropriations Committee, after 18 hearings by the Subcommittee on Defense during the period of March to May 2022, voted 32-26 on June 22, 2022, to introduce such a bill (H.R. 8236) with an accompanying report (H.Rept. 117-388). Upon introduction, the House took no further action on that bill. The Senate Appropriations Committee Subcommittee on Defense (SAC-D) held eight hearing sessions from March 29 to June 14, 2022. Concurrent with publication of the chairman's mark on the committee's website, SAC-D Chairman Senator Jon Tester introduced an FY2023 defense appropriations bill (S. 4663) on July 28, 2022, on which neither the full Appropriations Committee nor the Senate took further action.

Bicameral, bipartisan negotiations produced a final version of the defense appropriations bill, which, along with the texts of 11 other appropriations bills, was substituted for the text of H.R. 2617 by process of amendment. The defense bill was designated as Division C of the resulting Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, which the Senate passed on December 22, 2022, by a vote of 68-29 (Record Vote Number: 421). The House passed the bill on December 23, 2022, by a vote of 225-201-1 (Roll no. 549). On December 29, 2022, the President signed H.R. 2617, enrolled as P.L. 117-328 (See Table 2).

There are hundreds of differences between the Biden Administration's budget request and the enacted bill over funding for particular DOD programs and activities. However, a relative handful of broad issues account for much of the difference between the FY2023 budget request and the budget authority appropriated in the enacted bill. These differences can be analyzed in terms of upward or downward adjustments to the Administration's base budget request.³

Selected Upward Adjustments

Inflation Adjustments

Because DOD develops each year's budget request over a two-year year cycle within the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process, economic assumptions driving DOD's budget request just prior to budget submission (e.g., in late 2021 or early 2022) may not match congressional expectations for future price inflation during legislative hearings, floor consideration, or bicameral negotiations (e.g., from early 2022 through bill passage).⁴ The enacted bill includes a total of $8.0 billion in new budget authority intended to cover projected cost increases attributed to higher-than-anticipated inflation. These adjustments include personnel ($1.8 billion) and non-personnel ($6.2 billion) cost inflation (see Table 3).

Personnel-related inflation adjustments address cost growth affecting military personnel allowances for subsistence, housing, dislocation, basic needs, and temporary lodging expenses.⁵ Inflation adjustments outside Military Personnel appropriations address cost growth for utilities and daycare, military grocery stores (i.e., commissaries), military health care, fuel, and cost growth common to acquisition programs.⁶

Reserve and National Guard Equipment

To accelerate modernization of reserve and National Guard equipment, the enacted bill provides a total of $3.5 billion above the Administration's request. Nearly half that amount ($1.7 billion) is to procure 16 C-130J cargo planes for the Air National Guard.⁷

Also specified within the total is $350.0 million for 12 MQ-1C Gray Eagle Extended Range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), $273.0 million for 10 Blackhawk helicopters, $120.0 million for Jeep-like HMMWVs ("Hum-vees") for the Army National Guard, and $53 million for new radars for Air National Guard F-16 fighter aircraft.⁸

Research and Development

The enacted defense appropriations bill provides hundreds of program increases for DOD-funded science and technology (S&T) research projects. S&T research, much of it performed by universities, focuses on basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development that could be incorporated into the design of future military hardware, as opposed to research associated with specific prototypes undergoing test and evaluation or equipment already in the field or slated for procurement.⁹

The enacted bill provides a net total of $9.9 billion above the amount requested across the research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) portfolio.¹⁰ Selected upward adjustments include nearly 600 line-item program increases totaling $6.6 billion in DOD's main RDT&E accounts and 56 adds totaling $2.0 billion in the RDT&E portion of the Defense Health Program.¹¹

In order for DOD to meet congressional intent in spending these funds, the enacted bill states that "funding increases shall be competitively awarded, or provided to programs that have received competitive awards in the past."¹² The exception to this rule is Community Project Funding, which Congress "earmarks" for non-competitive award to particular universities. The enacted bill includes $54.2 million in DOD RDT&E Community Project Funding.¹³

Selected Downward Adjustments

The enacted bill partly offsets the net effect of these and other upward adjustments on total discretionary defense budget authority with $12.8 billion worth of downward adjustments relative to the Administration's request. The explanatory statement accompanying the enacted bill explains legislators' decisions about hundreds of these adjustments in terms of specific reservations about particular programs.¹⁴

Military Personnel

The enacted bill cuts a total of $2.9 billion relative to the budget request for military personnel on grounds that the Armed Forces would have fewer members in FY2023 than the request assumed.¹⁵ The explanatory statement ascribes these figures to "underexecution of strength." While the statement provides no further explanation, it has been widely reported that the Armed Forces – particularly the Army – have been falling short of recruiting goals.¹⁶

Non-programmatic Line-Item Reductions

The enacted bill makes over 650 relatively small reductions to requested amounts in other appropriations that add up to $9.9 billion.¹⁷ The explanatory statement accompanying the final bill justifies each downward adjustment individually, often citing "unjustified growth" in the Administration's request for a given line item.¹⁸ Some of these "non-programmatic" reductions are explained with reference to changes in a particular program's anticipated performance schedule.¹⁹ The enacted bill makes 44 reductions across 13 appropriation accounts on schedule grounds (e.g., workload delays labeled "prior year carryover") for a total of $857.6 million.²⁰ Other enacted reductions are explained with brief labels such as "excess to need" or "historic unobligated balances," the latter phrase indicating that a particular program has exhibited a consistent pattern over several years of reaching the end of its obligation authority with significant unobligated balances.²¹

Rescissions and General Reductions

Apart from the downward adjustments already mentioned, the enacted bill also incorporates two general reductions to budget authority in the overall appropriation:

• Section 8047 rescinds $1.1 billion in unspent funds appropriated by Congress in prior fiscal years but not yet expired, returning those fund balances to the Treasury and thereby offsetting some of the upward adjustments in the act from the perspective of total budget authority in the national defense budget function for FY2023.²²
• Section 8122 reduces the total appropriation by $956.4 million to account for favorable exchange rates for U.S. dollars relative to foreign currencies.²³

Budgetary Context

Based on the Administration's FY2023 DOD budget request, defense outlays in FY2023 when adjusted for inflation would exceed the department's annual purchasing power during the Cold War-era military buildup of the mid-1980s. However, the outlays would be lower than during the peak years of post-9/11 military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. DOD Outlays in Current and Constant Dollars: 1962-2023 (estimated)

Source: CRS analysis of Office of Management and Budget, President's Budget for FY2023: Historical Tables, Table 8.7 "Outlays for Discretionary Programs: 1962-2027" and Table 8.8 "Outlays for Discretionary Programs in Constant (FY2012) Dollars: 1962-2027." Notes: Total DOD outlays include the relatively small proportion for military construction, which is funded in a separate appropriations bill.

In general, the levels of discretionary outlays for defense and nondefense federal programs have not been far apart since the aftermath of the 1991 war with Iraq. Defense spending ran slightly higher during the peak of the Persian Gulf War while nondefense spending surged after 2019 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Combined discretionary defense and nondefense spending has been outstripped by mandatory spending since the early 1990s. For FY2023, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) projected mandatory outlays will total $3.7 trillion (of which Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments account for 75%), which would be more than double the discretionary outlays total and nearly 4.7 times the discretionary defense amount (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Major Categories of Federal Outlays: 1983-2023

Source: Office of Management and Budget, President's Budget for FY2023: Historical Tables, Table 8.1 "Outlays by Budget Enforcement Act Category: 1962-2023." Chart created by CRS. Notes: Data for "National Defense" is for Budget Function 050, which includes a relatively small percentage of spending that falls outside the scope of the annual defense appropriations bill, including funding for DOD military construction and for defense-related spending by the Department of Energy and other agencies.

Selected Military Personnel Issues

The enacted bill provides $163.0 billion for Military Personnel (MILPERS) appropriations, which is $1.2 billion (0.7%) less than the budget request. The enacted bill funds a total force, active and reserve, numbering 2,087,344 uniformed personnel, which is 35,556 (1.7%) lower than the FY2023 military end-strength in the budget request and 60,196 (2.8%) lower than the actual FY2022 end-strength (see Table 4).

Unlike the end-strength totals in the enacted bill, neither H.R. 8236 nor S. 4663 assumed any reduction in end-strength below the level assumed in the FY2023 budget request.²⁴

Table 4. FY2022-FY2023 Military Personnel End-strength

Military Pay Raise

As requested, the enacted bill includes upwards of $3.0 billion to cover the cost of a 4.6% increase in military basic pay which the Administration proposed to take effect on January 1, 2023.²⁵ This adjustment matches the annual increase in the Employment Cost Index (ECI), a Labor Department survey of wages and salaries in private industry.²⁶

As noted above, in addition to the basic pay raise the enacted bill includes a total of $1.8 billion for various allowances (food, housing, certain moving expenses, and basic needs of servicemembers living below certain gross household income thresholds) to offset rising costs due to inflation.

Extremist Ideologies

The explanatory statement associated with the enacted bill directs senior DOD officials to update an earlier report to Congress on policies and actions taken to address the involvement of military personnel with extremist or criminal groups.²⁷

This language was adopted in lieu of language in the House committee report that would have required DOD specifically to report on changes in security clearance policies, associated procedures, and training to ensure that individuals who adhere to extremist ideologies are not granted security clearances.²⁸

Abortion Access

The enacted bill does not include a provision contained in the House-introduced bill (Section 8145) that would prohibit the denial of a request by any member of the Armed Forces or any DOD civilian employee for leave for the purpose of obtaining an abortion or assisting a spouse, partner, or significant other in obtaining an abortion.²⁹

Sexual Assault, Prevention, and Response

The enacted bill fully funds DOD's request for $479.0 million to implement the recommendations of an Independent Review Commission (IRC) created in 2021 to provide an assessment of sexual assault in the Armed Forces.³⁰ These recommendations include creating a full-time sexual assault prevention workforce, giving responders expanded support for dealing with caseloads, and creating a dedicated research center.³¹

In addition, Section 8044 of the bill adds to the budget $47.0 million for the Sexual Assault Special Victims' Counsel Program.³²

Defense Medical Facilities Reorganization

The enacted bill's explanatory statement directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to report on the status of the reorganization of DOD health care initiated by the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (P.L. 114-328) and codified in Title 10, U.S. Code Sections 1073c and 1073d.³³ DOD proposes to shift uniformed military medical personnel from certain medical clinics and hospitals to major medical centers and combat-support units. Civilian medical personnel are to fill some of the resulting vacancies while others go unfilled. Some military dependents and retirees would be required to seek medical care from non-DOD facilities with costs covered by DOD's TRICARE program.

Selected Operation and Maintenance Issues

The enacted bill provides $278.1 billion in discretionary budget authority to Operation and Maintenance appropriations, which is $6.8 billion (2.5%) more than the requested amount and $21.8 billion (8.5%) more than the FY2022 enacted amount (in current dollars). The enacted bill upwardly adjusts DOD's FY2023 O&M budget request by billions of dollars in an effort to improve the combat readiness of U.S. forces. These adjustments include

• $1.5 billion for maintenance and repair of facilities;
• $485.0 million for equipment overhauls at specialized maintenance depots; and
• $427.0 million for recruiting and advertising costs.

The enacted bill also adds to the Navy's budget request $322.0 million to pay for the continued operation of several ships the Navy had planned to decommission. Section 8079 of the act prohibits the Navy from decommissioning five Littoral Combat Ships included in this group.

Minimum Wage for Contractor Employees

The enacted bill does not include a provision from the House-introduced bill (Section 8024) that would have required any for-profit contractor receiving funds appropriated by the act to pay any employee at the rate of at least $15 per hour.

Removal of Confederate Names

The enacted bill adds to the request $1.0 million to continue the process of renaming DOD installations and facilities currently named to commemorate the Confederate States of America or any of its officials. A commission created to plan the renaming, mandated by Section 370 of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for FY2021 (P.L. 116-283), completed its mission in October 2022 with DOD implementation to follow not later than January 1, 2024.³⁴

Selected Environmental Issues

The enacted bill adds $520.7 million to the $1.1 billion requested for DOD's Environmental Restoration accounts, which fund the cleanup of hazardous waste and pollutants at military installations and formerly used defense sites.

PFAS/PFOA Remediation

More than one-third of the added environmental restoration funds ($224.9 million) will expedite cleanup efforts aimed at groundwater contamination by certain highly toxic chemicals that were widely used as fire-fighting agents, particularly at aviation facilities.³⁵ These chemicals, used in products such as "aqueous film-forming foam," are referred to as PFAS/PFOA. As of September 2022, DOD has identified 700 locations where it "is conducting or has completed an assessment of PFAS use or potential release."³⁶

The House Appropriations Committee, in its report on H.R. 8236, acknowledges that no commercially available PFAS replacement meets DOD safety standards.³⁷ However, citing "significant and salient public health risks" associated with PFAS/PFOA, the committee directs DOD to comply with a provision of the FY2020 NDAA requiring that their use be phased out by the start of FY2025 (P.L. 116-92, Section 322).³⁸

Red Hill (Hawaii) Fuel Depot Cleanup

Section 8119 of the enacted bill provides $1.0 billion, as requested, to deal with the contamination of a portion of Honolulu's water supply by a fuel leak from the Navy's Red Hill bulk fuel depot by removing all fuel from the facility and closing it.³⁹ The facility, opened in 1943, includes 20 large tanks – with a total capacity of 250 million gallons of ship and aircraft fuel – buried in a hillside overlooking Pearl Harbor and above a major aquifer.⁴⁰

In 2014, a leak of 27,000 gallons of jet fuel highlighted the risk of water contamination from the facility. Subsequent inadvertent fuel release and ensuing legal efforts culminated in DOD's decision early in 2022 to close the facility and move elsewhere the fuel it still contained.⁴¹

Selected War on Terror Issues

Section 8142 of the enacted bill prohibits the use of appropriated funds to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Section 8139 of H.R. 8236 included a provision that would have mandated closure of the facility.

The enacted bill also includes provisions barring the use of funds to transfer certain detainees from Guantanamo Bay to U.S. territory (Section 8139); to transfer any Guantanamo Bay detainee to any foreign country (Section 8140); or to construct any facilities in the United States to house any Guantanamo Bay detainees (Section 8141).

Use of Force Authorizations

The enacted bill does not include any provision affecting legislation adopted in 2001 and 2002 authorizing U.S. military operations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. H.R. 8236 would have repealed both of those measures:

• Section 8148 would have repealed P.L. 107-40, the joint resolution adopted in 2001 to authorize the use of military force against perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attacks; and
• Section 8149 would have repealed P.L. 107-243, the joint resolution adopted in 2002 to authorize the use of military force against Iraq

Selected Acquisition Issues

The enacted bill provides $162.2 billion in new discretionary budget authority for DOD Procurement programs, $17.2 billion (11.9%) above the requested level and $17.3 billion (11.9%) above the FY2022 enacted level (in current dollars).

For DOD Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) programs, the enacted bill provides $139.8 billion in new discretionary budget authority, $9.9 billion (7.6%) above the requested level and $20.5 billion (17.2%) above the FY2022 enacted level (in current dollars).

Expedited Acquisition Process

In the explanatory statement accompanying the act, House and Senate negotiators assert that DOD has hampered congressional oversight of certain weapons acquisition programs by excessive use of streamlined procedures intended to speed up the fielding of new technologies, bypassing some reporting requirements and other checks built into the routine procurement process.⁴²

At issue is a so-called "middle-tier of acquisition" created by a provision of the FY2016 NDAA (P.L. 114-92, Section 804). Some acquisition reform proponents had contended that the development and deployment of weapons based on promising new technologies was being unduly delayed by the detailed advance planning and testing required by DOD's standard procedures. In response, the so-called "Section 804" criteria allowed DOD to bypass some of those procedures in two types of cases:

• Rapid Prototyping, in which innovative technologies would be used to field prototypes of operational equipment within 5 years; and
• Rapid Fielding, in which proven technology would be used to begin production of new equipment within 6 months and to field a full production run in 5 years.

The explanatory statement objects that congressional oversight of rapid prototyping and fielding programs since passage of P.L. 114-92 has been hampered by the lack of some of the documentation dispensed with in the name of streamlining, such as independent cost estimates, technology assessments, and test plans. The statement also expresses concern that the armed services are equipping forces with items justified in budget documentation as RDT&E programs, thus obscuring the total cost of certain programs and prematurely eliminating possible alternatives.⁴³

Section 8059 of the act generally prohibits the use of RDT&E funds to buy equipment for operational use and requires DOD to submit with the FY2024 budget request a detailed report on the planned use of RDT&E funds for testing purposes.⁴⁴

Strategic Nuclear Forces

With relatively few changes, the act funds the Administration's program for across-the-board modernization of the U.S. "triad" of long-range nuclear weapons systems. The act funds to continue developing the B-21 Raider bomber; a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) designated the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent or Sentinel; the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine; and production funds for the bomber and submarine. The act also provides, as requested, the first year of procurement funding for the Long-Range Stand-Off (LRSO) missile, intended to replace the 1970s-vintage air-launched cruise missile carried by U.S. bombers (see Table 5).

The total of $5.9 billion the act provides, as requested, for Columbia-class missile submarine procurement includes a $3.1 billion share of the projected $15.2 billion cost of the first of the planned class of 12 submarines.⁴⁵ The remaining $2.8 billion is to buy components or pay for other work in preparation for construction of the other 11 planned subs.

Sea-Launched Cruise Missile

The act adds to the DOD budget request $45.0 million to continue development of a nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N). The FY2022 budget included $15.2 million to develop the weapon, but it was not included in the FY2023 budget by the Biden Administration.⁴⁶

Precision Strike Weapons

The act generally supports the requests by the Army, Navy, and Air Force for funds to develop and begin fielding various non-nuclear armed, precision-strike missiles. These include ballistic missiles that travel on a parabolic trajectory, cruise missiles that can maneuver during flight, and hypersonic weapons which – like many ballistic missiles – travel at speeds of at least five times the speed of sound (Mach 5 or more than 3,800 mph) but additionally are capable of maneuvering throughout their course of flight.⁴⁷

Hypersonic weapons include both rocket-launched glide vehicles and cruise missiles powered by air-breathing jets (see Table 6).

Anti-Missile Defenses

In general, the act supports the DOD funding request to continue fielding anti-missile defenses both for U.S. territory and for U.S. forces and allies abroad (see Table 7). This includes support for priorities described by Missile Defense Agency Director Vice Admiral Jon Hill as his top three: homeland defense, defense of Guam, and defenses against hypersonic missiles.⁴⁸

Selected Homeland Defense Programs

The act provides $785.4 million to fund continued upgrades to the ground-based mid-course ballistic missile defense system currently fielded to defend U.S. territory against intercontinental ballistic missile attacks, enabling an operational fleet of 44 ground-based interceptor missiles deployed in Alaska and California.⁴⁹ This includes, in addition to the amount requested, $33.2 million to extend the operational life of currently deployed interceptors.

The act also provides the funds requested for two initiatives intended to enhance homeland missile defense systems:

• $1.8 billion for development of a new, "Next Generation Interceptor" (NGI) to enable an increase in total deployed interceptor missiles from 44 to 64;⁵⁰ and
• $75.1 million to field in central Alaska a new "Long-Range Discrimination Radar" intended to be more capable than current radars in distinguishing between incoming missile warheads and decoys.⁵¹

Defense of Guam

The enacted bill includes a total of $419.7 million –$4.7 million less than the amount requested – for two budget lines to fund development and deployment of a missile defense network on Guam that could protect the island against attack from any quarter.⁵² The system would integrate four radars, a land-based version of the Navy's Aegis system, and other Army and Navy equipment to deal with ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missile threats.

Defense Against Hypersonic Missiles

The act provides $518.0 million, more than double the $225.5 million requested, to develop defenses against hypersonic missiles.⁵³ Compared with ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons pose a more complicated threat because they travel at much lower altitudes and are more maneuverable.⁵⁴

As requested, the act also provides $89.2 million to continue developing a network of missile tracking satellites designated the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS).⁵⁵ Compared with existing ballistic missile tracking systems, HBTSS is intended to locate a target more precisely and transmit that information more quickly to the weapons intended to intercept the target.⁵⁶

DOD Space Programs

In its report to accompany H.R. 8236, the House Appropriations Committee questioned the long-term realism of the budget request for the U.S. Space Force, created by the FY2020 NDAA as a separate armed service within the Department of the Air Force:⁵⁷

[T]he Space Force's ambitious plans ...do not appear to be backed up with credible budget projections in the outyears to actually deliver these capabilities....The lack of a credible five-year budget raises fundamental questions about whether any serious analysis or long-term planning has been done to assess the realism and affordability of the entire portfolio....[T]he Space Force's plans and programs must be based on rigorous technical analysis matched with executable plans resourced by realistic budgets. The current plan does not meet this expectation....

The committee directed the Air Force to provide a detailed briefing on the costs, affordability, executability, and risks of current and planned Space Force programs (see Table 8).⁵⁸

Missile Tracking Satellite Networks

The enacted bill provides a slight increase over the $4.7 billion requested to continue developing two new networks of ballistic missile tracking satellites to replace the Space-Based Infra-Red System (SBIRS) satellites currently in orbit. Whereas SBIRS relies on a relatively small number of relatively large and complex satellites, the planned replacement systems would rely on a larger number of smaller satellites, thus complicating any adversary's attempt to neutralize the system by taking out a small number of the satellites.⁵⁹

To continue development of the Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infra-Red (OPIR) system, slated to begin supplanting SBIRS in 2025, the enacted bill provides $3.4 billion of the $3.5 billion requested.

To continue development of the Resilient Missile Warning Tracking System that will comprise several dozen relatively small satellites in orbits lower than SBIRS, the enacted bill provides $1.2 billion, an increase of $142.8 million over the request.

Ground Systems

In general, the enacted bill supports ongoing Army and Marine Corps programs to modernize the services' suite of armored combat vehicles and to field systems designed to deal with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other aerial threats. Tracking H.R. 8236, the enacted bill adds $187.1 million to the $493.0 million requested to accelerate modernization of the Army's Paladin self-propelled artillery. Like S. 4663, it nearly doubles the amount requested to upgrade M-1 Abrams tanks, adding $591.0 million to the $656.3 million request, procuring an additional 46 vehicles (see Table 9).

IVAS Night Vision System

The enacted bill provides $40 million of the $400.0 million requested to purchase thousands of wearable night-vision goggles on which troops could see targeting cross-hairs and navigation information, as on the heads-up display (HUD) in a fighter plane's cockpit. In March 2021, the Army contracted with Microsoft to spend up to $21.9 billion over 10 years to procure this Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), based on the firm's HoloLens augmented reality goggles.⁶⁰ As it had done with the Army's FY2022 IVAS budget request, Congress justified its action on the FY2023 request by citing various hardware and software problems with IVAS that surfaced in the course of tests by DOD's independent operational testing office.

On January 6, 2023, the Army announced that Microsoft was going to further modify the device to better adapt it for use in a combat environment.⁶¹

Shipbuilding Programs

The enacted bill adds a total of $4.0 billion to the Navy's $27.9 billion shipbuilding request, for an enacted total of $32.0 billion. The upward adjustments include

• $2.2 billion for a third destroyer equipped with the Aegis anti-aircraft/anti-missile defense system in addition to the two ships included in the budget request;⁶² and
• $645.0 million for two high-speed troop transports modified to serve as hospital ships⁶³

Also added is a total of $803.1⁶⁴ million for ships that could support Marine Corps expeditionary landings:

• $289.0 million for components to be used in an additional helicopter carrier;
• $250.0 million for components to be used in an LPD-type amphibious landing transport; and
• $264.1 million for three of the large hovercraft the Marines use to haul missile launchers and other heavy equipment ashore from transport ships (see Table 10).

Proposed Ship Retirements

The DOD budget request assumed some cost reductions as the result of retiring 24 Navy ships, including nine Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), four of which had been commissioned in 2019 and 2020. The LCS program has been controversial over the years due to past cost growth, design and construction issues, concerns over their ability to withstand battle damage, and concerns over the development and testing of modular mission packages.⁶⁵ Section 8079 of the enacted bill prohibits the use of funds to decommission five of the LCS ships as planned.

Aircraft Programs

The enacted bill generally funds the request for DOD aircraft with some relatively significant upward adjustments. Among amounts added to the budget request are

• $0.9 billion for 16 F-35 fighters, in addition to the $8.9 billion requested for procurement of 61 of the aircraft, different versions of which are used by the Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force;⁶⁶
• $600 million for eight Navy F/A-18s, which is to sustain a production line DOD had planned to shut down; and
• $273 million for 10 Blackhawk troop-carrying helicopters for the Army National Guard, in addition to the $650.4 million requested for 25 new Blackhawks (see Table 11).⁶⁷

AWACS Replacement

The enacted bill provides $426.8 million – $187.1 million more than was requested – to continue development work on a replacement for the 1980s-vintage E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft. The E-3, based on the Boeing 707 jetliner, scans the surrounding airspace with a rotating, saucer-shaped radar antenna 30-feet-wide.

The planned replacement, designated the E-7, is a modified Boeing 737. It carries a blade-like radar antenna, about 10-feet high, which runs along the top of the aircraft and which scans electronically, rather than by mechanical rotation. The Royal Australian Air Force has operated this type, nicknamed "Wedgetail," since 2015.

Combat Rescue Helicopter

The enacted bill provides $1.21 billion for 20 Combat Rescue Helicopters, an increase of $499 million and 10 aircraft over the budget request. This version of the Blackhawk helicopter (designated HH-60W) is equipped with additional fuel tanks and other modifications to support the mission of retrieving downed pilots and other personnel who might be behind enemy lines.

Appendix.

Tables 3-9 of this report summarize the amounts requested by the Biden Administration, recommended by the House and Senate, and agreed to in the enacted version for procurement and/or research and development (R&D) regarding selected weapons programs in each of several broad categories, e.g., missile defense, ground combat. The funding data for these selected programs is drawn from 17 procurement appropriation accounts and five R&D accounts that are components of the DOD budget. Each of those accounts is further subdivided into "line items"—dozens of them in some procurement accounts, and hundreds of them in most of the R&D accounts.

The official DOD labels of some line items may not correspond to the names that commonly are used to refer to programs in the course of congressional deliberations. Moreover, funding for a single program may be spread across several line items. In addition, R&D funding for a particular program may be only one of several projects funded by a single line item.

Selection of the budget lines to be included in the totals for any program listed in any of the Tables is based on CRS analysis. For further information concerning any specific instance, congressional staff may consult relevant CRS products listed in the tables or any of the following CRS analysts.

CRS Experts: Defense Appropriations Issues