Select Committee Celebrates Wins in NDAA Markup

WASHINGTON, DC – Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) of the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released the following joint statement after the House Committee on Armed Services' markup of the annual National Defense Authorization Act.  

"The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party worked in a bipartisan way in this year’s NDAA to shine a bright light on the need to outcompete the CCP. We are proud of the wins in this bill, including several of the recommendations from our overwhelmingly bipartisan set of proposals to enhance Taiwan’s deterrence. These initiatives will make America safer and better prepared to deter CCP aggression, and we look forward to continued work with our colleagues on the Select Committee to build upon these efforts."

Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi and Chairman Gallagher were responsible for securing the following provisions that were included in the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act:

1. Briefing on multi-year plan to fulfill defensive requirements of military forces of Taiwan - Requires DoD, State, and ODNI to provide a briefing on the status of efforts to develop and implement the joint multi-year year plan to fulfill defensive requirements of military forces of Taiwan required under Section 5506 of the NDAA FY23. Section 5506 required an identification of opportunities to build interoperability, combined readiness, joint planning capability, and shared situational awareness between the United States, Taiwan, and other foreign partners and allies, as appropriate, through combined training, exercises, and planning events, including table-top exercises and wargames, joint and combined exercises, logistics exercises, service-to-service exercise programs, and any other combined training, exercises, or planning with Taiwan’s military forces that the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State consider relevant.
2. Independent Study on the Defense Budget of the People’s Republic of China - Requires the Secretary of Defense to select and enter into an agreement with an entity independent of DoD to conduct an assessment on PRC’s defense that can be compared with US defense spending, generated in a methodologically sound way that avoids reliance on the PRC’s annually announced aggregate spending figures.
3. Sense of Congress on Unmanned Vehicles –Recognizes that aerial, surface, and underwater vessels play a critical role in modern warfare; continued investment in the research, development, and fielding of such systems will help advance the military of the United States; such capabilities are particularly important to bolstering deterrence and maintaining peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region; and the United States should encourage its allies and partners, particularly those located in the Indo-Pacific region, to invest in unmanned aerial, surface, and underwater vessels to reinforce deterrence.
4. Integration of Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles Into B-52 and F-16 Fleets - Requires the Secretary of Defense to create a plan to expedite the integration of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) into the B-52 bomber and F-16 fighter aircraft fleets, along with any associated costs and recommendations to meet any expanded LRASM production capacity requirements.
5. Directive report language on Deployable Air Base Systems (DABS) - Requires the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a briefing to the House Armed Services Committee on a comprehensive assessment of the status of DABS, including an inventory of complete deployable air base systems, industrial base capacity, readiness rates, and total cost per system; a detailed breakdown of US INDOPACOM requirements for DABS to facilitate its Agile Combat Employment concept; and an analysis of the optimal DABS pre-positioned deployment posture.