The House Rules Committee Monday set the terms for debating the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on the House floor sometime this week, to include nuclear-related amendments from both sides of the aisle.
The House version would authorize $25.4 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the original version of the bill would codify NNSA plans for plutonium pit production at two locations: Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. This authorization is $400 million less than what the Senate would authorize.
As of the Exchange Monitor’s deadline. the committee had not set a date for debating amendments on the floor, and did not say which amendments would reach the floor.
Among the amendments that could be considered on the floor is a bipartisan one from Reps. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) and Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) that would expand the NNSA authority to develop counter drone technology. This legislation was proposed in March, and a spokesperson for Lee told the Monitor at the time that it would be released around the time of the NDAA.
Another bipartisan amendment by Reps. Bill Foster (D-N.Y.), Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) and Strategic Forces subcommittee chairman Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) would designate NNSA “to lead the technical nuclear forensics efforts of the United States.”
Another amendment from Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) would strike a provision in the first draft of the bill that would prohibit reducing the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) deployed by the United States. The current ICBM is the Boeing Minuteman III, which uses W78 and W87 warheads developed and modernized by the NNSA.
There are several amendments dealing with Operation Midnight Hammer and the “bunker busters” that hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. One amendment asked for a report detailing the damage to the facilities, another encouraged European allies to invoke their snapback sanctions on Iran’s program, and one called the “Bunker Buster Act” would authorize the president to provide the bunker buster bomb only if Iran is not complying with the Nonproliferation Treaty or with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
An amendment by Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), whose district abuts NNSA’s Pantex Plant, would authorize accelerating capabilities for replacing aging facilities at the Pantex Plant.
The Rules committee hearing featured testimony from House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) on how the NDAA, an annual bill that sets spending limits for the nation’s major defense programs, would expedite the defense acquisition process for contracts. The Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery (SPEED) Act was incorporated into the NDAA in both chambers.