EXCLUSIVE: House GOP Touts Removal Of ‘Far-Left' Initiatives In Defense Spending Bill
Jake Smith
May 30, 2024 Daily Caller
Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) are touting provisions to the annual defense spending bill targeting several left-wing policies and initiatives, according to a memo on the bill's provisions obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The HASC passed on May 22 its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), an $883 billion bill to set the Department of Defense's 2025 spending budget. The memo touted several new provisions in the NDAA draft, including barring the Biden administration's Department of Defense (DOD) from implementing or maintaining diversity, equity and inclusion-based (DEI) initiatives and climate change programs in the military.
The NDAA would bar the DOD from running committees or programs responsible for helping implement DEI policies at DOD Education Activity (DODEA) schools worldwide. DOD internal documents previously obtained by the DCNF outlined millions in budget allocations from the Biden administration for DEI infinitives at DODEA schools.
The bill also prohibits the Pentagon from contracting with "advertising firms" that blacklist conservatives. The DCNF first reported that the State Department had contracted with the Global Disinformation Index, a United Kingdom-based operation that worked to censor conservative news sites.
"The FY25 NDAA builds upon our efforts last year to restore the focus of our military on lethality," HASC Chair and Republican Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers told the DCNF. "By requiring merit-based promotions, ending affirmative action at service academies, and prohibiting climate change nonsense, the FY25 NDAA makes it clear that the military is no place for Biden's far-left politics."
The document promoted a provision in the HASC's version of the NDAA that would require the DOD to make all promotional and command decisions based on "individual merit and demonstrated performance, rather than political affiliation, race, sex, ethnicity, or religion." In doing so, the bill would also end affirmative action programs at service academies including the Naval and Airforce Academies and West Point, which would be consistent with the Supreme Court's ruling that high academic institutions cannot factor race into admission selections.
The NDAA would also ban the implementation of any new climate change policies in the military, including DOD policies to pursue defense operations with "lower climate impacts" or implement greenhouse gas regulations on military initiatives. The bill would further require the DOD to release a report on how strict climate rules hinder the military's capabilities and increase defense costs on the taxpayer's dime.
The memo notes that the fiscal year 2025 NDAA will build on the accomplishments from the 2024 version of the bill, including provisions that halted the DOD's DEI hiring program and capped out the pay of existing DEI hires, and prohibited funding for the DOD's counter-extremism program that targeted what it defined as "extremist" ideologies, a program that has found little evidence of such extremism and may have created feelings of alienation with the military.
The NDAA draft, having passed the House Armed Services Committee last week, now moves into the full House for consideration and vote. Members will have the ability to suggest and make alterations before it is passed to the Senate, where upper chamber members will vote on whether to pass it for President Joe Biden's final signature.
