Congress

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) is proposing $1 billion for a new "pandemic preparedness" fund for the Pentagon to conduct medical research and bolster small businesses critical to national security.

The Senate is advancing legislation to force Pentagon and White House leadership to consider sweeping industrial policy actions in the coming years to boost the resiliency of U.S. supply chains, as lawmakers remain concerned about an overreliance on China.

The Senate Armed Services Committee has approved a fiscal year 2021 defense authorization bill that would repeal a previous provision requiring large defense contractors to reimburse the Pentagon for the cost of processing losing bid protests.

Senate authorizers are seeking to cut the Navy's requested research and development funding for two new amphibious ships.

House and Senate authorizers are both poised to expand the Navy's ability to purchase used sealift vessels in this year's defense policy bill, but are taking different approaches to encourage the service to more aggressively recapitalize its logistics fleet.

Despite a less aggressive public campaign from the Navy this budget cycle to highlight unmanned ships, House lawmakers are continuing to push for legislative provisions to temper the service's rapid efforts to develop the untested technology.

A key House panel wants the Defense Department to draw up options for improving currently fielded Ground-based Interceptors, forging a potential new program to both upgrade and expand the existing homeland ballistic missile defense fleet that could compete with the Pentagon's new plan for a "layered" homeland defense architecture.

Lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee are seeking to limit a portion of the Defense secretary's travel budget until the Pentagon presents Congress with the Navy's long-term shipbuilding blueprint.

A key House panel has declined to endorse the Pentagon's plans for a a layered homeland ballistic missile defense architecture based on the newest Aegis ballistic missile interceptor and a new variant of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptor and instead directed a comprehensive analysis of alternatives for the mission to be conducted.