Key S&T Provisions in the FY25 NDAA Authorization Bill

This December 23, President Joe Biden signed into law H.R. 5009, the “Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025.” The legislation authorizes fiscal year (FY) 2025 appropriations principally for Department of Defense programs. The spending plan contains a number of items of interest to the simulation and training community. Beyond funding levels, H.R. 5009 further provides another glimpse of the increasing awareness of members of Congress, their staffs and committees to developments across the S&T sector.

A continuing bi-partisan spirit in the US Congress on most US defense spending matters enabled overall S&T programs and line items to fare well during conference sessions and other activities leading to the bill being enacted this week. While the final report does not contain all of the funding levels requested in the Biden administration’s defense bill delivered to Capitol Hill earlier this year, it advances a number of S&T programs across the DoD portfolio. This article provides a glimpse of the report by highlighting congressional attention and interest in three broad areas.

Expanding the Training Audience

Congress remains focused used like a laser on advancing the synthetic environment and other technologies to expand the reach of scenarios and events for staffs, units and individuals.

In the Procurement section for Air Force Programs, the bill’s subsection 9062a. directs the Air Force Department’s annual report on Air Force tactical fighter aircraft force structure, to include “Any plans of the Secretary to augment or supplant existing piloted tactical fighter aircraft training events through the acquisition and fielding of common, joint, all-domain, high-

fidelity synthetic simulation environments.”

Also at the service level, Congress closely met the budget requests for two important US Army synthetic training environment (STE) investments. Army Procurement Line 139 authorizes monies for STE. Concurrently, Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) line item 0604121A authorizes funds for STE refinement and prototyping.

In a wider technology thrust, the US military services are quickening their paces to establish a joint synthetic environment. In this bill, Congress authorizes funding for a majority of the RDT&E’s Advanced Component Development and Prototype section’s funding request for JSE (line item 0207606F).

Beyond the broad theme of simulation, Congress is also interested in advancing service training by way of simulators and numerous other training devices. In one instance, DoD Authorization for Appropriations Section 153 directs the Secretary of the Air Force, in coordination with the Director of the Air National Guard, to “develop a plan to fully fund the establishment and maintenance of F–16 simulators at training centers of the Air National Guard as described in subsection (b).”

learning, for instance, machine learning, human factors and others – themes and topics of increasing presence in MS&T department content.

S&T to Enhance Alliances and Partnerships

Capitol Hill also remains attentive to emergent training lessons learned from conflicts around the globe.

The bill’s Title VIII, Subtitle B, Matters Relating to the Indo-Pacific Region contains numerous provisions to advance military training and education programs with US allies and partners in the area of responsibility. In one case, Section 1311 calls for “reinforcing the status of the Republic of Singapore as a Major Security Cooperation Partner of the United States and continuing to strengthen defense and security cooperation between the military forces of the Republic of Singapore and the United States Armed Forces, including through participation in combined exercises and training.”

Elsewhere in the voluminous report, H.R. 5900’s Title XII – Matters Relating to Foreign Nation’s Subtitle B (Matters Pertaining to Israel) contains an attention-getting Section 1213 that details the requirement for US forces to conduct subterranean warfare military exercises.

View the Report

The 794-page report may be viewed in entirety at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-118hr5009enr/pdf/BILLS-118hr5009enr.pdf.