By Jake Smith | The Daily Caller News Foundation
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 Air Force 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.
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RESTORING THE FOCUS OF OUR MI LITARY ON LETHALITY
The FY25 NDAA builds upon the gains made in the FY24 NDAA to end the radical woke ideology being forced on our servicemen and women and restores the focus of our military on lethality.
The FY25 NDAA:
Requires Merit Based Promotions
• Requires all military promotions, accessions, and command decisions to be based on individual merit and demonstrated performance, rather than political affiliation, race, sex, ethnicity, or religion.
Ends Affirmative Action at Service Academies
• Requires all selections for candidate admission to West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy be based on candidate merit. Consistent with the Supreme Court decision governing other institutions of higher education, these service academies may no longer consider race or ethnicity in admissions decisions.
Stops Far-Left Indoctrination
• Prohibits DoD from establishing or maintaining any office or committee charged with recommending or implementing DEl policies at DoD schools.
• Prohibits DoD from contracting with advertising firms, like NewsGuard, that blacklist conservative news sources.
Prevents a Military Green New Deal
• Does not authorize any climate change programs.
• Prohibits DoD from issuing new climate change rules that give preference to systems with lower climate impacts.
• Prohibits DoD from issuing costly new greenhouse gas rules on the defense industrial base.
• Requires DoD to report to Congress on how environmental regulations are increasing costs and delaying critical projects to rebuild our defense industrial base.
Protects the Rights of Servicemembers
• Requires DoD to issue new rules to protect servicemembers against acts of personal favoritism, reprisal, or political coercion.
• Requires DoD to implement unanimous jury verdicts for courts-martial in 2025.
The FY24 NDAA (P.L. 118-31):
Banned Critical Race Theory (CRT)
• Prohibited funding for the teaching, training, or promotion of CRT in the military, including at service academies and DoD schools.
Gutted DEI at DoD
• Put in place a hiring freeze, preventing DoD from establishing any new positions or filling any open DEI positions until the GAO completes an investigation of the Pentagon’s DEl programs.
• Capped and cut the base pay of current DEl bureaucrats at $70k.
• Prohibited funding for DoD’s politically biased Countering Extremism Working Group.
• Stopped the Navy from promoting a drag queen as a “Digital Ambassador”.
Protecting Children and Parents Rights
• Included a Parents Bill of Rights to ensure parents of children in DoD schools have the right to review curriculum, books, and instructional materials; meet with teachers; and provide consent before schools conduct medical exams or screenings of students.
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