House and Senate appropriators have added into their two fiscal 2024 Defense spending bills a combined $25.7 billion the Pentagon did not formally seek for more than 1,200 research and procurement projects, according to a CQ Roll Call analysis of a watchdog group’s previously undisclosed database.
The House-passed Defense appropriations bill would add $10.7 billion into these weapons accounts for 580 different programs. The Senate’s companion measure contains nearly $15 billion inserted by senators for an almost completely different set of 636 weapons projects, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense database.
If history is a guide, the two sets of increases will mostly just be added together in the final bill, which appropriators hope to finish writing by early February, when the Defense Department’s funding under the current stopgap spending bill expires.
