After Supporting Bipartisan Version from Committee, Deluzio Votes Against GOP-Poisoned Defense Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Navy and Iraq War veteran and House Armed Services Committee member Congressman Chris Deluzio (PA-17) voted against the FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The final vote for the defense bill was 217-199, with the House Republican majority narrowly pushing their bill through yet another breakdown of what has historically been a measure backed by strong, bipartisan support. Congressman Deluzio voted for the bill out of the Armed Services committee on May 22, 2024, but the floor amendment process transformed the bill with poison pill amendments—causing him to oppose the final bill. 
 

“I joined nearly every member of the House Armed Services Committee to pass the bipartisan defense bill out of committee to improve quality of life for our servicemembers and military families, to tackle our most pressing national security challenges, and to fight price gouging by defense contractors,” said Rep. Deluzio. “However, the version that House Republican Leadership brought to the floor for a vote today included extreme, poison pill amendments that attack abortion access, reproductive health care, and more. Those anti-freedom attacks should have no place in this must-pass, traditionally bipartisan bill. Next, I hope our Democratic colleagues in the Senate will work to bring forward a defense bill that meets our pressing national security and servicemember quality-of-life needs and strips out these lousy, culture war attacks—including on reproductive health care.” 

Specifically, the Republican-amended defense bill includes attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, reproductive healthcare for servicemembers in states where abortion is banned, attacks on diversity and inclusion initiatives, rollbacks of the Biden Administration’s efforts to combat climate change through the defense sector, and includes anti-fact checking provisions that would more easily allow Communist China and other adversaries to spread propaganda across America, and much more. 

 
The FY2025 NDAA includes many of Congressman Deluzio’s amendments, including: 

• Congressman Deluzio's anti-price gouging bill the Best Price for our Military Act.  
• A provision to prevent reductions of KC-135 aircraft from disadvantaging units like those in Western Pennsylvania, and an additional provision requiring that such aircraft be replaced by planes with equivalent or greater capability.  
• A requirement for the Joint Safety Council to review issues of servicemember fatigue and safety identified in the March 2024 report from the United States Comptroller General.  
• A pilot program testing out the use of robotic ship inspection and imaging technology and a subsequent report on the results of the program.  
• Authorization for an increase of $2.5 million for the Resilient Manufacturing Ecosystem under the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment Support program, supporting companies like those located at Neighborhood 91 at the Pittsburgh International Airport.  
• A report to Congress by January 2025 on improving oversight of mergers and acquisitions over the defense industrial base. The report is in response to a Government Accountability Office report from October 2023.  
• A report on the Defense Department’s use of advanced manufacturing technologies like additive manufacturing and robotics in its naval operations—industries important to Western Pennsylvania’s workers and economy. 

The U.S. Senate is advancing its own FY2025 NDAA. After the Senate passes its version, both sides will come together in conference to work on a compromise legislation that must again pass both Houses of Congress before President Biden signs the bill into law.  

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