The Senate Armed Services Committee’s bill prohibits a reduction of the U.S. military’s footprint in Europe or relinquishing the position of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, which has been held by an American since Dwight D. Eisenhower, without justification to Congress that such a move is in the national interest.
The committee’s legislation also directs the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the commander of U.S. European Command to conduct an independent risk assessment of such changes. The bill imposes a similar prohibition on drawing down U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula.
Lawmakers reacted with alarm to reports earlier this year that the Pentagon was considering ceding the role that oversees all NATO military operations in Europe to a non-American for the first time and pulling troops from the Continent in an effort to focus on deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region.
The House committee’s draft measure would bar a reduction of U.S. troops in Europe below 76,000 unless the defense secretary and commander of EUCOM provide an array of assessments to Congress explaining their reasoning and certify NATO allies have been consulted.
The Senate panel approved its version of the legislation on Wednesday while the House committee will debate and vote on its draft of the bill next week.
The two panels will need to eventually come to a compromise on a major point of difference in their bills: senators are endorsing a $32 billion increase to the defense budget, authorizing $878.7 billion for the Defense Department, while House lawmakers are sticking to the $848 billion for the Pentagon requested by the Trump administration.
The spending hike in the Senate committee’s bill reflects the feeling of Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and other defense hawks that the U.S. is in the most dangerous threat environment since World War II and needs to spend accordingly, senior congressional officials speaking on condition of anonymity said Friday.
Wicker has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration’s defense spending plan for fiscal 2026, which begins Oct. 1, and its heavy reliance on $150 billion allocated for the military in President Donald Trump’s recently adopted domestic policy megabill.
A large part of the Senate panel’s proposed funding increase — more than $8 billion — will go toward shipbuilding for the Navy. Senators also authorized about $6 billion more for munitions production and $2 billion more for military construction projects.
Lawmakers on both committees are supporting the 3.8% service member pay raise requested by the Defense Department and boosting investments in housing, child care, health care and other quality-of-life improvements.
Senior congressional officials told reporters Friday that the House panel is going $250 million over the administration’s request to fund new barracks. The legislation is also expanding the privatized housing program to build new unaccompanied housing.
The Senate and House panels found notable common ground on Ukraine.
The Defense Department is not seeking any money for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a longstanding program that allows Ukraine to purchase goods directly from the defense industry, but both committees are including hundreds of millions for the program.
The Senate panel’s bill funds the initiative through 2028 and authorizes $500 million for it while the House committee’s draft legislation includes $300 million for the program. The House bill also requires the president to send Congress a determination that the funding is in the national interest before it can be spent.
“What we want to do is give the president every available option that we can to help him force Putin to the table on his issue,” said senior congressional officials in the House, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Senators also included language in their legislation that requires the defense secretary to continue to provide intelligence support to Ukraine, an apparent reference to the decision by the U.S. earlier this year to briefly pause intelligence sharing with the country.
The Senate Armed Services Committee also used the legislation to respond to the Trump administration’s firing of the Pentagon inspector general and senior judicial officers in the Army, Air Force and Navy.
The bill would require the Pentagon to notify Congress of the dismissal of the military’s top legal advisers within five days of the decision being made.
“We felt like adding a notification not necessarily proceeding but after the fact just to let us know was a fair measure,” a senior congressional official said.
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