June 12, 2024
To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports H.R. 8070, the “Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025,” which would authorize $895 billion for national defense commitments at home and abroad. Passage of this important legislation would strengthen and advance the National Defense Strategy and ensure that the Department’s procurement, research, and readiness priorities of the services are met.
We applaud the bipartisan work of the Committee on Armed Services for producing a bill that ensures that servicemembers have the resources they need in the near term and that provides important policy direction to Pentagon officials to best protect Americans and American interests now and into the future.
In particular, the Chamber strongly supports sections of the legislation that would strengthen the Department of Defense’s partnership with the commercial sector in space related industries.
We support provisions of the legislation that would require a report on the current requirements of combatant commands (COCOM) for remote sensing data. Remote sensing data is a valuable enabling tool for U.S. military forces that support numerous COCOM missions around the world, and due to its unclassified nature, encourages information sharing with allies and foreign partners.
We support provisions of the legislation that would encourage the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to include a sustained procurement program in the FY2026 Budget Request to support the implementation of a Radar Commercial Layer. The continued use of the Strategic Commercial Enhancement Program (SCE) to procure commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data is not a long-term solution for supporting COCOM demands.
Lastly, we support a wide scope of commercial space activities at Department of Defense test ranges, including launch and reentry operations. The Chamber supports continued collaboration between the Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to implement a non-duplicative, single-approval process for each licensed activity on the Eastern and Western ranges and supports the expansion of these operations at ranges that are part of the Major Range Test and Facility Base MRTFB to ensure access for new commercial reentry technologies.
The Chamber supports the following amendments to H.R. 8070 that would improve the legislation in several key areas:
- Critical Minerals: It is imperative for Congress and the defense industrial base to ensure the diversification of the supply chain away from foreign adversaries and focus on domestically sourcing and mining critical minerals. Amendment #204 would strengthen the domestic supply of critical minerals and materials.
- Advanced Nuclear Development and Deployment: Amendment #73 would build on provisions of the legislation to help expedite the development of the advanced nuclear supply chain and the deployment and commercialization of advanced reactors.
The Chamber supports H.R. 8070, the “Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025.” We believe that passage of this bipartisan legislation is critical to our Nation’s security and global leadership.
Sincerely,
Neil L. Bradley
Executive Vice President, Chief Policy Officer,
and Head of Strategic Advocacy
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
