Republicans’ attempt to ban state AI regulations was removed from the defense bill after bipartisan opposition, underscoring tensions between tech-industry demands, consumer protection concerns, and Trump’s push for sweeping federal preemption.

Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton: You’ve recently laid out a mix of reforms and warnings and priorities for the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which is still moving through Congress. What’s the overall message before we dig into the specifics that POGO wants to send about this year’s recommendations?

Greg Williams: Sure. I think we all welcome all of the extraordinary work that Congress has done this year to produce two different versions of NDAA bills that work very hard to overhaul military acquisition. Now that said, they place an enormous emphasis on deregulating military acquisition, with the Senate’s version repealing no fewer than 86 distinct statutes that govern military acquisition. Now, Congress has its own research arm to help inform for these decisions, and that’s the Government Accountability Office. Now the Government Accountability Office maintains a database of suggestions. And last I checked, there were 750 recommendations they had for how the Defense Department is run and exactly none of them recommend repealing any statutes having to do with military acquisition. Now I think the unavoidable question is if Congress doesn’t seem to be listening to the GAO, its own investigative body, well, who is it listening to? I think it’s only logical to wonder to what extent these changes are being pushed by the defense industry, perhaps at the expense of the interests of the taxpayer.

Terry Gerton: Are you seeing any specifics in the NDAA that relate back to those 750 GAO suggestions?

Greg Williams: Frustratingly few. Two that I’ll call out that I think are really important are passages in both the House and Senate versions that secure greater right to repair the military’s own equipment. Just imagine you’re far from home, you have a piece of equipment that you rely on, perhaps for your safety or in order to be able to complete your mission, and it breaks. Right now, there are rules, laws, contracts that often get in the way of military personnel fixing those things. This year’s NDAA, whether the Senate or the House versions prevail in this context, will dramatically increase the military’s right to repair its own equipment. And I think it’s really important that those passages survive conference. The other one that I think is particularly important in terms of acquisition law are some reforms to what’s called the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which stipulates that Congress needs to be informed if weapons development or procurement programs breach certain cost thresholds and requires that the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War recertify those programs and provide updated timetables and budgets for their completion. So the passages that amend that provide Congress more say in the recertification of those programs and they make it easier to call out cost overages, especially in the case of large programs like naval shipbuilding, where if you look at the overall program, you may not have breached overall cost thresholds. But you’ve already built two or three ships and you can tell that they’re way over budget. What this passage allows you to do is to treat them as distinct subprograms and apply those thresholds to them individually.

Terry Gerton: Well, you’re right. There’s certainly a lot of coverage in the NDAA, both versions, around acquisition reform. One of the other pieces that POGO has really called out is the use of military force. First, you recommend that the authorizations for the use of military force from 1991 and 2002 tied to operations in Iraq be repealed. Why is it so important to take those off the books now?

Greg Williams: Well, those AUMFs have been used very pervasively to authorize all kinds of use of violence around the world that seem to have very little to do with the original intentions of those two AUMFs. And one of the ways Congress can clarify the use of its power to decide when and where we go to war is by not leaving things like that lying around to be potentially misinterpreted or reinterpreted by the executive branch.

Terry Gerton: I’m speaking with Greg Williams. He’s the director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight. Greg, let’s follow up on this a little bit because there are conversations happening between the president and his team and Congress right now about operations in Venezuela. So how do those AUMFs relate to those kinds of current conversations?

Greg Williams: Well, I’m going to emphasize that there are operations against Venezuelan nationals and Venezuelan boats, and they’re being treated by the administration as being very distinct from potential operations that might take place in Venezuela. And in fact, the administration is arguing that they don’t need to comply with the War Powers Act in the context of the Venezuelan boats because we’re not deploying troops in harm’s way. As you may know, these boat strikes are believed to be largely conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles and so arguably, American troops are never in any danger as we execute these strikes. Now if we were to invade Venezuela or if we were to fly crewed aircraft over Venezuela or even close to Venezuela and engage in a shooting war with them, that would more clearly trigger the requirements of the War Powers Act, or at least that would not be subject to the exclusion that the Trump administration has called out in the context of those boats.

Terry Gerton: One of the other concerns that you raise about military deployments is border enforcement and the use of military forces in that function. What’s the concern there?

Greg Williams: Well, the overall concern is that what we’re seeing is a steady erosion of what we thought were bright lines, protecting both American citizens and others against being arbitrarily seized or killed. And whether we see those lines blurred outside our borders, as in the context of these boats or inside of our borders, it just makes us all a lot less safe. It’s much harder to count on not being swept up in some raid and potentially deported to a foreign country without any meaningful opportunity to defend our rights.

Terry Gerton: Well, military deployments and acquisition reform are really big topics. I want to pull you down to something a little more wonky and talk cost accounting standards because you’ve got a recommendation in here and there’s been a lot of conversation about moving DoD from cost accounting standards to GAAP, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Why was that important enough to raise in your memo?

Greg Williams: I think it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how accounting in general works. And it undermines a very basic control that any customer organization wants to have over vendors that are submitting things like expense reports. So at a high level, I would describe the generally accepted accounting principles as a set of tools that are created by an industry consortium to protect shareholders in private organizations from misrepresentation of the value of the enterprise. Cost accounting standards are like the expense report guidelines that any consultant or anyone who’s ever worked as a customer for a big business has to comply with. And different customers have different standards. Some say you can’t have any alcohol at all with your dinner, some say you can have one drink. Some say if you’ve traveled less than 50 miles, you can’t submit any meal-related expenses. It represents an agreement between the customer and their vendor about what is and is not an acceptable expense. And it’s a very basic structure that any business person should recognize.

Terry Gerton: How does that relate to DoD’s ability to pass an audit?

Greg Williams: I don’t think it is particularly related. As long as you follow whatever rules are articulated for you, you can pass an audit. I think use of cost accounting standards is more about making sure that the government gets a fair deal from its vendors when those vendors submit cost reports for reimbursement.

Terry Gerton: So POGO’s list is pretty specific in terms of things that you would hope Congress would consider. If they were to take up your list, what kinds of impact would you expect to see in terms of military readiness and operations?

Greg Williams: Well, I think it’s really interesting that over the last several weeks we’ve paid a lot of attention to the USS Gerald Ford Carrier Strike Group. There are two readiness issues that bear on it directly that have received some attention, I think, should probably receive more attention. One is that it was called out as a specific example of how service people are affected by the inability to repair their own equipment. And the example that was used was, I think, more than half of the ovens used to prepare meals for sailors embarked on the Ford were out of commission and had to wait an extended period of time for the vendor to repair them. Now that’s one thing when you know you can’t have muffins with your breakfast. But if similar principles apply to systems that allow the aircraft carrier to launch and recover aircraft or move weapons to the flight deck and things like that, just imagine being 6,000 miles away from the contractor who might repair those things and having one of them break and having to wait or redeploy back to the continental United States to have those things fixed. It’s just, I think, a fundamentally unreasonable expectation and puts our troops needlessly in danger.

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Interview transcript

Terry Gerton Last week Congress was in recess, but that didn’t mean it was a quiet news week. The White House floated a plan to address the health care subsidy problem that was part of the shutdown agreement. What are you hearing there and how’s it playing?

Mitchell Miller Well, when this trial balloon floated, it completely caught a lot of House Republicans, particularly, off guard. They were totally surprised by this and the fact that it was going to be a two-year extension. Now it would have potentially included some of the reforms that GOP lawmakers are looking for. They want limits on income that are now brought down a little bit more. They want some reforms that they say will take care of waste. But this definitely was quite an event here on the Hill, given the fact that the lawmakers are spread out all across the country in their districts, but they quickly made it clear that they did not like this proposal. And so while there was talk about it being rolled out last week, the White House quickly put the brakes on it and said, okay … Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, is acknowledging there are some very intense discussions about what is going to happen with health care within the White House and within, among Republicans. But right now, everybody’s kind of scrambling. There are some bipartisan proposals that are coming out of the House. The Senate is trying to work with some things. What I think may happen in the coming weeks is, you’re going to have a vote in the Senate, maybe one or two, on these proposals. One of them is likely to just be a straight up extension of the ACA for a year to keep those insurance costs down. That will likely go down to defeat. And then Republicans, it’s still unclear exactly what they’re going to propose, but you can bet that there will be something brought to the floor by Senate Majority Leader John Thune. That I think will also be defeated because Democrats will filibuster it. And then I think what is really going to probably happen is, this is all gonna get pushed into January, and when people start seeing those eye popping insurance costs going up $100, $500, $1,000, $2,000 and more per month, that is going to put a lot of heat on lawmakers to try to come up with something.

Terry Gerton You make a good point that there aren’t that many working days in December before they get to having to deal with this in January. What else is on the congressional agenda for those few days?

Mitchell Miller Well, you know, that’s a big question because last week was just really a lost week. When the House came back after the shutdown, there was all this talk about they were gonna get right back to trying to get back to regular order and we were going to see a lot of action on appropriations bills. That really just did not happen. There were a few symbolic votes in the House, and so they’ve still got this set of nine appropriations bills that they have to deal with. And even though they keep talking a good game and saying that they’re going to address them, and there is some appropriations meetings going on back in behind the scenes, but that’s going to be the real big thing that they need to at least start getting some traction on, some type of a minibus, perhaps bringing together three, four, maybe five big legislative bills together. But right now that is still in a free form position, so we’ll have to see with the only those limited work days in December will will they actually get much done.

Terry Gerton It feels like we talk about the NDAA every time, but that was supposed to come up for a a vote in early December as well.

Mitchell Miller Right. And that looks like it’s being delayed as well. There’s as you know, many provisions in it that are getting a lot of discussion. Among them, of course, is one of them related to artificial intelligence, the AI provision in the NDAA. There’s so much agreement on the NDAA and we know that this always gets passed every year, but I think that’s the big sticking point right now is that, basically this push to put a hold on everything that would happen in the states with AI so that the federal government could try to get its arms around it. And there’s been a lot of pushback from state lawmakers as well as the house lawmakers that are involved with those people. So I think the NDAA is going to get pushed back a little bit more. Certainly they’re close — you have House and Senate negotiators just trying to bring all of this together. That’ll be a big one this month.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Mitchell Miller, he’s Capitol Hill correspondent for WTOP. Mitchell, one thing that’s got to be on lawmakers’ minds in December is the retirement of the comptroller general, the head of the government accountability office. Gene Dodaro’s term ends at the end of the month. What are you hearing in terms of the maneuvering and the nomination for his replacement?

Mitchell Miller Well, I think there’s actually a lot of nervousness right now about what is going to happen with him. He has been a steady hand on the rudder, as you know, for close to fifteen years now, and there’s really a lot of discussion about how they’re going to get a successor to him. And frankly, it’s not really clear what’s going to happen. You have this panel of lawmakers that are supposed to nominate the next person, but they’re also looking for some guidance from the White House because that will have a big role in the type of person that replaces him. And the fact that this is, you know, one of the most prominent unelected positions in the federal government, the fact that this person is really responsible for rooting out waste, which Republicans have said they want to do and that they tried to do with DOGE, how much of a leash is the new head of GAO going to have? Will the White House go along with Republicans? We’ve seen Republicans starting to assert their own voice a little bit more, saying that they want some independence here, or will the White House crush that and say, you know, President Trump says I want this person and we’re gonna put them in? So I think we’re going to see a lot of maneuvering here in the next few weeks because he will be gone, as you know, later in the month.

Terry Gerton Do you think it’s an opportunity for Congress to push back or take back some of its authority? GAO is their oversight body.

Mitchell Miller Right, exactly. I think there is because whether they’re Republican or Democrat, I think the institutionalists, at least, believe that this type of leadership is necessary. And there’s no question about it, whatever political stripe you’re from, this office does root out a substantial amount of waste. I mean, they talk about something along the lines of a $160 billion in the past year. And so also these lawmakers, let’s not forget, when they’re leading various committees or subcommittees, they rely on the GAO for investigations to try to find out what do we need to fix. Everybody’s talking about what needs to be done to make federal government better. Well, this is perfectly an example of where you find the areas where there are problems that the GAO identifies and then Congress can act and react and and create legislation.

Terry Gerton Mitchell, all of these things together, the healthcare proposal from the White House, the delay in the agenda, even this issue of replacing the the head of GAO, point to kind of a an a miasma in the air, if you will, that maybe the White House and the president are losing their grip on Republican policy. What is the feeling on the hill and what implications might this have going forward?

Mitchell Miller I think that this is a great point because there has really been no change among House and Senate Republicans from Trump 1.0 to 2.0 up to this point, however, you have definitely seen in just the past week the real first seismic changes happening within the GOP. And I think, you know, you look at Marjorie Taylor Green and you could say, oh, well, she’s only one of more than 430 lawmakers. But the fact that she decided to resign, that also caused a lot of House Republicans to say, you know what, we’re kind of fed up with being just treated like the little brother at the card table of the Thanksgiving dinner and patted on the head and we want to actually legislate, we wanna assert ourselves a little bit more. So I think you are going to see more of that, particularly on the House side. The House side, frankly, has been kind of quiet in part because they literally were not here for 43 days during the shutdown. But I think that is going to affect the policies of the White House and what they propose. Like as we just talked about, the health care proposal, like that would have been unthinkable a few months ago that Republicans would have rebelled that much. You do see it more so on the Senate side, a little bit more quietly, but I think that is going to have a pretty big impact on what we see moving forward legislatively in the coming year.

Terry Gerton And that’s going to lead right into the midterms in 2026, so much to watch.

Mitchell Miller Absolutely.

Terry Gerton Mitchell, thanks as always for joining me.

Mitchell Miller You bet

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The fight over AI regulation isn't about the technology -- it's about whether Washington or the states get to set the rules, and what happens to consumers caught in between.

Nearly every service member living in privatized military housing has experienced at least one serious issue in their home — and an overwhelming number say their family’s health has been negatively impacted by their housing conditions. Nearly half said a medical provider had confirmed the connection, a new survey found. 

The Change the Air Foundation recently conducted the Safe Military Housing Survey — one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to collect data the Defense Department has never been able to track accurately. The survey  was designed to answer questions previous studies had overlooked and to provide Congress and the Pentagon with better data on what families across all branches and ranks are actually experiencing in military housing. 

“We were hearing a lot of how many indoor air quality hazards and just housing hazards that these families were experiencing. But nobody was really ever asking, how is this affecting your physical health? How is this affecting your cognitive abilities? How is this affecting your mental and emotional health, and your and your personal finances? That’s a huge component of this survey,” Brandon Chappo, co-founder and director of public policy at the Change the Air Foundation, told Federal News Network. 

Erica Thompson, a military spouse and the military families’ liaison for the Change the Air Foundation, lived in military housing for 10 months at Maxwell Air Force Base located in Montgomery, Alabama. Thompson said her family immediately noticed serious issues with the house, including a failing AC system they were told couldn’t be replaced. Once contractors opened the walls without any containment, the entire family — including their dog — began experiencing a cascade of medical issues. Her son started passing out in the house and the dog started having seizures; three of their children were later diagnosed with asthma and one was diagnosed with bilateral pediatric cataracts in both eyes. 

“We saw a huge range of health implications across the board, throughout our whole family. And so I think using part of that, it was able to guide us through this questionnaire, some of those things that I wish offices knew. It was able to really give me insight into making some of these questions, because we would share our story with congressional offices, they would say, ‘How many more kids are there like yours?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. There’s no data around that right now,’” Thompson told Federal News Network.

For decades, service members and their families living in privatized military housing have been exposed to hazardous conditions, including black mold, contaminated water, asbestos in ceilings and lead in walls. The survey found that mold, mildew or microbial growth were the most common issues, reported by 74% of respondents. More than half of respondents cited significant problems with temperature and humidity, pest infestations, water damage and HVAC failures.

“Mold and water damage can be extraordinarily hazardous to somebody’s health. That’s extremely dismaying,” Chappo said.

Overall, 76% of service members said their health has been negatively affected by housing conditions, and nearly half said a physician had confirmed their homes were making them sick. 

The survey also revealed an alarming statistic — 47% of service members said their housing issues impacted their ability to perform their duties or maintain mission readiness. The problem was particularly prevalent among those stationed in Florida. 

Three in five service members reported experiencing mental health challenges such as anxiety or depression, and roughly two in five service members said those issues affected their ability to attend work or training. One in six service members had to relocate — sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently — often leaving behind personal items that had been damaged. 

“That is absolutely stunning. And so, if anything, it underscores the importance of trying to get these issues dealt with. It’s the fact that not only are our service members’ health and wellness being affected, it’s mission readiness. This is a national security issue, and we need to start talking about it in that light, and start really framing it in that way,” Chappo said. 

While anxiety, depression, mood changes, cognitive issues, insomnia, headaches, migraines, brain fog and skin, eye and respiratory irritation top the list of reported health problems, the survey found the health impacts to be far more extensive than that.

“This is extraordinary. These [medical conditions] weren’t just in the low percentages. We’re talking in the 20, 30, 40 percentages for some of these. Even those alone, being as high as they are, really should catch the attention of, hopefully, the country, and of course, those in Congress,” Chappo said. 

The survey found that Florida, Hawaii and Texas experienced housing-related issues at far greater rates and saw significantly higher rates of both health impacts and readiness concerns. Nearly 60% of service members stationed in Florida said housing issues impacted their ability to perform their duties. Health impacts were also higher than average — 84% of Florida service members said their families’ health had been impacted by house-related issues, compared with 83% in Hawaii and North Carolina. 

“I think it’s got to do with lots of these states are on federal land, and they don’t have to follow the state regulations for building and code, and so that’s something that needs to be looked at. But Florida, Hawaii and Texas were exponentially higher on those stats for both readiness and really across the board. And those have some really big commands in those states as well that need to have some attention drawn to it,” Thompson said. 

Marines reported the highest rates across all branches, with 85% saying their families were affected.

“We were displaced multiple times, with one displacement over 30 days. Relocation to a new home was requested, but we were denied a new home. We ultimately moved into a hotel on our dime after getting rid of everything we owned,” an active Marine service member in North Carolina told the Change the Air Foundation. 

Gaps in current dispute resolution process

Whenever a housing-related issue arises, service members are supposed to follow a three-step tenant resolution process that includes built-in escalation steps.

The first step is to file a service call. If the issue isn’t resolved to the service member’s satisfaction, it can be escalated to the Military Housing Office or the government housing office on base, along with the service member’s chain of command to help elevate the issues. Thompson said that’s where most families drop out of the process.

The survey found that nine in ten service members always reported the issues they were experiencing, but only 7% made it all the way through the tenant resolution process — and of those, 72% said it still did not resolve their problem.

One in 14 service members were denied the tenant resolution process altogether.

“I want people to try to understand this, nine of 10 service members reported issues as they should to the proper authorities. Nine of 10 had to report the same issue multiple times. 66% of those had their issues marked resolved without a satisfactory result and over 50% of those went unresolved entirely. We have a situation here where the families are asking, calling, screaming for help. They’re upholding their end of the bargain, and the other side isn’t, and it’s failing,” Chappo said.

“Only 7% of service members actually made it through the entire dispute resolution process. That shows us that it’s broken. It’s failing. It’s not working,” he added.

In addition, the survey highlights major gaps in seven-year housing histories, with only 43% of service members receiving one — and most of those were incomplete.

“You’re able to turn down a house if you recognize or see something you’re not comfortable with. But if their service calls aren’t accurate, or it’s not reporting accurately, I think that screams to a bigger issue of what is going on? What’s the further issue? It’s not only for the service members, but it’s for DoD accountability,” Thompson said. 

Out-of-pocket cost of privatized housing

Roughly half of service members reported paying an average of $1,680 out of pocket for costs such as pest control, mold inspections, hotel stays and medical bills .

“If they’re paying for pest control out of pocket, that’s not something that’s reimbursable. Our dehumidifiers and air purifiers are not reimbursable. You just end up paying out of pocket to do what you can, to try and make what you have work. And then same with medical bills, if you’re seeking extra time or care outside of the military, that’s out of pocket as well,” Thompson said. 

Nearly all military family housing in the United States — about 99% — is owned and managed by private companies. These projects are built around 50-year ground leases and legal agreements that private partners use to secure financing and guarantee predictable revenue over decades, which limited the Defense Department’s ability to cancel or renegotiate agreements when housing conditions declined, creating oversight challenges that have persisted for decades.

Thompson, along with other advocates, have been advocating for several amendments to be included in the 2026 defense policy bill, including the proposed Healthy at Home on Base Act, which would require the Defense Department to study mold and its health effects in both military housing and barracks. Another amendment would direct the department to adopt uniform mold remediation standards across all barracks and family housing.

“We’re hearing a lot of congressional offices are starting to read the report, and they’re already asking for meetings to discuss these a little more closely, and then, of course, talk about some of the fixes and solutions. We’re having some feedback and some conversations with folks at the Pentagon who are kind of taking a closer look at this as well, and trying to come up with long term fixes, as opposed to band aid fixes,” Chappo said.

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Interview transcript

Terry Gerton There’s so many headlines coming out of Congress, I can’t even keep track, but let’s get to funding. Rumor has it that the NDAA is going to get a vote soon. What are you hearing?

Loren Duggan That’s what we’re hearing as well. This has been a target to do something by the end of the year. Both chambers passed versions and sent them to informal talks where they’re trying to come up with a compromise and the big four, the chairman and ranking members of the committees have been sitting down and hashing that out. We first need to see texts. They’ll come up an agreement and post this text. We’ll be pouring over it and seeing what it says. And they had hoped for votes in early December, once they all get back to town after Thanksgiving and get that through and onto President Trump, because it is a big bill every year. They always do it. No one wants to fail at doing it. And so we’re likely to see a compromise and some votes in December on that.

Terry Gerton Any surprising additions over the last few weeks?

Loren Duggan Well, I think the big thing that’s been introduced to the debate has been whether or not to preempt state AI regulation using language in this bill. That was something that had come up in the summer around the reconciliation or the one big, beautiful bill act where they had inserted it in the house, took it out in the Senate and it’s come back as an issue and would talk around maybe a draft executive order on AI policy or some sort of legislative language to address that. So that’s, been one of the things that’s come up. And you know, the bill like that always attracts everything from contracting policy to defense questions to war and peace and things like that. So, you know I think the compromise that comes out will have broad support among the folks who need to vote on it. So that might mean some things drop out of the conversation, but … until we see that language, we won’t know what makes the cut.

Terry Gerton Well, it’s good to hear that it’s moving forward on that end of the year timeline. Let’s move to appropriations bills. When we got the shutdown settlement, we got a small minibus of bills with full-year appropriations. But now they’re talking about some other combinations. What are you hearing and what’s the progress before January 30th?

Loren Duggan Right, so the continuing resolution that reopened the government had three of the bills for agriculture and FDA, legislative branch, and military construction and VA. So those are all set, but there’s still nine to go. And one of the questions is, how do you package them? What do you do? And which chambers vote on things next? So what we have been anticipating is a package in the Senate that would be the Senate bills, not necessarily a compromise, but at least to move the ball forward, package together four or five bills. I think the keys to that would be defense and then the labor HHS education bills, which are kind of like your guns and butter combination, plus some other bills that have come out of the appropriations committee. Likewise, the appropriators, the top ones in the House and the Senate sat down and tried to find their own path forward. You know, what talks can we have? Do we want to wait for the Senate? So there’s been some talk and some activity, but the January 30th deadline gives them a little bit of wiggle room. They may try to get something done. Before the end of the year, but obviously they don’t have to do another thing until January 30th.

Terry Gerton Let’s talk about that first bundle you mentioned, Defense, Labor, H[ousing], and Education. The Trump administration has been announcing its dismemberment of the Education Department, not its disestablishment, but its dismemberment. If they pass an appropriations bill that treats the department like it always was, how do you put Humpty Dumpty back together again in those circumstances?

Loren Duggan I mean, this sort of goes back to the executive action on a lot of different things where Congress had asked — I mean let’s go back to the beginning of this year where USAID was a fully funded agency and was slowly phased out and some of its responsibilities diffused elsewhere. So, you know, the education department, as you mentioned, they took some steps last week, announced some, you know, spidering out of its duties across the government as they’d like to see. Congress would probably have to pass a bill to completely disestablish the department, but we’ll see what they say in these bills. I mean, they’ve written, to my knowledge, the education portion of that Labor-HHS-Education bill is as though the department was what it was when they approved that bill. So, you know, Congress may push back on a complete dismemberment of the department, but that’s part of the kind of ongoing dynamic here that we’ve seen all year.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan, he’s deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. Loren, a couple other things I want to take up with you. One, discharge petitions seem to be having a moment in the house. Talk to us about why that is happening and what it means in terms of regular order.

Loren Duggan So discharge petitions matter most when there’s a really narrow majority. And you know, there’s the majority party and the majority of a day. And the majority of a day means you get 218 to sign onto one of these petitions and you can pull forward legislation, even if leaders don’t want. And to your point, we’ve seen that a couple of times this year. We saw it on proxy voting for parents. We saw it on most recently — we saw it on the Epstein case, obviously, which was one that had dragged out for a while. And then Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat, got it on a labor-related bill, and he attracted enough Republican support. And that’s what it means here. There are a lot of Democrats, but you need at least a few Republicans. They cross over. You can control the floor or at least push your bill forward. Historically, this existed because the speaker had an iron grip on the House agenda and members banded together and created this process. There is some talk now, some pushback. Do we need to change this process, make it harder? And we’ll see if there’s any traction for that, but as long as the majority is as narrow as it is, and you get enough members to band with you, you can kind of control the agenda for a brief period of time.

Terry Gerton Well, it does at least seem to be moving some things forward.

Loren Duggan It definitely is moving things around. I mean, the Epstein vote had been wanted by people for a long time and then they finally got it. And what was even more interesting there is you went from like a bare majority signing onto the discharge petition to all but one of those who voted voting yes in the end. So, you know, the dynamics there are really interesting.

Terry Gerton So there’s one more topic that I want to take up with you, and it bundles several recent headlines together. We had a federal judge who ruled that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in the District of Columbia was illegal. We had some members of both houses of Congress create a video talking about why the military doesn’t need to obey illegal orders, and a response from the White House on that. And then we’ve got Ukraine and Venezuelan operations that continue to circulate. I don’t want to dig into any of those specifically, but collectively, Congress has a responsibility here when it comes to military operations and deployment. Do all of these things perhaps portend a more active engagement from either the Senate or the House on these issues of military operations?

Loren Duggan I mean, we’ve seen some of that, obviously there’s pushback a lot of times from Democrats on what this administration is doing, but there is Republican pushback as well. We’ve seen that on some of the foreign policy questions, whether it’s terrorists or, attacking Venezuela, preventing an attack on land in Venezuela, dealing with the boats. So Congress is asserting itself in some places, but, you know, controlling the hearings right now, that’s all Republicans. And if they want to avoid a hearing that would perhaps raise some of these questions. But at the same time, if you get a a nominee for a defense job in front of some senators, they may ask some tough questions and likewise in the house. So I think we’ll see some discussions, some pushback on some of these things. The defense debate that we’ve talked about having both on the spending side and the authorization side, there could be discussion around all those topics in there as well. So, you know, we see Congress asserting itself in different ways and outside of Congress too, using social media channels, using the media to get their message across or try to push back on what they don’t like.

Terry Gerton So what are you anticipating will be at the top of the agenda when Congress gets back after the Thanksgiving holiday?

Loren Duggan One thing that’s going to surge back is this ACA enhanced premium tax credit issue, how to prevent increases in what people are paying for their health insurance under Obamacare. Going into the recess, there was no consensus. They’re going to try to push for it. Senators agree to vote by the end of the year on something. We’ll be looking to see what that something ends up being. But that’s really driving a lot of the discussion on and off the floor right now.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Loren Duggan, deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. Loren, thanks as always. Thank you. We’ll post this interview at federalnewsnetwork.com slash federal drive. Here at the federal drive on your schedule, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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Two lawmakers want to fully exempt military compensation from federal income tax — a move that would deliver a significant pay boost for service members and mark one of the most sweeping tax changes for the military community.

The legislation, dubbed the Service Members Tax Relief Act, seeks to eliminate federal income tax on all active-duty and reserve pay, including enlistment, retention and education bonuses and all special and incentive pays.

The measure would go well beyond previous tax-exemption proposals, which largely focus on bonuses or specialty pays.

In May, for example, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the BONUS act, which would amend a section of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to explicitly exempt all military bonuses from federal income tax.

“The bill builds on existing tax exclusions for certain military benefits and responds to long-standing concerns raised by troops, families and advocates who believe those who serve should not be taxed on the bonuses they earn in service to our country,” Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), the sponsor of the BONUS act, said at the time.

Similarly, the No Tax on Bonuses Act, introduced in April, seeks to exclude service members’ enlistment and reenlistment bonuses from gross income.

Currently, service members deployed to combat zones receive tax-free income. In addition, most allowances that make up a significant portion of a service member’s total compensation, including basic allowance for housing and basic allowance for subsistence are tax-exempt.  Veterans’ disability compensation is also exempt from federal income taxes. Together, these exemptions amount to roughly $30 billion a year in foregone federal income tax revenue each year. 

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) and Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who introduced the Service Members Tax Relief act this week, are also sponsoring the Tax Cuts for Veterans Act of 2025, a measure that would amend Section 122 of the Internal Revenue Code to exclude all military retirement pay and veterans’ benefits from federal income taxes. This includes all retired and retainer pay under Titles 10 and 14, as well as all VA monthly benefits, including disability compensation and survivor payments covered under Titles 37 and 38. 

The two measures stand apart from prior proposals, as no recent bill has attempted a tax exemption of this scope.

“It is pretty sweeping… and it’s potentially a very expensive proposal. Now, there’s a reason why Congress has, on a bipartisan basis, provided these existing tax exclusions for military and veterans benefits — there’s a wide bipartisan appreciation for the fact that if you served our country, put your life and put your body on the line — you’re receiving benefits that you deserve for that service…I think any proposal that costs tens of billions of dollars per year, Congress is going to scrutinize,” Andrew Lautz, director of tax policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Federal News Network.

It is unclear what strategy the sponsors plan to pursue — standalone bills often face political hurdles, and lawmakers frequently try to attach such proposals to larger legislative packages like the annual National Defense Authorization Act to increase their chances. 

“These bills are fiscally conservative in that they offer relief through the tax code instead of new spending. It is a win-win; the exemption instantly improves take-home pay, while helping with recruitment and retention, which in turn keeps our war fighters strong,” Hamadeh said.

Lautz pushed back on the idea that the bills are “fiscally conservative,” arguing that a dollar of a tax cut that isn’t offset adds to the deficit just as much as a dollar of new spending that isn’t paid for.

“If you’ve got $100 billion spending program or the $100 billion tax cut, and you’re not paying for that — that is not fiscally responsible. Now, Republican lawmakers have shown a preference for cutting taxes over increasing government spending, and Democrats vice versa, that is an unmistakable trend. But in terms of the fiscally responsible approach here, I think the message we’ve sent to both parties is that if you’re going to have a large tax cut or you’re going to have a large spending increase, you should pay for it with offsetting either spending cuts or tax increases,” Lautz said.

While the proposal would eliminate federal income taxes on military pay, active-duty and reserve personnel would still be paying payroll taxes on their income.

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House and Senate negotiators are racing to finalize the 2026 defense policy bill by the end of the week, with all House and Senate Armed Services Committee disputes resolved and only a few Senate jurisdictional details still holding the legislation’s advancement to the House floor in early December.

“I think what they’re doing is, there’s been a couple of pencils-down time frames, but it sounds like it’ll be done by the end of the week. That’s what the focus is. Get it done by the end of the week, and then to be on the floor the beginning of the second week of December,” Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Federal News Network Tuesday. 

The one big place where things are still going through the process, Wittman said, is with the other committees of jurisdiction. They can either decide to waive jurisdiction or refine the language in ways that ensure the “Big Four” on HASC and SASC will agree to include it in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“It really is a Senate issue because the Senate has the rules where they can add some things that are not allowed under House rules. That’s really where the issue is right now, I think all the HASC and SASC issues have been taken care of,” Wittman said. 

The Senate advanced its NDAA with broad bipartisan support in October, while the House version passed in September with mostly GOP support.

The two chambers were divided on topline funding — the Senate bill authorized nearly $925 billion for national defense, while the House version aligned with the White House’s $883 billion request. 

Both bills are heavily focused on acquisition reforms, and while the two chambers target many of the same areas, they differ in approach and specific reforms. 

“The House’s version really focused on achieving mission outcomes. It’s much more outcome-based. The Senate version was more about governance. How do we change the issues there of governance? Some of the things that we saw there that I think are really transformational is time frames,” Wittman said during the Defense One State of Defense Business Acquisition event on Tuesday. “The average acquisition process in the Pentagon is 800 days. This is going to change it to 90 to 120 days.”

Many of the acquisition reforms Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently rolled out as part of what he called a “war on Pentagon bureaucracy” mirror proposals in the House and Senate versions of the defense policy bill.

“Changing how we do modular open systems architecture — those things are going to be key, opening up the aperture even more, making it easier to use other transaction authorities, changing the [program executive officers] to [program acquisition executives], and then taking those billets that are now three-year billets and turning them into six-year billets,” Wittman said. “That’s actually a longer-term perspective for folks in those areas. I think this is the farthest-reaching effort in acquisition reform in the history of DoD. And a lot of what the House and Senate are doing is reflected in some of the things that the Pentagon is doing.” 

Hegseth’s move to replace the current program executive offices with a smaller number of portfolio acquisition executives — giving these new portfolio leaders broader authorities, including the ability to shift funds among programs — is also part of the Senate’s acquisition reform proposals.

When asked whether officers who used to serve three years as PEOs would want to serve six-year tours as PAEs, Wittman wagered they would as long as it doesn’t interfere with the promotion process.

“We’ve been clear that this does not interfere with the promotion process,” he said. “There’s nothing that prevents somebody that goes into a PAE position as a two-star to come out as a three-star, or, for that matter, even a four-star.” 

The change will also allow PAEs to take more risks in a culture that is deeply risk-averse. But it has to start with Congress, Whittman said. 

“We can’t lecture and say, ‘Take risks,’ and then the first time there’s a failure, we call somebody up on Capitol Hill and bang the table and holler and scream and go, ‘How did you do this? How could this happen?’ That behavior will stop in a heartbeat when somebody goes, ‘You know what? I watched them grill this PAE up on Capitol Hill. I’m not going to do that, so I’m not going to take any risks,’” Whittman said.

The post Lawmakers to finalize NDAA by week’s end, bring the bill to the floor in early December first appeared on Federal News Network.

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As Congress hammers out the final version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is putting pressure on a leading industry group to stop opposing bipartisan right-to-repair efforts aimed at giving the Pentagon greater control over fixing its own equipment.

In a letter to the National Defense Industrial Association, the Massachusetts senator called the organization’s opposition to reform proposals in the House and Senate versions of the legislation a “dangerous and misguided attempt to protect an unacceptable status quo of giant contractor profiteering.”

“Your organization’s attacks are based on unproven conjectures and self-serving projections, making clear there is no real basis to oppose the defense right-to-repair effort other than to protect profits of some of the largest defense contractors in the country,” Warren said in the letter.

The reforms aim to help the Defense Department obtain more technical information to allow troops to repair their gear in theater, enhancing readiness, saving taxpayer dollars and strengthening innovation.

“NDIA’s last-ditch efforts to oppose commonsense and bipartisan legislation that is a Trump administration priority appears to be a desperate attempt to cling to a status quo that makes big defense contractors billions of dollars a year at taxpayer expense. Instead of fighting reform efforts, NDIA should commit to working with DoD to protect service members and promote a healthy and competitive industrial base,” she added.

The military services have long faced contract-imposed restrictions on how they can repair and maintain equipment and weapons, leaving them dependent on original manufacturers to conduct necessary fixes in the field, which is costly and time-consuming. 

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, for example, recently pointed to a Black Hawk helicopter part to show how contractor restrictions drive up costs. The original equipment manufacturer refuses to repair or replace a small screen-control knob that grounds the aircraft when it breaks — forcing the Army to purchase an entire new screen assembly for $47,000. Driscoll said the Army could make the knob for just $15.

The right-to-repair issue has been gaining momentum and bipartisan support from Congress — and both the House and Senate included provisions in their versions of the 2026 defense policy bills. 

The House version of the bill includes a Data-as-a-Service Solutions for Weapon System Contracts provision, which would require DoD to negotiate access to the technical data and necessary software before signing a contract. That includes detailed manufacturing or process data, digital networks and models, software-related information, and operational and training information — all to be accessible as a service through various methods like online, in person or via machine-to-machine encryption.

Meanwhile, Senate lawmakers included a provision in their version of the annual bill that would require contractors to provide detailed instructions for repair and maintenance. 

“The Defense Secretary may not enter into a contract or agreement for the procurement, sustainment, or subsequent modifications of covered defense equipment unless the contract or agreement requires that the contractor deliver, or offer as a negotiated price option, Instructions for Continued Operational Readiness to the secretary upon delivery of the equipment,” the provision states.

The contractor would have to provide the department with the rights to diagnose, maintain and repair the equipment — and the department could withhold payment to the contractor until the company delivers those instructions. 

NDIA argues that the “instructions for continued operational readiness” that Congress wants DoD to have include “data, tools and software for operations, maintenance, installation and training, which could include sensitive and proprietary technical and manufacturing data and IP developed at the contractor’s private expense.” The group warns the proposal would allow DoD to provide those parts, tools and information to any authorized third-party contractor, including a company’s direct competitors under this proposal. 

In its white paper, NDIA said these efforts will “hamper innovation and DoD’s access to cutting-edge technologies by deterring companies, including traditional contractors, nontraditionals, and small businesses, from contracting with the DoD over concerns of forcing disclosure of IP; increasing legal, safety, and compliance risks; and introducing contractual and licensing conflicts.”

Some stakeholders, however, remain unconvinced.

“I’ve talked to folks that crafted the Senate language, and they don’t agree with that characterization at all. We’re almost dealing with perceptions here. I don’t see any real separation between the objectives in the House or in the Senate versions, but it’s in the particulars on how they do it,” Jerry McGinn,  the director of the CSIS’ Center for the Industrial Base, told Federal News Network.

In her letter to the industry group, Warren accused NDIA of “attacking these reforms with vague and threatening claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny,” including assertions that right-to-repair efforts would “hamper innovation.”

“The opposite is true. Small businesses have said that a defense right to repair law would create new business opportunities in the defense industrial base, not deter them from doing business with the military…Embracing competition will only grow the industrial base further,” Warren said.

“Your argument that such a right would deter companies from working with DoD is not supported by reality and appears to be a late-in-the game effort meant to confuse and scare members of Congress and muddy the terms of the debate,” she added.

In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Army to incorporate right-to-repair provisions in all new and existing contracts as part of the service’s sweeping transformation initiative. 

Stan Soloway, president and CEO of Celero Strategies and federal acquisition expert, said the debate is just the latest iteration of the government’s decades-long tug of war with industry over intellectual property and data rights. Ultimately, those issues need to be resolved early in a program’s life cycle and not moments of crisis.

“It is true that there have been very difficult negotiations between the parties when the government has sought data it believes it needed. Historically, the government has too often treated IP and tech data as a zero-sum game, demanding access far more broadly than needed. Meanwhile, industry has sometimes been overly zealous in protection of its IP and tech data rights. The lack of trust is real and endemic,” Soloway told Federal News Network.

NDIA declined to comment and referred questions on the matter to their aforementioned white paper.

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Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton Let’s talk about the current state of shutdown negotiations in the Senate. You’re sitting up there, what are you hearing?

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, we are officially well into the longest shutdown ever. There’s some growing frustration on both sides as we see kind of travel delays, people missing their SNAP benefits. So a lot of problems are starting to pile up, but we’re still seeing each side be pretty dug into its respective point of view. There are bipartisan conversations right now going on in the Senate. I just spoke with House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, and he was speaking a little bit about the negotiations that are happening with a continuing resolution and a minibus. But really what we see happening here is a lot of going around in circles. They keep landing on the same issues that we’ve had since the very beginning, like with Affordable Care Act tax credits. So it’s kind of a question mark right now where we’ll be able to get out of this, but it does seem like there’s intense pressure on both sides to reach an agreement.

Terry Gerton Well, there was some optimism at the beginning of last week that faded by the end of the week. There was perhaps hope that they could move that minibus with the three agreed-upon appropriations bills, MILCON, VA, USDA, and Leg Branch. What’s going to happen there?

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, we saw a lot of confidence, especially on Monday, with that three-bill minibus. After Tuesday’s elections, Democrats did better than a lot of people were expecting, and that kind of, you could say, inspired them to dig in a little bit more. They see that as a, that the American people are kind of on their side with this. And so things have derailed a little bit. Although I will say for the first 35 days of the shutdown, there were barely any bipartisan negotiations in the House or Senate. And now we’re actually seeing senators sit in rooms together and and talk about a way out. So, that is kind of a step forward to ending the shutdown, even though there isn’t any sort of agreement yet.

Terry Gerton Well, certainly in other pressure points, the FAA’s reduction of domestic air travel, the reduction in SNAP benefits, and coming up on another military pay cycle, all of those were expected to be pressure points. Are you seeing that anybody is feeling the need to respond to those?

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, and especially with the flight delays, you hear a lot about this because in the 2018-2019 shutdown, that was kind of a big forcing mechanism for lawmakers to make a deal. And we actually did see the FAA have to cut hundreds of flights already at airports across the country. So what you’re going to see is people having delayed flights, people having canceled flights, and that’s obviously a pretty big disruption. Lawmakers are taking note of that. It’s making things much more urgent, especially with the holidays coming up, being the busiest travel time of the year. With SNAP benefits, I would say that there’s been a lot of discussion about this, but there is that kind of legal fight going on between the Trump administration and judges over how many benefits and whether they can immediately put out full benefits. So there’s been a lot of questions around that, but there definitely is a lot of stress from the perspective of the 42 million Americans who received these food stamps and didn’t get them at the beginning of the month.

Terry Gerton Right. And I guess the other point that we had expected to maybe move hearts and minds was the healthcare premiums increase. I mean, the feds are now in Open Season, other folks are looking at the ACA premium benefits. That doesn’t seem to be having the effect people expected either.

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, Democrats for a long time had said that November 1st was a huge day in this whole experience because that’s the day that people would begin open enrollment, see that their premiums were going up. And while that did happen to a degree, it’s not really having any sort of shutdown-ending effect. We’re hearing Senate Democrats really calling for an ACA subsidy extension, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said that he would put that on the floor for an up or down vote. But the big problem here, or the big hang up, is that Speaker Mike Johnson in the House won’t promise to put that on the House floor for a vote. So, getting a bill through the Senate is all well and good, but it doesn’t really have any impact unless you can guarantee that it will also go through the House. And that’s why we’re seeing these negotiations repeatedly come up against this same obstacle.

Terry Gerton Well, you mentioned that folks are at least meeting in in the same room to have some conversations. Do you have a sense of what the non negotiables are from each side?

Maeve Sheehy  It seems to me that, well, from the House perspective, I’ll start with that ’cause I’m a House reporter. Speaker Johnson does not want to negotiate at all because he believes that the House has done its job and that Democrats are kind of holding the government ransom. In the Senate, it seems like Democrats are intent on having some sort of healthcare takeaway. They also want to make sure that federal workers who have been furloughed over the past month will get their back pay. That is guaranteed under law, under 2019 law. And until this shutdown, it’s been pretty understood that federal workers who are furloughed will get back pay. But there’s been some questioning about the legality of that, and the Trump administration has suggested that perhaps they won’t get the back pay, which would be a really big deal, obviously, for a lot of federal workers.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Maeve Sheehy. She’s a congressional reporter with Bloomberg Government. Well, Maeve, to that exact point about back pay for federal workers, Ron Johnson has a bill to pay excepted federal workers and military service members during the shutdown. Is that getting traction?

Maeve Sheehy It’s one of those things that sounds like it would, but actually hasn’t. Basically, Democrats have said — most Democrats have said, it’s gotten some bipartisan votes — but that they don’t want to kind of except very narrow parts of the workforce and allow them to get paid because that could leave vulnerable other people not to get paid. Because Ron Johnson’s bill would pay some federal workers, but not every single federal worker. And I think that that’s kind of the big sticking point and that’s what’s stopping it from getting more traction than it has.

Terry Gerton That’s an interesting take on it. Let’s change topics just a little bit. What else is going on with the legislative agenda? We know that the NDAA might be moving to conference soon. What else are you hearing?

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, in the House there’s really not much happening at all because they’ve been out of session for almost fifty days at this point. It’s been a really, really long time, and there haven’t been committee meetings, there haven’t been sort of the bipartisan meetings that there usually would be. So that’s obviously hampering things over here. In the Senate, they’ve been able to do a little bit more. And also, as you mentioned earlier, there are discussions about appropriations. So even if Congress does pass a clean continuing resolution to keep the government funded or to fund the government again, there are still those appropriations bills that are really important in the eyes of lawmakers to get done.

Terry Gerton So really until we get the shutdown sorted, not a whole lot else happening in those back rooms on the Hill.

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, we’ve been hearing a lot less about pretty much every single policy area ever since the government shutdown happened, just because it’s become the number one issue.

Terry Gerton Well, there was one other tidbit of information last week. Nancy Pelosi announced she’s not going to run for re-election. How did that play out?

Maeve Sheehy Yeah, it wasn’t necessarily a surprising decision because Pelosi had sort of hinted that maybe this would be her last term. She’s been on the Hill for so long, this is her, I believe, twenty-first or twentieth term in office. So she’s one of the longest serving members. I think the real question that this raises for me and that I’ve heard on the Hill as well is, will some of these other longest serving members, like Congressman Steny Hoyer, who served in leadership with Pelosi, like, will they also kind of take this as their time to leave? And the Democratic Party has had this whole question of generational change, of passing the torch, ever since President Biden stepped down. There were all of these questions about committee leaders in the House. So it’s really interesting to look at who is in leadership positions in the House and how long some of them have been there.

Terry Gerton That generational change question continues to come up, so we’ll see whether she’s opened up the door for others.

Maeve Sheehy That’s the big question.

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