The U.S. House of Representatives has taken a major step in shaping the nation’s defense priorities for the coming year, passing its version of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on September 13, 2025. The annual legislation, which sets spending levels and policy directives for the Department of Defense, is once again at the center of political, economic, and strategic debates in Washington and beyond.
According to reporting from Antiwar.com and statements by House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the House version of the NDAA passed with a vote of 231 to 196, reflecting a largely party-line split. Seventeen Democrats joined most Republicans in supporting the bill, while four Republicans sided with the majority of Democrats in opposition. The measure has been characterized by GOP leaders as a significant policy win, with Emmer describing the bill as one that "restores military lethality, codifies executive orders, and supports the President’s peace through strength agenda." Emmer further asserted that the legislation strengthens the Department of Defense, a position echoed by many in his party.
Yet, the bill’s passage is only one stage in a complex legislative process. As Antiwar.com notes, the NDAA must still be reconciled with a Senate version—expected to be voted on in the coming days—before a final compromise can be sent to the President’s desk. The annual NDAA has passed every year for over six decades, a testament to its importance and the bipartisan recognition of military funding as a national priority. But, as this year’s debates reveal, consensus on the details is often elusive.
One of the most notable provisions in the House bill is the repeal of the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs), which provided the legal basis for the Gulf and Iraq Wars. The repeal, introduced by Democrat Jim McGovern, was inserted during the amendment process in the House Rules Committee and ultimately passed with support from three Republican members of the House Freedom Caucus. In a separate vote on the AUMF amendment, 49 Republicans joined most Democrats to support the measure, resulting in a 261 to 167 tally. The House’s move follows the Senate’s 2024 decision to repeal the same AUMFs by a wide margin, suggesting that the final NDAA may indeed consign these decades-old war authorizations to history.
While the AUMFs are rarely invoked today, they have been used in recent years to justify significant military actions. As Antiwar.com reports, during his first term, President Donald Trump cited the 2002 AUMF as the basis for the 2020 assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. The continued presence of these authorizations has been a point of contention among lawmakers seeking to reassert Congressional oversight over the use of military force. Notably, the 2001 AUMF, passed in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, remains in force and is still used to justify U.S. military operations in Africa and Asia.
Beyond the high-level policy debates, the NDAA carries substantial implications for local communities and the broader economy. Reporting from the Daily Press highlights the bill’s impact on Hampton Roads, Virginia, a region deeply intertwined with the nation’s military infrastructure. This year’s NDAA includes $1 billion in funding for military construction in Virginia, with $380 million earmarked for new housing for unaccompanied sailors at Naval Station Norfolk. The bill also includes a 3.8% pay raise for service members, building on last year’s 4.5% increase, and aims to address persistent quality-of-life issues, including those linked to mental health challenges among service members.
These quality-of-life improvements follow investigations into poor housing conditions, particularly after a series of suicides among sailors assigned to the USS George Washington at the Newport News shipyard in 2022. Sailors had described their living conditions as akin to a construction site, with frequent outages and constant noise. The Brandon Act, named for Brandon Caserta, a sailor who died by suicide in 2018, was previously enacted to expand confidential access to mental health care. This year’s Senate defense bill includes a request for updates on the law’s implementation, underscoring Congress’s ongoing focus on service member well-being.
Shipbuilding and military readiness are also front and center. Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, emphasized that accelerating shipbuilding and repair is a central theme of this year’s NDAA. The House bill authorizes over $22 billion in new shipbuilding, including Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers. The Senate version, which is still awaiting a vote, proposes $29 billion for shipbuilding. Kaine noted the urgency of increasing production from the current rate of about 1.4 Virginia-class submarines per year to 2.3 by the early 2030s, in part to fulfill commitments to allies such as Australia under the trilateral AUKUS agreement.
While the House bill authorizes $893 billion in total funding for the Department of Defense, the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and foreign aid, not all proposed amendments made it into the final text. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s effort to remove $500 million in military aid for Israel was soundly rejected by a 6-422 vote. Meanwhile, Democrats expressed frustration over the amendment process, with Rep. Adam Smith lamenting on the House floor, “We didn’t get any of the amendments or debates that we wanted. Not a single solitary one.”
The NDAA’s passage also reverberates through financial markets. As noted by Blockchain.News, defense stocks such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies have historically benefited from increased military budgets, often seeing sector ETF gains of 5-10% in the weeks following NDAA passage. The bill’s focus on advanced technologies may also boost interest in AI-driven defense technologies and even ripple into cryptocurrency markets. Analysts point out that Bitcoin and Ethereum have sometimes rallied during periods of fiscal expansion and geopolitical uncertainty, with Bitcoin’s hash rate climbing to 600 EH/s in recent months, a sign of network strength amid global tensions.
Looking ahead, the NDAA will now proceed to a Conference Committee, where House and Senate negotiators will hammer out a compromise before sending the final version back to Congress for approval and, ultimately, to the President for signature. With the Senate expected to vote on its version next week, the legislative process remains in motion, and the stakes—for national security, local economies, and global markets—couldn’t be higher.
As the NDAA advances, its sweeping scope and the debates it sparks serve as a reminder that national defense is never just about budgets or weapons. It is, at its core, about the lives of those who serve, the priorities of a nation, and the ever-evolving balance between security and oversight.
