To view our Congressional Pentagon Budget Increases database, click here. 

Have you ever wondered how much money Congress is adding to the Pentagon budget? Have you ever wondered how much of that money is for projects the Pentagon didn’t fund at all in its budget request? Well now you can find out without poring through thousands of pages of budget documents.

TCS has been tracking Pentagon spending for decades, and this year, we’re excited to share some of our most detailed tracking ever, enshrined in our brand-new database of Congressional Pentagon Budget Increases.

Our database reveals that the House and Senate have added 1,216 program increases totaling over $25 billion to the Pentagon budget’s procurement and research accounts so far for FY2024. Over $14 billion of that spending is for projects that the Pentagon didn’t fund at all in its budget request. In our review of just the research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) adds over the past few years, we counted 600 in FY2021, 776 in FY2022, and 996 in FY2023. This year, Congress has included 1,033 increases for RDT&E.

How did we determine these numbers? We wrote down every “program increase” Congress has added to what the Pentagon requested for FY2024 Procurement and RDT&E. That includes funding added by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, as well as funding added via amendments passed on the House floor (the Senate Defense spending bill has not been debated on the floor). Then we cross referenced each of those adds with the Pentagon’s budget justification books, which detail the projects funded under each program element of the budget, in order to find out which program increases were for projects that the Pentagon requested ZERO dollars, what we call “Zero to Hero” funding. These are listed as such in our database.

We could also call this our Pentagon Earmark-esque database because these so called “program increases” are essentially earmarks by a different name, and with less transparency to boot. Next generation earmarks if you will.

Traditional earmarks, euphemistically called “congressionally directed funding” in the Senate or more recently “community project funding” in the House, generally fund projects that will be carried out by a predetermined entity in a predetermined place, making them attractive to lawmakers who want to direct taxpayer dollars back their district.

But since 2007, traditional earmarks also have rules to make them more transparent. Members of Congress have to submit requests with their names attached, listed by amount, project, and sponsor in the report accompanying the bill, and House members have to post them on their website. “Program increases” require no such transparency—they’re mostly added in committee behind closed doors, with no name attached (And in many cases, while program increases are supposed to fund projects on a competitive basis, they’re often so specific that only one contractor is positioned to deliver. So call them what you like, but we’re calling them earmark-esque.

Once Congress resolves any differences between the House and the Senate, which it generally does by combining the program increases from each chamber into the final appropriations bill, we will update this database with new tracking for the increases that will end up on the president’s desk to be signed into law.

In the meantime, it’s fair to wonder what Congress is looking to buy with all this unrequested funding, particularly for those Zero to Hero projects that the Pentagon didn’t include in its budget request. While we encourage you to peruse our database, we also have some examples of Zero to Hero funding we found particularly questionable.

$200 million for accelerated delivery of the E-7 aircraft

The House Appropriations Committee report on the Defense Appropriations Act included $200 million in Air Force procurement for E-7 delivery acceleration. This funding is likely in response to the Air Force listing E-7 delivery acceleration as its top unfunded priority on a wish list of projects that the Pentagon didn’t fund in its budget request. Military service branch and combatant command leaders are required by law to provide Congress with these Unfunded Priorities Lists (UPLs), over the Pentagon’s objections to this statutory requirement.

The E-7 is a Boeing plane that will replace the E-3 as the Air Force’s plane of choice to serve as a command-and-control hub from the air. The Air Force awarded Boeing with a $1.2 billion contract to begin work on the aircraft, which it planned on fielding in FY2027. But despite Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s assurances that the Pentagon’s proposed budget is sufficient to meet our national security objectives, lawmakers are funding its accelerated procurement at a cost to taxpayers of $200 million.

And they may not be getting much bang for our buck. According to Boeing, there isn’t a lot they can do to accelerate the E-7’s production timeline. If Boeing receives funding for accelerated delivery, “you can cut off about six months” of the E-7’s 4-year production timeline, a Boeing official told reporters. The additional funding would be for acquiring parts and preparing for production. One such part is the Multifunction Electronically Scanned Array (MESA) radar system for the E-7, produced by Northrop Grumman, which hopes to expand its production capability to four MESA systems per year rather than two. Given that the Air Force UPL for E-7 acceleration called for over $600 million, it’s unclear if Congress’ $200 million will succeed in accelerating the timeline by more than a couple of months.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, applauded this funding in remarks on the House floor during consideration of the Defense Appropriations Act, highlighting it as one of several provisions in the bill “to counter China.” Rep. Calvert has received $130,000 from Boeing over the course of his congressional career—including $16,500 in the 2022 election cycle, and $17,750 so far in the 2024 cycle. He has also received $109,750 from Northrop Grumman over his career—including $17,250 in the 2022 election cycle.

$150 million for the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP)

When the country’s two major fighter jet engine manufacturers battled over who would build the engine for the F-35, Pratt & Whitney eventually beat out General Electric. In the years that followed, GE and Pratt & Whitney both received funds for new engine research under a project called the Adaptive Engine Transition Program (AETP). As the Pentagon pursued new capabilities for the F-35, and the need for improvements to the engine became clear, GE saw an opportunity. Their solution? Build their adaptive engine for $6 billion. Pratt and Whitney’s? Spend a third of that on its Engine Core Upgrade (ECU) of the existing F-35 engine to meet the same requirements at a fraction of the cost. In March, TCS and a coalition of like-minded organizations sent a letter to the Secretary of Defense asking him to forgo requesting funding for the AETP in the Pentagon budget request, and in a win for the taxpayers, he did just that.

Enter Congress. The House Appropriations Committee report on the Defense Appropriations Act earmarked $150 million for AETP, citing a desire to support a robust industrial base and to continue researching and adaptive engine for potential use in the next generation of fighter aircraft. Thankfully, the report contains a caveat that this funding is not meant to incentivize the creation of an alternative engine program for the F-35, and that none of the funds can be used to integrate an alternate engine on the F-35. Still, spending $150 million on engine research the Pentagon didn’t ask for doesn’t strike us as fiscally responsible, and it leaves the door open to proposals to fully fund GE’s adaptive engine for the F-35 in the future.

Which members of Congress are behind this massive Zero to Hero add? We can’t be sure, because these next generation earmarks don’t come with names attached. But, with larger adds like this, it’s a good bet that some key leaders on the appropriations committee were involved. So it may be worth noting that Ken Calvert (R-CA), the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, received $11,150 from General Electric in the 2022 election cycle, and $13,250 so far in the 2024 cycle. Rep. Betty McCollum, the ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, received $7,500 from GE in the 2022 election cycle, and $2,500 so far in the 2024 cycle.

$31 million for Ultra Lightweight Camouflage Netting System (ULCANS)

This zero to hero funding is divided among three different line items, with $21 million found in the Senate Appropriations Committee report under Marine Corps procurement, and another $10 million split evenly between the Senate and House reports under Army RDT&E for “mobile ULCANS,” a version of the netting designed to camouflage moving vehicles. The $21 million for procurement was included in the Marine Corps’ UPL, so it’s not funding that Congress conjured out of thin air, but it’s still funding the Pentagon didn’t make room for in its $826 billion budget request. So why is the Marine Corps UPL asking for it?

The new Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric Smith has expressed his desire to accelerate implementation of Force Design 2030, the Marine Corps transformation plan that began under his predecessor Gen. David Berger. However, Berger’s vision for FD 2030 was for a transformation that didn’t turn to taxpayers to pay for new equipment, but rather funded itself by divesting from existing programs to fund new mission requirements. We applauded this vision in our recent report, “Marine Corps 2030: Realignment Without Breaking the Bank.” Gen. Smith on the other hand is calling for more funding for accelerated implementation of the plan. That’s likely why the Marine Corps included a request for $21 million for this camo netting in its UPL. In the justification book for Marine Corps Procurement, the footnotes under the program element “Items Less Than $5 Million” indicate that a decrease in funding from FY2023 to FY2024 “reflects procurement schedule of the next generation Ultra Lightweight Camouflage Netting System (ULCANS) in support of Force Design 2030.” That suggests its inclusion as an unfunded priority was about getting it sooner, and in our view that’s not a good enough reason for this extra-budgetary addition.

ULCANS is designed and manufactured by FibroTex USA, a subsidiary of the Israeli company FibroTex. FibroTex USA has spent $245,000 since 2021 lobbying for its camouflage netting. Its manufacturing facility is in Sterns, Kentucky, in Rep. Harold Rogers’ (R-KY) district. Rep. Rogers is a former Chair of the House Appropriations Committee and sits on the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. He also attended the ribbon cutting ceremony for the FibroTex USA facility in 2019, and reportedly helped secure resources to bring it online.

$7 million for Omniblast™ Water Sensor Technology

This zero to hero add is quintessential. In the report accompanying the House defense spending bill, lawmakers added $7 million under a Navy program element titled Warfighter Protection Advanced Technology to fund Omniblast™ water sensor technology. The program increase text doesn’t include the trademark symbol, but it is in fact a trademarked product, which is interesting given that “program increases” are not called earmarks on the basis that they are competitively awarded, but obviously when an increase is for a patented product, only one company, the patent owner, can deliver.

According to Advanced Materials and Devices, Inc. (AMAD), the owner of the patent, the Omniblast water sensor “can accurately capture underwater blast events from all directions (directionally-independent) with high-fidelity…” In other words, it measures underwater explosions.

In the Senate’s description of the funding increases within their report on the defense spending bill, there is an exception to the rule that program increases need to be competitively awarded—if an increase funds a project that has received competitive awards in the past. The House has no such exception listed in its description of funding increases. Interestingly, AMAD Inc. was awarded a $1.1 million contract in 2022 for “a wearable underwater blast sensor,” but it was the sole bidder, so any claim that this project was competitively awarded in the past would be misleading, to put it mildly.

AMAD Inc. is based in Reno, Nevada, in Rep. Mark Amodei’s (R-NV) district. Rep. Amodei, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, hasn’t received any political contributions from AMAD Inc., but he did receive $3,000 in the 2024 election cycle from Cornerstone Government Affairs. Cornerstone is a lobbying firm, and it just so happens that AMAD Inc. is one of its clients. AMAD Inc. has reported $120,000 in lobbying expenses paid to Cornerstone in the first three quarters of 2023, and $150,000 for all of 2022. There’s no record of Cornerstone contributing to Rep. Amodei prior to its relationship with AMAD Inc.

$2 million for Urban Subterranean Mapping Technology

Found under a program element called Network C3I Technology, RDT&E funding for urban subterranean mapping has been a zero to hero add in every budget since the program element’s creation in FY2020. Despite its seemingly sacrosanct position in the budget, there’s hardly any publicly available information on the project, other than that its goal is to detect tunnels.

Sen. Manchin, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has repeatedly celebrated funding provided to West Virginia’s Marshall University to research urban subterranean mapping in FY2020, FY2022, FY2023, and FY2024. Including this latest zero to hero funding, Sen. Manchin appears to have secured $17 million in funding for this project over five years.

While this is a relatively modest amount as far as Pentagon spending goes, it’s troubling that every year since the beginning of the project’s funding in FY2020, the Pentagon has decided to omit any funding for it in its budget request, and yet each year, Congress puts funding back in. That’s not to say the Pentagon isn’t investing in tunnel detection research at all; it just hasn’t requested funds for this particular project. When Congress adds something to the budget and then the Pentagon finds it indispensable, it generally makes it into the Pentagon’s budget request the following year. But with countless zero to hero projects like this one, the Pentagon seemingly doesn’t care to fund them. So our question is, why should taxpayers?

With Sen. Manchin recently announcing that he will not seek reelection to the Senate, it’ll be interesting to see if this Zero to Hero continues showing up in the budget, or if it vanishes as suddenly as it appeared five years ago.

Transparency Needed

While Taxpayers for Common sense is naturally skeptical of Zero to Hero adds, it’s important to note that some of these program increases may have been proposed by members of Congress for justifiable reasons, having nothing to do with rewarding their campaign contributors or creating jobs in their districts. Similarly, we do recognize that sometimes the Pentagon or other agencies underfund certain areas of the budget knowing that Congressional interest will replace those funds. But as a general practice, TCS takes issue with Congress requesting additional Pentagon spending behind closed doors, in a manner that requires pouring over thousands of pages of budget documents to have a shot at deciphering their origin and their potential value to national security. If members of Congress think taxpayers should fund billions of dollars in military spending that the Pentagon didn’t ask for, they should at least be required to put their name on those increases and offer some kind of justification, in a publicly accessible manner.

When Congress releases a conferenced version of the Defense Appropriations Act, we’ll update our database to see how much of this extra spending made it in. If history is a guide, it’ll be an exercise in addition rather than compromise.