House lawmakers want to block future layoffs of some Defense Department employees, test out drones to fight fires and create new chief acquisition talent officers.
These are a few of the provisions that could matter most to Defense Department employees if they become law under the House's version of the fiscal 2027 defense policy bill. The full House now is considering the bill after the House Armed Services Committee passed the legislation on June 5.
Workforce protections
Multiple amendments would block the Trump administration from laying off certain DoD employees, except in cases of poor performance or misconduct.
If the bill is enacted, civilians whose jobs would be protected include those at the Department of Defense Education Activity, which operates grade schools for the children of military and civilian personnel; child care center workers; health care workers; and those at DoD's public shipyards.
Lawmakers also seek to ban hiring freezes for public shipyards and other government-owned industrial base sites, public safety personnel and other fire and safety roles on military installations.
DoD lost nearly 93,000 civilian employees between December 2024 and March 2026, according to the department's quarterly workforce reports. The Department of Government Efficiency's effort to streamline the federal civil service last year eliminated hundreds of thousands of workers through reductions in force, early retirements and voluntary resignations, spurring concerns about its impact on military readiness and bureaucratic slowdowns.
Acquisition staff
The bill directs the defense secretary to appoint a chief acquisition talent officer as a key player in strengthening the military's acquisition workforce. That official — who could be a member of the senior executive service or an outside expert — is charged with creating a departmentwide roadmap that identifies and fixes shortcomings in the acquisition corps, assesses its needs and considers whether its hiring and training initiatives are working well.Â
That officer would report to the Pentagon's acquisition boss and may be joined by a deputy, if the defense secretary opts to appoint one. Each of the military departments would also designate their own chief acquisition talent officer, the bill states, as would the Defense Logistics Agency and the combatant commands that manage daily combat operations around the world.
Congress is also pushing for a new defense acquisition workforce database to shape the talent officers' decisions. Ideally, the system would crunch information on the size, demographics and locations of DoD's acquisition staff, their experience and skills, open roles, hiring practices and difficulties and more.
Lawmakers want to hold defense acquisition workers to new performance metrics, set by the defense secretary. Those goals could eventually apply to their uniformed counterparts as well.
The provisions aim to ensure DoD's procurement workforce has the skills it needs as the department tries to bring on a new generation of major systems, from human resources software to nuclear weapons. They could also help strengthen the shrunken acquisition corps after it was gutted by DOGE last year.
Prediction markets
Betting on certain national security events in newly popular prediction markets like Polymarket would become off-limits to troops and DoD civilians.
A spike in trading on prediction platforms and energy commodity markets earlier this year has raised red flags among lawmakers, who worry it signals insider trading among people with access to sensitive information about the Iran war.Â
“The use of insider knowledge of planned or ongoing military operations to trade on prediction markets by Department of Defense personnel would compromise operational security and represent a breach of ethics and federal law,†the committee wrote.
The provision prompts the defense secretary to craft regulations that would bar DoD employees from making transactions on prediction markets if they have or could obtain nonpublic information related to their bet. The department would also create a range of punishments for those who violate the rules.
The bill also calls on the DoD inspector general to report on any insider trading complaints received during Operation Epic Fury, including any operational risks the alleged activity posed, by the end of the year.
Pilot programs
Defense policy bills are rife with pilot programs. This year's House draft would create a three-year initiative to send push notifications via text to overseas troops and their adult dependents to keep them in the loop on issues from job opportunities for spouses to child care availability and TRICARE enrollment deadlines.
One three-year project would experiment with using drones to fight fires on military installations; another would require the Navy to expand public transportation between housing and dining facilities, offices and more on its bases.
The bill also suggests DoD look into a pay-to-print program to recoup some of the costs of office supplies — an initiative that could add up quickly in offices that prefer the dead-tree version of their work.
Audit preparations
As the deadline for DoD to pass a clean financial audit looms at the end of 2028, House lawmakers slipped in a few provisions to shape the process.
One lets the department stand up a specialized team known as Joint Task Force-Audit to be the backbone of that effort. Rich Brady, chief executive officer of the Society of Defense Financial Management, said in March the department had already tapped a two-star general to lead the task force and was assembling a team to assist the Pentagon comptroller.
Another requires the department to hire an outside firm to, in essence, audit its auditors. That contractor would recommend ways that the defense auditing agencies can improve and streamline their work, ultimately reporting to the defense secretary and DoD's inspector general.
The bill also calls for a skills assessment product team to help with the audit, and suggests that DoD look to artificial intelligence to “transform†its financial management.
“Despite years of effort and billions of dollars invested, the Department of Defense has yet to achieve a clean financial audit, and traditional periodic audit approaches have proven insufficient to address the scale and complexity of defense financial operations,†the committee wrote. “The committee believes that continuous transaction validation and asset tracking to improve financial visibility may provide a more effective path toward achieving a clean audit.â€
The Defense Department is the only major federal agency that has never passed a full audit.
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