Janes analysis: US DoD FY22 Unfunded Priority List requests amount to 3% of the official FY22 President’s Budget Request

Janes has identified 14 Unfunded Priority Lists (UPL lists) that were submitted to the congressional defense committees, which document 284 individual UPL line item requests. The sum of these 284 line items was USD22.282 billion. Taken as part of Janes interconnected intelligence on the US defense budget, this sum equates to 3.1% of the DoD FY22 President’s Budget Request (PBR) (discretionary 051 level-less the Department of Energy portion of the defense budget) of USD715 billion. 

The five Services (US Army, US Navy, US Marine Corps, US Air Force, and US Space Force) submitted 89% of FY22 UPLs by dollar value. Having categorised each individual line item using Janes unique data model, we found that military aircraft (22.2%), military ships (9.3%), and military construction/family housing (17.7%) were the largest asks by market. 

The US Navy had the largest sum at USD6.34 billion, followed closely by the US Army at USD5.47 billion. When measured by appropriation type, procurement was highest at USD7.64 billion (34.3%), driven by a DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and various Air Force and other military aircraft UPL line items. 

Janes highlights that military construction/family housing line items totalled USD3.99 billion, which amounts to 40.5% of the FY22 PBR military construction request. This is of particular interest due to the large number of MilCon requests (76), and being driven by US Army soldier housing and quality of life issues, as well as the US Navy’s Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP). 

Generally, only the highest priority line item requests receive consideration for additional funding from Congress.