The House version of the fiscal year 2027 defense authorization bill would put a limitation on how much money the Army would have to “retire, deactivate, schedule to deactivate” or take any other action to divest from equipment and resources that are part of the service’s expeditionary combat aviation brigades, according to a copy of the bill report.

The Army secretary must “submit certain items” to the congressional defense committees in the event they intend to take an action that would “reduce the capabilities, resources, training, aircraft or personnel available” as of the date the bill is passed, the report states.  

The authorizers do not state what items the secretary must submit to justify such an action or specify which aircraft the committee is referring to. However, the language mirrors a similar provision that was included in the FY-26 National Defense Authorization Act that put the brakes on parts of the Army Transformation Initiative related to aviation and forbade the service secretary from reducing the fleet of Gray Eagle drones without the approval of the Joint Requirements Oversight Council. 

Under the ATI, the service would reduce one aerial cavalry squadron per combat aviation brigade in the active component.

Since Army leadership rolled out the ATI more than a year ago, it has come under heavy scrutiny from lawmakers on all of the congressional defense committees. In May, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth assured House appropriators that the Defense Department would review the aviation portions of the transformation initiative. 

The Army had included scant funding in its FY-27 budget request for legacy aircraft, however the House authorization bill adds funding to procure seven Black Hawk and 12 Chinook helicopters instead of the one and five respectively that the Army had planned to fund in its base budget.