Sponsored by
Sen. Slotkin, Elissa [D-MI]
ID: S001208
Follow the money
The bill
S. 3162, 119th Congress — read as touching Cybersecurity.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
30 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Defense" section, p. 134-136 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
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📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another brilliant example of congressional genius at work. Let's dissect this trainwreck, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The main purpose of S 3162 is to create a pilot program for wastewater surveillance at certain Department of Defense installations. The stated objectives are to improve testing, identification, and analysis of drug use and infectious diseases among military personnel. How quaint.
In reality, this bill is likely a thinly veiled attempt to justify more funding for the defense industry's favorite contractors and to provide a new playground for bureaucrats to play with. I mean, who doesn't love the idea of monitoring wastewater? It's not like there are more pressing issues to address.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill requires the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement a comprehensive wastewater surveillance system at no fewer than four installations within 180 days. The system must include "appropriate technologies" and a uniform data system across the Department of Defense. Oh, and it has to be done on the cheap, using existing resources and authorities.
Translation: We're going to throw some money at this problem, but not too much, because we have more important things to spend our money on... like lobbying for more defense contracts.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include military personnel, who will be subject to wastewater surveillance (because that's exactly what they signed up for), and the contractors who will inevitably get rich off this boondoggle. The stakeholders are the usual suspects: defense industry lobbyists, politicians looking for a photo op, and bureaucrats seeking to justify their existence.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The potential impact of this bill is minimal, except for the contractors who will reap the benefits of this wasteful spending. It's unlikely that this program will actually improve force health protection or readiness, but it might provide some nice PR opportunities for politicians to pretend they care about our troops.
In reality, this bill is a symptom of a larger disease: the militarization of America and the insatiable appetite of the defense industry for taxpayer dollars. It's just another example of how our government prioritizes the interests of corporations over those of its citizens.
Diagnosis: Congressional Stupidity Syndrome (CSS), characterized by a complete lack of critical thinking, a reliance on buzzwords like "comprehensive" and "uniform," and an insatiable appetite for wasteful spending. Treatment: a healthy dose of skepticism, a strong stomach, and a willingness to call out the obvious lies and corruption that plague our government.
Sen. Slotkin, Elissa [D-MI]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 60 nodes and 30 connections (84 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $127,700
Showing top 20 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 3 helped.
Section 1(b) requires the Secretary to ensure the wastewater surveillance system includes appropriate technologies and a uniform data system across DoD, which implies procurement of data management, analytics, and monitoring technologies that could benefit cybersecurity firms providing secure data systems.
Section 1(c)(1) and (2) mandate wastewater surveillance systems for monitoring covered drugs and infectious diseases, which likely involves deployment of sensors, sampling equipment, and diagnostic tools that could benefit medical device manufacturers.
The surveillance system aims to identify prevalence of infectious diseases and drug usage, which may drive demand for biomarker detection, assay development, and genomic sequencing technologies aligned with biotech firms.
For each industry this bill affects, here's what the sponsor (Sen. Slotkin, Elissa [D-MI])received from donors associated with that industry during the 2022–present cycles. Donations are not proof of intent — they are a record of who funds the people writing the law.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on improving military personnel health and readiness through wastewater surveillance, which aligns with the Project 2025 DOD personnel goal of enhancing force health, recruiting, and retention, though it does not address the exportability, FMS, or contracting reforms emphasized elsewhere in the policy."
— 101 — Department of Defense 1. Ensure that senior U.S. military leadership emphasizes exportability in the initial development of defense systems that are both available and interoperable with our partners and allies. 2. Create a funding mechanism to incentivize exportability in initial planning, which can be recouped after future FMS transactions. l End informal congressional notification. Informal congressional notification or “tiered review” is a hinderance to ensuring timely sales to our global partners. The tiered review process is not codified in law; it is merely a practice by which the Department of State provides a preview of prospective arms transfers before Congress is formally notified.9 1. End the tiered review process to eliminate at least 20 days from the FMS process. 2. Use the tiered review process only when unanimous congressional support is guaranteed in order to eliminate the “weaponization” by select Members of Congress that has prevented billions of dollars of arms sales from moving into formal congressional notification. l Minimize barriers to collaboration. The high cost of developing advanced defense platforms requires the United States to collaborate with key allies to minimize waste, complement strengths, and supplement our defense industrial base to create a system that is greater than that of the United States alone. 1. Enhance defense industrial base planning with partners to allow them to focus on niche areas where there are cost advantages for the United States. 2. Decrease International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to facilitate trade with such allies as the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. 3. Create opportunities to improve the health of the defense supply chain with added opportunities for partners and allies to contribute. l Reform the FMS contracting process. The contracting timeline for the FMS process is shockingly slow. On average, the DOD contracting timeline takes approximately 18 months because of slow bureaucratic processes and chronic understaffing.10 — 102 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 1. Immediately fund more contracting capacity in all services to decrease the contracting timeline and improve the delivery of defense articles to our global partners. 2. Rationalize and speed arms sales decision-making to preclude our enemies from exploiting bureaucratic slothfulness and allow us to manage the development of indigenous defense industrial bases. DOD PERSONNEL The men and women of America’s armed forces are the most critical component of our national defense strategy, but in recent years, they have been overextended, undervalued, and insufficiently resourced. Their families help them to carry the burden of service, but the assistance they receive is disproportionately less than the sacrifices they make. Young civilians who would thrive in a military environ- ment are disenfranchised when educators and influencers discourage them from learning about military service and preparing for the honor of wearing Ameri- ca’s uniform. The United States military is an extraordinary institution, staffed by exceptional people who have defended our nation and changed the course of history, but the Biden Administration, through word and deed, has treated the armed forces as just another place to work. We must restore our military to a place of honor and respect and recruit and retain the individuals who will meet the rigorous standards of excellence that are required for membership in the world’s greatest fighting force. Needed Reforms l Rescue recruiting and retention. Recruiting was the worst in 2022 that it has been in two generations and is expected to be even worse in 2023. Some of the problems are self-inflicted and ongoing. The recruiting problem is not service-specific: It affects the entire Joint Force. 1. Appoint a Special Assistant to the President who will maintain liaison with Congress, DOD, and all other interested parties on the issue of recruiting and retention. 2. Improve recruiting by suspending the use of the recently introduced MHS Genesis system that uses private medical records of potential recruits at Military Entrance Processing Stations (MEPS), creating unnecessary delays and unwarranted rejections.11 3. Improve military recruiters’ access to secondary schools and require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on wastewater surveillance for substance use and infectious disease detection to improve force health protection, while Project 2025's DoD section emphasizes force structure expansion, procurement, munitions, and warfighter development—only tangentially related through the broader goal of maintaining a ready and effective force."
— 111 — Department of Defense Needed Reforms l Invest in and expand force structure. The USN’s organizing principle remains platform-centered: vessels manned by sailors. The manned surface and subsurface forces act in concert with land-based, air-based, and space- based forces to project power outside sovereign territory, principally by operating in international waters. Investments must be closely coordinated with these other elements of military power. 1. Build a fleet of more than 355 ships.26 2. Develop and field unmanned systems to augment the manned forces. 3. Require that range and lethality be the key factors in all procurement and sustainment decisions for ships, aircraft, and munitions. l Reestablish the General Board. In contrast with the Navy General Board that served ship development so well during the interwar period, the current joint process27 for defining the requirements for major defense acquisitions is not well-suited to long-term planning of the sort that is needed for USN fleet architecture and shipbuilding. The interwar General Board should serve as a model, empowered with final decision authority over all requirements documents concerning ships and the major defense systems fielded on ships. The individual board members would ensure a broad base of knowledge as well as independent thinking.28 l Establish a Rapid Capabilities Office. The USN must transition technology into warfighting capability more rapidly. It must foster a culture of innovation that includes connecting theoretical and intangible ideas with real production environments that produce tangible and practical outcomes and adapting proven processes to advance material solutions. 1. Harness innovation and willingness to tolerate risk so that “good enough” systems can be fielded rapidly. 2. Use the Space Development Agency as a model. 3. Establish an oversight Board of Directors made up of the service chief, service secretary, and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. — 112 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Accelerate the purchase of key munitions. It takes years to build and maintain navies but only hours to expend their ordnance in combat. The USN must be prepared to expend large quantities of air-launched and sea-launched stealthy, precision, cruise missiles against targets both at sea and ashore. Additionally, modern air defense requires the use of high- performance surface-to-air missiles. 1. Produce key munitions at the maximum rate with significant capacity. 2. Working with the Congress, employ the widest possible range of techniques to enhance the munitions supply chains and workforce. l Enhance warfighter development. The USN requires a variety of documented qualifications for personnel to advance in their careers and assume leadership positions. It also requires individual professional qualifications that are focused on warfighting. 1. Mandate qualifications that demonstrate an understanding of core competence in collective, integrated warfighting, especially based on current plans and technologies. 2. Elevate the Headquarters Staff focused on Warfighter Development (N7) within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OPNAV) and empower it to develop such requirements. 3. Require that war games be utilized as experiential learning environments for the participants as a prerequisite for achieving career milestones (department heads, commanding officers, and major commanders). 4. Highlight in training and leader development that USN forces can and must maintain the ability to operate from and/or defend sovereign territory to include our allies and partners. 5. Train to balance effects from kinetic to nonkinetic and from lethal to nonlethal through effective command and control. U.S. AIR FORCE The U.S. Air Force today lacks a force structure with the lethality, survivabil- ity, and capacity to fight a major conflict with a great power like China, deter nuclear threats, and meet its other operational requirements under the National Defense Strategy.29 For 30 years, the Air Force has received less annual funding
AI Analysis:
"The bill focuses on implementing a wastewater surveillance pilot for substance use and infectious disease detection, which is only tangentially related to the Project 2025 DOD priorities of nuclear deterrence, counterterrorism burden-sharing, and acquisition reform. Any alignment is indirect, primarily through broader force health readiness and the use of an emerging technology."
— 95 — Department of Defense 1. Expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear force so that it has the size, sophistication, and tailoring to deter Russia and China simultaneously. 2. Develop a nuclear arsenal with the size, sophistication, and tailoring— including new capabilities at the theater level—to ensure that there is no circumstance in which America is exposed to serious nuclear coercion. l Increase allied counterterrorist burden-sharing. Transnational terrorism remains a threat to Americans even as we pivot toward Asia. 1. Sustain the military forces needed to deter, prevent, and combat terrorism, but at a sustainable cost in concert with other elements of national power and partner efforts. 2. Prioritize enhancing the capability of allies and partners to take the lead in combating terrorism in their regions. DOD ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT (A&S) The DOD’s ability to acquire and field new and existing technologies is essential to the ability of America’s military personnel to fight and win our nation’s wars. To succeed in this endeavor, we must optimize the systems and personnel that the department uses, but the inflexible bureaucratic structure and risk-adverse culture that have developed over the decades make it difficult to provide the tools that warfighters need at the speed of relevance. The number one problem is the DOD budgeting process (instituted in 1961) that requires acquisition spending to be locked years in advance. Because tech- nologies change so rapidly and requirements can change overnight, this creates situations in which military personnel not only go to war with outdated technol- ogy, but also may be fighting with equipment that is less capable than that of their competitors. America owes its military many things, and the most important is the resources they need to survive on the battlefield and carry out the tasks we ask of them. Needed Reforms l Reform the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) process. 1. Enhance funding and authority for DOD mission-focused innovation organizations and away from program-specific stovepipes that, planned for and designed two or three years earlier, may no longer be — 96 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise relevant. This allows the acquisition community to focus on portfolio management and move money around more easily instead of being locked into inflexible, multiyear procurement cycles. 2. The President should examine the recommendations of the congressionally mandated Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution Reform4 and develop a strategy for implementing those that the Administration considers to be in the best interests of the American people. The commission’s final report is due on September 1, 2023. 3. Develop legislation or other means of providing funding outside the traditional PPBE process for the prototyping and experimentation of emerging technologies that are deemed essential to modernization and future conflict. Consider creating a “fast track” for projects that satisfy the most pressing national security needs. 4. Require the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering, and all service secretaries to conduct “Night Court” and use existing authorities to terminate outdated or underperforming programs so that money can be used for what works and will work. Require the Under Secretaries and service secretaries to brief the Secretary annually on the results. 5. Require the Office of the Secretary of Defense to research and report on the acquisition processes used by America’s adversaries to improve our understanding of how they are often able to innovate and field new technologies on a faster timeline. l Strengthen America’s defense industrial base. 1. Replenish and maintain U.S. stockpiles of ammunition and other equipment that have been depleted as a result of U.S. support to Ukraine. This will strengthen the defense industry supply chain and ensure that adequate inventory exists if it is needed for a future conflict. 2. Collaborate with industry to develop a prioritized list of reforms that the DOD and Congress can enact and implement to incentivize industry to help America’s military innovate and field needed capabilities.
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.
No Troops in Our Streets Act of 2025
119/s/3167
A bill to provide for interagency tabletop exercises to assess the impacts of Department of Defense decisions during crises and evaluate United States Government tools available to augment Department of Defense capabilities in competition, crisis, and conflict, and for other purposes.
119/s/3160
Protecting DOD Data Act of 2025
119/s/3161