H.R. 9366: Eastern Frontier Defense Infrastructure Readiness Act

This bill would require the Department of Defense, working with the State Department and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander-Europe, to prepare a report for Congress on how well certain NATO allies on the “Eastern Frontier” are aligning their infrastructure with NATO defense needs.

What countries are covered

The bill defines “Eastern Frontier allies” as NATO member countries in Eastern and Northern Europe, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Sweden, and Norway.

What the report would cover

Within 180 days of enactment, the report would need to describe each covered country’s progress in meeting NATO infrastructure requirements. The report would look at:

• Transportation infrastructure such as roads, bridges, railways, ports, inland waterways, and airfields, especially for moving military forces.
• Energy infrastructure such as pipelines, refineries, power plants, transmission lines, fuel storage, and grid connections.
• Communications and digital infrastructure such as telecom networks, undersea cables, satellite ground stations, and cybersecurity.
• Financial systems infrastructure such as payment, clearing, and settlement systems needed to support military mobilization and NATO operations.
• Civil preparedness and resilience such as water, medical, and emergency-services infrastructure.
• Defense industrial base infrastructure such as ammunition production, maintenance and repair facilities, and storage.

What else the report must include

The report would also assess whether each country is making progress toward a NATO-related goal of spending up to 1.5 percent of GDP on infrastructure and other defense-related needs, and whether those expenditures are actually improving infrastructure useful for NATO defense plans.

It would identify the biggest infrastructure gaps that could:

• slow the movement of U.S. or allied reinforcements,
• make it harder to sustain military operations, or
• create a weak point that Russia could exploit through cyberattacks or sabotage.

The report would also include recommendations for addressing those gaps, including possible changes to U.S. security cooperation programs, priorities under the European Deterrence Initiative, use of authorities under foreign aid and arms export laws, opportunities for cost-sharing with allies, NATO, or the European Union, and any other legislative changes the Secretary of Defense thinks are needed.

It must also describe Russian actions, including cyber, sabotage, and other hybrid operations, aimed at these infrastructure systems. The report would be submitted in unclassified form, though it may include a classified annex.

Review by the Government Accountability Office

After the Defense Department submits the report, the Comptroller General would have 180 days to review it. That review would evaluate the report’s methods, data, and analysis; assess whether the spending counted toward the 1.5 percent goal is actually improving NATO-related infrastructure; and offer recommendations for improving U.S. security assistance priorities. This review would also be unclassified, with an optional classified annex.

Security assistance prioritization

The bill would authorize the Secretary of Defense to prioritize security assistance in the European Deterrence Initiative, and to prioritize security cooperation activities under Title 10, Chapter 16, for these Eastern Frontier allies. Starting with the President’s budget submissions for fiscal years 2028 through 2032, the Secretary of Defense would have to brief Congress on how the budget request carries out that prioritization.

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