Dec. 14 (UPI) — Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate have passed the annual defense bill, sending the nearly $900 billion sweeping legislation that lays out the Pentagon’s priorities for the next fiscal to the House for consideration.
The Senate passed the mammoth National Defense Authorization Act in a 87-to-13 vote Wednesday following months of negotiations and while the United States is backing two allies at war.
“I am pleased that the Senate has come together to once again pass a strong, bipartisan defense bill,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in a statement.
“This is a dangerous moment in the world, and the NDAA makes critical progress toward meeting the threats we face.”
The $886.3 defense bill passed Wednesday includes a 5.2% pay raise for military service members, the largest increase in more than two decades, and increased military investments in the Indo-Pacific as a deterrence to China and in Europe to confront Russia and support Ukraine. It also includes more funding for recruitment and advertising, military construction, modernization of military technology and capabilities and maintenance and modernization of the Untied States’ nuclear deterrent.
The final bill though is noticeably missing controversial amendments far-right House Republicans had stapled to their version of the bill that passed their chamber this summer to prohibit the Department of Defense from funding abortion-related expenses for service members and block payments for transgender medical care.
It does, however, include a prohibition on the use of federal funds to endorse critical race theory, including at military academies, and an extension of an intelligence authority that allows for warrantless searches, which Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. — who voted “no” to the bill — objected to as domestic spying.
“Like the spying on Martin Luther King and Vietnam war protesters, the FBI still targets individuals for their beliefs,” he said in opposition from the floor before the vote.
“You might think ‘I’ve got nothing to hide, no big deal.’ You might think that if you avoid political activity you can avoid the long arm of the government. Think again.”
The bill will now return to the House where lawmakers are to resolve differences between it and the version House representatives passed this summer. And if approved, the consolidated bill will be sent to the desk of President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
“Our bill should signal to China, Russia and others that we will not accept a world where America does not have the best fighting force,” Republican Sen. Roger Wicker, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
“While I would have preferred to send the president a substantially larger proposed investment in our industrial base, he now should approve the monumental investments Congress intends to make in our service members, warships, submarines, aircraft and technology.”