The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved the fiscal 2017 defense spending bill, sending it to the full Senate for consideration.
The bill, which includes $515.9 billion in the base budget and $58.6 billion in an overseas contingency operations account, was sent to the Senate by a unanimous 30-0 vote.
Democrats praised Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., for his work on a bill that stays within the limits set by last year’s Bipartisan Budget Act.
“The ship you’ve launched here in this committee is another kind of ship: It’s bipartisanship,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., said.
Senators on both sides of the aisle said the spending bill accomplishes a number of important initiatives, including $600.7 million to fully fund the Israeli missile defense program, more than double the amount included for that program in the authorization bill being considered by the full Senate this week.
“We believe that cooperating with our Israeli allies on missile defense is too important to leave to floor amendments, and we believe what we’re doing here is responsible,” Sen. Dick Durban, D-Ill., said.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also thanked the defense subcommittee for finding $1 billion in fiscal 2017 to speed up procurement of a new heavy ice breaker.
“This has been a long time coming,” she said. “We’ve made little bits and pieces, $8 million here and $3 million there, and that doesn’t buy you a porthole.”
