The Senate has approved the annual must-pass National Defense Authorization Act after a contentious couple of weeks.
Lawmakers from the upper chamber voted 86 to 11 in favor of passing the bill that authorizes U.S. national defense spending for fiscal 2024 to $886 billion, easily exceeding the required 60 votes for passage. The Senate largely avoided partisan fights that dominated the House’s process, setting up a contentious battle between the two chambers as they need to come up with a compromise that will ultimately head to President Joe Biden‘s desk.
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The top-line number is in line with both Biden’s request and what the House passed, though House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) agreed to cap spending, which is why that number remained at Biden’s requested figure instead of increasing it, as many Republicans believe to be necessary.
While the must-pass legislation usually garners broad bipartisan support, this year’s process turned into a partisan back-and-forth, though some aspects received support from both sides of the aisle.
The bill includes a 5.2% pay raise for both service members and the department’s civilian workforce, which would represent the largest increase since 2002.
The GOP majority in the House included amendments that, if enacted, would end the Pentagon’s diversity and inclusion efforts and the department’s current policies regarding abortion and transgender service members. The bill had received bipartisan support in committee before it was brought to the House, and more than a thousand amendments were considered, turning into a bill that only four House Democrats supported.
These partisan amendments were not included in the Senate’s version of the bill due to the Democrats’ majority.
The White House has already indicated that Biden would not sign a bill that included many of the partisan, pro-Republican amendments that made it into the House’s version.
One of the main amendments that dominated the House’s debate was over the Pentagon’s abortion policy. The House’s version included one that, if included in the final version, would end the department’s current policy, which is that they will reimburse the travel expenses incurred for a service member or dependent who has to travel out of state for an abortion or other reproductive healthcare due to local laws.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), a member of the Armed Services Committee, has held up military nominations for roughly six months due to this policy, which he argues is overreach from the department. Tuberville’s hold has blocked more than 300 nominations, some of which are senior defense leaders, and Pentagon officials have said that number could exceed 650 if his hold extends through the remainder of the calendar year.
Of those 300-plus nominations and confirmations that are currently being held up by Tuberville, a handful of them are for senior positions.
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The Marine Corps is currently led by acting Commandant Gen. Eric Smith because he wasn’t confirmed into the position before his predecessor was term-limited out of the position. Four other Joint Chiefs positions will become open in the next three months, and Tuberville could prevent their successors from being confirmed.
The Alabama senator cannot unilaterally completely prevent the Senate from passing nominations, though his hold, which prevents the Senate from passing them in batches, makes it a much more arduous process. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said earlier this month it would take roughly 84 days to vote through every promotion if they did exclusively that for eight hours every day.
