Congress passed its annual defense policy bill Friday that gives President Obama authority to expand the campaign against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants.
The $585 billion bill, which cleared the Senate 89-11 with broad bipartisan support, sets core funding for the Pentagon at $521.3 billion and includes another $63.7 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also authorizes a 1 percent pay raise for the troops.
The bill also authorizing the training and equipping of moderate Syrian rebels for two years, and it would provide $5 billion for the fight against Islamic extremists.
“This legislation ensures that America keeps its promise to care and provide for our service members and their families with necessary benefits as well as proper training and adequate resources to carry out assigned missions effectively and safely,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The “must pass” measure doesn’t appropriate any money but rather sets guidelines for appropriators to use in determining Pentagon spending. It governs how many troops are in the armed forces, how much they are paid and what benefits they receive, which and how many weapons to buy and which to scrap, along with guiding how ongoing operations are conducted, such as the war in Afghanistan and the fight against the Islamic State.
The House passed the bill last week by a largely bipartisan vote, 300-119.
The legislation would change the military justice system to deal with sexual assault cases, including scrapping the nearly century-old practice of using a “good soldier defense” to raise doubts that a crime has been committed.
The measure would give accusers a greater say in whether their cases are litigated in the military or civilian system and would establish a confidential process to allow victims to challenge their separation or discharge from the military.
The bill also maintains the prohibition on transferring terror suspects from the federal prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States, despite objections from President Obama. And it limits money for new facilities at the prison until the Pentagon certifies to the congressional defense committees that such facilities have “enduring military value independent of a high-value detention mission.”
The vote on the measure was held up for more than a day over strong objections by some senators to an unrelated federal lands package inserted into the legislation that designates 250,000 acres of new federal wilderness, in addition to 15 new national park units or expansions and three new wild and scenic river designations.
Leading the conservative charge against the land provisions was Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who said it was wrong to create new parks when the National Park Service doesn’t have the resources to properly care for the ones already under its care.
“Why in the world does the federal government own 640 million acres of our land?” he said. “Expanding the National Park Service is a disastrous idea, and the reason it’s a disastrous idea is our parks are falling apart.”
But senators from western states, where the federal government owns huge swaths of land, said the lands package was vital because it protects more than 1 million acres of landscapes, watersheds and historic sites.
“In passing this legislation, we have made long-term and forward-looking improvements to public land management in Nevada and throughout the West,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Environmentalists also were pleased that the protections remained in the legislation.
“Today, Congress has given the American people an enduring, irreplaceable gift by protecting a number of wild places to explore and celebrate across the country. These landscapes showcase America at its finest: Lewis and Clark country on Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, a rugged watershed in Colorado’s Hermosa Creek, and sacred cultural lands deep in New Mexico’s Columbine Hondo Wilderness, among others,” Wilderness Society President Jamie Williams said.
The oil and gas industry applauded the extension of a pilot program to expedite permission for energy development on federal land.
“Without a robust and efficient permitting system, energy development on federal lands will continue to face well-documented delays, putting jobs and economic growth on hold,” said Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations with the American Petroleum Institute.
Charles Hoskinson, Zack Colman and the Associated Press contributed to this article.
