The annual defense policy bill advanced Tuesday in the Senate toward final passage by the end of this week, with its main sponsor saying he’s optimistic it will become the first such legislation enacted into law on-time since 1997.
Looming in the background, however, is President Obama’s veto threat over a plan to shift $38 billion in funding for operations and maintenance to a war account that falls outside mandatory spending caps.
Although most Democrats allowed the policy bill to advance in an 83-15 vote, they remain opposed to what they call a spending “gimmick” and have called for a long-term solution to mandatory budget caps rather than shifting needed funds into an account not subject to them. Next up for the Senate is legislation appropriating $575.9 billion for the Defense Department and nuclear weapons programs of the Energy Department, which Democrats are expected to try to block.
Before Tuesday’s vote, Republican leaders slammed the president and their Democratic colleagues, saying they were holding the legislation hostage to win what they called unnecessary increases in domestic, non-defense spending.
“The very idea that the president of the United States would veto the defense authorization bill in light of everything that’s going on around the world today is a reckless, irresponsible strategy on his part,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.
Despite the veto threat, Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., the bill’s lead sponsor, said he’s optimistic it can be sent to the president by the end of July. The legislation, which sets policy for the Pentagon for fiscal 2016, including which weapons to buy and how much troops are paid, is supposed to be enacted into law before the fiscal year begins Oct. 1. But that hasn’t happened since 1997.
“I am, very, very guardedly optimistic that we’ll get it done by Thursday,” he said, noting that it would be relatively easier afterward to work out differences between the Senate bill and the version passed by the House on May 15.
Senators voted to limit debate on the bill after rejecting amendments by Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, to supply U.S. arms directly to Iraq’s Kurds and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., to remove sexual assault prosecutions from the military chain of command.
Earlier, the Senate had adopted another amendment by McCain and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., reaffirming a ban on torture.
Ernst’s amendment, which was backed by Democrat Barbara Boxer of California, along with GOP presidential candidates Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, mirrors a provision in the House-passed version of the bill that would authorize a percentage of U.S. arms shipments to be sent directly to Kurdish forces, bypassing Baghdad. The vote was 54-45 — not enough to meet the 60-vote threshold for adoption.
Supporters of the idea say the Shiite-majority government in Baghdad is hurting the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria by shortchanging the independence-minded Kurds and Sunni Arab tribal forces from their share of U.S.-supplied weapons. But the White House and the Iraqi government oppose the move as a threat to Iraq’s unity.
Gillibrand’s amendment on sex assault, which failed 50-49, is a repeat of legislation that fell five votes short of the 60-vote threshold last year, over concerns that the change would weaken commanders’ authority.
