© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. army personnel prepare on the waters close to Coronado, California, California, U.S., August 29, 2023. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photograph
By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate backed a protection coverage invoice authorizing a report $886 billion in annual army spending with sturdy assist from each Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday, sidestepping partisan divides over social points that had threatened what’s seen as a must-pass invoice.
Separate from the appropriations payments that set authorities spending ranges, the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes every little thing from pay raises for the troops – this 12 months’s can be 5.2% – to purchases of ships, ammunition and plane in addition to insurance policies reminiscent of measures to assist Ukraine and pushback in opposition to China within the Indo-Pacific.
This 12 months’s invoice is sort of 3,100 pages lengthy, authorizing a report $886 billion, up 3% from final 12 months.
The NDAA “will ensure America can hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party, and ensures that America’s military remains state-of-the-art at all times all around the world,” Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer mentioned earlier than the vote.
However the remaining model of the NDAA not noted provisions addressing divisive social points, reminiscent of entry to abortion and therapy of transgender service members, that had been included within the model handed by the Home over the objections of Democrats, threatening to derail the laws.
The 100-member Senate backed the NDAA by 87 to 13. The Home is anticipated to cross it as quickly as later this week, sending it to the White Home the place President Joe Biden is anticipated to signal it into legislation.
The fiscal 2024 NDAA additionally features a four-month extension of a disputed home surveillance authority, giving lawmakers extra time to both reform or maintain this system, often known as Part 702 of the International Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The Senate defeated an try and take away the FISA extension from the NDAA on Wednesday earlier than voting to cross the invoice.
The Republican-majority Home handed its model of the NDAA earlier this 12 months, adopted by the Senate, the place Biden’s fellow Democrats have a slim majority. Negotiators from each events and each chambers unveiled their compromise model final week.
The invoice extends one measure to assist Ukraine, the Ukraine Safety Help Initiative, by way of the top of 2026, authorizing $300 million for this system within the fiscal 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2024, and the following one.
Nonetheless, that determine is a tiny in comparison with the $61 billion in help for Ukraine that Biden has requested Congress to approve to assist Kyiv because it battles a Russian invasion that started in February 2022.
That emergency spending request is slowed down in Congress, as Republicans have refused to approve help for Ukraine with out Democrats agreeing to a big toughening of immigration legislation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met with lawmakers on the Capitol on Tuesday to make his case for the funding requested by Biden, however emerged from conferences with lawmakers with out Republican commitments.
