More than two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday in favour of a defence policy bill that includes a record $886 billion in annual military spending and authorises policies such as aid to Ukraine and pushing back against China in the Indo-Pacific.
The House approved the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA) by a vote of 310 to 118, with strong support from Republicans and Democrats. This was more than the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure and send it to the White House for President Joe Biden’s signature.
Separate from the appropriations bills that set government spending levels, the NDAA authorises everything from pay raises for troops – this year’s will be 5.2% – to the purchase of ships, munitions and aircraft.
As one of the few major pieces of legislation passed each year, members of Congress use it as a vehicle for a wide range of initiatives. It is also closely watched by major defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp and other companies that receive contracts from the Department of Defense.
The vote on this year’s bill, which is nearly 3,100 pages long and authorises a record $886 billion, up 3% from last year, means that Congress has passed an NDAA for 63 consecutive years.
The final version of the NDAA omitted provisions on divisive social issues such as access to abortion and treatment of transgender service members that had been included in the version passed by the Republican-majority House of Representatives over the objections of Democrats, threatening to derail the legislation.
The Democratic-controlled Senate also backed the NDAA on Wednesday by a strong bipartisan 87-13 vote.
The fiscal 2024 NDAA also includes a four-month extension of a controversial domestic surveillance authority, giving lawmakers more time to either reform or retain the programme, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
This provision faced objections in both the Senate and the House, but not enough to derail the bill. The Senate defeated an attempt to strip the FISA extension from the NDAA on Wednesday before voting to pass the defence measure.
The House and Senate had each passed their own versions of the NDAA earlier this year. The measure passed this week was a bipartisan, bicameral compromise.
The bill extends a measure to help Ukraine, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, through the end of 2026, authorising $300 million for the program in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and the next.
However, that figure is tiny compared to the $61 billion in assistance for Ukraine that Biden has asked Congress to approve to help Kyiv as it battles a Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
That emergency spending request has stalled in Congress, with Republicans refusing to approve aid for Ukraine without Democrats agreeing to a significant tightening of immigration laws.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with lawmakers at the Capitol on Tuesday to make his case for the funding requested by Biden, but emerged from the meetings without any Republican commitments.