Senate Passes $631B Defense Policy Bill 98-0 Ignoring A Veto Threat Video

Ignoring a veto threat, the Senate voted 98-0 for the legislation that authorizes money for weapons, aircraft and ships and provides a 1.7 percent pay raise for military personnel.

After a decade of increasing Pentagon budgets, the vote came against the backdrop of significant reductions in projected military spending and the threat of deeper cuts from the looming “fiscal cliff” of automatic spending cuts and tax increases.

The bill reflects the nation’s war-weariness after more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, the messy uncertainty about new threats to U.S. security and Washington belt-tightening in times of trillion-dollar-plus deficits. Spending solely on the base defense budget has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, but the latest blueprint reins in the projected growth in military dollars.

The bill would provide some $526 billion for the base defense budget, $17 billion for defense programs in the Energy Department and about $88 billion for the war in Afghanistan. House and Senate negotiators must reconcile their competing versions of the bill in the next few weeks.

“The major challenge is time,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., told reporters after the vote.

Reacting to the relentless violence in Syria, the Senate voted 92-6 to require the Pentagon to report to Congress on the ability of the U.S. military to impose a no-fly zone over Syria.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has pushed for greater U.S. military involvement to end the Syrian civil war, sponsored the amendment. Obama on Monday warned Syrian President Bashar Assad not to use chemical and/or biological weapons against his people as the U.S. and its allies weigh military options.

“If military action has to be taken to prevent sarin gas to be used, Congress has to be involved,” McCain said.

But Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said it was a “bad idea to discuss contingency plans for war.”

The amendment specified that it should not be construed as a declaration of war or an authorization to use force.

Before the vote for passage, Levin said he was “so proud our committee could keep the tradition of passing for 51 times a defense authorization bill.”

The Pentagon policy bill now heads to a House-Senate conference committee, where there are numerous differences that must be resolved.

The two bills were roughly $3 billion apart after the Senate’s version passed committee, with the House bill coming in at a higher topline than the Senate-passed version.

The Senate’s bill reversed several policies that were in the House-passed bill, including restrictions on the military’s use of biofuels and plans for an East Coast missile defense site.

The House bill includes policies that the Democratic-led Senate is opposed to, particularly on social issues, such as a ban on same-sex ceremonies on military bases and language that says military chaplains can’t be punished for opposing same-sex marriage.

The Senate bill also included a new round of Iran sanctions, a “permanent ban” on transferring detainees from Guantánamo and prohibitions on the military detention of U.S. citizens.

Besides the conflicts with the House, the Senate’s defense bill reversed several policies the Obama administration requested in its Pentagon budget. The Senate measure rolled back proposed cuts to the Air National Guard and TRICARE fee increases, prohibited funding for the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) and included unrequested modernization funds for the M-1 Abrams tank.

The White House threatened to veto the bill over the changes to the Pentagon’s proposed budget as well as the restriction on using funds to transfer Guantánamo detainees.

The administration’s veto threat came before the bill’s Guantánamo transfer restrictions became even stronger after the Senate approved an amendment from Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.).

Nonetheless, the differences between the House, Senate and administration are not likely to derail the bill that has passed for 50 straight years.

“While there are difference between the bills, there doesn’t appear to be anything that is insurmountable or will keep the conference committee from resolving the differences,” said a Republican House aide.

Levin and Armed Services ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) both expressed confidence that the bill would get done despite the differences between the chambers. Levin said that the biggest challenge was time, and noted that the committees’ staffs have already started work on the final bill.

The Senate’s defense bill authorized about $525 billion Pentagon spending, $88.5 billion for the war in Afghanistan and $18 billion funding in the Energy Department.

The bill sets Pentagon policy and authorizes key funding priorities for the military, such as troop pay raises and funding for weapons programs.

While the defense bill did ultimately pass, it was a long and often-tenuous journey since the committee voted it through in May.

Levin and McCain urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for months to put the authorization bill on the floor, but he chose to wait until after the election.

Reid asked the Armed Services chiefs to get the bill done in three days during the lame-duck session, but objections from Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) — along with a flood of hundreds of amendments — prevented that from happening.

Coburn objected after his amendment, which barred a mental-illness diagnosis from preventing veterans from owning guns unless a judge orders it, was objected to. Coburn eventually dropped the objection, and is working with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to find a compromise on the amendment.

Levin joked with Reid after the bill had managed to pass in three days — because the Senate doesn’t count half-days.

The most contentious debate on the floor surrounded U.S. detention policies, which had sparked a month-long fight between lawmakers and the White House last year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed an amendment to bar military detention for U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism, a measure she said would correct the language in the 2012 bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and McCain and Ayotte have staunchly defended the necessity of military detention to help win the global war on terror. But McCain, Graham and Levin all wound up supporting Feinstein’s amendment — only after arguing that her amendment did in fact allow the detention of U.S. citizens to continue. The amendment passed 67-29.

On killing funding for MEADS, one of the issues over which the White House threatened a veto, Levin told reporters Tuesday that while it wasn’t “a done deal” to remain in the bill, the issue had broad support in Congress.

“We feel strongly that it’s a waste of money,” Levin said.

The Iran amendment, submitted by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), would tighten economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. It passed 94-0.

Menendez also passed an Iran sanctions amendment on last year’s defense authorization bill.

In the bill’s final vote before passage, the Senate approved an amendment from McCain and others requiring a Pentagon report on options for a no-fly zone in Syria, which passed 92-6.

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