WASHINGTON – The House on Thursday easily passed a massive Pentagon policy bill, sending to the Senate a bill that would clear the military to spend $559.2 billion in fiscal 2015.
By a bipartisan vote of 300-119, the lower chamber approved a compromise version of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that includes $495.5 billion in base funding and $63.7 billion in war funding.
The measure had to be negotiated behind closed doors after a Senate Armed Services Committee-passed version stalled on the north side of the Capitol. The compromise version keeps alive the Air Force's A-10 fleet and green-lights President Barack Obama's plan to train and arm vetted Syrian rebels, among other things.
"This legislation addresses a wide array of policy issues, including supporting operations in Afghanistan, funding the war against [the Islamic State] in Iraq and Syria, reinforcing our capabilities in the Pacific, and maintaining this nation's nuclear deterrent," retiring House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., said during an emotional floor speech a few hours before the vote.
His Senate counterpart, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in a Wednesday statement about the bill, which passed the House with no amendments allowed, said it "provides for our nation's defense and upholds our obligations to our men and women in uniform and their families."
"It provides funding to train and equip Syrian ground forces to take on [the Islamic State]," Levin said. "And this compromise bill, at the request of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, takes the first, needed steps in the area of benefits reform in order to help protect the readiness of our forces to carry out their missions."
For a summary of the bill's weapons program and policy provisions, click here.
