The Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a defense policy bill directing $895 billion toward the Pentagon and other military activities, moving over the objections of some Democrats who opposed a provision added late in the negotiations that would deny coverage for transgender health procedures for minors.
The 85-to-14 vote, coming a week after a divided House passed the same measure, cleared the bill for President Biden’s signature.
Most Republicans and many Democrats supported the measure, which provides a 14.5 percent pay raise to junior enlisted service members and a 4.5 percent pay raise for all other service members. It also expands access to meal assistance, housing and child care programs that benefit those in uniform.
But several Democrats withheld their backing in protest of a provision preventing TRICARE, the military’s health care plan for service members, from covering “medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization” for children under 18.
The language, which would affect the gender-transitioning children of service members, was recently added to the measure at the insistence of Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, who refused to bring a defense bill to the House floor without it, according to aides familiar with the negotiations.
Twenty-one Democrats, led by Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, proposed an amendment to strip the provision from the bill, but the matter was never brought to a vote. Several of them took to the floor on Tuesday to lodge their objections.
“It’s flat-out wrong to put this provision in this bill and take away a service member’s freedom to make that decision for their families,” Ms. Baldwin said, estimating that the provision could negatively affect as many as 6,000 to 7,000 military families.
“It’s unfortunate that some of our colleagues decided to force this harmful provision in this National Defense Authorization Act, because otherwise, I would have been proud to support it,” she added, noting that this year was the first time since coming to the Senate that she was voting against the annual defense bill.
Ultimately 11 Democrats and three Republicans voted against the measure, while most others justified their support by highlighting provisions in the behemoth bill that they had championed.
“Everyone knows this N.D.A.A. is not perfect, but it still takes a strong stand against the Chinese Communist Party,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader.
The bill authorizes a Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, modeled after a similar program devised to bolster Ukraine’s military readiness; funds nuclear modernization; and expands sea power and infrastructure into the Indo-Pacific region.
Mr. Schumer also cited the bill’s efforts to expand technology innovation and the use of artificial intelligence in national defense as reasons to back it.
House Republicans had initially tried to impose more expansive restrictions on transgender health care, passing a bill in June that would have denied such care to anyone covered under the military’s health plan. Yet the survival of even the limited restriction was a departure from past years, when such politically loaded provisions have been excised from the bill in negotiations. It also reflected how Republicans had gained the upper hand after their sweeping wins during the November elections.
Mr. Johnson had two other final demands that rankled lawmakers, including some in the G.O.P., according to aides familiar with the negotiations. He insisted on dropping a provision that would have expanded access to in vitro fertilization, even though it had been included in both the House’s and the Senate’s initial versions of the bill. The procedure is currently available to service members only if their infertility issues were caused by illnesses or injuries sustained while on active duty; the change would have lifted that restriction.
Mr. Johnson also insisted that the overall price tag of the legislation not exceed congressionally imposed limits on military spending, a demand that upset Senate Republicans who wanted the bill to authorize an extra $25 billion in spending.
“The absence of the Senate-backed increase to top-line investments will go down as a tremendous missed opportunity,” Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader, said of the legislation. “Artificial budget restraints mean that major bill provisions like a pay raise for enlisted service members will come at the expense of investments in the critical weapons systems and munitions that deter conflict and keep them safe.”
The measure authorizes $33.5 billion for building new battle-force ships, $17.5 billion for military construction projects and over $143 billion for research, development and testing of weapons and other systems employed by the military.
It also includes a broad new set of mandates on brain safety in the military. Evidence has been mounting that troops’ own weapons and equipment can pose a serious risk to their brains in repeated use. Among other provisions, the bill requires the Pentagon to set new safety standards for blast exposure, track and report exposure over service members’ careers, and take brain safety into account when designing new weapons.
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