US Senate passes annual defence policy bill, sending it to Biden for signing
The US Senate has passed the 895-billion-USD defence policy bill for fiscal year 2025, which has already cleared the House and now awaits President Joe Biden’s signature to become law.
The 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was approved in an 85-14 vote, surpassing the 60-vote threshold required for passage in the 100-member Senate. The military spending authorized in the bill represents a 1% increase from last year’s budget of $886 billion.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, voted against the bill, criticizing what he saw as excessive military spending at the expense of domestic issues like homelessness and hunger. Sanders argued that the US does not need to spend nearly a trillion dollars on military while many citizens face critical social needs.
This year’s NDAA also includes a significant pay raise for service members, with the lowest-ranking troops set to receive a 14.5% increase and the rest of the armed forces a 4.5% raise.
A point of contention in the NDAA involved health insurance coverage for military personnel and their children who receive gender-affirming medical treatment. The bill, a compromise between Republicans and Democrats, would ban the Pentagon’s health care program, TRICARE, from covering transgender children of service members. Efforts to further limit gender-affirming care for adults in the military and restrict funding for travel related to abortion procedures were unsuccessful due to Democratic opposition.
The NDAA also allocates funding for military efforts overseas, including $15.6 billion for building military capabilities in the “Indo-Pacific region.” It authorizes expanded US-Israel joint military drills amid ongoing conflicts in the Middle East but prohibits the Pentagon from citing casualty numbers from Hamas.
The NDAA does not directly allocate funding to the Defense Department, but it authorizes the Pentagon’s programs for the coming fiscal year, such as weapons purchases and equipment maintenance. A separate spending bill will be needed to approve Pentagon funding for fiscal year 2025, which must be passed by Congress by September 30, 2025.
