Congress passes $886B defense bill, OKs warrantless spy authority into 2024
Congress passed its annual defense spending bill on Thursday, approving a record $886 billion for the Pentagon and extending intelligence agencies’ warrantless foreign surveillance authority into April of next year.
The House voted 310-118 to pass the more than 3,000-page National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024, with 147 Republicans and 163 Democrats supporting the measure.
In opposition were 73 Republicans and 45 Democrats, with six more lawmakers absent from the vote.
The law would raise the defense budget by 3% from the previous year and extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — a controversial intelligence-gathering authority that allows for warrantless monitoring of non-US citizens — until April 19.
Section 702 has split the Republican conference — with members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Judiciary Committee passing dueling bills to reform the law, which was set to expire at the end of December.
House Republicans will take up the fight in the new year, as members seek to balance privacy concerns for US citizens and the ability for federal law enforcement to thwart potential terror attacks or crimes.
The 2024 NDAA will also hand military service members the largest pay raise in more than two decades, with a 5.2% increase aimed at boosting recruitment and retention.
The House had passed an earlier version of the bill in July that was packed with conservative amendments, such as slashing funding for military diversity, equity and inclusion programs and so-called “green” energy initiatives.
The Senate passed a pared-down version of the legislation 87-13 Wednesday night without some of those amendments, including add-ons that would have blocked abortion access or prevented so-called gender affirming treatments for troops and their families.
Under Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the Pentagon has allowed for service members to be reimbursed for traveling out of their home state to undergo reproductive procedures after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
The policy prompted Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to block all military appointments and promotions in the Senate for 10 months before Senate Republicans pressured him into backing down earlier this month.
However, a number of “anti-woke” initiatives in the earlier bill did make it through the negotiating process — including the stripping of funding for military drag show performances, outlawing funding for instruction in critical race theory and granting parents of students at Defense Department schools the right to review their children’s curriculum and books.
Other conservative provisions that made their way into the final bill include prohibiting adverse action on any service member re-entering the service after refusing the COVID vaccine and eliminating the DoD’s Countering Extremism Working Group, which the House GOP called “politically biased” last week.
“Importantly, this legislation returns the Department of Defense’s focus back to the business of defending our nation and away from social experiments that hurt our military’s recruitment, morale, and readiness,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said in a statement.
“House Republicans secured important victories by reining in harmful Biden Administration policies, such as taxpayer-funded censorship of conservative media, Critical Race Theory in the military and its schools, and Pentagon DEI bureaucracy.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) also told The Post that provisions she introduced and were passed include banning Pentagon funds over the next fiscal year for the Wuhan Institute of Virology and all other EcoHealth projects — more than three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in China.
“No one in Washington knows the exact amount of tax dollars being exported to China because no one is keeping track,” Ernst said. “We are one step closer to stopping taxpayer dollars from being misspent to subsidize the mad scientists in China or anywhere else. I’m pulling the plug on this risky research and ensuring our defense dollars are making the world a safer, not more dangerous, place.”
Her amendments would also require audits of US defense funding over the past 10 years for potentially risky research involving pathogens of pandemic potential in China or other countries.
Additionally, at least $11.5 billion in the bill will counter threats from China in the Indo-Pacific region — and another $800 million will be provided in military aid to Ukraine as the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears.
“At a time of huge trouble for global security, doing the defense authorization bill is more important than ever,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said before the upper chamber vote was held.
“Passing the NDAA enables us to hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party and ensure America’s defenses remain state of the art at all times.”
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said in a statement the boost in defense funding “has never been more vital” as the US “faces unprecedented threats.”
“With today’s passage of the FY24 NDAA, Congress has sent a strong message to our adversaries,” he said. “The FY24 NDAA provides our military with the vital authorities, resources, and capabilities that our warfighters need to stay ahead of our adversaries.
“The FY24 NDAA supports our service members, guts Biden’s woke agenda, deters China, and strengthens our military. I urge President Biden to quickly sign this bill into law,” he added.
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), an Army veteran who sits on both the Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, slammed the measure for trampling upon “American privacy and freedoms.”
“The Senate put in an extension to the weaponized and abused surveillance program (Section 702) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA),” he said in a statement. “Today, I voted against big government and their surveillance program which has confirmed over 287,000+ violations and abuses by the FBI that would have continued to be used without reforms.”
“Let me be clear: this is not a vote against our brave men and women, or our military priorities, but is a vote to support American privacy and freedoms, which is what our military fights to protect.”
The White House has already signaled that President Biden will sign the legislation when it arrives at his desk.
“The NDAA provides the critical authorities we need to build the military required to deter future conflicts while supporting the service members and their spouses and families who carry out that mission every day,” his administration said in a statement earlier this week.
