Senate passes NDAA in 77-20 vote, sending $900 billion protection coverage invoice to Trump

Washington — The Senate authorised a $900 billion protection coverage invoice generally known as the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act on Wednesday, sending it to the president’s desk for his signature. 

The measure cleared the higher chamber with broad bipartisan help in a vote of 77 to twenty.

Sen. Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Providers Committee, praised the invoice’s bipartisan custom forward of the vote Wednesday. 

“This would be the sixty fifth yr in a row, the sixty fifth consecutive yr that Congress has come collectively throughout the aisle and throughout two chambers to ship the president a invoice designed to maintain and strengthen the nationwide protection,” Wicker stated. “Everybody on this Senate performed a job.”

The NDAA is an annual must-pass piece of laws that units lawmakers’ protection priorities. This yr’s model, which is greater than 3,000 pages lengthy, goals to codify greater than a dozen of President Trump’s government orders, together with prohibiting variety, fairness and inclusion packages on the Protection Division, authorizing the usage of active-duty troops alongside the U.S.-Mexico border and deploying a “Golden Dome” missile protection protect.

The invoice features a 3.8% pay increase for all service members. It additionally contains language that prohibits transgender ladies from collaborating in ladies’s athletic packages or actions at army service academies. 

The Home authorised the huge protection coverage laws final week in a 312 to 112 vote. Home Speaker Mike Johnson struggled to carry his convention collectively for a procedural vote, going through pushback from conservatives.

A few of the pushback got here from the inclusion of assist for Ukraine. The invoice authorizes $400 million for army help in each fiscal years 2026 and 2027. 

The invoice would additionally roll again the authorized justifications used to assault Iraq in 1991 and 2003, together with repealing sanctions on Syria underneath the Caesar Syria Civilian Safety Act of 2019. It contains provisions that restrict the administration’s capacity to scale back troop ranges in Europe, and withholds a part of Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s journey finances till the Pentagon arms over footage of the strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats close to Venezuela. 

For the reason that Home authorised the invoice, some lawmakers have expressed considerations that it would not do sufficient to limit army plane close to Ronald Reagan Washington Nationwide Airport. Final week, Nationwide Transportation Security Board chair Jennifer Homendy warned {that a} provision within the NDAA “doesn’t in any manner improve security” and “reverses security adjustments” made after a midair collision in January between a army helicopter and a passenger jet that killed 67 individuals. The invoice, Homendy stated, “basically offers the army unfettered entry to the crowded and complicated D.C. airspace.”

Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Washington, the chair and rating member on the Senate Commerce Committee, have been pursuing a repair. The panel superior a measure earlier this yr generally known as the ROTOR Act, which might tighten the foundations in D.C. airspace. Later Wednesday, Cruz efficiently handed the measure underneath unanimous consent.

The Texas Republican stated he, Cantwell and Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas had made “vital progress” and had reached an settlement to move the invoice unanimously. He additionally famous that the White Home backs the invoice and “is dedicated to serving to us work with our Home colleagues to see that the ROTOR Act passes in that chamber.”

“We nonetheless have just a few small, excellent points, however I am optimistic that we’ll get this accomplished and signed into legislation as quickly as subsequent month,” Cruz stated.