It leaves out an amendment by Sen. Gillibrand on sexual assault prosecution. Senate sends defense bill to Obama

The Senate approved a sweeping defense policy bill late Thursday that protects troop bonuses and reforms some ways the Pentagon handles sexual assaults in the military but leaves debates for another day on other major issues, from Iran sanctions to NSA eavesdropping.

The 84-15 vote followed a drawn-out partisan spat that at times appeared to threaten the annual National Defense Authorization Act. Senate Republicans, particularly, fumed about the compromise legislation’s movement through Congress on a fast track, with no opportunity for amendments.


“It’s a failure of leadership on the part of the majority leader,” Arizona Sen. John McCain told reporters, echoing Republican colleagues who said the accelerated process was designed to prevent tough votes on Iran sanctions and other controversial issues.

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“I don’t know what we’re going to do, given the dictatorial fashion in which he’s running the Senate,” McCain added, complaining about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

The House, which has recessed for the holidays, has already approved the mammoth measure. And President Barack Obama is expected to sign it. On Thursday, before the Senate acted, White House press secretary Jay Carney hailed the measure for providing the administration “additional flexibility” to transfer prisoners at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to other countries.

But Carney also said that “the bill does not address all of the administration’s concerns” and “includes a number of provisions that restrict or limit the Defense Department’s ability to align military capabilities and force structure with the president’s strategy.” For example, it protects certain Air Force aircraft that service leaders say they want to scrap to save money.

The final compromise, fashioned by the leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees, leaves out Democratic language that would have eased restrictions on transferring Gitmo detainees to the United States — a provision that would have helped the administration achieve its goal of shuttering the facility.

It also does not include a controversial amendment by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to remove decisions about prosecuting sexual assault from the military chain of command. The New York Democrat says she’s secured a commitment from Reid to bring her proposal to the floor as a stand-alone measure next year. Although she may get her vote, the legislation is not expected to survive in the Republican-controlled House.

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Thursday’s defense bill also sidesteps the debate over Iran. Senators who wanted to offer amendments imposing tougher sanctions were blocked because of the bill’s fast-track process, which supporters said was necessary to get it finished before the end of the year. So Iran sanction hawks’ efforts will have to wait until next year. Movement now toward stricter sanctions, the White House has warned, would undermine its ongoing negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) suggested Reid had fast-tracked the defense bill because he “can’t stomach” a politically uncomfortable Iran vote.

Overall, the bill would authorize about $527 billion in base defense spending for the current fiscal year, plus funds for the war in Afghanistan and nuclear weapons programs overseen by the Energy Department. The numbers are in line with the Pentagon’s request but more than $30 billion above the levels set under the bipartisan budget agreement passed in Congress this week.

Appropriations committees are expected to work through the holidays on spending bills for passage before the Jan. 15 expiration of the current continuing spending resolution that funds the federal government. If Congress is able to act in time, it would finally give the Defense Department and the rest of the government a budget.

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The elevated spending levels in the new defense authorization bill allowed the Armed Services committees to avoid tough strategic choices about what to cut and what to keep under the spending caps put in place by the Budget Control Act of 2011. But it also means the bill is out of sync with the fiscal realities facing the Defense Department.

That won’t be the case next year, according to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who told POLITICO his committee would match its topline numbers for fiscal 2015 to the levels put forward in the budget deal. The Pentagon is preparing its fiscal year 2015 budget proposal for submission to Congress early next year.

Amid the year-end crunch, Levin said he was happy the bill would get done again this year and keep alive a 51-year streak of passage for the yearly measure.

“I really feel that Christmastime, for the troops and their families, for them to get any message other than, ‘We’re passing the bill,’ would have been a really terrible message,” he said. “So I’m elated, frankly, we passed the bill for their sake.”