House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said: “You can’t fix the Budget Control Act through the Defense Authorization Act.” House approves defense policy bill

The House on Friday passed a sweeping annual defense policy bill that became a flashpoint this year in a larger dispute between the White House and congressional Republicans over federal spending.

The National Defense Authorization Act, which normally sails through each year with a bipartisan support, was approved in a closer-than-usual vote, 269 - 151, after Democratic leaders took the rare step of following the White House in opposing the measure.


There were enough votes against the measure to potentially sustain a threatened presidential veto — giving the administration more leverage in its larger fight with Republicans over the proper size of the government.

Democrats objected to the bill’s endorsement of a GOP budget plan to use a supplemental war funding account to shield the Pentagon from strict caps on discretionary spending while leaving other federal agencies subject to the caps — a move that would hamper President Barack Obama’s domestic agenda.

The bill would also tighten restrictions on transferring prisoners from the U.S. military prison at Guant á namo Bay, Cuba, in what could represent a final nail in the coffin for Obama’s 2008 campaign pledge to close the facility.

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday approved its own version of the bill that takes a very different tack on Gitmo, providing a path for closing the prison if Obama puts forward a plan that Congress approves.

The annual policy bill — passed each year for more than half a century — offers a spending blueprint for appropriators, authorizing $612 billion in defense funding.

The figure lines up with the Pentagon’s budget request for next fiscal year but would do so by shifting an extra $38 billion to the supplemental Overseas Contingency Operations account, which isn’t subject to federal spending caps.

Congressional Republicans acknowledged the move wasn’t ideal, since the OCO account is an emergency fund intended for military operations in Afghanistan and other global hotspots, but they said it was the only way to fully fund the military without busting the spending caps put in place under the Budget Control Act of 2011.

Senior Democrats, including House Armed Services ranking member Adam Smith of Washington state, opposed the measure because of that.

“We will not let defense out from under the budget caps and keep everything else under it,” Smith said Thursday on Capitol Hill.

House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), appearing with Smith, countered: “You can’t fix the Budget Control Act through the Defense Authorization Act.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) also waded into the dispute, calling it “downright shameful” that Democrats would oppose a bill that authorizes funding for the military. But Smith and other Democrats were quick to point out that Boehner himself opposed the NDAA in 2010.

The authorization bill passed on Friday includes a number of reforms.

It would establish a new 401(k)-style retirement plan for all service members while scaling back the pensions that go only to those who serve for 20 years or more. But the bill would grandfather current service members and retirees so that only future recruits would see the reduced pensions, though current service members could opt into the new system.

The bill would also overhaul the military’s long-troubled acquisition system, cutting down on the paperwork required of Pentagon program managers and giving them more leeway to choose which types of contracts to use. The acquisition package also includes a number of industry-friendly provisions that would weaken the Pentagon’s weapons testing office and make it easier for products to be labeled “commercial,” a designation that comes with fewer oversight requirements.

The bill would maintain provisions blocking the Air Force from carrying out its plan to retire its aging A-10 Warthog attack planes, a move the service says is necessary to shift money and personnel to new aircraft such as the F-35 fighter jet.

And the measure would authorize billions of dollars for additional Lockheed Martin-made F-35s and Boeing-made F-18 Super Hornets that the Pentagon didn’t request.

Like last year, provisions dealing with immigration set off a firestorm on Capitol Hill.

The House Armed Services Committee last month adopted an amendment by Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) that would encourage the Pentagon to study whether to allow certain young undocumented immigrants to serve in the military — a provision that enraged immigration hard -liners.

And the House on Thursday approved an amendment by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) to strip the Gallego provision — a showdown that drew heated debate on the House floor and even caught the attention of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“If these courageous young men and women want to serve, they should be honored and celebrated, not discriminated against,” the Clinton campaign said in a statement.