By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Home of Representatives handed a protection coverage invoice on Wednesday, governing a document $895 billion in annual navy spending, regardless of inclusion of a controversial coverage focusing on gender-affirming take care of transgender kids.
The tally was 281-140 in favor of the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, or NDAA, sending it for consideration by the Democratic-led U.S. Senate.
Along with the standard NDAA provisions on purchases of navy gear and boosting competitiveness with archrivals like China and Russia, this yr’s 1,800-page invoice focuses on enhancing the standard of life for the U.S. navy.
It authorizes a 14.5% pay enhance for the lowest-ranking troops, and 4.5% for the remainder of the power, which is increased than ordinary. It additionally authorizes the development of navy housing, colleges and childcare facilities.
The invoice bans the navy well being program, TRICARE, from masking gender-affirming take care of the transgender kids of service members if it may threat sterilization.
Together with the supply within the invoice, which units coverage for the Division of Protection, underscored how a lot consideration transgender points have gotten in U.S. politics and indicated Republicans plan to proceed to focus on the politically polarizing subject.
President-elect Donald Trump and lots of different Republicans blasted Democrats for supporting transgender rights throughout the 2024 election marketing campaign, which ended with Republicans retaining management of the Home and taking management of the Senate and White Home beginning subsequent month.
‘WOKE IDEOLOGY’
After it handed, Republican Home Speaker Mike Johnson praised the measure as refocusing the navy on its core mission. “Our women and men in uniform ought to know their first obligation is defending our nation, not woke ideology,” he mentioned in an announcement.
The measure didn’t embrace another Republican proposals on social points, together with an effort to ban TRICARE from masking gender-affirming take care of transgender adults and a measure that might have reversed the Pentagon’s coverage of funding journey for abortion for troops stationed in states the place the process is banned.
The huge invoice is without doubt one of the few main items of laws that Congress passes yearly and lawmakers take nice pleasure in having handed it yearly for greater than six a long time.
The invoice is a compromise between Democrats and Republicans within the Home and Senate, reached throughout weeks of negotiations behind closed doorways. Home passage sends the measure to the Democratic-led Senate. Passage there would ship it to the White Home for President Joe Biden to signal into legislation or veto.
The NDAA authorizes Pentagon applications, however doesn’t fund them. Congress should individually cross funding in a spending invoice for the fiscal yr ending in September 2025. That invoice is unlikely to be enacted earlier than March.
