The Senate on Monday cleared a key procedural hurdle as it looks to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) before lawmakers leave town for the holidays at the end of the week.
Senators voted 76-20 to put the annual defense policy bill a step closer to final passage, which will still take several more days.
The chamber previously voted to move ahead on the package on Thursday following final passage in the House.
The yearly bipartisan package checks in at $900 billion — $8 billion more than the total requested by President Trump. It includes a pay bump for service members, a restriction on U.S. investment in China and military aid to Ukraine, among other things.
The push to pass it in the Senate is expected to be relatively easy compared with the number of snags it hit in the House.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) last week was forced to placate several conservatives in his conference in order to win their support for a procedural vote. Final passage went smoothly, though, with the lower chamber voting 312-112 to send it across the Capitol.
That doesn’t mean this week won’t have bumps in the road.
Sign up for the Morning Report
The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox.
Email address
By signing up, I agree to the Terms of Use, have reviewed the Privacy Policy, and to receive personalized offers and communications via email, on-site notifications, and targeted advertising using my email address from The Hill, Nexstar Media Inc., and its affiliates
Chief among them is an effort by lawmakers to include updated language concerning the restriction of military aircraft travel to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
According to a provision included in the NDAA, military training aircraft are required to signal their location to air traffic controllers, but that requirement could be waived by the secretary of Transportation and the head of an individual military branch.
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the panel’s ranking member, filed an amendment to beef up that language.
The effort comes almost a year after a domestic flight that was landing collided with an Army helicopter, leaving 67 people dead.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said that the current language “could make flying into the capital region significantly less safe.”
“The language in this provision could allow rolling back crucial new safety practices I fought to implement after the January 29 tragedy, and give the Department of Defense more discretion over safety procedures in the region,” Warner said in a statement. “After what happened in January, it’s clear that we cannot rely on the DoD alone to be the safety authority over its flights in this area and that we need more, not less, oversight to prevent another tragedy from ever occurring again.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) indicated to reporters that an amendment to the NDAA itself is unlikely given that the House would need to pass the bill again.
“It’d be really hard to undo the [NDAA] now,” Thune said.
Instead, he believes a bill proposed by Cruz aimed at boosting aviation safety could get an amendment vote to be attached to the package of spending measures that leaders hope to soon move on the floor.
