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The Senate late Thursday approved its massive annual defense policy bill as the U.S. government remains shut down.
The GOP-led chamber approved the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 70-20, which funds the U.S. military at $924.7 billion in fiscal year 2026. The vote came after lawmakers reached a deal earlier in the day to unlock the stalled legislation.
The bill’s passage allows the House and Senate armed services committees to begin the sometimes arduous conference process, during which lawmakers hammer out a compromise between each chambers’ version of the legislation. The House version of the NDAA, passed last month, has a much lower topline at nearly $893 billion.
The NDAA had come to the Senate floor in early September but saw little movement until Thursday morning. Action on the bill was stalled as all 100 senators must agree to hold votes on amendments, with several sticking points causing a handful of lawmakers to halt the process.
But Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) secured an agreement to vote on 17 stand-alone amendments and a package of nearly 50 less controversial amendments.
“We simply cannot delay this process any longer,” Wicker said on the Senate floor. “Let me make it clear, if we do not bring this to the floor today, this matter will not have time for deliberation on the Senate floor, and we’ll have to basically pretend that we’re having a conference between House and Senate members, and a very small group of senators will have to write this bill and bring it to the floor for final passage. That’s not the way this ought to be done.”
Votes were held throughout Thursday evening, during which senators blew through over a dozen partisan amendments and the 50 add-ons before moving the bill.
Among those passed was from Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who offered the proposal to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force for Iraq. It also would repeal a similar resolution passed in 1991 during the Gulf War.
And in a show of bipartisanship, an amendment offered by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) made it into the bill and would give additional authorities to the Pentagon to counter drone threats over military installations.
“Hundreds of drones have been spotted in the vicinity of military installations over the past few years, including military-sensitive sites like Langley Air Force Base,” Gillibrand said. “But current laws give the Department of Defense quite limited authority to mitigate these threats, and the patchwork of interagency coordination required to address them leaves gaps that endanger our military bases and the men and women who serve there.”
But amendments that failed to pass included one from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.N.Y.) who had hoped to block money for President Trump to retrofit a luxury Qatari jet he accepted as an intended replacement for Air Force One.
“Retrofitting this foreign-owned luxury jet to make it fully operational will cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. That’s money that shouldn’t be wasted,” Schumer said.
And Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) put forward a proposal that was voted down and would have stopped Trump and state governors from allowing National Guard troops from one state to be sent to another if a governor or mayor rejected the move.
Among the issues that were resolved prior to the bill’s Senate passage was a roadblock posed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who stalled the NDAA over a bipartisan proposal to scrutinize U.S. investments in China. She reportedly agreed to allow the bill to advance after receiving assurances that senators would address concerns raised by Microsoft, one of her state’s biggest employers, over the amendment.
Another dropped effort was Sen. Ruben Gallego’s (D-Ariz.) insistence that senators vote on his amendment to label Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt — who was shot and killed by police while attempting to enter a restricted area of the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — ineligible for military funeral honors, Politico reported.
Updated at 10:55 p.m. EDT.
