House and Senate Reach Agreement on NDAA, Votes Expected Next Week

WASHINGTON — The Senate and House Armed Services committees announced Thursday that they’ve reached an agreement on the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, jettisoning some, but not all, of the controversial amendments added by House Republicans last summer.

Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Roger Wicker, R-Miss., are the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., are their counterparts on the House Armed Services Committee.

In a joint statement released Thursday afternoon, they said, “Providing for our national defense is Congress’ most important responsibility under the U.S. Constitution, and the NDAA is key to fulfilling that duty. 

“Our nation faces unprecedented threats from China, Iran, Russia and North Korea. It is vital that we act now to protect our national security. We would like to thank all the conferees for their hard work and contributions to this year’s bill,” they continued. 

Though it is often referred to as a “must-pass spending bill,” the NDAA is actually just an authorization for defense spending. 

This year’s package would authorize the Defense Department to spend about $886 billion, though Congress still has to fund those expenditures.

The committee leaders went on to say that they crafted their joint conference report “through months of hard-fought and productive negotiations.”

“We urge Congress to pass the NDAA quickly and President Biden to sign it when it reaches his desk,” they said.

The text of the 3,093-page conference report can be found here.

Among the controversial items cut from the revised bill is a provision that would have voided the Defense Department’s new paid leave policy for service members who travel for an abortion.

In addition to providing paid leave, the Pentagon policy also reimburses travel costs for service members who need to travel for an abortion service.

It was adopted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which a majority of the justices held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. 

The court’s decision reversed both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, returning to individual states the power to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal law.

House Republicans passed the amendment to the NDAA along with several other provisions vociferously opposed by a majority of House Democrats in July.

Also excised from the text are provisions that would have barred gender-affirming health care for transgender service members and the purchase of books with certain LGBTQ themes for the department’s schools.

Another provision that was cut was a ban on drag shows on military bases. 

The Defense Department earlier this year announced it was banning drag shows, a fact the committees noted in their report.

The revised NDAA would also ban teaching “critical race theory” at military academies and during military training. 

But in doing so, the committees adopted a narrow definition of the theory, describing it as a study of individuals, who by virtue of their race, ethnicity, color or national origin, “bear collective guilt and are inherently responsible for actions committed in the past.”

Though striking those provisions is likely to stir the ire of some House conservatives, the bill negotiated between the two committees was hardly a total wash for for their side — the revised bill continues to mandate that the Defense Department consider reinstating service members who were discharged for not getting vaccinated during the coronavirus pandemic.

The one tweak made by the Senate was a requirement that those seeking reinstatement had previously requested an exemption on religious, medical or administrative grounds.

The package also continues to include a ban on displaying “unapproved” flags, a provision intended to target LGBTQ+ pride flags. 

The measure remained because the Defense Department already prohibits flying unofficial flags, a policy that was put in place three years ago to hasten the removal of the Confederate flag from military bases.

The bill also curbs some diversity initiatives. 

For instance, it places a freeze on new diversity, equity and inclusion hires until the Government Accountability Office delivers a report on that segment of the federal workforce. 

The NDAA would also cap pay for civilian diversity, equity and inclusion employees.

Shortly after the release of the report, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced that the chamber will take votes on the NDAA early next week. 

“After a lot of hard work on both sides, we’ve reached agreement for this year’s Defense authorization bill. Never easy, harder now than ever before,” Schumer said while announcing the pending vote.

“At a time of huge trouble for global security, doing the Defense authorization bill is more important than ever,” he continued. “The annual Defense bill is a prime example of both sides cooperating on a strong, bipartisan package to strengthen America’s national security, to take care of our service members [and] keep the United States the leader in innovation.

“When we began the December session, I said the Senate faces three important tasks: ending the hold on military nominees, which we did earlier this week, getting NDAA done, which we’re doing today and early next week, and then the biggest and hardest of all is passing the supplemental. We want to get that done as well. It’s critical. We’re going to keep working,” Schumer said.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue