The annual defense authorization bill usually gains strong bipartisan support and has not failed to pass Congress in nearly six decades, but the Pentagon policy measure in recent years has become a battleground for cultural issues. Republicans this year sought to tack on to the legislation priorities for social conservatives, contributing to a months-long negotiation over the bill and a falloff in support from Democrats.
Still, the bill passed comfortably 85-14, sending it to President Joe Biden. Eleven senators who caucus with Democrats, as well as three Republicans, voted against the legislation.
The Republican-controlled House had passed a version of the bill in June that would have banned the Defense Department's policy of reimbursing costs for service members who travel to another state for an abortion, ended gender manipulation procedures for troops and weeded out diversity initiatives in the military.
Most of those provisions did not make it into the final package, though Republicans are expecting Donald Trump to make sweeping changes to Pentagon policy when he enters office in January.
The bill also still prohibits funding for teaching critical race theory in the military and prohibits TRICARE health plans from covering gender dysphoria treatment for children under 18 if that treatment could result in “sterilization.”
The legislation also directs resources towards a more confrontational approach to China, including establishing a fund that could be used to send military resources to Taiwan in much the same way that the U.S. has backed Ukraine. It also invests in new military technologies, including artificial intelligence, and bolsters the U.S. production of ammunition.
The U.S. has also moved in recent years to ban the military from purchasing Chinese products, and the defense bill extended that with prohibitions on Chinese goods from garlic in military commissaries to drone technology.
