Preventative Medicine Services NCOIC Sergeant First Class Demetrius Roberson administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a soldier on September 9, 2021 in Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Jon Cherry | Getty Images
The Senate handed an enormous navy coverage invoice Thursday that may direct the Defense Department to elevate a Covid vaccination mandate for service members and authorize $858 billion in protection spending.
The National Defense Authorization Act, the annual invoice that authorizes Pentagon spending and insurance policies, cleared the Senate in an 83-11 vote. Five Republicans and 6 Democrats opposed the measure.
It handed the House in a 350-80 vote final week.
The laws now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
The bipartisan invoice would authorize funding for Taiwan and Ukraine and a 4.6% pay enhance for troops. It additionally would eliminate the navy vaccination mandate, a Republican precedence. Democratic leaders allowed the brand new Covid language to make sure well timed passage of the invoice.
A GOP-backed modification that pushed for scrapping the vaccination mandate instantly as an alternative of ready a number of weeks failed to satisfy the 60-vote threshold wanted for adoption within the Senate.
A separate modification, supplied by Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., sought to overtake the method to authorize power and infrastructure tasks, often known as allowing reform, within the authorization invoice. It additionally fell in need of the 60-vote threshold.