Highlights…
The final bill is $45 Billion over President Biden’s orginal throwdown…
Military personel get a $4.6% raise….
$800 million in military aid to the Ukraine and Taiwan….
New sexaul assault policy for the militayry to follow…
Repealing the vaccine mandate….
Those let go won’t get back pay either….
Turned down a side deal Sen. Mamnchin thiught he had for relaxed fossil fuel building requirements and a pipeline funding he wanted…
Republicans also topped the Biuden admin from retiring some tactical and other nuclear weapons….
The defense bill, which passed in the House last week by a vote of 350 to 80, came together after a series of high-stakes negotiations this fall, resulting in the Biden administration giving ground to Republicans on some key initiatives — including the Pentagon’s politically divisive mandate, issued in August 2021, that all military personnel be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Democrats were forced to capitulate to GOP demands to curtail the vaccine mandate after a large segment of the party threatened to withhold their support for the legislation otherwise. Republican leaders who cheered the deal to strike the mandate have since pledged to seek retribution for its existence, demanding reinstatement for service members discharged for refusing to take the vaccine, and warning they will investigate President Biden and his advisers for having ever instituted the requirement.
A GOP effort to provide remedies for service members discharged for failing to comply with the vaccine mandate failed to pass the Senate on Thursday, after more than half the chamber objected to tacking it onto the defense bill.
Several lawmakers have tried to add initiatives to the legislation, considered one of the few must-pass measures Congress considers each year, over the course of their negotiations. Democratic negotiators had to abandon an effort to attach legislation to the defense bill championed by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to restructure the way permits are awarded for energy infrastructure projects. A vote on the bill had been a key part of the deal to get Manchin, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to support the Inflation Reduction Act that passed Congress this summer and that Biden signed in August….
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Ukraine aid and military assistance for NATO allies are heavily addressed in the bill, in light of Russia’s ongoing invasion. Lawmakers directed more than $6 billion toward the European Deterrence Initiative — an increase of approximately $2 billion over last year’s levels — as well as $800 million in security assistance funds specifically dedicated for Ukraine. But the money comes with some strings attached: The bill requires a series of oversight and accounting measures, in the form of reports from the Pentagon and the inspectors general that oversee the Ukraine assistance operations, in a bid to better track the weapons being shipped to the front lines….
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The measure challenges the White House and the Pentagon when it comes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal, an increasing source of concern in Washington’s posture vis-a-vis rival powers Moscow and Beijing, which are both pursuing robust initiatives to update and expand their holdings. The Biden administration declared earlier this year that it would be retiring the B83-1, a megaton-plus gravity bomb, as well as shelving plans to develop a submarine-launched cruise missile known as the SLCM-N, consider a lower-yield “tactical” nuclear weapon, in order to pivot resources and attention to other programs.
But Congress said no. The defense bill pumps another $25 million into SLCM-N research and forbids the executive branch from using funds to decommission more than 25 percent of the B83-1 bombs in the U.S. arsenal, until after the Pentagon completes a study on the weapons at its disposal capable of striking hardened underground targets.