The US Senate easily passed the NDAA Thursday night, following a 86-11 vote. The bill will next have to be negotiated with the House of Representatives' version before being sent to US President Joe Biden's desk, APA reports citing Sputnik.
Senators voted on several amendments from Wednesday to Thursday night as they wrapped up the biggest bill of the year before the coming August recess. The $886 billion bill passed with wide bipartisan support.
The Senate, which opened NDAA talks last week and is narrowly controlled by Democrats, preferred to keep the defense bill bipartisan, unlike in the GOP-controlled House where a number of culture-related amendments were added to the package. In fact, the House bill cleared the lower chamber mostly along partisan lines, with only four Democrats supporting the bill.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised both parties for working together on the defense package, calling the feat a "welcome departure" from what happened in the House. NDAA bills typically pass both chambers with bipartisan support.
“I’ve said repeatedly that the NDAA is an opportunity for the Senate to show we can work on the biggest issues facing our country through bipartisanship, cooperation, honest debate,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “That’s what we have seen play out so far here on the floor: bipartisanship.
Several bipartisan amendments were added to the Senate version of the bill, some focused on China and other nations considered to be adversarial to the United States. One measure blacklisted China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from buying farmland in the United States while another required more transparency for US entities investing in sensitive technologies in adversarial nations.
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