The House voted 344-81 Friday to pass a defense spending bill that would allocate $621.5 billion in defense base budget and $75 billion in overseas contingency operations funds for fiscal year 2018, Defense News reported Friday.The House’s 2018 National Defense Authorization Act would set up a space-focused military branch and prohibit a new round of base realignment and closures.
The White House issued a policy statement Wednesday to oppose such provisions in the House bill.
The measure would need to be reconciled with the Senate’s defense policy bill that would create the chief information warfare officer post to manage space and cyber policies and require the head of the Air Force Space Command to serve a six-year term.
Reuters also reported that the House’s NDAA would provide the U.S. Navy with five additional ships, authorize a 2.4 percent increase in service personnel’s pay, raise missile defense spending by 25 percent and equip the U.S. Army with thousands of troops.
The Senate is expected to vote on its version of the defense policy bill later this year, the report added.
