House members voted 282-138 Thursday to pass a $575.7 billion military spending bill that would provide the Defense Department with a $517.1 billion base budget and another $58.6 billion in overseas contingency operations funds for fiscal year 2017, The Hill newspaper reported Thursday.Rebecca Kheel writes the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act would shift about $15.7 billion of the proposed war budget to help DoD finance defense modernization, infrastructure and readiness programs.
The House adopted amendments to the NDAA that would prohibit the transfer of prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba to other prisons and the use of department money to survey, examine or review a stateside substitute for the Guantanamo Bay prison, Kheel reports.
Joe Gould of Defense News reported the lower chamber’s billion proposed DoD budget for FY 2017 is $587 million less than President Barack Obama’s request.
The report said the bill also contains provisions that would allocate $80 million for an industry competition to replace the military’s fleet of UH-1N Huey helicopters and provide an additional $29.8 million for the development of laser weapons and electromagnetic laser guns.
The Senate approved a $602 billion fiscal 2017 budget for DoDÂ in an 85-13 vote Tuesday.
