The House on Friday overwhelmingly approved a $642 billion bill that
sets defense policy for the Pentagon — and faces a veto threat from the
Obama administration.
The fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill
passed the Republican-led House 299-120. Sixteen Republicans voted
against the bill, while 77 Democrats voted for it. The Senate will start
marking up its own version next week.
“This year’s defense authorization bill helps meet my
priorities as chairman: resolve sequestration, restore strategy and
sanity to the defense budget, and rebuild our military after a decade of
war,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.)
said in a statement after the bill’s passage.
The lengthy debate over the nation’s military and counterterrorism
policies culminated when an unlikely alliance of libertarian Republicans
and liberal Democrats confronted their House colleagues early Friday
morning over the highly contentious question of whether the government
has the power to indefinitely detain suspected terrorists captured on
U.S. soil.
