More than two-thirds of the US House of Representatives voted on Thursday in favor of a defense policy bill that provides a record $886 billion in annual military spending and authorizes policies such as aid to Ukraine and China’s rejection of the Indo-Pacific region, Reuters reports, citing news.ro

The House of Representatives approved the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, by a vote of 310 to 118, with strong support from both Republicans and Democrats. More than a two-thirds vote was needed to approve the legislation and send it to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law.

In addition to the appropriations bills that set government spending levels, the NDAA authorizes everything from military pay increases (to be 5.2 percent this year) to purchases of ships, munitions and aircraft.

Because it is one of the few major pieces of legislation that becomes law each year, members of Congress use it as a vehicle for a wide range of initiatives. It is also closely watched by major defense companies such as Lockheed Martin, RTX Corp and other firms that receive contracts from the Department of Defense.

The vote for this year’s bill, which is nearly 3,100 pages long and provides a record $886 billion, a 3 percent increase from last year, meant that the US Legislature was able to pass the NDAA for the 63rd year in a row.

The final version of the NDAA removed provisions that addressed controversial social issues, such as access to abortion and regulating the treatment of transgender service members, that were included in the original version but were not approved by Republicans who control the House of Representatives. .

The Democratic-controlled Senate approved the NDAA on Wednesday, also by a strong bipartisan majority of 87 to 13.

The fiscal year 2024 NDAA also includes a four-month extension of the controversial national surveillance agency, giving lawmakers more time to reform or maintain the program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). That provision drew objections in both the Senate and the House, but not enough to derail the bill. On Wednesday, the Senate rejected an attempt to strip the FISA expansion from the NDAA before voting to keep the defense measure in place.

Earlier this year, the House and Senate passed their own versions of the NDAA. The measure passed this week was a bipartisan, bicameral compromise.

On the other hand, the bill extends aid to Ukraine, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, through the end of 2026, authorizing $300 million for the program in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and the next.

However, that amount pales in comparison to the $61 billion in aid to Ukraine that President Joe Biden has asked Congress to approve to help Kiev fight the Russian invasion. That emergency spending request has been blocked in Congress because Republicans refused to approve aid to Ukraine without Democrats agreeing to significantly tougher immigration laws.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi met with lawmakers at the Capitol on Tuesday to make the case for the funding requested by Biden, but he left the meeting without any promises from Republicans.