President Joe Biden on Friday signed the annual National Defense Authorization Act into law, approving $886.3 billion in spending, according to a press release from the White House.
“The Act provides the critical authorities we need to build the military required to deter future conflicts, while supporting service members and their spouses and families who carry out that mission every day,” said the commander in chief.
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The act provides appropriations for the departments of Defense, Energy, and State and the intelligence community.
Biden said in his approval message, however, that certain provisions of the act unduly restrain executive authority in matters of national security by requiring heightened congressional oversight.
“Certain provisions of the Act … would require the President and other officials to submit reports and plans to committees of the Congress that will, in the ordinary course, include highly sensitive classified information, including information that could reveal critical intelligence sources or military operational plans or could implicate executive branch confidentiality interests,” Biden said.
Although the bill, which is over 3,000 pages long, outlines a policy agenda for the Department of Defense and the U.S. military, it does not appropriate funding for specific initiatives or operations.
Biden also said he was concerned about provisions prohibiting Guantanamo Bay detainees into the United States, a long-standing concern of the president.
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A separate $105 billion national security package is currently being negotiated, which would include aiding the governments of Israel and Ukraine.
Congressional Republicans have required from the outset of negotiations that appropriations for border security must be included in any package for Ukraine and Israel funding, which has met with frustration from the White House.
