Senate Passes Defense Bill That Includes 3.7% Military Pay Hike

WASHINGTON —  The Senate easily approved a $310-billion defense spending plan Thursday that boosts military pay and broadens pharmacy access for retirees after rejecting more stringent testing for a proposed national missile defense system.

On a 97-3 vote, senators authorized a 3.7% military pay raise, equal to the president’s request, and allowed for the purchase of a wide range of new high-tech weaponry for the armed forces.

The bill, which had been bogged down in a lengthy battle over a campaign finance-related amendment, removes barriers to pharmacy access for military retirees eligible for Medicare, opening the Pentagon’s mail-order pharmacy and retail networks to them.

It provides $4.5 billion more in fiscal 2001 spending than requested by President Clinton and about $21 billion more than was spent last year.

The House already has approved a $310-billion defense spending plan. Differences in the two bills will be worked out in House-Senate negotiations.

Before the final vote, senators narrowly rejected an effort to require more thorough testing of a proposed national missile defense system.

With Clinton facing a decision later this year on whether to deploy the system at a cost of up to $60 billion, senators voted, 52 to 48, to kill a measure requiring testing of the project against decoys and other countermeasures designed to foil the system.

“If we are to go forward with a national missile defense system, we should have honest, realistic testing for countermeasures so we can say to the American people, ‘Your money is being well spent,’ ” said Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), principal sponsor of the measure.

Two of three Pentagon tests of the system failed, most recently on Saturday when the weapon did not separate from the second stage of its liftoff rocket.

The Senate voted, 81 to 18, to kill Wisconsin Democrat Russell D. Feingold’s amendment to delete $463 million in funding for the Trident II submarine-launched missile. Feingold said the eventual savings in killing the program could have reached $2.6 billion over the next seven years.