Biden to sign NDAA ending military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate this week
Mike Brest
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President Joe Biden will sign the National Defense Authorization Act “this week,” the White House said on Monday, resulting in the end of the Pentagon’s coronavirus vaccine mandate.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed during Monday’s briefing that Biden will sign the annual Department of Defense funding bill “later this week,” though she didn’t provide more details on exactly when. Lawmakers included a provision within the NDAA that would end the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, though it would not reinstate those who have already been separated as a result of the policy, which Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin still supported.
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“So like every NDAA, and I’ve said this a couple of times over the past 10 days, has some provisions we support and some we do not. Clearly, the president was opposed to rolling back the vaccine mandate, but we saw that Republicans in Congress decided that they [would] rather fight against the health and well-being of the troops than protecting them,” Jean-Pierre said.
Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh informed reporters earlier this month that 98% of active-duty armed forces had received the initial two-shot Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which fulfilled the DOD’s mandate. There is no mandate for service members to get a COVID-19 booster. Roughly 8,400 troops have been separated over their refusal to get the shot.
Congress passed the NDAA with a top line that includes a $45 billion bump on the $813 billion total requested by Biden earlier this year. That additional sum resulted in funding increases for procurement; research, development, test and evaluation; operation and maintenance; military construction; and defense-related nuclear programs.
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The NDAA breaks down into $279 billion for military personnel, $210 billion for military personnel and health, $163 billion for procurement, $139 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation, $30 billion for defense related nuclear programs, and $19 billion for military construction.
The Senate passed the NDAA last week by a vote of 83 to 11, while the House passed it earlier this month with a vote of 350 to 80.
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