The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA 2019) is a United States federal law which specifies the budget, expenditures and policies of the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

(DOD) for fiscal year 2019. It was signed by President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

during a ceremony in

Fort Drum Fort Drum is a U.S. Army military reservation and a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, on the northern border of New York, United States. The population of the CDP portion of the base was 12,955 at the 2010 census. It is home t ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

on August 13, 2018.

Background

A Senate version of the bill contained provisions blocking a proposed settlement to lift an export denial order affecting Chinese telecommunications equipment company

ZTE ZTE Corporation is a Chinese partially state-owned technology company that specializes in telecommunication. Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. ZTE's core business is wireless, exchange, opt ...

. The provision was not included in the final version, but section 889 does maintain a provision banning the federal government from purchasing equipment from certain Chinese vendors due to security concerns, including

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

and ZTE, as well as any surveillance equipment for the purposes of national security from

Dahua Technology Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., Ltd. is a partly State-owned enterprise, state-owned publicly traded company based in Binjiang District, Hangzhou, which manufactures video surveillance equipment. It was founded and controlled by Fu Liquan. Dahua T ...

Hytera Hytera (; previously HYT; ) is a Chinese publicly-traded and partly state-owned manufacturer of radio transceivers and radio systems founded in Shenzhen, Guangdong in 1993. Hytera is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and is partly owned by S ...

, and

Hikvision Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd., often shortened to Hikvision, is a Chinese state-owned manufacturer and supplier of video surveillance equipment for civilian and military purposes, headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. Due to it ...

Legislative history

House vote

H.R.5515, the version of the NDAA 2019 which was reported by the

House Armed Services Committee The U.S. House Committee on Armed Services, commonly known as the House Armed Services Committee or HASC, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is responsible for funding and oversight of the Department of Defe ...

, was passed by the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

on July 26, 2018 in a 359–54 vote.

Senate vote

The Senate passed it on August 1, 2018 with a vote of 87–10.

Presidential signature

President

signed the NDAA 2019 into law on August 13, 2018.

Legal history

Section 8005 of the 2019 NDAA became a key component of the legal conflict over allocation of funds for construction of the

Mexico–United States barrier The Mexico–United States barrier ( es, barrera Estados Unidos–México), also known as the border wall, is a series of vertical barriers along the Mexico–United States border intended to reduce illegal immigration to the United States ...

between the Trump administration, a coalition of several states, and several non-governmental organizations. After failing to have obtain funding for the wall from other appropriations bills by the end of 2019, Trump signed the

National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States The National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States (Proclamation 9844) was declared on February 15, 2019, by President of the United States Donald Trump. Citing the National Emergencies Act, it ordered the diversion of bil ...

on February 15, 2019 to state that building the wall was a national emergency. He asserted that Section 8005 of the 2019 NDAA, which states " at such authority to transfer may not be used unless for higher priority items, based on unforeseen military requirements, than those for which originally appropriated and in no case where the item for which funds are requested has been denied by the Congress", allowed him re-allocate about in funds from the Defense Department, including allocated for military construction and for drug rehab programs, to the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

to construct the wall as an "unforeseen" requirement. The legal challenge, ''

Trump v. Sierra Club ''Biden v. Sierra Club'' (previously captioned ''Trump v. Sierra Club'') was a United States Supreme Court case involving the appropriation of funds used to expand the Mexico–United States barrier under the presidency of Donald Trump, colloquia ...

'', has currently been accepted by the Supreme Court to be heard during the 2020-21 term.

References

External links

John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019PDFdetails
as amended in the

GPO GPO may refer to: Government and politics * General Post Office, Dublin * General Post Office, in Britain * Social Security Government Pension Offset, a provision reducing benefits * Government Pharmaceutical Organization, a Thai state enterpris ...

br>Statute Compilations collection

John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019PDF
as enacted in the US Statutes at Large {{National Defense Authorization Acts

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 The John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA 2019) is a United States federal law which specifies the budget, expenditures and policies of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for fiscal year 2019. It was si ...

Acts of the 115th United States Congress