The vaccine provision is one of the more acrimonious differences in the annual defense bill that the House is looking to wrap up this week and send to the Senate.
It sets policy and provides a roadmap for future investments. It’s one of the final bills Congress is expected to approve before adjourning, so lawmakers are eager to attach their top priorities to it.
A congressional aide familiar with the negotiations but not authorized to speak publicly said lawmakers supportive of the vaccine mandate concluded that it had accomplished what it was intended to do by achieving a high rate of vaccination throughout the service branches, and that meeting the Republican demands to rescind it would allow other priorities to advance.
As of early this month, about 99% of the active-duty troops in the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps had been vaccinated, and 98% of the Army. Service members who are not vaccinated are not allowed to deploy, particularly sailors or Marines on ships. There may be a few exceptions to that, based on religious or other exemptions and the duties of the service member.More than 8,000 active-duty service members were discharged for failure to obey a lawful order when they refused the vaccine.
Service leaders have said that the number of troops who requested religious or other exemptions to any of those required vaccines — prior to the COVID pandemic — has been negligible.
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