On Monday, Aug. 13, President Donald Trump signed H.R. 5515 into law. The bill—full title “John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019” and often called the 2019 defense spending or 2019 defense appropriations bill—had been an attempted vehicle for a number of ag- and land-related amendments.
Some of these amendments included efforts to prevent various listings under the Endangered Species Act, delist currently-listed species, and to require congressional oversight over national-security-related tariffs. None of these amendments made it into the final version of the bill as signed by the president. Opposition to many of these amendments came early from the titular senator, with McCain asserting they were not military readiness issues.
