The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a spending bill Wednesday that would provide $124 billion for veterans care and military construction. That’s $11 billion over the fiscal year 2021 enacted levels, an increase “driven largely by rapidly rising costs for veterans health care and IT support, according to a press release from committee Republicans.

The bill allocates $11 billion to fund almost 200 major construction projects at installations around the world.

“This bill takes a bipartisan approach to improve the readiness and quality of life for service members in uniform and enable the Department of Veterans Affairs to care for our nation’s veterans,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who chairs the subcommittee that drafted the measure, said in a statement and bill summary. “The bill provides a significant increase in funding for military construction and family housing and supports the Department of Defense to increase its energy and climate resilience.”

DOD photo by Lisa Ferdinando