WASHINGTON (AP) — The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a $633 billion defense bill for next year despite Pentagon complaints that it spares outdated but politically popular weapons at the expense of the military's ability to fight.

The vote was 315-107 and sent the legislation to the Senate, where leaders hoped to wrap up the measure. The White House had threatened a veto of earlier versions of the bill, and spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday that the threat still stands.

The far-reaching policy bill that covers the cost of ships, aircraft, weapons and military personnel would authorize $528 billion for the Defense Department's base budget, $17 billion for defense and nuclear programs in the Energy Department and $88.5 billion for the war in Afghanistan.

The bill is $1.7 billion more than Obama requested.

House Republicans and Democrats debated the measure against the backdrop of high-stakes talks to avert the so-called fiscal cliff of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts and the loud cry for a sweeping deal to slash the deficit.

Democrats argued that the bill runs counter to demands for fiscal discipline.

"This bill is more money than the Pentagon wants," said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. "We're just throwing money at them."

Specifically, the bill spares a version of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft, includes upgrades for tanks and money for armored vehicles.

In a speech this week, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta criticized the pressure on the Pentagon to keep weapons that it doesn't want. "Aircraft, ships, tanks, bases, even those that have outlived their usefulness, have a natural political constituency. Readiness does not," Panetta said.

"What's more, readiness is too often sacrificed in favor of a larger and less effective force. I am determined to avoid that outcome," he said.

Panetta said members of the House and Senate "diverted about $74 billion of what we asked for in savings in our proposed budget to the Congress, and they diverted them to other areas that, frankly, we don't need."

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard "Buck" McKeon, R-Calif., insisted that the bill "safeguards military readiness in times of declining budgets."

The bill responds to the new threats and upheaval around the globe while still providing billions for the decade-plus war in Afghanistan. The measure would tighten sanctions on Iran, increase security at diplomatic missions worldwide after the deadly Sept. 11 raid in Libya and presses the military on possible options to end the bloodshed in Syria.

The final measure, a product of negotiations between the House and Senate, addresses several concerns raised by the Obama administration. It eliminates restrictions on alternative fuels that the White Househad complained about and jettisons limits on the administration's ability to implement a nuclear weapons reduction treaty.

The bill does limit the president's authority to transfer terror suspects from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for one year — a provision similar to current law. That had drawn complaints from the White House.

Election-year politics and changes in society shaped the final measure. Negotiators kept a Senate-passed provision sponsored by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., that expands health insurance coverage for military women and their dependents who decide to have abortions in cases of rape and incest.

Previously, health coverage applied only to abortions in cases where the life of the mother was endangered.

Democrats argued throughout the election year that Republicans were waging a "war on women" over contraception and abortion, a charge the GOP denied. Democrats and President Barack Obama held a clear edge with female voters, which led to soul-searching within the GOP.

Negotiators jettisoned a House provision that would have banned gay marriage on military installations, weeks after the chapel at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point held its first same-sex marriage. A senior Army chaplain conducted the ceremony. The bill does include a conscience clause for chaplains.

The measure includes a 1.7 percent pay raise for military personnel and provides money for new ships, aircraft and other weapons.

The sanctions would hit Iran's energy, shipping and shipbuilding sectors as well as Iran's ports, blacklisting them as "entities of proliferation concern." It would impose penalties on anyone supplying precious metals to Iran and sanctions on Iranian broadcasting.

The bill eliminated a House provision barring the military from buying alternative fuels if the cost exceeds traditional fossil fuels, a measure that had drawn a veto threat. Instead, negotiators said the Pentagon could move ahead on the project as long as the Energy and Agriculture departments make their financial contributions to the work.

The bill also watered down a House effort to require construction of an East Coast missile defense site, instead pressing the Pentagon to study three possible locations.

Months after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, the bill would provide an additional 1,000 Marines for embassy security.

Reacting to relentless violence in Syria, the bill would require the Pentagon to report to Congress on possible military options.

The bill would authorize nearly $480 million for the U.S.-Israeli missile defense, including $211 million for Iron Dome, the system designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortars fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza at southern Israel.

One of the thorniest issues in negotiations was the handling of terrorist suspects. Lawmakers finally agreed on language that says "nothing in the authorization for the Use of Military Force or (the current defense bill) shall be construed to deny the availability of the writ of habeas corpus or to deny any constitutional rights" to an individual in the United States who would be entitled to such rights.

The agreement retained a Senate provision that stops the Pentagon from sending additional spies overseas until Congress has answers about the cost and how the spies would be used.

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Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.

DES MOINES, Iowa - The first widespread snowstorm of the season crawled across the Midwest on Thursday, with whiteout conditions stranding holiday travellers and sending drivers sliding over slick roads — including into a fatal 25-vehicle pileup in Iowa.

The storm, which dumped a foot of snow in parts of Iowa and Wisconsin, was part of a system that began in the Rockies earlier in the week before trekking into the Midwest. It was expected to move across the Great Lakes overnight before moving into Canada.

The storm led airlines to cancel about 1,000 flights ahead of the Christmas holiday — relatively few compared to past big storms, though the number was climbing.

On the southern edge of the system, tornadoes destroyed several homes in Arkansas and peeled the roofs from buildings, toppled trucks and blew down oak trees and limbs Alabama.

In Iowa, drivers were blinded by blowing snow and didn't see vehicles that had slowed or stopped on Interstate 35 about 60 miles north of Des Moines, state police said. A chain reaction of crashes involving semitrailers and passenger cars closed down a section of the highway. At least one person was killed.

"It's time to listen to warnings and get off the road," said Iowa State Patrol Col. David Garrison.

Thomas Shubert, a clerk at a store in Gretna near Omaha, Neb., said his brother drove him to work in his truck, but some of his neighbours weren't so fortunate.

"I saw some people in my neighbourhood trying to get out. They made it a few feet, and that was about it," Shubert said.

Along with Thursday's fatal accident in Iowa, the storm was blamed for road deaths in Nebraska, Kansas and Wisconsin. In southeastern Utah, a woman who tried to walk for help after her car became stuck in snow died Tuesday night.

The heavy, wet snow made some unplowed streets in Des Moines nearly impossible to navigate in anything other than a four-wheel drive vehicle. Even streets that had been plowed were snow-packed and slippery. Eight jackknifed semitrailers were reported on a section of Interstate 80 east of the city.

The storm made travel difficult from Kansas to Wisconsin, forcing road closures, including part of Interstate 29 in northern Missouri and a 120-mile stretch of Interstate 35 from Ames, Iowa through Albert Lea, Minn. A section of Interstate 80 in Nebraska that was closed from Wednesday evening to Thursday afternoon. Iowa and Wisconsin activated National Guard troops to help rescue stranded drivers.

Those who planned to fly before the Christmas holiday didn't fare much better.

Shanna Tinsley, 17, and Nicole Latimer, 20, were both headed to the Kansas City area to see their families for the holiday when their flight Thursday morning out of Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport was cancelled. Neither cared about a white Christmas, and were hoping to get on another flight later in the day.

"It would be cool I guess, but I'd rather be there than stuck without family with a white Christmas," Latimer said.

Added Tinsley, "Wisconsin is full of snow, you see it all the time."

In Chicago, commuters began Thursday with heavy fog and cold, driving rain, and forecasters said snow would hit by mid-afternoon.

Airlines delayed and cancelled hundreds of flights out of Chicago's O'Hare and Midway international airports. Southwest Airlines cancelled all of its flights at its Midway hub that were scheduled for after 4:30 p.m., and American Airlines cancelled its flights out of O'Hare after 8 p.m.

Airlines were waiving fees for customers impacted by the storm who wanted to change their flights.

The cancellations were getting a lot of attention because the storm came just a few days before Christmas. But Daniel Baker, CEO of flight tracking service FlightAware.com called it "a relatively minor event in the overall scheme of things."

By comparison, airlines cancelled more than 13,000 flights over a two-day period during a February 2011 snowstorm that hit the Midwest. And more than 20,000 flights were cancelled during Superstorm Sandy.

Before the storm, several cities in the Midwest had broken records for the number of consecutive days without measurable snow.

In the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale, Kristin Isenhart, 38, said her three kids, ages 9, 5 and 3, were asking about going outside to play after school was cancelled for the day.

"They are thrilled that it snowed," she said. "They've asked several times to go outside, and I might bundle them up and let them go."

As far as the region's drought, meteorologists said the storm wouldn't make much of a dent. It takes a foot or more of snow to equal an inch of water, said Brian Fuchs, a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people lost power in Arkansas, Iowa and Nebraska as heavy snow and strong winds pulled down lines. Smaller outages were reported in Alabama, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Louisiana.

"The roads have been so bad our crews have not been able to respond to them," said Justin Foss, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, which had 13,000 customers without power in central Iowa. "We have giant four-wheel-drive trucks with chains on them, so when we can't get there it's pretty rough."

Tom Tretter and his wife, Pat, had been without power since Wednesday night, and temperatures Thursday were dropping. The retired seniors were shovelling their steep driveway Thursday afternoon and scraping ice off the walkway to their Des Moines home.

"It's getting cold in the house," Tom Tretter said, leaning on his shovel in the driveway. "And I'm getting too old for this."

Blake Landau, a cook serving eggs, roast beef sandwiches and chili to hungry snowplow drivers at Newton's Paradise Cafe in downtown Waterloo, Iowa, said he has always liked it when it snows on his birthday. He turned 27 on Thursday.

"It's kind of one of those things where it's leading up to Christmas time," Landau said. "We don't know when we get our first snowfall, and I hope we get it by my birthday. It's nice to have a nice snowy Christmas."

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Beck reported from Omaha, Neb. Associated Press writers Scott Mayerowitz in New York; Carrie Antlfinger in Milwaukee; Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo.; Jason Keyser in Chicago; Barbara Rodriguez in Des Moines; and Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa contributed to this report.