WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump formally threatened to veto a $740 billion military spending bill Tuesday hours before the House was expected to pass the measure, setting up a showdown between the White House and Congress over a bipartisan effort to rename several Army posts named for Confederate generals. 

In a statement, the White House listed several provisions of the legislation that the president considers objectionable, chief among them a directive to the Pentagon to rename the 10 bases within a year. While avoiding mention of the Confederacy, White House advisers called the order "part of a sustained effort to erase from the history of the Nation those who do not meet an ever-shifting standard of conduct" and an attempt "to rewrite history and to displace the enduring legacy of the American Revolution with an ever-shifting standard of conduct."

The move had been expected.

While the veto threat is focused solely on the House bill, which is expected to pass with bipartisan support, it presents a challenge for the Republican-controlled Senate, where lawmakers are debating a parallel measure that orders similar name changes, albeit under a three-year timeline.

Trump's veto threat makes no mention of the speed with which lawmakers want the names changed; it objects to there being any mandate at all.

Senators are expected to vote on their bill next week. Republican leaders have not yet determined whether they will allow votes on amendments to shorten or remove the mandate regarding base names. But now those discussions will take place under the shadow of a presidential veto threat, which would require a two-thirds vote in both chambers to overcome.

Before the defense bill can be sent to the president's desk, the Senate and the House must work their separate versions into one product that can pass both chambers.

Removing the names of Confederate generals from military bases is not the only subject where a bipartisan group of senators is pushing to bring the Senate's defense bill more in line with the House's measure over the objections of the Trump administration.

The White House's veto threat also objects to the House bill's attempt to prevent Trump from removing U.S. troops stationed in Germany, until the administration can show that maintaining such a presence in Europe is no longer necessary. In the Senate, Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, is leading a bipartisan effort to include a similar restriction in the Senate bill, but it is not yet clear whether his initiative will get a floor vote.