Rep. Panetta Advances Central Coast Priorities in the National Defense Authorization Act

Washington, DC –U.S. Representatives Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), member of the House Armed Services Committee, advanced critical priorities for the central coast of California in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Today, President Joseph Biden signed the NDAA into law.

"Our district is home to many critical defense installations for our national security which provide millions of dollars and thousands of jobs for our local economy. This year's NDAA supports our military families and advances our installations' ability to train our personnel and secure our innovative and technological edge," said Rep. Panetta, Member of the House Armed Services Committee. "This bipartisan defense bill reflects a united commitment to global democracy, spurring innovation and education, and importantly, supporting the Force and their families which are not only the bedrock of our national security, but also a foundation for our community."

Background:

• The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is an annual defense bill that outlines our nation's domestic and international security objectives. It is paired with the annual appropriations for defense bill that funds the NDAA policy priorities.
• As a Member of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) representing 17 defense installations for the nation, Rep. Panetta is uniquely situated to work on the defense bill with his HASC colleagues and champion CA-20 specific objectives, including military education, language proficiency, advancing innovation, and supporting special operations forces (SOF) capabilities.
• Defense installations in CA-20 include; the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), Naval Research Laboratory, Fleet Numerical Oceanography and Meteorology, United States Coast Guard, Presidio of Monterey, Fort Hunter Liggett, Camp Roberts Maneuver Training Center, Army Analytics Group Research Facilitation Team (AAG/RFT), The Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Defense Manpower Data Center Defense Resource Management Institute (DRMI), 514th Signal Company (SATCOM), Personnel and Security Research Center, Major General William H. Gourley VA-DoD Outpatient Clinic, TRADOC Analysis Center Monterey, and Ord Military Community (OMC)

Rep. Panetta Wins:

• Increases access to critical Basic Needs Allowance (BNA), including in high-cost areas of living.
• Expands Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) and extends authority to adjust BAH in high-cost areas of living.
• Expanded advanced degree opportunities for enlisted servicemembers, which comprise about 80% of the Armed Forces, at the Naval Postgraduate School (introduced as the "Smart Act" in the House).
• Seeks to establish a consortium of military education institutions to conduct research and develop common, research-based criteria to improve military education, including on cyber capabilities and applied research.
• Creates a program to support the development of patentable inventions in the Department of the Navy, inspired by the Naval Research Laboratory.
• Creates a joint information operations course to prepare the Joint Force to employ synchronized information-related capabilities in the information environment, including cyberwarfare.
• Improves our Middle East allies' ability to self-defend against Iranian missile threats through an integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) capability for the region (introduced as the "DEFEND Act" in the House and Senate).
• Seeks to create a program to provide separating special operations forces servicemembers access to Preservation of the Force and Family (POTFF) resources and programs.
• Enforces Congressional notification of military information support operations in the information environment.
• Requires the National Defense Strategy (NDS) be submitted in unclassified form and notes that the timely release of an unclassified version of the NDS allows Congress to explain the NDS to the public and debate policy and budgetary choices within the Congress.
• Directs an assessment of Russia's strategy for invasion and occupation of Ukraine; reviews the impact of sanctions; requires a report on lessons learned from Russia's further invasion of Ukraine; and reviews the use of Russian proxy forces in the war in Ukraine.
• Expands on improvements to our force posture in the Arctic to secure supply chains and deter Russian and Chinese advancements in the region.
• Includes several provisions to improve Taiwan's self-defense capabilities through initiatives such as joint training exercises.
• Increases the capabilities of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) to deter and respond to ongoing threats posed by China, including enhancing maritime domain awareness and expanding training with foreign partners.
• Requires notification to the congressional defense committees of any activities related to the development of a new or modified nuclear weapons for which a specific line-item budget request is not required.
• Seeks to improve United States Africa Command's (USAFRICOM) ability to provide rapid infrastructure, good governance, and improved security through equipment and training with our African partners to further deter malign Russian and Chinese actions.
• Improves understanding and utilization of Department of Defense Cyberspace Operations Forces.
• Directs the United States Air Force to identify opportunities to deploy innovative technological solutions such as stratospheric balloons, aerostats, or satellite technology capable of rapidly delivering wireless internet anywhere on the planet.
• Increases congressional oversight of the privatized military family housing program by requiring an annual briefing on the health and status of military housing privatization projects enterprise wide.
• Seeks to improve Information Operations capabilities to counter malign influence in Africa, particularly disinformation conducted through state-linked actors, China, and Russia.
• Directs the Administrator of NNSA to provide a briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services on NNSA's plan to implement the university-based defense nuclear policy collaboration program to advance the next generation of nuclear nonproliferation experts.
• Directs the Secretary of the Air Force to provide a report on the use of electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOL) validated by the Agility Prime program.
• Directs a report that addresses how strike and combatant engagement data archived by U.S. and NATO forces can be shared to support safe and efficient explosive remanent clearance operations in Afghanistan.

Representative Panetta supported the following initiatives in the NDAA:

Improving the Lives of Service Members and Their Families

• Supports an increase in military basic pay by 4.6% for service members.
• Builds on reforms to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including placing sexual harassment and other offenses under the jurisdiction of the Special Trial Counsel and requiring independent trained investigators outside of the immediate chain of command to investigate claims of sexual harassment.
• Establishes a five-year pilot program to reimburse members of the Armed Forces for certain childcare costs incident to a permanent change of station or assignment.
• Authorizes childcare fee reductions for children of military child development center employees.
• Extends critical recruitment and retention incentive programs.
• Requires the DoD to study, with the intent to revise, the basic pay tables to modernize and more realistically and fairly compensate service members.
• Requires the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (DoD IG) to conduct a comprehensive review of the medical care for individuals undergoing Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) training.
• Requires Congressional notification to modify the scope of services provided at military medical treatment facilities.
• Requires an independent analysis of the quality and patient safety review process for health care provided under the direct care component of the TRICARE program.

Supports Spouse Employment

• Authorizes financial reimbursement for moving expenses for spouses with home businesses.
• Provides noncompetitive appointment authority to certain spouses of military personnel and disabled veterans.

Improves Quality of Life

• Authorizes funds to offer assistance to local educational agencies with military dependent students and for local educational agencies eligible to receive a payment for children with severe disabilities.
• Authorizes travel allowance for members of the Armed Forces assigned to Alaska and a briefing on special duty pays.
• Authorizes the Secretaries of the military departments to reimburse service members for up to $4,000 for any expense related to pet relocation arising from a permanent change of station to or from a location outside the continental United States.

Addressing Climate Change

• Requires the transition of DoD non-tactical vehicle fleets to electric or zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
• Establishes an energy resilience testbed initiative to designate military instillations to conduct demonstration projects on energy technologies including energy storage, electric vehicles, building efficiency, clean energy generation, and electrification.
• Creates a pilot program for the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) within the DoD to reduce emissions and promote collaboration with airports. Greater adoption of SAF in jet fuel can reduce carbon emissions in the aviation industry and decrease the pollutants emitted from planes that are associated with harmful health impacts on communities near airports and under flight pathways.
• Establishes a pilot program for the development of innovative electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

Increasing Support and Oversight of the Unlawful Invasion of Ukraine.

• Expresses strong support of the Ukrainian people and their resistance against Russia's illegal, unprovoked further invasion.
• Strongly supports U.S. commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance and European allies and partners, financially supports the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) and further engagement in Europe, urges all countries that have not yet done so to quickly ratify Sweden's and Finland's accession to NATO, and supports strategies to adapt DoD posture to the new security environment following the further invasion of Ukraine.
• Lays out a roadmap to build on the comprehensive Ukraine accountability and end-use monitoring strategies recently unveiled by the Biden administration and requires a comprehensive assessment of the oversight framework for U.S. assistance to Ukraine.
• Expands the prohibition on the use of funds for the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea to cover all territory internationally recognized to be the sovereign territory of Ukraine, including Crimea and the territory Russia falsely claims to have annexed.
• Supports continued robust assistance to the Baltic countries, including for Baltic security cooperation.
• Extends the prohibition on military-to-military cooperation with Russia for five years.
• Requires all main operating bases in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility to adopt installation energy plans to increase energy resiliency and sustainability to reduce reliance on Russian energy and improve climate resilience.
• Includes the Stop Russian GOLD Act, which would impose sanctions on persons who knowingly participate in a significant transaction of gold with Russia.
  

Preventing and Mitigating Civilian Harm

• Requires the creation and operation of a Civilian Protection Center of Excellence to centralize, standardize, and improve policies regarding civilian harm mitigation in the DoD's operations and activities.
• Requires greater specificity regarding the geographic location of strikes resulting in civilian casualties and information regarding the specific authority used to undertake such strikes in annual reporting to Congress.
• Mandates that the newly formed Center for Excellence in Civilian Harm Mitigation contract with a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) to independently report on how the DoD distinguishes between civilians and combatants in military operations.
• Extends, for a decade, a global ex-gratia authority that requires the United States to make payments for damage, personal injury, or death to a civilian that is inadvertently caused by the use of force by the U.S. Armed Forces, a coalition that includes the United States, or a military organization supporting the United States.

Supports Adoption of New Technologies

• Provides additional investment for the defense test and evaluation enterprise, enhancing the Department's ability to transition increasingly complex capabilities such as electronic warfare, hypersonics, and artificial intelligence rapidly from the laboratory into the hands of the warfighter.
• Requires the DoD to report out actual delivery times for software programs to ensure frequent deliveries of working software.
• Accelerates the use of 5G technology to support the DoD's vision of connected, datacentric warfighting.
• Requires the DoD to set a target date for deploying 5G on military installations and extends the requirement for quarterly briefings on the DoD's 5G deployment.
• Requires a reoccurring roadmap of the DoD's R&D efforts in the field of quantum computing, which has the potential to radically advance encryption and artificial intelligence.

A full summary of the provisions included the FY23 NDAA is available here.

###