LaLota Secures Wins and Supports Soldiers in Annual Defense Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, New York First Congressional District Representative Nick LaLota (R-Suffolk County), a Navy Veteran and a member of the Armed Services Committee, released the following statement after voting YES on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2023.

“As a Navy Veteran and a member of the Armed Services Committee, I am proud to send the Commander in Chief a strong NDAA. This bill gives our troops the largest pay increase in decades, helps deter conflict with China, ensures our soldiers stationed overseas have the same legal protections as every American, supports military families, and ensures accountability and transparency in government,” said LaLota. “While this NDAA didn’t contain the FISA reforms America needs, I joined with other pragmatic and common sense conservatives in supporting this bill that will go a long way to ensuring our military remains the most lethal fighting force the world has ever known.”

To read the full text of this legislation, click HERE.

Background:

The House Armed Services Committee plays an instrumental role in ensuring our military has the policies and resources necessary to defend America. The culmination of the committee’s work is passing the NDAA, the annual bill that provides funding and policy updates to the Department of Defense. The NDAA is an annual and historically bipartisan bill that authorizes funding levels and provides authorities for the U.S. military and other critical defense priorities, ensuring our troops have the training, equipment, and resources they need to carry out their missions.

In this year’s NDAA are several of LaLota’s priorities:

• Ensuring legal protections for servicemembers stationed overseas to ensure they have the right to counsel, competent translation services, a prompt trial, and other protections our servicemembers have earned and deserve;
• A 5.2% across-the-board pay raise for servicemembers, the largest single pay increase in over twenty years;
• Fully funding military exercises with our allies and partners in the Pacific to counter China’s growing reach;
• Including $676 million for 9/11-related healthcare;
• Mitigating the ability of foreign businesses to buy land near American military bases;
• Reviewing of the Department of Defense on if they are contracting with companies that violate the U.S. Export Control Act, specifically concerning conducting business with China and Russia;
• Authorizing $153 million over the budget request for the construction of new childcare centers;
• Authorizing over $280 million to build new schools for military children;
• Authorizing $50 million in Impact Aid assistance to public schools with military-dependent students and an additional $10 million in assistance to local schools teaching children with severe disabilities;
• Requiring a review of the availability of mental health services in military schools;
• Improving the Basic Allowance for Housing calculation to increase reimbursement for junior enlisted servicemembers and counteract soaring rental rates;
• Making more servicemembers living in high-cost areas eligible for additional cost-of-living allowances;
• Encouraging DoD to utilize rare earth minerals mined in the U.S. over foreign minerals;
• Creating a Special Inspector General to oversee all U.S. security assistance to Ukraine and to thoroughly investigate any instance of waste, fraud, abuse, corruption, or diversion of weapons;
  • Providing the IG with direct hire authority to rapidly expand the number of auditors reviewing Ukraine security assistance;
  • Requiring GAO to assess DoD’s end-use monitoring programs and provide recommendations to Congress on ways to strengthen them;
• Authorizing $38 million over the budget request for new family housing;
• Authorizing $356 million over the budget request to renovate and build new barracks;
• Continuing the prohibition on adverse action on any servicemember who refuses to take the COVID-19 vaccine, including cadets and midshipmen at service academies;
• Fully funding the deployment of National Guard troops in support of Border Patrol activities at the southwest border;
• Requiring DoD to use or transfer to southwest border states all border wall materials in its possession; and
• Prohibiting DoD from contracting with any CCP-owned or controlled company operating in the U.S.

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