LaLota Secures Key Wins in Annual Defense Bill, Advances to House Floor

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-Suffolk County), a Navy Veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, released the following statement after the Armed Services Committee passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes several LaLota’s policy priorities and ensures our military remains the greatest fighting force in the world.

“The NDAA is one of the most important pieces of legislation Congress passes every year, addresses our national security, takes on our adversaries, and delivers well-overdue provisions to improve morale, recruitment, retention, and quality of life among servicemembers and their families.  As we wrap up Military Appreciation Month, I am especially proud of the bipartisan work our Committee has done to produce one of the strongest and best NDAAs in recent memory,” said LaLota. “I was proud to secure several of my priorities in this bill, including improving legal protections for servicemembers abroad, increasing the Basic Housing Allowance (BAH) calculation back to 100% of local housing costs, a 15% pay raise for most junior enlisted personnel, securing $14 million for Gabreski Airport, and fully funding child care fee assistance programs. Following last year’s success, I’m incredibly proud of the bipartisan work we have done to support servicemembers and I look forward to ensuring this critical bill becomes law in the coming months.”

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

Background:

The House Armed Services Committee is instrumental 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:

• Authorizing a 15% pay raise for junior enlisted personnel;
• Authorizing $14 million for an Air National Guard Combat Rescue Helicopter Simulator at Francis Gabreski Airport;
• Increasing the Basic Housing Allowance (BAH) calculation back to 100% of local housing costs and directing DoD to evaluate and change current BAH rates on Long Island as necessary;
• Requiring reporting of a comprehensive review of the legal protections afforded to servicemembers abroad;
• Authorizing full funding for child care fee assistance programs;
• Supporting local-level defense supplier manufacturing training programs;
• Increasing authorized funding to $7 million for the Deep Submergence Collective Propulsion program;
• Increasing authorized funding to $77.5 million for joint Research and Development (R&D) with Israel on emerging technologies and anti-tunneling cooperation;
• Directing the Under Secretary for Research and Engineering to provide a report on the Underexplored Systems for Utility-Scale Quantum Computing (US2QC) program and the significant progress made in demonstrating the technical feasibility of fault-tolerant utility-scale operations;
• Authorizes $64 million for United States Merchant Marine Academy capital improvement projects;
• Authorizing the establishment of a Naval Innovation Center at the Naval Postgraduate School;
• Allowing military service academies/other service research institutions to be included in the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program;
• Enhancing Small Business Development on critical technology within DoD;
• Promoting domestic battery and battery machine manufacturing and military applications;
• Authorizing $271 million in funding for F-15X advance procurement;
• Authorizes $10 million in funding for procurement of drone-based automated inspection technologies for shipyards through a pilot program;
• Increasing authorized funding for the Network Tactical Common Data Link by $10 million; 
• Directing DoD to engage the Small Business Administration (SBA) to conduct training to procurement personnel on how to increase awards made to Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs);
• Requiring DoD to write contract solicitations in plain language;
• Clarifying the Wounded Warrior Service Dog Program Grant process is intended to be a competitive grant program;
• Requiring information and an evaluation of respiratory protection technology;
• Directing DoD to study the implications of Foreign Acquisition of United States-owned Testing Laboratories;
• Directing the Army to ensure they adopt interoperable waveforms with key international partners and allies in any waveform procurements for both current and future programs of records;
• Directing the Navy to assess the benefits that could be achieved by leveraging commercial enterprise disconnected edge logistics technology and business systems and options;
• Directing DoD to report on how the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability (JWCC) program office will incorporate cloud-native application protection platforms authorized for use on Department of Defense networks under an approved cloud product security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring program to secure JWCC cloud infrastructure across the full application lifecycle.

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