WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) voted to pass the bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2024.
“Supporting and funding our national defense is one of our most important congressional duties,” said Rep. Phillips. “In an era of partisanship, the NDAA has been a lasting example of bipartisan collaboration rather than a place for partisan pandering or culture wars. Still, while authorizing defense spending is critical to our national security, so is understanding the implications of its costs. We need to have robust bipartisan conversation about modernizing our spending and ensuring that our systems are keeping up with the ever-changing needs of the 21st century. This means holding government agencies, including the Pentagon, accountable to passing an audit.”
Rep. Phillips helped secure several key provisions within the NDAA, which were inspired by conversations with constituents in the district and by his leadership on the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
Following devastation and destruction by the Islamic State, camps were created as a temporary solution to house detained and displaced people within Northeast Syria. As humanitarian conditions deteriorated over time, these camps have turned into long-term security concerns, fueling resentment and radicalization. This provision will empower a Senior Official within the State Department to coordinate across governmental agencies and establish a unified US government approach to ISIS detainee and displacement camps in Northeast Syria, where tens of thousands of detained and displaced persons are still being held.
Better Foreign Policy Through Better Pet Policy Act
Our diplomatic success across the globe relies upon our ability to place the best and brightest people in the greatest areas of need. That is why we must do all we can to remove barriers and incentivize our diplomats to take the tough assignments. Under current policy, many State Department personnel must pay out-of-pocket to transport their beloved pets with them when stationed overseas. This provisionallows the State Department to pay for the transportation of up to three domestic animals in those situations where an employee would have otherwise had to pay for that transportation themselves, removing one barrier to participating in critical overseas deployments.
Currently, surviving spouses of military personnel are at risk of losing survivor benefits if they remarry under the age of 55. Rep. Phillips’s Love Lives On Act would ensure that military spouses retain certain benefits upon remarriage, no matter their age. The NDAA includes one part of the Love Lives On Act, which permits remarried surviving spouses to continue to use commissary stores and Morale, Welfare, and Recreation retail facilities of the Department of Defense.
The NDAA also includes an important provision that would prohibit the Department of Defense from reducing the number of C-130 aircraft assigned to the National Guard. This is a critical success for our Minnesota National Guard, which was recently selected to receive eight, new C-130J aircraft and is essential to the continuity of their mission to protect our homeland and support missions at home and abroad.
