WASHINGTON, D.C. – Led by Chairman John Garamendi (D-CA) and Ranking Member Doug Lamborn (R-CO), the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee for Readiness released its proposals for the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) today. The Subcommittee will meet at 9 am on Wednesday, June 5 in Rayburn 2212.  The markup will be live streamed on the Committee’s website. The Subcommittee's mark is available here.

The Readiness Subcommittee oversees the policies, programs, and accounts related to military readiness, training, logistics and maintenance, military construction, organic industrial base, the civilian and contract workforce, environment, military installations and real property management, family housing, base realignments and closures, and energy.

The Readiness Subcommittee's proposal:

Addresses problems with the management and oversight of military family housing by:

  • Requiring the military services to have a tenants’ bill of rights for residents of privatized military family housing that includes at minimum the following elements: a prohibition on reprisal by either the private partner or military chain of command; provision of a housing advocate that is not co-located with or employed by the private partner; a dispute resolution mechanism; a mechanism for withholding rent payments where appropriate during the dispute resolution process; prompt provision of maintenance by qualified personnel and effective communication regarding the status of their work orders to include access to an electronic work order management system; professional and courteous property management services; and information about known and potential hazards at time of home selection, to include mold, lead, rodent infestation, and history of sickened residents.
  • Prohibiting the use of non-disclosure agreements in connection with entering into, continuing, or terminating a lease for on-base privatized military family housing.
  • Recommending the full committee authorize funding to hire civilian personnel to provide additional oversight and management of military family housing and require a report on the manpower requirements and execution plan to appropriately staff military housing offices.

 Directs the Department of Defense to plan for installation resiliency by:

  • Requiring the development of installation master plans that assess current climate vulnerabilities and plan for mitigating the risks to installations from extreme weather events, mean sea level fluctuation, wildfires, flooding, and other changes in environmental conditions.
  • Limiting the Department of Defense’s ability to spend planning and design funds until it initiates the process of amending the building standards for military construction (Unified Facility Criteria) to ensure that building practices and standards promote energy, climate, and cyber resilience at military installations.
  • Requiring all proposals for military construction projects to consider potential long-term changes in environmental conditions, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events, as well as, industry best-practices to withstand extreme weather events.
  • Requiring the Department of Defense to report on the feasibly of transitioning installation planning from 100-year floodplain data to a forward-looking predictive model that takes into account the impacts of sea-level rise.

Responds to drinking water contamination by:

  • Prohibiting the release of fluorinated firefighting foam (AFFF) at military installations except in cases of emergency response or in limited circumstances for training or testing of equipment where complete containment, capture, and proper disposal mechanisms are in place to ensure no AFFF is released into the environment.
  • Requiring the Secretary of Navy to complete a new military specification by January 2025 for a fluorine free firefighting agent to be used at all Department of Defense installations and institutes a complete ban on fluorinated foams on military installations by September 2029.
  • Authorizing the National Guard to access Defense Environmental Remediation Account funds, for five years, for the limited purpose of addressing PFOS and PFOA exposure and contamination resulting from National Guard activities in and around National Guard bases. 
  • Recommending the full committee authorize additional resources for environmental restoration accounts for remediation activities related to perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water on or near military installations

Supports military infrastructure requirements by:

  • By authorizing military construction projects included in the budget request, as well as recommending additional funding for projects in support of the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) and military construction projects included in the military department’s unfunded priority lists.
  • Recommending the full committee authorize funds in support of the Defense Community Infrastructure Program to help address deficiencies in community infrastructure projects or facilities which are located outside of military installations but which support military installations.

Improves oversight, management, and accountability to improve military readiness by:

  • Limiting funds available to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment until the Under Secretary submits a report on steps being taken to improve the availability and accountability of F-35 parts within the supply chain.
  • Requiring the Secretary of Defense to develop material readiness metrics supporting the National Defense Strategy by requiring product support managers to develop product support strategies to meet material readiness objectives for major weapon systems.
  • Requiring the military services develop a detailed plan for the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution of funding that support the sustainment of weapon systems and equipment.
  • Modifying the delivery method, timeline, and required elements of the Quarterly Readiness Report to Congress (QRRC) and the Joint Forces Readiness Review (JFFR) to improve Congressional oversight of current military readiness and ability to meet combatant commander requirements.
  • Creating a pilot program to require the ship depot maintenance budget exhibits provide a breakdown of funding, categorized by class of ship, requested for ship and submarine maintenance and how those amounts compare to the identified maintenance requirement.
  • Recommending the full committee authorize additional resources for key readiness enabling accounts.

 

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