Press Releases

WASHINGTON - Today, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) voted to pass H.R.6395, the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2021.  This bipartisan bill complies with the bipartisan budget agreement.   It authorizes $732 billion in discretionary spending for our national defense for FY 2021, including approximately $69 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). 

“I was proud to vote with my colleagues in a bipartisan manner to pass this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. From creating a more inclusive and diverse military, to combating violent extremism, to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, this bill represents a meaningful and responsible investment in our nation’s defense,” said Rep. Blunt Rochester. “I’m also very pleased that this bill addresses the incongruous and divisive practice of naming our nation’s military bases after Confederate generals. It also includes my bill, the FLIGHT Act, which will provide more resources for ROTC students at HBCUs and minority institutions like Delaware State University. I look forward to the Senate quickly considering the bill and am hopeful that the President will sign it into law.” 

“At this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, and in an increasingly divisive political climate, for the 60th consecutive year the Congress has proven that our constitutional obligation to ‘provide for the common defense’ is far more important than politics,” said Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. “I am incredibly proud of the work that the House Armed Services Committee was able to accomplish this year, despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and strongly believe the FY21 NDAA is an excellent piece of legislation that delivers for our military. Thanks to the work of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the bill we passed today supports our troops, reflects our values, and provides for a strong national defense.”

The National Defense Authorization Act includes a provision introduced by Blunt Rochester, along with Rep. Anthony Brown (D-Md.) and Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) to provide new resources for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and minority institutions like Delaware State University.

Other key provisions of the bill are:

Taking Care of Our Troops and Our Military Families

• Continues to improve the quality of life of our service men and women by authorizing support for a 3.0 percent pay increase for our service men and women.
• Authorizes additional funding to clean up contamination of drinking water on our military bases by PFAS chemicals.  
• Builds on previous efforts to continue to require additional improvements in the housing for military personnel and their families.
• Continues to require additional improvements in sexual assault prevention and response programs, including creating a new pilot program for the military service academies, which includes a special prosecutor for offenses committed by attendees.

Diversity Requirements for DOD and NNSA

• Creates a Special Investigator to review and investigate racial disparities in the Military Justice System and in personnel policies and practices, including recruiting accessions, promotions, and retention, as well as white supremacist activities among military personnel.
• Establishes a Chief Diversity Officer reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense as well as establishing a Chief Diversity Officer in each of the military services reporting directly to the Secretary of that service.
• Requires the Secretary of Defense and the Secretaries of the Military Services to establish goals for increasing women and minorities in the military services.
• Requires each Secretary of a military department to submit annually a report summarizing the gender and race of each officer who was recommended on a list for promotion to the U.S. Senate for the grades of O-4 and above

Violent Extremism

• Adds a Violent Extremism punitive article to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
• For example, the Article would punish individuals subject to the Code who knowingly commit murder, manslaughter, assault and other covered offenses in order to achieve political, ideological, religious, or other goals or because of the race, religion, color, ethnicity, sex, age, disability status, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity of the person or class of person.

Promoting American Values

• YEMEN:   Prohibits the use of DOD funds to provide logistical support to the Saudi-led coalition for strikes in Yemen.  It also prohibits DOD civilian, military, or contractor personnel from participating in hostilities against the Houthis, without authorization from Congress.
• BORDER WALL:   Does not authorize funding for the border wall.  The bill does, however, limit the funding under the national emergency military construction authority to prevent its misuse on the President’s wasteful border wall.
• GUANTANAMO BAY:   Does not carry any statutory restrictions on transfer of detainees from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

• Creates a $1 billion Pandemic Preparedness and Resilience National Security Fund, directing the funding to efforts to proactively increase our country’s ability to be prepared for and respond to future pandemics.
• Requires one of the Assistant Secretaries to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy, who would be responsible for developing and maintaining the defense industrial base and ensuring a secure supply of materials critical to national security.
• Creates the Small Business Industrial Base Resiliency Program and authorizes the Assistant Secretary for Defense to enter into transactions to purchase or make a commitment to purchase goods or services from small business concerns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paid Parental Leave

• Makes technical corrections to the paid parental leave benefit provided through the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act to ensure that the Federal Aviation Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, and certain other civilian federal employees inadvertently omitted from the legislation receive the parental leave benefit.

Addressing Climate Change

• Establishes a new “National Academies Climate Security Roundtable” within the National Academy of Science to establish best practices for identifying and disseminating climate indicators and warnings to ensure that environmental security is included in operational planning and intelligence analysis.
• Authorizes additional funding to support research that advances long-range forecasting of seasonal and subseasonal weather patterns, which would provide national security officials with advanced warning of potentially destabilizing events.
• Authorizes an additional $5 million for research into extreme weather events.
• Establishes a pilot program to develop microgrids on military installations that integrate emergency diesel generators to demonstrate how microgrid emergency diesel generator backup power could create efficiencies and resiliency while reducing costs and emissions.
• Requires a report on efforts taken to ensure fuel consumption, distribution, and logistics are being considered across the Department and that steps are being taken to reduce consumption of fossil fuels by 30 percent in 25 years to reduce the number of resupply convoys and oilers required in a contested environment.
• Requires a report on the implementation of provisions from the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act related to installation, master planning, updates to the Unified Facilities Criteria (building codes), sea-level rise modeling, and climate assessment tools

Provisions on PFAS Chemicals

• Requires the Secretary of Defense to meet or exceed the most stringent standards between an enforceable State standard under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), an enforceable Federal 16 | P a g e standard under CERCLA, or a health advisory under the Safe Drinking Water Act when performing removal or remediation actions of PFOS or PFOA contamination from Department of Defense or National Guard activities found in drinking water or in groundwater that is not currently used for drinking water.
• Requires the Department of Defense to publish on a public website the results of drinking and ground water PFAS testing conducted on military installations or former defense sites.
• Requires the Department of Defense to notify the congressional defense committees when there has been an uncontrolled release of PFAS-containing firefighting agent.
• Prohibits DLA procurement of certain items containing PFAS, including cookware, uniforms, personal care products, floor, and furniture wax, carpeting and upholstery, and food packaging.
• Authorizes $150 million for research lines that support development of PFAS remediation and disposal technologies and firefighting agent replacement.
• Authorizes a total of $1.5 billion for environmental remediation and cleanup at current military installations, formerly utilized defense sites, and installations closed by BRAC, to include an additional $190 million in BRAC and Environmental Restoration accounts to support acceleration of remediation activities and PFAS response.

Provisions Strengthening Congressional Oversight of DOD

• Implements strong congressional oversight over the use of the military:
• Requires DOD to provide congressional notification of all activities under a section of the U.S. Code that authorizes support for counterdrug activities and activities to counter transnational organized crime.
• Updates program management controls on the nuclear warhead acquisition process and nuclear weapons plutonium pit production.
• Continues critical oversight of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and initiates new reporting requirements from DOD on software testing methodologies and pertinent issues approaching the full-rate production decision in early 2021.
• Strengthens accountability of the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) by adding reporting requirements on ABMS demonstrations, product line capabilities, and decision-making authorities.
• Addresses civilian casualties resulting from U.S military operations by:
• Including a Sense of Congress commending DOD for measures to prevent, mitigate, track, investigate, learn from, respond to, and report civilian casualties resulting from U.S. military operations.
• Requiring a study to explore other geographic combatant commanders providing civilian casualty reporting data similar to U.S. AFRICOM.
• Authorizing resources to implement a Department policy on civilian casualties in connection with U.S. military operations.

Confederate Names and Display of Confederate Flag

• Requires DOD to identify, report on a process, and change the names of all military bases and infrastructure named for individuals who served in the Confederacy within one year.
• Prohibits the public display of the Confederate flag on Department of Defense installations.

Other Provisions

• Authorizes $17 million for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Institutions.
• Establishes a scholarship for service pilot subprogram under DOD’s Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) program for students in Minority Institutions, to diversify and strengthen the national security workforce.
• Requires a report on improving the equal employment opportunity complaint resolution processes for civilian employees of DOD.
• Includes the Elijah Cummings Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination Act, passed by the House in January 2019, which strengthens equal employment opportunity protections for federal employees and strengthens prohibitions against discrimination and retaliation against whistleblowers.

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