BISHOP PRAISES HOUSE PASSAGE OF NDAA

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (GA-02), Vice Chair of the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, released the following statement after the House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act:

"This year's National Defense Authorization Act is a powerful bill that honors American values and leadership, while keeping our military strong during a once-in-a-generation pandemic. This bipartisan bill provides a robust allowance of $732 billion that solidifies our commitment to servicemembers, expands readiness, and ensures our military will remain cutting-edge."

The bill:

• Gives Our Troops a Pay Raise & Protects Their Safety: by authorizing a 3 percent military pay raise, cleaning up so-called PFAS forever chemicals, investing in housing improvements for servicemembers and families, and making improvements to sexual assault prevention and response.
• Strengthens America's Health & Economic Security: with important fixes to expand paid parental leave for federal civilian employees and initiatives to combat the climate crisis.
• Responds to the COVID-19 Pandemic: by proactively strengthening our nation's defenses to pandemics, boosting America's industrial base resilience, helping Maritime Security Program carriers keep ships fully crewed during COVID-19, supporting NATO's multinational response to the pandemic, and providing funds to the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program with an increased focus on cooperative biological engagement to detect and confront biological threats.
• Creates a More Diverse Military: by creating a Special Investigator focused on combating racial disparities in the Military Justice System and in personnel policies and practices, establishing Chief Diversity Officers throughout the military, and creating initiatives for increasing representation of women and minorities in the military services.

A full summary of the bill can be found here.