On May 24, the Senate Armed Services Committee passed, 26-0, the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (as-yet-unnumbered). The Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel approved its portion of the measure on May 22; the House approved its version of the bill (H.R. 4310) on May 18 (see The Source, 5/18/12).
According to the committee summary, the bill would authorize $631.4 billion for national defense programs in FY2013. This amount contains funding for the base Department of Defense (DoD) budget, overseas contingency operations (OCO), and the Department of Energy (DoE). The funding levels are $498 million more than President Obama requested for the base DoD budget, $301 million less than the amount he requested for OCO, and $431 million less than requested for DoE. Military personnel would receive $135.1 billion; the measure would cut more than $660 million from the president’s FY2013 request for military construction and family housing projects. The president requested $11.22 billion and $1.651 billion for military construction and family housing, respectively.
The legislation would require the secretary of Defense to modify DoD’s comprehensive policy on sexual assault prevention and response to incorporate DoD’s legislative proposals. DoD would be required to report to Congress on its inspector general’s implementation of the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations to enhance oversight of sexual assault investigations. Service members who claim to be victims of sexual assault would be allowed to remain on, or return to, active duty or a reserve component in order to complete a line of duty determination.
The bill would recognize the “value of special courses at the Army’s Military Police School at Fort Leonard Wood and other Army sexual assault training programs” and would “encourage other services to adopt these best practices.”
The legislation would direct the secretary of Defense to report to Congress “on the implementation of recent policy changes made by the [DoD] relative to the assignment of women in the military, on his assessment of other options to further increase service opportunities by women, on the current practice of the department in recording and characterizing combat-related service by women, and to provide recommendations for further statutory or regulatory changes to increase career and service opportunities for women in the armed forces.”
The bill would amend the authority to pay transitional compensation to victims of dependent abuse to include children who were carried during pregnancy at the time of the dependent abuse offense, and would clarify that spouses and dependents who are not living with the service member at the time of such abuse also would be eligible for the compensation.
The Defense Health Program would receive $32.9 billion in FY2013. The bill would provide fertility preservation treatments for service members who have been diagnosed with a condition where the recommended course of treatment could cause infertility.
Local educational agencies (LEAs) with military dependent children would receive $25 million in supplemental impact aid, while LEAs with military dependent children with severe disabilities would receive $5 million.
The legislation would provide a 1.7 percent pay increase for military personnel, which is consistent with the president’s request.
During consideration of the bill, the committee adopted, 16-10, an amendment by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) to allow military health insurance to cover abortion services in the case of rape or incest.
