June 2011 - Navy
By CAPT Ike Puzon, USN (Ret)
At this writing, the House of
Representatives Armed
Services Committee (HASC)
is about to markup (complete
negotiations and voting) on the provisions
that will be in the FY2012 House
version of the NDAA (H.R. 1540). The
Senate is scheduled to markup their
version (not yet introduced) of the
NDAA sometime in late June or early
July. Congress is moving diligently
to pass the annual legislation that
provides both appropriations and
the authorization for our military.
AUSN supports and has asked our
readers and supporters to write, e-mail,
or call Congress in support of these
provisions. If our feedback is an
indication, many of our supporters are
passionate about current personnel
issues and equipment for our Navy and
Navy Reserve. The only way to ensure
these issues receive proper consideration
is through your active grassroots
advocacy. Many of our supporters
understand that, at the local level, you
can be a member of your Congressional
delegation’s military/veterans advisory
council. Check it out and get involved
in this way – and represent all of your
service members, families, and veterans
with Congress on a local level.
Some of the recently considered
provisions in the initial markup of the
FY 2012 NDAA are below. If you want
to see them passed into law, then you
will become actively involved individually
and with your families and friends.
Also, remember the Senate will have to
pass their version of the NDAA soon,
so none of this is law at this time.
The Chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, Congressman
“Buck” McKeon (R-CA), has stated:
“The Department of Defense cannot
continue to conduct business as usual
and expect better results. Proposing to
cut defense spending by nearly $500
billion in the coming decade without
first conducting the necessary due diligence
to determine what our nation’s
basic defense requirements will be is an
invitation to other countries to challenge
America’s supremacy,” which is a welcomed
approach to what cuts must be
taken from the Department of Defense.
We somewhat agree with Chairman
McKeon’s statement “to scrutinize the
Department of Defense’s budget and
identify inefficiencies so we may invest
those savings into higher national
security priorities.” “The 2012 defense
bill reflects the fact that members of
the Armed Services Committee, the
broader Congress and the nation must
make tough choices in order to provide
for America’s common defense. We
must examine every aspect of the
defense enterprise, not as a target for
arbitrary funding reductions as the
current Administration has proposed
but to find ways that we can accomplish
the mission of providing for the common
defense more effectively.” I believe the
Navy and Navy Reserve have taken
enough arbitrary funding cuts in
manpower and equipment over the last
decade. As evidenced by recent events,
the Navy and the Navy Reserve engagement
and deployments are growing,
not subsiding. We need manpower and
equipment to implement the Navy’s
piece of the National Security Strategy.
For the National Defense Authorization
Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which will be
marked up by the Armed Services
Committee as this is going to print, the
stated goals are:
-
Ensure our troops deployed in
Afghanistan, Iraq and around the world
have the equipment, resources, authorities,
training, and time they need to
complete successfully their missions
and return home;
- Provide our warfighters and their
families with the resources and support
they need, deserve, and have earned;
n Invest in the capabilities and force
structure needed to protect the United
States from current and future threats;
- Mandate fiscal responsibility,
transparency and accountability within
the Department of Defense; and
- Incentivize competition for every
taxpayer dollar associated with funding
Department of Defense requirements.
As we have reported previously,
oversight of DoD spending continues to
be a problem, thus the Armed Services
Committee continues to be concerned
that more than 60 percent of the
Department of Defense financial
community exists outside the auditing,
accounting and financial management
job classifications. Members of the
committee are also concerned that the
Department of Defense lacks financial
managers who understand the fiscal
concepts necessary to manage defense
resources. The House NDAA will call for:
-
Establish a financial management
certification program for the Department
of Defense;
- Require the Chief Management
Officer to conduct a financial management
personnel competency assessment in
order to identify the personnel requirements
needed to perform effectively financial,
budgetary and accounting processes and
to maintain professional certification
standards.
Chairman McKeon’s addresses the
TRICARE Prime fees in exactly the
manner that AUSN officially supported––
through a proposal to “set into law a
strict formula” that would cap any
Department of Defense attempts to
increase TRICARE fees “each October by
the amount that retired pay increased
the previous December.” Under
Chairman McKeon’s proposal (which is
counter to what the Military Personnel
subcommittee submitted last week)
allows the modest increases––$2.50 a
month for individuals and $5 a month
for families––in fiscal 2012, marking the
first fee hikes in 16 years, and then
preventing retirees from being hit with
massive annual increases in the future
by making sure the percentage increase
is linked to the retirement COLA (costof-
living adjustment). TRICARE fee
increase would equal the cost-of-living
adjustment made on 1 Dec. 2011, in
military retired pay. If there is no
adjustment, as there has not been for
the last two years, there would be no
TRICARE fee increase.
AUSN testified to this position and
most strongly supports any increases
that are necessary being tied only to
COLA, or stripping the authority for
DoD to increase fees and returning that
authority to Congress.
Roles and Missions
of the Department of Defense
In the 2008 version of the defense
authorization bill, Congress required
the Secretary of Defense to conduct a
review of roles and missions every four
years with the intent of identifying
capability gaps and areas of unnecessary
duplication. In the report delivered
to Congress in January 2009, it was
clear that the Department of Defense
failed to use the first review as an
opportunity to conduct a comprehensive
assessment of the roles and missions
of the Armed Forces––choosing
instead to endorse simply the status
quo.
When the President announced
his intent to cut the Department of
Defense’s budget by an additional $400
billion––above the $78 billion which
had already been announced––he also
announced that the Department of
Defense would conduct a review of the
Department’s roles and missions in
order to determine where those cuts
should be made. Chairman McKeon
and the members of the committee
support this effort and strongly believe
that harvesting arbitrary “savings” prior
to determining the capabilities needed
to protect the United States is putting
the cart before the horse.
The 2012 defense authorization act
would strengthen the 2011 Quarterly
Roles and Missions Review in order
to provide a solid basis for reducing
waste while also improving the joint
warfighting capability of the
Department.
Personnel Subcommittee Highlights
A few highlights of Military
Personnel Subcommittee marked as
of 5 May 2011:
-
Provides a 1.6 percent increase
in military basic pay.
- Prohibits TRICARE Prime fee
increases for one year.
- Establishes requirements for the
management and measurement of
dwell time––the time service members
spend at home station following a
deployment; personnel tempo––the
time, including training time, that a
service member is unable to spend
time in housing in which the service
member lives due to work duties; and
operating tempo––the time units are
involved in operational and training
requirements.
- Makes mental health assessments
available for members of the Reserve
Components at the location of their unit
during unit training and assemblies.
n Provides legal council to servicemembers
who are victims of sexual
assault.
Seapower Subcommittee Highlights
The Seapower Subcommittee
provided input to the National Defense
Authorization bill for fiscal year 2012,
which provides funding for Navy. At
this stage (markup at the subcommittee
level), the FY 2012 NDAA would:
-
Provide $14.9 billion and
supports construction of 10 new ships
in the budget request (except for a
reduction to LHA-7 as identified by the
General Accounting Office due to late
contract award).
- Provide $150 million increase
to the Shipbuilding and Conversion,
Navy (SCN) account to gain
efficiencies through the use of
Advance Procurement and Economic
Order Quantities, thereby bringing
the total for SCN to $14.9 billion.
- Provide multiyear authority
for the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke
destroyers.
- Reinstate the requirement for
annual delivery of the Navy’s 30-year
shipbuilding plan.
BOTTOM LINE: We are approaching
the first hurdle of the annual FY NDAA.
The House will complete action within
days of this writing. If you have not
engaged your Congressional delegation,
then you have one more chance,
through the Senate which should do
their version in late June or July. I
strongly encourage you to write, call,
e-mail or visit your Congressional
delegation to support those issues
we have provided or recommended.
I am sure you wish to have a strong
Navy and a strong National Defense.
You can make a difference. See our
Web site at www.ausn.org or e-mail
puzon@ausn.org.