Last night, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022. Following its passage, Congressman Blake Moore issued the following statement:
“I was thrilled to vote for the House’s final passage of the NDAA this week, and I’m extremely proud of the countless hours my team, committee staff, and my HASC colleagues put into this bill over the last 12 months,” said Congressman Blake Moore. “This NDAA delivers critical wins for both our national security and Utah’s defense community by reversing the Biden Administration’s harmful spending cuts and investing in depot modernization and nuclear deterrence. This will ensure the U.S. is best positioned against an increasingly aggressive China and resurgent Russia and will demand accountability for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. This bill has a history of achieving the most bipartisan outcomes each year, and I applaud House and Senate leadership for ensuring several harmful, partisan provisions were removed as expected. The removal of 2nd Amendment restrictions, female draft requirements, and heavy-handed vaccine mandates in the final bill demonstrates that the legislative process can be trusted. I urge my Senate colleagues to rapidly move this legislation so it can be signed into law and we can give our service members the assistance they need to keep Americans safe.”
Improvements to the NDAA include:
- Removal of “Red Flag Laws” – removed provision allowing judges to issue ex parte protective orders that prohibit firearm possession. The bill makes no changes to law that would impact the Second Amendment rights of servicemembers.
- Removal of the requirement for women to register for the draft – removed provision requiring women to register for the Selective Service. The bill makes no changes to the Selective Service System, how a draft would be conducted, or who would be conscripted.
- Removal of the Office of Extremism – removed provision establishing an Office of Extremism at the Department of Defense (DOD). The bill does not create a new Uniform Code of Military Justice article on extremism. It does not require the Department to establish policies to counter extremism or make troops take training courses on extremism.
- Removal of $15 minimum wage – removed provision requiring the DOD contractors to pay a $15 per hour minimum wage.
- Removal of vaccine-related discharges – prohibits the DOD from dishonorably discharging servicemembers that refuse the COVD-19 vaccine. Servicemembers may only receive an honorable discharge or a general discharge under honorable conditions.
- Establishment of vaccine exemptions – requires the DOD to establish uniform standards under which servicemembers may be exempted from receiving the COVID-19 vaccine for administrative, medical, or religious reasons. The DOD must also consider the effects of natural immunity.
In addition to these many improvements, the final NDAA maintained numerous provisions beneficial to Hill Air Force Base and Utah’s defense community, including full funding of the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent Program, full funding of Depot modernization efforts, improvements to veteran hiring, executive accountability for our catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and secured supply chains for military printed circuit boards with language included from my Strengthening Protections Against Chinese Printed Circuit Boards Act. To read more about the NDAA’s provisions that will directly benefit Utah’s defense community, click here.
Congressman Moore is Hill Air Force Base and Utah’s sole representative on an Armed Services Committee. Read more about his work with Hill Air Force Base and Utah’s defense community here.
