Congresswoman Duckworth Advocates for Cutting Waste and Standing up for Women in NDAA Markup

Press Release

Congresswoman Tammy Duckworth (IL-08), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, advocated for several key legislative provisions in the bipartisan FY15 National Defense Authorization Act. Working with Republicans and Democrats alike on the Committee, Duckworth crafted proposals that directly address concerns of our troops while reducing waste in military spending. They include:

Standing up for Women in the Military

Expanding and strengthening the Army women's health initiative: The Army Women's Health Task Force (WHTF) has been successful in identifying and beginning to address concerns of women in the military, including: women's health education, barriers to seeking care, uniform/personal protective gear fit, psycho-social effects of deployment, effects of deployment on children and families, and sexual harassment/assault response and prevention. Congresswoman Duckworth advocated for the replication of the WHTF across the services in order to maximize personal and unit readiness. Her proposal was included in the bill and directs each military branch to:

Establish a Health Services Support Assessment Team to survey and report on female health concerns while deployed.
Standardize educational training in women's hygiene, contraception management and menstrual cycle control for female readiness.
Incorporate women's health issues into leaders' pre-deployment medical briefs to increase awareness and sensitivity to female Soldier health.
Create a series of Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) to standardize provider care and implement in garrison and deployed environments.

Military Sexual Assault: Duckworth voted in favor on an amendment to take Military Sexual Trauma out of Chain of Command. She stated "I commanded an Army unit; I am a former military commander. I have often been the only woman in an all-male unit. I served in combat conditions, I have served all over the world, I've served in peace time, I've served in wartime. I place the highest priority on a commander's authority to lead, manage and discipline the men and women under his or her command within the UCMJ. However, in the case of sexual crimes, the military has shown it is not able to uniformly, and I say uniformly because there are many great commanders, so many more good commanders than bad ones, but the military has shown that it has not been able to uniformly implement investigations and punishments within the chain of command." Watch her remarks here

Flame resistant uniforms for women: Given lack of a female-specific design for specialized flame resistant (FR) uniforms called the Army Combat Shirt (ACS) and concerns raised by deployed female soldiers about the lack of properly fitting protective gear, Congresswoman Duckworth proposed that that the Army determine a long-term fielding plan for incorporating the Army Combat Shirt and other flame resistant combat uniforms as organizational equipment in sizes and designs specific to female soldiers. The proposal was included in the legislation.

Cutting Waste

GAO report on DOD spare parts inventories: Given the Pentagon's continued issues with wasteful spending on spare parts, Congresswoman Duckworth proposed that the GAO assess whether the current guidance is sufficient to obtain fair and reasonable prices for spare parts and that the GAO report on the individual services and how they manage their spare parts inventory and not just the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA). These reports will enable Congress to evaluate what exactly the problems are and will serve as a basis for future legislation and reforms.

GAO report on DLA practices on excess defense articles: As material and budgetary resources continue to shrink, it is imperative that American tax dollars are well spent and managed. DOD has excess equipment that is no longer serviceable for combat, but is exceedingly valuable to local governments, fire and police departments, Veteran Service Organizations, hospitals and many other entities that serve local communities. There is concern that the Government may not be getting proper value for this equipment. Congresswoman Duckworth proposed that the GAO -- the government's primary watchdog agency - review and brief Congress on the management of DOD and its primary logistics agency (Defense Logistics Agency) on their management of excess and surplus personal property programs. The proposal will ensure that taxpayers are getting the greatest financial benefit out of surplus equipment originally purchased with tax dollars.

LCS: Duckworth introduced an amendment to restrict $1.07 billion of funding for the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) during consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) by the House Armed Services Committee. The amendment would fence off funding for the LCS program until the Navy can report its long term acquisition strategy and future for this troubled program. The LCS program has already had numerous testing issues and cost overruns in the millions of dollars. The program was estimated to cost $220 million per ship in Fiscal Year 2006 and ballooned to more than $480 million per ship by Fiscal Year 2010. Watch her remarks here.

Ammunition: The Department of Defense is sitting on a massive stockpile of ammunition and missiles that represents a $1.2 billion dollar liability to the taxpayers. Currently, the Department doesn't have a way to track and monitor current inventories, uses inaccurate accounting methods and has no effective information sharing mechanism in place to point out vast unused reserves of ammunition. Duckworth advanced a proposal that would direct the Department of Defense to determine one standardized accounting system for all the services to use. Additionally, in its annual report, the Army would also be required to include reports on available ammunition for use during the redistribution process, including ammunition that was unclaimed in prior years that could be used by another service or categorized for disposal.

Supporting Military Families

Tracking suicide statistics for military family members: Recent years have seen an increase in suicides and suicide attempts by service members and Veterans. The Department of Defense (DOD) has been aggressive in their educational efforts to combat suicide and to understand the different data-points and trends throughout the services, but does not yet track these data for family military members, even as deployed female troops have raised concerns about the effects of deployment on military children and families. Recognizing the importance of addressing mental health issues for our Service Members and their families, Duckworth's proposal directs the DOD to begin collecting and tracking information on the number of military dependents that attempt suicide as part of their larger suicide awareness and prevention efforts.

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