The National Defense Authorization Act for 2025, which passed in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, includes Alaska-specific provisions that will bring hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction to the state and stave off staffing changes that officials warned would have upended local National Guard units.
Both of Alaska’s Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, as well as Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, voted for the bill, which authorizes $923.3 billion in defense spending.
More than $723 million worth of new military projects in Alaska are included in the measure, according to Sullivan’s office.
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Among them is funding to begin building the Joint Integrated Test and Training Center at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a flight training facility, at a cost of $250 million. Also slated for JBER are a National Guard Readiness Center, a munitions complex, and improvements for base housing. Near Fairbanks, Fort Wainwright is set to see a major expansion to a machine gun range, and Eielson Air Force Base will receive funds to set up “a Fuel Operations and Lab Facility to ensure their ability to provide acceptable fuel for aircraft and serve as a bridge to the Pacific and Arctic,” according to a release from Murkowski.
The other significant provision for Alaska concerns the National Guard. For close to a year, Murkowski and Sullivan have been lobbying military officials to abandon a planned staffing adjustment called “fulltime leveling” that would have changed the employment status of roughly 80 positions within the Alaska Air National Guard. The move was part of a nation-wide adjustment undertaken by the National Guard Bureau. But in August the organization announced the Guard in Alaska was to receive a permanent exemption.
Within the latest defense authorization bill, the issue was addressed by increasing the overall number of what are called Active Guard Reserve positions, essentially active-duty guardsmen distributed throughout each state’s National Guard. With more AGRs funded, the 80 or so within the Alaska Air Guard that had previously been set to go away are now secure.
“We got the assurance that the Alaska Guard, particularly, was basically going to be protected from this effort at leveling,” Murkowski said in an interview Wednesday.
Along with Sullivan and Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Murkowski said provisions added to the spending bill establish new “guardrails” to keep any future leveling policies from blindsiding Guard units.
Sen. Sullivan, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said in a written statement that 28 provisions he pushed for made it into the final bill. Among them is a requirement that the Secretary of Defense provide an “annual report on how the Arctic Strategy will be resourced against other competing priorities in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The measure passed the Senate 85 to 14. It passed in the House 281 to 140.
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Publish date : 2024-12-18 13:31:00
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