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D.C. Dispatch: Iowa legislators weigh in on vaccine requirement, NDAA proposals [1]
['Robin Opsahl', 'More From Author', '- December']
Date: 2022-12-09
Iowa’s congressional delegation weighed in on issues from foreign government involvement to religious vaccine exemptions as the annual defense policy bill mad its way through Congress this week.
The annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, was released late Tuesday following months of deliberation as to what it would include. One of the more controversial topics up for debate is a proposal backed by Republicans to remove the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for members of the U.S. Military.
U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst spoke in support of getting rid of the vaccine requirement, linking the requirement to recent reports that the military fell short of its recruitment goals this year. The U.S. Army is missing its goals by about 25% according to the AP, and all military branches are struggling to find young people who meet fitness requirements and are willing to enlist.
Ernst, a combat veteran, said that repealing the vaccine mandate would help boost the military’s recruitment efforts.
“With record-low recruitment across all service branches, shrinking the number of service members puts our national security at risk,” Ernst said. “This commonsense effort protects our troops from being fired due to Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate at the cost of harm to service readiness or without fair appeal.”
Iowa Republican Reps. Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra also gave statements in support of lifting the vaccine requirement.
“(The NDAA) rescinds the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate that hurt our military readiness and unfairly punished so many of our brave servicemembers,” Hinson said in a news release. “Attempts to add poison pills to this bipartisan legislation were shameful — playing politics with our national security is wrong and I’m glad those attempts failed.”
The NDAA has many provisions that go beyond military policy changes. U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, a Democrat, lauded the inclusion of her Flexibility in Addressing Rural Homelessness Act in the legislation, which gives rural communities more options in spending federal homeless-assistance funding. The new language would allow rural communities to use the money to pay for the rental of hotels or motels as short-term emergency lodging for people displaced from their homes, in addition to paying for repairs to existing housing.
“I’m pleased to see my bipartisan legislation to help rural Iowans who have been displaced from their home pass the House,” Axne said in a statement. “People going through homelessness in rural areas face different challenges than those in urban areas, and it’s critical that we understand the solutions in rural areas are different also.”
As Congress discussed military policy in connection with the NDAA, Sen. Chuck Grassley raised concerns with the Department of Defense. He and Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking for answers to questions raised by a recent Washington Post investigation that found 15 retired U.S. generals and admirals are now employed as paid consultants for Saudi Arabia’s Defense Ministry.
In the letter, Grassley and Warren wrote that the U.S. Constitution and federal law require retired service members to seek approval from the U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense before taking a job with a foreign government, in order to prevent national security risks and potential conflicts of interest. While most retired military members have sought approval before working for foreign governments, the number of those who have not is unclear, the senators said.
“These findings are concerning and demand explanation,” Grassley and Warren wrote. “The DoD must ensure that former service members don’t run afoul of their constitutional oath and that they follow applicable filing and reporting requirements. … The apparent lack of internal policing in this matter is gravely troubling given the national security interests at stake.”
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[1] Url:
https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2022/12/09/d-c-dispatch-iowa-legislators-weigh-in-on-vaccine-requirement-ndaa-proposals/
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