Roll Call – August 2020

by | Aug 30, 2020 | Roll Call

2021 NDAA:
The Senate and the House of Representatives have both passed their individual versions of the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Each chamber passed their bills by a veto-proof margin, meaning that should the President decide to veto the bill, there are enough votes to override the veto and become law. The White House has threatened to veto the legislation.
The legislation includes a 3% pay raise for troops. It reduces Air Guard mil techs but increases in Air Guard AGRs, about 2,500 each. It grants TAMP (TRICARE) coverage for those who perform title 32 active service for COVID. It modifies the DD Form 214 to become one record of service for everyone—active, Guard and Reserve. It removes the proration of hazard pay (commonly known as the 1/30th rule) for Guard and Reserve. It includes hazard pay for those on duty for COVID and retirement point credit for cancelled drills.

The two bills will now be reconciled, first by the professional staff and later by the Members themselves. Because of the August Congressional recess and limited time for legislative business in September, we expect that final action on the NDAA will come after the elections in November.

2021 Defense Appropriations:
The House passed the defense appropriations (money) bill last week. It is part of a seven department minibus, a consolidation of funding for seven different governmental departments. The bill includes the 3% pay raise for troops as well as increased funding for counterdrug and Youth Challenge accounts. There is a lot of money in the bill for the National Guard, including over a $1 billion in equipment accounts.

The bill now moves to the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not worked on any of their bills yet. We expect that, after August recess, the Senate and House will put together a continuing resolution to fund the government temporarily until after the elections in November, and then will pass the Defense Appropriations for the remainder of the year.

VA Sanctions Lifted:

On March 9th this year, VA took the unusual step of threatening to ban new GI Bill enrollments at five U.S. universities due to past violations. The sanctions were to begin on May 9th; however, due to COVID, those sanctions were delayed by VA. Due to a campaign by EANGUS’ Veterans Education Project, VA announced on July 2nd not to place sanctions on these universities after all. The five universities are the University of Phoenix, Colorado Technical University, American InterContinental University, Bellevue University and Temple University. EANGUS was the only military service organization to stand up for these schools and for National Guardsmen and their family members who want to attend these schools and use their GI Bill.

New National Guard Bureau Leadership:
General Dan Hokanson is promoted to his current rank and the new Chief National Guard Bureau. He was the Director Army National Guard and former Vice Chief National Guard Bureau and Adjutant General of Oregon.

Lieutenant General Marc Sasseville is the new Vice Chief National Guard Bureau. He was the Commander, Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region – 1st Air Force and former Deputy Director of the Air National Guard.

Lieutenant General Michael Loh is promoted to his current rank and the new Director Air National Guard. He was formerly the Adjutant General of Colorado.

Lieutenant General Jon Jensen is promoted to his current rank and the new Director Army National Guard. He is the former Adjutant General of Minnesota.

We congratulate all of these fine general officers and look forward to working with them in the future.