U.S. Army soldiers from the 1144th Transportation Battalion, Illinois Army National Guard conduct non-lethal weapons training at Camp Atterbury, Ind. The soldiers are being trained by U.S. Army Operation Warrior Trainers. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika, U.S. Army.
On December 18, 2013 Senator Carl Levin asked for and was granted permission to address the full Senate regarding the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014.
“I share the disappointment of Senators with our inability to vote on more amendments when our committee bill was brought to the Senate floor a few weeks ago. Senator Inhofe and I spent a week on the Senate floor before Thanksgiving trying to bring up more amendments and to have them debated and voted on.”
“We tried to reach agreement to limit consideration to defense-related amendments, but we were unable to do that. We tried to consent to vote on two sexual assault amendments, the Gillibrand amendment and the McCaskill amendment, which had been fully debated, but we could not get consent to do that. We tried to get consent to adopt a package of 39 amendments that had been cleared on both sides, but we were unable to do even that”, he said.
“It then became clear, given the Senate schedule, that our only hope of enacting a defense bill this year was to negotiate a new bill with the House Armed Services Committee on the basis of two bills: one that was reported out of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and, two, the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives, and then we decided we would seek enactment of a new bill in both Houses”, he added.
“That new bill passed the House without amendment. If we fail to pass the same bill, there will be no National Defense Authorization Act this year, with the result being we would deny the Department of Defense vital authorities, we would undermine congressional oversight of the military, and we would fail in our duty to provide our men and women in uniform the support they need and deserve”, said Senator Levin (source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov).
See related article: House passes National Defense Authorization Act – now it goes to the Senate http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/12/21880674-house-passes-national-defense-authorization-act
See also: http://breakingdefense.com/tag/ndaa2014/