Sen. Cruz Secures Multiple Victories for Texas’s Military Communities in Senate FY20 National Defense Authorization Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this week voted in favor of final passage of the FY20 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which enhances America’s national security and ensures that our fighting men and women have the resources they need to defend our interests globally. Sen. Cruz fought for dozens of measures, of which thirteen were successfully incorporated into the final Senate FY20 NDAA, including a range of amendments directly relevant to Texas military communities and our military families.

“This week, the Senate fulfilled its responsibility to ensure our military is funded and equipped with what it needs to protect and defend our nation’s security, even as the world grows more dangerous and threats from countries like Iran, China, and Russia are escalating,” Sen. Cruz said. “The NDAA protects the long-term readiness of the B-1B aircraft, one of our most capable assets. It moves forward with a United States Space Force, with a separate Space Combatant Command and an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy. It fully funds the F-35 program, which is necessary to ensure that our Air Force can field fifth generation jets in what promise to be fifth generation battlespaces. It includes resources for contesting and countering aggression in cyberspace, the Arctic, and against our electricity grid. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it deepens our support for America’s soldiers and veterans and includes a well-deserved 3.1% pay increase, reforms in military housing, support for mental health and wellness, sexual assault, and domestic violence.”

Below are some of the overarching priorities and amendments Sen. Cruz fought for, and were successfully included in the Senate FY20 NDAA:

• Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy: The NDAA creates the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, in line with legislation that Sen. Cruz introduced this Congress. This measure is necessary to ensure that the Space Force has sufficient influence and resources to address the challenges our nation will face as space increasingly becomes a domain of military competition. 

• B-1B Bomber Recovery Plan: Sen. Cruz’s provision enhances Congressional oversight of the B-1B fleet and requires the United States Air Force to brief Congress on a plan to increase readiness on the aircraft. The long-term health of the B-1B will help maintain Dyess Air Force Base as a premier installation in our nation’s defense, and is a recognition of the important role that the Abilene military community plays and will continue to play. This amendment was cosponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-S.D.), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).

• Rough Terrain Container Handler (RTCH): Sen. Cruz’s provision directs the Department of the Army and the Marine Corps to jointly develop a plan to sustain the Rough Terrain Container Handler fleets. This provision will support both the work occurring at Red River and Texas companies.

• Army Depot Maintenance: Requires a comprehensive strategy to improve the infrastructure of military depots with the goal of ensuring proper capacity and capability to support readiness. This provision requires an assessment of the conditions and performance, and the resources and investments necessary to successfully manage military depots, which would include sites such as Red River and Corpus Christi.

• License Portability for Military Spouses: Requires collaboration between the Pentagon and state governments to reduce professional relicensing burdens on military spouses changing duty stations.

• Increased Funding for Texas A&M National Security Multi-Mission Vessel (NSMV): Sen. Cruz’s provision doubles the authorization for the NSMV in the Maritime Administration (MARAD), which will enable and empower the Texas A&M Maritime Academy to train more mariners, which in turn will increase our nation’s response readiness for natural disasters in the Gulf region while reducing overall NSMV procurement costs by $40 million.

• Expedited Processing for Port Improvement Grants: Sen. Cruz’s provision reduces the amount of paperwork and time required for Texas ports to apply for certain grants by allowing packages of projects to qualify as single grant applications, streamlining and enhancing the process.

Sen. Cruz supported the following amendments which were adopted to the Senate FY20 NDAA: 

• Burn Pits Accountability: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to require the Department of Defense evaluate whether U.S. service members have been exposed to airborne toxins or burn pits. This measure provides service members the option to be enrolled in the Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry, maintained by the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

• Accountability for Iranian Terrorism: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) to ensure that victims of Iran’s violence and terrorism have the tools they need to recover damages from the Ayatollahs. 

• Cybersecurity and Manufacturing Protections from Non-Free Market Governments: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Cornyn to keep U.S. tax dollars from going to transit vehicle supplier companies owned and subsidized by non-free market governments.

• Electromagnetic Pulse: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) to strengthen our nation’s resiliency against an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

• Strengthen Commitment to Taiwan: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan and direct the DOD to assess possible updates to the Taiwan Relations Act.

• Increase Pressure on North Korean Enablers: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) to introduce sanctions on foreign banks and companies that do business with North Korea.

The Senate FY20 NDAA included the following measures which directly benefit Texas:

• Military Construction Projects: The FY20 NDAA provides $207 million for projects at Joint Base San Antonio, $50 million for projects at Fort Hood, and $86 million for projects at Corpus Christi Army Depot. Additionally, the NDAA provides authority to carry out FY18 construction projects for Joint Base San Antonio.

• B-21 Program: Fully funds the B-21 program, ensuring that Dyes Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas remains a pillar of our nation’s strategic capabilities and deterrence. 

• F-35 Program: Authorizes the procurement of 94 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, which are built in Fort Worth, Texas. This will continue our air superiority with the world’s most lethal fighter.

• Future Vertical Lift Program: Increases funding for advanced development of FVL Capability Set 3, which will enhance modernization. This program is essential to the future of Army Aviation and is supported by many Texans who support the development of this next generation of aviation technology.

• Privatized Military Housing: Provides reforms to address the challenges faced by military families, including steps to ensure accountability. 

• Energy Projects: Provides $16.5M for energy resilience and conservation projects at Fort Hood, and $4.5 million to enhance the microgrid at Camp Swift.

• Military Working Dogs: Supports the transfer of retired military working dogs to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where veterinary screening and care are provided, and adoptions are carried out by the 341st Training Squadron. 

• Spaceports: Expands infrastructure investment program to include FAA-licensed spaceports, including Houston Spaceport.

Sen. Cruz also sponsored or cosponsored the following additional amendments to ensure the Senate continues to focus on these important priorities. Although these provisions are not yet included in the bill, he’ll continue to press for them through the final adoption of the NDAA and beyond:

• F-35 Program: Sen. Cruz joined Sens. Cornyn and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on several amendments aimed at prioritizing the development of the F-35 program.

• Wind Turbines: Sen. Cruz joined Sen. Cornyn to require the Secretary of the Air Force provide an analysis on the effect of wind turbines on military aviation operations and training.

• Secure Fuels: Sen. Cruz authored a measure to require the Department of Defense incorporate the secure fuels program, an operational energy technology, to develop tactical fuel from liquid natural gas. This measure would reduce supply lines to forces operating abroad, and provide a secure source of fuel in a disruptive event such as an EMP attack.

• Military Reserve Jobs Act: Sens. Cruz and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) offered their Military Reserve Jobs Act as an amendment, which would improve veteran hiring preferences for military reservists.

• Survivor Benefits Plan: Sen. Cruz joined Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) to abolish the “Military Widow’s Tax”.

• Military Justice: Sen. Cruz joined Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) in offering the Military Justice Improvement Act as an amendment to reform military prosecution of felonies, specifically targeting sexual assault.

• Military Education Savings Accounts: Sen Cruz cosponsored Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) amendment to allot $1.2 billion annually to establish Education Savings Accounts for the children of military families. This measure would help military parents pay for a range of approved educational expenses to help their children learn and succeed. 

• Space Frontier Act: Sen. Cruz offered the Space Frontier Act of 2019 as an amendment which would have streamlined launch and re-entry regulations for reusable and expendable launch systems, established an Assistant Secretary for Commercial Space Transportation with the Department of Transportation to elevate the profile of commercial space issues within DOT, elevated the Office of Space Commerce to the Bureau of Space Commerce within the Department of Commerce, overhauled Earth observation regulations that haven’t been updated since they were first created in the early 1990’s, and extended the operation and utilization of the International Space Station through 2030 to ensure that the United States is getting the maximum return on American taxpayer investment in the ISS and to avoid creating a leadership vacuum in low Earth orbit.

• Leveraging Commercial Satellite Remote Sensing: Sen. Cruz’s amendment directs the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office and the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to leverage commercial remote sensing technologies. 

• Strike Spectrum Sharing: Sen. Cruz’s amendment proposed to strike a provision of NDAA that would effectively allow the Department of Defense to withhold spectrum from commercial use. Sen. Cruz is a staunch supporter of finding ways to free up federal spectrum for commercial use.

• Rare Earth Minerals: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) to decrease our dependence on foreign countries for rare earth minerals, enhancing our national security, and sustaining the U.S. industry.

• European Energy Security: Sen. Cruz joined Sen. Johnson calling for a prompt multinational freedom of navigation operation in the Black Sea and urging the cancellation of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

• US-Israel Directed Energy: Sen. Cruz offered an amendment to boost cooperation and co-development between the United States and Israel to develop technologies that utilize directed energy and lasers to enhance our national security and pursue our shared interests with our Israeli allies. 

• Iran: Sen. Cruz introduced a range of sanctions meant to counter the Iranian regime’s efforts to finance global terrorism, build ballistic missiles, and develop its nuclear program. He pushed for a ban on helping Iran build up its nuclear infrastructure, including ongoing work in the Fordow centrifuge bunker that Iran dug out of the side of a mountain so it could build nuclear weapons there; for sanctions against a new Iranian financial structure built specifically to evade American sanctions; and for a set of restrictions that would prohibit a future President from trying to waive Congressional sanctions on Iran.

• Venezuela: Sen. Cruz joined Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in offering the VERDAD Act (Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance, and Development Act) as an amendment, to address the political and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

• Central America: Sen. Cruz joined Sen. Cornyn in introducing a measure to require a comprehensive strategy in Central America to strengthen democratic institutions, and curtail illegal immigration and the flow of narcotics to the United States.

• Expand Huawei Procurement Prohibition: Sen. Cruz introduced an amendment that expands the federal prohibition on using Chinese telecommunication and video surveillance technology to include HiSilicon, a Huawei subsidiary.

• Protect Taiwan from Chinese Attack: Sen. Cruz joined with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to direct the DOD to assess its contingency planning for protecting Taiwan against a preemptive attack from China.

• Review Cambodia Trade Preferences: Sen. Cruz introduced the “Cambodia Trade Act of 2019” as an amendment to the NDAA. If passed, it would require the United States to reassess the trade preferences it gives to authoritarian ruler Hun Sen of Cambodia.

• Due Process Guarantee Act: Sen. Cruz cosponsored Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-Utah) indefinite detention amendment which would affirm and strengthen the Non-Detention Act of 1971 by clarifying that no military authorization allows for the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens or Green Card holders who are apprehended inside the U.S.

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