Kaine Applauds Senate Passage of Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and Chair of the SASC Subcommittee on Seapower, applauded the Senate’s passage of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). As a member of SASC, Kaine worked to secure key provisions in the legislation to advance U.S. national security, support servicemembers and their families, benefit Virginia’s defense community, and boost efforts to work collaboratively with allies and partners. The bill now heads to the President’s desk to be signed into law.

“As a senator from Virginia and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I’m proud to go to bat every year to advocate on behalf of Virginia’s servicemembers and defense community. We are facing a number of global challenges, and this legislation is critical to ensuring our military remains the strongest in the world. It includes key provisions I secured to improve quality of life for servicemembers and their families, support improvements at military installations across Virginia, and advance our national security interests. It also makes important shipbuilding investments, including by authorizing funding for Virginia-class submarine construction, a substantial portion of which happens in Hampton Roads. I will keep working with my colleagues to pass full-year government funding legislation for Fiscal Year 2025 as soon as possible,” said Kaine.

Kaine successfully secured the following provisions:

Pay Raises: Authorizes a 4.5% pay raise for military personnel and an additional 10% pay raise for junior enlisted servicemembers with paygrades E-1 through E-4, resulting in a 14.5% total pay raise. Authorizes a 2% pay raise for Department of Defense (DOD) personnel.

Shipbuilding Investments:

• Authorizes funding for one Virginia-class submarine, incremental funding authority for a second Virginia-class submarine, and funding for additional material and support for the submarine industrial base.
• Authorizes funding for the Columbia-class submarine program.
• Authorizes funding for carriers, surface vessels, undersea vessels, aircraft, and munitions.
• Directs the Secretary of Defense to develop and implement a strategy to promote the development of a skilled manufacturing and high-vocational trade workforce to support the expansion of the defense industrial base.
• Authorizes funding for a recruiting, marketing, and public messaging campaign to expand the maritime workforce.
• Requires the Secretary of Defense to consider novel methods for recruiting and developing the defense industrial base workforce, including replicating established training programs and educating service-oriented populations about the variety of opportunities for national service.
• Supports investments in shipyard infrastructure and the defense industrial base.
• Directs the Secretary of Defense to assess U.S. sealift capability to include an evaluation of the maritime infrastructure.

Military Construction: Authorizes $540,481,000 for military construction (MILCON) projects in Virginia.

• $180,000,000 for barracks at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall
• $81,000,000 for a dormitory at Joint Base Langley-Eustis
• $52,610,000 for long weapons storage at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown
• $52,110,000 for the Conventional Prompt Strike Weapons Maintenance, Ops & Storage Facility at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown
• $47,130,000 for the Conventional Prompt Strike Test Facility at Naval Weapons Station Yorktown
• $36,800,000 for the Metro Entrance Pedestrian Access Control Point at the Pentagon
• $35,000,000 for Special Operations Forces Human Performance Training Center at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story
• $23,000,000 for Area Maintenance Support Activity/a Vehicle Maintenance Shop in Richmond
• $16,000,000 for unaccompanied housing at Naval Air Station Oceana
• $10,000,000 for Dry Dock 3 Modernization at Norfolk Naval Shipyard
• $4,080,000 for a Child Development Center at Naval Air Station Oceana
• $2,751,000 for a Child Development Center at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story

Health Care:

• Directs the Secretary of Defense to provide data on servicemember suicides by military occupational skill (MOS). This will allow DOD to identify which military career fields have higher per capita suicide rates.
• Authorizes TRICARE health providers to provide tele-mental health care services to military personnel and their dependents regardless of the location of the provider or patient.
• Establishes the Defense Intrepid Network for Traumatic Brain Injury and Brain Health to provide clinical care to prevent, diagnose, treat, and rehabilitate servicemembers with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), symptoms from blast overpressure or blast exposure, and other mental health conditions.
• Directs the Secretary of Defense to provide a report on the Department’s efforts to diagnose, treat, and measure traumatic brain injuries throughout a member’s service from the time of entry until transition to veteran status.
• Directs the Comptroller General to conduct a review and research on DOD efforts to address traumatic brain injuries related to blast overpressure and exposure. Kaine has introduced legislation and urged the Biden Administration to mitigate and protect servicemembers from these injuries.
• Increases the maximum accession bonus for the Health Professions Scholarship Program from $20,000 to $100,000 to recruit more medical and dental providers.

Military Housing:

• Authorizes increased funding to repair and improve enlisted barracks across the services.
• Requires the Secretary of Defense to develop a policy for the services to provide free internet to servicemembers living in barracks.
• Authorizes servicemembers who are below the grade of E-6, do not have dependents, and are assigned to sea duty to be paid a Basic Allowance for Housing.

Child Care and Education for Military Families:

• Provides for competitive rates of pay for child development programs’ employees to improve recruitment and retention.
• Includes a provision based off of Kaine’s bipartisan bill to extend the maximum student to teacher ratio directive for Department of Defense Education Activity (DODEA) schools around the world. Sets the maximum teacher to student ratio at 1:18 for grades K-3 and maintain an average of 1:24 for grades 4-12 across all DODEA schools.
• Authorizes funding for Impact Aid, including funding to support military children with severe disabilities. Impact Aid reimburses school districts for the cost of educating children who reside on military installations or have a parent that works on a military installation or federal property. Because military families may not pay certain state or local taxes where they are stationed, Impact Aid helps offset these costs and is critical to supporting schools.

Military Spouses:

• Permanently grants authority to DOD to make transferring professional licenses between states easier for military spouses.
• Extends the Military Spouse Career Accelerator Pilot, which provides employment support to military spouses through a paid fellowship program.
• Extends the authority to hire military spouses in noncompetitive appointments in the civil service.

Countering Fentanyl: Includes the Strengthening Tracking Of Poisonous Tranq Requiring Analyzed National Quantification Act (STOP TRANQ), bipartisan legislation Kaine led alongside U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) to add a statutory requirement for the State Department to include reporting on xylazine, or “tranq,” in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), a country-by-country report that tracks efforts to counter all aspects of the international drug trade. Tranq is a powerful sedative that is increasingly used as an additive to fentanyl. 

Resilience of Military Installations: Authorizes funding for the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program to support base resiliency. Kaine called for robust funding for REPI.

Support for Veterans: Extends and authorizes funding for the Troops to Teachers (TTT) program to help transitioning servicemembers and veterans become K-12 teachers.

U.S. Posture in Indo-Pacific:

• Authorizes funding for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), which enhances U.S. force posture, infrastructure, readiness, capacity, and capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.
• Requires a plan for the establishment of joint force headquarters subordinate to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) in Japan.
• Authorizes the Indo-Pacific Security Assistance Initiative and authorizes DOD to provide defense articles and services to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) Partnership: Includes Kaine’s bipartisan Coordinating AUKUS Engagement with Japan Act to require AUKUS coordinators at the State Department and DOD to engage with the Japanese government, as well as consult with counterparts in Australia and the U.K. to assess Japan’s potential for inclusion in key advanced technology cooperation activities under the AUKUS framework. Kaine has been a strong champion of AUKUS in Congress.

Taiwan: Authorizes the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities.  

Israel: Authorizes funding for the Israeli Cooperative Missile Defense Program, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow.

Ukraine: Requires a report on DOD efforts to identify, disseminate, and implement lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

Iran: Requires congressional notification for any weapons or related materials transferred by Iran to an Iranian-linked group or second country. Requires an annual report on actions the U.S. is taking to counter and deter weapons transfers.

Uncrewed Aircraft Systems:

• Authorizes DOD to support civil authorities to detect, identify, and monitor uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) that cross international land borders of the United States.
• Requires the establishment of a counter-uncrewed aircraft system (c-UAS) task force to review guidance relating to c-UAS activities.
• Requires a strategy for countering drone technologies, referring drone offenses for investigation and prosecution, and assessing resources or authorities necessary for drone incursion response.
• Directs the Army, Navy, and Air Force to provide briefings on respective service plans for counter-UAS capabilities.

Counternarcotics: Requires DOD to report on improvements to combatant command coordination to its counternarcotic and counter-transnational organized crime activities.

Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing:

• Authorizes the Secretary of Defense to support the U.S. Coast Guard in executing existing maritime laws to combat transnational crimes, including IUU fishing.
• Includes a key provision from bipartisan legislation Kaine introduced to expand existing authorities to allow the U.S. government to work with partners and allies around the world to support the enforcement of maritime law enforcement agreements that combat IUU fishing.

Countering Human Trafficking: Includes a provision from Kaine’s bipartisan bill authorizing the State Department to investigate human trafficking.

Support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Includes several provisions from Kaine’s bipartisan legislation to encourage growth of research partnerships between HBCUs and federal agencies to advance development in sub-Saharan Africa.

Response to Conflict in Sudan Act: Includes Kaine’s legislation to bolster and coordinate the U.S. response to the worsening conflict in Sudan by creating and codifying the Office of the Special Envoy for Sudan at the U.S. Department of State. The Envoy would be confirmed by the Senate.

COMMAND Act: Includes Kaine’s bipartisan bill to require commissioned officers to receive training on the U.S. Constitution, including instruction on civilian control of the military. 

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