December 12, 2024

HOYLE VOTES ‘NO’ ON HOUSE NDAA, OPPOSES FUNDING INCREASES ABSENT OVERSIGHT

This year’s NDAA adds $10 billion to an agency that has failed seven straight audits of its financials

For Immediate Release: December 12, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Representative Val Hoyle (OR-04) voted against the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Just a month ago, the Pentagon announced it failed a seventh straight audit. Yet this year’s NDAA adds nearly $10 billion with no additional oversight or accountability measures.

Representative Hoyle issued the following statement following her vote:

“First, let me be clear: I support any funding that keeps Americans safe and protects and properly pays our troops for their sacrifices. I also support many individual provisions of this Act, but it’s simply irresponsible to give almost $900 billion to an agency that cannot pass an audit of its financials,” Representative Hoyle said. 

"This year there has been a lot of talk about government efficiency and eliminating waste, and I agree. We must be good stewards of taxpayer money. However, instead of targeting social security or veterans’ benefits – benefits they have earned – let's start where there are clearly savings to be had. The Pentagon has almost no oversight into how it spends its money, even as private defense contractors continue to price gouge American taxpayers. Without that oversight all this bill is, is a redistribution of wealth from hardworking American taxpayers to the military industrial complex.”

Representative Hoyle had proposed a number of amendments to the NDAA, including amendments to:

  • Reduce the NDAA top line by $100 billion dollars without harming any accounts that support pay and benefits for Department of Defense personnel or their dependents.

  • Prohibit U.S. military presence in Syria without expressed Congressional approval.

  • Repeal the outdated 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force for Iraq.

  • Codifying existing Department of Defense policy allowing service members to use leave, travel, and transportation allowances to obtain reproductive care if a person must travel out of state to do so.

  • Extend health care coverage to TRICARE beneficiaries who have adult children from the current limit of 21-years-old to include all beneficiaries younger than 26-years-old.

Representative Hoyle also strongly supports individual elements of this year’s NDAA including provisions to:

  • Provide a 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members (E-4 and below) and 4.5% basic pay increases for all other service members.

  • Eliminate cost sharing requirements for contraceptives for all people covered by TRICARE.

  • Require the Department of Defense to fully fund childcare fee assistance programs.

  • Ensure pay for childcare staff at the Department of Defense’s childcare centers is competitive with private industry pay.

  • Add $177 million to military construction design funds to accelerate the replacement of poor and failing unaccompanied housing and barracks.

Representative Hoyle also spoke on the floor of the House of Representatives detailing her opposition to this year’s NDAA. Those remarks can be viewed, here. 

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