Senate considering annual military spending bill

An annual military spending bill that New Mexico's federal laboratories and military installations rely on is expected to be taken up by the U.S. Senate this week.

The $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act would provide $2.2 billion in defense spending to New Mexico. It passed the House of Representatives by 281-140 last week. Some of New Mexico's congressional representatives voted against the bill because of an amendment related to restricting coverage of gender-affirming care in certain instances, but the state's senators will likely vote for it.

"The NDAA is by its very nature a compromise," said Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M. "I am always reticent to vote against the NDAA. It's an incredibly important piece of legislation, and as long as there aren't truly poison pills in it, I try to be as supportive of our military and our active duty members as I possibly can be."

Heinrich also wants to maintain the inertia of passing a defense authorization bill every single year. In recent years, the federal budget process has included short-term continuing resolutions instead of one federal budget.

"Continuing resolutions are really destructive to the military in particular," Heinrich said.

Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., said he also will likely support the military spending bill, which has passed for decades with bipartisan support.

"What I see here is that Republicans in the House were just trying to play games and gimmicks by adding language that they knew there would be opposition from other colleagues in the chamber," Luján said, referring to the gender-affirming care amendment. "I don't know if it was to try to take it down or to try to make a political point, but the national security of the American people is too important for people to be playing games like this."

In the House, Democratic Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández and Melanie Stansbury voted against the NDAA.

Ahead of last week's vote, Stansbury said the bill had funding vital to New Mexico and that the military pay raises included in this year's NDAA were good governance, but she was concerned about culture war riders being added to the bill.

Leger Fernández said in a statement after the vote that her "no" was because of a last-minute provision that prevents parents with TRICARE, the health insurance for military service members, from using it to provide gender-affirming care for children under 18. Gender-affirming care can include a range of medical treatments for people with gender dysphoria.

"Much of this year's NDAA is rooted in improving the quality of life for our service members and their families," Leger Fernández said in a statement.

"These measures, like the 14.5% pay raise for junior enlisted service members and 4.5% pay raise for all other service members, provide our military personnel with the resources they deserve.

"That's why it's appalling that the Republican majority decided to use the historically bipartisan bill to attack military families with the inclusion of a provision which would deny parents the ability to provide health care for their transgender children."

Fellow New Mexico Democrat Rep. Gabe Vasquez, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, voted yes.

"The provisions I secured will directly benefit New Mexico and our service members, including a historic pay raise, job protections for our rural service members and expanded access to reproductive care," Vasquez said in a statement.

Vasquez's Rural Installation Job Protection Act, which requires the Defense Department to notify Congress before canceling contracts that impact 50 or more jobs at rural military installations, was included in the final House bill. Republican-led provisions to restrict access to gender-affirming care for service members were also stripped from the final bill, Vasquez said.

"While we have secured wins for New Mexico, there's more work to be done; Congress must also ensure their dependents have access to affordable, quality health care," Vasquez said in a statement.

The NDAA would provide $1.5 billion to Los Alamos National Laboratory for plutonium modernization, which includes $48.5 million for a plutonium mission safety and quality building; $275 million for defense environmental cleanup at Los Alamos; $425.4 million for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad; and $1.8 million for Sandia National Laboratories. The bill would also fund a $29 million missile assembly support building on White Sands Missile Range and a $15.5 million combat rescue helicopter simulator for Kirtland Air Force Base.

"Whenever I'm working on these bills, I often remember my dad, who was an iron worker," Luján said. "My dad was a welder. He found a way to raise a family by helping to build and work at the national labs. How many families do we have across New Mexico where that job opportunity is providing more opportunities for them as well?"