The National Guard will be without a Senate-confirmed leader until at least September after the Senate left for a five-week summer break without taking action to approve a new chief.
The National Guard vacancy is just one item in a stack of unfinished military and veterans-related business facing Congress as lawmakers head home for the end of summer, including the annual defense policy and spending bills, a bill to ensure veterans benefits payments aren’t disrupted this fall, and legislation featuring a grab bag of policies that has been a top priority for veterans groups.
But the Senate’s inaction on the nominee to be the new chief of the National Guard Bureau, driven by a delay in the White House making the nomination, will have the most immediate effect. Gen. Daniel Hokanson retires as chief Friday night, and without a Senate-confirmed replacement, a yet-to-be-named acting chief will take his place.
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The Senate made some progress on shoring up National Guard leadership before leaving town. As part of a batch of military nominees approved Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Brig. Gen. Jonathan Stubbs to be the next director of the Army National Guard. Maj. Gen. Duke Pirak, the nominee to be the next director of the Air National Guard, was also advanced out of the Senate Armed Services Committee this week but was not approved by the full Senate before recess.
But the nominee to be Hokanson’s replacement, Lt. Gen. Steven Nordhaus, came with too little time for the Senate to act before breaking. The White House sent the Senate Nordhaus’ nomination just last week, leaving barely any time to hold a hearing, advance his nomination out of committee, and approve him on the Senate floor before Hokanson’s retirement.
Senate Armed Services Committee Jack Reed, D-R.I., previously told Military.com he was frustrated the White House didn’t send a nominee with enough time to act before a gap in leadership, saying the delay “inhibits” the Senate from doing its job. Unless committee members agree to waive them, committee rules generally require at least a week’s notice before a hearing can be held, as well as at least a week’s wait between receiving a nomination and a vote.
The previous vice chief of the National Guard, Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville, retired in May, and the current acting vice chief, Lt. Gen. Jon Jensen, is set to retire Monday, making it unclear who the acting chief will be after Hokanson officially steps down at midnight. The National Guard Bureau declined as recently as Thursday to comment on who the acting chief will be.
The National Guard Bureau held a “relinquishment ceremony” Friday in which Hokanson marked his retirement without handing over the reins to anyone.
Congress’ August recess, as well as unfinished business waiting in Washington during the break, is an annual tradition. But this year’s break comes amid an even more truncated legislative schedule because of November’s presidential and congressional elections, leaving little time for lawmakers to finish work even after the August recess. When the House and Senate return to Washington on Sept. 9, they are scheduled to be in town for just three weeks before breaking again until Nov. 12 to give lawmakers more time to campaign.
The Senate’s last day of work until September was Thursday. The House was originally scheduled to start its break the same day, but decided to leave town last week.
In addition to the National Guard nominee, other pending business in the Senate includes the annual defense policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. One of the marquee issues in this year’s bill is a debate over how big of a pay raise to give junior enlisted troops next year.
While the Senate Armed Services Committee advanced the bill in June, a full Senate vote has yet to be scheduled, a fact Republicans spent this week knocking Democrats on.
“While the Democratic leader avoids tough votes, our adversaries launch more missiles,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
The typical process for the bill involves the House and Senate approving their own versions of the legislation before negotiating on a compromise version that becomes law. But a couple times in recent years, the House and Senate agreed on a compromise without the Senate voting on its version.
Asked Thursday whether the Senate will vote on its own version of the NDAA this year or proceed straight to negotiations with the House, Reed did not directly answer, but noted that the bill has become law before without the Senate approving an initial version.
“The goal is we want to get a House-Senate NDAA passed this year,” Reed told Military.com.
One of the most pressing items facing Congress when lawmakers return is government funding. Current funding expires Sept. 30, after which federal agencies would shut down and troops could miss paychecks if Congress doesn’t approve new funding.
The full House has approved fiscal 2025 Pentagon and VA spending bills, but they were chock-full of partisan policy riders seen as nonstarters in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee has advanced its own fiscal 2025 Pentagon and VA spending bills, but the full Senate hasn’t acted on any spending bills yet. With the tight timeline between the end of the recess and the government funding deadline, Congress is expected to approve stopgap funding that simply extends this year’s spending levels at least through the November election.
Also on a tight deadline is avoiding a gap in VA benefits funding. The VA has told Congress that it needs lawmakers to approve a fix for a $3 billion shortfall in disability and education benefits by Sept. 20 or else payments due Oct. 1 for those benefits could be disrupted.
Senators tried to approve a bill to plug the funding hole before leaving town, but some Republicans objected to fast-tracking the legislation without calling in VA Secretary Denis McDonough to testify about the issue.
“The sudden nature of the issue, and the sheer financial volume of the request, are both cause for concern and call into question the information previously reported by VA,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and five other Republicans wrote in a letter to Senate Veterans Affairs Committee leadership Wednesday requesting a hearing with McDonough. “Once we get these critical answers, then we can quickly take appropriate action to ensure payments continue to our veterans and ensure this unacceptable financial mismanagement does not jeopardize veterans again.”
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the ranking member of the committee, said he expects the Senate to approve the fix quickly after returning from recess.
“I have little doubt that this is going to be fixed and not linger beyond a date in which it would have a consequence to veterans,” he told reporters Thursday.
Also concerning for veterans is the fact that neither chamber of Congress acted before recess on a wide-ranging veterans policy bill that seeks to bolster home caregiver programs, provide more support for homeless veterans, and fix the VA’s beleaguered electronic health records program.
Originally touted as a bipartisan agreement that could pass Congress this summer, the Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act, as the bill is called, has become bogged down in partisanship. House Democrats are arguing that some provisions of the bill amount to backdoor efforts to privatize the VA, while some Republicans are maintaining the bill does not go far enough to expand veterans’ access to non-VA care.
Caught in the middle are the veterans and caregivers who want to see the bill pass.
“It is shameful that our elected leaders left so many lifesaving and life-changing measures for veterans, caregivers and survivors on the table as they adjourned for recess,” Steve Schwab, CEO of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, said in a statement to Military.com on Friday. “This is a bill that had bipartisan support before disinformation and politics got in the way. The veterans’ community remains unified in its resolve to pass this legislation because the stakes are simply too high to let it fail.”
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