WASHINGTON – Today, Rep. Jim Banks voted to pass the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. The bipartisan bill passed 219-210.
“This is the best NDAA I have voted for since being elected to Congress in 2017. As Chairman of the Military Personnel Subcommittee, I was proud to lead the inclusion of the largest pay raise for our troops in decades. This bill is tough on China, invests in critical technologies, protects taxpayer dollars from funding abortion and includes a number of amendments I authored to ensure our military is focused on mission readiness, not radical wokeness,” said Banks.
Among the 33 Banks’ amendments included in the final passage of the FY24 NDAA:
- Prohibits the use of race or ethnicity as a determining factor for admission at military service academies.
- Prohibits adverse action against servicemembers based solely on refusal to receive Covid-19 vaccines. Authorizes the reinstatement of individuals discharged for vaccine refusal.
- Decreases salary of diversity, equity, and inclusion staff at the Pentagon to ensure Pentagon bureaucrats are not making more than troops on the front line.
- Requires DoD to issue a policy that all military accessions, assignments, selections, or promotions must adhere to merit-based principles and that quotas are prohibited.
- Requires DOD to require principal investigators of DOD-funded research at U.S. institutions of higher education to disclose the background of foreign researchers involved in their projects.
- Requires the Secretary of Defense to determine whether Chinese government officials assisted or were aware of the transportation of fentanyl precursors to Mexican drug cartels.
