NDAA included focus on the Pacific and quality of life for personnel
As the end of the year creeps nearer, the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement Act and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 2025 has been released.
This is the Conference version, so it has been discussed by the House and Senate of Congress.
Guam specific allocations, as per James C. Moylan, Guam’s delegate to Congress, include $100 million for access roads, an increase of $181 million for missile defense, now at nearly $620 million, and $600 million to repair the Port of Guam’s Glass Breakwater. See https://www.mbjguam.com/milcon-awards-and-other-guam-navy-news of Oct. 14.
Glass Breakwater. From Journal Files.
For service members there is good news. Pay for junior enlisted personnel (E1 to E4) will receive a 14.5% pay rise, 4.5% will be allocated for everybody else.
The act allocates $954 million for housing and facility maintenance and requires DoD to “develop and implement a strategy for public-private partnerships to lease new barracks and unaccompanied housing.” See https://www.mbjguam.com/guam-housing-rfi-looks-meet-buildup-housing-needs of Aug. 27.
Also allocated is $569 million for new housing units, and $1.2 billion to renovate and build new barracks.
The fiscal 2025 NDAA requires DoD to renovate and reuse historic housing in a rapid and cost-efficient manner.
There are also references to other quality of life issues: such as money for schools, daycare, and spouse employment.
The NDAA allocates $15.6 billion ($5.7 billion more than requested) for the “Pacific Deterrence Initiative for the Indo-Pacific region.”
It also authorizes “essential military construction projects and expands logistics capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region,” enhances the ability of the Indo-Pacific commander to build minor MilCon projects, and possibly importantly for Guam, “authorizes limited ship repair in the Indo-Pacific.”
The act also “establishes a program to develop forward advanced manufacturing capability in and for the US Indo-Pacific Command.”mbj
A letter from Gov. Lourdes A. Leon Guerrero indicating her intent to appoint retired U.S. Army colonel Karin L. Watson as the next adjutant general of the Guam National Guard was not publicly provided but has surfaced.
Exercise Malabar 2025 is bringing together the navies of the United States, Japan, Australia and India together in Guam for one of the biggest Quad naval drills in the Pacific.
The NMI Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality is reviewing two separate requests from private companies seeking to dispose of off-island waste in NMI landfills — one from a Saipan-based company involving construction and demolition debris from the U.S. Army Garrison in Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, and another covering pharmaceutical waste from Guam.
