A bipartisan group of House of Representatives and senators is asking the Congressional Armed Services Committees to reject the Biden administration’s proposal to incorporate Air National Guard members into the Space Force as “deeply flawed.”
In a May 6 letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, 56 House members and 29 senators said the proposal would “undermine” the nation’s National Guard “system.” ” claimed to be a thing.
In a bill submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee in March, the Pentagon asked Congress to repeal current law that requires governors to approve changes to National Guard units to transfer hundreds of service members to the Space Force.
“When individuals enroll in the National Guard, they serve their country and their communities. Congress should not abandon this model,” the lawmakers said in the letter. “The original purpose of the National Guard was to have a force that could respond to the needs of the state and the nation. For this reason, authority was placed in the hands of each state’s individual governor.”
“This is more than a governance issue. Governors have a responsibility to protect the public safety by maintaining the readiness and deployment capabilities of National Guard units,” the letter continued.
The letter was led by Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), founding co-chair of the Space Force Executive Committee, along with the House Armed Services Committee and Sen. Joe Wilson, R-S.C. Michael Bennet (D-Colorado) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colorado)
The move is proposed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 and would affect about 14 space units, representing about 1,000 Air National Guard members.The Air and Space Force magazine reported.
The Hill has reached out to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees for comment.
The letter joins a string of state leaders who are asking the commission not to include the proposal. A group of 48 state, territorial, and federal governors wrote a letter Last week, he wrote to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in opposition to the proposal.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Ron DeSantis (R) are not specifically named as signatories of the letter, but each wrote their own letters condemning the proposal.
in Letter to President Biden In a memo sent last week, Abbott said the proposal would give the Secretary of the Air Force “unilateral authority” to transfer some Air National Guard units to the Space Force without the consent of governors, calling it a “power usurpation.” He claimed that it was an attempt to
DeSantis argued that the measure “ignores more than a century of precedent and undermines federal law’s protections for state control of National Guard forces.” He said the state’s National Guard should already be larger than it is now and blamed the federal government for making it “understaffed.”
A White House official told The Hill on Monday that the Biden administration supports the Pentagon’s proposal for a one-time transfer of Defense Department missions to the Space Force, which Congress approves in the 2024 Defense Policy Act. It was pointed out that the structure is consistent with that of
The official also noted that the Biden administration has consistently opposed the creation of a Space National Guard.
Earlier this year, the Air Force announced “fundamental” changes to its military branches and Space Forces to ensure the United States can meet national security demands. These changes include a new field command for the Space Force called Space Futures Command, which is responsible for experimentation, wargaming, and mission planning.
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