A bipartisan group of House members and senators is calling on the Congressional Armed Services Committees to reject the Biden administration’s proposal to incorporate Air National Guard Service members into the Space Force, calling it “deeply flawed.”
In a letter dated May 6 to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, 56 House members and 29 senators argued that the proposal would “undermine” the nation’s National Guard “system.”
In a March legislative proposal to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Defense Department asked Congress to overturn an existing law that requires governors to approve changes to National Guard units to transfer hundreds of members to the Space Force.
“When individuals enlist in the National Guard, they are serving their country and their community. Congress should not abandon this model,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter. “The original intent of the National Guard was to have a force ready to respond to the needs of its state and country. Because of this, authority was placed in the hands of the individual governor of each state.”
“This is more than a governance issue; Governors have a responsibility to protect the safety of their citizens by maintaining the readiness and mobilization capacity of their National Guard units,” the letter continued.
The letter was led by Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), the founding co-chair of the Space Force Caucus, alongside Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.)
The measure, proposed to be part of Congress’s National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025, would affect about 14 space units, the equivalent of about 1,000 Air National Guardsmen.reported Air and Space Forces Magazine.
The Hill has reached out to the House and Senate Armed Services committees for comment.
The letter joins a number of state leaders urging committees not to include the proposal. A group of governors from 48 states, territories and communitieswrote a letteraddressed to Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin in opposition to the proposal last week.
Governors. Greg Abbott (R) and Ron DeSantis (R), notably absent from the letter’s signatories, each wrote their own letters criticizing the proposal.
In a letter to President Biden sent last week, Abbott argued that the proposal would give the Secretary of the Air Force “unilateral authority” to transfer portions of Air National Guard units to the Space Force without the governor’s consent and called it an attempted “power grab.” ”.
DeSantis argued that the measure “would flout more than a century of precedent and undermine federal law protections for state control of its National Guard forces.” He said his state’s National Guard should already be larger than it is and blamed the federal government for making it “underfunded.”
A White House official told The Hill on Monday that the Biden administration supports the Defense Department’s suggestion of a one-time transfer of missions from the Guard to the Space Force and noted that it is consistent with the framework approved by Congress in the draft defense policy law of 2024.
The official also noted that the Biden administration has been consistently against establishing a Space National Guard.
Earlier this year, the Air Force announced it would make “sweeping” changes to the military branch and the Space Force to ensure the U.S. can meet security demands. These changes include a new field command for the Space Force, called Space Futures Command, which will be responsible for experimentation, wargaming and mission planning.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
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