Senate passes National Guard Empowerment Act

[unhappycamper]

Senate passes National Guard Empowerment Act
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Sep 21, 2007 5:39:00 EDT

A controversial plan to elevate the status of the National Guard within the Pentagon was approved Thursday by the Senate.

The National Guard Empowerment Act, passed by voice vote and without debate, would make the National Guard Bureau a Pentagon agency. The National Guard chief, now a three-star general, would become a four-star officer and be designated as the principal advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs on National Guard issues.

The plan, approved as an amendment to the 2008 defense authorization bill, also would give the Guard bureau more control over the federal budget for the equipment and training of National Guard units, and orders the Department of Defense to draw up what would be expected to be a Guard-heavy budget for homeland security and national disaster operations.

In addition to elevating the Guard chief to a major role in Pentagon decision making, the plan also requires that the deputy commander of the U.S. Northern Command be a National Guard officer unless the command’s top officer were a National Guard member.

Sponsored by Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo., co-chairman of the Senate’s National Guard Caucus, the plan goes much further in giving new powers to the Guard than the Bush administration had endorsed. Bond and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the other caucus co-chairman, have been working closely with the National Guard Association and with the state adjutant’s general on the details, however, and appear to be ready for a fight with the Pentagon if it comes to that.

The House of Representatives also has Guard empowerment provisions in its version of the defense bill, setting the stage for a showdown with the Bush administration later this year over the Guard’s exact place in the military hierarchy.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/military_nationalguard_empowerment_070920w/


uhc comment: If Bond has anything to do with it, it must be bad.