HASC Markup Notes Sparse DoD Briefings on StratForces, Aims to Normalize Communications

The House Armed Services Committee yesterday approved preliminary legislation aimed at expediting cited delays in Defense Department-to-Congress communication regarding strategic forces. Noting a lack of DoD disclosure to Congress about “several specific problems” uncovered by last year’s Nuclear Enterprise Reviews, HASC Strategic Forces Chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) introduced a bill during the marathon full committee markup of the Fiscal Year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that would require the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to brief HASC quarterly from June 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016, on matters including the readiness and disposition of assets and personnel of all three legs of the nuclear triad. “The committee notes that several significant issues that prompted the Department’s Nuclear Enterprise Review had not been disclosed to the committee and several specific problems in the Air Force component of the Department’s nuclear enterprise were only made known to the committee through press reporting,” the amendment states. The committee cleared its version of the FY 2016 NDAA early this morning.