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Klobuchar Gives "Beyond the Yellow Ribbon'' a Place in Armed Forces Bill

Defense Authorization bill will fund and build on successful Minnesota National Guard initiative.

January 22, 2008

Washington, D.C. – Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) today voted in favor of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act to provide better pay, training, and health care for military personnel, and to create an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate U.S. wartime contracting in Iraq.

The conference report, which passed the Senate today, includes two amendments Klobuchar helped pass that will ease Minnesota National Guard members’ transition back to civilian life, as well as an amendment Klobuchar co-sponsored allowing Guard and Reserve members to use their education benefits for a period of up to 10 years.

“This bill is about putting our nation’s heroes first,” said Klobuchar.  “As Americans, we are all proud of the men and women who serve in our nation’s armed forces and risk their lives everyday.  We must make sure that we give our troops the resources they need both in the field and at home when they return.”

The bill builds on Minnesota’s pioneering “Beyond the Yellow Ribbon’’ program, which has helped reintegrate National Guard and Army Reserve troops to civilian life when they return from combat, by providing funds to expand the program to other states. The national program will provide informational events and activities to assist National Guard and Reserve soldiers, families, and community members through all phases of their deployment cycle, including pre- and post-deployment. The program includes family and marriage counseling, financial planning and education, small business planning, community outreach, and health care and veterans’ benefits education. 

In November Senators Klobuchar and Norm Coleman secured $3.52 million in the Defense Appropriation bill to fund the Minnesota “Beyond the Yellow” program through Fiscal Year 2008.

The $696 billion Defense Authorization bill passed today increases funding and support for U.S. troops, including a 3.5 percent pay raise for all military personnel and a provision incorporating the Wounded Warriors Act to improve health care and benefits for recovering service members and veterans.

Klobuchar also co-sponsored an amendment with Coleman to the Defense Authorization bill to allow Minnesota National Guard members deployed to Bosnia and Kosovo to receive equitable combat incentive pay.

The Defense Authorization bill also includes a provision Klobuchar co-sponsored, along with all of her Democratic freshmen colleagues, establishing an independent commission to increase transparency and accountability in wartime contracting. The commission, modeled after the famous Truman Commission of the 1950s, will also address systematic problems with defense contracting by studying and investigating the impact of the government’s growing reliance on civilian contractors to perform wartime functions.

Last year, the top three auditors overseeing reconstruction projects in Iraq reported that of the $57 billion awarded in contracts they investigated, approximately $10 billion has been wasted.  This means that one in six federal tax dollars sent to rebuild Iraq in the period studied was been wasted.

“We’re tired of seeing contractors wastefully spend the tax dollars of hard-working Americans while the Administration sits idly by,” said Klobuchar. “Enough is enough. This new Commission will make sure contractors are held accountable for waste, fraud, and abuse.”

This is the second time Congress has sent the 2008 Defense Authorization bill to the White House. The president exercised a “pocket veto’’ on the first bill, failing to sign it, in a dispute over a provision on legal liability of American firms operating in Iraq, which has since been removed.

The bill now will now go to the President to be signed into law.

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