National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 -- Conference Report

Floor Speech

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Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I wish to highlight a few items that are in the NDAA conference report authorization that we are considering this week. In April of this year, my office came across a $115,000 marketing contract with the New York Jets and some other teams. But the contract with the New York Jets showed that the weekly hometown hero tribute was actually paid for by the taxpayers. A resulting investigation found that other taxpayer-funded tributes were not just with the Jets or with the NFL but extended to other sports leagues, as well as the NCAA. We don't need this kind of paid-for patriotism.

I wish to note that many in the NFL, many teams, and others of our sports teams and other leagues do this out of the goodness of their heart. It is what it looks like. But in many instances, these salutes to the troops have been paid for by the taxpayer. That needs to end. That is why I joined Senator McCain and Senator Blumenthal in adding an amendment to the NDAA that will bring an end to these taxpayer-funded salutes to the troops.

This amendment also encourages sports organizations that have accepted these funds to consider making a contribution to a charity that supports members of the military or veterans or their families. In addition, the NDAA conference report also prohibits the DOD from spending 25 percent of its sports-related marketing budget until they can show that the money that they are spending in this regard actually contributes towards their marketing goals or towards their recruitment goals.

These results have to be reported to both the House and the Senate. That is a good thing. I want to thank the Pentagon, especially Undersecretary of Defense Brad Carson and his staff, for working with my office and others as we continue to investigate the scope of these taxpayer-funded tributes.

Another item I want to mention in this NDAA bill is that 22-year-old Marine Corps Cpl Jacob Hug of Phoenix was serving as part of the U.S. humanitarian mission to Nepal in response to the earthquakes in that country. In May, Hug was one of six marines and two Nepalese soldiers who were killed when their helicopter crashed during a mission to deliver food and aid to the victims in the earthquakes there. Because Jacob died during a humanitarian mission, Jim and Andrea Hug, his parents, were informed that the DOD was not authorized to pay for their flight to Dover Air Force Base to be on hand when their son's remains returned to the United States.

Currently, the military is only authorized to pay for next-of-kin travel expenses if the servicemember is killed in action. That is not right. The Hugs did get to travel to Dover because many in the Arizona delegation worked with DOD to make sure the costs were eventually paid for by DOD.

I worked with Senator McCain to amend the NDAA to ensure that no other family has to go through this--that if a family of a servicemember serving on an overseas humanitarian mission is killed, the additional hardship is not faced by their family. This amendment help pays for the next of kin to travel to meet the remains of deceased relatives if they are killed in humanitarian operations.

I hope we can approve this NDAA in the coming days and we can send it to the President. I hope that the President will sign it.

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