A little-known environmental provision in the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will not affect military operations and will instead serve to “protect native vegetation,” a Navy spokesperson said Tuesday. told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. .
Approximately $884 billion in defense spending invoice The bill passed by the U.S. Senate on Wednesday includes efforts to “manage, control, and deter the palm beetle.” alien species An insect bores a hole in the canopy of a palm tree “at a military installation in Hawaii.” By the Navy’s own admission, the purpose of this effort is to protect vegetation and is therefore effectively independent of the Department of Defense (Department of Defense). defined mission “To provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure the security of our country.” (Related: Report: Parents say school officials gave students laptops with bed bugs)
“While Coconut Rhinoceros is here, beetle (CRB) does not pose an operational threat to naval facilities in Hawaii; the invasive insects cause significant harm to the environment,” a spokesperson for the Commander, Naval District of Hawaii told DCNF. “CRB is a native species of Lurohiwa palm (Priciardia Marti), which could significantly reduce coconut production and palm forests… It was important to the Navy to fund projects related to CRB management to protect Oahu’s native vegetation.”
The NDAA is gross garbage.
They removed nearly all provisions related to cleaning up military spending on Wokeness, DEI, and Critical Race Theory, while also leaving in place the abortion travel fund. It needs to be rejected. pic.twitter.com/33rRLBNb7t
— Rep. Eric Burlison (@RepEricBurlison) December 11, 2023
The spokesperson justified the effort on the basis that the Navy aims to act as a “custodian” of the environment, noting that “biosecurity is an increasing priority and the introduction of new invasive species It is important to prevent this,” he added. Biosecurity became a priority for the Department of Defense under former President Barack Obama in 2015, and the agency Regional biosecurity plan (RBP) aims to limit the potential spread of invasive species into the Pacific Ocean as part of an “environmental impact analysis of a plan to potentially relocate military personnel from bases in Okinawa, Japan.”
The Navy will also fund efforts to combat the palm beetle in fiscal year 2024,Established 2,500-foot containment zones around naval seaports and airports;biannual inspections and treatment of palm trees,” a Department of Defense spokesperson told DCNF. The fiscal year 2025 NDAA does not specify how much federal funding will go toward palm beetle control.
In addition to efforts to contain the palm beetle, the 2025 NDAA greenlights hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for “minority-serving” schools and funds the cryogenic freezing of military personnel’s sperm.
the infamous Pentagon We’re screwed It conducted its seventh consecutive annual audit in November, finding that more than $824 billion in budget was not fully accounted for. The agency has never passed an audit since it was legally required to do so in 2018.
Additionally, a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office states that released On Tuesday, it was discovered that the Navy wasted more than $1.8 billion on “weakly monitored” efforts to modernize its cruisers. The federal government posted a deficit of approximately $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024, but the U.S. national debt currently exceeds $36 trillion. According to Submitted to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Deficit Tracker and the U.S. Department of the Treasury. data.
us senate passed The roughly 1,800-page NDAA for fiscal year 2025 was voted in favor of by 85 senators and opposed by 14 on Wednesday, and the bill now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk where he is expected to sign it.
“There’s $500 million in foreign aid,” said Tennessee Republican Rep. Tim Burchett, who voted against the bill. said In the video after passing X. “We have to be better than this. This is not what you voted for.”
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