Indivisible San Francisco pens an open legislative letter on NDAA to the members of relevant House and Senate Committees
Indivisible San Francisco penned a detailed, thoughtful, and important open legislative letter to Congress, asking them to treat the climate catastrophe as a national security threat and to address it in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) legislation. Forty-nine other organizations signed on and it was sent via email, fax and USPS to the members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees (and their staff) in June, 2021. Congress will be spending the summer working on various aspects of the NDAA, and we wanted to highlight how both spending and policy should be adjusted to actually defend the security of the United States that is threatened by the realities of looming climate catastrophe.
Please see the letter for our specific requests. Some highlights:
Global Warming is a National Security Threat
On January 27, President Biden issued an Executive Order, “Putting the Climate Crisis at the Center of U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security.” It directs all agencies of the federal government to address the “national and economic security impacts of climate change“ and directs the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and others to “consider the security implications of climate change,” in “developing the National Defense Strategy.”
National defense against the growing climate emergency must proceed on five separate levels:
Mitigating the impact on the military and national defense infrastructure.
Reducing and mitigating military activities that cause global warming.
Addressing the impact of global climate change on "risk analyses, strategy development, and planning guidance."
Using national-defense resources to directly combat global warming.
Encouraging our NATO, ANZUS, and other allies to address global warming as a critical security threat.
Please see the actual letter for more details.
Reduce Pentagon Spending to Fund Other Aspects of National Security
We agree with President Biden's statement that, “American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States and the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy.”
It is a truism of military history that all too often nations and their armed forces are well prepared to fight the last war but ill-equipped and unready for the current threats.
Therefore, we oppose President Biden's budget request for a 1.6% increase in defense spending. Instead, we call for significant overall reductions in Pentagon spending and redirecting those funds to other aspects of more broadly and appropriately defined national security.
Please see the actual letter for more details.
Defense Policies and Priorities for We the People
National security and national defense issues are not defined by money alone. Therefore, we urge adoption of the following policies and priorities:
Solar Power Feed-In.
Strategic Nuclear Weapons Treaties.
Technology & Education Initiatives.
Cybersecurity.
Revoke or amend 2001 AUMF (Afghanistan).
Repeal 2002 AUMF (Iraq).
Congressional Authority.
End Corruption.
Prohibit Discrimination.
Revoke Restrictions of Military Withdrawals. Limit the Insurrection Act.
Foreign Influence Reporting.
Please see the actual letter for more details.
Transparency, Accountability, and Honest Bookkeeping
The Pentagon continues to fail its legally-required audits; they can neither track nor account for the funds they already have. The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 requires annual audits and financial statements for all federal agencies. Every agency except the DoD has complied with that law. The Defense Department failed its first-ever agency-wide audit in 2018; in 2019 it tried and failed again, and in doing so, uncovered 1,300 new deficiencies. And it failed yet again in 2020. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Last year, defense spending reached $750 billion. Of that total, defense contractor profits swallowed an estimated $150 billion. Yet year after year, contractors who have been found guilty of fraud, price-gouging, inadequate or poor-quality goods and services, abusing programs, and improperly disseminating classified information are allowed to continue business-as-usual. When they are caught, they simply pay a fine that is so miniscule it amounts to merely a routine cost of doing business covered by their exorbitant profit margin markups.
Congress must exercise thorough and sustained oversight to track defense spending:
Independent Audits.
Sanction Fraud.
Protect WhistleBlowers.
Please see the actual letter for more details.