December 18, 2024

Warren Secures New Protections for Servicemembers from Blast Overpressure and Safer Drug Supply Chains in Annual Defense Bill

Washington, D.C. – Following the passage of the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (FY25 NDAA), U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), announced key priorities secured in the bill.

“I fought hard to secure provisions that protect our servicemembers from blast overpressure and ensure a reliable supply chain for life-saving drugs,” said Senator Warren. “We must do more to crack down on greedy defense contractors, close the revolving door at the Pentagon, and guarantee housing worthy of military families. As we head into a new administration, I’m going to keep conducting oversight and fighting to cut down on wasteful Pentagon spending.”

The following provisions, which Senator Warren led, are included in the FY25 NDAA:

  • Protecting servicemembers from blast overpressure: The bill incorporates major reforms from Senator Warren’s bipartisan Blast Overpressure Safety Act, a comprehensive, bicameral bill to help mitigate and protect servicemembers from blast overpressure. The reforms include increasing transparency about blast overpressure safety in the weapons acquisition process, requiring comprehensive updates to exposure safety thresholds, and launching initiatives to treat traumatic brain injuries and other symptoms of exposure. 
  • Safer pharmaceutical supply chains: The FY25 NDAA requires the Pentagon to establish a plan to ensure access to safe, high-quality pharmaceutical products and eliminate or mitigate risks in the pharmacy supply chain, including the feasibility of establishing a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility owned and operated by the Department of Defense (DoD). 
  • Combating civilian medical debt: The Department’s military treatment facilities (MTF) can provide civilians with care under limited circumstances, but the civilians who receive treatment are frequently left to deal with onerous billing, collection, and debt management practices. The Secretary of Defense must suspend civilian medical debt until DoD issues a final rule or interim final rule on providing financial relief to civilians who receive care at Military Treatment Facilities.
  • Child care for military families: The bill requires DoD to redesign and modernize Child Development Center compensation and staffing models. 
  • Responding to and mitigating civilian harm: Senator Warren secured a provision requiring DoD to provide an annual report on civilian casualties in connection with U.S. military operations until December 31, 2030. DoD is also required to provide a report on its implementation of its instruction implementing the Civilian Harm and Response Action Plan. 
  • Supporting telehealth for mental health services: This bill authorizes DoD to prescribe regulations that would allow mental health providers to provide tele-mental health care services to servicemembers and their dependents regardless of the provider or patient’s location.
  • Reverse engineering: Senator Warren worked with Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) to secure a provision that allows DoD to assess the feasibility and advisability of producing parts through reverse engineering, especially in cases where the Pentagon has only one source for a part or product. 
  • Protecting JROTC students from abuse and forced enrollment: Senator Warren secured $2 million for increased oversight of the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC). This follows several reforms that Senator Warren secured in the FY 2024 NDAA from her JROTC Safety Act to protect JROTC students from sexual abuse by instructors and forced enrollment. 
  • Addressing the recruitment crisis: The bill addresses delays in processing recruits caused by MHS Genesis by requiring an annual report on DoD’s efforts to address recruitment delays associated with medical conditions of applicants. It also creates a 2-year pilot program in which the Reserves can identify pre-existing medical conditions that are considered disqualifying but regularly or automatically receive medical waivers, and delegate the U.S. Military Entrance Processing Command with the authority to approve recruits with these otherwise disqualifying conditions. 
  • Protecting our military from climate change: DoD is required to provide a briefing on flood and other natural disaster risks to military installations and surrounding civilian infrastructure, as well as information about how often DoD updates flood maps. The bill also provides $2 million in additional funding to support continued development of renewable electric vehicle charging stations. 
  • Addressing cryptocurrency risks to national security: This bill requires DoD to produce a report on the risks of state-sponsored crypto hacking and crypto crime.
  • Protecting DoD employee data: This bill prohibits contractors and subcontractors from selling or transferring individually identifiable data of DoD employees.
  • Strengthening nuclear spending oversight: Senator Warren secured a provision encouraging the National Nuclear Security Administration to release its updated financial integration policy as soon as possible. 
  • Holding colleges and universities accountable: The FY25 NDAA requires DoD to publish and provide Congress with an annual Postsecondary Education Complaint System report through 2029 to afford Congress the ability to conduct oversight and ensure accountability over the Tuition Assistance (TA) and My Career Advancement Account Scholarship programs, which receive hundreds of millions of dollars in DOD funding annually.

Senator Warren also secured the following provisions for Massachusetts:

  • Cape Cod Gun Range: Senator Warren successfully struck funding for a gun range on Cape Cod following an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report that found the range could contaminate drinking water and create a significant threat to public health for Cape Cod residents.
  • Improved Turbine Engine Program (ITEP): This bill includes $30 million in funding for the ITEP program.
  • Lincoln Lab: The bill includes $76 million for MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s engineering and prototype facility. It also includes full funding for the Lincoln Laboratory Research Program.
  • Devens: The bill includes $39 million to improve reserve enlisted barracks at Devens Reserve Forces Training Area.
  • Hanscom: The bill includes $66 million for Hanscom Air Force Base’s NC3 Acquisitions Management Facility and $315 million for military construction. 
  • Barnes: There is $12.2 million for the combined engine shop at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield. 
  • Remote sensing of biometric data: This bill requires DoD to brief SASC on how its use of wearable technology and biometric health data for servicemember health, available technologies, the benefits of this data including for mental health treatment, the feasibility of tracking this data, and contract vehicles to use to deploy these tools. 

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