House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said Sunday Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Ala.) holds on the confirmations of over 300 military officers’ is “paralyzing” the Department of Defense.
“This is paralyzing the Department of Defense,” McCaul said on CNN’s “State of The Union.” “This idea that one man in the Senate can hold this up for months, I understand maybe promotions, but nominations, is paralyzing the Department of Defense.”
The six-month hold on over 300 senior military officers’ confirmations has drawn fresh criticism from both sides of the aisle as the Senate returned from a monthlong recess. The policy Tuberville protests allows service members to receive paid leave as well as travel reimbursement if they seek an abortion. Tuberville claims this is in violation of the Hyde Amendment which prohibits federal funding from being used for abortion. McCaul called the hold a “national-security problem” and said he wished Tuberville to reconsider the matter, as it has already been “worked out”. McCaul was referring to the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA), a package of annual defense policies. The House adopted its annual defense policy package in July. It included several conservative amendments including one to reverse the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy. The Senate, which is dominated by Democrats, passed its own version of the annual defense policy in August, excluding several GOP-led provisions, such as the abortion policy, from the House version. McCaul stated that “we’re going into conference in the Senate to work out the abortion issue which has been a traditional within the NDAA”. Tuberville said he hoped the NDAA would incorporate the language in the House version of the abortion policy. McCaul stressed the importance of the NDAA in July. He said that the “readiness of our servicemen and their ability to fight war” should not be politicized. All rights reserved.
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