With President Donald Trump’s stated intention to use an emergency declaration to shift funds from other projects for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) has written the Acting Secretary of Defense demanding a list of projects put at risk by the effort.
A number of military construction projects are put at risk by the plan, which will see $3.5 billion taken from the Department of Defense’s military construction budget. To that end, Kaine requested a list of at-risk projects, an assessment of the risk to servicemembers through the termination of those projects and the potential such termination raises for legal response.
“I am concerned that a project that the President stated would be paid for by Mexico will now be borne by military servicemembers and their families, as they will be forced to remain in ‘poor’ or ‘failing’ conditions,” Kaine wrote. “The safety and well-being of our forces and their families is the supreme responsibility of every commander in the military; it should be no different for the Commander-in-Chief.”
In his letter to acting Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Kaine noted the 2018 testimony to the House Armed Services Committee in which the DoD listed a $116 billion maintenance backlog, further hit by the fact that more than a quarter of the department’s facilities are in poor or failing condition as is. That testimony had earned them more than $11 billion for military construction projects — money that would now be diverted.
He also pointed to other, recent concerns the DoD has had put on its plate.
“Just this week, the Senate Armed Services Committee held hearings on abysmal conditions that military families face on bases across the country including lead contamination, black mold exposure and rodent infestations. It will require funding to address these challenges, in addition to the $8 billion price tag to re-build the facilities destroyed by Hurricanes at the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and the Air Force’s Tyndall AFB in Florida. The President does not appear to be addressing either of these real crises.”