By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Northern Missouri Congressman Sam Graves says he’s pleased with the Defense bill approved by Congress and signed into law by President Biden.
Graves, a Republican, is pleased the bill provides a 5% pay hike for military personnel and pays for improvements to military housing as well as education and childcare facilities.
Yet, Graves, a member of the House-Senate conference committee, says it doesn’t check all the boxes.
“You know, in a compromise you don’t get everything you want, but it was a good bill,” Graves tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “It’s an authorization. We do this every single Congress and it’s the authorization, or reauthorization, of the Defense Department and our military.”
The Defense bill also brings some money home.
“And let’s just be specific too on the 139th,” Graves says. “It made sure that our C-130s; we maintain the fleet at exactly what it is and we maintain that fleet for at least another, and this is a year-to-year-to-year process, but we want to make sure that we have the funds to being able to make sure that the 139th gets the money that they need.”
Graves and the entire Missouri Congressional delegation is pressing the Air Force to upgrade the C-130 fleet at Rosecrans from the C-130H planes to the newer C-130J model.
An effort by Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley to keep compensation to victims of radiation exposure in the Defense bill failed, but Graves says other avenues can be found. Graves says his fellow Republican likely lost his battle to maintain the funding in the final Defense bill due to its price tag.
“So, it was removed in conference, unfortunately. I think that’s as a result of the cost,” Graves says. “It was $147 billion and what we found out was it was only four billion of those dollars were actually going to go to families in the state of Missouri who were affected by the radiation from the Manhattan Project many, many years ago.”
Graves says the fight isn’t over. He says Congress will revisit the issue.
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ and St. Joseph Post @StJosephPost.