Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07), a senior member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Chair of the Subcommittee on Defense Intelligence and Warfighter Support, praised the House passage of the FY 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Sewell was also selected by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in September to serve on the conference committee tasked with working out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the NDAA. The bipartisan, bicameral conference report authorizes $738 billion for defense spending for FY 2020.

“From the men and women serving at Maxwell Air Force Base and at the 187th Fighter Wing in Montgomery, to the shipbuilding industry in Mobile and the missile defense efforts in Huntsville, Alabama plays a major part in our national security,” Sewell said. “I am proud to have represented our state in conference with my colleagues. We delivered a smart, bipartisan defense bill that improves campaign election security, makes good on our promises to military widows and authorizes funding to equip, supply and train U.S. troops and support military families at home and abroad.”

Included in the NDAA are several provisions Sewell authored and successfully incorporated into the conference report, including:

• Language to improve federal campaign election security. Specifically, the legislation requires the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to work with the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to make available an advisory report on foreign counter-intelligence and cybersecurity threats to election campaigns for federal offices. Additionally, it would require the DNI work jointly to publish a summary of best practices that federal campaigns can employ to counter such threats.
  • In the event that Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis jointly determine that a federal election campaign is subject to a heightened foreign counterintelligence or cybersecurity threat, the provision would allow them to make available additional information to those campaigns to help thwart outside interference.
• Authorization for increased intelligence funding for combatant commanders and our growing strategic competition with China, Russia and other malign actors.
• Continued commitment to promoting increased diversity within the Intelligence Community’s workforce. The bill contains language directing the Intelligence Community to expand its annual demographic hiring report by adding grade level, career category and other identifiers protected by law. This change will improve the IC’s ability to track how well it retains and promotes employees of diverse backgrounds.

Also included in the bill is the repeal of the Military Widow’s Tax, which unfairly taxes military widows and widowers’ survivor benefits. The repeal of the tax will impact as many as 65,000 surviving military spouses nationwide who have been barred from receiving their full Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs survivor benefits.

The bill now heads to the President’s desk for his consideration.