House Democrats are taking a victory lap after blocking the restoration of a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would have provided equipment to local law enforcement and border security officials.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order in May 2022 restricting the types of equipment the Pentagon was allowed to distribute via the 1033 program, which provides surplus military equipment to the Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement.
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GOP representatives initially sought to lift all restrictions on the controversial program as part of the $883.7 billion fiscal year 2025 NDAA, but were forced to compromise on the issue, according to a summary of the annual defense bill from Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee.
“House Armed Services Democrats were successful in blocking provisions that attacked DEI programs, the LGBTQ community, and women’s access to reproductive health care,” the summary says. “Also blocked were provisions that would have restricted support to Ukraine, prohibited DoD from supporting Palestinian refugees or the people of Gaza, further militarized our southern border, and lifted all restrictions on the controversial 1033 program, which provides excess military equipment to law enforcement agencies.”
Biden’s May 2022 executive order, signed on the two-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, prohibited the Department of Defense (DOD) from transferring various kinds of military equipment to other federal and local agencies, including non-commercial vehicles and firearm silencers.
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The presidential directive restored many of the restrictions on the 1033 Program originally issued under former President Barack Obama which had been revoked under President-elect Donald Trump via his August 2017 executive order entitled, “Restoring State, Tribal, and Local Law Enforcement’s Access to Lifesaving Equipment and Resources.”
Trump will have the opportunity to take a similar course of action when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20, which would render the Democrat blocking of the provision’s restoration useless.
The House NDAA also dropped section 1012 from the Senate’s version of the bill, which permitted DOD to share intelligence it gathered at the Southern border with state and local law enforcement. However, the Pentagon is already allowed to distribute the information under U.S. Code section 271, which stipulates “the Secretary of Defense may, in accordance with other applicable law, provide to Federal, State, or local civilian law enforcement officials any information collected during the normal course of military training or operations that may be relevant to a violation of any Federal or State law within the jurisdiction of such officials.”
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While House Republicans were unable to restore the 1033 Program and dropped section 1012 of the Senate NDAA, they secured a slew of border policy victories, including support for the deployment of National Guard troops to assist Border Patrol, $90 million to fund construction of a new facility to intercept illegal migrants and narcotics and $10 million in additional funding for DOD to crack down on cross-border drug trafficking.
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.