The House version of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes a number of amendments which will support the U.S. territory of Guam, according to the office of the island’s Congressional Delegate James Moylan, via the Guam Daily Post.
The bill includes more than $1.7 billion for military activities and construction on the island, including $100 million for the Guam Ballistic Missile Defense Capability and over $200 million to build new military housing.
Though most of the spending he requested was approved, another of Moylan’s priorities wasn’t: a 5-year extension for Guam’s H-2B visa exemption. Had it been approved, it would have allowed the arrival of nonagricultural foreign workers to the island in numbers beyond the federal quota of 66,000 per fiscal year and exempted the military from needing to prove they only have “temporary need” for recruited workers.
Moylan is a member of the Republican party and part of the Moylan family, one of the most prominent families in Guamanian politics and business. One of six non-voting members of the House of Representatives, usually called delegates, Moylan represents the non-self-governing U.S. territory of Guam. Delegates lack the right to vote on legislation in the full house but have floor privileges, may vote in committees of which they are members and introduce legislation.
The NDAA is a key piece of annual legislation that sets the Department Of Defense (DOD) budget. According to CNN, the House version of the bill includes a number of controversial amendments included by national Republicans that attack Pentagon programs supporting abortion access, transgender healthcare and diversity and inclusion programs.
Some of the delegate’s other proposals that have made it into the 2024 NDAA include typhoon-hardening and repairs for electrical infrastructure on Guam. Also present is a ban on a reduction of the military’s Overseas Cost-of-Living Allowance for the island, which contributes to Guam’s economy.
Moylan also included language ordering the Secretary of Defense to justify not waving the Jones Act temporarily for Guam in the aftermath of Typhoon Mawar, which has been credited with raising shipping costs to the island.
The next step for the NDAA is for the Senate to pass its version of the bill, which will then trigger a process to reconcile the two versions. According to the Guam Post, Moylan contacted Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) to include an extension of the H-2B exemption in the Senate’s version and is negotiating for a role in the reconciliation process between the two bills with the leadership of the House Armed Services Committee.
In a press release, Moylan said, “It would be helpful to sit as a conferee to ensure that our amendments are secured, that the H-2B amendment remains, and also to ensure that any language in the Senate bill which addresses Guam but is not a priority, including the one addressing a briefing related to nuclear power, are removed.”
The language Moylan is referring to is a provision in the Senate’s NDAA which supports the future deployment of microreactors to power missile defense systems on Guam.
Microreactors are a concept of mobile nuclear reactors that are small enough to be transported by truck, usually with an output between 1-20 MW, according to the Department Of Energy. They are meant to provide efficient and reliable power to military installations on Guam, and perhaps civilians as well.
Former Guam Delegate Robert Underwood told the Guam Daily that this plan raises a number of issues, especially because the reactors could be damaged in a potential conflict in the region and that many distrust their safety. “Now, this is really associated with missile defense, so that they themselves [the reactors] become targets,” he said.
These concerns, however, may be unfounded. AsAmNews spoke to Gerrit Bruhaug, a nuclear engineer and PhD candidate at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics, who said, “There are no safety concerns with this class of reactor. Nuclear power is already the safest form of power per kWh generated and the reactors proposed for this application take that safety to a new regime. [Due to the reactor’s design] the typical accidents we all know about cannot happen.”
“Even if the worst were to happen, the total amount of radioactivity in these small reactors is very low and it would take an extreme event (like an extremely large bomb) to disperse it from that super tough fuel and the reactor casing,” he continued. “I would be much more worried about the bombing than the reactor! … These reactors will be especially tough and in the most protected part of any proposed missile defense system. I wouldn’t consider them a special class of risk compared to anything else.”
Amidst rising tensions with China, Guam is being treated as “irreplaceable real estate” for military use in the House NDAA, which Guamanians can expect to bring even more military funding and activity to the island, for better or worse. Underwood, a Democrat, has objected to the idea of Guam being “offered as a first-strike community” while Moylan, a Republican, offered support to most of the DOD’s plans for the island, except the deployment of microreactors.
Guam’s growing role in military planning may have helped bring most of Moylan’s proposals to success in the House, but it remains to be seen if those provisions will survive reconciliation with the Senate bill.
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