Congressman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) placed provisions in the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act to benefit servicemembers and his constituents in Southwest Ohio.
Turner chairs the House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. His additions to the bill touch on issues ranging from military child custody protections to Unmanned Aerial Systems.
The annual defense authorization was recently approved by the full House Armed Services Committee and awaits a vote in the House.
“This legislation represents a number of opportunities for our community,” Turner said. “I am proud to have included a range of provisions including those that would benefit our servicemembers, further opportunities for Southwest Ohio facilities like AFIT and NASIC and strengthen efforts to develop Unmanned Aerial Systems.”
Turner’s provision regarding child custody would require a court that issued a temporary custody order based solely on the deployment or anticipated deployment of a service member to reinstate the custody order that was in effect immediately preceding the temporary order.
Additional legislative language by Tuner would encourage the Air Force to consider alternative organizational structures, including a closer alignment with Air Force or Department of Defense engineering and acquisition functions.
The UAS research and development provision would encourage the Air Force to aggressively pursue development of technologies that will support advances in UAS and UAS countermeasures.