Since we were being pushed to the end of this Congressional Session with the prospect of no action on either S-681 or HR-969, Commander Wells led the effort and we spent the August recess working with various Staff from several House and Senate Offices to get into place this Concurrent Resolution which puts to rest the question of the Intent of Congress as to whether the AO Act of 1991 was meant to cover Bays, Ports, Harbors and Territorial Seas (no expansion to the entire Theater of Combat was allowed).
Our thinking is, if we can get this non-binding Resolution in place before the break for the elections, we accomplish a number of things:
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-Nobody is going to think we are not still kicking hard;
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-it is possible that the Legislation can be brought out of Committees during the Lame Duck Session to pass before the end of 2016;
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-if there is no movement of the Legislation, then we start off in January with a strong statement regarding House and Senate support;
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-if the Resolution passes even without the Legislation, we use that in a Brief in our suit against the VA, which can be a very powerful statement to the Court;
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-The Legislation is still alive but being held in Committee in both House and Senate, but if this gets passed, it could help get them shook loose.
There might be a couple more benefits that I am overlooking. But the bottom line is, it is just another way for Blue Water Navy to keep in their face about HR-969 and S-681. Please use the Fleet Reserve Association Legislative Action Center http://action.fra.org/action-center to contact your legislators about this.
Here is the announcement about the Concurrent Resolution.