President's Message: What's the Rush?

Maybe it was Air Force sleight of hand. Or perhaps the planets and the process just aligned for the service this year.

Whatever it was, language in the recently completed fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act is a big step in the Air Force’s mad rush to remove the Air National Guard from space missions as quickly as possible, no matter the cost.

It’s also a victory for those who would like nothing more than to take the states out of the defense of the United States.

The provision in question grants the unprecedented authority to the secretary of the Air Force to transfer 578 Air Guard professionals to the Space Force without the required approval of the affected governors. That consent has been a requirement in federal law for decades.

Every state governor in the country as well as the five U.S. territories fiercely opposed the service’s Legislative Proposal 480 from the start. Rarely are they so unified on an issue, but they all know the Air Force scheme would open the door to future legislation overriding states’ rights.

The House version of the fiscal 2025 NDAA would’ve allowed the transfers, but only with gubernatorial consent. Unfortunately, gubernatorial authorities didn’t survive when House and Senate leaders gathered to settle their differences in the annual defense policy bill.

In the end, the outcome of their backroom negotiations defied a century of legal precedence, the nation’s governors, the advice of many of their colleagues and the clear intentions of the incoming administration.

It’s disappointing that many key Capitol Hill deliberations on LP 480 were not transparent and involved so few lawmakers. The Department of the Air Force seemed to be counting on that. Equally disappointing was the lack of comment from Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and President Joe Biden.

Rebuffed by the Air Force, several governors wrote directly to Austin and Biden. I’m not aware of any response, and I’ve asked.

The president did respond to a question on LP 480 from our magazine during a Dec. 13 interview in the White House that appears in this issue. He said the Air Force wants the Air Guard space professionals because many of them have “technological backgrounds” from their civilian jobs. “You go to the place where you find these experts,” he said.

I agree with that premise. The Air Guard does have expertise and some of the most experienced space professionals in the U.S. military, which is exactly why the Guard needs to stay in the space domain. And while they are small in numbers, they provide 30% of the military’s space operations squadrons and 60% of its electromagnetic warfare capability.

But most have said in surveys that they don’t want to leave the Guard, and they won’t have to. They can stay in the Guard and retrain in another specialty. In addition, Space Force officials have said it may be multiple years before they will be able to accept part-time personnel.

Simply put, if carried, the NDAA’s LP 480 language, would destroy the critical capabilities Air Guard space units provide the nation. America’s military space capabilities would be reduced at a time when China and Russia are rapidly increasing their presence in space.

There simply was not enough attention to LP 480’s second, third and fourth effects by people in Washington charged with scrutinizing such proposals. I’m talking about the Pentagon leadership and the White House.

From the start, we asked one simple question: Why was it necessary to exclude the governors from the process? We still don’t have an answer.

There is still time. Not just for the Guard and the governors, but for the nation’s defense. What’s the rush?

The author is the NGAUS president. He can be reached at ngaus@ngaus.org.