Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King on Wednesday voted to advance an $895 billion defense spending bill that will benefit military contractors big and small sprinkled throughout the state. The bill also includes a provision to track, study and mitigate study traumatic brain injuries among military service members.
The brain safety provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act were inspired in part by the mass shooting carried out by an Army reservist in Lewiston last year. The gunman was a firearms and grenade instructor whose brain was later tested and found to have extensive damage consistent with blast exposure.
King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, says those findings convinced him to push for sweeping reforms that include requiring the military to track blast exposure, modify weapons to reduce risk and even require contractors to design new weapons that account for brain safety.
He said during a press conference that traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"And 75% of those injuries are attributable to the soldiers’ own weapons and not to the weapons of the enemy," he said.
The spending bill also includes funding for another destroyer built at Bath Iron Works, funding for future warships and a new dry dock at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which services nuclear submarines. Another $343 million will be used for PFAS cleanup at former military bases, including the former Brunswick Naval Air Station.
Passage of the typically bipartisan defense bill was mired by controversy because Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson inserted a ban on gender affirming care for children of service members. First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, a Democrat, opposed the bill because of that provision, while 2nd District Congressman Jared Golden supported the overall bill along with King and Collins.
In a statement, Pingree described the provision as "hateful and divisive" and that it opened the door to further attacks against vulnerable children of servicemembers.
King described the ban as the government getting involved in personal medical decisions, adding that he voted against it in committee. However, he said the overall defense spending bill contained too many important initiatives to oppose it on Wednesday.
The Senate passed the bill 85-14, while the House approved it 281-140 last week. It now heads to President Joe Biden, who is expected to sign it into law.
