Inspired by Lewiston shooting, US Senate defense bill contains blast protections for service members

A major federal defense bill advanced Friday by a Senate committee includes an initiative inspired by the Lewiston mass shooting that aims to protect service members from brain damage caused by blast exposures.

Maine’s congressional delegation supported the proposal, known as the Blast Overpressure Safety Act. Its inclusion in the Senate’s broader defense bill is seen as a big step forward for the measure.

“The idea is to focus on what we now know is a serious problem, how we do this (shooting) training and also how we make the weapons ourselves,” the senator said American Angus King, I-Maine, in an interview. after a key committee vote Friday. “This is one of the most important steps. We are pleased that this provision is already in the bill.

However, the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act – which was approved by the House on Friday in a party-line vote – does not include the Explosion and Surge Safety Act. The House defense bill also contains what Democrats call culture war “poison pills,” which led most Democrats to vote “no.” The House has a Republican majority while the Senate is controlled by Democrats, so competing versions of the bill will need to be reconciled to pass into final passage.

U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, 2nd District D, was one of six House Democrats who voted in favor of the NDAA. But he said in a prepared statement that he disagreed with “poison pills” and expected them to be removed in the final version of the bill.

The Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously voted the bill out of committee Friday, without “poison pills” and including the Explosion and Overpressure Safety Act, and it will then be considered by the full House. Senate.

The Senate and House versions also provide $1.43 billion for an additional U.S. Navy DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, which would be built by Bath Iron Works.

King said that if it becomes law, the Explosion and Overpressure Safety Act would help protect members of the military from dangerous exposure to explosions during training. The bill would require brain testing to establish a baseline for each service member, establish training protocols to emphasize safety and change the design of weapons while they are manufactured to reduce their impact during training.

Robert Card, the US Army reservist who killed 18 people in a shooting in Lewiston in October, had been ‘exposed to thousands of low-level explosions’ during years of grenade rain in the state from New York, according to Army personnel records. A forensic analysis of Card’s brain tissue conducted by Boston University concluded that brain damage likely played a role in the decline of his mental health before the mass shooting. Card was hospitalized for psychiatric reasons in July 2023 in New York state.

Scientists have studied for decades how concussions and mild impacts to the head cause brain damage, including exposure to frequent hits in professional football players.

King and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, co-sponsored the Senate version of the Blast Overpression Safety Act, which was introduced by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa.

Collins, in a statement, said “this bipartisan legislation will help improve critical research, accurate diagnosis and life-saving treatment for these heroes who serve and defend our nation.”

Maine’s House delegation — U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, and Golden — co-sponsored the House version of the blast safety bill.

Pingree, in a statement, said she was “particularly encouraged” that the Senate version included the Overpressure Blast Safety Act.

“By tracking, managing and treating traumatic brain injuries in the military, this bill could potentially help prevent tragedies like the Lewiston mass shooting, and I sincerely hope we can get it passed into the NDAA ” said Pingree.

The U.S. military is also working to develop new protocols to protect service members from brain injuries. But King said it needs to be codified into law to ensure the military has permanent security measures that won’t be abandoned in the years to come.

“We learned you have to go after them,” King said. “The military is a large organization and there are always competing priorities.

The House bill includes many controversial provisions, such as restricting access to abortion for service members and banning certain LGBTQ+ health services for service members.

“Republicans filled the bill with poisonous amendments that restrict freedoms, promote LGBTQ+ discrimination and hatred, and undermine climate mitigation efforts that military leaders themselves say are essential to our national defense “, Pingree said in a statement. “Fortunately, this bill died as soon as it arrived in the Democratic Senate.”

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