improve the quality of life for our service members and their families our country as we know has been in conflict for nearly eight years service members and their families are bearing the brunt of multiple deployments with no forseeable and insights is important that we uphold our responsibility to care for those who volunteered to serve our nation in uniform and their families given the sacrifice they are making in defense of our nation has been another challenging year for the subcommittee to support all the programs that were brought to our attention and thankfully septa made did not have to deal with the dramatic increases to try care fees and premiums previously proposed by the department of defen secretary gates has indicated a willingness to work with the committee to address a significant growth in military health care expenditures and while we could have included a provision that prohibited this year wrong signal that we will be unable to sustain continued prohibitions on health care fees in the future we need to work together not only with the department of defense but with those who represent our military personnel and their families to find a fair an equitable solution that protects our beneficiaries and insurers a financial viability of the military health care system for the future i appreciate the support of mr wilson the ranking member and working together on this mark and some of the highlights of the bill includes a three point four percent pay raise which is zero point five percent higher than the president's but request this is the eleven consecutive year a pay raises above the cia and this raise will further reduce the gap between military and private sector raises from two point nine percent to two point four percent from a high of thirteen point five percent during fiscal year nineteen ninety nine this is the year of the military family and as such we have included a number of initiatives that are focused on military families these include a pilot program for spouse internships transportation of a second privately owned vehicle to and from a non foreign overseas area and a requirement for the secretary of defense to study the appropriateness of the current housing standards these are just a few of the provisions that we had included to support our military families the demands on the army and the increases in non deployable soldiers are having an adverse impact on the army's effort to reduce dwell time according to deputy chief of staff of the army so this mark includes authorization for the army to increase its active duty end strength thirty thousand above the five hundred forty thousand four hundred that it's authorized for fiscal year two thousand and ten over the past several years the subcommittee has maintained a focus on sexual assault and harassment and remains committed to significantly reducing sexual assault and harassment and the more bills of the mark builds upon the current focus by senior military leadership and aides in those efforts to reduce sexual assault and harassment within the department of defense the increase in the force and the accompanying force structure has had an impact force changes have had an impact on the local communities that support them and therefore the mark includes an authorization of fifty million in the department of defense impact a program an additional fifteen million for local education agencies directly impacted by force structure changes and br unfortunately the subcommittee was unable to include the disability compensation provision that was included in the president's budget we do not have the mandatory assets to pay for this five point one billion proposal within the subcommittee but the democratic leadership is working with that committee and a resolution to the issue is expected i appreciate so much the contributions of all the members of the subcommittee and committee in developing our mark and of course i would say the staff as well while we do you have any comments that you would like to make thank you chairwoman davis madam chairwoman the recommendations contained in a subcommittee report to the full committee for a product of an open and very unusual bipartisan process it has been a pleasure to work with you and your dedicated staff in developing them i also want to thank our lead staff members john chaplain's and james you've already highlighted the major points but i would like to highlight some of the more important recommendations in the mark and i want to thank you for not only including and your mark my bill h r eight hundred sixty four to provide for three point four percent basic pay raise for the military but also for adopting a change in the matching phone requirements to between the department of defense in the states for the national guard you challenge program and i was telling this to say it's a moment ago that as we're sitting here and behind us we see the marching troops one of the highlights for me is the national is the veterans day parade in columbia south carolina where the challenge program comes along and as i'm sitting there was people would think that these are young people from a private elite military high  extraordinarily fulfilling lives and so thank you for including the challenge program i would also note the discretionary authority to increase the size of the army by thirty thousand people in two thousand and eleven or two thousand and twelve such growth with significantly improved the army civility to the boys fully manned units something that is now challenged by the large number of non deployable personnel on the army's roles our effort to oversee the process to account for prisoners of war and missing in action is reflected in your mark for the first time ever the department of defense will have the statutory mandate to account for all the missing from world war two korea the cold war the vietnam era the persian gulf war and other conflicts as invaded by the secretary of defense furthermore the d o d will be tested significantly increase the number of occasions from the current seventy per all active duty military members extending to our care reserve select members of the retired reserve who are qualified for a non regular retirement but not yet age sixty otherwise known as quote the grey area retirees and requiring a medical examination prior to the involuntary separation of service members with process post traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury with all of the good things in this mark i must communicate my disappointment that we were unable to adopt any provision containing mandatory spending i know the lack of office a forced you to take at least three provisions out of the mark i'm also very disappointed that the budget committee failed to provide the mandatory headroom for president obama's proposal that we would have allowed military personnel retired with this abilities the so called chapter sixty one retirees to receive both their full military disability retired pay and v a disability pay the budget committees failure to favorably respond to both of the president's request as well as that of the committee sends the wrong message to our disabled military retirees despite my reservations and concerns this is an excellent mark and tend to support it and i again want to thank you for your leadership you know one of think our colleagues for their input thank you mr wilson i appreciate your comments we will now proceed to markup h r twenty six forty seven the national defense authorization act for fiscal year two thousand and ten members should have before them copies of our subcommittees marken directive report language without objection the are there any amendments the question now it occurs on the adoption of the mark so many as are in favor will say i oppose no the i have it and then mark adopted thank you and now i recognize the gentleman from arkansas dr snyder for the purpose of the my motion but i'm sure when i move to the submit subcommittee report to mark favorably to the full committee the question is on the motion the gentleman from arkansas dr snyder so many as are in favor opposed to a quorum being present the ayes have it in the mark is adopted and without objection a motion to reconsider is laid upon the table without objection members have five legislative days within which to submit written statements into the record so ordered i also asking amsc consent that staff be authorized to make necessary conforming to the country clerical changes that objection so ordered there being no further legislative business before th