The Grassley amendment would make the Office of the Secretary of Defense responsible for the demilitarization program. Demilitarization is the process the DoD uses to assign codes to military equipment so that dangerous equipment can be destroyed before being sold to the public as scrap. Currently, a Pentagon office called the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) oversees the program.
Last year, Grassley chaired a hearing of the Judiciary Subcommittee for Administrative Oversight and the Courts which revealed sloppy handling of surplus military parts by DLA. During the hearing, DoD whistleblowers testified that many surplus items are mislabeled, or are not properly destroyed before sale to the public. The Grassley amendment requires the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress on efforts to correct the problem.
"Disposing of tanks, missiles and classified military equipment in a way that keeps it out of the hands of terrorists and rogue nations must be part of the mission of the U.S. military," said Grassley. It is critically important that the Pentagon get its house in order and prevent sensitive surplus military equipment from falling into the wrong hands."
The Grassley amendment would also create a new criminal statute to prohibit the export of restricted surplus. The new criminal statute closes loopholes in current law which make it difficult for federal law enforcement to catch arms smugglers who purchase military items from depots in the United States.
The DoD authorization bill was passed by the Senate with a vote of 88 to 4.