Friday, January 22, 2010

Legislative Accomplishments from 2009

Andrew Gonyea
Communications Assistant

Over the past year, ROA's legislative team has actively pursued the established legislative agenda, which is member-driven and acted on by the staff and grass roots initiatives.

Despite the fact that Congress has been largely preoccupied with economic stimulus and health care, ROA managed to accomplish several changes to law and introduce several new bills:

Changes to Law
  • Gray Area access to TRICARE Reserve Select.
  • Provide differential pay for deployed federal employees for CYs 2009/2010.
  • Fund medical and restorative dental care prior to mobilization.
  • Changes to transitional dental care following mobilization.
  • Provide employment protection and provide family leave for spouses and family care-givers of mobilized Guard and Reserve for a period of time prior to or following the deployment of the military member.
  • Permit mobilized retirees to earn additional retirement points with less than two years of activated service (Passed for GOs only, will try to expand to all ranks).Ensure that every military absentee ballot is counted.
Bills Introduced
  • Reimburse a Reserve Component member for expenses incurred in connection with round-trip travel in excess of 100 miles to an inactive training location, including mileage traveled and lodging and subsistence.
  • Eliminate the 1/30th rule for Aviation Career Incentive Pay, Career Enlisted Flyers Incentive Pay, Diving Special Duty Pay, and Hazardous Duty Incentive Pay.
  • Include US Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Corps members in new GI Bill.
  • Provide tax credits to offset costs for temporary replacements of deployed Reserve Component employees.
  • Support tax credits to employers who hire service members who have served in the Global War on Terrorism.
  • Evaluate the Post Deployment Medical Evaluation process.
  • Permit any member who has served under honorable conditions and has received a DD-214 to qualify for veteran status.
  • Permit Guard and Reserve members with 20 years of good service to qualify for veteran status.
The ROA staff looks forward to continued success in 2010 in advocating for the 1.5 million men and women now serving in America's Reserve components.

View ROA's 2010 legislative agenda

View the press release

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reserve retirement is still a failure = should be at parity with AD based on points - retire with pay beginning available after 20 years of service.

Anonymous said...

ROA members deserve to see legislative accomplishments (i.e., progress or lack therefore) for every resolution. This PR work doesn't fully update ROA members on how much their employees are doing to work all of the association's resolutions.

David Small, ROA Director of Communications said...

ROA is working on a full report of the status of our 2009 legislative agenda. As you will note, the title of this blog is "accomplishments." any other legislative agenda item fell short of being characterized as such or only minor steps forward were made. Congress moves at a glacial pace. Minor steps forward each year will eventually prevail.