S.Amdt. 1651

SA 1651. Mr. SCHATZ submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to
amendment SA 1463 proposed by Mr. McCain to the bill H.R. 1735, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2016 for military activities
of the Department of Defense and for military construction, to
prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year,

[[Page S3796]]

and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as
follows:

At the end of subtitle G of title XII, add the following:

SEC. 1283. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON ACCOUNTABILITY MEASURES
RELATED TO THE SALE AND TRANSFER OF MINE
RESISTANT AMBUSH PROTECTED VEHICLES MRAPS TO
STRATEGIC PARTNERS.

It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) it is in the national security interest of the United
States to build relationships with strategic partners through
security assistance programs, including the Foreign Military
Sales, Excess Defense Articles, and Foreign Military
Financing of Direct Commercial Contracts programs;
(2) these security assistance programs incentivize partners
to meet the requirements of United States law in order to
purchase United States military equipment, secure special
access privileges for the United States military, and
reassure allies of United States security commitments;
(3) as the United States deepens security ties in key
regions, it remains vital that it strike a balance between
remaining an attractive security partner and establishing
robust oversight over all security assistance programs;
(4) absent robust oversight, sales and transfers of
sensitive weapon systems to foreign countries and military
units with human rights violations carry the risk of harming
United States interests;
(5) Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles are a
highly sensitive weapon system that have the potential to be
used for repressive purposes, including to suppress
legitimate domestic civil unrest and peaceful protests; and
(6) the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and the
Department of State should submit the sale and transfer of
MRAP vehicles to foreign countries to the Enhanced End-Use
Monitoring process in order to ensure an added layer of
compliance and accountability with United States assistance
and to deter the misuse of this weapon system.
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