S.Amdt. 4129

SA 4129. Mr. GARDNER submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by him to the bill S. 2943, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2017 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle I of title X, add the following:

SEC. 1097. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN AIR FORCE
STATION.

It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station (CMAFS) is an
indispensable national security asset that is vital to the
defense of North America;
(2) CMAFS, which celebrated its 50th anniversary on April
15, 2016, remains one of the greatest engineering marvels of
our time, an American cultural icon, and relevant both now
and in the future;
(3) CMAFS is an Electromagnetic Pulse-Hardened facility and
operates as the alternate command center for the NORAD and
United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM);
(4) since the establishment of the North American Defense
Command (NORAD) in 1958, the U.S. and Canada have jointly
invested in significant and irreplaceable infrastructure and
capabilities to support NORAD in executing its assigned
missions, including irreplaceable investment in CMAFS;
(5) CMAFS facilitates integration and operational synergy
with NORAD for defense of the homeland, and the significant
fixed and unique infrastructure at this location enables
daily and contingency operations execution of NORTHCOM's
missions;
(6) NORAD and NORTHCOM rely heavily on various
communications and data feeds that go through CMAFS, which
enable NORAD and NORTHCOM to continue to operate throughout a
conflict or other national crisis; and
(7) portions of the Integrated Tactical Warning / Attack
Assessment (ITW/AA) system that reside in CMAFS receive,
process, and provide national leadership with information on
air, missile, and space threats,

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which is a critical component of the Nuclear Command and
Control System, and is required to provide unambiguous,
timely, accurate, and continuous tactical warning and attack
assessment information to senior leaders of the United States
and Canada throughout conflict or national crisis.
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