S.Amdt. 480

SA 480. Mr. JOHNSON submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by
him to the bill S. 1790, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2020 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 C of title V, add the following:

SEC. 520. SENSE OF CONGRESS ON LOCAL PERFORMANCE OF MILITARY
ACCESSION PHYSICALS.

(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The United States Military Entrance Processing Command
(USMEPCOM) consists of 65 Military Entrance Processing
Stations (MEPS) dispersed throughout the contiguous United
States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.
(2) Applicants who must travel to the closest Processing
Station are often driven by their military recruiter and
receive free lodging at a nearby hotel paid by the Armed
Force concerned.
(3) In fiscal year 2015, the United States Military
Entrance Processing Command processed 473,000 applicants at
its Processing Stations, with an aggregate total of 931,000
applicant visits to such Processing Stations in that fiscal
year.
(b) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) permitting military accession physicals in local
communities would allow recruiters to focus on their core
recruiting mission; and
(2) the conduct of military accession physicals in local
communities would permit the United States Military Entrance
Processing Command to reduce costly and inefficient return
visits by applicants to Military Entrance Processing Stations
and increase efficiency in its processing times.
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