S.Amdt. 6241

SA 6241. Ms. ERNST (for herself and Ms. Hassan) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 5499 submitted by Mr. Reed (for himself and Mr. Inhofe) and intended to be proposed to the bill H.R. 7900, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2023 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 VII, add the following:

SEC. 753. WARFIGHTER BRAIN HEALTH INITIATIVE.

(a) In General.--The Secretary of Defense shall establish and implement a comprehensive strategy and action plan for brain health to be known as the “Warfighter Brain Health Initiative” (in this section referred to as the “Initiative”) to unify disparate efforts and programs across the Department of Defense to improve the brain health and cognitive performance of members of the Armed Forces.

(b) Objectives.--The objectives of the Initiative are the following:

(1) To enhance the cognitive performance of members of the Armed Forces through an integrated brain health strategy that includes education, training, prevention, protection, monitoring, detection, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation, including by--

(A) establishing common brain health monitoring baselines across the Department of Defense to be used to monitor a member of the Armed Forces at regular intervals with the goal of detecting patterns of brain injury and health distress early in the evolution of injury or disease progression;

(B) identifying and disseminating blast pressure thresholds associated with microscopic brain injury;

(C) modifying high risk training and operational activities to mitigate the negative effects of repetitive harmful blast exposure;

(D) developing and conducting operational fielding of non-invasive portable point of care medical devices to inform diagnosis and treatment of structural and functional traumatic brain injury;

(E) establishing standardized reporting of critical incidents and blast exposures affecting brain health for members of the Armed Forces;

(F) developing a comprehensive brain health research roadmap that establishes strict criteria for research grants based on direct correlation to the brain health outcomes of members of the Armed Forces, including prevention, protection, detection, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation;

(G) incorporating the findings and recommendations of the report entitled “Traumatic Brain Injury: A Roadmap for Accelerating Progress” published in February 2022 by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine; and

(H) identifying occupational specialties that pose a high risk to brain health.

(2) To synchronize and prioritize efforts to improve brain health by the Department of Defense into a single approach to produce more efficient and effective results.

(c) Reports.--

(1) Initial report.--Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the Initiative, including a summary of progress made toward the objectives described in subsection (b).

(2) Annual report.--Not later than January 31, 2024, and annually thereafter until 2030, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report that includes--

(A) a description of the actions taken and resources expended in the previous fiscal year to carry out the Initiative; and

(B) a summary of progress made toward the objectives described in subsection (b) during the previous fiscal year.

(d) Budget Exhibit.--The Secretary of Defense shall include in the budget justification materials submitted to Congress in support of the Department of Defense budget for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2029 (as submitted with the budget of the President under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code) a single budget exhibit containing relevant details pertaining to the Initiative.