S.Amdt. 6294

SA 6294. Ms. COLLINS (for herself, Mrs. Shaheen, Mr. King, 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 F of title V, add the following:

SEC. 575. SUPPORT FOR DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE-AFFILIATED FAMILIES SUPPLANTED FROM DEPARTMENT CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS.

(a) In General.--The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Secretaries of the military departments, shall take actions to support and accommodate Department of Defense-affiliated families who were supplanted from Department child development centers on or after January, 1 2022.

(b) Actions to Be Taken.--The Secretary shall consider the following actions to assist families described in subsection (a):

(1) Assisting with identifying child care options within the local community.

(2) Providing financial assistance, when authorized by law, for the purpose of securing child care during duty hours.

(3) Authorizing flexible duty shifts when both members of such a family are employees or contractors of the Department.

(4) Such other actions as the Secretary, in consultation with the Secretaries of the military departments, considers appropriate.

(c) Report Required.--

(1) In general.--Not later than March 1, 2023, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committees on Armed Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives a report on the supplanting of Department of Defense-affiliated families from Department child development centers and actions taken by the Secretary to accommodate those families and address the hardships faced by those families.

(2) Elements.--The report required by paragraph (1) shall include the following:

(A) The number of Department of Defense-affiliated families and dependents supplanted from Department child development centers on or after January 1, 2022, and before the date of the report.

(B) The duty location of those families, including the number of such families and dependents supplanted at each location.

(C) For each location in which more than five such families have been supplanted during the period described in subparagraph (A), a description of actions taken by the Department--

(i) to increase the availability of child care at the location's child development center; and

(ii) to assist those families secure suitable child care during applicable duty hours.