House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.), along with GOP committee members, urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring a plan to the Senate floor without delay to resolve sequestration. “The time for rhetoric has passed,” wrote McKeon and the Republican committee members in their June 29 letter. Resolution cannot wait for “a lame duck session, or even the next Congress,” they stated. They added, “If you have a solution in mind, it is incumbent upon you to bring it to the floor of your own chamber, pass it, and allow us to move into a conference.” The House lawmakers told Reid that he would “bear responsibility for a morally unconscionable outcome that breaks faith with our service members and their families” if he does not allow a plan to resolve sequestration to come to the Senate floor. “We must resolve sequestration now,” they wrote.
A provision in the fiscal 2025 defense policy bill will require the Defense Department to include the military occupational specialty of service members who die by suicide in its annual report on suicide deaths, though it remains to be seen how much data the department will actually disclose.