Bill holds $2.5M for YARS fire station

Funding contained in Senate measure is far from certain

VIENNA -- A Senate bill includes $2.5 million for planning and design work for a new fire station at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, but the funding is far from certain.

The Senate approved the $886 billion National Defense Authorization Act in a bipartisan 86-11 vote Thursday that includes the $2.5 million for YARS.

The House on July 14 narrowly approved a $874 billion NDAA bill 219-210 with only four Democrats voting in favor and four Republicans in opposition. The House bill didn't include the YARS funding.

But it did include rescinding the Pentagon's program to reimburse troops who have to travel for abortions, blocked funding for surgery and hormone therapy for transgender military members and ended or limited various diversity training and programs.

Leaders in the House and Senate have to reconcile the differing bills before it reaches President Joe Biden.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, said of the Senate: "We kept the politics out and worked to invest in the women and men in our military and in the Ohio workers and industries crucial to keeping our country safe."

Whether the $2.5 million for YARS will remain in the final bill isn't known.

A PRIORITY PROJECT

YARS needs to replace its existing fire station on the Vienna base, said Senior Master Sgt. Bob Barko Jr., the air base's superintendent of public affairs.

The total project cost is currently $25 million and it would take a few years to get the federal funding in place, he said.

The $2.5 million in the Senate bill would be used for designing and planning a new station, Barko said. The current station was built in 1982.

"One of the biggest reasons we need a new station is the one was built for '82 standards so it's outdated," Barko said.

The YARS fire department is one of the largest in Trumbull County and has 42 mutual aid agreements, mostly in Trumbull, Barko said. The department also provides crash response to the adjacent Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, he said.

Replacing the fire department is "high on the priority list here," Barko said.

Brown said: "We made sure the Senate's annual defense bill was a big win for YARS, securing $2.5 million for a new fire station, which is critical to the mission at YARS and highlights how important the Mahoning Valley is to our national defense."

VANCE VOTED NO

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Cincinnati, was among the 11 senators voting against the defense bill.

"I've worked in good faith throughout this process to secure as many wins for Ohio as possible and I'm proud that many of those priorities have been included in the final version of the NDAA," he said. "However, I cannot, in good conscience, support the broader package, which commits the United States to years of additional military aid for the war in Ukraine."

He added: "It's disappointing to me that these significant priorities that would benefit Ohioans have been bogged down with such deeply problematic foreign policy proposals."

The Senate bill also includes funding for other Ohio military facilities. That includes $896 million for upgrades to Abrams tanks and $614 million for upgrades to Stryker vehicles at Lima's Joint Systems Manufacturing Center, $19.5 million for the planning and design of an acquisition management complex at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, $19.2 million to support construction of a National Guard Readiness Center at Camp Perry near Port Clinton, $5 million to complete the Wright Patterson Army Reserve Center and $4 million to finish the National Guard Readiness Center in Columbus, according to Brown's office.

Also included in the defense bill was Brown's Fentanyl Eradication and Narcotics Deterrence (FEND) Off Fentanyl Act that he touted during a July 6 stop in Youngstown. It is a sanctions and anti-money laundering bill to help combat the fentanyl crisis by targeting traffickers.

The bill declares that the international trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is national emergency, requires the president to sanction transnational criminal organizations and drug cartels' key members, enables the president to use proceeds of forfeited property of fentanyl traffickers to further law enforcement agencies and allows the Treasury Department to utilize special measures to combat fentanyl-related money laundering.