Heinrich Announces Major Wins for New Mexico in Bipartisan Senate Agreement

Manager's Package on Annual Defense Bill includes Heinrich's Good Samaritan bill, significantly increased funding for the Southwest Border Regional Commission, & legislation he authored to bolster the Department of Defense's AI capabilities

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) announced that, in addition to strong investments in New Mexico's military installations, national labs, and service members, he has successfully included major priorities within the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) "manager's package," a bipartisan agreement that was just announced.

The agreement includes 93 amendments that have been agreed to by Senate leadership as part of the overall legislative package that Senate negotiators will now work to include in the final House and Senate compromise bill for the FY25 NDAA.

These include:

• Heinrich's Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act;

• Provisions that mirror Heinrich's Southwest Border Regional Commission Reauthorization Act, including expansion of the New Mexico counties included within the Commission's reach, and a significant increase in authorized federal funding levels for the Commission; and

• A bipartisan amendment that Heinrich introduced alongside U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to strengthen the Department of Defense's capabilities in the fields of supercomputing and advanced artificial intelligence (AI).

"Passing the annual defense bill on-time every year is essential to continuing the success of New Mexico's national labs and military installations and to protecting our vital national security interests," said Heinrich, a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies and past member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). "I'm pleased the Senate is moving forward in a bipartisan fashion to deliver these important investments in our service members and national defense. I'm proud that we are also one step closer to passing some major priorities for New Mexico. These include my bipartisan legislation to clean up abandoned mines that are polluting our lands and waters, provisions I have championed to authorize $40 million in economic development investments each year for counties in our state and others along our Southern border, and responsible AI policies that will help our military maintain its strategic advantage in a rapidly changing threat landscape."

Background on the FY25 NDAA Manager's Package:

The NDAA sets the Department of Defense (DOD) spending levels and policies for the upcoming fiscal year and authorizes funding for the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear weapons programs at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories, as well as the Department of Energy's environmental cleanup programs including the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP).

Heinrich has long championed provisions that benefit New Mexico's service members, national laboratories, and defense missions, including as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 2013 to 2020 and as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations' Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee in 2021 and 2022.

Now that Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Ranking Member Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) have filed their "manager's package," both the SASC-passed version of the NDAA and the House-passed NDAA will be combined through a series of negotiations led by the leadership of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees. The amendments included in the Reed-Wicker "manager's package" will be considered during these NDAA negotiations.

Background on the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act:

The U.S. has over 140,000 abandoned hardrock mine features, of which 22,500 pose environmental hazards according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). Organizations that have no legal or financial responsibility to an abandoned mine - true Good Samaritans - want to volunteer to remediate some of these sites. Unfortunately, liability rules would leave these Good Samaritans legally responsible for all the pre-existing pollution from a mine, even though they had no involvement with the mine prior to cleaning it up.

Heinrich and U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) introduced the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act, which creates a pilot permitting program to enable not-for-profit cleanup efforts to move forward, while ensuring Good Samaritans have the skills and resources to comply with federal oversight. This pilot program is designed for lower risk projects that will improve water and soil quality or otherwise protect human health.

Heinrich and Risch hailed the Senate's unanimous and bipartisan passage of the bill in July. But the bill still needs to pass in the House before it can go to the President to be signed into law. Earlier this week, Heinrich and Risch welcomed the passage out of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the House companion to their legislation, which is led by U.S. Representatives Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) and Mary Peltola (D-Alaska).

Heinrich championed a provision in the Infrastructure Law to establish the first-ever abandoned hardrock mine reclamation program in the Department of the Interior. By passing Good Samaritan legislation, Congress can remove hurdles that public-private partnerships face and use this program to jumpstart abandoned mine cleanups.

The Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act has garnered widespread support from organizations, including American Exploration and Mining Association, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, Ecoflight, Fly Fishers International, Izaak Walton League of America, National Deer Association, National Mining Association, National Parks Conservation Association, National Wildlife Federation, Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, Property and Environment Research Center, Regeneration, Rivian, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Trout Unlimited.

Background on the Southwest Border Regional Commission:

The Southwest Border Regional Commission (SBRC) is one of eight authorized federal regional commissions and authorities, which are congressionally-chartered, federal-state partnerships created to promote economic development in their respective regions. Congress first authorized the establishment of the SBRC in 2008 to promote economic development in the southern border regions of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas.

Last year, Heinrich led the introduction of the Southwest Border Regional Commission Reauthorization Act, legislation to reauthorize and fully fund the Southwest Border Regional Commission (SBRC). The bill is cosponsored by U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.).

The provisions that Heinrich successfully included in the "manager's package" to the FY25 NDAA, and that are based on his original legislation, will:

• Expand SBRC's jurisdiction to include the following counties in New Mexico: Bernalillo, Cibola, Curry, De Baca, Guadalupe, Roosevelt, Torrance, Lea, and Valencia. These are in addition to Catron, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna, Sierra, Socorro, Lincoln, Otero, Eddy, Doña Ana, and Chaves Counties in New Mexico, which are already included within the SBRC's jurisdiction.

• Greatly increase federal grants to New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas, authorizing $40 million in annual funding for FY25-FY29.

Since its creation, Heinrich has fought to successfully stand up the SBRC and give southern border communities equitable access to federal investments that help them thrive.

In 2020, Heinrich, along with former U.S. Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.), helped secure an initial $250,000 of appropriations for the SBRC to jumpstart and expand its operations.

In 2021, Heinrich, as a new member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, helped secure $1 million for the SBRC in the FY22 Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. The total funding that Heinrich secured in the overall FY22 Appropriations Bills for SBRC was $2.5 million. Heinrich also helped to pass the Infrastructure Law, which included $1.25 million for the SBRC.

In 2022, Heinrich applauded President Biden's nomination of Juan Eduardo Sanchez to be the first Federal Co-Chairman of the SBRC and voted to confirm Sanchez to the SBRC later that year. He also helped secure $5 million in funding for the SBRC in the FY23 Appropriations Bills.

In 2023, Heinrich led efforts to secure $8 million in FY24 funding for the SBRC, including $3 million in the FY24 Agricultural Appropriations Bill that he authored as Chairman.

Earlier this year, Heinrich successfully included $14 million for the SBRC in the Senate Appropriations Committee-passed FY25 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill. This comes in addition to the $2 million that Heinrich successfully included in the Committee-passed FY25 Agriculture Appropriations Bill and the $5 million Heinrich successfully included in the Committee-passed FY25 Transportation Appropriations Bill.

According to a recent report published by Heinrich, as Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, the proven success of other regional commissions shows that a fully funded and active SBRC would support vital economic development goals, grow and diversify New Mexico's economy, and create high-quality jobs.

Background on AI related NDAA amendments:

Heinrich is among leading lawmakers in Congress spearheading bipartisan efforts on responsible AI policy. He is the co-founder and co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan AI Caucus, which he established with former Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) in 2019. The Caucus aims to keep the United States at the forefront of responsible AI innovation while maintaining important ethical, safety, and privacy standards.

In this Congress, Heinrich has maintained a lead role on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) bipartisan AI working group to help shape policy centered around addressing the risks and harnessing the opportunities of AI. In May, along with his colleagues on the Bipartisan AI Working Group, Leader Schumer and U.S. Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Heinrich released a roadmap for artificial intelligence policy in the U.S. Senate.

In one of the first follow-up policy actions, Heinrich, Rounds, and Schumer introduced a number of bipartisan amendments to the FY25 NDAA to strengthen the Department of Defense's capabilities in the emerging fields of cybersecurity, supercomputing, and advanced AI. Specifically, the amendment Heinrich, Rounds, and Schumer successfully included in the "manager's package" would require the Department of Defense to expand the supercomputing program within the Department of Defense to do advanced AI activities.

Heinrich also introduced amendments that would require a human to be "in the loop" for all nuclear weapons launch decisions, as opposed to delegating any of these decisions to AI systems and require the Department of Defense to notify Congress of any usage of autonomous weapons systems. While these provisions were not included in the Senate "manager's package," they were included in the House-passed NDAA. Heinrich will continue to press for House and Senate negotiators to include these provisions in the final compromise bill.

Previously, in 2020, Heinrich helped secure the most significant federal policy advancements for AI ever. The FY21 National Defense Authorization Act included a modified version of Heinrich's Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act, which established a national strategy aimed at bolstering U.S. leadership in AI research and development. This legislation also included the bipartisan National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act to establish National AI Research Institutes at universities across the country.

This past July, Heinrich announced bipartisan passage of his Creating Resources for Every American To Experiment with Artificial Intelligence Act (CREATE AI Act) out of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The CREATE AI Act establishes the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) as a shared national research infrastructure that provides AI researchers and students with greater access to the computational resources, data, and tools needed to develop safe and trustworthy artificial intelligence.

Heinrich previously worked to establish the National AI Research Resource Task Force (NAIRR) to develop a detailed roadmap for the development of a national AI resource for AI research and convened a group of technical experts across academia, government, and industry to develop a detailed roadmap for how the United States can build, deploy, govern, and sustain a national research cloud and associated research resources.

Additionally, Heinrich helped pass the Artificial Intelligence for the Armed Forces Act to advance the Department of Defense's AI capabilities. He also helped provide the Pentagon with enhanced hiring authorities to recruit more AI professionals and other personnel with computational skills relevant to military applications.

Heinrich was recently featured as one of TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in AI. Heinrich is the only member of Congress included in the list.

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