Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the outgoing chief of the National Guard Bureau, said a proposal to transfer certain Air National Guard units into the Space Force could take away key resources from states and may lead to serious repercussions if passed.
In an exclusive interview with Military.com this week, Hokanson -- who is set to retire as the Army and Air National Guard's top officer in August -- urged caution as the Air Force wages a legislative fight to move the Guard units with space missions into the active-duty Space Force by bypassing state governors' authority. The Air Force sent a proposal to Congress, hoping it will pass legislation allowing the shift.
"Anytime you change a law or a precedent that's been in effect for a while, you want to be careful of the unintended consequences that may be related to that," Hokanson said. "Anytime you change things, you have to kind of be concerned about 'Where does it start? Where does it end?'"
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Military.com first reported on the Air Force's legislative proposal to bypass state governors and rewrite sections of Title 32 and Title 10 of the U.S. Code to transfer hundreds of Air National Guardsmen serving in space missions in multiple states to the active-duty Space Force. Guardsmen in Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii and Ohio could be affected by the move, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The proposal has been met with fierce opposition from National Guard lobbyists, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and, notably, every governor in the country. In May, officer and enlisted Air Guardsmen from Alaska, Colorado and Hawaii took aim at the proposal, calling it an "existential threat" to them.
Many of those states have relied on the space knowledge within the Air National Guard units to respond to stateside emergencies, such as the California Air National Guard's 234th Intelligence Squadron, which has used its satellite capabilities to track, monitor and assess wildfires in the Golden State.
Hokanson said if those Air National Guard units are transferred to the active-duty Space Force, states would lose those resources.
"If we don't have that capability anymore ... that, in effect, goes away because they perform that in a state active-duty status, and work with a lot of state federal agencies to provide a really valuable service," Hokanson said.
The monthslong fight has now led to a tug-of-war between the House and Senate Armed Service Committees' versions of the National Defense Authorization Act, the annual must-pass defense policy bill.
The GOP-led House has rewritten the proposal so that governors would need to weigh in on such a move, while the Democratic-led Senate's language would allow those transfers to go ahead -- without state approval -- but with slightly more limited size and scope.
As negotiations between the House and Senate committees' versions of the NDAA continue, those Air National Guardsmen in space missions are left in limbo.
But even Guard officials in states that would have no units affected by the Air Force's initiative, called Legislative Proposal 480, are speaking out against it.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Mancino, the adjutant general who oversees Oklahoma's Army and Air National Guard, told Military.com in an interview Friday that the Air Force's plan did not seem well thought out.
"The current LP480 proposal is an ill-conceived, poorly planned and executed proposal that seeks to subvert states' constitutional and statutory protections for unclear and uncertain reasons," Mancino said. "I hope the Senate agrees with all governors and the House in removing the offending language from the NDAA."
Notably, many Air Guardsmen don't want to join the active-duty Space Force: Internal polling from 14 Air National Guard units in seven states shows anywhere from 70% to 86% of those surveyed have no desire to become Space Force Guardians, Military.com previously reported.
Hokanson told Military.com that many of those Air National Guardsmen had a reason for joining their specific unit, whether it was family, location or duty status. He said that if their unit is transferred to the Space Force and they don't want to go, they can find another job within their state.
"So, my pledge to them is if they're put into the Space Force, and they want to go there, we'll do everything we can to help make that transition smooth," Hokanson said. "But if they want to stay where they're at, they want to stay in the Guard, we will find them a position in the same duty status that they're in within their state, because their experience is absolutely valuable and we need to retain that. And we made that pledge to them to take care of them."
