Sec. 1269. Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises conducted by the Department of Defense in the Indo-Pacific region
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Congress finds the following: The Indo-Pacific region is home to over 60 percent of the world’s population and is prone to natural disasters particularly due to its proximity to a geological vulnerable region. The multilateral Pacific Partnership exercise, first conducted in 2006 in response to the humanitarian and disaster relief operations for the December 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, involved the participation of 22 partner nations to improve the ability of each country to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief efforts.
The Pacific Partnership is the largest annual multilateral disaster preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific region. The United States Agency for International Development, including through its Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, leads and coordinates United States humanitarian efforts in foreign countries and often partners with the Department of Defense in responding to disasters. It is the sense of Congress that— the Pacific Partnership, a civic and humanitarian mission which the United States Navy’s Pacific Fleet, in conjunction with partner nations, nongovernmental organizations, and other United States and international governmental agencies conducts to strengthen alliances, improves United States and partner capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and improves security cooperation among the partner nations in the Indo-Pacific region; the Department of Defense should continue to play a role in response to requests for support in international humanitarian assistance and disaster response drawing on its unique capabilities, manpower, and forward-deployed resources; and the Secretary of Defense should assess the United States force posture in the Indo-Pacific region for future Pacific Partnerships and work to expand engagements in the entirety of the Indo-Pacific region if appropriate and if applicable renaming the program as the Indo-Pacific Partnership .
Not later than the end of the first full fiscal year beginning after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall provide to the appropriate congressional committees a briefing on the following: A description of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises conducted by the Department of Defense in the Indo-Pacific region in the previous year that also identifies the partner countries and militaries involved in any such operations and exercises. A description of any planned humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises for the following fiscal year in the Indo-Pacific region.
A description of any constraints on the ability of the Department of Defense to conduct humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercises, including in resources. A description of any efforts undertaken by the Secretary of Defense to ease operational burdens on the Armed Forces of the United States to participate in humanitarian assistance or disaster relief exercises, such as the pre-positioning of equipment, inclusion of additional partners, and inclusion of exercises that may ordinarily be conducted independently of any humanitarian assistance operation or exercise.
In subsection (c), the term appropriate congressional committees means— the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate; and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives.