Alaska National Guard Rural Community Revival Act

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4858 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

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119th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 4858

 To provide for a National Guard Rural Revival and Modernization Plan.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             June 23, 2026

 Mr. Sullivan introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
              referred to the Committee on Armed Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL

 To provide for a National Guard Rural Revival and Modernization Plan.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Alaska National Guard Rural
Community Revival Act''.

SEC. 2. NATIONAL GUARD RURAL COMMUNITY REVIVAL.

    (a) Strategy and Implementation Plan Required.--Not later than 90
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the
Army, in coordination with the Chief of the National Guard Bureau,
shall develop a comprehensive strategy and roadmap to optimize Army
National Guard readiness, force posture, and infrastructure in remote
or isolated areas to include the Arctic. The strategy shall take into
consideration the posture and plans of the United States Northern
Command as well as Golden Dome for America in the assessment and
development of the strategy, to ensure infrastructure investments meet
homeland defense requirements and maximize operational effectiveness.
The strategy shall be known as the ``Army National Guard Rural Revival
and Modernization Plan'' (referred to in this section as the ``Plan'').
    (b) Elements of the Plan.--The Plan required under subsection (a)
shall include, at a minimum, the following:
            (1) Infrastructure review.--A comprehensive audit and
        assessment of all National Guard armories, readiness centers,
        training support centers, and ranges within remote or isolated
        areas. The audit should include an assessment of necessary
        facilities improvements and include a plan for--
                    (A) joint-force and extreme-cold-weather tactical
                training, including integrated survival, mobility,
                logistics, and combat operations specific to degraded
                and contested Arctic environments;
                    (B) forward-operating logistical hubs, cold-weather
                equipment staging, and intra-theater supply-chain
                distribution points;
                    (C) emergency management, disaster response, and
                homeland defense staging zones; and
                    (D) communications nodes and remote command-and-
                control capabilities.
            (2) End-strength and billet optimization strategy.--A
        feasible plan to address and fill critically vacant,
        unassigned, or under-strength National Guard billets within the
        designated regions to meet increasing operational tempo
        (OPTEMPO). The optimization plan shall include--
                    (A) an analysis of recruitment and retention
                barriers unique to rural, isolated, or high-cost
                geographic areas;
                    (B) a targeted marketing, recruitment, and
                localized incentives framework, including specialized
                remote duty allowances, signing bonuses, and
                educational stipends, designed to source personnel
                directly from local and rural communities; and
                    (C) a potential rotational assignment framework to
                temporarily bridge immediate operational readiness gaps
                while permanent personnel pipelines are materialized to
                include associated funding.
            (3) Dual-use center modernization blueprint.--A
        comprehensive capitalization and modernization plan for
        existing multi-mission, dual-use facilities. The blueprint
        shall--
                    (A) identify specific structural and technological
                upgrades necessary to sustain prolonged, multi-domain
                operations in austere environments, predicated on a
                comprehensive cyber-resilience and vulnerability
                assessment of the existing operational technology at
                installations and facilities, with an emphasis on--
                            (i) grid resilience, microgrid integration,
                        and continuous primary power capabilities under
                        extreme environmental degradation;
                            (ii) communications modernization,
                        including secure tactical satellite integration
                        and redundant high-latitude network systems;
                            (iii) hangar, maintenance bay, and cold-
                        storage runway and housing upgrades to handle
                        modern tactical, rotary-wing, and autonomous
                        aerial platforms, and personnel; and
                            (iv) dual-use airfield infrastructure
                        reutilization and expansion of existing runways
                        to accommodate modern military and civilian
                        aircraft; and
                    (B) ensure all proposed command and control (C2)
                and facility infrastructure is engineered to operate
                seamlessly within Denied, Degraded, Intermittent, or
                Limited environments, incorporating resilient closed
                and restricted network architectures.
    (c) Commingling and Private-Sector Leveraging Planning Framework.--
In developing the facility expansion and modernization elements of the
Plan, the Secretary of the Army shall evaluate and identify
opportunities to leverage enhanced use lease (EUL) authorities or enter
into public-private partnerships. The Plan shall--
            (1) include specific strategies to co-locate dual-use
        commercial, community, or telecommunications infrastructure
        within National Guard footprints to lower Federal
        infrastructure cost premiums and enhance installation
        resilience; and
            (2) establish or clarify statutory data-sharing authorities
        and indemnification for the rapid exchange of cyber threat
        intelligence, risk assessments, and incident response data
        between the Department of Defense and the co-located commercial
        entities.
    (d) Direct Funding and Minor Construction Threshold
Recommendations.--The Plan shall include an assessment of funding
mechanisms and potential legislative adjustments required to execute
the infrastructure developments, conversions, and modifications
identified under the Plan, including an evaluation of how the Secretary
may utilize funds available for unspecified minor military construction
under section 2805 of title 10, United States Code.
    (e) Congressional Briefings and Reporting.--
            (1) Initial briefing.--Not later than 180 days after the
        date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Army
        and the Chief of the National Guard Bureau shall provide an
        interim briefing to the congressional defense committees on the
        initial findings of the armory audit and the initial personnel
        recruitment milestones.
            (2) Final report.--Concurrently with the submission of the
        President's budget request for the upcoming fiscal year
        following the completion of the Plan, the Secretary of the Army
        shall submit to the congressional defense committees a formal
        report detailing the finalized strategy.
    (f) Congressional Defense Committees Defined.--In this Act, the
term ``congressional defense committees'' has the meaning given the
term in section 101(a) of title 10, United States Code.
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