The Senate voted Thursday to increase funds for research and treatment of traumatic brain injuries, which has become a much more prevalent injury in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq than it was in previous wars. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced a bipartisan amendment to the Fiscal 2007 defense appropriations bill that would give an additional $12 million to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. (Allen statement and Durbin statement.) The Administration had only requested $7 million, half of what the center got in 2006. The issue still has to be resolved in conference, since the House version of the bill does not contain a similar boost.
The Air Force wants to pump more than $12 billion over the next five years into its new affordable long-range missiles program and recently asked industry to push the flights of some of those munitions beyond 1,200 miles.