Senate Armed Service Committee

Senate Armed Service Committee

The Senate Armed Service Committee is a merged committee of the Committee on Naval Affairs and the Committee on Military Affairs. The Senate Armed Service Committee is empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military. This includes the Department of Defense, Benefits for members of the military, military research and development, and other matters related to the defense policy. The Senate Armed Service Committee was created after winning the Second World War due to the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946. This act proposed streamlining Congress's cumbersome committee system by reducing the number of standing committees and carefully defining their jurisdictions. It upgraded the staff support for legislators which helped the congressional oversight of executive agencies become stronger.

A special interest group the Senate Armed Service Committee would have is Boeing. Boeing manufactures anything from an air planes to a tanks. The interaction the Senate Armed Services Committee has with Boeing is having Boeing make planes for the Navy and even the Pentagon's P-8A Poseidon aircraft. The Senate Armed Service Committee found out the aircrafts were rigged with illegal Chinese electronic parts and started to investigate Boeing. They later found out that it wasn't Boeings fault and that the supplier they bought parts from was the company smuggling illegal parts from China. To this day the Senate Armed Service Committee uses aircrafts and many other vehicles and electronics made by Boeing.

A department or agency in the executive branch that the Senate Armed Service Committee would interact with is the defense department, also known as the Pentagon. The Pentagon helps purchase new war planes and other vehicles and electronics for the use of the Senate Armed Service Committee to distribute to the branches of armed forces. The Pentagon also works with the Senate Armed Service Committee to come up with defensive strategies for the branches of the armed forces. There are many different sections to the Pentagon that is dedicated to a certain branch of the armed forces and for the chiefs of staff. The Pentagon helps the Senate Armed Service Committee in training all the branches of the armed forces and teaching them defensive strategies, but of course there are army bases and other branches of the armed forces bases all around the world.