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…
