[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 116-39]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS HEARING
ON
FISCAL YEAR 2020 BUDGET REQUEST FOR MILITARY READINESS
__________
HEARING HELD
MAY 9, 2019
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
37-515 WASHINGTON : 2020
SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
JOHN GARAMENDI, California, Chairman
TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
ANDY KIM, New Jersey, Vice Chair AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
KENDRA S. HORN, Oklahoma JOE WILSON, South Carolina
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania ROB BISHOP, Utah
JASON CROW, Colorado MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
XOCHITL TORRES SMALL, New Mexico MO BROOKS, Alabama
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
DEBRA A. HAALAND, New Mexico
Brian Garrett, Professional Staff Member
Tom Hawley, Professional Staff Member
Megan Handal, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Garamendi, Hon. John, a Representative from California, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Readiness...................................... 1
Lamborn, Hon. Doug, a Representative from Colorado, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Readiness.............................. 3
WITNESSES
McConville, GEN James C., USA, Vice Chief of Staff of the Army... 4
Moran, ADM William F., USN, Vice Chief of Naval Operations....... 5
Thomas, Gen Gary L., USMC, Assistant Commandant of the Marine
Corps.......................................................... 6
Wilson, Gen Stephen W., USAF, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air
Force.......................................................... 6
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Garamendi, Hon. John......................................... 37
McConville, GEN James C...................................... 39
Moran, ADM William F......................................... 45
Thomas, Gen Gary L........................................... 53
Wilson, Gen Stephen W........................................ 62
Documents Submitted for the Record:
[There were no Documents submitted.]
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Scott.................................................... 73
FISCAL YEAR 2020 BUDGET REQUEST FOR MILITARY READINESS
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Subcommittee on Readiness,
Washington, DC, Thursday, May 9, 2019.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Garamendi
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN GARAMENDI, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
Mr. Garamendi. Good morning. We will now call the Readiness
Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee to order.
Today the subcommittee will hear from the service Vice
Chiefs regarding the state of military readiness and how the
fiscal 2020 operation and maintenance budgets requested support
the military training, weapons systems maintenance, and efforts
to meet full-spectrum readiness and the requirements in
aligning to the National Defense Strategy.
This year, the subcommittee has held events covering a
range of topics, including quarterly readiness report, the
mobility and logistics enterprises, the impacts of climate
change on national security, military family housing, surface
Navy readiness, and the budget requests for military
installations.
Those briefings and hearings have touched on important
issues that affect the military readiness. But I think it is
appropriate that we have witnesses here today to help inform us
on the readiness challenges their individual services face, and
the initiatives that they have in place to mitigate those
challenges, and finally, how the 2020 budget request meets
those efforts and supports those efforts.
For the past several years, we have heard the services
raise concerns about the state of the military's full-spectrum
readiness after more than a decade of focusing on
counterterrorism and counterinsurgency missions. With a 2-year
budget agreement in place and additional resources available to
the Department [of Defense], the fiscal 2018 was touted as the
year to arrest the decline of readiness, and fiscal year 2019
would begin the readiness recovery.
Is it so? Well, that is a question I am sure our witnesses
would want to answer.
I hope that today the witnesses can discuss how these
additional resources have been executed by the Department and
where we have seen readiness and progress in readiness and
areas that still may require additional attention.
As we look to the 2020 budget request, which represents a
significant increase in defense spending, I am concerned that
the Department is once again overly focused on the long-term
readiness that is someday out in the future through their
various modernization programs and is not placing enough
emphasis investing in the near term--that is, next year and
this year--to support the training and sustainment of the
existing weapon systems and the personnel.
For example, the budget request only addresses 94 percent
of the Navy ship depot maintenance requirement and 90 percent
of the Air Force weapons system sustainment and 82 percent of
the Marine Corps ground depot maintenance. I hope that today
our witnesses can explain how their respective services view
the balance between sustainment and modernization and how this
budget request will affect the near-term readiness as their
efforts go forward.
Relating to the budget request, there are a number of
programs and areas that have caught our subcommittee's
attention that impact the readiness of the force. For example,
the GAO [Government Accountability Office] has found that since
2015 nearly 64 percent of the public and private shipyard
availabilities either have been or are expected to be behind
schedule. That obviously affects the Navy and Marine Corps
training and readiness.
The aviation community has shortfalls in pilot and
maintenance personnel, mission capability rates below
standards, and the number of challenges with the operation and
sustainment of that famous F-35 fleet. The continued demand on
Army forces, combined with the lack of sufficient time for home
station training and proper equipment maintenance, challenge
its readiness recoveries.
And did I forget to mention border? I think I did. Hmm.
And of course, climate change presents a myriad of
readiness challenges both at home and abroad. It is not only a
future threat, but it is impacting the resiliency of our
installations and operations today as we have seen all too
sadly at the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Tyndall Air
Force Base and Offutt Air Force Base.
I hope that, gentlemen, you will address how you view these
issues and the actions you are taking or plan to take in an
effort to address them.
Finally, I hope that you will talk about areas where you
are pursuing innovation as a means to improve the delivery of
readiness, for example, things like condition-based maintenance
plus, the adoption of commercial industrial best practices in
supply chain management, additive manufacturing, and the use of
live, virtual, constructive training.
We are interested in how these innovations can improve
efficiency, reduce costs, while supporting a more ready and
capable force.
Mr. Lamborn, it is your turn.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garamendi can be found in
the Appendix on page 37.]
STATEMENT OF HON. DOUG LAMBORN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO,
RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It is fitting that the Readiness Subcommittee's final
budget review hearing before markup is on the vital topic of
military readiness. In short, are the operational units of the
military services prepared to execute their combat missions
when asked?
Put another way, are the Armed Forces of the United States
prepared to fulfill their constitutional duty to provide for
the common defense?
Although a simple question, building effective military
units is an extraordinarily complex task requiring time,
skilled personnel, resources, and maneuver area. I am glad that
senior military leaders are here to provide us their candid
assessment of the state of their respective services.
I welcome our witnesses, the four military service Vice
Chiefs, and note that General McConville has been nominated to
be the Army's Chief of Staff and Admiral Moran has been
nominated to be Chief of Naval Operations.
I wish you both speedy confirmation in the other body. Too
bad we don't have any say in that.
We all recognize that readiness suffered during several
years of underfunding following the 2011 enactment of the
Budget Control Act, as well as constant use of the Armed Forces
for a multitude of missions. Two years ago, the situation began
to improve, starting with an infusion of funds in the spring of
2017, followed by healthy appropriations for fiscal years 2018
and 2019.
All of us would like to understand how this steady funding
has improved readiness with specific examples, what remains to
be done, and what would be the consequences if we fail to
support the level of funding requested in this year's request.
We recognize that readiness is built piece by piece until a
commander is convinced his or her unit has the people,
equipment, and training repetitions necessary to perform the
mission assigned. Naturally our discussion today will
concentrate on specific parts of that equation. Do we have
enough pilots, parts, ammunition, and so on?
It is important to understand in detail how the money
provided has been expended and how it contributes to readiness.
And that is what I will be looking for from each of your
presentations.
As we have those discussions, I ask our witnesses and
colleagues to keep the big picture in mind. What overall
funding, what top-line number must we maintain to ensure that
our troops are trained and ready when called upon?
What do we do as a Congress to provide for the common
defense?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
Mr. Garamendi. I thank you, Mr. Lamborn.
We will now turn to our witnesses.
And as I do, I want to follow on the introductions and the
comments that you made, Mr. Lamborn. We have before us a couple
of gentlemen who are, assuming the Senate agrees, going to take
new jobs.
General McConville, congratulations on your appointment and
passage of the Senate hearing.
And, Admiral Moran, the same. Both of you will, I suspect
very shortly, have new jobs as Chief of Staff and Chief of
Naval Operations.
General Thomas, we thank you for joining us. I am quite
sure that someday we will also carry on as I just did, but at
the moment, welcome, thank you so very much.
And General Wilson, thank you for joining us.
As Vice Chiefs and Assistant Commandant in the Marine Corps
and Vice Chief, we welcome you.
Now let us have at your testimony.
Let us start with General McConville.
STATEMENT OF GEN JAMES C. McCONVILLE, USA, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF
OF THE ARMY
General McConville. Well, good afternoon, Chairman
Garamendi, Ranking Member Lamborn, and distinguished members of
the subcommittee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and also
for your continued support of our Army, our soldiers, families,
and civilians.
The Army remains ready to fight and win our nation's wars.
Currently we have nearly 180,000 soldiers in 140 countries
around the world defending our nation's freedom. Timely,
adequate, predictable, and sustained funding over the last 2
years from all of you has significantly increased the number of
our brigade combat teams at the highest levels. Our
nondeployables have dropped from 15 percent in 2015 to 6
percent today.
In training, we have improved our unit readiness and
lethality by fully funding our home station training and combat
training center rotations. We are increasing our soldiers'
readiness with a new Army combat fitness test and by embedding
physical therapists, strength coaches, dietitians, and
occupational therapists within our units.
In line with the National Defense Strategy, we have shifted
our focus from irregular warfare to great power competition.
And while we have been focused on irregular warfare, our
competitors have been innovating and investing in sophisticated
anti-access and aerial denial systems, enhanced missile
systems, and unmanned capabilities. To maintain overmatch, we
must modernize the Army.
Our modernization efforts include developing the multi-
domains operations concept echelon, executing our six
modernization priorities, and implementing a 21st century
talent management system. The Army has established the Army's
Futures Command and has prioritized resources for our six
modernization priorities, which will enable us to grow Army
readiness for the future.
Army's Futures Command and cross-functional teams will
continue to produce rapid and innovative solutions to make our
soldiers the most lethal warfighters on the battlefield.
Soldiers are our greatest strength and our most important
weapons system. We will continue the modest growth of the Army
and our focus will be on recruiting and retaining high-quality
soldiers.
We are implementing a 21st century talent management system
which will transform our personnel management process from the
industrial age to the information age. The system will maximize
talent within the force and preserve our ability to recruit and
retain soldiers who are ready to meet any challenges now and in
the future.
Thank you for your time and thank for your support of our
men and women in uniform. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General McConville can be found
in the Appendix on page 39.]
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, General.
Admiral Moran.
STATEMENT OF ADM WILLIAM F. MORAN, USN, VICE CHIEF OF NAVAL
OPERATIONS
Admiral Moran. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Lamborn, distinguished members of the committee, for the
opportunity to appear before you to testify about our great
sailors that are employed all over the globe today.
Today we have over 65,000 young men and women serving on
ships at sea and in foreign lands across many parts of the
world, conducting everything from freedom of navigation
operations in the Pacific to planning and delivering combat
operations in the Middle East, supporting NATO [North Atlantic
Treaty Organization] allies in parts of the world like the
Mediterranean, the Baltic, and Black Seas, and building closer
partnerships with whoever is willing to partner with us around
the globe.
Your Navy is confidently meeting these challenges while
preparing for those of tomorrow. However, as this committee
understands, the Armed Forces have maintained a high
operational tempo over the last 18 years. And while the demand
for combat-ready naval forces has remained high, a substantial
backlog in maintenance and modernization has accrued.
Thanks to your continuing support over the past 2 years by
providing stable and predictable funding, we have arrested that
decline in readiness, but we have also found ourselves on a
steady path to recovery in the last year.
But this recovery is fragile and it is perishable. And your
continued support is vital to our success.
The President's fiscal year 2020 budget request sustains
our commitments to readiness, and it reflects a balanced
approach to investments in people, procurement, modernization,
and infrastructure. It provides your sailors with more time at
sea, more time in the air, and more depth on the bench,
everything from ammunition to spare parts to training, and as
important is proficiency of the jobs they have been asked to
do.
With past as a prologue, if we revert back to more
continuing resolutions or go as far as sequestration, the
burden will be carried once again on the backs of our men and
women, both uniformed and civilian, as well as our depot
workers in public and private yards throughout the country.
As you know, today's All-Volunteer Force is a rich blend of
the finest young men and women this country has to offer.
Supported by their dedicated families, they are working hard to
achieve improved readiness for a world that is more complex,
more contested than we have seen in many decades.
And our sailors are keenly aware of their essential place
at this strategic inflection point. They understand that
increased naval strength matters now and far into the future in
order to sustain our way of life in a prosperity and security
of America. It is on their behalf that I thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you and I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Moran can be found in
the Appendix on page 45.]
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Admiral.
General Thomas.
STATEMENT OF GEN GARY L. THOMAS, USMC, ASSISTANT COMMANDANT OF
THE MARINE CORPS
General Thomas. Chairman Garamendi, Ranking Member Lamborn,
and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for
the opportunity to appear before you today.
The Marine Corps is manned, trained, and equipped to be the
world's premier naval expeditionary force. We are ready to
respond to crisis and conflict across a full range of military
operations in every clime and place.
As a member of the Navy and Marine Corps team, we stand
together as part of the contact and blunt layers and the global
operating model forward deployed to deter our adversaries and
able to fight and win should deterrence fail.
To maintain this capability, the Marine Corps requires
sustained, adequate, and predictable funding to achieve
required readiness levels and make prudent investments in
preparation for the future operating environment.
The support of Congress over the past 2 years has played a
key role in allowing the Marine Corps to make significant gains
in readiness and move towards the modernization of the force.
As we approach fiscal year 2020, your continued support
remains critical. Over the last year, Hurricane Florence and
Michael caused massive damage to our facilities at Camp Lejeune
and other places. The effects of these storms will impact
Marine Corps readiness for years to come due to the financial
burden of $3.7 billion in damages.
We greatly appreciate Congress approving our $400 million
reprogramming request, allowing us to begin addressing our most
pressing infrastructure requirements.
Despite these concerns, your Marines will continue to
maximize the precious resources that have been entrusted to us.
With your assistance, we will ensure that the Marine Corps is a
ready, modern force that is prepared for a changing strategic
environment.
I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Thomas can be found in
the Appendix on page 53.]
Mr. Garamendi. General Wilson.
STATEMENT OF GEN STEPHEN W. WILSON, USAF, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF
OF THE AIR FORCE
General Wilson. Chairman Garamendi, Ranking Member Lamborn,
distinguished members of this committee, it is an honor to be
appearing before you with my joint teammates here today.
With my prepared statement in the record, let me briefly
summarize a few things. First and foremost, thank you for your
help. Without it, we would not have been able to move the ball
forward, and we have. We continue to build a more lethal and
ready force while fielding tomorrow's Air Force faster and
smarter.
Air Force-wide readiness is up 17 percent. Our pacing unit
readiness is up 33 percent. Ninety percent of our lead force
packages are ready to fight tonight. All of that was made
possible by your support.
Unfortunately, the weather was not supportive. We have had
devastating impacts at Tyndall Air Force Base and at Offutt Air
Force Base. At Tyndall Air Force Base alone, $4.7 billion
dollars of damage; 95 percent of the facilities were either
destroyed or damaged.
We have covered those costs within our accounts to date,
but that is not supportable. As a result, we are asking for
your help. You are our insurance policy for natural disasters.
We need additional disaster relief support, and we also
need to continue with fiscal order. Without it, 2 years of
steady progress will erode. We can prevent that and protect
America's vital national interests, but again, we need stable,
adequate, and predictable funding.
I urge us to not self-select second place. I know nobody in
that room wants that. Together we can come together and find a
way forward. Thank you for your continued support of all of our
airmen and their families. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of General Wilson can be found in
the Appendix on page 62.]
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, General Wilson. And for--request
unanimous consent of the committee to put the written
statements of the gentlemen in the record. Without objection,
so ordered.
I will now go to questions. And I will lead off here, and
followed by Mr. Lamborn. Then as is the normal, 5 minutes back
and forth across the divide here. There is no divide.
In my opening statement, I expressed concerns about how you
are balancing the planning and programming of modernization
which supports long-term readiness at the expense of funding
sustainment, maintenance, and training in the near term.
Each of your O&M [operations and maintenance] budget
requests appear by the numbers to underinvest in sustainment
when compared to the identified requirement.
Please discuss how this apparent discrepancy is dealt with.
We will begin in the same order.
General McConville, feel free.
General McConville. Yes, Mr. Chairman. And our Secretary
and Chief have determined our number one priority is readiness.
And we have a good historical example of last year, where we
had timely, adequate, predictable, and sustainable funding.
We saw a great improvement in our overall readiness. And
this year, the budget that we asked for is the budget we need.
We have an 8 percent increase in aviation, a 3 percent increase
in ground, and a 3 percent increase in what we are applying to
depots.
And we are going to take a look to make sure that is the
right amount as we go through the year. We will assess that. If
we don't have that correct, we will make adjustments.
Mr. Garamendi. Admiral.
Admiral Moran. Mr. Chairman, a very similar response from
the Navy. We, too, program to what we think is max executable,
so that includes--while the requirement may be very high, the
capacity and capability to achieve that full requirement on a
given year is often in question. It depends on how much backlog
has occurred, especially in ship depot maintenance and issues
like that.
So we have funded it at the highest levels we have in my
memory, and that is due to the support we have received from
Congress and the President in his budget request.
So we are on a good trajectory. And we will assess it early
in the year, and if we need to make adjustments at mid-year, we
will.
Mr. Garamendi. General Thomas.
General Thomas. Chairman, we believe that we have a
reasonable balance in terms of investments vis-a-vis
modernization and readiness.
One of the things that we do is, as all of our teammates
do, is we balance risk across the entire portfolio, but the
measures that we look at is how we are doing in terms of
readiness and as we meet those risk decisions.
And all of our readiness metrics are up. We have specific
service goals that we are striving for, and we anticipate to
meet all those goals in fiscal year 2020.
Mr. Garamendi. General Wilson.
General Wilson. Chairman, just like my teammates here, it
is much the same story as we balance both modernization and
readiness.
First and foremost, we think readiness is about people, and
we have grown the force 24,500 people since 2015. But it is
more than just the people. It is also the equipment, the
training, the support infrastructure, the parts, the depots.
And we think we have the right balance going forward
between near-term readiness and long-term readiness. Because as
you have said, today's readiness is tomorrow's modernization,
and we have got to get that right in the balance.
Mr. Garamendi. All of you produce a quarterly report, and
as I recall, that quarterly report has certain goals and
objectives. Is that correct? So I hear all of you say--nodding
your head yes.
When is the next quarterly report for the current fiscal
year due? Do we call that?
Well, I raised the question because we are going to observe
your quarterly reports. We are going to observe the--every
quarter the goals that you have set, the objectives that you
had set, and should you be falling short in some area, we will
observe it, but we would like to know ahead of time so that if
there is a need for reprogramming or some change along the way,
we can work together to achieve it.
We are intensely interested in your success. And you should
recognize that our interest is one of cooperation, or whatever
else might be necessary, okay?
Admiral Moran, you have an unfunded priority request for
additional funding for submarine and ship maintenance. The USS
Boise----
Admiral Moran. Boise.
Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. Boise, Boise, the city thereof,
has been an issue for quite some time.
Can you discuss why we are now seeing it in your unfunded
list as opposed to it is in the budget request specifically?
Admiral Moran. Sir, in my opening, I discussed the accrual
of ship maintenance over the last decade. And we have begun to
dig our way out of that in both public and private yards.
One of the more challenging areas of this recovery path,
though, has been in our nuclear maintenance, both public and
private.
And our prioritization in going after that maintenance is
for our SSBN [ballistic missile submarine] force for all the
reasons you can imagine, followed by our nuclear aircraft
carriers, and a third priority is our SSN [attack submarine]
force.
Mixed into all that are what we call moored training ships
or submarines. There is two of those that replace our prototype
capabilities in Charleston and in New York. They have taken
priority.
So this is a symptom of those prioritizations kicking the
next guy down in order. And Boise, unfortunately, has been at
the tail end of that for the last 4 years. And we are short
again in this current budget environment depot maintenance and
capacity in the yards to be able to take Boise in. So we have
deferred her until 2020, and we hope to start her at the very
beginning of the fiscal year.
Mr. Garamendi. We have had a discussion about the yards and
the $21 billion over the next 6, 7 years----
Admiral Moran. Twenty-one over twenty, yes, sir.
Mr. Garamendi [continuing]. Twenty-one over twenty to
redesign and repurpose those yards. Again, we would expect to
be updated on a semiannual basis on the success that you are
having in that process.
Also the plans that we have had that discussion last year,
would want to go back and review it again, as those plans have
been updated with regard to the yards. We recognize that there
is a problem in the capacity and also the balance between the
public and the private yards and how you propose to balance
availability in private yards that may have come in the recent
days available, for example, the Philly yard. So if you will
keep that in mind.
I think many other questions. I am going to defer them, and
we will come back on maybe a second round of questions along
the way.
Mr. Lamborn, if you would like to take it up.
Mr. Lamborn. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to have a specific question for General Wilson
and then a general question for everybody on what would be the
effects on readiness if you don't get the funding that you have
asked for.
General Wilson, we know that the Department intends to
create a Space Force/Space Corps within the Department of the
Air Force.
How is that effort progressing? And what do you need from
Congress to help?
General Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Lamborn.
The Air Force has been committed to the Space Force. We
know and our adversaries know we are the best in the world at
space and we are committed to that. So over this last year, we
have been working hard to grow our warfighting aspects of the
Space Force in terms of the training and the development of the
people who make that up.
We are also committed to standing up a United States Space
Command. We have nominated General Jay Raymond to be the
commander of that, and they are anxious to put that forward as
a combatant command.
Mr. Lamborn. An excellent choice.
General Wilson. He's a fantastic airman, and no one more
capable to lead that new command. We are also working to--with
that to look at the steps and where that headquarters would be.
And we are working with Congress on the legislative proposal to
stand up the new independent Space Force, which will be
underneath the United States Air Force.
We think those--we have got a team working inside the
Pentagon with all the sister services to build that Space
Force, and we think that is important moving forward for the
future.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay, thank you. And we stand by ready to help
however we can on that effort.
Now for each one of you, the years following enactment of
the Budget Control Act had a detrimental effect on readiness.
What are the consequences on readiness if the proposed levels
of funding in your budget request are not maintained?
And we will just go down the line here. General McConville.
General McConville. Yes, Congressman. And from the levels,
what we asked for is what we need.
If we went back to a sequestration-type level, it would be
absolutely devastating. All the readiness gains we made would
be lost. We would not be able to modernize the Army. We would
have to reduce the end strength and we would hurt the quality
of life for all our soldiers.
Admiral Moran. Sir, I would completely agree that going
back to sequester levels next year would be devastating on the
force.
Certainly the money and investment we have made in our
yards and our depots hiring people, ship workers, welders,
artisans who take 5 years to build that skill before they are
proficient and effective, in many cases, you lose all that,
because the yards are going to have to--private yards and in
many of your districts are going to have to be laid off. They
are going to have to lay off workers to be able to balance the
difference with canceled avails [maintenance availabilities].
We are talking on the order of 10 to 15 avails that would
have to be canceled or deferred. That is important work. And
again, that backlog of maintenance I talked about that took 10
years to get there and in the last 4 or 5 years of working
really hard to bring that back, we are going to revert back to
where we were.
So that and, of course, naval aviation and improvements in
readiness in the aviation force has really come--hitting stride
here in the last year. And that is due in large part to the
added funding and stable funding that you all have provided.
So going to sequester levels, we are going to have to make
hard choices about the number of people we bring on, the number
of deployments we do or don't do, and the kind of maintenance
we are going to be able to get done.
Thank you.
General Thomas. Congressman, I would echo the comments of
my teammates.
I would just emphasize from a Marine Corps perspective the
readiness gains that we have made over the past 2 years, you
know, a fairly rapid reversal of those gains. You know, we have
talked about the balance between readiness and modernization,
but it would also slow our modernization efforts.
You know, some of our key pieces of equipment are 30 or 40
years old, and we have a plan to address those, but any
reduction in--a significant reduction in funding would
significantly slow those efforts.
And then, finally, our efforts to respond to our hurricane
recovery would be greatly hampered. We would attend to those
most immediate needs. That, of course, would even further
exacerbate some of the other funds that we would use for
training, maintenance of equipment, et cetera.
General Wilson. Congressman, the military has been engaged
almost continuously for almost the last 30 years. No adversary
can do to us what fiscal disorder could do to us.
Going back to budget level BCA [Budget Control Act] caps
and sequestration level would devastate the United States Air
Force. As a point in fact, when we went to sequestration in
2013, we had to find about $7.5 billion.
If we went to sequestration levels again, it would be four
times that. That is the equivalent we would stop flying for the
United States Air Force for the year, and that would only cover
a partial piece of that. We would shut down all the
modernization programs and we would erase every bit of the
gains that we have had in the last 2 years.
So again, I think all of our teammates here would agree
that the most important thing is a predictable, adequate,
stable budget moving forward.
Mr. Lamborn. So it sounds like it wouldn't just be
devastating to our men and women in uniform, but it would send
a horrible signal to potential adversaries that they could make
trouble and we would be in a lesser of a position to respond?
It would be destabilizing? Is that your assessment?
General Wilson. Yes, it would be.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Lamborn.
We are now going to follow the rules and the order. We are
going to go back to the clock. It will be 5 minutes in total,
both Q&A.
And so, gentlemen, if you will keep that in mind, and I
don't need to remind my colleagues here.
Let's see. We have Ms. Torres Small. You get to start us
off.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
General McConville, congratulations on your new post, and
very best of luck as Chief of Staff. My first question is for
you.
New Mexico's Second Congressional District, which I
represent, is home to the Army's White Sands Missile Range and
Test Facility, which is the largest military installation in
the United States, and it allows the Department of Defense and
allied partners to do open-air testing, research, evaluation,
and training.
From a testing perspective, can you discuss the current and
future strategies the Army is implementing to keep testing
costs competitive at White Sands Missile Range?
General McConville. Yes, I can, Congresswoman. As you said,
White Sands is a tremendous testing area. It is a huge
facility. And we are investing in that right now. We have got
to put some new radars in, and some new telemetry-type systems.
The Army's number one priority is long-range precision
fires, so we are going to be doing things that have much longer
range, with future vertical lift, and we need a place to
adequately test them, and we also need to adjust our systems so
we can do the proper tests, and White Sands is going to be one
of those places that we are going to use.
Ms. Torres Small. Great.
Also, what is the Army doing to attract more allied
partners to test at White Sands?
General McConville. Well, one of the things that we are
doing with our partners, both in testing and really in foreign
military sales, is one of the ways we can reduce costs, make
things cheaper, and keep the not only organic industrial base
but the testing base going is working with our partners, so we
have kind of got an effort to do that.
We haven't done a whole bunch of that before, but we are
starting to realize the value in doing those type things.
Ms. Torres Small. Great, thank you.
The next question is for General Wilson. The New Mexico Air
National Guard is the only Guard in the country without an
operational flying mission and one of three States without its
own aircraft. Yet the Air National Guard enterprise is based on
established capstone principles that set the foundational
framework for mission set application throughout the 54 States
and territories.
Specifically, one of these capstone principles is to
allocate at least one unit equipped wing and flying squadron to
each State.
General, you spoke about that readiness is about people,
and I tell you that the people in New Mexico Air National Guard
are hungry for their own aircraft.
Do you believe States that are currently able to align with
these core principles due to divestiture of aircraft in the
past impacts the readiness of the units and the Air Force?
General Wilson. It comes from--obviously, when the Taco
Guard left New Mexico was a big impact, and it was felt. So we
look to match the missions with the Guard units, and we are
committed to working with you moving forward to find the right
mission for New Mexico.
I think--our Secretary was asked about that during
testimony, too, and she committed to that, also. So we are
going to continue to partner with you to make sure we have got
the right mission for the New Mexico Air National Guard moving
forward.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you, General Wilson.
Should these States be given priority for these new mission
opportunities?
General Wilson. Yes, ma'am. We are going to look to see,
again, how do we match that best mission with the people there?
And again, probably some opportunities to look at some Active
partnerships, with local Active units and see where we can do
that. And again, we are committed to working with you moving
forward.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you, General.
This question is also for General McConville. The most
recent estimate provided to Congress indicates that Army
support to the U.S. southern border operations will cost nearly
$100 million in fiscal year 2019 Army operations and
maintenance funds.
Now, each one of you spoke incredibly strongly about the
importance of predictable, adequate funding.
As these operations and the funding requirements were
unplanned, can you please discuss any impacts to Army
readiness?
General McConville. Yes, Congresswoman. Right now we have
2,300 soldiers, title 10 soldiers on the border, about 2,000
National Guard. That is about 4,300, at the--I would say at the
Army level, 1 million, I wouldn't say that is a huge impact on
readiness.
And what we are trying to do to mitigate that is, the
soldiers that are going down to the borders are doing the tasks
they would do most like in the military, so the engineers are
doing engineer work. The aviators are actually flying their
helicopters. The logisticians are doing resupply operation.
We are also trying to limit the time they are down there,
you know, maybe 90 days so they can get back and get back to
their military mission.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you. Please also speak to the
activities being deferred due to this reallocation.
General McConville. Well, we really have not had any major
exercises deployed, as far as what those units were going to be
used for. If you talk to some of the troops, they might have
said they might want to train. But at the Army level, the units
that we are sending to the border did not have another mission
that they are being taken away or a major exercise like a
combat training center rotation by executing the operations on
the border.
Ms. Torres Small. Thank you. I yield my time.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you. I now turn to Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General Wilson, I received your letter--appreciate you
getting that to us in a timely manner--about the action impact
update regarding the steps that you are having to take due to
lack of a supplemental disaster bill storms that hit last year.
If I am correct, you stopped all new work at Tyndall Air
Force Base effective the first of the month. That had to be
stopped. Deferring any recovering efforts at Offutt will have
to start in July. You also created a plan to eliminate more
than 18,000 training flying hours that will start in a few
months, all while attempting to man the current tempo overseas
and potential future engagements overseas.
What impact does the loss of 18,000 flying hours have on
our readiness, our capabilities, and our morale in the Air
Force?
General Wilson. Congressman, you hit the nail on the head
about the importance of additional disaster relief funding.
So currently, as you have mentioned, we stopped new work at
Tyndall. On the 15th of May we are going to stop some of our
depot inputs, which again will have a long-term impact. In June
we will have to start cancelling some of our major exercises.
In July we will stop new work at Offutt Air Force Base. And in
September we think we will have to cut up to 18,000 flying
hours.
Any of that creates a big impact and will ripple through
not just this year, but in the future readiness. And that is
why we have been so insistent upon additional disaster
supplemental funding.
Mr. Scott. General, any time I have seen damage from a
storm, the longer you take to clean that damage up, the worse
it gets. The mold grows. The rot, the other things, it just
gets worse, and it costs you more the longer you wait to repair
it. And then in some cases some things that could be repaired
had it been done in a timely manner now must be totally taken
down and rebuilt.
General Wilson. Congressman, you are exactly right.
So today we just now are moving people out of tents at
Tyndall Air Force Base from a storm that happened in early
October. Realizing that we have had four Category 5 storms hit
the United States in our recorded history, right, and this was
a direct impact to Tyndall and the surrounding community, if
you go there--and people have visited--it looks like a war
zone. Ninety-five percent of the facilities have been damaged
or destroyed.
So we want to bring Tyndall back, and we want to bring
Tyndall back as quickly as we can, and to do that, we are going
to need additional disaster relief support.
Mr. Scott. It looks like a war zone where I live, too.
General Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Scott. Unfortunately for us, it was our crops that were
destroyed, and where I live, if the farmers aren't making
money, nobody is making money.
It is the tax base for the cities, the counties, the school
systems, and the lack of disaster assistance, the lack of
timeliness is going to lead in many cases to bankruptcies,
where that wouldn't have had--that didn't have to happen. The
gamesmanship up here has caused part of that.
General Thomas, before I go to you, I do want to mention
that to date I do not believe the Office of Management and
Budget has submitted a request for disaster assistance for the
storms of 2018.
General Thomas, Camp Lejeune, if I am not mistaken, one-
third of the United States Marine Corps firepower operates out
of Camp Lejeune. And how are things there?
General Thomas. Thank you, Congressman. It is an
operational platform for the United States Marine Corps. It is
one of our major facilities, as you, you know, described. The
$3.7 billion in damage is easy to see. The chairman was down
there. Appreciate the chairman and the ranking member taking a
look at that.
You know, just if I were to paint a picture, and what you
have got is 800 buildings that were severely damaged. Many of
those buildings are old. You know, they are decades old. We
continue to operate in what I would consider a little bit of an
expeditionary environment. I visited the tank battalion. I saw
a young Marine sitting at a desk where the wall was open to the
outside air.
We have an aircrew doing their mission planning, you know,
in the hangar, you know, a place where they can guarantee it is
dry. You know, Marines do what you would expect Marines,
soldiers, sailors, and airmen to do. They have cleaned up. It
is neat. But when it rains, you know, all those buildings are
covered in water.
So it has a significant impact on us. And I think as we go
forward without additional relief what we are going to be
forced to do is take some of those funds from our training,
maintenance of equipment, and infrastructure elsewhere in the
Corps to address the problem.
Mr. Scott. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired, but I do want
to--you know, the last hopeful report I saw was maybe by
Memorial Day. You know, this is ridiculous. I mean, it is not
your fault. I would tell you that any additional assistance
that you can give us and getting the public the information
about the damage that is being done by Congress and the White
House not being--not getting a disaster relief bill done I
think would help you get this done sooner rather than later.
And I think the difference in getting it done next week and
getting it done at Memorial Day or after Memorial Day is huge.
And so I appreciate your service. I have to step to another
committee meeting, but I look forward to being part of the
solution.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Scott, thank you. You are consistently
banging this drum, and appropriately so.
Mr. Lamborn and I did have the opportunity to visit both
Cherry Point as well as Camp Lejeune. The members of the
committee--it is my intention this month to visit Tyndall. And
I would welcome any members of the committee that would want to
join on that, date to be determined. So we will try to figure
out when we might be able to accomplish that.
I would just--I will forego the opportunity to make
additional comments on this. I think the gentleman--I think
many of the team here is aware. I will point out that the House
is now reprocessing--or processing once again an emergency
disaster appropriation bill. The Senate has not moved it.
The House bill will be similar with some modifications,
particularly dealing with the two issues that have been put
forth here with Lejeune and Tyndall and Offutt and Cherry
Point. That is in process, and perhaps that will cause the
Senate to get a little more active or complete its task.
I now turn to Ms. Houlahan.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you,
gentlemen, for being here today. My questions are--the first
set of questions for General McConville have to do with the
Chinook Block II upgrade, which is part of my community. I am
just outside of Philadelphia.
And I have asked other senior Army officers and leaders
about this decision recently to pull back on that Block II
upgrade in this coming fiscal year's budget. And I would like
to have a three-part question for you today that has to do with
the impact on that decision in terms of readiness.
So if the Chinooks that are currently in service are not
replaced with the Block IIs, as is the proposed solution right
now, what is the plan for sustaining them in that fleet into
the 2030s and 2040s?
So that is my first question.
Do you want me to give them one at a time or would you
prefer me to give them all together?
General McConville. Congressman, whichever way you want, I
can do.
Ms. Houlahan. So maybe it would be best to do it all at one
time in case they fold into one another. And so should we
expect to see increased funding for the Chinook sustainment in
next year's budget and beyond? And reflecting that decision not
to pursue the Block II procurement strategy.
And the third question has to do with sort of supply chain
issues. I am a supply chain person and an entrepreneur myself.
And when you make decisions like this decision to no longer
fund the Block II upgrades, you have made decisions down the
chain, the supply chain, as well.
Do you anticipate that there will be any supply chain
implications, small businesses or suppliers going out of
business? And what would be the plan if that were the case to
make sure that you could sustain the existing fleet?
General McConville. Yes, Congresswoman. And in fact, we
just met with Boeing on that very same issue. I am very, very
concerned about the organic industrial base, the ability to
maintain that capability.
What the Army right now is committed to doing is we are
buying CH-47 Foxes and Block IIs for our special operations
regiments. So that is going to start--they will be converted to
Golfs.
And the other thing we are working with--and this gets back
to my earlier answer about foreign military sales--we are
working with our partners. We think the CH-47 Foxtrot is a
great aircraft. The Secretary and the Chief had to make some
tough decisions as far as modernization.
We want to produce the future attack reconnaissance
aircraft along with the future long-range assault aircraft,
which Boeing is competing for, and what we want to do is keep
the line going for the next couple of years and then we will be
in a position to make a decision on how we--either do we recap
Block I's or Block II's? Do we sustain them or do we come up
with a new way of doing that mission in the future?
Ms. Houlahan. And what do you think, if any, of the
implications of that decision are for downstream suppliers?
General McConville. Well, I think--I would hope that they
look at that is the future. I mean, what we are doing right now
is we are kind of in the place of where we were in in the
1970s, coming out of Vietnam, and we had a thing called the big
five, where we came up with the Abrams tank, the Bradley, the
Apache helicopter, the Black Hawk, and the Patriot. We see the
same thing right now.
So what we are recommending to industry is listen to what
we are saying, produce these aircrafts, compete for these new
systems that come in place, and that is what is going to drive
the subs and everything else for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you. I certainly hope so. With the
remainder of my time, this question is for anyone who would
like to weigh in. On April the 26th of this year, the CMO
[Chief Management Officer] of the DOD [Department of Defense]
published a report on the reforming of the business operations
of DOD.
And in the report it specifically addressed our need to
reduce delays in recruiting of civilians, which can result in
managers substituting more expensive military or contractor
personnel in place of less costly contractors.
In addition to that budget effect of this substitution,
what happens when a military service member is working outside
of their specialty for which they were trained and are
performing a civilian job function? And what are the effects of
this substitution on the force as it relates to retention? This
question is for any of you.
General Wilson. Congresswoman, let me jump in on that.
Getting the right force and getting them onboarded fast is one
of those things that we have got to compete and win it for. If
we compete with--we can't compete on money, so we are competing
on mission and talent. So we have to have a way to bring people
on board fast, and not doing so just hurts us in the long run.
Once we get them on board, if we get them the right
clearances and things, we find that they are really empowered,
they like what they are doing, they are doing things that they
can't do anywhere else, specifically in the cyber workforce. So
we have to be able to continue to do that.
And I would also ask that we look for, how do we make it
permeable so in the future somebody--the basic questions we ask
them, do you want to be full-time or part-time, do you want to
be in uniform or civilian, and find a way that people can work
in the government, maybe go back to industry, spend time in
industry, and then decide, you know what, I liked what I was
doing back in government, and be able to come back in quickly
and easily with their security clearance. And I think that
would be very helpful moving forward.
Ms. Houlahan. I would love it if we might be able to get
some information or data from you guys later on about how
frequently this is occurring, where we are substituting
military personnel in for civilian jobs. Thank you. I yield
back.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Ms. Houlahan.
Mr. Brooks.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
General McConville, in your written testimony you mentioned
the, quote, recent surge in enemy ballistic missile,
hypersonic, cruise missile, and unmanned aircraft capabilities,
end quote. How will efforts that increase the ability of
systems to communicate with each other, such as integrated air
and missile defense battle command system, address this
changing threat environment and improve Army readiness?
General McConville. Yes, Congressman. I think, you know, as
we move into great power competition, where we will be
contested in every single domain--and by domain I mean on the
land, in the sea, in the air, in space, in cyber--we must have
systems--and IBCS [Integrated Battle Command System], we are
looking forward to getting that in the hands of our soldiers,
because what that is going to do is it is going to tie together
different shooters that can actually take those missiles or air
systems down that are protecting our soldiers with the sensors.
So we are looking forward to getting that into the hands of
our soldiers and moving ahead on that system.
Mr. Brooks. Thank you. In the time that remains, Admiral
Moran, General Thomas, and General Wilson, clearly increasing
interoperability and communication between sensor platforms
such as radars, fires, and command and control is not a
challenge for the Army alone. Will each of you please speak to
the efforts your organizations are making to meet this
challenge? And we will start with Admiral Moran and work our
way across.
Admiral Moran. Congressman, thanks for the question. I
think we--the four of us talk about this all the time. We have
got our folks working at multiple levels in each of our
organizations collaboratively together to solve this. None of
us want to spend money on something somebody else is already
fixing, so it is to our benefit to collaborate with our sister
services to make sure that we are taking full advantage.
We know we are going to fight in the future just like we
are today, as a joint force. And in the environment you just
described, speed is important, speed of decision, speed of
orientation, all important, and we are going to have to do this
together, so we have got to be able to put a system together
that can talk to each other without interruption.
Mr. Brooks. General Thomas.
General Thomas. Congressman, a key aspect of this
discussion is standards and making sure that those standards
are agreed upon across all the services. We think that we are
making significant progress in those areas.
And then when you enter the acquisition process, you know
that whatever you are building is not a stovepipe. I don't want
to be Pollyannaish. I think there is a long way to go. But I
think in terms of the discussions across the services, it is
also--I think we have made progress in that area.
And the last thing I would say is, you know, this is a key
aspect of our CONOPs [concept of operations] in a great power
competition. So this is something that we have to get correct.
Mr. Brooks. General Wilson.
General Wilson. All my battle buddies here--and I talk
about this all the time, too--it is something that is vitally
important in the future, because this is what is going to win
in a future fight. It is beyond the technology and the
warfighting concept. It has to connect in the command and
control.
So any platform, any sensor, we have to be able to connect,
share, and learn. And so we are working that--all the service
secretaries have signed memos that said anything we build new
has to be the same standard.
We have got teams working together. For example, we will
have a partnership to stop talking about this and admiring the
problem and make it real, going out to Nellis Air Force Base,
to the Shadow Ops [Operations] Center, to bring together a team
with the right developers, with the right joint teammates, with
DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], with
industry, to be able to get after this problem, because this is
our asymmetric advantage. This will be the thing that makes the
United States win in the future.
Mr. Brooks. Generals, Admiral, thank you for your service.
And Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Brooks.
We now turn to Ms. Escobar.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you so much not just for your testimony
today, but for your service. I am very, very grateful.
I represent El Paso, Texas, home of Fort Bliss and the
Texas 16th Congressional District. So I would like to ask you
about something that is a priority for my district. And this
question goes to General McConville.
As you know, Fort Bliss makes a major contribution to
readiness as one of just two active mobilization force
generation installations [MFGIs] for the Army. We support key
mobilization capabilities for regular and contingency
operations, for units and individuals, and we are the only
installation conducting the CONUS [continental United States]
replacement center mission, which supports missions across five
continents.
Fort Bliss leadership has identified railyard improvements
as a key readiness initiative and a necessary upgrade to
support the MFGI mission. I was very disappointed to see that
it didn't make the cut in the fiscal year 2020 budget.
As we look ahead and considering the importance of being
able to rapidly mobilize personnel and equipment when
prepositioned stock are not available, it is clear we need to
invest today to be ready for the conflicts of tomorrow,
something you all have been saying over and over again.
What risks do we take by not beginning this work in fiscal
year 2020? When can we expect to see progress on this critical
project, do you think?
General McConville. Yes, Congresswoman. And you know, the
point you make about the importance of railyards and the
ability to get critical equipment to the ports is the way we
pretty much deploy the United States Army, especially with an
organization that has those critical capabilities. And not
having a modernized railyard slows down the deployment
capability. Certainly, you know, that is not stopping them from
deploying, but they certainly can do it better.
You know, for us, it is a matter of priorities. We have to
take a look at all the priorities that come in. We have other
places and other forts that have the same concerns. And we go
through a process to take a look at, what organization needs it
the most at the time, giving the funds that we got? And we make
that decision. So that will be in the decision-making process.
We will take a hard look at that and provide you some feedback
over the next year.
Ms. Escobar. I appreciate that. Between training and
mobilization, Fort Bliss interacts with units from every single
U.S. State and territory, as you know. So----
General McConville. It is a wonderful place.
Ms. Escobar. It is. It is fantastic. So to my next
question, to General Wilson and General Thomas, this is about
resiliency. I know that many of my colleagues on this committee
are closely tracking repairs and recovery at Tyndall Air Force
Base and Camp Lejeune. I mean, I know that that is a key
priority for all of us. We stand with you. You have our
support.
But I want to know going forward, because I am very, very
concerned about what I believe is an existential crisis with
climate change, how can we best plan proactively to protect our
military personnel and resources from the challenges that come
from climate change? Is resilience planning required? And
standardization, should that be required, as well, across all
installations? Would love to know your thoughts.
General Wilson. Yes, Congresswoman, there is no safe place
for weather. If we look at this last year, we had earthquakes,
we had forest fires, we had tornadoes, we had flooding, we had
hurricanes. We have to plan for resilience at our bases.
Our bases are our warfighting power projection platform.
And so we need to look at the requirements. We need to make
sure we have got resiliency built in. And we also have to--to
use Tyndall as an example--use that as an opportunity to design
the base of the future, with the right infrastructure and the
right resiliency built into it. And we need to do that broadly
across all of our bases and infrastructure.
General Thomas. Congresswoman, one of the things that we
have seen as we have kind of gone through this last several
months is just the importance of making sure that our buildings
are up to modern code. What we saw again in the 800 buildings
that were damaged at Camp Lejeune, the newer buildings that
were up to code did pretty well. It is the older buildings that
suffered the most damage. And so that is a key aspect of it.
I think also within the footprint of the base itself, we
have got to look at where we are placing, you know, new
buildings, if water levels are at a certain area, to mitigate
that.
And then, you know, at a strategic look, we look across all
of our bases across the entire portfolio and making sure that
we are postured for the next 50 years. And so that is a
discussion that is ongoing, as well.
Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Ms. Escobar.
Gentlemen, I will come back to this issue in the second
round of questions. I now turn to Mr. Bergman.
Mr. Bergman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And congratulations, General McConville and Admiral Moran.
Looks like within the next few months we are going to have
three new heads of services, with General Berger coming in as
the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and I guess within a year
after that, the Air Force will have a new Chief of Staff, as
well. So literally within the next 12 to 14 months, four new
heads of services.
Like anything, when you are coming in, I am telling you
what you already know, when you come in as the new Chief, you
get to make your mark. That is the way it works historically.
You all have done great. We talk about readiness, unit
readiness, equipment readiness, personnel readiness, family
readiness. Some things are finite, time and money, okay?
And the point is, I would like you all to take this for the
record, not to be answered now, because as we and our committee
sit here and try to figure out and decipher the budgets, you
know, the programs that you send to us, it is important to see
where we need to fund warfighting readiness at all levels.
The challenge that we all have as organizations is where do
we stop putting O&M dollars into areas that either are legacy,
but probably more important bureaucratic processes--anybody
remember DIMHRS [Defense Integrated Military Human Resources
System]? Okay, we can all smile at that, because the point is,
as we look at the technological side of how you are going to
run your service, we have an opportunity here under your
command, I believe, to make the bureaucratic administrative
changes necessary that is going to allow us to leverage those
finite dollars so then you can have more money to put where you
know you need it, okay?
And this is a little bit of a challenge, but it is an
opportunity I think that we have right now to do this, because
what that does--let's face it, what is our goal in warfighting?
Well, it is to win, but the ideal goal is to make sure our
potential adversaries don't engage us in the first place
because they know they are going to lose.
And for us to be able to show that we are looking at how we
fight our wars from a 360-degree perspective, and that is
taking those dollars that maybe went down an administrative
hole and we put them into ammunition, that sends a real strong
signal as to how we are moving forward.
So I guess I would just say, we will be your partners. You
know, one of the leadership of the subcommittee here in
readiness is how we evaluate that, but I believe we are going
to have an opportunity here to move forward on showing where we
can, again, decrease some of the spending.
And it is not necessarily wasteful. It is just kind of
unintended consequences, because we have been doing it this way
for so long. So I guess this is more of a statement than asking
questions, but I would--if you could for the record--sometime
in the next month or so--give this committee an example of
where you did it jointly or within your service of cutting some
behind-the-times bureaucratic administrative costs, that you
said, no, we looked at this and we said, nope, we are not going
to spend money on this before.
This would I believe be helpful for the committee. So with
that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Bergman. A very good
question. And we will expect to get that answer, certainly pass
it around to the members of the committee.
Ms. Haaland, I notice you are here. Your turn, thank you.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you very much, Chairman.
My first question is for General Wilson. And I just wanted
to follow up on a question that my colleague, Ms. Torres Small,
asked earlier. And so it is, are there opportunities within the
existing budget request to achieve this capstone principle of
allocating at least one unit equipped wing and flying squadron
in each of the 54?
General Wilson. Congresswoman, we will certainly look into
what is in the art of the possible, working with New Mexico
moving forward.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you so much. And my next question, I
think it--like each one of you can answer this. It has to do
with energy, resiliency, and renewables. The Defense Science
Board Task Force on Survivable Logistics made recommendations
on the urgent need to modernize our military's joint logistics
enterprise. They recommended that the military departments
focus any RTD&E [research, testing, development, and
evaluation] funds on fuel demand reduction, local generation of
electricity, increasing battery storage, and decreasing battery
weight, and to establish a logistics RTD&E board to synchronize
RTD&E investments in these spaces.
Do you plan to implement this recommendation? And would the
services benefit from more coordination across the services?
And we can start and go down the line.
General McConville. Yes, Congresswoman. We understand the
importance of energy conservation. You mentioned batteries. And
I need to go out to Fort Carson, Colorado, which I did not know
until I started taking a look at this, but we have supposedly
the biggest battery in the Federal service. And there is a huge
battery that we are using out there that is helping us give
energy resilience. It is also helping us work with the private
company out there to reduce the spikes in energy.
So we are getting resilience, and we are also getting some
savings, and we are also helping them out as far as spikes go.
So we are looking for those type of things along with what
everyone else is doing to get more energy-efficient buildings
that are resilient and also save energy.
And just one final idea, as we build new systems, we are
doing an improved turbine engine program, and we are getting
efficiencies to that. We are getting, you know, a lot better
horsepower out of the ends, but we are also getting better
utilization of energy to power those engines.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
Admiral Moran. I would say the same for the Navy in terms
of infrastructure. As we put new buildings out, we replace
housing units, there is a lot of opportunity there in the
energy savings.
But on a broader operational front, I would say that for
the Navy, we have a great interest in trying to be energy
efficient so that we have to refuel less, whether we are
talking about aircraft or we are talking about ships. So
looking at hybrid electric, integrated electric drives that
don't rely as much on fuel, especially when we are in places
where we don't have to move at high speed.
Ms. Haaland. Excellent.
General Thomas. Congresswoman, I would, like my colleagues,
emphasize the importance of when we are looking at
infrastructure across our bases, any times we are building
something new, there is tremendous opportunity to employ energy
efficiency technologies. And we are seeing that across all of
our bases.
But there is the operational aspect, as well. Admiral Moran
talked about from a Navy perspective. From a Marine
perspective, you talk about fuel. That is weight. So we are
looking for opportunities to have to carry less stuff. And so
to the extent that we can operationalize that, that is what we
are trying to do.
And we have actually been doing that over the past--with
our joint teammates, we have an expeditionary energy office
that looks at things of that nature, and we have--we have had
some success over the past 15 years in Iraq and Afghanistan
employing those technologies.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you.
General Wilson. Congresswoman, I would say it is much the
same for all the infrastructure. We are also working on those
things that they have talked about, whether it be adaptive
engines to give us better fuel efficiency, whether it be
wingtips, winglets on the engines or the wings of the airplane
to give us, some around the fuselage.
We are looking at software that helps us predict and plan
our routes to be more fuel-efficient. So we are looking across
the gamut. We know how important energy is to all of us, and we
are trying to find all those savings that we can.
Ms. Haaland. Thank you. Thank you so much. And, Chairman, I
will yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Garamendi. Thank you. I now turn to Ms. Horn.
Ms. Horn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for
being here today.
General Wilson, I want to start with you. I represent
Oklahoma's Fifth Congressional District, which as I am sure you
know is adjacent to Tinker Air Force Base. And when we are
talking readiness, we can't do so really without talking about
the critical piece that our depots play.
And as Tinker works with aging airframes, from the KC-135
the B-1, the B-52, and many other critical components, it is
also an economic engine as well as a support to our forces
across the Air Force and their readiness.
So I want to ask you about issues surrounding the overall
facilities. There was a GAO report about military depots and
actions needed, entitled Military Depots, Actions Needed to
Improve Poor Conditions of Facilities and Equipment That Affect
Maintenance, Timeliness, and Efficiency.
And in that report, it specifically mentioned the repair of
equipment at Tinker being poor and exceeding its useful life.
So with that in mind, what is the Air Force doing specifically
to address this problem in both the short and the long term?
And what is the strategy for addressing the--what it estimates
is $104 million backlog restoration at Tinker?
General Wilson. Yes, Congresswoman, you are correct in that
our depots are critical to our warfighting capability moving
forward, specifically Tinker.
I would say we work closely with the GAO and we agree with
lots of things.
Let me maybe nuance the part. Certainly the facilities are
important, and we have work to do to improve those, but besides
the facilities, it is also the people that work there, the
equipment there, and in our case we are dealing with airplanes
that are often way past their design life.
So when I bring in a KC-135 that is, you know, over 50
years old, we are finding things that we have never found
before.
So it is important that we have all those pieces not only
from the facilities, but the people and the equipment, and then
that we are looking at all the processes we can to speed up the
depot throughput.
We think we have seen some improvements to that, that we
have done some blue suit maintenance and some work with our
processes. And we have done it now 30 percent faster than we
have done it under the contractors before.
But it is an ecosystem that supports the depots. Again, it
is the facilities, but beyond the facilities, it is the people,
the equipment, the parts, and the process that is supported.
Ms. Horn. Absolutely. And the chairman and ranking member
visited me at Tinker. We toured the facilities. And they are
absolutely to their credit doing amazing work at Tinker, both
the civilians as well as our uniformed service members.
And the efficiencies that they have been able to put into
place in the maintenance of these KC-135s and other aircraft
are really phenomenal. And I think it is important to note that
they have increased the speed of the turnover by 40 percent at
half the cost of recent industry contract proposals. So that is
really important.
But I also want to visit a question that some of my
colleagues have touched on about the industrial base, because
one of the challenges that Tinker and I am sure other depots
are facing right now with the maintenance of aircraft that are
60-plus years old, they are finding things that are breaking,
as you said, in new ways. And the inability of--or sometimes
the absence of OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and the
parts, the work that is being done there at the Rapid
Sustainment Office to fill those gaps is really critical.
So next step is my question is, what additionally is the
Air Force doing to encourage the industrial base and the small
or smaller contractors to fill these holes?
General Wilson. It is a great--we just met as an example in
New York City with small businesses and in one day awarded 51
contracts to small businesses, where they came in, they gave a
pitch, they had a one-page contract, and they were on business
with United States Air Force.
We are trying to knock down all the barriers to doing
business with small business, which is all across of our
country. As a tagline that I thought was fantastic, one of the
small businesses says it is easier and faster to do business
with the United States Air Force than it is to get a beer in
New York City, right? That is a good testament to what we are
trying to do as we build and modernize the force faster and
smarter.
And we realize that all of our--it is vitally important to
our nation to have this industrial capability, and we are going
to need all hands on deck to be able to do that.
Ms. Horn. Thank you. Yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Garamendi. We are going to do a second round. So if you
have got to go, you have got to go, but you can have another
shot.
I want to thank our members for raising a whole series of
really critical issues. And each time they spoke, I started
adding to my list, so we are good for about another 3 hours.
Can you gentlemen stay with us?
With regard to the question of the industrial supply base,
last year, in our wisdom, we created a program called--section
846 of the, I think, 2019 NDAA [National Defense Authorization
Act]. It is called the Defense Manufacturing Community Support
Program. I am sure you four gentlemen are very much aware of
this. I became aware of it about an hour and a half ago, not
that I had read every line of last year's NDAA.
It has not been funded. It is in appropriation. It is
specifically designed to address the problem that we saw at
Tinker, that is the major contractors have given up providing
the parts necessary for the 135 and other legacy platforms.
This may be a solution in bringing into the industrial supply
base new manufacturers, small manufacturers, and the like.
I was looking to trying to put $50 million into the
appropriation bill to fund this program so these gentlemen and
their services can make use of this outreach that occurs. It
also was tied into a tax bill that provides certain tax credits
for certain parts of America that are in economic distress.
So I will leave that one to you. Here is a note for you.
And for you gentlemen, we will get the same thing.
The other thing has to do with the issues that were raised
by my colleagues here, the energy issue. It is in the law. It
has been there for, I think, about 5 years now. This committee
will press you hard on that, looking for resiliency on the
base, base energy resiliency, and energy reduction.
We don't need to talk about climate change. We need to talk
about energy reduction, cost savings, and the like. All of you
talked about some of the things that you are doing, good. You
might consider some of those gas guzzlers that run around on
your bases. They could be electric cars. Many, many things,
energy conservation, all of that.
That ties back to what I have shared with everybody that
cared to listen, and that is that the building codes going
forward are going to be--we are going to try to make them the
strictest in the nation with regard to sustainability, wind,
earthquake, fire, and energy conservation. So be aware of that.
In this year's NDAA and appropriations, previous years'
military construction programs are going to be funded. We
believe that many of those are not built to the highest
standard or to modern today standards. They are designed for
yesterday's standards. I would ask each of the services to look
at those specific programs and military construction programs.
And in the normal process of design change and construction
changes that occur, it may be appropriate and possible to
improve the energy resilience, conservation, wind, and so
forth, with very little additional cost, if any. It might just
be a simple additional screw that is put into the rafter.
So if you will take a look at that, keep that in mind. We
don't want to change the design plan, but I have been through
enough construction over the years to know that there has never
been a construction project that didn't have changes along the
way. And so keep that in mind, and we will help you by
providing some language in the NDAA so that you are reminded.
With regard to Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point, as well as
Tyndall and Offutt, I shared this with the services, your plans
must be presented to us on how you are going to address the
risk at that base. It may be flooding. We have talked about
this at Camp Lejeune and Cherry. We didn't pick up and you
didn't mention Parris Island. We have to add that discussion.
With regard to Tyndall, you have given us a preliminary
report on what might be there. I looked at it, and it looked to
me like you are building right back where you were. I hope that
is not the case.
It appears that a good many of the buildings at Tyndall are
on the beachfront, or at least the front of the waterway there.
Storm surge is going to happen. Another Category 5--there may
have been five in the last century; there are certainly going
to be five in the next. There are going to be Category 5
hurricanes in that area, and I want to, as you said, but did
not put in your plan, General Wilson, at least what you have
given to us, the relocation of facilities away from the most
harmful and most likely area to be harmed.
We are going to look at that very carefully. We are going
to scrub it. You are going to scrub it first. We will look at
it. If you go back and build where it was destroyed, you better
be able to tell us there is absolutely no other place, and then
you better build it for the worst possible case, similarly.
And for the rest of you, one of our colleagues talks about
base access roads. I suggested maybe waders would suffice at
Norfolk and we can save some money. Admiral Moran, you got a
problem, you know it. Not only there, but other places. Sea
level rise is real. And the Army, we can probably find
someplace where you have got a similar problem.
So, please, keep in mind that this committee is going to
want to build for the next 70 years. And we are going to assume
the worst possible thing to happen. Don't want to pick on the
Marines, but there is going to be a fire at Pendleton and it
right now could probably take out your housing program, too,
and probably some other things. And I am sure the rest of you
have similar circumstances.
So that is heads up. We are going to watch it closely. We
will put language in to encourage you to do it, and we will
follow along on that.
One final point, and that is my current thing that just
wakes me up--it doesn't wake me up, doesn't put me to sleep,
either, but during the day I ponder--there was a billion
dollars of unused money in the Department of Defense 2 months
ago. It was in the Army personnel account. For whatever
reasons, you didn't meet your recruiting, didn't spend the
money, it was sitting there, a billion dollars.
By most accounts, it was somewhere, $1,150,000,000 of
immediate expense to just clean up Cherry Point, Lejeune, and
Tyndall. That billion dollars was used to build a fence on the
border, not for the needs of the military, even though the
money was already in the military. I know how it was done,
transferred the money over to a counternarcotics program which
has the authority to build facilities to stop narcotics. That
is a game that made this chairman very, very angry.
Now, your job is to take an order and salute and get it
done. It is not you. This is a message for the service
secretaries that didn't say one word of opposition when you,
General Wilson and the Air Force, were in desperate need of
money to clean up a terrible disaster that happened at your
bases. The same for you, General Thomas.
So we are short of a billion dollars. Presumably we will
have a fence someplace.
The question for this nation is, is that fence more
important than Tyndall Air Force Base getting back under
operation and Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point?
I don't expect you gentlemen to answer, but I want that
message to be on everybody's mind, because the next brick is
going to fall. And it is going to fall this Friday, by all
accounts. And that is the existing military construction budget
that may be whacked for $4 billion of programs that are thought
by every one of your services to be the highest priority. They
have been scrubbed and reviewed by not only your services, but
by the Appropriations Committee in both Houses and the
authorizing committees in both Houses, and found to be
necessary.
About $4 billion of projects may be taken out of your
services. We will be expected to backfill it. Where the money
is going to come from isn't known yet, but there is a limit for
the amount of money that is available, and it is going to come
from something in the Department of Defense.
So maybe it will come from, I don't know, fuel for your
airplanes. I don't know.
So we have got to be aware of what is going on here. And
this is a very serious problem for the nation's defense. And I
don't know when you are going to get the--General Wilson, when
you are going to get an emergency appropriation bill. It is
locked up in the Senate. As I said earlier, we are going to try
to push something again through this House, maybe get things
moving, maybe not.
But you just said it is a critical problem for the
readiness of the U.S. Air Force, and I am sure it is for the
Marines, also. There are consequences to stupid decisions that
have been made. And the consequence here is the nation's
security. So just be aware that as chairman of this committee,
I am watching this closely. I am very, very concerned about
what the long-term and short-term readiness implications will
be.
I don't know if I asked you guys a question. I guess I made
some comments. But be aware that on all of these matters we
will be paying very, very close attention to it.
Mr. Lamborn, if you have another question, it is your turn.
Mr. Lamborn. Yes, thank you.
I do have a couple of specific questions, although let me
in response to what you just elaborated on, I want to say that
there is another side of the story. Many of us do feel that the
situation at the southern border is also a national security
issue. It is Homeland Security, not DOD. However it is a very
important issue.
I would not use the word stupid myself. I would say that
there are well-considered arguments actually in favor of
beefing up the southern border. But we are not going to get
into that here.
What I would like to get into here, though, I have a couple
of specific questions, but before I ask those easy specific
questions, could you all talk about prepositioned stocks?
How is the stockpile that you are concerned about? And what
does Congress need to do to make sure that that is at 100
percent?
General McConville. Congressman, I will go ahead and start.
And first of all, prepositioned stocks are absolutely
critical for the United States Army. You know, we have a
concept of dynamic force employment, which allows us to quickly
move forces around the globe, and by having those prepositioned
stocks, we can quickly follow-on equipment, but if the
equipment is not ready to go, if the ammunition is not there,
if all the logistics are not there, it really doesn't
accomplish the mission that we want to do.
The funding we have had over the last 2 years has really
significantly improved that. We have put significant amounts
into all our prepositioned stocks, and we are at a much higher
rate of readiness because of that.
Admiral Moran. Congressman, same for the Navy. We are
taking a hard look at our logistics network to include PREPO
[prepositioning]. It is old. It needs replacement. And we are
working on some--we are working on some opportunities to change
that, working with this body, Congress, to help us have the
authorities to do what we need to get a more modern force that
can resupply the force.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay.
General Thomas. Congressman, we are very grateful for the
support that we have gotten from Congress to help us get our
prepositioned stocks where they need to be. From a Marine Corps
perspective, places like Norway, and then munitions as a part
of the Department of the Navy.
As we look forward, and, you know, posture going forward
for the joint force, you know, I think that prepositioned
stocks is going to only become more important.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. But do you feel that the Marine
prepositioned stocks are up to snuff?
General Thomas. They are right now, yes.
General Wilson. Congressman, it is the same thing for the
Air Force. We appreciate Congress' support to give us the
funding to be able to do that, to be able to support
prepositioned both in Europe and the Pacific. And we have
increased our stocks across the board, and including munitions.
Mr. Lamborn. All right. Okay, thank you.
General McConville, can you tell me about synthetic
training environment? That is something I don't really know a
lot about, I will admit, and I would like to know more about
it.
General McConville. Yes, Congressman.
We are really excited about the synthetic training
environment. I would equate it to virtual reality training.
And in fact, we are putting a system in place--we are
calling it the integrated visual augmentation system. What it
is going to allow our soldiers to do is to go into virtual
reality and train on a mission that they are about ready to
accomplish, and what that allows them to do is do 30, 40
repetitions of that actual mission.
And it is virtual. It is real. And they can practice, they
can rehearse, they can hit the sled a whole bunch of times, and
then they could actually take the same equipment we are
developing and go and execute the mission.
Mr. Lamborn. Well, you and I are going to have to go
through that, experience that firsthand.
General McConville. No. We do--this is cutting-edge
technology. It is going to transform the way we train soldiers
and the way soldiers operate in combat. We are excited about
it.
Mr. Lamborn. I am excited, too.
General Wilson. Congressman, I will jump onto that, because
we are using the same thing, for example, in pilot training
next, where we are using today's state-of-the-art technology
and we are finding that we can produce pilots quicker and
actually better. We have our first couple classes underway, and
the results are astounding.
Mr. Lamborn. How is it different than the old simulator
approach to training?
General Wilson. Well, it actually takes it to the next
level. So if you were to go to--we have got one in Austin to be
able to do this. You put on virtual reality goggles. It is
basically looking at your eye movement. You are able to do
multiple repetitions.
It is not expensive to do this. And again, students can go
through hundreds of reps, where before they couldn't do that.
So it is really reducing the amount of time it takes to train
folks.
Mr. Lamborn. Critical--yes, Admiral, did you want to----
Admiral Moran. I will just piggyback on what General Wilson
just commented on. The Navy is--and the Air Force and Marine
Corps--shifted heavily towards what we call live, virtual,
constructive. So we can take--and this is an energy savings
step that is really important to understand--so in the old
days, not too long ago, we used to actually have to fly ``red
air'' to present enemy forces to a live event with your own
``blue air'' force.
Nowadays you can inject that virtually through the system.
It will show up on the radar. It will show up on the heads-up
display in cockpits, on ships, and in other areas as if it were
real.
So you are saving all that money by not having to generate
other red air or red surface/submarine forces, red missiles
that are coming at you. That can all be done through a live,
virtual, constructive environment. It is really beneficial to
training, because you can do more reps and sets than you could
if you had to put airplanes up or shoot live weapons.
Mr. Lamborn. Well, it sounds, Mr. Chairman, like that is
going to take readiness to the next level, so that is really
exciting.
Mr. Garamendi. It will if these simulators are paid for and
available on time. And I understand--I am trying to remember
which of the four forces has a problem with the more advanced
simulator, and it has been delayed a bit. I think it might be a
ship simulator.
Admiral Moran. No, sir. If the budget goes through, we are
appropriately funded to deliver those on time.
Mr. Garamendi. Not fair to toss the ball back here.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Wilson, you had a question, let me----
Mr. Wilson. And thank you very much, Chairman Garamendi.
And as a Member of Congress, as a veteran, but mostly as a
military dad, four sons who have served in the branches, it is
just so reassuring to have such leadership on behalf of our
country.
Thank you for what you mean to the people of the United
States and promoting freedom around the world.
And General McConville, I am grateful that the Army's
efforts over the last 2 years to address the decline of
readiness. The Army's goal is for 66 percent of the Active Duty
forces as rated to meet full-spectrum readiness requirements by
fiscal year 2022.
As the current Vice Chief of Staff and future Chief of
Staff, do you think the Army can achieve the goal of 66 percent
by 2022? What are the challenges and obstacles that might
prevent you from attaining the goal? Is 66 percent enough to
meet the goals of the National Defense Strategy? And does the
budget align with that goal?
General McConville. Congressman, first of all, we believe
we will make it. And again, I don't want to push it back to
you, but the timely, adequate, predictable, and sustainable
funding is going to allow us to do that.
We have a positive path right now. We have seen what has
happened over the last 2 years. And we are convinced if we get
the resources that we can get to that level, and we believe
that level is going to be sufficient for the threats we are
going to face.
Mr. Wilson. Well, again, we just appreciate your
determination and best wishes on your future position, too. And
additionally, General, the Army's operation and maintenance
account request includes an additional $132.5 million for
maneuvering unit accounts. These accounts support training and
operations for the Army's brigade combat teams to maintain
readiness.
How does the budget request impact the number of combat
training center rotations for the Army's brigade combat teams?
How are the combat training centers developing the environment
to support the multi-domain operations?
General McConville. Yes, Congressman.
First of all, the funding gives us 32 rotations. Twenty-
five of those combat training centers are what we call decisive
action type rotations. And what we will do is, we will immerse
our soldiers into situations where they are basically contested
in most of the domains they are going to see in the
battlefield.
So it is just not the ground. They are going to have
electronic warfare challenges. They are going to have cyber
warfare challenges. They are going to have space challenges as
they execute their operations.
And so, as we train our forces for the future, we are not
trying to fight the last fight better. We are trying to win the
next fight.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, General.
And Admiral, with the multiple collisions, sadly, that we
have had in the past several years, what is--in your testimony,
you indicate that there has been a budget assignment of the
highest priority of recommendations to the comprehensive review
and strategic readiness review [SRR]. What is this budget that
directly addresses the readiness shortfalls in training,
maintenance, and operations to prevent future collisions?
Admiral Moran. Sir, in the fiscal--we have already invested
close to $100 million in the last year and a half since the
collisions. We have got $348 million in fiscal year 2020 and
over a billion dollars across the FYDP [Future Years Defense
Program] to do all of the things that support every single
recommendation in the comprehensive review and the SRR.
Mr. Wilson. And thank you again for your determination to
address this on behalf of the health and safety of our naval
personnel.
And General Wilson, the former Secretary of Defense James
Mattis directed the Air Force to achieve 80 percent mission
capability by the end of fiscal year 2019 for combat-coded
strike aircraft.
Will the Air Force meet this goal for F-15, F-22, and F-
35A? How does the budget enable the Air Force to meet these
readiness goals?
General Wilson. Congressman, I am confident we are going to
make it on the F-16. We have put a lot of money into the parts
to be able to improve our MC [mission capable] rates, and we
have seen an improvement across the F-16 fleet.
For the F-22 fleet, I am not as confident, and that is
because of the impact of Hurricane Michael. We had to dislocate
all the families that are now just showing up at the new bases,
as well as the critical driver for the F-22 is our LO [low-
observable] maintenance. And we had to shut down our LO
maintenance facility at Tyndall for about 6 months. It is now
back up and running, but I am not confident we are going to
make it for the F-22.
For the F-35, all of us--the Navy, Marine Corps, and the
Air Force are working hard to make sure we have got the right
parts in the system to be able to try to achieve that 80
percent MC rating.
Mr. Wilson. And as I conclude, General Thomas, we are
really grateful for the F-35s located at Beaufort Marine Corps
Air Station. It is such a positive enhancement to that very
significant military facility.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Wilson, thank you for raising the F-35.
This committee is going to spend a lot of time on the F-35. The
issues were just--we decided to put them aside today because it
demands at least one full hearing, if not multiple hearings, to
deal with all of the issues in the F-35. We will get to that.
One of the things that was raised here early on--I think it
came out, Ms. Horn, with regard to Tinker.
The reality is that the services are dependent upon
civilian personnel. The training, the ability to hire civilian
personnel, I know, Admiral Moran, you have hired several,
twenty-some-thousand at the various shipyards. I recall the
number somewhere in that range.
That is an important piece of it. There are hiring issues.
There are training issues. We want to go into those. We will go
into those in depth with--at a later--not a hearing, but
probably briefing. Would welcome the participation of certainly
the staff and the members as we get into the civilian personnel
issues and the training issues.
Just going through my notes, and don't want you gentlemen
to escape without the final word here. Finished?
With that, gentlemen, thank you very much. Congratulations
once again, General McConville, Admiral Moran. Thank you.
And we will look forward to our next iteration in the
readiness of the services.
Thank you very much.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:48 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
May 9, 2019
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
May 9, 2019
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
May 9, 2019
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT
Mr. Scott. General McConville, I know Army readiness and
modernization is at the top of your priority list. Your posture
statement centers around improving the training of your soldiers and
all 10 of the Army's top unfunded requests are tied to readiness. You
and your team have initiatives to reduce ``non-deployable'' soldiers
from 15 percent to 6 percent. In addition, your focus on collective
training emphasizes high-intensity conflict, utilizing complex terrain,
and under degraded environmental conditions.
1. As urbanization increases globally, could you discuss your
efforts to focus the Army's ability to train in dense-urban terrain and
subterranean operations?
2. From the platoon level through the battalion level at the Combat
Training Centers (CTCs), are you currently able to meet all your
training requirements? What gaps do you foresee for potential future
conflicts?
General McConville. The Army places a high priority on training in
dense urban terrain (DUT), including subterranean (SbT). Army Special
Operations Forces (ARSOF) have standing training requirements for SbT.
General Purpose Forces (GPF) units train in DUT as an environmental
condition, with select GPF units conducting SbT training related to
specific Operation Plans (OPLANs) and mission requirements (e.g., U.S.
Indo-Pacific Command OPLAN). GPF units have access to training
locations, to increase proficiency with DUT, including 35 Urban Assault
Courses (UACs) located at 30 different Army installations, such as the
Underground Training Facility (UTF) 50 at Ft. Hood, TX; the Asymmetric
Warfare Group (AWG) urban training site at Ft. A.P. Hill, VA; the
Muscatatuck Urban Training Center (MUTC) in Butlerville, IN; the tunnel
system (repurposed trench complex) at Fort Bliss, TX; and the four
tunnel/cave complexes and the large Ubungsdorf Military Operations on
Urban Terrain (MOUT) site, both located at the Joint Multinational
Readiness Center (JMRC) in Hohenfels, Germany. In addition to these
fixed sites, the Army has three Mobile Training Teams (MTT) that
conduct SbT operations. The Army is increasing DUT training
infrastructure at our Combat Training Centers (CTCs) through specific
military construction investment in multi-story buildings to expand
existing large MOUT sites at both the National Training Center (NTC)
and the Joint Readiness Training Center, as well as by funding a design
effort for a large (approx. 1800 buildings) DUT facility at the NTC.
Finally, the Army contributed to the Department of Defense classified
report on subterranean training as requested in Senate Armed Services
Committee Report 115-262, accompanying S. 2987, the National Defense
Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019.
Yes. Army Combat Training Centers (CTCs) are able to build on home
station training to prepare units for current known operational
requirements and for decisive action in major combat operations against
contemporary threats. The CTCs constantly examine ways to prepare
forces better. For example, CTCs have increased the use of enemy
drones, jamming, chemical attacks, unmanned aerial system sorties, and
indirect fire, and are planning to increase CTC capability to train
forces in dense urban terrain (DUT). Army CTCs remain ready to adapt to
specific requirements of any long-term contingency or named operation
by providing mission rehearsal exercises for rotational forces. In the
coming decade, the Army will fully develop operational concepts and
training for multi-domain operations. The CTCs will need to replicate
criminal organizations, civilians on the battlefield, DUT, and other
complex terrain as parts of the operational environment (OE). These and
other OE factors must be realistically replicated in CTC training, such
as peer/near-peer opposing force, cyber, space, deception, electronic
warfare, and artificial intelligence threats.
Mr. Scott. General Wilson, I have had several conversations with
Air Force leaders about the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar
System (JSTARS) and the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). Now
that the decision has been made to maintain the current fleet of JSTARS
aircraft through 2034 while the Air Force transitions to ABMS, I am
focused on the Air Force's Battle Management and Intelligence,
Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) enterprise. With consistent
resourcing shortfalls, the Air Force and the Department of Defense must
field capabilities that exceed the current Battle Management-ISR
enterprise, while ensuring the men and women at Robins Air Force Base
receive all the assistance they need to make a seamless transition.
1. I have been assured that the ABMS mission will remain at Robins
Air Force Base as JSTARS phases out. What is the Air Force's plan to
begin MILCON for ABMS at Robins Air Force Base?
2. Regarding personnel numbers associated with ABMS, when can I
expect a final determination on the number of employees, Airmen, and
civilians, that will be assigned to conduct the ABMS mission?
General Wilson. The Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS)
Analysis of Alternatives (AOA) Team is working diligently to complete
their analysis and prepare their final report. Recently, the United
States Air Force (USAF) determined a need to extend the AOA by several
months to complete the analysis of a broader range of capabilities.
Once the AOA is completed and assessed, the USAF will begin planning
and programing for any future ABMS organizational construct required,
including any required manpower and MILCON for units and locations
within the ABMS Family of Systems (FOS). The AOA results, combined with
data from the strategic basing process, inform USAF decisions on
appropriate basing and support locations. The USAF envisions Advanced
Battle Management (ABM) FOS elements at multiple locations, leveraging
the infrastructure and talents resident in the Command and Control
(C2), Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR), and Battle
Management (BM) enterprise. Robins Air Force Base is and will continue
to be a key part of this enterprise. The number of personnel assigned
to the enterprise is likely to evolve over the next several years.