[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                   

                         [H.A.S.C. No. 117-11]

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                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD

                             MARCH 19, 2021

                                    
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
48-483                       WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
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                       SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

                  JOHN GARAMENDI, California, Chairman

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut            DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
JACKIE SPEIER, California            JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JASON CROW, Colorado                 AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan, Vice       JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
    Chair                            MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine               MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia            LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan
KAIALI'I KAHELE, Hawaii              BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington

               Melanie Harris, Professional Staff Member
                 Ian Bennitt, Professional Staff Member
                           Sean Falvey, Clerk
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

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                                                                   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

Galinis, VADM William J., USN, Commander, Navy Sea Systems 
  Command........................................................     7
Gamble, LTG Duane A., USA, Deputy Chief of Staff.................     4
Kirkland, Lt Gen Donald E., USAF, Commander, Air Force 
  Sustainment Center.............................................    10
Peters, VADM G. Dean, USN, Commander, Naval Air Systems Command..     8
Shrader, MajGen Joseph F., USMC, Commanding General, Marine Corps 
  Logistics Command..............................................    12

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Galinis, VADM William J., joint with VADM G. Dean Peters.....    50
    Gamble, LTG Duane A..........................................    43
    Kirkland, Lt Gen Donald E....................................    61
    Lamborn, Hon. Doug...........................................    41
    Shrader, MajGen Joseph F.....................................    72

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    [There were no Documents submitted.]

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    [The information was not available at the time of printing.]

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Ms. Strickland...............................................    83
                
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                          House of Representatives,
                               Committee on Armed Services,
                            Washington, DC, Friday, March 19, 2021.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:02 a.m., via 
Webex, 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, all. Ladies and gentlemen, I 
call to order this hearing of the Readiness Subcommittee of the 
House Armed Services Committee.
    First, let's get the administrative details out of the way. 
Members are reminded that they must be visible on the screen 
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verification. Members must continue to use the software 
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and the member if necessary. Please use the platform's chat 
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logistic support issues.
    Finally, you will see a 5-minute countdown clock on the 
software platform's display. Please be obedient, and, if 
necessary, we will cut you off.
    Now, I think all of us have heard that, not with my 
annotated version. But with that out of the way, a couple of 
other administrative things. I was telling our participants 
that we do have votes this morning, a series of votes, three of 
them. I am going to recess this hearing at 11:45 and recommence 
at 12:15. That allows all of the members to stay with us until 
11:45, go to the floor, cast the vote, wait around a few 
moments, cast a vote on the final bill, and then return to the 
hearing.
    So at 11:45, we will break, recess, and then return at 
12:15. The members can then carry on their responsibilities on 
the floor and return to their responsibilities with the 
hearing.
    So with that said, so with those instructions out of the 
way, I will read my opening statement.
    The Department of Defense organic industrial base, which 
includes military services' depots, arsenals, shipyards, is a 
critical part of our national defense security enterprise. 
These facilities are essential for maintaining the complex 
ships, aircraft, and land systems of the joint force. The 
organic industrial base must be postured to support today's 
requirements, while remaining agile enough to respond to 
mobilization, national emergencies, and ever-changing 
platforms.
    I have significant concerns about the organic industrial 
base's aging infrastructure and the capacity of these 
facilities to sustain the next generation of weapon systems and 
support surge requirements.
    The Government Accountability Office [GAO] has found that 
more than half of the DOD's [Department of Defense's] 
industrial base facilities are in poor conditions, including 
all four public shipyards. While the Navy has developed an 
ambitious Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program [SIOP], 
which I understand they are about to change the name of, which 
would recapitalize the public shipyards over 20 years at a cost 
of some $21 billion, I am concerned that the Navy will not 
dedicate the necessary resources to prioritize this effort and 
that the 20-year time horizon is very long and probably too 
long to support a very changing fleet.
    The other services' infrastructure modernization plans are 
in various stages of maturity, and I look forward to hearing 
about the status of these plans. As with the Navy's shipyards 
plan, these will require senior leadership commitment and 
sustained resources, resources meaning money and attention, to 
reach completion.
    Even as we look towards modernizing our facilities and 
equipment to support the next generation of weapon systems, we 
continue to rely on legacy platforms that will be serving well 
past their intended life cycles. I am concerned that overly 
optimistic timelines for fielding new platforms leaves the 
organic industrial base insufficiently prepared to service 
these legacy systems. As a result, the services pay a premium 
for old technology that is less capable, not fuel efficient, 
dependent on limited network of suppliers, and rely on obsolete 
manufacturing processes.
    Amidst all of our modernization efforts, we cannot neglect 
to plan, resource, and implement the solutions needed to ensure 
our legacy equipment is available and safe for use.
    I am going to just add to the statement here. I am very, 
very concerned that when we bring new equipment and platforms 
on, we are not planning properly for their ongoing maintenance.
    Finally, a strong workforce is also essential to the 
success or failure of the depot enterprise. The Federal civil 
servants working on these facilities across the globe 
contribute unique skill sets that we cannot afford to lose. We 
must ensure that we can hire, train the next generation in a 
timely fashion, give them protection and rights they deserve 
for their services.
    Congress has granted various flexibilities to permit more 
timely hiring of qualified personnel and to better compete with 
the private sector. We must continue our oversight of these 
authorities to ensure that they are efficient, effective, and 
they uphold the competitive and merit-based principles that are 
a function and foundation of the civil service.
    Finally, the past year has revealed unforeseen challenges 
for the organic industrial base, from pandemic preparedness to 
supply chains' fragility. I look forward to hearing from our 
panel about how the organic industrial base is adapting to 
solve these and other questions.
    George Washington said that to be prepared for war is one 
of the most effective means of preserving the peace. And 
credible deterrence is indeed a central focus of the Readiness 
Subcommittee. A healthy organic industrial base is essential to 
our preparedness. I look forward to discussing how we can 
strengthen this key pillar of readiness today.
    So, with that, I looked at the screen a moment ago, and 
there is my friend Doug Lamborn. I turn it over to you, Doug. 
Doug, your staff has instructions about the break that we will 
be taking at 12:15.
    So go ahead, Doug.

STATEMENT OF HON. DOUG LAMBORN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM COLORADO, 
           RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS

    Mr. Lamborn. Very good. Okay. Well, thank you, Chairman 
Garamendi. I want to thank all of our witnesses for being here 
today and for their testimony and service.
    The organic industrial base is a vital and important part 
of our readiness and, ultimately, our national security. The 
talented men and women who work in our Nation's depots, 
arsenals, shipyards, and logistics complexes ensure that our 
warfighters have the equipment that they need when they need it 
and that it works as designed, equipment that is more often 
than not well beyond its service life but still performing 
vital missions.
    As our Nation started to feel the impacts of COVID-19 
[coronavirus disease 2019] this time last year, the organic 
industrial base also began tackling how to fulfill their 
mission while protecting the workforce. Each of the services 
dealt differently with the problem of touch labor that couldn't 
be conducted from home. And I look forward to hearing from each 
of our witnesses what they learned and how they are 
incorporating these lessons into their planning going forward.
    COVID also highlighted that this workforce is aging. These 
are highly skilled artisans with years of experience. I would 
like to hear both--from both of you how you are using your 
authorities to help hire and train the next--excuse me--I would 
like to hear both how you are using your authorities to help 
hire and train the next generation and also what we can do to 
help you be innovative in this area.
    We need to explore different ways to increase the supply of 
young people joining the skilled labor market to meet these 
growing demands. Not everyone needs a 4-year college degree, 
but the Nation needs more men and women working in skilled 
trades.
    Another issue we see across the services is infrastructure 
that is not being invested in to maintain the current workload 
or prepare for modern systems or modern practices. Too often 
these are areas that the services have taken budget risks, 
leaving us with facilities and utilities that were built over 
50 years ago.
    The Navy has a particularly acute problem in this area. The 
GAO has assessed that all four public shipyards are in poor or 
failing condition, with too few functional dry docks. Just last 
year, the Navy decided to scrap the fire-ravaged Bonhomme 
Richard, at least partially, due to the lack of dry dock space 
needed to repair it. That we have so little trade space when it 
comes to the schedule should be concerning to us all.
    In response to these concerns, the Navy has put forward the 
Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, or S-I-O-P, SIOP, 
to invest $21 billion into the public shipyards' aging dry 
docks, equipment, and infrastructure. I look forward to seeing 
this year's budget and the resources that the Navy is 
committing to this area, because without real dollars, we can't 
make the progress needed.
    Finally, I would like to hear from the witnesses how you 
are managing your sustainment planning. While this committee 
has certainly talked about how it impacts carryover, and that 
is something we are still interested in, it also touches 
everything from training to budgets to hiring. Unfortunately, 
there aren't many easy answers here, but I know the chairman 
and I are both committed to working with you all to ensure that 
the organic industrial base has what it needs to continue to 
support our men and women in uniform.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Lamborn.
    I will now turn to our witnesses. Your written testimony is 
available to all the members and, without objection, will be 
part of the record. So ordered.
    We will now start with Lieutenant General Duane Gamble, 
Deputy Chief of Staff, G-4, United States Army.
    General.

 STATEMENT OF LTG DUANE A. GAMBLE, USA, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, 
                    G-4, UNITED STATES ARMY

    General Gamble. Chairman Garamendi, Ranking Member Lamborn, 
and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for 
the opportunity to testify today on the Army's organic 
industrial base. Your support of our OIB [organic industrial 
base], of Army regiments, and all Army initiatives is 
absolutely critical to our success.
    As we described last May in my virtual update to your 
subcommittee, we have stayed on track with all our initiatives 
despite the COVID-19 operating environment. As we continue to 
operate in this environment, the execution of our mission and 
the safety of our workforce has been our top two priorities.
    At the outset of COVID, we immediately implemented CDC 
[Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines for all 
our facilities. We maximized the use of personal protective 
equipment, and we placed high-risk personnel on administrative 
or weather and safety leave. These actions helped our workforce 
stay safe but, as importantly, helped our depots and arsenals 
continue to produce readiness for our Army and our Nation. At 
no time during the pandemic did any of our facilities shut 
down.
    In fiscal year 2021, our OIB plans to execute over $8 
billion of work to sustain and modernize weapon systems across 
our Army and across the other services, as well as to support 
Foreign Military Sales [FMS]. And to complete that work, our 
facilities will work approximately 14 million direct labor 
hours this year.
    I would just like to compare that 14 million to the 
workload levels of 2002 and 2003, which were the front end of 
our war on terror. That [inaudible] direct labor hours that we 
plan this year is down from a wartime peak of 30 million direct 
labor hours.
    And so my point there is just to tell you that it is 
cyclical, the workload in our depots, but every direct labor 
hour is very important to maintain in the skills we need and 
our artisan workforce and the readiness our Army and our 
country needs. We believe this workload will preserve current 
fleet readiness and help modernize our weapon systems to get 
modern equipment to our units today.
    As you know, the work that is funded but not executed at 
the end of the fiscal year is defined as carryover. And since I 
first briefed this subcommittee in November of 2019, we have 
worked with the Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD] and 
the other services to deliver--to develop and hopefully deliver 
a carryover calculation pilot program which is pending final 
approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, that 
would allow us, the Army, to exclude material from our 
calculation.
    The simple reason for that is the Army's enterprise 
resource planning system, our ERP, employs generally accepted 
accounting principles [inaudible], but, unfortunately, that 
same ERP artificially inflates the Army's carryover by 
including the value of the repair parts that we have invested 
in to produce the readiness in our depots. The other services 
do not have that challenge.
    Excluding repair parts, today, the Army has 6.22 months of 
carryover, right above the OSD threshold of 6 months of 
carryover. That, for comparison, is down from just a year ago 
when it was 10 months of carryover. But if we were to look 
through the lens of the current calculation, it would be 
interpreted as 8 to 9 months of carryover. But, again, if we 
were to put apples-to-apples comparison with the other 
services, we would have of 6.22 months of carryover.
    Carryover is absolutely paramount to bridging 
appropriations, to help and smooth workflow, and to keep our 
artisans hard at work building readiness across our Army.
    At the same time we execute our workload, the Army and our 
OIB must modernize for the future. And, chairman and ranking 
member, you both talked about the importance of the 
modernization of our OIB. And as I testified to this committee 
before, we have World War II era facilities, and many of them 
are outdated for today's requirement, let alone the needs of 
the future forces you described, chairman.
    We spent more than $3 billion since 2009 to upgrade our 
facilities and infrastructure and operating environment, to 
include building a new nitrocellulose facility in Radford Army 
Ammunition Plant, one of our single points of success or 
failure, depending on how we look at that. We are also working 
a new nitric acid facility at Holston Army Ammunition Plant. 
Both create a safer and more productive environment for our 
employees and for readiness.
    In fiscal year 2021 alone, we are executing $800 million to 
make essential improvements and upgrades to our depots, 
arsenals, and ammo plants. The OIB has a long road, however, to 
becoming fully modernized, a fully modernized industrial base, 
but we are actively working to that end state, and we are 
executing the plan that I briefed this committee on in November 
2019.
    While we execute that plan, we continue to update the plan 
to keep pace with modern technology. And as we modernize our 
Army, we must ensure we modernize the OIB and the workforce, 
and that the workforce is highly trained and on the cutting 
edge of technology.
    Ranking Member Lamborn, you mentioned in your opening 
comments about the average age of the OIB workforce across the 
Department of Defense. I am happy to report the average age in 
the Army is now 46 years old across our whole industrial base. 
That is a rejuvenated workforce, just in the last few years, 
and the authority we used to do that was granted by this 
committee. It is the direct hiring authority that we put to 
good use, bringing the average age of the workforce down. Those 
22,000 skilled employees operating across our depots, arsenals, 
and ammo plants are absolutely the backbone of our country's 
readiness for the next war and our OIB.
    As you know, the Army's OIB is [inaudible] COVID-19. I 
believe that is a testament to the dedication of our workforce 
and their commitment to our Army and our country.
    Key pieces of our workforce modernization plan are our 
partnerships with private corporations, our partnerships with 
universities, and our partnerships with technical colleges and 
technical programs in our high schools to provide skills and 
technological training and to connect with a talent pool to 
help us recruit the future workforce.
    In closing, I would like to thank you and all the 
distinguished members of this committee, not only for your 
support to our OIB, your continued oversight of our execution, 
but for your service to our country. Our Army continues to 
execute workload, improve our infrastructure facilities, and 
develop and employ a highly talented workforce. We seek your 
continued support and partnership in each of these areas to 
achieve the modernized OIB that the future of our Army and the 
future of our country depends upon. And I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement of General Gamble can be found in 
the Appendix on page ?.]
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, General.
    I will now turn to Vice Admiral William Galinis, Commander, 
Navy Sea Systems Command.
    Admiral, your turn.

STATEMENT OF VADM WILLIAM J. GALINIS, USN, COMMANDER, NAVAL SEA 
            SYSTEMS COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

    Admiral Galinis. Chairman Garamendi, Ranking Member 
Lamborn, distinguished lawmakers, thank you for the opportunity 
to appear before you today to discuss our organic industrial 
base within the Navy.
    As this committee knows, the Navy has been executing the 
Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program since 2018. The 
SIOP will deliver the shipyards our Navy and our Nation needs 
by upgrading and expanding principally our dry dock capacity, 
but also optimizing and improving our infrastructure and 
workflow within the shipyards, as well as recapitalizing 
obsolete equipment. When completed, our shipyards will be ready 
to service our fleet for generations to come.
    Our written testimony provides a glimpse and some detail 
into the SIOP highlights and the ongoing work. And overall, 
while I am generally pleased with the progress we have made to 
date, I will tell you we have much to do. And I, along with you 
and many of your colleagues, want us and need us to move 
faster.
    To that end, I have challenged the SIOP Program Office to 
find ways to accelerate this execution timeline, and I look 
forward to sharing that information with the committee in the 
future as we come through this effort.
    While SIOP addresses the needed physical changes required 
in our public yards to keep our submarines and aircraft 
carriers in the fight, more work is required. We need to become 
more accurate and more efficient at our planning and the 
execution of our depot level availabilities for our submarines 
and aircraft carriers.
    Finally, we need to continue to build on our talented and 
dedicated workforce that we have within our public shipyards.
    I will tell you in no uncertain terms, we need now to 
expand the productive capacity of our naval shipyards or we run 
the risk of not being able to perform the required maintenance 
or repair work for our nuclear power fleet, principally our 
submarines and aircraft carriers, a decade from now. To do 
this, we have taken a page out of the NAVAIR [Naval Air Systems 
Command] playbook and their successful execution of the Naval 
Sustainment System-Aviation in an effort to support our naval 
aviation enterprise.
    Leveraging the Navy's Performance-to-Plan effort that you 
have heard about led by our chief of naval operations and our 
vice chief, we have stood up our own Naval Sustainment System-
Shipyard [NSS-SY]. And like NSS-Aviation, NSS-Shipyard combines 
the extensive use of data and data analytics. It targets areas 
of opportunity with transparency to highlight key problems to 
improve our outcomes. We are committed to doing this with a 
sense of urgency across our enterprise.
    The NSS-Shipyard is a significant departure from our 
previous practices. Leveraging the best commercial practices, 
we are incorporating these into our shipyards and embracing a 
new culture built on honest assessments, informed by data, and 
coupled with a bias toward action and a sense of urgency to 
drive process improvements.
    NSS-Shipyard is still in its formative phase, but when you 
combine it with SIOP and a talented and trained workforce, our 
Navy will have the organic maintenance and repair capability 
capacity now and in the future to support our submarine and 
aircraft carrier fleet to fight and to win in this area of 
great power competition.
    And while the work we are doing in our shipyards is a key 
effort, there is much more we are doing to prove our ability to 
generate readiness and sustain our force, including approving 
our planning and execution process, addressing material 
availability issues, expanding our use of condition-based 
maintenance, working to improve access to critical technical 
data.
    I look forward to discussing this and many other topics 
with you. And, again, I thank you for this opportunity to 
appear before the committee, and I look forward to your 
questions.
    Thank you, sir.
    [The joint prepared statement of Admiral Galinis and 
Admiral Peters can be found in the Appendix on page ?.]
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Admiral.
    We will now turn to Vice Admiral Dean Peters, Commander of 
the Naval Air Systems Command.
    So, Admiral Peters.

  STATEMENT OF VADM G. DEAN PETERS, USN, COMMANDER, NAVAL AIR 
            SYSTEMS COMMAND, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

    Admiral Peters. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 
Lamborn, distinguished members. Thank you for the opportunity 
to discuss naval aviation and the health of our organic 
industrial base.
    Since day one in command, the NAVAIR industrial workforce 
and infrastructure have been my top priority, and I look 
forward to updating you on our progress.
    In conjunction with the Air Boss, Vice Admiral Whitesell, 
and the Deputy Commandant for Aviation, Lieutenant General 
Wise, we are systematically stabilizing naval aviation 
readiness for both the present and long term. And we have made 
significant progress in fiscal year 2019 and fiscal year 2020, 
increasing fleet mission capable rates by over 14 percent. That 
is an additional 330 mission capable aircraft for air crew 
training and operations.
    A critical component, of course, is our organic maintenance 
capability, both intermediate level and depot level 
maintenance. This organic industrial base, typically called 
aviation depots, are known as Fleet Readiness Centers, or FRCs, 
in naval aviation, which I think is a more apt description.
    During a virtual roundtable with this subcommittee last 
May, I described a recovery plan for production impacts due to 
COVID-19, which had temporarily reduced our workforce, and it 
also resulted in numerous material shortfalls. I am pleased to 
report that through the efforts of Commander, Fleet Readiness 
Centers, NAVSUP [Naval Supply Systems Command], DLA [Defense 
Logistics Agency], and, most importantly, each of the FRCs, we 
were able to exceed production requirements for aircraft and 
components and came within 1 percent on engines. This was done 
while adding capabilities, like the F-5 heavy line, and while 
expanding capacity, such as on our T-6 line.
    Financially, we exceeded revenue targets for fiscal year 
2020, and made a very positive contribution to the Navy Working 
Capital Fund. Our allocation of CARES [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, 
and Economic Security Act] funding that associated with COVID-
19-related costs was critical, and we thank this committee for 
their support.
    In short, in spite of unprecedented challenges, fiscal year 
2020 was one of our best production years in recent memory. 
Most importantly, all fleet aircraft components and engine 
depot requirements were met, and all in-service repairs were 
expeditiously completed around the globe as the Navy and the 
Marine Corps maintained a very high operational tempo. I could 
not be more proud of our FRCs and the resilience of our 
workforce.
    Speaking of our people, we continue to invest in their 
quality of life and training. First, in their working 
conditions, we are at historically low safety incidents. Next, 
in their digital competence, as we transform our production 
flow to electronic work packages. We are also continuing the 
National Apprenticeship Program, with 270 apprentices currently 
onboard.
    In general, the Department of the Navy continues to 
prioritize investments in our industrial capabilities and 
capacity. This is informed by the FRC Infrastructure 
Optimization Report, or FIOP, and that identifies sustainment 
requirements, it identifies capital investments for machinery 
and equipment, and military construction needs.
    These investments are especially critical for repair of 
newer aircraft, such as E-2D, H-53K, and F-35, as they require 
specialized paint, composite repair, advanced propulsion 
repair, and enhanced security.
    On the shop floors and production lines, we are building on 
the reforms that began for Super Hornet in fiscal year 2019. We 
are replicating those across all type/model/series, including 
E-2D, H-60, P-8, and V-22 this year.
    We are also making progress on quality, significantly 
reducing quality escapes.
    In addition, we are establishing a data environment to 
connect all aspects of sustainment, including reliability, 
product integrity, and maintenance. In this regard, our repair 
capabilities and our supply chain effectiveness would be 
greatly enhanced by better access to technical data commonly 
available to commercial aviation operators and repair 
facilities.
    To close, naval aviation leadership looks forward to 
working with this subcommittee and the larger Congress to 
strengthen our organic infrastructure. We very much appreciate 
your continued support of our sailors and Marines. And I look 
forward to your questions.
    Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Admiral.
    I see several of my colleagues from the committee are on 
now. We are going to break in 15 minutes with a recess and then 
return at 12:15 so that we could cast a vote on the current 
vote and vote on the last vote while we are still at the 
Chamber. So heads up, 15 minutes from now, we will break for 
half an hour.
    Okay. Let's turn now to Lieutenant General Kirkland, 
Commander, Air Force Sustainment Center.
    General Kirkland.

 STATEMENT OF LT GEN DONALD E. KIRKLAND, USAF, COMMANDER, AIR 
     FORCE SUSTAINMENT CENTER, DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

    General Kirkland. Chairman Garamendi, Ranking Member 
Lamborn, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I 
appreciate the opportunity to update you on the Air Force's 
organic industrial base.
    On behalf of our Acting Secretary, the Honorable John P. 
Roth, and our Chief of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown, thank 
you for your continued support and demonstrated commitment to 
our military and civilian airmen, families, and veterans.
    As you will attest in my written statement, the United 
States Air Force relies upon a strong organic industrial base 
to deliver air power in support of the National Defense 
Strategy. We are proud of the capabilities our Air Force brings 
to the OIB. Our logistics enterprise effectively uses existing 
infrastructure across our three depots and two supply chain 
wings to provide cost-effective readiness for a range of weapon 
systems.
    Since my last update to the subcommittee in 2019, we 
accepted the first KC-46 Pegasus refueling aircraft for its 
initial depot maintenance at Tinker Air Force Base. We continue 
to expand F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft depot maintenance 
at our Ogden Logistics Complex, and F-35 avionic repair at 
Warner Robins in Middle Georgia.
    Looking ahead, our team is preparing for depot support to 
the B-21 Raider and Ground Based Strategic Deterrent [GBSD] 
weapon system.
    We continue to address readiness and sustainment challenges 
driven by legacy weapon systems and aging infrastructure 
footprint and a Federal workforce hiring process that is 
improving but not yet conducive to supporting today's 
environment. As detailed in our organic industrial base report, 
we are structuring our optimization plan over the next 20 
years, along with a three-pronged investment strategy: Keep Up, 
Catch Up, and Leap Ahead.
    Through a combination of our capital investment program and 
new mission military construction, the Air Force has invested 
more than $2 billion during the previous 4 fiscal years to 
maintain and improve depot infrastructure and equipment. These 
service investments exceeded the minimum 6 percent threshold 
and were focused on the Keep Up requirements, while targeting 
specific advanced technologies and concepts to modernize depot 
capacity and capability.
    We will continue to collaborate within the sustainment 
enterprise to incorporate, expand, and involve use of advanced 
manufacturing processes and tools across our organic depots and 
benefit from predictive analytics.
    Responding to COVID-19 challenges highlighted the 
importance of understanding supply chain risks to depot 
operations and mission readiness. Over the past year, we have 
relied on our supply chain management lead's ability to detect 
and forecast supplier impacts, allowing us to pursue alternate 
sources and make risk-informed depot prioritization decisions.
    Our initial response to COVID is a combination of intense 
safety mitigations, targeted telework, and placing high-risk 
personnel on weather and safety administrative leave. To meet 
production requirements, however, we began a return to full 
capacity of mission central employees in May and completed that 
by July.
    We see a positive trend in our workforce demographics. The 
current age of the Air Force Sustainment Center workforce is 
44.5 years. This is down 1 year in age from 2018 and is a solid 
3 years lower than the overall Air Force civilian employee 
average.
    Looking at STEM [science, technology, engineering, and 
mathematics] workforce, our software enterprise, which now 
comprises 4,600 personnel, ranges from 39 years old to 42 years 
old average across our 3 air logistics complexes.
    As we continue to respond to the ongoing pandemic, our top 
priority remains the health and safety of our workforce, while 
balancing mission readiness. Unsurprisingly, COVID aggravated a 
variety of ongoing challenges with depot production across our 
enterprise. We continue to institutionalize new workplace 
arrangements to protect our workforce. Our union teammates have 
been a strong partner on this journey.
    Regarding civilian workforce hiring and development, we 
greatly benefit from the tools provided by direct and expedited 
hiring authorities to stay competitive with our defense 
industry peers. Thank you for providing these authorities and 
your consideration to make them permanent.
    In every instance of crisis, the defense organic industrial 
base provides solutions to anticipated demands. The Air Force 
will continue to need Congress' help with investments to 
posture for increasingly sophisticated and contested battle 
space. Our chief of staff has made clear, we either accelerate 
change or lose. Consistent, reliable, and predictable funding 
is key to sustaining Air Force readiness and safety and to 
guarantee our service's ability to fly, fight, and win.
    Thank you, chairman and ranking member. I look forward to 
your questions.
    [The prepared statement of General Kirkland can be found in 
the Appendix on page ?.]
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, General Kirkland.
    We now turn to Major General Joseph Shrader, Commanding 
General, Marine Corps Logistics Command.
    General Shrader.

    STATEMENT OF MAJGEN JOSEPH F. SHRADER, USMC, COMMANDING 
 GENERAL, MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS COMMAND, UNITED STATES MARINE 
                             CORPS

    General Shrader. Good morning. Chairman Garamendi, Ranking 
Member Lamborn, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, 
I appreciate the opportunity to provide you an update on our 
efforts to modernize the Marine Corps' organic industrial base.
    In November 2019, I shared with this subcommittee the 
Marine Corps' plan to modernize its organic industrial base. 
The plan is comprised of three phases and is executed over a 
25-year period. It calls for a combination of improvements to 
the existing manufacturing processes, introduces new 
technologies, and adds new facilities and infrastructure.
    To date, we have completed three of the first phase major 
military construction projects. These state-of-the-art 
facilities provide much needed combat vehicle storage and 
capacity, which is critical OIB infrastructure.
    Another critical component of our modernization effort is 
naval logistics integration. Initiatives such as our ongoing 
migration of our Navy Working Capital Fund activities to the 
Navy Enterprise Resource Planning system and industrial supply 
integration with the Defense Logistics Agency are examples of 
such joint force enabling efforts.
    Also, as a DOD-selected 5G test site, we are working with 
OSD to develop 5G-enabled smart warehouse technologies, such as 
hand-held scanners, optical character recognition, passive RFID 
[radio-frequency identification], and robotics. This state-of-
the-art technology vastly improves our supply chain efficiency, 
auditability, and support to the Fleet Marine Force.
    Underpinning these efforts is our smart application of 
operations and maintenance funding. Logistics Command optimizes 
the Marine Corps' return on these funds by deliberately 
planning against known and forecasted Fleet Marine Force ground 
equipment readiness requirements. We identify the most 
efficient and effective depot sources of repair, while also 
closely managing our title 10 core logistics and depot 50/50 
requirements.
    Your support in funding these projects, as well as our 
equipment maintenance priorities, is much appreciated and 
brings us closer to accomplishing our modernization goals.
    On the energy front, I want to briefly share with the 
subcommittee that the Marine Corps logistics base here in 
Albany has made great strides in its plan to become the first 
installation in Marine Corps history to achieve net zero 
renewable versus traditional energy usage. Through innovative 
technology applications, such as geothermal heat pumps, bore 
hole thermal technologies, and converting landfill methane gas 
to energy, the base's roadmap to net zero and energy resiliency 
program is nearly completed. As a result, we expect to save 
over $4 million per year beginning next year and become less 
dependent on the commercial power grid.
    Looking forward, we have begun a study aimed specifically 
at aligning all of these current modernization efforts with our 
Commandant's Planning Guidance priorities, and our Force Design 
2030 efforts. This study is on pace to inform our fiscal year 
2023 and 2024 budget cycles, and we anticipate it will lead us 
to refine the OIB's key lines of effort to better support the 
Fleet Marine Force well into the 2lst century.
    Regarding our workforce, the 2018 National Defense Strategy 
[NDS] rightly identifies recruiting, development, and retention 
of a highly qualified workforce as essential for warfighting 
success. Accordingly, we have implemented a strategic plan with 
six goals. These goals are hiring the right people, providing 
the best training, talent management, improving communications, 
maintaining a professional work environment, and retention.
    Also, I mentioned in the past, we are very grateful to the 
Congress for the direct hiring authorities. These authorities 
have enabled us to compete on par with the private sector to 
quickly hire the most talented people our community have to 
offer.
    With respect to COVID-19, we continue to ensure mission 
accomplishment while protecting our people from the virus. 
Although we are still seeing reports of new cases within our 
surrounding communities, the overall number of cases continues 
on a downward trend. We continue to maximize remote and 
telework arrangements and enforce strict adherence to 
guidelines set forth by the CDC and our headquarters. We are 
actively also working with and are very thankful for the great 
support we have received from the naval and community hospitals 
across our regions.
    In conclusion, sir, I want to thank you again. I want to 
thank the subcommittee for its continued support and for the 
opportunity to testify on this important topic. And I look 
forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of General Shrader can be found in 
the Appendix on page ?.]
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, General.
    As promised, in about 5 minutes, we are going to recess for 
half an hour. That will allow the members to catch the current 
vote, the end of the current vote, and the beginning of the 
last vote. We will return no later than 12:15 to recommence the 
hearing.
    I am going to take just a few moments to lay out a couple 
of questions. I don't expect to get a response because we won't 
have time.
    First of all, I want to thank all of the services and 
particularly the leadership for staying on these issues. This 
committee is very, very concerned about the organic industrial 
base that, over the years, it has been allowed to atrophy, to 
age out, and they do the very best they could with old 
facilities, old capital equipment and, in many cases, old 
technologies, to maintain the equipment that the services 
needed.
    We are now in a modernization program for all of the 
services. And as our colleagues on the other subcommittees go 
about the business of acquiring the new equipment, I want to 
make sure that this subcommittee is fully aware and that the 
services are prepared to service that new equipment.
    I see Joe Courtney just stepped off for a few moments, but 
he likes to be called Two- or Four-Sub Joe, fine. Let's see 
what you are going to do. How is the Navy going to repair and 
maintain those new Columbia-class submarines?
    Similarly, with the Air Force and the Army and the Marine 
Corps, substantial changes are in place. I want to make sure 
that all of you, in each of your responsibilities, are 
preparing for the future.
    And so as we go forward, our professional staff will be 
querying you on how you will be addressing the new pieces of 
equipment, the repair and maintenance of that equipment.
    Secondly, I want to make sure that you are utilizing big 
data in anticipation of what needs to be repaired. So the 
analysis of past data of repairs that have been made, using 
that information, and then continuing to gather information 
ahead of the equipment coming into the depot so that you know 
what is going to be repaired. I am calling this the big data AI 
[artificial intelligence] initiative. I have talked to all of 
you about this. Hopefully, that will allow you to be more 
efficient.
    Thirdly, we need to know well ahead of time--you have 
talked about 20-year plans, 30-year plans in the case of one of 
you. That is all well and good. I am operating--well, all of 
the members on this committee operate on a 2-year cycle, and I 
guarantee you, we are already thinking about the next 18 months 
and planning for the next 18 months. We will give you a little 
longer than that.
    So I really would like to know what you are going to do 
over the next 5 years so that we can look at the MILCON 
[Military Construction], as well as the O&M [operations and 
maintenance] operations. It is our intent that you have the 
resources necessary to move out the old equipment that is no 
longer effective or efficient. The new facilities, I remember 2 
years ago going to Tinker and observing a whole lot of blue 
tarps inside the building, presumably either to catch flies or 
rain. I suspect it was about rain. And that is not only an Air 
Force issue, I am sure it is across the board.
    So I want those facilities modernized, and I want to know 
how you are going to do it, when you are going to do it, and 
how much money you need to do it. I am here to fight for you, 
but I need to know what you need so that we can take on the 
rest of the subcommittees and the Appropriations Committee and 
make sure that you have the money you need to modernize and to 
make sure your facilities are in place.
    So these are the issues that are out there. I don't expect 
an answer now, but I can assure you that the professional staff 
and me and my colleagues will be querying you on a rather 
regular basis as to the outcome and where you are headed with 
that.
    So we are now at 11:46. I am going to adjourn--excuse me, 
recess. I am going to recess for 30 minutes, time for the 
members to vote and to come back. And we will restart at 
precisely 12:15.
    And so this meeting is now in recess.
    Gentlemen, you can get your answers together, members get 
your questions together, get your votes in. We will recommence 
in one half hour.
    Thank you very much.
    [Recess.]
    Mr. Garamendi. So the committee will reconvene. The 
committee is in order. We will now proceed.
    I'm going to give everybody about another, I don't know, a 
couple of minutes to get their video on, take a deep breath, 
get yourself organized, and we will take up Mr. Lamborn in 
about 120 seconds.
    Start counting, Doug. We will be good to go.
    So, I don't know, I thought that worked out pretty well. I 
am kind of pleased with the prior planning.
    So the first question to all the generals is, what do the 
three--what do the five Ps stand for? Prior planning prevents--
okay--blank, performance. We will keep in mind that we have a 
good audience here.
    Okay. We are going to go ahead. I am watching my clock. I 
am anxious to get going here, but I am going to wait the full 
other--one more minute, Doug.
    Mr. Scott just got up. I had a question for you.
    Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Garamendi. Mr. Scott, is that you? Is that your dad, 
your son, or----
    Mr. Scott [interrupting]. No, it is not me. It is 
absolutely me.
    Mr. Garamendi. I got it.
    Mr. Scott. It can be someone else if you want.
    Mr. Garamendi. We will settle with you. We know you. We 
know all the good and all the bad, so we will just stay with 
you, Austin.
    Doug, your turn.
    Okay. The committee is back in order. Doug Lamborn has the 
next set of questions.
    Mr. Lamborn. All right, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 
each of the panelists for being here today.
    As I mentioned in my statement, I believe that we need to 
develop more ways to increase the supply of young people 
joining the skilled labor market to meet these future demands. 
Not everybody needs a 4-year college degree, but our Nation 
needs more men and women who are working in skilled trades.
    So what are your services doing on this front?
    And, General Gamble, I believe you mentioned an 
apprenticeship program. We will start with you.
    General Gamble. Congressman, thanks for your question. I 
think one of our best examples is at Anniston Army Depot. I 
called it an apprenticeship program. I think they officially 
call it the internship program. It is the Anniston Army Depot 
high school internship program. I personally visited it. I 
believe you have as well. It is where they take high school 
students and help them gain skill trades and feed our 
knowledgeable workforce. They are recruited from high schools, 
not only immediately, but from a 55-mile radius of Anniston 
Army Depot. So, you know, a pretty broad program there, focused 
on allied trades, things that you said, skills that they can 
use for a career.
    They also have something called the Pathways Program. It is 
a three-phase program that helps interns move from high school 
to technical college with tuition assistance. So, again, 
extracurricular for the depot, but providing a pathway for high 
school students to get advanced training in the public sector 
and then move noncompetitively to a position working for the 
government, and that conversion is based on space availability. 
It is not--the program falls short of guaranteeing them a slot. 
Frankly, I am not sure we need to--a permanent assured position 
is a positive thing because, like many of other programs that 
the Army runs, it feeds local community as well as feeding our 
workforce.
    And the last thing that Anniston does, the third of three, 
is educational community partnership. It is an agreement that 
is based on development opportunities with local colleges, 
provide for integration of the students' academic studies and 
provide on-the-job experience. That repeats itself all the way 
from Kaiserslautern, Germany, in one of our industrial 
facilities in Germany, all the way to Rock Island, Illinois, 
but I just illuminated Anniston. We can provide details in a 
more comprehensive paper if you would like, sir.
    Mr. Lamborn. Okay. And I would like to hear from the Navy, 
Air Force, and Marines on this same issue.
    Admiral Galinis. Sir, I will jump in on this. And so at the 
four public shipyards, you know, we have a very active 
apprenticeship program. It is a 4-year program that we recruit 
people into from the local communities. We have got 
partnerships in place generally with the local community 
colleges, so it is an opportunity for the apprenticeships to 
earn an associate's degree along the way. You know, and then 
once we get them in the shipyard, each shipyard has their own 
learning center established.
    And, you know, I will use Portsmouth as an example, where 
they actually have a mockup of a compartment on board a 
submarine that they would take, whether it be a pipe fitter or 
maybe an insulator, an electrician, in to allow them to 
essentially kind of work through a work package, if you will, 
before they actually go and do that, you know, transmit and go 
down to the submarine.
    We also--each yard also has its own--you know, within those 
learning centers, their own skills areas where we train on 
welding or electrical or shipfitting metal work and whatnot, so 
we do a lot of that.
    The other thing that we have also recently done is we have 
executed an interagency agreement to the pilot with the new OPM 
[Office of Personnel Management] USALearning tool, which, as 
you know, is the--you know, kind of a modern IT [information 
technology] platform for training that really allows us to kind 
of open up and make it available to even more people inside the 
shipyard, these training opportunities. So that is available to 
folks that are going through that 4-year apprentice program 
that I talked to, as well as others.
    And then the other thing that we have got within the 
shipyard is a kind of an assessment process where, you know, 
the supervisors can--you know, if they identify, you know, a 
shipmate that maybe, you know, needs a little bit more work in 
a particular area or whatever, there is a process to kind of 
send them back through maybe just a particular part of the 
training that allows them to kind of refresh that skill set 
that maybe they might be maybe a little bit lacking on.
    So those are some of the things that we are doing, but, you 
know, the apprenticeship program that we have, there are all, 
four shipyards and the learning center, are absolutely key and 
foundational to the way we train our workforce.
    Thank you for the opportunity.
    Mr. Lamborn. Sure. And Air Force and Marines, do you have 
similar options, or Navy Air?
    Admiral Peters. Sir, naval aviation has a similar 
apprenticeship program; 270 currently in that apprenticeship 
program, and we are using it to try to build loyalty to the 
depot, so once we train these folks, they don't get pulled away 
by someone else. Over.
    Mr. Lamborn. Air Force, Marines, anything to add?
    General Kirkland. Mr. Lamborn, this is Air Force. Similar 
to the other services, we continue to bolster and expand our 
vocational partnership with the States and the regions that use 
our forecasts to prioritize their training. We have internships 
and apprenticeships which bring them in. And similar to the 
vice admiral, we--it does build loyalty and we tend to hire 
those as well.
    Sir, we are also expanding our educational partnership 
agreements with higher education. We have got those in Utah, 
Oklahoma, and Georgia now. They are very effective to get that 
STEM workforce we need for our engineering workforce.
    And the third component would be innovation centers at each 
of our locations. Let me give you one example here. I am in 
Middle Georgia this week at Robins Air Force Base. And on 
Monday, with Congressman Scott's help, we are going to cut the 
ribbon on a new facility for our software team, but it has a 
dedicated classroom for local high school students to come into 
to get mentored and instructed. And, sir, we see those folks as 
future employees. Over.
    General Shrader. Sir, on the Marine Corps front, very same 
thing. I would just second the Pathways Program. We use that 
extensively, especially in the depot for welders, painters, and 
heavy mechanics, heavy vehicle mechanics.
    Looking to the future, though, we have to make sure that we 
are zeroing in on C4I [command, control, communications, 
computers, and intelligence] type equipment--electronics, 
coders, those types of things. We work closely with high 
schools on internship programs through Pathways, and then also 
our community colleges, namely, Albany Tech here within 
southwest Georgia. I think that is it, sir, for me.
    Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Very good. Well, I am glad to hear from 
each of you that you are making concrete steps to accomplish 
that goal.
    This is a question for the Army. Both the Air Force and the 
Navy received CARES Act funding to increase cash balances last 
year to offset the impact of COVID. Since the Army didn't get 
those cash funds, how is the Army dealing with that funding 
need?
    General Gamble. Thank you, sir. Thank you for your 
question. So there are really two components. First is our Army 
Working Capital Fund [AWCF]. And, at the time, we honestly 
didn't think we needed a cash infusion into the working capital 
fund to offset the health and safety leave, the increased cost 
of health and safety leave, because while we put some on leave, 
as you know, others worked overtime and longer hours to keep 
the production running.
    The state of the AWCF today is we have significant concerns 
out of the Army about the cash balance in our Army Working 
Capital Fund. And General Daly, our AMC [Army Materiel Command] 
Commanding General, and our Assistant Secretary of the Army for 
Financial Management and Comptroller, are working at pulled--we 
call it pulling levers, right. We are taking action to restore 
our cash balance.
    We do believe the Army will need a cash infusion into the 
working capital fund later this year, and we estimate that to 
be between $600 million and $900 million. We are working that 
inside the Army and with OSD. But there is almost no doubt in 
our mind that in the next 6 to 8 months, we will need a cash 
infusion to keep the Army Working Capital Fund solvent to the 
level where it can continue to produce the remedies it produces 
today. So, today, we are not in bad shape, but we are 
concerned, and we are watching it closely.
    Mr. Lamborn. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, back to you.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Doug.
    Heads up to everybody, the next two will be Courtney, 
Wilson, Luria, and Moore. I think that is four. So Courtney, 
Wilson, Luria, Moore, in that order.
    Joe, your turn, go.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Thank you, John, and thank you, Doug, 
for holding this hearing and to all the witnesses for, you 
know, their testimony on a very important issue.
    Admiral Galinis, it is good to see you. The last time in 
person was up in Maine, minus zero temperatures. And I want to 
again zero in on, you know, one aspect of your testimony, which 
again, first of all, there is universal agreement about the 
need to recapitalize all the public yards and, frankly, that 
has been the case on task for a number of years. And, you know, 
the SIOP program, I think, sort of is somewhat evidence of 
that. And anything we can do, you know, to enhance authorities 
to, you know, accelerate that process and, you know, ensure 
that the turnaround for subs and ships is going to improve. I 
mean, again, there is just across-the-board help.
    Having said that, I mean, it is pretty clear that we are 
not going to be there for a while. And, you know, a number of 
years ago, we had the Congressional Budget Office [CBO] take a 
look at the question of whether private yards would sometimes 
get utilized, you know, for overflow work, costs that much more 
in terms of per unit cost versus public yards, and CBO came 
back with a pretty strong report that, in fact, there is no 
disparity in terms of cost, in terms of using private yards, 
whether it is Newport News, EB [Electric Boat], Pascagoula, or 
whatever.
    And so, you know, first of all, you know, I just want to, 
first of all, get your take in terms of whether or not you 
still regard sort of the one shipyard concept, which your 
predecessor a couple times removed, Admiral McCoy articulated, 
and really did try to plug in work when, again, there was an 
overflow as a way of, you know, dealing with backlog and also 
just obviously stabilizing the industrial base, or whether or 
not you think that, you know, at this point, you just want to 
go to an exclusively public yard approach in terms of dealing 
with repair and maintenance.
    Admiral Galinis. Yes, sir. Representative Courtney, thank 
you for that question. So what I would say, one of the things 
that we are doing as part of the--I mentioned the naval 
shipyard sustainment effort. But one of the key elements of 
that is the development of the 15-year public sector 
maintenance plans. But this is all of the work that we are 
doing inside the public shipyards, and we are getting close to 
finishing that up here within the next month or so and briefing 
that up [inaudible] the Navy.
    But I would tell you, just my preliminary indications is, 
and as I mentioned in my opening statement, you know, the SIOP 
program is fundamental to what we are doing to build that 
productive capacity that we need inside our public shipyards to 
do the nuclear maintenance. Even with that being said, I 
believe, you know, given the--what we see as an increasing 
force structure, especially in the submarine force, toward the 
end of the 2020s and into the early 2030s, we are going to need 
capacity in the private sector to do submarine repair work. And 
that is kind of just kind of an initial take on what I see in 
that--coming out of that study.
    That being said, to your point on the one-shipyard concept, 
that is absolutely true. And we typically--you know, every day 
we are moving resources, you know, from one yard to another to 
kind of balance the workload as we need to do so. We have got--
we are taking a hard look at the work that we are doing inside 
the shipyards. And as I said, you know, that productive 
capacity that we are trying to build, when we are doing work 
inside of a public shipyard that maybe we could outsource to 
industry, so not an entire availability. But as you know, we do 
a lot of work on rotatable pools and reparable items. You know, 
is that work--would that be more efficient to do that work, you 
know, outside in private industry. So, you know, maybe not at 
another private shipyard, but there is a lot of good machine 
shops and, you know, smaller businesses that could probably use 
some of that work. So that is also part of our strategy to 
increase that capacity.
    So those are a couple of things that we are looking at. 
That 15-year plan, we have got to get that. I think that is 
fundamental to what we are doing, and then looking for 
opportunities where we don't maybe necessarily outsource an 
entire availability, but some of the--what we refer to as other 
productive work, as you know, inside the shipyards that we can 
outsource, and then just to keep the focus on the SIOP.
    And to the first part of your question on authorities, sir, 
I think I have all the authorities I need right now to go and 
execute that SIOP program. So thank you for that question, sir.
    Mr. Courtney. Great. Well, John, when that 15-year plan 
becomes available, I hope--you know, again, our subcommittee 
will jump on that. Because in some ways, it is almost as 
important as the 30-year shipbuilding plan, and I applaud the 
fact that NAVSEA [Naval Sea Systems Command] is going that 
route.
    I will yield back.
    Admiral Galinis. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Mr. Courtney.
    We now turn to Mr. Wilson.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Chairman Garamendi and Ranking 
Member Lamborn. And I just--also, I am so impressed and 
appreciative of our panel today, what dedicated individuals you 
are and how impressive it is and inspiring to know that we have 
such capable persons serving in our military.
    With General Kirkland, a question. I recently toured the 
McEntire Joint Air Base here in South Carolina, which is a 
leading candidate for the upcoming F-35 basing selection. In 
addition to the extraordinary trained personnel at McEntire, 
the unique qualifications of the site include virtually no 
encroachment. It just simply could not be recreated anywhere in 
the continental United States.
    I would like to know, what is your depot posture to support 
the critical weapon systems such as F-35 while maintaining your 
other priorities?
    General Kirkland. Congressman Wilson, thank you for the 
question, sir. With respect to McEntire, I would just like to 
address the question fleetwide, sir. I think you are aware that 
70 percent of the F-35 costs are related to sustainment and, 
therefore, we pay particular attention to that when working 
with the Joint Program Office [JPO] and our Navy-Marine Corps 
teammates. We continue to partner with the JPO to drive down 
sustainment costs, because, sir, the Air Force is fully 
committed to the F-35 and it is fifth-gen capabilities.
    Sir, I will speak to--we currently maintain, do a depot 
modification on the aircraft that are at our Ogden ALC [Air 
Logistics Complex]. We are on path to continue to expand that. 
This year alone, our forecast has increased from 47 to 52 
aircraft output. Sir, we own the F-135 engine maintenance. It 
is the only heavy maintenance center in the enterprise right 
now, and that has our full attention to drive down costs and 
increase the output.
    But, sir, perhaps the low-hanging fruit and where we can 
really save money is the software. You are familiar with the 
ALIS [Autonomic Logistics Information System] program being 
replaced by the ODIN, the Operational Data Integrated Network. 
We are proud the sustainment center will be part of that 
solution as we migrate from ALIS to ODIN, and we believe we 
will do it with our organic software team in a very cost-
effective manner.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
    And, Admiral Galinis, as a very grateful Navy dad, I 
appreciate your service. And a question I have for you is, 
how--with the impressive technician pipeline program that you 
have for virtual learning tools of hands-on and practical 
exercise, how has the pandemic impacted your ability to 
continue the necessary hands-on training required to 
maintaining your workforce?
    Admiral Galinis. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. So, 
you know, we have been very fortunate that, you know, say 
with--you know, since the pandemic started roughly a year ago, 
we have not closed any of our shipyards for a single day, and 
that is both in the public and the private sector, and I give a 
lot of credit for that to the shipyard leadership and certainly 
the workforce inside the shipyard.
    So we have been able to continue both our recruitment, our 
hiring, and our training efforts over the last year. And we 
have been able to maintain a pretty, you know, steady flow of 
folks into the shipyard, continuing to get them through the 
pipeline.
    The other thing, sir, that I am sure you are aware of is, 
you know, when we went into the pandemic and we looked at the 
potential impacts on the yards, we activated our SURGEMAIN 
[surge maintenance] force. And so that is a group, we brought 
on Active Duty about 1,300 Reserve sailors that are aligned to 
the 4 public shipyards, and their Reserve time is to train, you 
know, with the shipyards. Okay.
    So when we have kind of a shortfall like this with the 
workforce caused by the pandemic, we have been able to bring 
these Reserve sailors on. And they actually made a significant 
impact in helping us, you know, work through what would have 
been work that we would have pushed off. And so we have been 
able to not totally eliminate that, but certainly mitigate a 
lot of that impact.
    So I guess the short answer to your question is we have 
been able to continue that and, you know, the distance 
learning, the IT certainly played a big part of that. But even 
getting folks through the learning centers that I mentioned and 
everything, we have been able to continue that effort. Yes, 
sir.
    Mr. Wilson. Admiral, thank you very much.
    And my time is up, but, again, I want to thank Chairman 
Garamendi for getting this panel together. Everyone is 
outstanding. Thank you very much.
    I yield back.
    Mrs. Luria. Chairman Garamendi, I believe you are muted. 
Are you calling on me?
    Mr. Garamendi. I am calling on you, yes. It is your turn.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you.
    Mr. Garamendi. Five minutes.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you.
    Well, thank you, gentlemen, for being here to talk about 
these very important issues. I just wanted to start by saying 
that I think we can't wait any longer to make the investments 
that we need to in our ship maintenance infrastructure. 
Investing in both our public and our private yards has the 
effect of adding increased capacity to our fleet in the near 
term.
    If you listened to Admiral Davidson's testimony last week, 
commander of the USINDOPACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command], we 
need that capacity sooner rather than later. So I just want to 
say that I think that we need to act now, and I concur with 
Representative Courtney's comments that the shipyard 
optimization plan is incredibly critical, and I think we need 
to speed it up.
    And I am sort of surprised to hear that you don't feel, 
Admiral Galinis, that you need any additional authorities or 
any additional resources to do that. But, you know, I would 
really like to be a very strong advocate from this committee 
and this subcommittee to make sure that you have those 
resources, because I think the ship maintenance resources are 
absolutely critical to getting our ships out deployed, 
providing that forward presence that we need to counter the 
Chinese in the Western Pacific. And I really feel like we need 
to shift from that mantra that I feel like we have today where 
maintenance is driving operations rather than maintenance is 
supporting and enabling operations.
    So I just wanted to ask you again. I mean, do you need any 
additional authorities, resources? I mean, ideally, like, what 
could we do to speed this up to get that increased capacity?
    And I will just quickly give the other example of recently 
in Norfolk Naval Shipyard, you know, we had the CVN 77 in dry 
dock and in a docking availability that was going to last 27 
months, and a Nimitz-class, you know, first docking 
availability in their life cycle, that should have been about 
10\1/2\ months. And the domino effect of that and the dual 
deployments of the carriers we have seen over the last year, 
you know, are all impacted by that maintenance backlog.
    So can you just comment again on anything else that this 
committee or Congress can do to help speed up your building of 
your capacity and modernization of the shipyards?
    Admiral Galinis. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that question, 
Representative Luria. So let me--just to be clear, you know, at 
this point, I don't believe I need any additional authorities. 
I did not say we may not need additional resources, because we 
are working through that right now and there is a potential we 
may need additional resources. Okay.
    One of the things that I have asked the team to look at is, 
you know, we kind of initially rolled out, I will say, a 20-
year plan. I asked them to go back and look at what it would 
take, you know, to do this capitalization in 10 years, in 15 
years, and so we are working through that right now. As you 
well know, one of the things to doing that is being able to 
integrate the recapitalization work along with the ship repair 
work that we need to do.
    And to your point on, you know, maintenance driving fleet 
operations, I agree with you on that. It is an area we 
certainly need to get better. Personally, I think it starts 
with our planning efforts, okay, as we build that work package 
for the ships and the carriers and the submarines going into 
our public yards. And then once we get them in there, it is all 
about, you know, execution, and we just need to be relentless 
in that. There are things we are doing to strengthen that.
    We talked--and I will just give you three quick examples. 
One is, you know, the amount of unplanned work that we push 
into availabilities once the availability starts. And as you 
well know, you know, once that happens, especially if it comes 
in later in the availability, that is absolutely going to 
impact your ability to get that submarine or that aircraft 
carrier out of the yard on time. And so, you know, whether it 
is rework, whether it is growth work, or new, you know, work 
that you don't plan to do once you get in there is very 
impactful in a negative way.
    The second item that we are looking at is just what I will 
call shop efficiencies. And, you know, we are finding, you 
know, some real opportunities within all four of our shipyards, 
quite frankly, you know, to improve the efficiency of our shops 
to kind of push, you know, work from the shop areas down to the 
waterfront on board the submarine.
    A key piece of this, and we have had some of these 
discussions previously, is the availability of parts, whether 
those are, you know, parts coming from the supply system, those 
depot level reparable or rotatable pool items that I talked 
about, you know, just having that available to the mechanic 
when they need it to get that work done and to continue that 
process moving.
    And then, you know, the third part of this is really just--
I will just say it is availability management. And I mentioned 
the naval ship sustainment effort shipyard that we are working 
right now, we brought in, as you know, a group, the Boston 
Consulting Group to kind of, you know, kind of a world-class, 
you know, process improvement company that really, you know, 
brings some best practices from the commercial enterprise that 
we can look to leverage and to incorporate into our shipyards. 
And just the way we kind of think about when you come up as you 
work through an availability and you come up with, you know, 
unplanned work, or you have an efficiency item or something 
that may cause additional time in there, how do we work our way 
through that in a very expeditious and efficient manner. And 
frankly, we have kind of lost, I will say, our edge in that 
area a little bit.
    So those are just three areas that we are getting after, 
ma'am, on that area.
    Mrs. Luria. Well, thank you for those comments. And I know 
that my time has expired. And, you know, I think that those are 
critical areas that do need improvement. And, you know, we are 
asking as the committee, what do you need from us, what do you 
need from Congress to implement this. Because it is not just 
about building ships in the Seapower Subcommittee; it is about 
maintaining and using the ships that we have as most 
efficiently as possible, and a big piece of that is maintenance 
and getting that maintenance done on time. So thank you again 
for your comments.
    And I also wanted to thank Rear Admiral Ver Hage at the 
NAVSEA war room. I was able to spend a couple of hours with him 
a few weeks ago and got some insights on the surface fleet side 
into some of the process improvements that you are making and 
really want to be supportive of those. So thank you.
    And I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Elaine.
    We now turn to--let me give you the next four members in 
order: Moore, Speier, Bergman, Scott. Moore, Speier, Bergman, 
Scott.
    Mr. Moore, your turn.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you, Chairman. Sincerely, thank you all 
for being here today. My questions will primarily be directed 
towards General Kirkland.
    General Kirkland, it is great to get a chance to interact 
again. And, again, I appreciate your opening statements as 
well, especially bringing up the importance of STEM and some of 
those hiring needs. I hope to get a chance to chat with you 
about that.
    The organic industrial base is essential to the repair and 
maintenance of the Nation's complex array of weapon systems, 
and minimum investment requirements designed to only sustain 
depot performance have left a majority of depots in poor 
condition, relying on equipment far past its service life. And 
a course of action to reinvigorate our organic industrial bases 
requires educating Members of Congress on why these facilities 
are needed, uniting mutual interests across service branches, 
holding DOD accountable to modernizing efforts and to improve 
readiness and reduce costs.
    I am thrilled to be the co-chair of the bipartisan group 
for the House Depot Caucus. Ogden Air Logistics Complex is in 
my district, and I know that optimization plans and investment 
strategy recently just mentioned about the results-oriented 
management approach with even some consulting firms that will 
help us fortify existing optimization plans and maintain that 
superiority.
    General Kirkland, one of the first questions I will ask you 
is, the Air Force depots employ predominantly civilian 
personnel. How can we--how can this committee best help the 
services where hiring challenges are concerned? How can we best 
help, in your opinion?
    General Kirkland. Congressman Moore, thank you for that 
question. And I look forward to working with, advising, and 
informing your leadership on the Depot Caucus.
    Sir, with respect to your question about civilian 
personnel, correct, 99 percent or more of our depot workforce 
are patriotic civilian employees, Air Force civilians. And, 
sir, as I mentioned in my opening comment about how we use DHA 
[direct-hire authority] and EHA [expedited hiring authority], 
the direct hiring authority, it is a tremendous tool for us for 
both recruiting and hiring. It allows us to be more creative, 
agile, strategic, and candidly, also allows us to lever social 
media and outlying databases to attract and recruit employees.
    So with that, sir, 4 years ago, in calendar year 2017, our 
traditional hires for external for our organization averaged 
more than 180 days. Last year, using DHA, we got that into the 
low 60s. And so that is just treating our employees with a lot 
more respect and makes us more efficient when we have a 
vacancy.
    Over those same 4 years, sir, we have gone from 700 or so 
hires using DHA to over 3,000, so this is a tool that continues 
to expand in its use. Our Air Force added this to the fiscal 
year 2022 personnel legislative review, and we are going to 
resubmit for 2023 as well. Our nondepot workforce, sir, many of 
them at our installations support the depot or related 
activities, 68 percent of those hired are still using 
traditional methodologies. So there is a lot of upside if we 
could expand and use DHA and EHA more.
    Congressman, I would add to that an appeal to consider a 
clean repeal of the 180-day waiting period for retired military 
members. We are disadvantaged against our commercial industry 
peers to retain that talent and experience and specialized 
skills and security clearances as they leave Active Duty Air 
Force and retire. Many of them come back to us eventually, but 
there is a large group that we do not have access to as they 
immediately seek employment after retirement.
    Thank you, Congressman.
    Mr. Moore. Thank you. I appreciate that perspective.
    Let me switch gears quickly to the optimization program. So 
the shipyard, the Navy--the Naval Sea Systems Command shipyard 
infrastructure program is a 20-year, $21 billion effort to 
modernize infrastructure at shipyard facilities. Do you see a 
need for comprehensive plans to recapitalize and modernize the 
entirety of the organic industrial base?
    That is also to General Kirkland.
    General Kirkland. Congressman, absolutely. As we lay out 
our organic industrial base plans, and to Chairman Garamendi's 
point, even though it is a 20-year plan, we are focused 
primarily on the first 5 years of that. Our three alternatives 
go 5, 5, and 10 across it. So, sir, our targeted use of the 6 
percent investment, which the Air Force is averaging at 8 
percent right now, are taking care of much of those immediate 
needs to restructure our depots, build dedicated functional 
campuses and the like to make us more effective and optimize 
for the future.
    Mr. Moore. Excellent. And then as I enter my first quarter 
in politics and in these committees, I am realizing how fast 5 
minutes goes, so I will yield back. Thank you very much for 
your time.
    I yield back, Chairman.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Mr. Moore.
    One of the things, that I want to just take a moment here, 
is that all of the forces have a plan. We usually see that plan 
after it has been scrubbed by every other part of the 
Department of Defense, and it comes to us in an abbreviated or 
slow implementation, basically meaning that the depots often 
are of a lower priority for the entire Department than some 
other activity--the purchase of a new aerial platform, a new 
set of ships, or whatever. And it is the work of this committee 
to push the depot, the maintenance to a higher priority.
    To do that, we need to know, before all the scrubbing and 
all the elimination, what is necessary. And so, we are going to 
pursue that. And so heads up, Admirals and Generals, we are 
coming at you, looking for what you initially needed, not what 
finally came out in the President's budget, so you know where 
we are going. If you care to help us, there are ways of getting 
us information formally, and we would expect that.
    We are now going to Ms. Speier.
    Jackie, you are up. Hello, Jackie.
    She may not have come back from the various offices. We 
will go to Mr. Bergman.
    Jackie, your final try here.
    Okay. Mr. Bergman.
    Mr. Bergman. Well, Chairman, thank you. You got close. You 
traded--when I grew up, my name was Jacky, so I will just 
substitute one Jackie for another for this, okay.
    Mr. Garamendi. I will take that up with the other Jackie, 
but in the meantime----
    Mr. Bergman [interrupting]. Well, mine was with a Y. I did 
the same thing with Jacky Rosen when we got here our first 
term.
    But anyway, the point is, thanks for the hearing. Thanks 
for the education. I believe that in listening to my colleagues 
who have already spoken, I am really not going to ask any more, 
because sometimes we re-ask the same questions.
    All I would suggest to you, those of you in uniform who are 
dialoguing with us today, is that, at best, you know, in your 
business, you have got to have at least an 80 percent solution 
out the door. And then as it moves forward, you have got to, if 
you will, adjust the other 20 percent to make sure that that 
ship is deployable to the site.
    And what we look for, I believe, on our side of the aisle 
is that solid, if you will, to be alliterative here, pragmatic, 
proactive, professional, prioritization of your efforts so that 
we can provide the funding necessary and that you can show us 
where the exceptions need to be as soon as you see the need for 
exception. That helps us do our work.
    So, with that, Mr. Chairman, in the spirit of things, I 
will yield back the rest of my time and look forward to the 
next event as an update.
    Mr. Garamendi. I am going to go back to Jackie Speier, if 
she is on. We will take her now.
    Apparently not. Ms. Speier, your turn.
    Very good. We are going to go to Mr. Scott, then. And then 
we may start a second round of questions, depending on where we 
are. Good.
    Austin.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    General Kirkland, glad to have you at Robins Air Force 
Base. Look forward to seeing you next week.
    I know that you have spoken to a lot of the issues with the 
software. One of the things that is happening at Robins Air 
Force Base is the advanced Air Force--or the Air Force Advanced 
Technology and Training Center, where they are using 
technologies like 3D printing and other new advanced 
technologies for manufacturing parts that, in some cases, have 
been obsolete and, in other cases, we are simply being charged 
significantly more than we should be charged for those parts.
    What efficiencies are you seeing from investments in these 
new technologies like 3D printing, robotics, and artificial 
intelligence? How are you continuing to foster innovation in 
the sustainment enterprise? And as much as we are happy to have 
the Air Force Advanced Technology and Training Center at Robins 
Air Force Base, do you have the intent of doing similar 
facilities in other locations?
    General Kirkland. Congressman Scott, thank you, sir, for 
the question. Let me respond to two points real quickly.
    First, sir, you mentioned robotics at Warner Robins Air 
Logistics Complex. I am happy to report the investments of the 
last 4 years have really--the advantages are we removed 60 
personnel from a hazardous environment, we saved $5 million in 
automation savings, and we reduced our hazardous material 
stream, all part of that, sir, while getting more aircraft 
components out the door at a better cost.
    We are partnered with the Rapid Sustainment Office and Life 
Cycle Management Center, which actually, sir, operates the ATTC 
[Advanced Technology and Training Center] you mentioned. We are 
partnered with them across a wide spectrum of advanced 
technologies and conditions-based maintenance [CBM]. Plus, 
alone, sir, we have collaborated on our asks to--our formal POM 
[Program Objective Memorandum] ask to the Air Force will be 
$160 million now over the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program], 
and that is necessary for us to expand CBM at the rate we need 
to and have its advantages.
    Sir, with respect to ATTCs, there is, I believe, one being 
put in in Ogden outside--in Utah, and I will also say there is 
one in Pittsburgh. But I will have to take for the record, sir, 
their entire plans to expand those units.
    [The information referred to was not available at the time 
of printing.]
    Thank you.
    Mr. Scott. Well, Chairman Garamendi, one, I would like to 
invite you and the other members of the committee down to 
Robins Air Force Base to look at what is happening, not just at 
Robins as a whole, but at the Advanced Technology and Training 
Center. Obviously, while our private sector partners are an 
integral part of our national security, there are certain 
things that they do sometimes that very much irritate me with 
regard to how much they charge for certain parts that should 
cost small amounts.
    General, when we get into the software-related issues, you 
mentioned this briefly, but one of the frustrations I think of 
the committee and of myself is that as we have paid the private 
sector to develop software, then they have turned around and 
said, well, now we own it, even though we paid the original 
cost of developing it.
    The new software, the Synergy Innovation Complex and other 
things, will we be developing our own software or will we be 
predominantly updating the software that we have in our current 
platforms?
    General Kirkland. Congressman Scott, thank you for that 
question. The answer is both, sir. We have expanded our 
historic software maintenance mission now at a left into the 
cycle into an awful lot of software development in support of 
our military weapon system program offices.
    And, sir, you mentioned--you were referring to intellectual 
property, I believe, that is often a boundary for us that we 
cannot get past. And so we work with the support program 
offices for legacy platforms because there are sustainment 
opportunities that we are missing. The better news, sir, is 
that for newer weapon systems in acquisition, like B-21 and 
GBSD, those programs are being very innovative and doing the 
right things contractually now so that we will benefit with IP 
[intellectual property] access for the life cycle of that 
weapon systems.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Scott. General, my time is up, but you summed up one of 
the things, doing the right things contractually. And that is 
an error that we have made as a country in the past that I am 
glad that we are not continuing to make those errors. I look 
forward to seeing you on Monday.
    And, gentlemen, appreciate everything you do for the 
country.
    I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much.
    You are on a series of questions there on the data and the 
availability of it. We are going to work--this committee is 
going to work very closely with the acquisition committees, 
including the appropriations, to deal with the ongoing problem 
of who owns the rights to the software, to the intellectual, 
and actually to the data itself. So we are going to go at that 
in full on.
    I see Ms. Speier has returned.
    Jackie, you have 5 minutes.
    Ms. Speier. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me? I can barely 
hear you.
    Mr. Garamendi. Yes, we can. You are good to go.
    Ms. Speier. Hold on one second.
    Mr. Garamendi. You are good to go, Jackie.
    Ms. Speier. Can you hear me?
    Mr. Garamendi. Yes, we can.
    Ms. Speier. Okay. I have a question for General Kirkland 
and Vice Admiral Peters. At the oversight hearing last year, I 
think, we focused on the problems with the F-35 logistics 
system, ALIS, which has never worked well and is very 
burdensome to personnel. Lockheed keeps saying they are fixing 
it. I am curious as to whether or not it has been replaced. At 
one point, they were talking about replacing it. And have you 
seen any improvements?
    General Kirkland. Ma'am, this--Congresswoman, thank you for 
your question. I guess I will go first.
    Ma'am, I will need to take for the record what our Air 
Force has seen in terms of improvement. Because it is both 
operational and supply chain, I would not want to hazard or get 
outside my lane there. But, ma'am, I can tell you that we are 
working to control our future with respect to F-35 software 
through hands-on ownership of the transition from ALIS to the 
new ODIN system. It is currently being led by our Kessel Run 
software factory in the northeast, and they will soon 
transition and expand to the Air Force Sustainment Center 
Enterprise mostly centered at our Ogden ALC out in Utah.
    [The information referred to was not available at the time 
of printing.]
    Thank you.
    Ms. Speier. Vice Admiral.
    Admiral Peters. Ma'am, I will follow that discussion by 
just mentioning that we do continue to work very closely with 
the F-35 Joint Program Office to make sure that ALIS is 
functional for the F-35C and its first deployment with the VFA 
[Strike Fighter Squadron] 147 on USS Vinson coming up here in 
the fall. And as to date, that is working.
    They are many, many problems associated with ALIS, as you 
mentioned. The overall plan is to transition that system to 
ODIN, and I think a key, as General Kirkland mentioned, is to 
make sure that the Navy and the Marine Corps and the Air Force 
are participating in that development so that we are not 
completely dependent on the prime contractor. We pay exorbitant 
fees for the administration and the maintenance of ALIS, and so 
this is all part of the Joint Program Office's plan to reduce 
costs and to make that system more effective. I agree with you 
completely that it is a difficult system. Over.
    Ms. Speier. How do we hold them accountable? As you pointed 
out, it has been very expensive. They were supposed to provide 
us with a system that works. It has never worked, and we keep 
paying for the fact that it doesn't work and paying all the 
maintenance costs. It just seems like, you know, stupid is as 
stupid does. Why are we doing the same thing over and over 
again?
    Admiral Peters. I think we are completely invested now in 
ALIS and completely dependent on that system for the 
operations. Without it, we can only go a few days of flying. So 
we have to work with the prime contractor to make sure that we 
can get to the next segment here to first maintain what we have 
and then to upgrade it.
    And similar to what General Kirkland said, this is probably 
a better question for the Joint Program Office and, you know, 
OSD, but we are in full cooperation with the Joint Program 
Office to make that happen, ma'am.
    Ms. Speier. All right. Then let me ask this. Do any of the 
parts for the F-35 come from China? Does anyone know?
    Admiral Peters. I will take a stab at that just to say that 
we track, you know, the main components very closely, and I 
don't know of any main components on the aircraft that come 
from China. As you go down into the supply chain at the third 
or fourth tier, it is very likely that there are some 
electronic parts that come from China, but we will have to take 
that one for the record to get you a more detailed response, 
ma'am.
    [The information referred to was not available at the time 
of printing.]
    Ms. Speier. All right. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I know my time has almost expired. Let me 
just suggest that, as we think about readiness in the future 
and the maintenance of our equipment, we have got to be very 
careful about any parts coming from China and the potential for 
malware to be embedded into any of that equipment or parts. So 
I would just like to put that front and center and make sure 
that we are all operating with our eyes wide open. And, with 
that, I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi. Ms. Speier, thank you very much. Indeed, it 
is a major concern. The entire F-35 system is of enormous 
concern to the committee. The chairman has weighed in on this 
in a very big and important way this last week. There are 
numerous meetings going on. I will make sure that all of my 
subcommittee members know of those meetings.
    The F-35 is a huge problem, and one of the principal 
problems is that we buy more planes. We are not able to 
maintain the older ones. So the more we buy, the worse the 
overall performance has been. That is going to stop. There is a 
very deep concern in this committee about the F-35 overall, 
including the issue you raised, Jackie.
    And for General Kirkland, the hearing yesterday in the 
strategic arms subcommittee was extraordinarily troublesome to 
the question that Ms. Speier raised about, by the way, where is 
all that stuff coming from as you put together all these new 
platforms and particularly the electronics and the software and 
the like. It is an enormous concern across all of this, and 
ultimately, it comes down to the folks that are here in 
uniform. You are going to be left with, okay, how do you fix 
it, and I don't know that we have an answer. So we have got to 
start where Ms. Speier is, and that is you start by doing it 
right in the first place.
    And so, Jackie, stay on the issue. It is an important one.
    We are formally past the time of the hearing. We were 
supposed to end about now. We took a half hour break in 
between. If the presenters are willing to stick around, I know 
that there is another round of questions from Mr. Lamborn. I 
know Mrs. Luria has one. I certainly have about another 5 hours 
of questions that I am not going to ask.
    Doug, you are shaking your head. Was that a yes, you are 
finished?
    You are finished. Okay. I read your lips. Didn't hear your 
sound.
    Mrs. Luria. Another round of questions?
    Mrs. Luria. Yes. Well, thank you, Chairman Garamendi. And 
thank you to the witnesses for being willing to stay a little 
bit longer and answer some additional questions.
    Our primary focus, I think, should be what we are going to 
do to increase our presence in the Western Pacific in counter 
to the Chinese threat. And, you know, in the Seapower 
Subcommittee, we can talk about building more ships. But the 
other part is--there are three parts to this: Building more 
ships as quickly as we can; operating the ships that we have as 
efficiently as possible, which, you know, maintenance fits into 
that; and then not divesting of the ships we have that still 
have usable life.
    So I want to touch on those last two things, and I think we 
already talked about, you know, the maintenance and whether 
maintenance drives operations or getting back to maintenance 
supporting operations. But, you know, the last piece of that is 
that the Battle Force 2045, the plan that the last 
administration put out, I feel like we didn't get a lot of good 
background information on what the assumptions were made that 
helped to build that plan.
    Some of those assumptions are driven by the potential 
adversary and how we would respond to that, but some of those 
assumptions are driven by our capacity, our capacity to get 
industrial base to build ships, our capacity of our, you know, 
repair communities to repair those ships and get them back out 
on deployment as quickly as possible. But the other piece is we 
can't decommission ships faster than we can build them.
    So that plan does have us decommissioning, I think, 10 
cruisers in a very short period of time. And, you know, I 
lived--I served as the XO [executive officer] on a cruiser, the 
USS Anzio. We had a 14-foot crack in the hangar bay. We had a 
lot of issues, and we had not had any of the HM&E [hull, 
mechanical, and electrical] upgrades that some of the other 
ships had had.
    But knowing that the combat system upgrades are possible 
due to the architecture of the Aegis system, and knowing that 
we invested a sizable amount of money in several of our 
cruisers, I would really like to know, Admiral Galinis, some 
perspective on, you know, hull by hull. Can you provide us 
information on those cruisers that still have remaining life?
    I think we need them as air defense platforms. We can't 
build Flight III DDGs [guided missile destroyer] faster than we 
are planning on decommissioning the cruisers. And so I would 
really like to--and you might not be able to provide the 
granular information at this hearing today--but have that 
information hull by hull on what upgrades have been done to the 
cruisers and what the estimated cost would be to extend their 
lifetime.
    Admiral Galinis. Yes, ma'am. That is a great question. So, 
yes, I will take for the record to get back with you on a hull-
by-hull assessment. We can certainly provide that to you.
    [The information referred to was not available at the time 
of printing.]
    Admiral Galinis. What I will tell you, you know, on the 
decommissioning of ships, and we did take a hard look at that. 
And it really, you know, in some cases were, I will say, 
divesting of legacy capability that, in some cases, it really 
is costing us a lot to maintain, and we are just not getting, I 
will say, the return on investment from a warfighting 
capability standpoint.
    So, you know, we make those trades, but it is also an 
opportunity to kind of, you know, reinvest that money into new 
capabilities. And we have got a number of, as you well know, 
new ship designs. You know, either in the shipyard in the case 
of the frigate program up at Marinette, you know, we are 
looking closely now at the DDG(X) [Next-Generation Guided-
Missile Destroyer] program, and that is quickly starting to 
evolve. The light amphibious warship is coming along. We are 
also looking to recapitalize the logistic ships as well as a 
lot of the work that we are doing in the unmanned system.
    So I think from a--and then not to mention what we are 
doing on the submarine side as well with some early design work 
on the SSN(X) [Next-Generation Attack Submarine], right.
    So, you know, I think we are kind of, I will say, at a 
little bit of a kind of a transformational moment here, kind of 
on ship design, especially with the--you know, with the 
unmanned platforms. And I know there is a lot----
    Mrs. Luria. I am sorry to cut you off, Admiral. I know you 
could talk at length about this, and we can probably have a 
separate conversation, but my time is limited.
    You know, I really just wanted to point out that, from our 
perspective as lawmakers, I feel like there isn't a clear 
strategy, a clear maritime strategy. What is the goal? Do we 
need to have more presence there today? And if that is the 
case, I feel like you would have clear direction to say, I am 
focusing all my efforts on getting that, getting everything we 
have out of the ships that we already have because we have them 
and we know their capabilities and their limitations, but we 
can put them there today and make them part of this complex 
battle problem.
    But, you know, without a clear vision like that, you know, 
it seems like we are all over the place. We are focused on new 
capabilities. I am all for, you know, research and development 
and developing new capabilities. We have had a bad track record 
on development of several of our last classes of ships and not 
reaching the full operational capability that we wanted, LCS 
[littoral combat ship] and the mission modules, DDG 1000.
    And we can talk about those things separately, but, you 
know, and it is just--it is kind of clear in the comments as 
well that you just made on the previous questions that I asked. 
I mean, you said we just--we just sort of notionally came up 
with the 20-year plan for the shipyard optimization. But if you 
had more clear guidance, you might be saying, darn, I need to 
get this done in 5 years, and what do we need for that.
    You know, I am just kind of putting all of this into the 
perspective of, and perhaps you agree or disagree, that there 
just isn't a clear vision of, like, what our priority is and 
what the urgency is. Do you feel like more guidance and vision 
on that would be helpful for you to prioritize these issues?
    Admiral Galinis. Yes, ma'am. No. I feel like we have the 
right guidance and the right strategy out there.
    Mrs. Luria. So what is this guidance? Is it the Battle 
Force 2045? Is it previous 30-year shipbuilding plans? Like, 
none of the guidance that I see is very granular, and it really 
doesn't say, like, this is our number one priority.
    Admiral Galinis. Okay. Yeah. I can see, you know, maybe 
with where we stand with the 30-year shipbuilding plan, but, 
you know, the force structure work has been done, I will say, 
over the last, you know, year or so. I think that provides some 
pretty good indications in terms of the capabilities required, 
with a couple of different options on how to, you know, equip 
that force with that capability. So that----
    Mrs. Luria. So how much input did you have into that plan?
    Mr. Garamendi. Elaine----
    Mrs. Luria. Okay. Sorry, Chairman Garamendi. I know my time 
is expired.
    Mr. Garamendi. We are going to try to pay a little bit of 
attention to the clock. The questions are always good, and they 
are provocative, and you are headed down a path that we need to 
pay attention to. Some of that path is over in the Seapower 
Subcommittee, and I know that you do sit on that. But all of 
this tends to come back to this committee.
    Whatever those ships are, if we are going to maintain, if 
we are going to hang on to the cruisers, somebody is going to 
maintain them, and this committee is going to be responsible 
for that maintenance. So there is an interoperability here 
between this.
    One of the things that goes beyond this committee, and I 
know all of us sit on multiple subcommittees, is the new 
administration is going to look at its strategies. And sometime 
probably towards the end of this year, maybe early next year, 
there will be a new military strategy laid out--China, Russia, 
whatever, and Space Force and all the rest.
    Ultimately, this committee must pay attention to that 
because all of that will require continued maintenance and its 
operational capabilities. And so we will be engaged in 
observing what that strategy is, looking at the new equipment 
platforms, satellites, et cetera, and then, okay, how is it 
going to get maintained? What are the resources necessary? What 
are the facilities necessary? So a lot of what is going on here 
is in flux. And, Mrs. Luria, your question is provocative and 
necessary.
    I am going to--I think all the other members have left. If 
that is not the case, let me know, and you have----
    Mr. Wilson, you are still here. You have got another round 
of questions. Mr. Wilson.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I do have a final question for General Gamble, and that is, 
I am very grateful to represent Fort Jackson, and General 
Milford Beagle has just been a super leader at the post. We 
will miss him.
    But always a problem that has to be addressed, and the word 
``flux'' comes to mind that the chairman just used, and that is 
when we have sequestration. And so how is the Army handling the 
indecisiveness of sequestration, and are we back on track, 
maintaining our capabilities despite the sequestration?
    General Gamble. Congressman, thanks for your question. For 
Fort Jackson in particular, you know, that is where we bring in 
new soldiers and train our future soldiers. It is absolutely 
decisive to the long-term health of our Army, the flow of young 
men and women committed to the defense of our Nation going 
through there.
    The Chief of Staff of the Army has prioritized people first 
and all investments associated with that. One of the 
investments is the predictability of the flow of new recruits 
coming through our pipeline. During COVID, we thought we would 
be challenged in recruiting, and we met and exceeded our goals.
    So I believe, despite, you know, flux, as you rightly 
described it, fluctuations in many things, our economy, you 
know, our level of funding, wherever those fluctuations come 
from, our Army Recruiting Command and the leadership of our 
leaders at Fort Jackson and Fort Benning and other places where 
we train our new soldiers has been absolutely, you know, 
phenomenal to smooth that out.
    But leadership of our chief, the support your committee 
gives us, has been absolutely critical to that. So thank you.
    Mr. Wilson. Well, and it is so inspiring, when I am at 
Columbia Airport, to see the young recruits coming in with 
their brown manila envelopes, you know exactly who they are and 
where they are going, and greeted by the USO [United Service 
Organizations], and then to see the very warm welcome by drill 
sergeants.
    And so, again, thank you for your service. And I know that 
my military service 31 years ago, I have 3 sons who have served 
in the Guard in Iraq, each of them in Afghanistan, and my 
youngest son, a good friend of Chairman Garamendi, is an 
engineer. Military service is so important.
    Thank you. And I yield back.
    Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.
    I believe all of the members that are still on have had at 
least one additional round of questioning, so we are going to 
move to the end of this hearing.
    A couple of things. I am going to put a couple of things on 
the line.
    General Kirkland, in the most recent hearings, strategic 
arms and other hearings, the Air Force is going to have a large 
number of new platforms, extremely sophisticated platforms. 
Some of this is still classified; some is out there publicly. 
We need to know, this committee needs to know how--what are 
your maintenance plans for those new platforms. I don't want to 
have another F-35 fiasco. So let's start, we need to know so--
and that goes all the way down, from the GBSD to a lot of other 
things.
    So I want to have a briefing from you within the next 3 or 
4 months about the integration of your maintenance plans with 
the new platforms. Okay?
    Some of the others of--the Navy, similarly, have some new 
things coming on, so how are you going to maintain those.
    The Marine Corps, you have got a whole new strategy in the 
Marine Corps. So what does that mean to this committee? We 
haven't heard yet. We do know that you are about to--I guess 
you are having all of your slightly used Abrams, you are 
sending them over to the Army, and the Army is going, What the 
hell did you do to maintain these things? So you guys work that 
out, but let us know, okay, what might be going on here.
    So what I am looking at here is looking at these things 
from the beginning all the way to the end. And Mrs. Luria was 
talking about the end. Are the cruisers really going to 
disappear? Well, there is this whole new China strategy. Hmm. 
How does that fit into all of this. So I want to be clear with 
all of that.
    Also, we are going to go back at this--at yesterday's 
hearing, there was--it was classified. I won't take it up now. 
I will get to you, General Kirkland, on this in a different 
format.
    I have talked a lot about data. I want to hear from all of 
you about data mining. Somewhere in your records are paper 
forms of platforms that you are still operating and 
maintaining, probably going back a decade, maybe two or three 
decades. That data may be very useful in determining what you 
need to repair tomorrow, what is going to break tomorrow, what 
is going to be required.
    The Air Force has a good program underway on this. It is 
going to need to be supported, General Kirkland, with some 
additional personnel and some additional money, but it is data 
mining, a lot of historic data. I think it is, as I recall, the 
C-5--the C-17 specifically, and I believe there is one other 
platform that you are using as an example. And then with using 
that analytical--using that data for analytical analysis of 
what you need in terms of parts and what is going to break 
next. Predictive maintenance, I believe, is the word that we 
decided to settle on.
    I am bringing that to your attention. I think it is 
important enough to really force the money to be made 
available, and I think it is a small amount of money.
    For the rest of you that are here, watch closely this best 
practice, which may be a best practice. If it turns out--I 
think you are going to know within the next 6 months whether it 
is or not. If it is, share that best practice across the forces 
and get ready to do some data mining.
    Finally, there are two elements that the President is 
pushing, and the Congress, and that is called equity. That is 
equity in hiring. The minority communities, we haven't dealt--
we have dealt a lot with hiring thus far in the various 
questions asked by the members. I was going to add early on 
that that equity issue needs to be part of that hiring 
equation. So keep that in mind. We will come back and ask you 
specific questions. If I don't, I guarantee you there are about 
200 other Democrats are going to ask and, quite possibly, the 
President, or at least the Vice President.
    Another one that I know all of us are interested in, and 
that is the small businesses that was discussed earlier today, 
more in passing than in specificity. There are these small 
business opportunities that exist--I think it was Mr. Scott 
brought this up--around all of the depots. Some of that has to 
do with new technologies and the integration of the new 
technologies. So the small businesses are also an issue that I 
know the Congress is interested in, both Democrat and 
Republican side, and they are going to bang on me, and I am 
going to bang on you. So pay attention to the small business 
opportunities that exist around your depots and maintenance 
facilities.
    So, with that, I have not run my entire string of questions 
but probably enough for the hour and plus. Thank you for the 
willingness to stick around through our 30-minute recess.
    And, with that, I formally adjourn this hearing. Thank you 
all for your participation.
    [Whereupon, at 1:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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                            A P P E N D I X

                             March 19, 2021
    
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              PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                             March 19, 2021

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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                             March 19, 2021

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                 QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. STRICKLAND

    Ms. Strickland. Approximately 2,000 businesses in Washington State 
provide support to the military and defense sector including suppliers 
for depots like Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. The state's deep water 
ports, strategically located airports, proximity to the Pacific Rim and 
integrated rail and road system, allow the various branches to meet 
their mission needs with tremendous flexibility and collaboration. As 
the Department continues to focus on the Indo-Pacific, I know that 
Washington State will become increasingly important. To that end, we 
must focus on building an equitable labor force to support this 
important work.
    When I was Mayor of Tacoma, I created the Tideflats Certification 
Program to prepare students for high-wage jobs with good benefits in 
the maritime industry. I understand that many of the facilities, 
including Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in my home state of Washington, 
have worked to develop apprenticeship programs. I understand that 
approximately 10,000 people have been hired at the Puget Sound Naval 
Shipyard since 2010, and approximately 44% of the shipyard workforce 
has been hired in the last five years.
    How many vacancies do you have right now? How are apprenticeship 
programs working to fill labor shortages and how are you working with 
technical colleges? Do you need resources from Congress to expand these 
programs? Can you also provide me metrics about how these programs 
recruit from and support underserved communities including veterans, 
women, people of color, and indigenous communities? For those who are 
trained in these programs, how many are retained over the long term? 
What issues exist in retaining these employees?
    Admiral Galinis. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
    Ms. Strickland. The apprenticeship program at Puget Sound Naval 
Shipyard is coordinated with Olympic College which we are very proud 
of, however, I am curious if you could talk to me about developing 
programs for high school students for trades that don't need a college 
degree?
    Admiral Galinis. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]

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