[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                     
 
                         [H.A.S.C. No. 118-17]

                                HEARING

                                   ON

                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

                          FOR FISCAL YEAR 2024

                                  AND

              OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

    SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES, AND INNOVATION

                                   ON

                        SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND

                           INNOVATION AT THE

                         DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

                               __________

                              HEARING HELD
                             MARCH 23, 2023


                                     

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 



                          ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 52-382          WASHINGTON : 2024
                                     
  


    SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES, AND INNOVATION

                  MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin, Chairman

MATT GAETZ, Florida                  RO KHANNA, California
LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan            SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
PAT FALLON, Texas                    WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
DALE W. STRONG, Alabama              ANDY KIM, New Jersey
MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas               ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia        JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
NICK LaLOTA, New York                PATRICK RYAN, New York
RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia           CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO, 
                                         Pennsylvania

               Caroline Kehrli, Professional Staff Member
               Michael Hermann, Professional Staff Member
                    Payson Ruhl, Research Assistant
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

              STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

Gallagher, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Wisconsin, Chairman, 
  Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation     1
Slotkin, Hon. Elissa, a Representative from Michigan, 
  Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation     2

                               WITNESSES

LaPlante, Dr. William A., Under Secretary of Defense for 
  Acquisition and Sustainment, Department of Defense.............     6
Shyu, Hon. Heidi, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and 
  Engineering, Department of Defense.............................     4

                                APPENDIX

Prepared Statements:

    Mr. Gallagher................................................    31
    Mr. Khanna, Raking Member, Subcommittee on Cyber, Information 
      Technologies, and Innovation...............................    33
    Dr. LaPlante.................................................    46
    Hon. Shyu....................................................    34

Documents Submitted for the Record:

    Tabs A, B, and C, provided by Secretary LaPlante.............    59

Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

    Mr. Khanna...................................................    75

Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

    Mr. Moulton..................................................    79
    SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND INNOVATION AT THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

                              ----------                              

                  House of Representatives,
                       Committee on Armed Services,
      Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and 
                                                Innovation,
                          Washington, DC, Thursday, March 23, 2023.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:30 p.m., in 
room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Gallagher 
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE GALLAGHER, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
    WISCONSIN, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INFORMATION 
                  TECHNOLOGIES, AND INNOVATION

    The Chairman. The meeting will come to order. I ask 
unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare 
recess at any time. Without objection, so ordered.
    Welcome to today's Cyber, Information Technologies, and 
Innovation Subcommittee hearing entitled, Science, Technology, 
and Innovation at the Department of Defense.
    Today's hearing provides an opportunity to discuss the 
fiscal year 2024 Presidential budget request for the Department 
of Defense science and technology policy and programs but more 
concretely to investigate how the Department is and is not 
enabling our warfighters to operate the systems necessary for 
competing and winning in the 21st century with a highly 
technical and advanced set of adversaries.
    I'd like to direct our witnesses' and members' attention to 
a graphic that I hope will guide our conversation today that is 
being displayed. It is bigger behind you if you can see it 
there if you want to look on. I don't know which is easier. 
Clearly, we need more TVs in this room.
    In 2007 amidst the Iraq War, a commercial off-the-shelf 
version of a system designed to protect warfighters from 
improvised explosive devises was fielded in low quantities to 
ground forces in U.S. Central Command to protect them as they 
transited across the region.
    What's displayed on the screen is a broken, and I would say 
unjustifiably lengthy, acquisitions process to design and scale 
a product that had proven its ability to keep our troops alive 
and was commercially available.
    From when the product demonstrated success in the field, it 
took the Armed Services 6 years to create a requirement, 
another 5 to trudge through the planning, programming, and 
budget phase of the budget cycle.
    It took the Defense Innovation Unit only 2 years to 
complete a rapid prototype based on these requirements followed 
by yet another 3 years of federal acquisitions regulation 
contracting rather than a streamlined production via Other 
Transaction Authority.
    The service finally began initial fielding in late 2022 and 
early 2023. To put it simply, it took the Department of Defense 
11 years to translate warfighter demand into a funded 
marketplace demand and 5 more to deliver a product that saves 
American service member lives. This is just one example of 
likely hundreds if not thousands. It is the norm, not the 
exception too often in this world.
    Our job, and I think our witnesses' job, is to deliver the 
best leading-edge technology in America to the point of need in 
minimal time. And the challenges we face against the Chinese 
Communist Party and our efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine 
only further amplify this need for speed.
    The United States may be home to the most vibrant and 
advanced innovation ecosystem in the world, but the way in 
which the Department defaults to and normalizes processes like 
this case study weakens deterrence and has proven to have 
deadly effects on our own warfighters.
    We are joined today by two witnesses who are going to help 
us understand how we fix this, the Honorable Heidi Shyu, the 
Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and the 
Honorable William LaPlante, the Under Secretary of Defense for 
Acquisition and Sustainment. They are both positioned to lead 
the development and procurement of critical capabilities for 
the Department of Defense.
    So as we review and discuss this coming year's budget for 
leading-edge technology, I would ask both of you today to help 
us understand what you are doing to make sure that this is not, 
the slide is not, how the Department does business in the 
future. What can we all do together to bring future capability 
into the hands of warfighters in the next 6 to 12 months, not 6 
to 12 years?
    And I would remind members that following the open portion 
of today's hearing, members will reconvene in 2337 Rayburn for 
a classified briefing with additional representatives from 
DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] and the 
military services. And with that, and I yield to the ranking 
member, well, the Acting Ranking Member Ms. Slotkin--
    Ms. Slotkin. Thank you.
    The Chairman. --for her opening remarks.
    [The statement of Mr. Gallagher can be found in the 
Appendix on page 31.]

    STATEMENT OF HON. ELISSA SLOTKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM 
MICHIGAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CYBER, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES, AND 
                           INNOVATION

    Ms. Slotkin. Thanks to the chairman for convening today's 
hearing. I think there is a lot of bipartisan agreement on our 
feelings around sort of supply chain issues and getting our 
technology into usable form.
    I am standing in today for Representative Khanna, who 
should be here later. I am happy to be sitting next to my co-
conspirator on the HASC [House Armed Services Committee] 
Defense Supply Chain Task Force from last Congress. And I can 
think of no better partner to ensure the Department has the 
authorities it needs to continue to innovate and stay ahead of 
our adversaries.
    Thank you to our witnesses for coming here. I ask unanimous 
consent for Ranking Member Khanna's statement to be entered 
into the record if that's okay, Mr. Chairman?
    The Chairman. Without objection.
    [The statement of Mr. Khanna can be found in the Appendix 
on page 33.]
    Ms. Slotkin. And I would just say in similar sentiment, you 
know, even though I'm just standing in, one of the most common 
things that I hear from people back home, from people who are 
not in the defense industry, is, like, are we keeping up with 
the bad guys? They seem to be doing all this cool stuff. Are we 
also taking all of this cool stuff and putting it into our 
military, you know, into the toolkit?
    And it is hard to say with a straight face that we are 
awesome at that. And we all want the Department to be awesome 
at that. We are all on the same page that we want to go from 
concept to fielding in at least the same amount of time that 
the Chinese Government does.
    And at least up here, shorthand, we have always heard that 
it takes us from concept to fielding 3 years where it takes the 
Chinese Government a year. No idea if you agree with that. Tell 
me if I am wrong. But that is sort of shorthand what members of 
Congress have come to expect. And we want to tighten that 
crank. We want to turn that crank faster.
    And we stand ready to give you the authorities you need. 
But, again, we hear over and over again that it is not 
authorities. That it is culture. That it is a whole bunch of 
other things. So I am looking forward to hearing how you are 
turning that crank.
    And then I would just say, research and development is 
important for things like weapon systems, but it's also 
important for other things where the Department of Defense has 
a key role.
    And I would be remiss if I did not mention the issue that I 
think is coming to a theater near us, to the Department of 
Defense in particular, which is the EPA [Environmental 
Protection Agency] changing its standards on PFAS [per- and 
polyfluoroalkyl substances] and other chemicals, which will 
mean that the Department is asked to live up to those standards 
in and around closed and currently in use bases.
    When that comes down, we're all going to turn to you and 
say, okay, when are you cleaning up the area around my base? 
They can't drink their drinking water. When are you going to do 
it? And honestly, I don't know if we have the technological 
skills yet to understand how to clean some of this up.
    And so I think it is important for keeping up with 
adversaries, but also for keeping faith back home with the 
responsibilities we have to the citizens of the country. So 
will just put that out there. Thank you, Mr. Ranking Member, 
and I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you. There is a great book out--yeah, 
thank you. I'm the Chairman. There's a great new book out by 
Dan Egan, a Wisconsinite, called The Devil's Element on PFAS 
that I recommend.
    And thank you for--the Supply Chain Task Force was your 
brain child, and I very much enjoyed working with you on it. It 
was ahead of its time, and I am proud of the work product we 
produced. And we are now sort of incorporating some of that 
into what we are doing on the committee on the CCP [Chinese 
Communist Party]. So thank you very much for that.
    With that, I recognize Ms. Shyu for 5 minutes. And thank 
you, Ms. Shyu. You had about 103 fever last night. And you have 
powered through in the interest of national security for the 
good of the nation to show up here today. So I award you some 
extra credit at the outset.
    We will see how the Q&A goes, but you start off in a good 
position.

   STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE HEIDI SHYU, UNDER SECRETARY OF 
  DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

    Secretary Shyu. Thank you, Chairman Gallagher and 
Representative Slotkin and members of the subcommittee. Thank 
you for the opportunity to discuss the work of the Department 
of Defense Research and Engineering enterprise and for your 
ongoing support.
    President Biden and Secretary Austin have said we are in 
the decisive decade for our country and our national security. 
One in which the Department must make the right investments to 
ensure our continued enduring advantage over any potential 
adversary.
    The Department's pacing challenge, the People's Republic of 
China, is a strategic competitor with the resources and the 
will to challenge the rules-based international order.
    It is important for the committee and the American people 
to know two things. First, we understand the challenges we face 
and the need to move with speed and determination.
    Second, the U.S. has undeniable advantage over any 
potential adversary. The PRC [People's Republic of China] is 
modernizing its forces and seeks to challenge our superiority. 
They have not succeeded.
    Our task in my office in the broader innovation enterprise 
is to ensure that we will maintain our enduring advantage. The 
National Defense Science and Technology Strategy we will soon 
deliver lays out three lines of effort for rising to this 
challenge.
    First, we are focusing on the Joint Mission. Our 
responsibility is to provide our forces with overwhelming 
asymmetric technologies to deter and fight and win.
    Second, we are creating and fielding capabilities at speed 
and scale.
    Third, we are creating an enduring advantage by cultivating 
talent, strengthening infrastructure, pursuing basic research, 
and increasing collaborations with allies and partners.
    We are implementing this strategy in the President's FY24 
budget request, which continues historic levels of investments 
in research and development. It prioritizes delivery or near-
term capabilities of speed and scale, direct support to joint 
warfighting concepts, and builds a science and technology 
foundation for tomorrow.
    Last year, we identified 14 critical technologies that 
underpin our advantage. The budget makes investment in each of 
these areas in collaboration with Under Secretary of Defense 
for Acquisition and Sustainment, who has developed pathways to 
accelerate innovations to the field.
    For leap ahead technology developed by Defense Advanced 
Research Projects Agency to innovation for small businesses to 
the commercial companies via our defense innovation ecosystem, 
including the Defense Innovation Unit and to various works to 
the new Office of Strategic Capital, each organization 
contributes to the DOD [Department of Defense] innovation 
pipeline.
    The committee knows we are investing in technologies that 
will extend our asymmetric advantages over any competitor. 
While we cannot discuss all of these efforts in this 
unclassified setting, I am mentioning them to inform the 
American people that we are aggressively preparing for the 
future.
    Already we are seeing benefits from the Department's 
efforts to accelerate critical capabilities. The support of 
Congress has been critical to the efforts such as Accelerating 
the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies, or 
APFIT, which is already delivering capabilities such as 
advanced underwater mine detection and Drop-Glide Munitions.
    The budget funds the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, 
or RDER, a series of joint experiments to demonstrate advanced 
capabilities for combatant commanders. RDER is just an example 
of our commitment to do things differently in order to 
accelerate important new capabilities through the force.
    Last December Secretary Austin announced the establishment 
of the Office of Strategic Capital, which is working with the 
Small Business Administration to close investment gaps in our 
access to critical technologies.
    The budget supports workforce programs such as the SMART 
[Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation] 
Scholarship. With congressional support earlier this year, we 
announced our first university affiliated research center, at a 
historically Black university, Howard University, and have 
included significant funding FY24 [fiscal year 2024] requests 
to do more with minority institutions.
    Our strong collaboration with allies and partners will 
enable accelerated capability delivery and interoperability in 
the contested battle space. Together we will be far stronger.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for your 
ongoing support.
    [The statement of Secretary Shyu can be found in the 
Appendix on page 34.]
    The Chairman. Thank you, Ms. Shyu. And I should have 
reminded the witnesses of our commandments today. Step one, we 
started on time so we fulfilled that one. We will enforce the 
5-minute rule. And to the extent possible, most importantly and 
most difficultly, let's try and avoid the use of acronyms and 
jargon and use simple and direct language that average 
Americans can understand.
    Dr. LaPlante, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE WILLIAM LAPLANTE, UNDER SECRETARY OF 
 DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION AND SUSTAINMENT, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

    Secretary LaPlante. Chairman Gallagher, Ranking Member 
Khanna, and Representative Slotkin, distinguished members of 
the subcommittee, thanks for the opportunity to be here today 
on this important topic.
    And as I think of the chart that was shown in the opening, 
what's been going through my mind is I incidentally want to 
diagnose it and think about what is going on in Ukraine. So it 
will be very interesting as we have this hearing.
    Actually, the conflict in Ukraine has illustrated in many 
ways we have underemphasized production. If you noticed in that 
example, the production was actually delayed between when the 
prototype was completed, and the production started. It looks 
like they had to go through a different contracting process so 
that was just not the least of it.
    We do have the adapted acquisition framework, which has all 
the different pathways of acquisition. We have the software 
pathway now. We have the OTAs, Other Transaction Authority. 
Think of it as a way to get somebody under contract in a couple 
of days.
    We have another type of authority that allows us to 
actually not have to get the requirements nailed down 
initially. Like in that chart, remember how the requirements 
took very long to go right into a prototype and then ideally go 
right into production. For those of you inside Washington, it 
is called Mid Tier Acquisition.
    So there is a lot of flexibility we have. That is not 
enough. We need to--actually the example shows this--do a 
better job in my view of integrating the three legs of this 
stool. And I'm going to way oversimplify it. But if you ever 
had a house built, you will probably understand what they are.
    One is, you have to understand the requirements and get 
them approved. In your family, it might be you and your spouse. 
What is the house you want to have? We saw in that example how 
long it took from the initial idea for the requirements, for 
when the bill actually was approved.
    The second part is you have to have the money, and the 
money has to be in the right place in the right year.
    And the third, you have to have the right acquisition. 
Think of it as you have to have your contractor selected and 
ready to go. If any of those three legs of that stool, just 
like if you are building a house, is out of sync or you change 
your mind or the money changes or the contract is bad, it can 
mess it up.
    Now it's hard to believe it, but all three legs of that 
stool in the Department of Defense do not come together until 
at least the Deputy Secretary of Defense if not the Secretary 
of Defense.
    Now we have exceptions of that where those delegations have 
gone lower, and it has been very agile. And, in fact, the 
software acquisition pathway that you all have given us is 
really using that same requirement in an agile sense to develop 
software continuously.
    So what we really need to think about as we think about 
PPBE [planning, programming, budgeting, and execution], like 
that chart, and we also think about how we can rapidly get to 
production, is how we put this all together. And that is what 
we are happy here to talk about.
    We have also historically, this is again for the basics, 
separated how we get weapon systems or capabilities into three 
phases. We design the system. We then go into production of the 
system and then we sustain it, sometimes for 40, 50 years. 
Seventy percent of the money is in sustainment, 70 percent.
    All three of those phases have different personalities, 
have different contracts, have different rules. And all you 
have to have is one of those phases not work. So I'll tell you 
that because we will tell you how we need to change and how we 
are changing.
    The other piece of it is all that matters is getting the 
capability into the warfighter hands. We know that. We know 
that it doesn't matter how beautiful the prototype is, as the 
example said, it has to get to the warfighter.
    And, frankly, we all in this country have downplayed 
production. We have downplayed production. And peace dividends 
after the Cold War and a focus on counterinsurgency operations 
necessarily so after 9/11 led us to prioritize other things in 
the industrial base and not prioritize production. If you do 
not do production, no matter how brilliant your innovation is, 
it is not going to get to a warfighter.
    While these were conscious decisions jointly made by DOD 
and Congress based on the security environment, with your help 
we can get back on these conscious decisions and reverse the 
trend.
    First, we need consistent long-term funding for these lead-
time systems. In munitions, we are finally getting multiyear 
funding. And if people want to understand why does that matter, 
think of it in terms of liquidity. If you have a fund or your 
bank account or you're managing retirement, and you need to 
have a plan for having to be able to access it very quickly, 
that's liquidity.
    The Department of Defense, because it's had to deal with 
all these ups and downs of the budget and the sequester and the 
CR [continuing resolution], it has had to keep its liquidity, 
too, and the budget tiers keep that liquidity by buying 
munitions in 1 year at a time and then when a budget jolt 
happens, which happens almost every year, they take it out of 
the liquid accounts, which is usually training, ammunitions, 
and things like that. So there is a reason it is there.
    We have to change that attitude for some of these systems. 
We have to continue to have more flexible authorities and then 
we must be able to provide and buy things in advance, procure 
things in advance. And we must also get the budget passed on 
time.
    And I know it's unfair because all of you support the 
budget, but I think the number is 4 years. I think we have not 
had a budget out of the last 10, 11 years. And it's not funny 
to think that if the Chinese had done the same thing, we would 
be in a better place. So we also need to get the budget worked 
out.
    So, again, this is all about getting the technology into 
production and taking that timeline, that horrible timeline and 
collapsing it. And I'll give you examples of how we are doing 
it in Ukraine. The system can do it. So I look forward to your 
questions. Thank you.
    [The statement of Secretary LaPlante can be found in the 
Appendix on page 46.]
    The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you both. I look forward to 
digging in in the question and answer portion. Ms. Shyu, okay. 
So we are trying to figure out this problem from concept to 
fielding a weapon or a particular system in various case 
studies. How do we reduce that timeline, particularly in light 
of the prospect of a PLA [People's Liberation Army] invasion of 
Taiwan in the next 2 to 3 years?
    So if we were to analyze your budget last year, how much of 
it is being spent to deliver capabilities in the next 2 to 5 
years versus capabilities in the next 10 to 30 years? What are 
we doing in the short term?
    Secretary Shyu. We are doing actually a lot in the short 
term. One of the key things that we are doing is Rapid Defense 
Experimentation Reserve exercises we are conducting starting 
this year. A year and a half ago we initiated this.
    To identify the joint warfighting challenge needs for 
future highly contested fights, what we have done is taken the 
Joint Staff's information on what is needed to conduct a fight. 
We went to all those services to ask them for prototypes they 
are developing that could address these needs.
    This year, we will be taking these prototypes and rapidly 
demonstrating capabilities. And my counterpart right here has 
already worked out a process to say if we demonstrate the 
utility in the joint staff, the COCOMs [combatant commands] and 
services that I need this rapidly, I will turn right to Bill 
LaPlante and A&S [Acquisition and Sustainment] to accelerate 
that capability through.
    The Chairman. So if we just--and riffing off that and what 
Dr. LaPlante said at the end of his testimony, just like at the 
core of it, why does it take on average between 9 to 26 years 
to deliver new capability to warfighters? Like what is at the 
heart of that issue?
    Secretary LaPlante. Let's use the example that you showed, 
but there are other examples with different things so. But the 
nice thing or the bad thing about your example, the reason it 
is an interesting one is that it has the 2-year prototype that 
DIU [Defense Innovation Unit] did. The DIU did its job.
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Secretary LaPlante. So it is saying, okay, even when you do 
the prototype in 2 years or less, look at what still happens? 
So what happened there, I mean, I don't know the case. But what 
happened there is Department and probably our stakeholders 
could not make a decision on whether they wanted to do it or 
not. That is what that means, where it takes that long to get 
the requirement.
    The Chairman. And who in the Department is that? Is that 
some amorphous person in the sort of acquisition workforce or--
--
    Secretary LaPlante. It is not in the acquisitions side at 
all, and this is not a criticism. The decision to go forward 
with a material solution first comes up when there is a 
requirement issue. I need it. And you saw that on that chart. 
It took how long for them to get from the idea to a 
requirement.
    So these authorities that you have been given, that can 
happen much, much faster. You can get a requirement done in 
months. For Ukraine, we are getting requirements done within 
weeks. Ukrainians say they need it. EUCOM [U.S. European 
Command] says that is good. We get it ordered. We got it.
    But if you take 10 years to get a requirement, you are 
going to have--and you have a 2-year prototype, you have at 
least a 12-year program. So that's part of that. And this gets 
to the PPBE reform I think we have talked about.
    And then there is another piece of this, which I mentioned 
earlier, from the case you showed, what should have happened is 
the prototype should have been set up with a contract that if 
successful it would go, as Heidi said, immediately into 
production. You don't just do the prototype and then stop and 
then look at it and then do another contract.
    You set it up that when you issue the contract for the 
prototype, you already have the hook in to go right into 
production if you are ready to go. We don't do that nearly 
enough. Part of it is because it is a different color of money. 
Part of it is how the acquisitions system has been trained.
    The Chairman. Our sense is we have given all of these 
authorities, OTAs and other fancy authorities in recent years 
in a bipartisan fashion. What we get is they are not really 
being used aggressively by the Department. A, like can you push 
back on that if you disagree? And then B, what would be the--is 
there a way to quantify how often these authorities are being 
used?
    Could we set up a process where we come to you on a regular 
basis and say, okay, how many OTAs have you used this year or 
this quarter or something like that? Just so we have a sense of 
whether the authority we have given you is actually helping you 
solve this problem.
    Secretary LaPlante. I will start with giving you some data, 
Representative Gallagher, Chairman, as soon as I got in the 
job, I asked that question. I go, okay. So let me tell you 
about the different things. Again, I will simplify the 
language, not use acronyms.
    This rapid going right to prototyping called Mid Tier 
Acquisition, which the authority came in 2018, there are 
currently 133 active programs, and over the next 5 years it is 
almost $60 billion. So it is substantive.
    Do I think we need to do more? Yes. But the Space 
Development Agency, that is all they are doing.
    On OTAs, the number for FY20 [fiscal year 2020], if I 
recall, was about $20 billion of OTAs. Actually, the Army is 
doing the most OTAs so those are being used.
    Software acquisition pathway, it is smaller because it is 
newer. It is about $10 billion over the years. Now if you look 
at the acquisition budget, which is research and procurement 
typically added together, it is still not the majority of it, 
but they are being used.
    The Chairman. I am over time. And I will give the other 
members 40 extra seconds because I violated the second 
commandment. But Ms. Slotkin is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Slotkin. Sure. You know, again, for members up here, we 
all know what DIU is. And we like the idea of DIU. Can you give 
us a status update on DIU, the plan to nominate someone? I 
guess it is not a Senate-confirmed position, but to put someone 
in the seat, just where are we very, very briefly on DIU?
    Secretary Shyu. The news will come out very shortly. I 
don't want to get ahead of SECDEF [Secretary of Defense].
    Ms. Slotkin. Sure. No, no. I don't need you to break news, 
but I guess, you know, we have--it has gone without a director 
for a while. And, you know, are you putting more resources into 
this organization? Is it an organization that we are peeling 
and paring back? Can you just give me your approach on that 
organization?
    Secretary Shyu. The FY24 [fiscal year 2024] budget, they 
got a substantial increase. And I'm super excited with a new 
person coming in.
    Ms. Slotkin. Okay.
    Secretary Shyu. He will be phenomenal.
    Ms. Slotkin. Okay.
    Secretary Shyu. You will be super excited.
    Ms. Slotkin. Great. Okay. We must want to make sure that--
because that becomes a focal part. We deal with a lot of folks 
from the private sector. And that is their entry point for many 
of them into the Department. So I think it is important.
    You know, Dr. LaPlante, you were talking about, and I have 
seen it up close in the Pentagon, the requirements process, all 
the legs of the stool taking a long time. Is it not possible to 
put what we use to call at the Pentagon exploding deadlines on 
these things? That like if you can't come up with the 
requirements in 6 months, you no longer are in on the pathway? 
Just something that moves the process that comes from 
leadership top down?
    Secretary LaPlante. Yes, it is. And I will tell you how we 
are doing it. So I was the Air Force acquisition executive back 
in 2013 to 2016 when we set up the B-21 bomber. It was done by 
the Rapid Capability Office [RCO]. It was remarkable to be the 
acquisition executive to watch how those three legs of the 
stool worked with the RCO.
    A person would show up from the RCO with a package at my 
door, come in, it was a classified package, and say this is 
what we want to do in acquisition. This is the contract, 
whatever. I would ask a few questions. Great.
    Probably that same day or the next day they are in the 
Chief of Staff's office saying, do you have the requirement 
down? Yes, no? Get the requirement done and then talk to the 
Secretary of the Air Force for the money. Check it with AT&L 
[Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics]. They would do all of 
that process in 4 days.
    Ms. Slotkin. Mm-hmm.
    Secretary LaPlante. Four days. Now then you say, well, can 
we scale that? How many things can you go to the most senior 
people in 4 days? So what we are doing is we are trying this 
model across the Department where we are pushing it down--
    Ms. Slotkin. Yeah.
    Secretary LaPlante. --at the deputies' level. We are doing 
about 15 of these sprints. We bring everybody together, all of 
the stakeholders around the table, it is called CAPS [Critical 
Acquisition Positions], and we are going around those three 
legs and moving the money and watching the requirements.
    And so the idea is, let's get it to the next level. Then if 
we can push it down further, that is the hope. You are going to 
hear talk about portfolio management. That is the idea behind 
portfolio management.
    Ms. Slotkin. Yes. I don't know, Ms. Shyu, if you wanted to 
add anything. I will just say, and I will let the ranking 
member come and take his proper seat here. But I would say it 
would be to the advantage of you all to make positive success 
stories visible to the Committee. Because even I have been here 
4 years, and we feel like we have the same conversation, 
different Administration, same conversations. We are trying to 
improve it. We are trying to make it better.
    Statistics help, right, a change in how the process goes. 
But if I knew that there was guidance from the top down on 
exploding deadlines that would help corral so that the 
DEPSECDEF [Deputy Secretary of Defense] is not the first person 
to bring all those strands together finally at the end of the 
process, I think that would go a long way.
    And we are always happy, I know--I was at the Department. 
We are trained to avoid Congress at all costs. But when you 
have positive stories, to bring those up here because we are 
stuck in a rut on this narrative. And we want to get out of the 
rut. And I will yield back to the ranking--sorry.
    Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Representative Slotkin.
    The Chairman. Dr. McCormick is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Shyu, we have a--
Honorable Ms. Shyu, we have an interesting predicament when we 
come for preparing for places like Taiwan. Most people say an 
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, especially in a 
theater where this war, if they have a war there, it could be 
over within a week, especially if they don't--if they are not 
properly prepared.
    In my opinion, we don't have much prepositioned there. We 
have not done a good job of supplying them with the arms. We 
have not allocated through our appropriations process. My 
question, and I know right now it sounds like an acquisitions 
issue, but really I am going to talk about technology sharing.
    When meeting with the Taiwanese, they have begged for 
technologies to help them with smart mines, for example. At 
least what we are able to--I understand we are not going to 
give them our leading-edge technologies, but at least something 
to help them prepare, something to help them build or the 
ability to purchase something, which goes back to Mr. LaPlante, 
of course.
    So either sharing technologies or by acquisition, how are 
we helping our partners to prepare for something that is very 
real and may happen very quickly and not end well if we are not 
ready?
    Secretary Shyu. Yeah. That is a great question. First of 
all, there is a SIG-T [Senior Integration Group-Taiwan], which 
is focused on Taiwan, that meets on a monthly basis across the 
most senior level across the DOD, okay? So discussions, that is 
ongoing and what we can provide to Taiwan is addressed in that 
meeting. Okay?
    The other thing is I also happened to meet with the 
Taiwanese when I was in Hawaii 2 weeks ago. And one of the 
things I advised them is they need to think more 
asymmetrically. So I will be happy to expand a lot more details 
on the way they think, and they should think, in the classified 
session following this.
    Dr. McCormick. Okay. So in summary we have a plan to help 
them one way or another?
    Secretary Shyu. We are trying to get them to also think a 
little differently.
    Dr. McCormick. Okay. As a former Marine, I like the 
asymmetric thing. Mr. LaPlante, the Honorable Mr. LaPlante, you 
talk about the 70 percent of the dollars for sustainment. I 
understand we have a problem with a sustainable model of arms, 
ammunitions production.
    Are we doing something--I feel like we are doing something 
wrong. Is there a good plan to make this cheaper by sustaining 
rather than constantly doing this wave? And I am brand new to 
Congress, but it seems a very inefficient system where we keep 
on ebbing and flowing and creating a huge process of training 
gluts and everything else.
    Secretary LaPlante. Thank you for the question. I would say 
this. For a tank what you said is exactly right. When you build 
a tank, you have to sustain it. And there is a lot of money 
that goes into sustaining it. When you have munitions, 
unfortunately, we haven't figured out how to build munitions 
that we can just keep and sustain. We fire them, and they are 
gone.
    So it's actually the production is that what we are talking 
about. What we are really talking about is production, not the 
sustainment part. It is just a reminder, though on items like 
tanks and other things, that sustainment is in the money.
    In the case of what we are doing right now, in this budget 
that we just released, there is $30.6 billion in munitions 
production. Okay? It is a nearly 12 percent increase over '23 
[2023] enacted, 50 percent higher from 5 years ago.
    We are also putting billions of dollars into the industrial 
base. So, again, this isn't sustainment. This is actually to 
get the production lines faster and higher. So that is what we 
are really focused on in this place.
    Dr. McCormick. I am assuming that is related to our recent 
expenditures. And--
    Secretary LaPlante. Well, it is related to everything that 
is going on in Ukraine.
    Dr. McCormick. Right.
    Secretary LaPlante. But it is also related to the Pacific 
situation.
    Dr. McCormick. Okay. Good. Real quickly another question 
for you, Ms. Shyu. The funding for R&D [research and 
development], one of the big dilemmas we always have is what is 
more efficient, funding R&D through the government, which you 
kind of have a sustained model of if I succeed, and it becomes 
very good then we move on to the next piece whereas I don't 
have to really compete because it is not competitive once I 
award the R&D money as opposed to letting the civilians come up 
and compete with each other for something with their own R&D 
and risk, of course, which seems much more, at least, 
competitive.
    I am worried about which model we are pursuing more and 
which one long-term is going to benefit us in our procurement 
of new technologies that are efficiently obtained.
    Secretary Shyu. I would say that we look for the best ideas 
regardless where it is coming from. My job is making sure that 
the idea that it is coming from, independent of which 
organization or person comes up as an idea. We fund that. So we 
are looking at not just the defense industry, but we are also 
looking at a commercial industry. And when we have dialogued 
with them, both the defense as well as the commercial industry, 
they are incredibly excited.
    Secretary LaPlante. I would also say this, it has been 
really the dilemma here for years is how do we attract private 
capital to do the R&D? How would we incentivize them while also 
using the government private R&D, if you will, in the right 
place, too?
    And I would say there are two--this is an extreme example, 
two different models that are different. The traditional model, 
let's say for a large weapon system is that this happens to be 
with the production.
    When you ask these companies, well, why aren't you using 
your own money to build production lines in anticipation before 
the government gives you the contract, what they call the 
demand signal, they say essentially to go to my board to get 
capex [capital expenditure] approval for billions of dollars 
for the next 5 years, I have to convince them essentially that 
this is really going to happen.
    Dr. McCormick. What is the level--
    Secretary LaPlante. And we have a history of going up and 
down in some of these things. When you look at private capital, 
they have to look and see what market this is going to support. 
Well, guess what? The market for private capital is production. 
So they got to look and see the production lines. So I keep 
saying it comes back to production.
    The Chairman. Okay. The time has expired. Mr. Khanna is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Khanna. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary Shyu, it was 
good seeing you yesterday as well as the director of DARPA. As 
we discussed, I believe that DARPA over the last 50 years has 
been the largest force for innovation in the world, 
unparalleled in what it has achieved. It is a shame that we 
can't simply scale it and do more with it. But when you look at 
all of the fundamental technologies on which Silicon Valley is 
based, things like the Internet, GPS [Global Positioning 
System], the mouse, the unmanned vehicles, a lot of that all 
came out of DARPA.
    And then my understanding from you was that you have other 
parts of the food chain after the fundamental research. You 
have DIU, which is working with traditionally non-defense 
industries in innovation and then you have this Office of 
Strategic Capital that has been set up at DOD to try to fund 
emerging technologies that will have practical application for 
defense.
    Is that funded yet for what you need to invest in the 
companies? Is it not? How can we help to make sure it has the 
funding and flexibility that you need?
    Secretary Shyu. I think for this current year, it is a 
little over $100 million to get the Office of Strategic Capital 
stood up and start to run.
    We will be coming back and hopefully working with Congress 
to make sure that the additional authority we will need to 
provide capital for companies will be there. So we will be 
following up with you.
    Mr. Khanna. In subsequent years or in this year?
    Secretary Shyu. A little over $100 million is current year.
    Mr. Khanna. What about for the funding you will need for 
the companies?
    Secretary Shyu. No. This is really standing up the office. 
Okay? The funding for the company, we are going to need some 
additional authorities to be able to provide, I will say, 
prevent adversary capital funding into critical companies that 
deliver critical components.
    Let me step back a second and just make sure I explain this 
thoroughly. I have had a number of companies that come to me 
and say they need help to ramp up their prototype into 
production. They need to capitalize equipment so they can ramp 
up.
    And this capital could provide them a guaranteed loan that 
will help them to ramp up. So it became very obvious that we 
needed an Office of Strategic Capital to give them some 
guaranteed loans. So this is what we are trying to pursue.
    The Department of Energy does this. Like I mentioned, they 
provided over $400 million to Tesla to get them started in 
ramping up production, right? And Tesla paid it back in 3 
years. So this is the type of authority we are looking for to 
make sure we, DOD, could do the same thing, to help the 
critical small companies that build critical components for us 
and to make sure that adversaries aren't investing.
    Mr. Khanna. Could we do that authority in this year's NDAA 
[National Defense Authorization Act]? I mean, when you have the 
guy who votes against every higher defense budget saying we 
need to put more money in this defense, I think you could get a 
fair amount of support for this type of an effort.
    Secretary Shyu. We will definitely work with you.
    Mr. Khanna. Are there any other ideas that you have? I 
respected how Chairman Gallagher has been open to really trying 
to do something to have the better adoption of technology.
    Secretary Shyu. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Khanna. Are there any other concrete suggestions you 
have for our committee on what we could do legislatively in the 
next 2 years on this issue?
    Secretary Shyu. I would like to come with a list and engage 
with you guys.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix 
on page 75.]
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. We will come back with a list. I 
think the problem statement, let's focus on, which we can all 
agree on. The problem statement is how do we get ready for 
production or get the production started even before government 
has fully funded it or the program of record is fully funded? 
Can we get another fund, either the capital fund that they pay 
it back or a fund where we have almost a stockpile so that you 
can go right into production?
    We were just in a case today that Heidi referred a company 
to me, a remarkable company, doing everything we are saying. 
They had a VC [venture capitalist] in the room. Heidi, you know 
what company this is.
    Secretary Shyu. Mm-hmm, Secretary LaPlante. And they have 
developed a prototype. They have got VC money. They have a 
business case for a commercial market they see emerging. Okay. 
All they needed from the DOD, but they have gotten some R&D 
from us, is some commitment that we will be part of their 
production.
    In fact, they show plans of producing. This is something 
that flies, hundreds of these things in 3 years. They even 
costed them out. And so this is a golden opportunity where we 
say, yes, we will pay for part of that.
    The Chairman. Mr. Strong is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Shyu, thank you 
for taking time to meet with me this month. And I am glad Mr. 
Garamendi was able to join us. I also want to thank you for 
agreeing to speak to the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of 
Commerce for breakfast next week.
    All of my questions are for you and Dr. LaPlante. The first 
thing I want to discuss is the Valley of Death. I will advocate 
for research and development all day long. It is the heartbeat 
of Huntsville, Alabama. One Decatur, Alabama native and NASA 
[National Aeronautics and Space Administration] astronaut said 
it best. Ideas are potential energy. They are really wonderful, 
but nothing will happen until the risk of putting them into 
action. That was a statement that I have always remembered.
    I am concerned the Department of Defense isn't quite 
meeting the mark when it comes to transitioning projects into 
programs of record and warfighting capabilities. One, how does 
your office define technology transition? Mr. LaPlante?
    Secretary Shyu. So I will be happy--Secretary LaPlante. I 
will just define it.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you.
    Secretary LaPlante. Technology transition is it gets to the 
warfighter.
    Secretary Shyu. So I will give you a definition of multiple 
ways we can literally transition the technology. Certainly, the 
one that most people think about is the normal transition into 
a program in which you have procurement quantities. That is a 
normal path.
    The other transition could very well be it goes completely 
commercial. We just buy the commercial product, right? It could 
very well be it is a piece of software that transitioned into 
an existing system that is delivered already being used by 
warfighters. That is another transition path or--sorry.
    Mr. Strong. And that answered my question. What metrics do 
you use to measure the success of technology transitions?
    Secretary Shyu. So that is a great question. I am in the 
process of pulling data exactly on that. The first thing we 
need to do was define the different ways we could do transition 
and then see how we can dig into the details data-wise and pull 
that data together. So we are in the process of trying to do 
that right now.
    Mr. Strong. Over the last 5 years, how many research and 
development programs have failed to transition would you 
estimate?
    Secretary Shyu. There is no way I can tell you that because 
I don't have that data.
    Mr. Strong. Okay. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    The Chairman. Thank you. The gentleman yields. I will 
recognize myself. We will start a second round here since we 
don't have a full house, and I will recognize myself for 5 
minutes.
    Dr. LaPlante, I would like to dig into something you 
mentioned in your testimony about the importance of multiyear 
procurement. We have multiyear authority for key munitions 
systems.
    I am in emphatic and violent agreement with that statement. 
And if any of our friends on the Appropriations Committee are 
listening, as I am sure they are, I hope they will be persuaded 
of the wisdom of that case. Maybe could you talk about that in 
the context of one particular system, the Long Range Anti-Ship 
Missile system [LRASM].
    I recently visited a Lockheed facility to examine LRASM 
production. I think we have an opportunity to dramatically 
increase production with that certainty that a multiyear pot of 
money would provide. So talk about that problem set with 
respect to that particular weapon system.
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. And this is why multiyears are so 
critical. But why also some parts of the community find them 
hard to do because it takes away their budget liquidity.
    Let's take the LRASM example. If we were to--we, the 
Department, with the Congress, were to put together a more than 
multiyear contract to build a number of LRASMs, and we settle 
the contract. We will get several things.
    Number one, it will be cheaper. You will get a cheaper 
price per LRASM by doing it that way. We have somewhere between 
5 and 10 percent is most likely because you are buying in 
quantity.
    But that is not the only reason to do it. The second thing 
you got is you have got the prime, in this case Lockheed. We 
say to Lockheed, you better get your supply chain stabilized 
and flow this money down for the next 3 years because they are 
not going to scatter to the wind. And we want to see that.
    And you get during budget season, when people, during 
budget season, and people are in jobs like mine, and they 
rightfully so say can we buy less of these number of airplanes 
because we need to find money. And you say, well, you can, but 
you will break the multiyear, and it will cost this much money. 
It provides discipline in the system.
    So that's what we are trying to do. It helps the supply 
chain. It is cheaper. You can't do it on everything. You 
shouldn't do it on everything, but that's what we are talking 
about.
    The Chairman. How many do you think we could get to a year 
based on your analysis, specifically LRASM, based on your 
analysis?
    Secretary LaPlante. Oh, gee, I don't have the number. I 
will give a bad number. But let's see, LRASM, let me see how 
many. We could certainly get to tens a year. I would like to 
think we would get LRASMs up to hundreds per year, way up 
hundreds per year. It is not a precision weapon, but we are 
getting 155 [155 millimeter] rounds.
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Secretary LaPlante. We are getting up to 10 times the 
production rate that we currently have. We are asking industry 
those kind of questions. What would it take to do 5 times the 
production rate for LRASM?
    The Chairman. And in your opinion, the most critical 
variable is that multiyear procurement?
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. Well, first of all, it is getting 
the multiyear. But then the system has to kick in and say, we 
are really going to do it. We are going to fund it.
    And, you know, the process. We put it together with the 
budget tiers. It comes over to Appropriations. We have to show 
all the stuff is done and then we do it. We do it pretty well 
for block buys for the submarines. Like the Virginia-class, I 
think they bought 10 submarines for the price of 9 with a block 
buy.
    The Chairman. Could you quickly talk about the large lot 
procurement pilot program, which I think includes LRASM, JASSM 
[Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile], AMRAAM [Advanced 
Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile], SM-6 [Standard Missile 6]? 
Just status, when do you envision it becoming permanent? Are 
there plans to expand the program?
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. So we got the multiyear authority 
when the authorizer just passed at the end of the year. What 
you described is a way of--it's actually a clever way of saying 
we don't want to do all of these at the same time because it 
involves some of the same suppliers. What is a phased way that 
we can phase in the multiyears knowing that we have crossed 
dependencies, that is smart, and looking at them as a system, 
even though they are not?
    So it is an idea of having a very smart way of which year 
you build more of which weapon, knowing where the suppliers 
are. And that is all being put together now. It is actually a 
very clever idea because, again, if we look independently at a 
stovepipe of one weapon system, and we think we are surging 
that with a multiyear, well, the solid rocket motors may be the 
same ones on standard missile. So how do we make sure we do it 
intelligently? That is what that is about.
    The Chairman. And then quickly, do R&D proposals need to 
include potential production plans and options?
    Secretary LaPlante. No, they don't. And I think you are 
getting at something that is really important. I think, and I 
am going to let Heidi speak, but I do think that we need to, at 
the DIUs and everything, all the grades, we should be asking 
for proposals that is not just the R&D, but the proposal should 
come with a production proposal.
    Secretary Shyu. Yeah. On the R&D side, first of all, we are 
focused on producing a prototype that works. So once you 
demonstrate capability on the prototype, the next step is 
asking for production. So that is a process we go through.
    The Chairman. Mr. Khanna is recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Khanna. I just want to pick up where I'd left off about 
this process of adoption. You know, let me just start out by 
saying, which I wish more people in Silicon Valley recognized, 
which is that the Department of Defense has been the most 
innovative institution in the last 50 years in the history of 
the world.
    I mean, sometimes I think the Department of Defense as a 
whole gets a bad rap that they are not innovative or not doing 
the technology. The fundamental technology innovation in this 
country has largely come out of the efforts of DARPA on issue 
after issue. And I am very proud of my district. But they take 
the fundamental technology and commercialize it.
    But we should be very clear, right, about the success of 
the United States Government in cooperation with our 
universities and industry in the fundamental innovation of the 
later 20th Century and early 21st Century. Secretary LaPlante 
and Secretary Shyu would you agree with that characterization?
    Secretary LaPlante. Go ahead, Heidi.
    Secretary Shyu. Absolutely. I think DARPA by far is the 
most admired organization worldwide. To all the countries that 
I talk to, they want to copy our model of DARPA. PRC just wants 
to steal it.
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. And there is another concept 
which is something interesting to think about. I remember back 
in the day, I think it was the Office of Naval Research. I was 
working with them. And one of their philosophies was to fund 
science and research that were important for the Navy that were 
not going to be funded commercially. Only the Navy had the 
application.
    They actually were looking at things that there wasn't a 
commercial application because they felt that the market 
wouldn't deliver them. So that is one thing to think about. I 
don't know if that is still true where technology is.
    But the second piece, of course, is how do we explain the 
market to these outside investors? That is where I think our 
biggest disconnect is is it is very hard for a Silicon Valley 
or VC to really understand what is the market that if they are 
successful that they are going to get. And, of course, the 
market in our world is production and sustainment.
    And that is very hard for them to see. And we don't do a 
good job of explaining what that market is. Instead, we end up 
focusing on isn't this a really cool item and shouldn't the DOD 
have it? That is really important, but we have to--it is better 
to explain if you make this work, this will proliferate on 
every ship and airplane or it will go in space, and it all 
proliferated LEO [low earth orbit]. And we don't do that job 
well enough.
    Mr. Khanna. I say all of this about the innovation 
tradition of DOD because I truly believe it and want people in 
Silicon Valley to have the appropriate sense of humility. But I 
also think it should be impetus for the DOD to say, look, we 
have been the engine of the greatest innovation.
    We should continue to figure out this adoption challenge so 
we remain the most innovative institution because now, if some 
of this work is happening in the private sector, it would be--
it is sort of not asking the DOD to do something that they 
haven't done before. They have been the most innovative 
institution. We would need to figure out where the modern 
advances in AI [artificial intelligence] software and other 
things how they remain the most innovative institution in the 
world. And so it seems--my point is just it is consistent with 
the very ethos of the Department of Defense.
    Secretary LaPlante. I would agree. And I think, but we also 
have to allow, and I know you would agree with this, too, the 
disrupters in. Because the disrupters can really keep everybody 
from being complacent. And that is why it is really, really 
important to look at these new folks that have a different way 
of doing business and get them in because they can disrupt, and 
they can get the incumbents to get their act together.
    The Chairman. Humility in Silicon Valley. I like that idea. 
Mr. Strong?
    Mr. Strong. A great question. I concur. I know with the 
University of Alabama in Huntsville, we are fortunate with all 
the research that they do there, 72 percent of the graduates 
stay there in that area. I think that is because of the 
ingenuity and what all of us in this room are working toward.
    The Air Force AFWERX Agility Prime Program's goal is to 
ensure robust domestic market for electric vertical takeoff and 
landing aircraft and to develop these capabilities for the 
Department of Defense.
    eVTOL [electric vertical takeoff and landing] technology 
can be used for a variety of tasks, including cargo delivery in 
contested environments and personnel movement. How is your 
offices and the military services planning to scale procurement 
for eVTOL aircrafts for the Agility Prime Program?
    Secretary LaPlante. Heidi and I are smiling because that 
was the example that actually we were just looking at was one 
of those type of technologies.
    And so it is very, very exciting. And, again, I think there 
is a dual commercial opportunity. And we have got to get--I 
think we got to show them production possibilities in the DOD. 
But we are looking. It is exactly the companies that Heidi and 
I are looking at.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you. I appreciate that. Army, Space and 
Missile Command's Tech Center has started a collaborative 
research and development program with two universities in 
support of high energy laser and optical technology, the 
University of Alabama in Huntsville and Clemson University. Are 
both of you familiar with these programs?
    Secretary Shyu. I am familiar with the high energy laser 
that we are working on.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you. Can you speak to the benefits of 
this partnership to UAH [The University of Alabama in 
Huntsville] and Clemson with SMDC [U.S. Army Space and Missile 
Defense Command]?
    Secretary Shyu. I can tell you one thing. Directed energy 
was my number one priority. So the research that can be 
conducted that can enhance our capabilities much more quickly, 
I am 100 percent behind it.
    Secretary LaPlante. And I would just say what is in the 
news even today about some of the horrible, they call it UAS 
[unmanned aircraft systems] or drone strikes. Some of the best 
counter-drone technologies involve laser and the concepts. That 
is really where we can scale this thing and with magazine 
depth.
    Mr. Strong. Thank you. I want to invite both of you to the 
Rocket City and to the University of Alabama in Huntsville. I 
am sure that Mr. Duncan will be happy to host you at Clemson as 
well. Thank you again for answering my questions.
    The Chairman. I hope the chairman and the ranking member 
get an invite. So just a quick logistical note. We have a 
classified session after this, but the SCIF [sensitive 
compartmented information facility] is not open until 5:00. 
It's not my intention to filibuster for 35 minutes. I'm not a 
senator. However, I'm going to ask a few more questions until 
Raja gets fully upset, and we will have a break before that.
    So I recognize myself for 5 minutes. Ms. Shyu in the FY21 
[fiscal year 2021] NDAA, we established something called the 
Israeli Operations Technology Working Group. This was in 
Section 1299 of the NDAA.
    This required a report that was due by law on March 15. We 
have been checking. We haven't been able to get the report. It 
is possible it was delivered. Do you know what the status of 
that report is? When can we expect it?
    Secretary Shyu. I will definitely check on that. We are 
doing great work with our Israeli partners.
    The Chairman. Okay. Well, I just would like to reiterate 
that having--if I am right that we haven't gotten the report. 
We are past the deadline. This is an annual requirement, and we 
just expect that the Committee will get the report in a timely 
manner. We hope that you would commit to figuring out where the 
report is and getting it submitted.
    Secretary Shyu. Okay. I do know that we weren't behind 
because legislative affairs tracks all the reports.
    The Chairman. And admittedly, there are too many reports. I 
will concede that point. So I am for a BRAC [Base Realignment 
and Closure] for report process.
    Secretary LaPlante. If I could, and maybe the Committee has 
already done this, that may be something, and report or not, I 
mean, digging into the recent stuff we were doing with the 
Israelis, what Heidi is doing and what we are doing, it is 
remarkable.
    I don't know what--Heidi is a celebrity over there. I was 
there 2 weeks ago. And we are sharing technology. It is 
unbelievable what we are doing. We would love to talk in the 
classified session about it.
    The Chairman. Yes. I think it could be a good story. And 
then quickly, Dr. LaPlante, two questions for you. Title 10, 
Section 3453, established a congressional mandate for a 
preference for commercial products and services to meet the 
Department's needs more quickly. You have talked about, you 
know, former DIU Director Mike Brown talked about a ``fast 
follower'' strategy for commercial acquisition.
    It seems from our perspective it has fallen by the wayside. 
I would love to get your perspective. How are you enforcing 
that? Talk to me a little bit about that.
    Secretary LaPlante. You always have to--if you don't focus 
on it, maybe we need to focus on it more. The system may drift 
away from it. And here is what--it is human nature 
unfortunately. And you have to counteract it. That is why it is 
good it is in the NDAA.
    One thing humans like to do, particularly in the 
government, is they like to tweak. They like to take the 
commercial item, and they like to say, I really want that 
plane. But once they are going to buy it, I need to have these 
comms. I have to this and this. And what was a commercial item 
maybe still technically is a commercial item is anything but 
commercial. So it is a tendency, a human tendency, that we have 
to stop.
    The second thing, which we have had a lot of work done on, 
we get wrapped around the axle and the pricing on whether or 
not it is a commercial item, and can you prove that the price 
is a fair market price? It sounds very bureaucratic and boring, 
but we have IG [Inspector General] report after IG report about 
this. And it can cause people to be afraid a little bit of 
going commercial because they are afraid that we are going to 
be in some argument with somebody about what is the cost of the 
part?
    Those are not reasons not to do it. It is just the 
impedance that naturally happens. You need constant pressure on 
the top.
    The Chairman. The final question for you, Dr. LaPlante. I 
think you and I share a passion for energetics. And I think we 
have an opportunity to make a quantum leap on energetics. Can 
you talk about that opportunity and what you think needs to be 
done?
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. I can talk a little bit, but I 
know Heidi has also got a huge group on that, too.
    The Chairman. Yeah. I hear you.
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah. So we have got--I can go through 
it here. We have got a whole bunch of DPA [Defense Production 
Act] funding going into energetics, given, of course, the 
munitions problem we have.
    Even this 155 plant, that we are going to need totally new 
energetics. It is a problem in Europe as well. Actually, also a 
lot of the sources of the energetics are not from countries 
that we want them to be from or the raw materials. So we have a 
whole effort that way. I know Heidi has got a persistent effort 
on energetics, too.
    Secretary Shyu. Yes. For example, we are working on 
additive manufacturing of explosives. And we are developing 
modeling and simulation tools to help us develop new 
formulations of energetics. Okay?
    And we are doing biomanufacturing of cellulose to provide 
higher purity precursors. So it could become a more reliable 
source of nitrocellulose-based propellants. So we are doing 
multiple things in the S&T [science and technology] arena.
    And the other thing is we demonstrated 675 percent in the 
blast performance using enhanced explosive fill and reactor 
material warhead, advanced precision kill weapon system. So 
these are all the stuff we are doing. This is just a little bit 
of an example of all the stuff we are doing.
    Secretary LaPlante. The stuff you can do with additive 
manufacturing now is just remarkable, what Heidi was referring 
to.
    I don't know if you saw on the news just the other day, 
there was a solid rocket motor fueled launched in space. It 
didn't get to orbit, but it got to the launch. The solid rocket 
motor was completely 3D [3 dimensional] printed. And it was the 
size--how big was that? I mean, it was as big as almost--it 
looked like the Saturn V first stage.
    And we went to those companies out there. You have been 
there, too. And it is like, oh, my gosh. It is real. And people 
who say, well, 3D printing, well, that is fine, but is it 
really going to work in war? Tell that to Ukrainians. They are 
doing it every day.
    The Chairman. Mr. Khanna is recognized.
    Mr. Khanna. I do have to briefly needle you, Mr. Chairman, 
for the reference as Raja. He will be the ranking member next 
year. But don't feel bad.
    The Chairman. I have a hearing tonight so my brain has 
been----
    Mr. Khanna. It reminds me we all came in, Raja, myself and 
Chairman Gallagher all came into Congress at the same time. I 
consider him a good friend. But it reminds me of a exchange on 
Twitter a few days ago where someone said that his Republican 
father asked him whether Ro Khanna was the Prime Minister of 
Great Britain at which point I said that I have higher name 
recognition in the United States than Rishi Sunak.
    So on that note, I did want to ask about this cut of 20 
percent decrease in the science and technology funding from the 
budget as I understand it. And I am trying to understand why 
that is being reduced. Secretary Shyu?
    Secretary Shyu. I think we measured our S&T funding from PB 
[President's budget] to PB. So PB to PB, it actually went up.
    Mr. Khanna. Okay. So it hasn't been reduced to 20 percent, 
I guess?
    Secretary Shyu. Not from PB to the PB request.
    Mr. Khanna. Okay. And the only other question I had was 
about lab infrastructure. I know we spoke about this briefly. 
And I wanted to give you an opportunity to share some of your 
comments about the importance of funding that.
    Secretary Shyu. Yeah, we absolutely do need to fund more in 
the infrastructure side. We have crumbling buildings, 
especially in the Naval Research Lab. So what we are trying to 
do is add additional fundings into our lab and test 
infrastructure. It literally was important enough that we 
raised that into the Defense Management Action Group meeting 
that went all the way up to the SECDEF level.
    The other thing that we ended up doing this year, we 
actually created a separate fund of $25 million focused on 
laboratory infrastructure. So it is a centrally lab investment 
program. And this year you will see, we have $92 million in our 
FY24 [fiscal year 2024] request again to help in the lab 
testing infrastructure.
    Secretary LaPlante. If I may comment, the importance of lab 
infrastructure it can't be underdescribed on the workforce in 
attracting the best people.
    Before I was here, I was the CEO [chief executive officer] 
of a nonprofit high tech lab up in Cambridge. And I will tell 
you, we had to have the cutting-edge equipment and the latest 
and all types of modern engineering tools or we wouldn't get 
the best PhD, folks who are getting their PhD.
    They want to see something that is even better than what 
they worked in their PhD. If they go and we say come work for 
us and it is a crumbling building and the equipment is old, 
guess what? It is harder to keep them. So it is so important 
that we modernize this.
    Mr. Khanna. Thank you.
    The Chairman. My apologies, Ro Khanna. I have done four 
interviews with Raja Krishnamoorthi today, and my two ranking 
members, Ro and Raja, dominate my life in a good way.
    So, Mr. Strong, do you have any more questions?
    Mr. Strong. I'm good.
    The Chairman. Okay. I'm going to do one more. Sorry. A 
follow-up on the energetics discussion. So my understanding, 
having spent some time with the various reports that have come 
out in recent years--phenomenal work by the way that has been 
done on this. And I commend those reports to everybody.
    We are not even talking about a new technology. We are 
talking about technology we invented, CL-20, China Lake 20, in 
the 70s or 80s. But we are still largely dependent on 
technology in the HMX suite of energetics that we developed in 
the 40s. Tragically, and ironically, the CCP stole the basic 
components of CL-20, and they are using that. And it has more 
penetrating power. It has greater range.
    So my understanding is we could take existing technology 
and put it on existing systems and dramatically increase our 
range and lethality.
    Secretary LaPlante. And I am not sure of the specific 
energetic, but the infamous 155 rounds, which everybody talks 
about, which is the bane of all that we are doing, which is 
ramping up to this 5 times. Next year, they are introducing a 
totally new energetics there and getting away from the older 
energetics.
    So now with these production lines going hotter, we have an 
opportunity to inject these energetics right into the 
production lines.
    The Chairman. Yeah. I just would hope--I know we have all 
these working groups, and I don't want to create more 
bureaucracy, but I think it would be helpful if there were like 
one person at a sufficiently high level in DOD waking up every 
day thinking about how do we really move forward when it comes 
to energetics and make this energetics quantum leap?
    I think we have a massive, massive opportunity there. I 
have been persuaded by reading through all of these reports. 
And that could be--that is something we could do together over 
the next 2 years that would have a massive impact.
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah, I am sure. Heidi and I would love 
to take that up for action. Great, great, great.
    The Chairman. And could you quickly comment on this? On 
page 5 of your testimony, Dr. LaPlante, you talk about we 
traditionally thought about innovation technology whereas now 
we need to think about innovation not only in prototyping but 
also in development and production as well. Are you referring 
to so-called Industry 4.0 efforts or expand on that a little 
bit?
    Secretary LaPlante. Not necessarily. What I'm referring to 
is what we saw at that company that did the solid rocket motor 
by additive manufacturing. And what Heidi and I saw on this 
vertical takeoff company is what we saw was that in the 
prototyping phase itself, they were already designing the 
production and then they were going back--and they had it all 
digital. And they were going back and forth.
    And they would change the production lane to do something 
faster in production to get their models going. And they would 
say, oh, we can go back to design. We are doing it together. 
And it is brilliant. The commercial space is doing the same 
thing. That's what we are talking about.
    The Chairman. Dr. Roper, I think, recently released a 
report that talks about that in partnership with McKinsey. We 
are trying to look into that. We think it is very promising.
    Secretary LaPlante. Yeah, Dr. Roper, and I have to go 
follow-up. It talks about Formula One doing something.
    The Chairman. Yeah, McLaren, yes, he had a Road to Damascus 
moment in the UK [United Kingdom].
    Secretary LaPlante. So it seems to be where everything is 
going. And, again, we hear a lot about digital thread, digital 
engineering. What we are saying is, no, it's digital design and 
production together and rapidly going back and forth.
    The Chairman. Yeah. I guess, my bias is, you know, having 
been on Seapower [Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection 
Forces] for a while and thinking about the inefficiencies that 
accumulate exponentially from a design that is not stable. If 
you can leverage that process to really get design stability, 
it has got to increase speed and reduce costs over the long-
term.
    Finally, just to end where we began, I think the consistent 
theme here is we are concerned about the Valley of Death. And 
we talk about the Valley of Death. But every SECDEF comes in 
goes to the Reagan National Defense Forum and talks about the 
Valley of Death, that the Valley of Death persists.
    So in sort of 30 seconds or less, what is the Valley of 
Death and how do we kill it? Easy question.
    Secretary Shyu. Wow. I am in the process of trying to kill 
that. At least I am trying to build a bridge over the Valley of 
Death. Okay? So APFIT money has helped me to accelerate 
transitioning by 10 companies accelerate by 2 years. Okay? 
That's one piece.
    The Office of Strategic Capital will help as well. And the 
third piece, I'm working with A&S. We just talked about 
different ways we can transform and accelerate things via Mid-
Tier Acquisition or due ons or other methods to accelerate 
acquisition.
    Secretary LaPlante. So everything that is in design and 
prototyping should not go into production. Okay? A reminder.
    The Chairman. Yeah.
    Secretary LaPlante. There is always going to be somebody--
    The Chairman. Not everything should cross the Valley of 
Death is your point.
    Secretary LaPlante. Right. It should be the Valley of Nice 
Try.
    The Chairman. Some things deserve to die.
    Secretary LaPlante. Valley of Nice Try. But what we need to 
do is we need to make it so that they are--if you are 
successful, on every one of these prototypes, we need to make 
sure the government says, that we say in the government, what 
is in your plan to go into production right away? What was not 
done in that example? And we need to have the contracting hooks 
to do it and then we have to fund the production.
    And we will get the things going into production much 
higher. But we as a country have to be convinced that 
production matters. Because if you don't do production or you 
have very low rates, there will always be many things that 
won't go to the warfighter?
    The Chairman. Any other questions? Well, with that, we will 
take a break so you guys can all rest before we go into a 
classified session.
    I just want to thank you for this discussion today. I know 
we didn't have as many members as we do in the full committee 
hearing. But I tend to think that this stuff, what you guys are 
working on, is the most important set of issues for the 
Department of Defense. And, I mean, this is how we win going 
forward. This is how we deter and prevent wars going forward if 
we get this issue right.
    And I hope you are sensing that at a time where there is a 
lot of disagreement on Capitol Hill, I think this is something 
that we are largely aligned on. We want to fix this problem. We 
want to work with you to identify the solutions that we can 
implement in the next 2 to 4 years, not, you know, 2 to 4 
decades.
    So thank you for your time here. I look forward to 
following up in classified session. And the subcommittee 
hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:41 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]



      
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                            A P P E N D I X

                             March 23, 2023

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                             March 23, 2023

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              WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING

                              THE HEARING

                             March 23, 2023

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              RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. KHANNA

    Mr. Khanna. Are there any other ideas that you have? I respected 
how Chairman Gallagher has been open to really trying to do something 
to have the better adoption of technology. Are there any other concrete 
suggestions you have for our Committee on what we could do 
legislatively in the next 2 years on this issue?
    Secretary Shyu. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
    Mr. Khanna. Are there any other ideas that you have? I respected 
how Chairman Gallagher has been open to really trying to do something 
to have the better adoption of technology. Are there any other concrete 
suggestions you have for our Committee on what we could do 
legislatively in the next 2 years on this issue?
    Secretary LaPlante. Directly addressing the question, there are a 
few areas we could use the committee's support:
    1. Support the Department's FY24 legislative proposal to empower 
the Mission Managers established in S871 FY22 NDAA to enable 
reprogramming actions aligned to a mission;
    2. Support resourcing A&S's two new offices - the Joint Production 
Accelerator Cell (JPAC) and the Director of Acquisition Integration & 
Interoperability (AI2);
    3. Increase reprogramming thresholds for Above Threshold 
Reprogramming to historical amounts as detailed in the Atlantic 
Council's report on defense innovation;
    4. Support the Air Force's FY24 legislative proposal to expand 
rapid acquisition authority and enable limited new starts for certain 
programs under a Continuing Resolution; and
    5. Continue to support the agile acquisition authorities provided 
under the Adaptive Acquisition Framework.
    The Department is continuously iterating on improving the Defense 
Acquisition System and institutionalizing reforms to deliver the right 
capability to the warfighter at speed and scale. Our efforts can be 
binned into three general categories:
    1. The Adaptive Acquisition Framework (AAF)
    2. Planning for Production
    3. Acquiring Jointness
    Background:
    The AAF is the foundation of the Department's efforts to reform how 
we deliver capability as it directly impacts the means that our 
Acquisition Workforce will use to execute their programs. With multiple 
pathways that are designed for the type of capability being acquired, 
the AAF empowers the Acquisition Workforce with a toolkit that is 
tailored to the specific problem they are trying to solve. Pathways 
like Middle Tier of Acquisition and the Software Acquisition Pathways 
have provided agile means for program managers to acquire capabilities 
faster where it is appropriate. The attached white paper at TAB A 
provides more information.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Documents for 
Record on page 59.]
    Post-Cold War government and industry decisions that focused on 
minimizing costs and maximizing efficiency (e.g., the Minimum 
Sustaining Rate, or MSR) have limited the Department's ability to 
rapidly surge and support near-term and emergent requirements. This has 
resulted in a Defense Industrial Base that is optimized for peace-time 
and unable to surge to meet the demands that the Department and allies 
and partners may have during a sustained conflict. A&S stood up the 
Munitions Industrial Deep Dive (MIDD) team at the start of the war in 
Ukraine to begin planning for near-term surges in production for key 
munitions to support Ukraine, which has demonstrated great success. To 
institutionalize the MIDD efforts, the USD(A&S) stood up the JPAC to 
scale the MIDD's mission to other platforms and systems, including 
working with Industry to modernize our production lines, enabling 
digital engineering and advance manufacturing techniques, and 
developing incentive structures to scale production capacity for key 
systems. More information is provided in the white paper at TAB B.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Documents for 
Record on page 63.]
    As defined in the 2022 National Defense Strategy, the Department is 
facing a pacing challenge forcing the DoD to develop and field more 
complex warfighting systems. To support this move, the conversation 
needs to move from focusing on solely the "acquisition" or 
"procurement" communities to looking at the system as a whole - S&T, 
Acquisitions, Resourcing, and Requirements. The Department can move 
fast when the defense ecosystem is aligned - as we can see is happening 
in Ukraine and has happened before when we needed to rapidly develop 
and deliver C-IED solutions to CENTCOM. The USD(A&S) is leading the 
charge within the Department to build systems and processes that align 
all legs of the stool and enable us to acquire joint capability at 
speed and scale. The Department has been executing multiple initiatives 
in A&S to support this push, including executing Competitive Advantage 
Pathfinders, institutionalizing Integrated Acquisition Portfolio 
Reviews as a primary governing body, and establishing the Director of 
Acquisition Integration & Interoperability to oversee and cement these 
reforms. More information is provided in the white paper at TAB C.
    [The information referred to can be found in the Documents for 
Record on page 69.]



      
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              QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                             March 23, 2023

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                   QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MOULTON

    Mr. Moulton. Given that biotechnology is one of the 
identified critical technology areas prioritized by your office 
that can lead to improved readiness, how does the Department 
plan to support basic and applied research and build upon its 
biotech partnerships at our nation's top universities?
    Secretary Shyu. [No answer was available at the time of 
printing.]