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



 
      MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
                        APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2025

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 HEARINGS

                                 BEFORE A

                           SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                         HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                              SECOND SESSION

                                 _____

  SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED 
                                AGENCIES

                     JOHN R. CARTER, Texas, Chairman

  DAVID G. VALADAO, California      DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
  JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida       SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
  TONY GONZALES, Texas              SUSIE LEE, Nevada
  MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi        HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
  RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana            CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
  STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
  SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida

  NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Cole, as chairman of the full 
committee, and Ms. DeLauro, as ranking minority member of the full 
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.

    Justin Masucci, Jason Wheelock, Arianna Delgado, and Emma Lou Ford
                            Subcommittee Staff

                                      ___

                                  PART 1

  Quality of Life in the Military....................................
                                                                      1
  Navy and Marine Corps Military 
Construction and Family Housing......................................91
                                                                     
  Department of Veterans Affairs.....................................201
                                                                    
                           GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
                                

___________________________________

          Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations


                         _______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 57-916          WASHINGTON : 2025








 PART 1--MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES 
 
                        APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2025







 
                      COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                                ----------                              
                      TOM COLE, Oklahoma, Chairman


  HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky,                         ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
    Chair Emeritus                                 STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
  KAY GRANGER, Texas,                              MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
    Chair Emeritus                                 SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
  ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama                      BARBARA LEE, California
  MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho                        BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
  JOHN R. CARTER, Texas                            C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER,
  KEN CALVERT, California                           Maryland
  MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida                       DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
  STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas                           HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
  CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,                CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
    Tennessee                                      MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
  DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio                             DEREK KILMER, Washington
  ANDY HARRIS, Maryland                            MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
  MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada                           GRACE MENG, New York
  DAVID G. VALADAO, California                     MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
  DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington                         PETE AGUILAR, California
  JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan                      LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
  JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida                      BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
  BEN CLINE, Virginia                              NORMA J. TORRES, California
  GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania                  ED CASE, Hawaii
  MIKE GARCIA, California                          ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
  ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa                              JOSH HARDER, California
  TONY GONZALES, Texas                             JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
  JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana                          DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
  MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas                             LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois  
  RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana                           SUSIE LEE, Nevada
  ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia                         MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi
  JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas                            JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
  JERRY L. CARL, Alabama
  STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
  SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
  JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
  JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona
  CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina

  
  
                          Susan Ross, Clerk and Staff Director

  
  
  
                                       (ii)
    
  
  
  
  
 

                             C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                    QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE MILITARY

                                                                   Page
Bentivenga, John F., U.S. Space Force, Chief Master Sergeant of 
  the Space Force................................................    54
    Prepared statement...........................................    56
Flosi, David A,, U.S. Air Force, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air 
  Force..........................................................    43
    Prepared statement...........................................    45
Honea, James M., U.S. Navy, Master Chief Petty Officer of the 
  Navy...........................................................    21
    Prepared statement...........................................    23
Ruiz, Carlos A., U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant Major of the Marine 
  Corps..........................................................    30
    Prepared statement...........................................    32
Weimer, Michael R., U.S. Army, Sergeant Major of the Army........     4
    Prepared statement...........................................     6

     NAVY AND MARINE CORPS MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND FAMILY HOUSING

Banta, Lt. General Edward D., Deputy Commandant, Installations 
  and Logistics, U.S. Marine Corps...............................   116
    Prepared statement...........................................   118
Berger, Hon. Meredith, Assistant Secretary of the Navy 
  (Installations, Energy and Environment), Chief Sustainability 
  Officer, Department of the Navy................................    93
    Prepared statement...........................................    95
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   152
Jablon, Vice Admiral Jeffrey T., Deputy Chief of Naval 
  Operations, Installations and Logistics, Department of the Navy   105
    Prepared statement...........................................   107

                     DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

McDonough, Hon. Denis R, Secretary, Department of Veterans 
  Affairs........................................................   206
    Prepared statement...........................................   208
    Answers to submitted questions...............................   253

                                 (iii)


     MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES

                              ----------                              

                                          Wednesday, March 20, 2024

                    QUALITY OF LIFE IN THE MILITARY

                               WITNESSES

SERGEANT MAJOR MICHAEL R. WEIMER, U.S. ARMY, SERGEANT MAJOR OF THE ARMY
MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER JAMES M. HONEA, U.S. NAVY, MASTER CHIEF 
    PETTY OFFICER OF THE NAVY
SERGEANT MAJOR CARLOS A. RUIZ, U.S. MARINE CORPS, SERGEANT MAJOR OF THE 
    MARINE CORPS
CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT DAVID A. FLOSI, U.S. AIR FORCE, CHIEF MASTER 
    SERGEANT OF THE AIR FORCE
CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT JOHN F. BENTIVENGA, U.S. SPACE FORCE, CHIEF 
    MASTER SERGEANT OF THE SPACE FORCE
    Mr. Carter. Good morning to all of you and welcome. A 
little background information that I think would be interesting 
to all of you. Sergeant Major Michael R. Weimer of U.S. Army is 
the new Sergeant Major of the Army. We welcome you.
    Master Chief James Honea, U.S. Navy, Master Chief Petty 
Officer of the Navy; Sergeant Major Carlos Ruiz, U.S. Marine 
Corps, Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps; Master Chief David 
Flosi, U.S. Air Force, Master Chief Sergeant of the Air Force; 
and Master Chief Sergeant John F. Bentivenga, U.S. Space Force, 
Chief Master Sergeant, Space Force.
    Best I can tell, all of you all are practically new. I 
think maybe our Navy guy has been here before and most all the 
rest of are new. So welcome, OK, first and foremost.
    I know you are nervous, but don't be nervous. You are OK. 
You are among friends. We consider you the people who give us 
the best and most important information about the individual 
warriors that you represent.
    I think you can tell us more about what is happening on the 
ground, in the dorms or whatever you call them, or in the 
warfare that is important to the soldier, sailor, airman, 
marine, whatever.
    So I want to thank you for being here. Be frank. Don't be 
afraid to be frank. Tell us what you see, what you think you 
need, because we are here to fulfill not only in the event of 
the big wars that we may have to fight, but make sure that 
those who are willing to fight and go in harm's way, we give 
them the best possible things that we can give them as their 
government.
    So you are our friends, and we are looking to hear from 
you.
    Today's hearing is on the quality of life for our enlisted 
soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and guardians, and their 
families. Our five witnesses at the table are the highest 
enlisted personnel of leadership for their respected branches.
    I am pleased that we are having this hearing today to start 
off first on our 2025 inquiry for our next bill. This group's 
insight is critical. This hearing is a great opportunity to 
identify areas where we can be more helpful to our service 
members and their families.
    It is also an opportunity to discuss the important 
connection between facilities, readiness, and quality of life.
    Investing in infrastructure bolsters the military's ability 
to train and fight, while also ensuring our service members and 
their families are taken care of at home every day. We owe that 
to them.
    Now, I would like to recognize Ms. Wasserman Schultz, my 
good friend, for her opening remarks.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate you yielding, and I really especially appreciate our 
excellent partnership.
    We have been side by side on this subcommittee for years, 
switching places a couple of times, and it is always an honor 
and a pleasure to join you to be able to stand up for, 
particularly for this hearing's purpose, the quality of life of 
our service members and their families.
    I want to thank the five witnesses here today. Mr. 
Chairman, I think we have probably the newest minted collection 
of enlisted leaders that we have ever had at one time.
    We appreciate your dedication, and to the degree that you 
can answer questions in detail, that would be incredibly 
helpful. But recognizing the brevity of most of your tenure, it 
may be necessary for you to come back to us.
    But the questions that I know I have are real and I 
appreciated the opportunity to talk with nearly all of you in 
advance of this hearing.
    So our subcommittee continues to provide the robust funding 
consistently above budget requests, which is necessary to 
address many of the issues that we will discuss here today. But 
we all know that, and forgive me, I have a cold on top of my 
normally terrible allergies, so I am a little stuffy.
    We all know that funding alone is not enough to address 
issues like mental health, sexual assault, and inadequate 
housing.
    Leadership from all of our witnesses here today, thank you 
very much, and other senior military leaders is a necessary 
part of any solution. Your roles are vital to the success of 
our military by ensuring that we take care of all of the needs 
of our service members on and off the battlefield. And I know 
each of you take your responsibilities seriously.
    Maintaining recruitment and retention is a job that is 
never completed. I hope to hear from our witnesses today about 
the importance of providing adequate housing and childcare.
    These fundamental services are essential to bringing on and 
keeping service members in the military. And frankly, we have 
heard testimony from those very service members, some of whom 
have expressed angst to us that they would have liked to or 
want to spend their careers in the military, but their quality 
of life is so poor that the pressure on their families is 
making that very difficult, if not impossible.
    If we can't support our service members and their families 
or provide livable, quality housing, we are going to lose 
people. And we are already struggling with retention as well as 
recruitment.
    For fiscal year 2024, the committee provided $336 million 
for Child Development Centers, known as CDCs, which includes 
funding for six new CDCs.
    Today, I want to dig into the specifics of childcare needs 
across the services and the status of your infrastructure plans 
to meet those needs.
    Additionally, in fiscal year 2024 we again provided an 
additional $30 million to improve the oversight of DoD's 
housing portfolio. I would like to hear from our witnesses how 
that funding will be utilized, and I am dismayed to once again 
have to highlight the issue of sexual assault in the military. 
That certainly affects a service member's quality of life.
    While I appreciate the steps that DoD and the services are 
taking to tackle this issue, like developing training programs 
to educate and instill a culture of respect for those with whom 
they work, the statistics that we have seen continue to show 
dramatic progress is still needed in both reducing the 
prevalence of assaults and in bolstering trust in the reporting 
system.
    The Department of Defense's fiscal year 2022 Annual Sexual 
Assault and Prevention Report showed another increase in 
reported assaults. I hope the fiscal year 2023 report, that 
should come out imminently, shows more progress, but I tend to 
doubt that it will.
    A large part of supporting service members holistically 
includes supporting them mentally and physically. We need to 
ensure that we prioritize each and every person's mental health 
and continue to evaluate and study the effects of what service 
members are doing in combat or in training environments.
    And to that end, healthcare is integral in supporting the 
quality of life of a service member and their families. I 
commend the Department for finally expanding its previously 
discriminatory IVF policy by now allowing eligible troops to 
access IVF regardless of their marital status or sexual 
orientation, and allowing for the use of donated eggs and 
sperm.
    As someone who became a mother as a result of IVF, this is 
deeply personal and very serious for so many families. I fought 
for years through language in this bill to change this policy.
    Thanks and side by side with the support of the Chairman 
that affects the care that veterans can receive as well. More 
can be done and we know that we will continue to work together 
to make sure that we are pro-family.
    We must continue to make investments to ensure that the 
environment service members and their families live in are safe 
and healthy. From addressing lead paint, to asbestos and mold, 
oversight of housing is not just an abstract goal. Oversight 
has a very real effect on military families.
    We must also continue to address contamination that is left 
behind after a military base is no longer active. I continue to 
hear concerns from the public that the speed of DoD's 
remediation efforts for PFAS contamination is far too slow.
    For fiscal year 2024, this committee once again provided an 
increase above the request of $50 million in dedicated funding 
to address PFAS contamination. We have been prioritizing this 
as a committee whether the Judge is chair or I am for several 
years now, and the expectation is that DoD will expedite 
cleanup of these contaminants.
    Looking to the year ahead, we will soon dive into the 
specific budget requests for the services. And I hope after 
those robust discussions on MILCON funding needs, we will see a 
bipartisan House bill with adequate funding to fully address 
the requirements to ensure military readiness and improve the 
lives of our service members and their families.
    Thank you all for coming today and for your service, and I 
look forward to your testimonies.
    I yield back, Chair.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    All right. We ask you to keep your remarks to about 5 
minutes.
    Go ahead.
STATEMENT OF SERGEANT MAJOR MICHAEL R. WEIMER, U.S. ARMY, 
            SERGEANT MAJOR OF THE ARMY
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Chairman Carter, thank you. Thank 
you, Chairman. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman 
Schultz, distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you 
for allowing me the opportunity to speak with you today about 
the quality of life in the Army.
    Over the last 7 months, I've been able to go out and see 
our formation across the country and overseas. What I see makes 
me extremely proud. The soldiers, families and Army civilians 
who make up the all-volunteer force are committed to the 
mission.
    Our Army is formidable and lethal, capable of deterring, 
fighting, and winning against capable adversaries. In large 
part because of the incredible men and women we have on our 
team.
    We have active reserve National Guard soldiers training, 
campaigning, and responding, including over 65,000 soldiers who 
are deployed around the globe and another 74,000 standing by 
with immediate and crisis response forces.
    Behind every one of those men and women is a family bearing 
immeasurable weight. We're committed to supporting those 
soldiers and their families, building cohesive teams across the 
Army, and ensuring that we are fostering a safe and 
professional climate.
    This starts with building positive quality of life on 
multiple fronts. First and foremost, housing. Soldiers and 
their families deserve safe living conditions.
    We are committed to improving these conditions and 
appreciate Congress's support, especially the $3.4 billion 
investment in military housing in fiscal year 2023.
    Currently, we're putting an emphasis on unaccompanied 
personnel housing and barracks. Second, we are committed to 
improving spouse employment options. We have over 431,000 
spouses on the Army team, many of whom work.
    It's important to us that those spouses have employment 
options that facilitate their family readiness and quality of 
life. Military spouse employment partnership and my career 
advancement accounts are two initiatives that provide those 
options.
    Third, we must provide quality childcare options. CDC 
construction and renovations are underway across Army 
installations, and we are also offering fee assistance to 
address unmet childcare demands and streamlining hiring to help 
maximize capacity.
    Fourth, holistic health and fitness known as H2F. We are 
investing in our soldier's well-being to enhance combat 
readiness and develop resilient and lethal warfighters. The 
positive impacts of embedding H2F performance teams in brigades 
are evident.
    And finally, our families must be able to easily navigate 
the Exceptional Family Member Program by the end of fiscal year 
2024 Headquarters Department of the Army's Central Office is to 
be established to ensure the consistent processes across the 
Army.
    These efforts are all interrelated and nested with a 
broader effort to build a strong and successful team culture. 
We lean on various approaches and organizations for both 
bottoms up and top-down feedback, taking a connecting to 
protect approach towards improving our climate and reducing 
harmful behaviors.
    These include the Director of Prevention, Resilience and 
Readiness, the Integrated Prevention Advisory Group, our 
monthly leaning change forums, and our building cohesive teams' 
forums.
    These efforts also require us maintaining a close 
coordination and partnership with Congress, as well as reliable 
and predictable funding. And I will add, recruiting and 
retaining talented soldiers is a critical component to building 
positive command climates.
    Our Army has made some improvements over the last year and 
we will continue to focus on the priority effort going forward.
    In closing, the most rewarding aspect of my position is 
ensuring our soldiers remain the most lethal warfighters the 
world has ever seen. That includes taking care of their 
families.
    Together, we can ensure the Army remains the Nation's 
premier warfighting force it's ever seen, built around a 
culture of cohesive teams capable and ready to face the 
challenges of today and tomorrow.
    I'd like to thank the chairman, the ranking member, and the 
members of this committee for their leadership, their continued 
support of our soldiers, Army civilians and families, which are 
our most valued asset, and taking care of them now and helping 
us well into the future. I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Master Chief, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER JAMES M. HONEA, U.S. 
            NAVY, MASTER CHIEF PETTY OFFICER OF THE NAVY
    Master Chief Honea. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member 
Wasserman Schultz and distinguished members of the 
subcommittee, it is my privilege to speak with you once more on 
behalf of our sailors and their families.
    Your Navy is busy generating credible combat power as a 
decision option for our Nation's leaders and when called upon 
to deliver exceptional results. This hard work is being done on 
the backs of our sailors and their families.
    To maintain a lethal fighting force, we must invest in 
their quality of life and mission critical infrastructure. I'm 
excited to be here with you today having this important and 
hopefully rich discussion.
    The Gates Commission was established to study the viability 
of creating the all-volunteer force that we have today. The 
Commission highlighted five pillars that would be necessary to 
sustain that all-volunteer force.
    Adequate pay and compensation, quality housing, timely 
access to medical care, a retirement plan, and ensuring that 
the military remains a reflection of the American people that 
we serve.
    The good work of Congress and the Department of Defense 
over the last year has done a lot towards strengthening these 
pillars, but there is certainly more work to be done. I also 
believe that we should consider adding a sixth pillar to the 
Gates Commission, one of family readiness.
    A much greater preponderance of our force today are 
families compared to the all-volunteer force we created 50 
years ago. We understand that for us to retain our sailors, we 
need to retain their families as well.
    Family dynamics such as spousal employment and childcare 
are key contributing factors to their retention. To fully enjoy 
the financial stability in today's economy, most families in 
America require dual income.
    Many of our military spouses are challenged in securing 
that stable and adequate paying employment. Without ample 
opportunities for our spouses to secure employment and 
contribute to the financial stability of their families, many 
of our service members feel compelled to leave the Navy to 
better provide for their family.
    The work of Congress and the DoD in this area of concern 
have been tremendously supportive and helpful. Federal hiring 
authorities, licensure portability, fee reimbursements, among 
other initiatives such as remote work options, have proven 
beneficial to military spouses helping during duty station 
transfers.
    I encourage us all to continue working and consider 
stronger Federal hiring opportunities for our spouses, along 
with spouse colocation and securing continued meaningful 
employment for those spouses whenever our service members need 
to relocate to a new duty station.
    Additionally, the ability to secure and afford adequate 
childcare is one of the top stressors of our sailors and their 
families and serves as an inhibitor to that spouse employment.
    The approved military construction projects to build Child 
Development Centers in fiscal year 2024 are needed, and I am 
appreciative for your support and the appropriations necessary 
to begin these projects.
    And while we wait for these CDCs to be built and then 
staffed, it is critical that we continue to look at all 
available options to tackle these shortfalls.
    Many of our CDCs are already in competition for staff with 
childcare facilities operating in the local communities are 
unable to reach full capacity due to those staff shortages.
    However, we are finding great success with fee assistant 
pilots, and an expansion of these pilots will make it an 
immediate impact for our sailors and their families needing to 
secure childcare.
    We have highly skilled young men and women stand and watch 
right now in our Combat Information Centers on our ships that 
are patrolling the Babel Mendeb, who are deftly identifying 
threats and determining which weapons to engage to neutralize 
those threats in highly trafficked waterways in just a matter 
of seconds.
    Under these extremely stressful conditions, our sailors are 
delivering prompt and precise action that, with one wrong 
decision, could lead to catastrophic loss of life. The stakes 
are high and the responsibilities and expectations we have of 
these sailors is just as high.
    In order to recruit and retain a highly qualified 
professional force such as this, we must reexamine how we value 
the jobs of our service members and adequately compensate them 
commiserate with the scope of responsibilities and the 
expectations that we have of them.
    Our sailors and our families face many challenges and 
experience many of the same barriers to service that have been 
constant since the creation of the all-volunteer force.
    When the quality of life needs and the barriers to service 
of both our sailors and our families are adequately addressed, 
our warfighters are better focused and are more positively 
connected to our Navy.
    As we continue to face difficult decisions, we must 
continue to ensure our warfighters are appropriately equipped, 
trained, and postured to fight and win. We must also ensure 
that their wellbeing is in mind, providing a quality of life 
commiserate with the scope of responsibilities that are placed 
on our sailors and our families every day.
    I am proud and honored to represent the talented sailors 
serving in our Navy today. And with the support of our Navy 
family, I am confident that we will remain the most dominant 
maritime force the world has ever seen.
    The work that you do enables us to remain ready for any 
situation. I thank you and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Sergeant Major?
STATEMENT OF SERGEANT MAJOR CARLOS A. RUIZ, U.S. MARINE CORPS, 
            SERGEANT MAJOR OF THE MARINE CORPS
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Thank you, sir.
    Good morning, Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman 
Schultz, and distinguished members of this committee, I 
appreciate your attention and support for the quality of life 
for those who defend this great Nation.
    By our title 10 mandate, the Marine Corps is uniquely 
composed to perform other such duties as the President may 
direct. It's a commitment we uphold across the globe because we 
are persistently forward and ready today.
    For instance, last week, at the request of the State 
Department, U.S. Southern Command deployed a Marine Corps Fleet 
Anti-Terrorism Security Team to the U.S. embassy in Port-au-
Prince, Haiti.
    In the wake of civil instability and unrest, the embassy 
remains open and secure today. Also, last week, the 26th Marine 
Expeditionary Unit completed an extended deployment aboard 
amphibious warships in the European Command and Central Command 
areas of responsibility.
    That special operations capable MEU conducted real-world 
operations in the Arabian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz in 
response to attempts by Iran to threaten the free flow of 
commerce.
    And again, last week marines trained alongside our NATO 
partners in Norway's Arctic, while other marines provided 
humanitarian assistance to the Republic of the Philippines 
during time of crisis.
    So at any given day, any time of the year, your marines are 
forward edge of every climb in place, demonstrated that we're 
capable, that we're ready, and that we are trusted.
    I recently spent time with some of these marines overseas. 
They were living and working in challenging conditions with 
limited amenities, overcoming mental and physical fatigue 
associated with those austere environments.
    Yet, the Marines were motivated, confident in themselves 
and their teams, and getting the job done. That's how we 
trained them.
    The Marine Corps also recently achieved an unmodified audit 
opinion, the best possible outcome and the first for a military 
service. So rest assured that the resources you provide will be 
well managed.
    We owe it to the Marines to provide the services and goods 
that fuel the Marines to persevere. Our Barracks 2030 Mission 
takes an aggressive approach in tailoring the barracks 
portfolio to the needs of the future force while improving the 
Marine's quality of life through specific investments.
    Our Marine Corps Total Fitness Mission addresses the 
matters of mind and body, optimizing the performance of each 
marine and the readiness of our organization.
    These programs are designed to not only improve combat 
readiness, but also reduce the behaviors that degrade our 
service. So today, inside this committee hall, we share a 
common understanding that we are to remain focused as the 
premier war fighting organization we are known to be.
    That statement, the Marines have landed, will always carry 
an enormous weight to friend and foe. We are resolute in our 
investments to the quality of life for our marines and our 
families, and we will get this job done too.
    I look forward to taking your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
    GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
    Mr. Carter. Chief Master Sergeant.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT DAVID A. FLOSI, U.S. AIR 
            FORCE, CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT OF THE AIR FORCE
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thank you.
    Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and 
distinguished members of this subcommittee, I'm grateful for 
the opportunity to address the critical issues affecting the 
lives of our airmen and their families.
    As we navigate through a time of profound significance, 
it's imperative we acknowledge the evolving challenges facing 
our military. Throughout modern history, airmen have been at 
the forefront of pivotal moments, shaping the course of our 
Nation's defense.
    Today, we confront strategic competitors such as China and 
Russia amidst a rapidly changing landscape of warfare. The 
emergence of multidomain threats, including cyberattack, 
hypersonics, autonomous weapon systems underscore the urgency 
of maintaining our military superiority.
    The age of uncontested Air Force dominance is behind us. To 
stay ahead, we must harness the innovative spirit within our 
ranks, addressing key challenges head on. This moment demands 
decisive action to equip our airmen for success in an era 
defined by great power competition.
    Quality of life for our service members and their families 
is paramount. We must ensure access to quality child care and 
health care. Recent increases in military pay are appreciated, 
yet, we must remain vigilant in addressing inflationary 
pressures and rising housing costs. Ensuring adequate housing 
for our airmen and their families is nonnegotiable. We're 
committed to addressing the challenges investing in the 
maintenance and construction of housing facilities.
    In health care, we acknowledge challenges in accessing 
services, particularly mental health care. We're committed to 
improving access and support for our airmen and their families, 
leveraging partnerships and data driven initiatives.
    In addition to these programs, suicide prevention remains a 
top priority with a focus on building connections, detecting 
risk, and promoting protective environments. We're dedicated to 
supporting the mental well-being of our personnel and 
encouraging them to seek help when they need it.
    Caring for our airmen must also extend to our family 
members. Child care is a critical workforce enabler, yet 
demands often outpace availability. We are working to continue 
expanding child care options and support programs to better 
serve our airmen.
    Recognizing the diverse needs of modern military families, 
we're committed to improving spouse employment opportunities 
and license portability. Supporting our families is 
foundational to maintaining readiness and mission success.
    I want to thank this subcommittee for its unwavering 
support. Our service members, backed by resilient families, are 
ready to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. Let us 
ensure they have the resources and support they need to 
continue safeguarding our Nation's security for generations to 
come.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. Chief Master Sergeant Bentivenga, it's your 
turn.
STATEMENT OF CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT JOHN F. BENTIVENGA, U.S. SPACE 
            FORCE, CHIEF MASTER SERGEANT OF THE SPACE FORCE
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Thank you, Chairman Carter, 
Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and distinguished members of 
this subcommittee. Thank you for your continued support and 
your dedication to the quality of life of our guardians and 
their loved ones.
    I'm honored for this opportunity to talk about my number 
one priority, our Nation's guardians. The Space Force was 
established in recognition of the rapidly changing face of 
warfare.
    As rival competitors seek to threaten our space domain and 
United States' way of life, our Space Force is focused on 
optimizing for great power competition with initiatives 
organized to develop people, generate readiness, project power, 
and develop capabilities that will support the joint force.
    However, our service must also ensure we continue to 
attract, recruit, and retain our guardians for this 
competition, and if required, conflict.
    This means accessibility of childcare, economic security, 
dormitories, family housing, mental health, and competitive pay 
and compensation are not solely quality of life issues.
    For guardians with 24/7 employed-in-place operations, 
primarily from permanent U.S. installations, these are not just 
benefits, but they are readiness issues.
    Our model of presenting forces to combatant commanders 
creates a nontraditional war fighter experience. For example, 
before guardians take their positions on operations floor, many 
are often dropping off children at childcare providers, and 
trusting that the facilities are available, well maintained, 
and secure.
    However, childcare access challenges are compounded by the 
complexity of shift work where our guardians can struggle to 
find child care outside of normal business hours and on 
weekends.
    Budget stability and timely appropriations are critical to 
military quality of life initiatives and, in turn, military 
readiness.
    I want to thank you for your tireless efforts for the 
Fiscal Year 2024 Military Construction Appropriations Act, 
ensuring the Department has housing and child care resources 
for our guardians.
    Building on this momentum, the fiscal year 2025 budget 
seeks to continue these investments, safeguarding our promises 
to service members and their families.
    The demand for guardian talent, technical expertise, and 
capability will only continue to grow, and this comes with 
added operational stress and pressure. We must insulate 
guardians against internal and external factors that prevent 
them from being combat ready and fully capable to accomplish 
their mission.
    We must make their experience meaningful and fulfilling 
amidst lucrative options from other sectors that seek guardians 
for their character, their skill, and their talent.
    Guardians entering the service today are educated, 
digitally literate, and hungry for opportunities to solve hard 
problems and assume greater responsibilities in the 
intelligence, cyber, and space domains.
    We all know that job satisfaction is important for 
retaining talent. During a recent forum with guardians, they 
raised concerns with incomplete threat and system models and 
simulators to prepare them for the high-end threat our near 
peer adversaries pose.
    These concerns demonstrate our guardian's passion for the 
mission, and we owe it to them to continue our investment in 
our operational test and training infrastructure, and ensure 
they have the tools and the environments necessary for 
readiness.
    These investments are the value proposition we seek to 
offer. It protects and ensures their focus, resolve, and 
willingness to continue their journey in the Space Force and 
greatly depends on our commitment and actions to care for them 
and their loved ones.
    The decisions we make today will impact future generations 
of guardians. Our investment in them is the greatest leverage 
to secure our Nation's interests in, from, and to space.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. We thank you and thank all of you and good job.
    I will start off and we will go as we always do and try to 
stay within our 5-minute limit.
    Barracks. The GAO report from September of last year 
painted a bleak picture of the state of barracks to DoD. They 
observed barracks in poor condition, including some with safety 
risks like sewage overflow, and inoperable fire systems, and 
barracks that don't meet DoD requirements for privacy and 
amenities.
    How are each of your services responding to the finding of 
this report? What can we expect from your services, in terms of 
request for funding, to fix these problems over our latest 
future year defense program?
    And as cost of barracks rise, what role do you see that 
possibly 3D printing might play in helping control costs and 
provide high quality accommodations for service members to 
exceed?
    We will start with the Army.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that 
question, and I acknowledge the GAO report in which you're 
referencing.
    So the Army's prioritized $2.1 billion investment a year 
across the FYDEP coming up, and the Secretary is passionate, 
and we're going to invest a 100 percent sustainment in those 
focusing on restoration and modernization.
    We're also--we were already leaning into our approaches 
before the recent NDA language came out on barracks managers, 
And so that we get back from the model we currently have, which 
is uniform service members with collateral duties and 
professional barracks managers to truly take care of that 
infrastructure as we invest dollars into sustaining it.
    In reference to our Department of Public Works, to be able 
to also sustain the money we're putting in those barracks, 
we're roughly 900 plus short employees, and we have a strategy 
through Army Material Command to, we call it, build back DPW, 
to hire those critical people so that we can maintenance the 
work orders in our barracks.
    And then lastly, Judge, to respect the time, the 3D 
printing, which I observed myself, the models down at Fort 
Bliss, it could have an application in certain locations, but 
it's still pretty restricted as far as a large opportunity for 
us.
    They're open bays right now. They don't stack. And so for 
mobilization sites, it could be applicable, but it seems that 
it needs a little further before it's--be able to use larger.
    And then, of course, we are taking a look at privatized 
options with a pilot at Fort Irwin.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Master Chief Honea. Chairman Carter, in the United States 
Navy, we're already beginning from a deficit, alongside our 
sister services and provide an inadequate, unaccompanied 
housing and barracks to our most junior service members.
    We still consider shipboard living to be adequate 
government quarters, which is just not where we should be 
thinking at in today. So we're moving out and trying to find 
more and more bed spaces to move our sailors off our ships and 
into our barracks.
    That's largely where you're going to find us, to be not 
compliant with the standard that we should be providing is that 
we're doubling up people in single occupancy rooms. But make no 
doubt, we do believe that every sailor deserves to have a 
separation from their work life and into their home life. So 
they have a place to decompress both physically and mentally, 
so they could be more refreshed.
    One of the areas that I think we're going to find greater 
resolution and more impactful, immediate impact to supporting 
our sailors will be with an expansion of our PPV pilots that 
we've had going on both in San Diego and in the Hampton Roads 
area.
    Pacific Beacon that's operating our PPV barracks in San 
Diego that is the model. That is what we should be striving 
toward. We're looking for expansions in those pilots, and any 
support that I can get from yourself and the other members of 
Congress in meeting that end, I think we'll be a lot more 
successful.
    Mr. Carter. Sergeant Major?
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Sorry. Yes. Acknowledge the GAO 
report, but typical Marine Corps we found that the GAO report 
did samples, right? So as of 3 days ago we finished the entire 
inspection of all of our barracks all over the globe.
    So now we know we're in a better spot to understand where 
the rest of the issues are. So it's not defendable and not 
going to, but we do have, and the Commandant has, in fact, 
invested heavily on the future of barracks.
    And that's--I mentioned in my opening statement, Barracks 
2030 Plan, and there's some immediate wins there that we're 
doing. Sorry. It's the places where it's just so hot and there 
is no air conditioning. The Commandant has decided, ``Hey, you 
know, maybe we need some air conditioning in this space.''
    It's not, for us, it's not that hard, right? It's a place 
that you can climb and control your room. It's fresh furniture. 
It's washers and dryers that work. But I think the other part 
is right sizing our inventory.
    So knocking down those barracks that are not ever going to 
be in standard. And it's probably a place where this committee 
can help and that when we build something new and we tear 
something down, and you mentioned, sir, the rising cost of 
building something, well, the cost of tearing down something is 
also quite up there, right?
    So there's significant investments in 2025. We've already, 
in the last couple of years, refurbished 30 barracks. So 
getting them up to date, having those basic things that we 
need.
    We are also going to hire civilians getting the Marines who 
are doing three jobs and one of them is barracks manager, 
getting back to their formations. So get the civilians to worry 
about the maintenance of the barracks 24 hours a day, 7 days a 
week.
    Then we have dedicated maintenance teams. So when your room 
is locked, when your window doesn't open, when something's 
broken that someone's not going to come 45 days from the moment 
that you put in the request that they come that that day or the 
day after.
    So it's not hard, like, as I mentioned, but I think the 
final touch on it is, as the Commandant said, OK we will put 
the way we handle barracks into the IG Marine Corps inspection 
checklist.
    So now we will know, all over the Marine Corps, who's not 
meeting the mark and commanders, leadership will be held 
accountable.
    Mr. Carter. Very good.
    What's the Air Force doing?
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman 
Carter.
    The DAF is planning its largest FSRM facility sustainment 
restoration and modernization budget to permanent party dorms 
in more than a decade.
    We're investing $1.1 billion in these modernization and 
restoration efforts to address more than a 100,000 bed spaces 
across the Department of the Air Force for both airmen and our 
guardians.
    We have assigned full-time, trained military personnel as 
airmen dorm leaders at every military dorm across the 
Department. We've also written into our regulations a 
requirement for supervisors, leaders, commanders, and first 
sergeants to routinely visit the dorms and ensure that our 
airmen have the living conditions they need to be successful.
    We've invested in the last three fiscal years over $557 
million to complete 98 projects to ensure our standard of 
living for our dorms is adequate. And as of today, 99.3 percent 
of our dorms are assessed as adequate or above.
    We've increased our capability to service these dorms, and 
when we have that small percentage of facilities that is not 
adequate, we're investing in MILCON.
    So in fiscal year 2025, we've got MILCON in the fiscal year 
2025 PB for our largest deficit locations, including Langley, 
Eustis, Sparksdale, Cannon, Goodfellow, and Ellsworth across 
the FYDEP.
    We have a Dorm Master Plan at the Department level that 
considers the condition of each facility and prioritizes our 
scarce resources to ensure our airmen have the have the living 
conditions they need.
    Additionally, we're paying attention to what the Master 
Chief Petty Officer of the Navy mentioned, with his 
privatization study out in San Diego, and we plan to leverage 
those lessons learned and we're considering options as well in 
the Department.
    We think they'll work best in CONUS, remote, and isolated 
locations and we're pursuing a privatization project for 
unaccompanied housing out at Edwards right now, sir.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Space Force?
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the 
Space Force and the Air Force work very closely on the 
dormitories' infrastructure under the Department, but across 
Space Force installations we have 28 military dormitories that 
we have. The Average Building Condition Index is 82 which is 
considered acceptable under the DoD standard. We are doing 
investments. Each fiscal year we look to do an investment to 
upgrade and do repairs on the dormitories.
    Right now out at Fort MacArthur out at L.A. Air Force 
Station there's a renovation going on a dormitory there. And at 
Buckley Space Force Base they are going to do the plan and 
design starting in 2026. That is what planned out. What is 
really important is that for Buckley, for example, it is not 
just guardians an airmen living in dorms. It is soldiers, 
sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen in some cases as well.
    So I have had the opportunity during my travels during the 
last couple months to try and visit with my wife Kathy every 
dormitory, every installation that we go to that belongs to the 
Space Force to personally see the conditions and hear from the 
men and women who are living in those facilities. And as Chief 
Flosi pointed out the fulltime airmen dorm leaders is what we 
call there, the leadership team that is invested and connected 
with the men and women living in the dormitories partly with 
the Chaplain Service and other leaders on the cross-
installation is very inspiring.
    I was over there during some of the holidays, and just the 
community they are trying to build there and the care to make 
sure that it is a home for those men and women living in the 
dormitories not just four walls and a bed.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you. Well, I am glad the Marines have 
found air conditioning. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This 
committee is led by a Texan and a Floridian, and I think we 
would say we are definitely pro air conditioning. I could 
appreciate the effort to address the quality of life of living 
conditions of enlisted men and women who live in barracks, and 
certainly the condition of those barracks is important. But if 
you fear being sexually assaulted no matter how good the 
conditions are in those barracks, then your quality of life 
needless to say is poor.
    According to DoD's fiscal year 2022 annual report on sexual 
assaults in the military issued in April last year there were 
more than 8,942 reports of sexual assaults involving service 
members during the 2022 fiscal year which was a slight increase 
over the 8,666 assaults that there were in 2021. That was 
itself an increase over 2020, and we are expected to see the 
fiscal year 2023 report released soon. As I mentioned in my 
remarks, I hope to see a significant improvement, but I am 
doubtful.
    The initiatives from the Independent Review Commission to 
ensure justice are important, but it is essential that we get 
ahead of this problem and have effective prevention efforts as 
well. And I appreciated the opportunity to talk with most of 
you ahead of this hearing, but I want to hear from each of you 
how you are analyzing the degree to which increases are due to 
increased reporting or increases in sexual assaults in your 
branch of service.
    So that is an important distinction, and it is one where I 
hope there is enough curiosity for you to know the answer to 
those questions and are trying to analyze specifically whether 
or not there are true increases or more comfort level 
reporting. So we will start with Sergeant Major Weimer please.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Ranking Member, thank you for that 
important question. Though our numbers are a little bit down in 
the Army based off the report that you are referencing the 
numbers still aren't great, and sexual assault will continue to 
be something--and sexual harassment something we continue to 
never let our foot off the gas.
    I think the two largest efforts that we are doing to not 
get complacent is really our Integration Prevention Advisory--
--
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Sergeant Major, I'm going to ask you 
about that. My specific question is how are you attempting to 
analyze whether or not--now, you had a slight reduction, but 
still I want to know how you are attempting to analyze whether 
or not increases or your numbers are due to more reporting or 
more sexual assault and sexual harassment.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Yes, Ranking Member. Part of that 
initiative is hiring 11 additional data scientists that we 
actually have job offers out now is to truly look and be able 
to see ourselves because we see trends. This one happens to be 
a downward trend. But why to your point, your actual point? And 
I am not sure we can still see ourselves which is the 
importance of the----
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. In your case, less reporting.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Yes.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Is there more fear? Is that the 
cause?
    Sergeant Major Weimer. And then how do we learn?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But hiring someone who is going to 
look----
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Yes, ma'am. What is working so that 
we can proliferate it across the entire force not celebrate the 
fact that we went down potentially eight percent. Why? Because 
we have to expand that from Humphreys in Korea all the way to 
Poland. And so investing in folks, frankly, that is new to me, 
data scientists, not something that we grew up talking about in 
our careers, is what we have to do now to truly--because there 
are so many streams of data coming in for a senior mission 
command at each one of the installations we are overwhelmed 
with it.
    Now, we have spent a lot of time looking at what could be 
causing those. A lot of those are the cultural pieces we talked 
about. But it is folks like the data scientists and taking the 
collateral duty out, in the sharp world taking that out of the 
uniformed personnel and hiring those people that this is what 
they do day in and day out for the commanders to know we need 
more of this and less of this because this didn't work, and 
this did. That is our secretary's number one goal right now 
with the IPAG.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Master Chief?
    Master Chief Honea. Ranking Member, to get right to your 
point of your question previously there was no mechanism to 
indicate why there was an increase in reporting. But also to 
your point in your opening, your comments, leadership needs to 
be part of solving this problem, and I do believe that with the 
cultural transformation that we have had, with some changes in 
policies such as No Wrong Door and other things that we have 
increased people's trust in the organization to make those 
reports especially in the areas that the Sergeant Major of the 
Army was describing where we have professionalized rather than 
had collateral duty sailors serving in these important 
positions. That shows the importance that we have as an 
organization in solving this problem.
    And I do believe that is increased trust, and that is 
increasing our reporting. What we will learn is in--the Office 
of Secretary of Defense has issued the DoD-wide Workplace and 
Gender Relations Survey for 2023. We should have those results 
shortly, and from there we will have a better understanding 
hopefully of why we have that increase.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So is that survey designed to get 
responses to questions to discern whether there is more comfort 
level in reporting versus a greater increase in attacks and 
assaults and harassment?
    Master Chief Honea. Ranking Member, that is my 
understanding is exactly the point of that survey.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. If you can just follow up with us 
with more detail about how that question instrument was 
designed that would be helpful.
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Sergeant Major Ruiz.
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Yes, ma'am. And just to follow with 
the Master Chief, the organizational survey, that tells us 
today what areas around the Marine Corps, what commands have a 
higher tendency of Marines and sailors inside the organization 
that don't feel trust in that command team in handling a 
reporting. So we are starting to see where those issues are and 
starting to pinpoint the data. It is our ability to see where 
the command teams are failing to hold a climate, a culture that 
Marines feel trusted and not just that they fear something may 
happen in that command, but also does the command team have the 
trust of the organization that they are going to do something 
about it.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Are the Navy and the Marines doing 
something similar to more granularly zero in on your own data 
in your service rather than the general across the board DoD 
service like the Army has?
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Yes, ma'am. And I was going to follow 
up with the Sergeant Major of the Army's comments and the 
hiring of the people and the data, the ability to see 
ourselves. Absolutely. That is where we are going as well. 
Every morning I see an email, and it has a list of what 
happened around the globe, a sexual assault or ideations or 
attempts. So we ask, What are we doing with this information? 
How are we activating? How are we actioning this information? 
And that is what we want to get at quickly.
    But while we can control what we can control in the Marine 
Corps, ma'am, I think it is also part of our culture. We have 
such a strong imprint in a young person's life when they go 
through 3 months of boot camp that we decided that it is time 
to stop talking about response early in training and start 
talking about what healthy relationships look like, consent.
    So we want to set up a baseline early. That is when we want 
to get that, early in their training when they are open to 
imprinting from the Marine Corps and then continue as we have 
with additional training as they improve in ranks.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Chief Flosi.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thank you, Ranking Member. It is 
really difficult to assess out the reporting to your direct 
question is it due to increased comfort level, or is it due to 
an increase in actual assaults. So I would be happy to take 
that question back and see if we can find some more detail. I 
can tell you that we have introduced a SAPR reporting dashboard 
for commanders that includes risk assessments of their climate, 
and it provides for trend tracking over time.
    So we are working similar to the other services on DAF-
specific reporting tools that will allow us to illuminate the 
actual details that you are asking for, ma'am.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That is incredibly important to 
understand whether the numbers that you are looking at are the 
result of more reporting or more assaults.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Absolutely.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. How are you able to make adjustments 
if you don't know the answers to those questions?
    Master Sergeant Flosi. I absolutely agree with you, ma'am. 
We are focused on taking care of any victim that comes forward, 
and so we haven't focused as deliberately on why they reported. 
We focus on the report and taking care of the victim and 
looking for accountability.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Well, that is the point of my 
question is that the goal is prevention.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Absolutely.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I mean, I certainly hope that you 
provide good care for someone once they have been assaulted or 
harassed.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But you have to make sure that never 
gets to that point in the first place, and understanding the 
data is a critical tool in order to ensure that.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Absolutely.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thank you.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Chief Bentivenga.
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Thank you, Ranking Member. As 
Chief Flosi said, collecting the data and parsing it out over 
the last few months--4 years into this journey as a separate 
service under the Department of the Air Force we just started 
recently trying to pull out guardian specific data out of the 
reports that were being rolled up at the DAF level inside the 
Pentagon so that we can get an understanding from a guardian 
specific culture what does that look like, and are the victims 
and survivors of sexual assault and sexual harassment can we 
collect that data and parse it out for guardians.
    In addition to that because many of the Space Force 
installations where our guardians are also have a lot of airmen 
that are there as well, so being able to report back and say, 
for example, at Peterson Space Force Base, what is the climate 
that is there to not only understand assaults are happening for 
guardians but also for the airmen that are there. So trying to 
get the data so the that we can analyze it.
    As you referenced, what does it mean? We would hope that 
sometimes you say trust in leadership that survivors are 
comfortable to come forward and talk about their experience and 
report assaults is important, but understanding whether or not 
that is an increase or a comfort level with, have we removed 
barriers, trying unrestricted/restricted reporting, standing up 
the Office of Special Trial Counsel, all these things to 
instill confidence in men and women coming forward and 
reporting it, understanding more work has to be done.
    Is it because they are more comfortable now with 
leadership, and they feel the support structure is there, or is 
there still an untenable culture where assaults are still 
occurring? And we will have to take that for the record. We are 
still pulling that data apart, but I couldn't tell you what it 
is telling us at this point other than the fact we know we need 
more fidelity in the data we are collecting.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. And now that the 
reporting is outside the chain of command thanks to a change in 
the law and the President's executive order this should be a 
priority because you have that mechanism.
    And then just lastly very quickly you are dealing with old 
data. I mean, you are getting reports in 2024 that are from 
2022. So you are not even looking at what the current situation 
is. What steps are being taken to make sure that you can 
process data that helps you look at it more currently so that 
you are getting a more real-time window into the problem? If 
you don't know the answer to that question then----
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Ranking Member, I can give you a 
tangible one there. So between our sharp SMEs, Subject Matter 
Experts, and our IG Schoolhouse, they came together in tandem 
and collaboratively came up with a new POI to actually train 
independent investigators on sexual harassment because a part 
of this is the length of time the investigations take. And so 
the longer that takes to be adjudicated while taking care of 
the victim, obviously, simultaneously the data just gets older 
and older to your point. And so that is a key effort for us.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much. And if you 
could get those answers to me for the record, I would 
appreciate it. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Valadao.
    Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank 
our witnesses for taking the time to be here today. I know that 
we all share in the commitment to making sure that our service 
members both abroad and here at home are taken care of.
    The military relies heavily on local communities to provide 
access to healthcare to our service members especially in areas 
where there is limited on-base case. This is particularly true 
for bases where Defense Health Agency has planned to 
restructure or close hospitals and clinics as part of the 
recent efforts to perform how the DoD provides healthcare to 
both active duty and nonactive tricare beneficiaries. The 
Defense Health Agency plan hinges on a community healthcare 
system that can provide essential services in a timely manner 
to both service members and civilians in need of healthcare.
    Recently, Ridgecrest Regional Hospital which supports 
service members stationed at Naval Air Weapons Station China 
Lake announced that they would be suspending their labor and 
delivery services due to unprecedented financial challenges. 
This loss in care means our service members at China Lake will 
need to drive almost 2 hours to the next closest labor and 
delivery unit which places an incredible hardship on our 
service members and their families.
    Ridgecrest Regional Hospital is just one of 55 critical 
access hospitals within a 40-mile radius of a military base. 
These critical access hospitals are federally designated as 
essential to providing healthcare services in rural 
communities. I am incredibly concerned that with the continued 
impacts of COVID-19, significant healthcare professional 
shortages and lower reimbursement rates these hospitals will 
not have the resources they need to continue to provide 
services to our service members.
    A question for the Navy and then all branches. Master Chief 
Honea, I know that the Navy is tracking this issue, and I am 
wondering if you have identified any possible solutions to 
leveraging existing Navy or DHA resources to community 
hospitals that provide critical healthcare service for our 
military. If nothing has been identified at this time, does the 
Navy have an interim plan to support any pregnant service 
members or spouses at China Lake? Is it possible to provide 
labor and delivery care on base? And then I'd like to open up 
the question to anyone else on the panel who might have similar 
concerns.
    Master Chief Honea. Congressman, I thank you, sir, for your 
attention and understanding of a problem that is happening in 
Ridgecrest. It is a small community, and that it has your 
attention gives me a lot of comfort to understand that it is 
not just us paying attention to this problem.
    The transformation of the Defense Health Agency has relied 
largely on being able to access medical care outside our 
military fence lines, and that transformation was based on 
assumptions that existed prior to COVID. And just as you 
described many of those assumptions are no longer viable or no 
longer exist outside our military fence lines, and that is 
manifesting itself in different ways in different locations.
    Pregnancy, delivery, obstetrician services available in 
Ridgecrest. We have similar problems up in the Bremerton area 
where we used to have somewhere in the neighborhood of about 15 
clinics that someone could go to. Now there are three on that 
peninsula that are no longer accepting any new tricare 
patients. So our service members and family members are having 
to drive down to Joint Base Lewis McChord an hour and a half or 
so away.
    What we are doing in those locations, Ridgecrest there was 
a lot of discussion with our Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and 
our Surgeon General along with administrators of that 
Ridgecrest Community Hospital to do all the things necessary to 
keep them open not just for obstetrician services but across 
the board. We are making a lot of headway in solving what those 
problems are specifically to somebody that is a pregnant 
service member but also other things that we are no longer able 
to provide and feel confident in providing that medical service 
care to that individual.
    We are looking at that place like we would any other remote 
location or overseas location where medical services are 
restricted. And we will have to restrict assignments to those 
locations until we can provide that medical care, perhaps 
relocate service members who need that type of care so they can 
deliver somewhere else. And that is going to have to be across 
the board until we get this all solved.
    This is a departmental issue. It is not something that is 
Navy specific. Our Deputy Secretary of Defense has tackled this 
on personally and is helping us solve our military healthcare 
system.
    Mr. Valadao. I appreciate that, but, and we had this fight 
a number of years ago over Lemoore, the base closest to my 
home, and they shut down the facility there. They're leaning on 
the hospital in the city of Hanford, which is only a 15, 20-
minute drive away.
    But as we see this continuing in many rural communities 
across the country I mean, just in my district alone, we've had 
two or three different hospitals closed over the last number of 
years. And if it wasn't for one larger hospital outfit coming 
in and saving a couple of them, we wouldn't have the resources 
there, and it's frustrating to see across all the different 
branches.
    And I don't know if anyone else wants to add to this or 
what they're seeing in their area?
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Sure, Congressman. I'll take the 
opportunity to also agree with my teammate here.
    We're struggling in this space. We recently just came on an 
agreement with, DEPSEC DEF, to surge our medical service 
members into our medical treatment facilities to help cover 
down and shorten times it takes to be seen, and it's just 
another example of what we're doing inside with uniform 
personnel.
    For the Army side of the house, our combat medics, there's 
a balance between the amount of time they spend working inside 
the clinic, because there is goodness there when they're 
actually working on medical skills, but then how much time they 
spend with their war fighting unit preparing for their wartime 
mission.
    And so there is this tension. We also see this in our, in 
our MEP stations, in our Entry Processing Stations also where 
we're struggling and we're trying to surge medical personnel 
also to ensure we don't lose any potential recruits.
    Mr. Valadao. The opportunity is there.
    Sergeant Major?
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. It's part of it's the all-volunteer 
force, right? So we promised that to the family member and the 
service member.
    I think that's where you're going with that service, it's 
dangerous to recruiting and retention when they don't see it, 
it's war fighting. The service member is not focused, right, 
because they're worried about having to go further away. 
They're not at work. They're not fixing an F-35 engine. They're 
not doing live fire ranges and they keep falling back further 
and further in training.
    So there's some issues to be resolved for sure, sir, and 
appreciate you bringing that forward.
    Mr. Valadao. I imagine--I've got someone in my district 
right now that she is due the day before her husband is due to 
return home. And if she's going to commute to a hospital alone 
and have to drive hours, that's not going to make life a lot 
easier.
    And I imagine the war fighter is not sleeping well, not 
focused on their responsibilities, and not doing the best they 
possibly can to fight for our Nation knowing that their family 
isn't being taken care of.
    So I appreciate the concern, and, Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Let me extend my welcome to our esteemed witnesses and let 
me express my gratitude to each of you for your service to our 
Nation.
    Your testimony today is invaluable for informed decision 
making and safeguarding the welfare of our soldiers, their 
families, and our Nation's security.
    I want to touch on three items today that I'd like to 
quickly explore with you. First, is the issue of food 
insecurity. Last year, the RAND National Defense Research 
Institute revealed that 25.8 percent of active-duty members 
face food insecurity.
    And they noted that military and veterans experienced 
double the national average of food insecurity. Military 
personnel are often hesitant to seek assistance due to pride, 
stigma, concerns about appearing weak or dependent.
    So I'd like to know how your service is collaborating with 
external partners to combat food and security issues, and what 
are your projections for the future of your approach?
    The second issue has to do with the Basic Needs Allowance. 
I noted that, in fiscal year 2025 and the budget request 
includes a proposal to raise the income eligibility threshold 
for the Basic Needs Allowance from a 150 percent to 200 percent 
of the Federal poverty guidelines.
    Military Times tells us that 77 military families across 
the Air Force, Army, and the Navy received the Basic Needs 
Allowance in 2023, which is about one percent of the 6,000 
service members that are deemed potentially eligible.
    And given this limited potential, can you provide insights 
into how you expect the impact of the expansion of that 
eligibility threshold will benefit and how that will impact our 
families?
    And the final question has to do with the stress and 
burnout. The fiscal year budget will reduce the in strength by 
5,700 personnel. The army will lose 1,700, the navy 5,000. And, 
the Navy survey revealed that a third of sailors reported 
severe or extreme levels of stress in 2023.
    Given the fact that we've got worldwide tensions and 
trending conflict escalation, what measures are being 
implemented to address this trend, and how are you going to do 
more, in terms of dwell time and dealing with the stress level 
and the overwork, with the reduction in the troop level? And 
the in strength?
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Congressman Bishop, I'll start, 
if that's OK.
    So first, let me start by saying thank you very much for 
your attention on this issue. You know I think we all agree 
that no member or family who's wearing a cloth of their nation 
should be food insecure and not having the food on the table. 
That's just unacceptable.
    So as the Space Force, how are we getting after that? One 
is, part of it's education. And, I mean, education and or are 
we teaching our young families, our young enlisted members, 
specifically, not only how to budget the amount of money that 
is in their pay and compensation, but, also, what are they 
eating and how are they eating?
    You know, under the food and security discussion, you know, 
when you try to define food and security, some of it is not 
that there isn't enough food to eat, it's just that men and 
women are not eating the right foods, not eating healthy food.
    So part of the education campaign, from a nutrition 
standpoint, is that they understand when they go to the dining 
facility or go down to a restaurant or fast food, that they're 
making positive choices on the foods that they should be able 
to eat to get after that.
    So education on finance and nutrition is one approach that 
we're taking from a service perspective. On the BNA discussion, 
you're right. We are looking at looking for authorization to 
raise the threshold of the poverty line up to 200, and see what 
that looks like.
    But, overarchingly, again, right, and I think the SEAC has 
talked about this, is that from a financial perspective, we 
have to make sure the service members have at least enough 
money in the bank account so they can budget appropriately to 
make sure that they are buying the right foods and having the 
right access to the foods.
    You know, across, I think, the Department of the Air Force 
and the installations that are Space Force installations, 
there's a review going on where they're going on the 
installation specifically and looking at what are the choices 
available on base?
    What are the hours of the dining facility for men and women 
who are working shift work on weekends? Can they get access to 
healthy food so that that that that they could eat, 
appropriately making the right decisions?
    But on the BNA front, if we raise it to 200 percent, which 
I think will be helpful, but again, the pay and compensation, 
overarchingly, we need to make sure that our members are 
compensated enough so that, you know, those are the rare 
exceptions, maybe with unique circumstances, extremely large 
families, which I think the service members I think there's 35 
across the Department of Defense today, Department of the Air 
Force today.
    And I think those are individuals with extremely large 
families that are getting the BNA. The other thing I would ask, 
and this is what the BNA specifically, sometimes it's late to 
need because the way that the calculation works, it goes on the 
previous year what you earn.
    So if there's a family member who loses income in the 
middle of the year and try to apply for BNA, they have to wait 
until the January of the following year to be able to, you 
know, provide their financial documents to earn the BNA 
stipend.
    So that's something we have to look at to make sure it's 
acceptable service.
    Mr. Bishop. So maybe it ought to be a real time opportunity 
for service members to apply when that happens as opposed to 
having to wait till the next year? That seems like an easy fix 
for that issue.
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Yes.
    Mr. Bishop. But I am more concerned with the general income 
levels that prevent service members, particularly low-ranking 
members, from being able to do that.
    Sergeant Major Weimer, do you have, from the Army's 
perspective or even from the Navy, some ideas about this food 
insecurity?
    And I also really want to hear about the in-strength 
reduction too.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Congressman, I'll try to touch on 
all three of those really quickly. Be respectful of the time.
    When it comes to food, we are reevaluating our entire 
ecosystem, and that's exactly how we're looking at this.
    Whether it's the bus transportation, it's increased kiosks 
for available healthy food options, it's increasing our 
financial training for single soldiers and soldiers with 
dependents so they can understand budgeting. Whether it's 
improvement with ordering from DLA, from the Defense Logistics 
Agency to improve options for our warrior dining facilities.
    There's a long list of things there, but it's truly an 
ecosystem. And we're working with Army Material Command and our 
Installation Management Command to really make improvements on 
the entire ecosystem.
    I could put a fabulous restaurant in the center of one 
garrison, but if I don't have the bus to get soldiers there, 
they can't actually take advantage of that.
    On BNA, I will give you one example from the Army 
perspective. We currently, as of at least three days ago, 16 
people taking advantage of BNA. And one that I'll highlight, 
without a name, is an E4 that lives at Joint Base Lewis-McChord 
that had to have nine dependents to qualify for the 
calculation.
    I had to have my team do the calculation on the whiteboard 
for me to truly understand between Federal poverty guidelines 
and gross household income and I felt like I needed an 
accounting degree to truly understand how to get soldiers to be 
able to take advantage who qualifies.
    And then on the last one, on the end strength, that is a 
reality for us in the Army. It absolutely is, and I think this 
committee is aware of the changes in ARSTRUC as we call it, our 
Army structure.
    Some of that is recruiting, and we're full court press on 
improving our recruiting. And I'm encouraged and the results 
we're seeing right now, based off changes the Secretary and the 
Chief have recently made, but not letting off the gas.
    Still more proof to be demonstrated in those. But that is 
key for us to work on the in-strength question. And then the 
demands globally, the demands globally are incredibly high, 
potentially some of the highest we've ever seen in uniform 
right now.
    And so those two things have to, one, either the demands 
have to lower or our ability to bring in new soldiers in the 
Army has to improve. We're monitoring both, sir.
    Mr. Bishop. So that in-strength reduction, though, is going 
to really impact the stress level and the workload level, which 
will ultimately impact your recruitment and retention.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Right now, our retention numbers in 
the United States Army are solid, sir. I want to watch them by 
the eaches and the owns.
    Air defenders being probably the one that everyone's most 
aware of right now, based off of global requirements. I get a 
bi-weekly report by rank of where we are on those. That's how 
closely we're monitoring that.
    But I acknowledge, sir, you're correct. If the demands 
don't decrease, in some form or fashion, and the input doesn't 
get back to where we need it, then we could potentially head 
towards a path of the stress you're referencing.
    But right now, I feel confident where we're headed with 
recruiting, not overconfident for the record, but confident. 
And then we're having to be extra judicious in meeting those 
requirements for the global combatant commanders.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you, sir. I think my time has expired, 
but I thank the Chairman for the 5 minutes.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Rutherford.
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, gentlemen, 
thank all of you for your service and what you do for our 
enlisted war fighters every day and their families, which is 
why, you know, one of the big reasons we're here today
    You know, as the Department of Defense continues through 
the QRMC, you know, Congress, we haven't waited on results of 
that. We've had some pay increases that we've already touched 
on.
    I'm hoping, it looks like this year, I think we're going to 
have, DoD is going to have a really good outcome for an another 
pay increase. But one of the things that I worry about, and, 
Master Chief, if you could speak to this, you know, one of the 
things that that that comes up is how well do we compare, when 
you talk about military service to our civilian, counterparts? 
And when you look at the responsibility, I had the opportunity 
to go out on the USS Harry S Truman. To watch those men and 
women perform was amazing.
    How do you compare that to anything else in the world? I 
don't know how you do that. So in this QRMC, how do we make 
sure that we're offering pay commensurate with the duties that 
we're truly asking these men and women?
    And it's not just the Navy. It's everybody. But that that 
we're asking them to do.
    Master Chief Honea. Thank you, Congressman. I greatly 
appreciate the question. You give me an opportunity to expound 
on my opening statement that it was exactly the point that I 
was trying to make about the level of responsibility and the 
high stakes that our sailors are operating with currently right 
now operating over in the Bab-el-Mandeb.
    And I gave you one small example. But just as you also 
said, Congressman, you go on board one of our aircraft carriers 
and the ground crewmen that are moving the aircraft around.
    If we were to make a mistake and have a ground collision 
mishap of a couple F-35s today, that's a class A mishap. The 
tolerance is much higher than excuse me, much lower than it's 
ever been, and the responsibilities that are put on our service 
members are stronger and greater than they've ever been.
    So I do not believe that the comparison models that we've 
been using and that we're currently using in the QRMC is going 
to be giving us satisfactory or substantive change necessary to 
really address our pay issues across our enlisted force for 
sure.
    I think that we should be looking for a comparison model 
that isn't about similar age and education and more about the 
level of responsibility and the expectations that we're putting 
on those service members.
    Something more along those lines. Exactly where we find 
that at, we can look at our other first responders that are 
operating in our communities, any number of other places. But 
that young 19-year-old that's working at the Starbucks is not 
the same thing that we're asking of our 19-year-olds that are 
serving in harm's way.
    Mr. Rutherford. Amen.
    Master Chief Honea. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Rutherford. Let me also ask you this, because it kind 
of goes right into it, and I come from a Navy district in 
Jacksonville. I know the sailors in Jacksonville at NAS 
Jacksonville, Mayport, even though we've increased the BAH, 
there's a lot of challenges.
    Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not sure. 
But, you know, the Navy is located on the waterfronts where 
property values are extremely high. So it's, I think it creates 
some added problems for sailors who are trying to find 
affordable housing in areas where it's very, very difficult.
    And especially those enlisted men. Can you talk a little 
bit about the BAH? And is that being considered in the QRMC, or 
are they looking at those two things completely separately?
    Master Chief Honea. Congressman, how we compute the Basic 
Allowance for Housing is also being considered. I'm hoping 
that, I'm not a member of the QRMC so I can't speak to the 
specific questions that they're going through to make the 
determinations.
    When I have an opportunity to speak with them, I will ask 
more and more if we're figuring ways to be more responsive to 
those challenges.
    As you described, the United States Navy, in many good 
ways, we get to live in some wonderful places. But that can 
become extremely challenging in economic times such as we have 
today, where rental markets and real estate prices are going up 
faster then we're able to respond with changes to our housing 
allowances.
    That can leave our service members, especially our most 
junior enlisted service members, in quite a contrary in that 
what they're paying out in housing allowance far outweighs what 
they make in base pay.
    So it doesn't take very long for them to lose any kind of 
discretionary spending if they find themselves upside down in a 
rental market trying to survive in a high-cost area like that, 
which goes back to Congressman Bishop's question about basic 
need allowance and food insecurity.
    I'll tell you. I've been married to my wife; this August 
will be 35 years. So she's been with me for a very, very long 
time, and she can tell you more about, you know, what it is 
like to try to manage a family budget, you know, in a stressful 
time like that.
    But I can remember when we were younger, when we'd get done 
paying our rent, our bills, and I mean, by bills, I mean, like, 
electric bill. You know, I don't mean like I had a charge card 
at Sears, you know?
    We had very modest living. We had very small amount of 
money to go grocery shopping with every month to fill up our 
cupboards.
    Mr. Rutherford. Yes.
    Master Chief Honea. And if there was ever a pinch on our 
budget, the first place we had to take make changes was in our 
Commissary budget. That's when we sort of have to eat, you 
know, Hamburger Helper, you know, instant soups, and things 
along those lines because that's what it demanded of us.
    That leaves with food insecurity. If we look after the 
welfare, the well-being, I mean to say, and we pay our people 
appropriately, then we won't have to worry about things like 
Basic Need Allowance or be overly concerned about food 
insecurity.
    You pay them appropriately, they'll figure out how to feed 
themselves. I feel pretty good about that.
    Mr. Rutherford. And our recruitment and retention will go 
up significantly as well.
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, for sure.
    Mr. Rutherford. And I tell you, as you talked about all 
those things as a former Navy dependent of an enlisted man, I 
can tell you I've heard all those discussions at the kitchen 
table. And so, I'm very proud that this group is concerned 
enough to want to do something about it. So thank you.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Ms. Pingree.
    Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you 
so much to all of you. I really appreciate your time with us 
today in tackling some of these challenging issues that make it 
possible for our military to survive and thrive, and 
particularly taking on things like housing, and childcare, and 
healthcare, mental health, it is a long list, and we have been 
having a chance to talk about it all.
    Mr. Chair, I just wanted to quickly recognize, I have a new 
staffer for this committee, Hunter Friend, who is with us here 
today, who served in the Army, so we are very grateful to him 
for his service. And my partner will hate me to mention this, 
but he is in the back of the room, and he is a graduate of the 
Class of 1975 West Point. So my brother was in the Navy, I am 
really a Navy family, but I am proud of having these two Army 
people with me here today and appreciate their service.
    So, well, I got to tackle a little tough question on mental 
health. And thank you very much, Sergeant Major Michael Weimer. 
We had a chance to speak briefly, but I just want to talk to 
you about this.
    We had a really sad situation in our state. An Army 
Reservist went on a shooting spree in Lewiston last fall, in 
November. He killed 18 people and injured 13. We just had the 
release of an independent commission to investigate the facts 
of this tragedy and they published an interim report, and one 
of the things it highlighted was that the shooter's chain of 
command notified on multiple occasions that there were serious 
mental health issues which led to the commander ordering a 
mental health evaluation, subsequently restricted the shooter's 
access to all military weapons and ammunition.
    The mental health evaluation explicitly recommended that 
the commanding officer take measures to safely remove all 
firearms and weapons from the shooter's home. However, the 
commander did not report that information to the Sagadahoc 
County Sheriff's Office, so when he was returned home, that 
information was never made available. We are still waiting for 
the Army to publish some findings about this, but a couple of 
questions for you.
    When a service member is grappling with mental illness, as 
the Lewiston shooter clearly was, what does the military do to 
ensure civilian law enforcement is aware that this person 
should not be in possession of a firearm?
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Congresswoman, thank you for that 
question and, you know, my condolences go out for that entire 
situation. Horrific. And I also acknowledge--thank you for 
acknowledging the fact that it is still an ongoing 
investigation, and so I will try to answer without 
overstepping. The bottom line, in the active component, it is a 
much simpler solution.
    It just is, in the spirit of being very, very candid with 
you. Much simpler. Chain of command has a very deliberate 
battle rhythm. In our National Guard and our Reserve compos, it 
is a little bit different, especially when the soldiers are not 
currently on either title 10 orders or title 32 orders, title 
10 working for the Federal Government, 32 working for the 
governor at that time. It gets a little grey there.
    Now I will say this, though. Every chain of command usually 
has a mechanism to still look after their soldiers, right? 
First and foremost is they are still a soldier whether they 
were on title 10 or title 32 orders. Same for if they are 
having suicide ideations or they are in trouble with the law 
and potentially have weapons in their home, to your question, 
it is a little bit different. But the commanders have the 
ability to reach out to local law enforcement. I don't know a 
specific mandate, I will have to get that for you for the 
record, to be very specific, but then I also don't want to 
overstep the ongoing investigation.
    For us in the active component, that would be a senior 
mission command. The garrison that was responsible with the 
tenant unit that had said soldier and the criminal 
investigation, CID, would be involved in that and would 
immediately notify local law enforcement of any threats or any 
danger.
    Ms. Pingree. Thank you for making it clear that could have 
or potentially should have happened in this particular case. Do 
Reserve or National Guard commanders have the authority to 
confiscate soldier's firearms?
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Ma'am, I will have to take that for 
the record for you.
    Ms. Pingree. OK. Sort of more broadly, how are you 
developing a broader plan to address with--issues with 
reservists and guardsmen in crisis? And I understand what you 
said earlier, and I appreciate that, that it is a lot trickier 
than someone on active duty because of the sort of in and out 
nature of their connection to the military.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. So one tangible thing that we are 
trying to understand how we can bring resources to our Compo 2 
National Guard and Compo 3 Reserve teammates is in our holistic 
health and fitness. Again, back to how do we get left, we get 
upstream to be more preventative. The battle drill to be 
reactive when a crisis happens, to your earlier question, how 
do we get left.
    We are trying to figure out how to resource and assist both 
those compos with H2F, as I referenced it before, and that is 
really challenging when service members aren't on orders at all 
times. But what we are looking into is how could we use 
regional hubs where we mobilize, and we train for the weekend, 
and we train for two-week annual training in the summers, 
because truly those resources are finite when you are hiring. 
It is not just equipment. Those are sleep specialists, and 
physical therapists, and nutritionists, and basically holistic 
health. It is not just a gym.
    We are trying to surge that to commanders in the Reserve 
and the Guard to be able to, you know, invest in the welfare 
and the health of their soldiers.
    Ms. Pingree. Well, thank you very much for your answer, I 
really appreciate that, and I do appreciate, and many of you 
have addressed this already, that we are taking much more 
seriously mental health as a component of readiness, of 
wellness overall, that we are understanding how critically 
important that is. And I, of course, look forward to the Army 
publishing its findings. I know this community in my state is 
anxiously waiting for that, and I do hope that any lessons 
learned from this become part of future protocol and we can 
spare another community or another individual soldier 
themselves from any kind of harm.
    I have used up my time, but I do again want to thank you 
all. I would have been here to support the Navy. Thank you very 
much for--I know the Navy is very important in Maine because of 
Bath Iron Works and the Portsmouth Ship Yard, and so all of the 
things that we are talking about today, the housing component, 
the childcare, making sure that the sailors who are associated 
with that have those level of services, and I appreciate the 
conversation that many of my colleagues have brought up about 
that, so thank you for that, it is really critically important 
to retention and to them being able to do their best possible 
job, so thank you all.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Pingree.
    Mr. Gonzales.
    Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, 
gentlemen, for serving this great country that we all live in. 
I am going to give you the easiest question you are going to 
get today, and this is for everyone, please. Yes or no. Five 
minutes goes fast. Are military families the most valuable 
asset in your service? Sergeant Major.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Yes, Congressman.
    Master Chief Honea. Yes.
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Yes.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Yes.
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Yes.
    Mr. Gonzales. I would agree. I would agree. Now no more 
softballs, now it is time for high and inside, and Sergeant 
Major Ruiz gets the privilege here. When can family--when can 
military families expect the family separation allowance to be 
raised from 250 to 400?
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Appreciate that, sir. Yes, I--we 
greatly appreciate the authority to go up to 400 from 250. It 
is very expensive, absolutely, to have a Marine forward and 
buying two sets of groceries or--it is just two sets of 
everything, so it gets expensive. The authority came and now we 
are looking into where do we find the money and how fast can we 
find the money, what doesn't get paid. So I will come back to 
you, sir. I don't have an answer for you right now, but we 
understand how critical that is for families.
    Mr. Gonzales. This is the problem I have in Congress. 
Everybody says the right things, everybody comes up here and we 
all advocate for these things, and half the time it is Congress 
not doing its part, but we did our part in this case, right? 
Last year we passed it from 250 to 400. I pushed very hard on 
that. That hadn't been done in decades. Now it is time for us--
for our actions to match up with our words as far as putting 
families above everything else.
    So I am going to continue to push on that. We need to make 
this a priority, and it cannot just be words, it has to be 
actions. We owe that, at a minimum, I think we would all agree, 
we owe that at a minimum to our family members, especially 
those that are forward deployed taking on these tough jobs.
    My next question is for Sergeant Major Weimer. Are Federal 
funds issued to the Army being used or expected to be used on 
drag shows?
    Sergeant Major Weimer. No, Congressman.
    Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Sergeant Major. I think this is 
very important. And look, I don't want to be talking about drag 
shows. I served 20 years in the military. I don't care the 
color of somebody's skin, or who they pray to, or what they do 
in their off time, but there is a perception issue that the 
services are doing other things other than training and 
fighting to win wars, and we have to get ahead of that, and we 
have to be very crystal clear in what these funds are going 
for. So I would ask all of you all, please consider that when 
you are having conversations, when you are going and visiting 
other places is to make sure we are not using Federal funds in 
order to go down some of these crazy rabbit holes.
    My next question is for Chief Master Sergeant Flosi. Joint 
Base San Antonio. Great idea, right? Let's pull all our 
resources. You get the question because the two-star in the Air 
Force is the one that holds the purse strings. But the question 
in particular is the barracks there, the medical education and 
training. And look, the Army has 51 percent of this barracks, 
the Navy has 32 percent of this, the Air Force only gets 17 
percent of it.
    But ultimately, this is the issue I have, and I visited 
this facility. Right now I think there's 148 students that are 
being housed in Camp Bullis, about 35 minutes away, due to some 
of the issues at the barracks. What can we do to make this a 
priority? The joint base model. You know, everyone shares in 
it, but somebody has to pay the ticket on it.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thanks for the question, 
Congressman. We are certainly focused on that particular dorm 
at METC, Fort Sam Houston. So across--the larger question of 
what to do at joint basing I think is a great question that we 
need to look closer at. But to address this specific concern, 
in the DAF we have programmed across the FYDP nearly half a 
billion dollars in MILCON. We have design money approved and we 
think we will be ready in fiscal year 2026, given the design 
and MILCON appropriations come through, and so we appreciate 
your support, and it is critical to our ability to build 
medical readiness for our force.
    Mr. Gonzales. Thank you for that. And you will find this 
committee is committed to do our part and give you the 
resources for it, but when I read the San Antonio Express news 
and it says, you know, there is mold in the barracks again, and 
once again the impression is that the military isn't taking 
care of our families and our single soldiers, sailors, and 
marines. And I know that is the furthest thing from the truth, 
but let's get this fixed, right?
    I would also offer this. I have used some of my previous 
community projects to get a chow hall in Camp Bullis up to 
speed, that hasn't been done in 50 years, and some other 
things. So once again, if there are projects that can be--that 
I specifically can help get over the finish line, you have my 
commitment to doing it, but I can't select a project if you 
don't submit a project, right?
    So that is one of the things I look forward to working with 
all--you and your teams on the priorities you have, not only in 
my district in Texas but across the country. Once again, this 
is the committee that I think you have the commitment for us to 
get that done. Thank you again, gentlemen, for your service to 
this country.
    Mr. Carter. I like your passion.
    Mrs. Lee.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. Thank you, Chair Carter and Ranking 
Member Wasserman Schultz. I want to thank all of our witnesses, 
as the proud representative of military families at Creech and 
Ellis who all call Southern Nevada home. I appreciate all your 
service and your presence here to discuss these quality of life 
issues.
    My top quality of life concerns, like many of us, are 
related to military pay and compensation. I am eager to see the 
outcome of the 14th quadrennial review of military 
compensation, but I also agree there are things that we can do 
right now to better support our service members. Access to 
affordable housing obviously remains a central stressor, 
especially for the junior enlisted in Nevada.
    Creech Air Force Base, as you know, does not have any on-
site accommodations, forcing all the airmen to commute 50 miles 
one way to work each day. They face costs as high as $400 a 
month on gas. So just to put that in perspective, an E2 at 
Creech will spend about 30 percent, one-third of their base pay 
just to get to work to serve our country every day.
    This is why I fought for the requirement in the fiscal year 
2024 NDAA to mandate an assignment incentive pay feasibility 
study for those assigned to remotely piloted aircraft missions. 
Chief Flosi, can you share any updates on how the assignment--
the study is going and if you anticipate being able to use that 
type of pay to offset the significant fuel costs for our men 
and women at Creech?
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thank you for the question, 
Congresswoman. Thanks for your focus on our airmen assigned to 
Creech Air Force Base.
    So we are continuing to explore the feasibility of using 
assignment incentive pay. We--it is a mechanism that we have 
used in the past. From 2008 to 2012 we had a process in place 
to do this. And so it looks like we have the authorities inside 
the department at the discretion of the service secretary, so 
when our feasibility study is complete, we will make a 
recommendation to the secretary, and we appreciate your support 
in any recommendation we make.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. When do you anticipate the study to be 
complete?
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Ma'am, I do not have a date, but I 
would be happy to follow up with you.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. Yes, that would be great. The sooner the 
better obviously.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Absolutely, it is taking care of our 
airmen.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. And I am moving on to childcare. In 
Nevada and obviously across the country, ensuring access to 
reliable childcare has become a major challenge for our 
military members, and on top of excessive wait times, the need 
for childcare during irregular hours and lengthy commutes to 
remote work locations like Creech have driven home the 
importance of having flexible childcare options.
    Yet there is still installations today with significant 
childcare challenges like the naval station in Fallon in 
northern Nevada that have--it not Nevada. I don't know why I 
said that. That have--I am never running for president. That 
have not established an in-home family childcare program on 
their installation. This program not only meets irregular 
childcare needs, but also is a venue to provide spousal 
employment opportunities. If it is not consistently implemented 
DoD-wide with a streamline certification transfer process for 
providers, it seems like a missed opportunity at two critical 
needs.
    Chief Honea, I just wanted to ask, can you share how your 
service is incorporating family childcare program into your 
strategy and what you have done to ensure that it might be 
available to all military families?
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, ma'am. We use child development 
homes, you know, as a response to that similar program that you 
were discussing that the Army has. And I am not aware of 
anything that is preventing them from opening up a child 
development home in Fallon, Nevada. I will look into it and 
find out specifically that we are not preventing that, but it 
typically has to come down to an individual wanting to open up 
their home and create that business with inside their home. 
Then there is a screening process that goes along with that to 
ensure everybody in that home is suitable for having a child 
development home, and then there is a verification and 
certification process that goes along with that. It is rather 
lengthy. It is easier once somebody has already established 
one.
    So I will need to find out specifically if there is a 
prevention for Fallon. But this is integral to our child 
development care needs across our force, and we have it robust 
in many places.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. So let me ask. So the family childcare 
program, you are saying the child development home is the same 
thing or is it a different certification process?
    Master Chief Honea. Ma'am, as I understand it, it is very 
much--very similar.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. OK.
    Master Chief Honea. There could be some differences. I am 
not as familiar with the other services' programs as I am with 
the child development home.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. OK, great. Thank you. I am past my time.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Franklin.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all, 
gentlemen, for being here today. As considering all of you are 
in kind of terminal rank and unpromotable, it is a great place 
to be, as my E9s used to always tell me, but you are all in a 
unique position to shape the force for the future, hopefully, 
you know, long after you are retired.
    I am concerned by a lot of the things that we know are the 
problems that have been raised here today, and I just was 
seeing in this morning's press results of a survey by Blue Star 
Families that you guys may have seen, but was really 
disconcerting to me. It said only 32 percent of military 
families would still recommend military service. And that pains 
me as a career Navy guy. I tell every young person I meet, 
going in the military was the best thing that ever happened to 
me and I wish every young man and woman in our country could 
serve. That is a drop from 55 percent in 2016 to 32 percent in 
2023. That is at a time that we have gone from, you know, a hot 
war, though we seemed to have been in one for a long time now, 
to notionally not being in a hot war, though tell that to all 
the folks out there on the front lines.
    No surprise, time away from home was cited as the top issue 
along with pay, spousal employment, access to childcare and 
healthcare, and housing options, all things we have discussed 
here today. 73 percent of the survey respondents said they were 
paying more than $200 a month out of pocket for civilian 
housing options. And as Mr. Bishop had alluded to earlier, one 
in four enlisted respondents reported food insecurity.
    So a question I have for all of you, and we will see how 
the time goes here, we might have to pick it up, but have we 
gotten--in your opinions, have we gotten to where we are 
because we funded the urgent at the expense of the important 
for far too long or are we seeing a fundamental shift in the 
pool of folks out there who are potential candidates to come 
into the military? So--because as we go to fix the problems, is 
it a matter of spending more money that we may have shorted and 
put to other resources, or do we need to fundamentally change 
our approach to what it is going to take to attract and retain 
these people? Because that is going to affect not only 
retention but also how we bring them in the front door to begin 
with.
    So, Sergeant Major, if you could start with that.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Thank you, Congressman. Incredibly 
complex question. There is a lot there. Quality of life 
absolutely is part of that. I--pressure on the force, to 
Congressman Bishop's question, that is absolutely part of that.
    The data, and my wife actually attended that event with my 
teammate here, he and his spouse actually spoke at it. I would 
like a little bit more fidelity in the data because again--
which they have promised us the eaches and owns to look at that 
because right now like our retention data is really good. So 
people are staying in the service so they believe in the 
mission, though we still have these stressors.
    And so my concern is I don't want to reach a breaking 
point, to the core of your question. I think there's a lot to 
that. I think there's people having--I see--we see it in the 
Army for sure, people are having families later in life. I am 
an Army brat. That was very unusual growing up as an Army brat 
and now it is not unusual at all to see lieutenant colonels and 
colonels in command that have little ones running around. That 
was not a normal. And so the family stability piece is a little 
bit more important than it used to be and the amount of PCSs is 
a little different.
    So there is a lot there but I acknowledge why you are 
asking the question, and the stressors do exist, and it is a 
concern.
    Mr. Franklin. All right. Master Chief?
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, sir. I would--simple answer is yes 
and yes. I do believe that it is those stressors, and, yes, I 
do believe it is a matter of us overfunding the urgent compared 
to the important, you know, and I do believe also that it is a 
matter of fact of the people that are coming to serve are a 
little bit different than you and I are.
    You know, when I joined the service, the majority of my 
leadership when I first came in were Vietnam vets and their 
approach, you know, to answering my questions was typically 
shut up, that's why, and I was fully acceptable of that kind of 
a response. Our young men and women that are coming to serve 
today don't find that to be an acceptable response. They want 
to be respected and to be considered a full and complete member 
of this team and they want to be respected as such. I don't 
have any problem with that. We just need to understand that.
    But--and I don't believe that the decision to fund the 
urgent, you know, and what we need to be funding as the 
important should be in competition with one another. I would 
offer that is that as I said earlier talking about the sailors 
that are operating in the Bab-el-Mandeb, I want them to have 
all the weapon systems they need to have. I want them to have 
all the munitions that they need to have to fight and win. I 
want that to be a complete success.
    At the same time, I want their well-being to take into 
consideration. I don't think these things should be in 
competition with one another. Them being war fighting competent 
and their wellbeing should be complementary to one another and 
that should be all of our collective priorities. That is the 
things that we should fund together.
    If we do that, we will meet most of these issues and we 
will solve a lot of these problems. The issues you just 
described were the exact things that I mentioned in my opening 
statement as the five pillars, and then I offer that sixth 
pillar that we needed to have from the Gates Commission to 
maintain that all volunteer force.
    As I move around and I speak with family members and 
service members, their chief complaints are inadequate pay and 
compensation that they are dissatisfied with, or dissatisfied 
with housing that they are being provided, they are 
dissatisfied with timely access, the quality medical care, as 
we talked about earlier already.
    We also talk about making sure that we remain ourselves as 
a reflection of the American people that we serve. We have had 
a break in trust with our American people and that includes a 
break in trust of the American people that serve in our 
military. We have to do much better at taking care of them and 
them fully believing that this is an organization that has 
their wellbeing in mind. If we meet those things, we are going 
to come a long way.
    Another thing I think that we could focus on in the areas 
of our family is reconnecting them to us as an organization. 
When I was younger in this military, everything that I did drew 
me to that installation where there was Easter egg hunts with 
my kids, going to the pool at the installation, meeting 
everybody, that was just a greater connection that we had and 
made a larger Navy family.
    Mr. Franklin. That seems to be missing now, though.
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, sir, because we have underfunded 
that part of our installations. Most of those services are 
closed, no longer existing, and those connections aren't 
happening anymore. So now, you know, our sailors, service 
members, and their families are enrolling their children in 
youth sports in the communities they live in, not the youth 
sports at the--on the installation. Those things that used to 
draw us together that they give you that greater sense of 
belonging and have a healthier connection to that organization.
    We are endeavoring in the Navy to try and rebuild that. We 
are endeavoring to build upon our Navy family framework and 
bring a lot of that connection back. I think that will go a 
long way in satisfying what some of those chief complaints were 
at the Blue Star Family report. But I am going to tell you that 
they are not off. What they had to say and what they found in 
their survey is very similar to the feedback that I receive and 
my wife receives as we go around speaking with our service 
members and their families.
    Mr. Franklin. Well, thank you, Master Chief.
    Judge, I am well beyond my time, but I will have a question 
I want to submit to you, Master Chief, about the decision to 
open up the enlistment to folks without high school diplomas. I 
have got a lot of concern about that. When we moved out of that 
in the past, we acknowledged it was a bad decision. Looks to me 
like an example of if your standards are too high, lower them. 
But I know we are beyond time, but I would love to follow up 
with you more about that.
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, sir, I will be happy to.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you. Ms. Wasserman Schultz has requested 
another round.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. I will let her go first.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. And I associate myself 
with the gentleman's remarks about reducing standards and 
allowing people who have--do not have high school diplomas to 
enlist. That would not be a step in the right direction, in my 
opinion, so I would also be interested in that information when 
you share it with him.
    So I would like to hear from each of you back to the 
barracks issue. If your service is considering unaccompanied 
housing privatization efforts, and if so, further elaboration 
on why you think privatization would likely result in better 
housing for our service members? Because that is certainly not 
the track record of family housing, and I would envision, and I 
have been on this sub since 2014 in the leadership role, I 
would envision us having in the not too distant future hearings 
like we had with family housing, companies, and service 
members, and personnel who oversee those in this sub because 
the privatization process is a failure in terms of keep--
maintaining the quality of life of housing. So if you could 
share those plans and if there are any in your service.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Ranking Member, thank you for that. 
And we also share some concerns from past history which is why 
we are measuring twice to cut once in this space. We have had a 
couple other small pilots really at Fort Meade and then one 
that is getting ready to start down in Miami to assist with 
U.S. SOUTHCOM, but they are not true privatized pilots like the 
one we are getting ready to start at Fort Irwin. That will be a 
true unit based pilot for the soldiers out of Fort Irwin.
    We are going to analyze that and let that take place 
without rushing it because I also have some concerns with 
holding them accountable, still being able to influence 
roommates and have some cohesive leadership responsibilities as 
we would say in the Army with involvement inside that actual 
facility. Now right now it looks promising in the sense of that 
pilot is going to allow us to do what we want to do to truly 
test the bounds of our ability to influence that, but the 
secretary and the chief, we are moving out smartly with that 
and not rushing to--this to be a silver bullet to solve our 
investment strategy with barracks.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Master Chief?
    Master Chief Honea. Yes, ma'am. I would offer that our 
greatest failure with privatized military family housing was in 
the area of oversight.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right.
    Master Chief Honea. Too many of our leaders, as you 
described earlier in your opening remarks, it abdicated their 
responsibility, you know, to their service members and those 
families in providing that oversight to ensure our private 
partners were delivering on their promises. We are doing much 
better in that area and as long as we continue with our 
responsibility in providing that oversight, our military family 
housing is going to continue to improve.
    Our pilots that we are running in private barracks, like 
Pacific Beacon, have been operating for 20 plus years, largely 
as a success because we have not abdicated our responsibility 
in providing that oversight to ensure that our private partner 
is delivering on the promises that they are going to make. If 
we continued along that way, we are going to do resoundingly 
well. I think that they are going to be faster at meeting our 
need than we are with current MILCON projects. MILCON will take 
us 7 years. We can go a lot faster with PPV, whether they come 
in and they renovate currently existing buildings or they build 
new facilities to house our service members.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Sergeant Major?
    Sergeant Major Ruiz. Ma'am, I share the concern of 
privatizing unaccompanied housing. It is--for the Marine Corps, 
ma'am, our barracks are part of sustaining the transformation. 
I need marines in barracks, having roommates. I need marines to 
have an NCO down the hall to take care of an issue.
    So will we run a pilot? Maybe in areas where it is probably 
a small contingent of Marines it may work best, but I don't 
want marines, and they don't want, to be alone in a room and 
spread all over the base and station. It is important to take 
care of what we have today, and with your help we are getting 
after it.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thanks. Chief Flosi.
    Master Sergeant Flosi. Thank you, Ranking Member. So in our 
department, we are assessing privatized, unaccompanied housing 
independent from just first term airmen in dorms so that it 
could be anybody that arrives at a location without dependents, 
and we are looking very specifically at locations where there 
is two types of challenges: they are either remote and isolated 
and there is not adequate housing in the community, excessive 
commute times, things like that, or the housing market is 
incredibly competitive and our BAH rates, as we have discussed 
earlier, that they lag the economic changes that make it really 
difficult for our families to live near the installation.
    So in those two circumstances we are assessing the 
feasibility and we are paying close attention to the Navy and 
the lessons that they have learned so that we don't replicate 
some of the mistakes that came through our initial contracts 
that we wrote with privatizing military family housing. We are 
also learning to be more accountable. Through that process as 
well between the categories of accountability through those 
contracts, we have recouped more than $118 million from 
contractors for issues for health and safety, mold, things like 
that across our housing projects in the department.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Chief Bentivenga?
    Master Sergeant Bentivenga. Ranking Member, so the Space 
Force has partnered with the Air Force as far as the 
dormitories go. This is the Department of the Air Force issue 
that we are looking at together, so there is no discussion on 
the Space Force side to look at privatized for the dormitories 
or for the barracks, if you will. But from a service 
perspective, ours is unique for the guardians that are coming 
into the service is that the average age of someone that is 
becoming from a civilian to an enlisted guardian today is over 
22 years old. A lot of them do already have some families but 
most have some college with masters degrees and bachelor's 
degrees, so it is a different type of individual that we are 
bringing into the dormitories today, so we are looking at what 
that means for dorm life, if you will, and what that 
infrastructure looks like. But from a prioritization 
perspective, we are attached to the hip with the Air Force 
under the Department of the Air Force on our way forward.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. And since it really seems like 
the Navy and the Army are more focused on this, I am concerned 
about making sure that you have practices and priorities in 
place to ensure that the quality of housing for service members 
won't be compromised. We have a track record that is abysmal 
with family housing and I agree because that is why we added 
$130 million of oversight funding that we keep adding 
additional funds for so that we can ensure that there really 
is, you know, close up oversight.
    But I am specifically interested, and then I am done, Mr. 
Chairman, on what changes you are making to the lease terms and 
oversight activities to better hold the privatized housing 
providers to account, and what options will DoD have to pull 
out of the agreements if private companies don't live up to the 
required standards? Because we are stuck in nearly all cases 
with the family housing and, you know, I just we--the 
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over 
again and, you know, it doesn't make sense to not make sure we 
have course corrections or not do what we have already seen 
doesn't work.
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Ranking Member, acknowledged. We 
have learned a lot on this journey, oftentimes too slow though, 
to your point. And so some of the things that we are trying to 
do, the inspection and the oversight piece is critical, and we 
saw we weren't doing inspections properly and we weren't 
meeting time standards to make sure that we truly had the work 
orders that were knocked out between leases, between--that gap 
between two people occupying a location, that was where we 
found our weakness.
    And so we had to go back and we had to retrain, and it is 
called--for us it is called between occupancy maintenance. 
There is a goal of ten days or less. That is installation 
command's goal because we are stacking families up in temporary 
housing while we are waiting on that. The problem was that we 
were trying to go too fast just to get the people out of that 
and so we couldn't do that.
    And so unfortunately right now we are not meeting that goal 
across 41 different locations. We are actually a 17-day 
average, and that average isn't nearly as good as it sounds 
because the larger locations like Fort Moore or actually 
Carson, there are upwards of 23 to 64 days in between, which is 
unacceptable. Part of that is staffing, having the right amount 
of people to go in and actually take care of these, because 
once we inspect it and identify things, the clock is still 
continuing, so the response for the work orders. And then the 
safety and health, as you know, because I know you are super 
passionate like we are about the lead and other things before 
people occupy a house. I live in an old house that has to have 
that level of inspection before I actually moved into it.
    And so retraining what an actual inspection is, and then 
decreasing the amount of time to tackle identified issues are 
two of the Army's oversight pieces that we are surging to 
increase.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Isn't some of this that the private 
companies need to provide the proper staffing levels to be able 
to process the transition and address the health and safety 
needs?
    Sergeant Major Weimer. It is, and the quarterly meetings 
that our general officers and SESs, our senior mission command 
teams are now doing with the privatized housing companies is 
actually starting to have that impact because it is 
accountability and they can be penalized financially when they 
are not actually meeting their objectives.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just hope this raises a caution 
flag on moving forward on barracks and unaccompanied housing 
because I don't trust them. They are willing to take massive 
fines just as a cost of doing business and then they do it 
again. So I would just really consider this a very big caution 
flag here that could down the road result in language coming 
from me, so----
    Sergeant Major Weimer. Acknowledged, ma'am.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Chief?
    Master Chief Honea. Ma'am, fully understood your concern 
and your caution. I will endeavor to have a better 
understanding of what we are doing differently as we enter 
these agreements. As I have said, the PPV partners that we have 
for unaccompanied housing have been operating for 20-plus years 
and we have had nothing but success from those. What the 
difference is between that as far as the contract, and how we 
hold them accountable, and the language in the agreement that 
we have made with them, I need to better--have a better 
understanding to give you that answer and to give you the same 
confidence that I have in them.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. If you could submit that for the 
record, I would appreciate it.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Some of that could be done with contracts. If 
you actually contract a certain way on closing for the--where 
they are getting their money and you are holding back some of 
their money until you see them doing what they are supposed to 
do and you will hold it for 20 years if they don't do it, it 
gets their attention. I have worked on some housing projects 
around, and that had--that gives great incentive to get the--
start doing maintenance.
    Thank you for being here. I wanted to tell you that I have 
got a bill that I have introduced twice and I plan to get it 
done this time. It is Military Spouses Hiring Act. It allows 
tax--the businesses that hire spouses a special tax break and--
because the fact that you move around so much, they can't get 
the good jobs.
    And by the way, as far as Cavazos is concerned, you all 
need to be training up soldiers to do jobs at these factories 
that are going up in Williamson County. We have got a $200 
billion investment by Samsung that is going to have a huge 
amount of employment, and as you--these guys are getting out of 
the Army or any of the four services in our neighborhood, there 
are going to be lots of jobs there, lots and lots of them. 
Already have 26,000 people on the building site, and that is a 
pretty good job, too.
    Listen, thank you all of you. I appreciate you very much. 
You give us the real story and that is important. So I know who 
runs the military, all right? Thank you. We will adjourn.

                                           Thursday, April 11, 2024

     NAVY AND MARINE CORPS MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND FAMILY HOUSING

                               WITNESSES

HON. MEREDITH BERGER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY (INSTALLATIONS, 
    ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT), CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, DEPARTMENT 
    OF THE NAVY
VICE ADMIRAL JEFFREY T. JABLON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, 
    INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
LT. GENERAL EDWARD D. BANTA, DEPUTY COMMANDANT, INSTALLATIONS AND 
    LOGISTICS, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
    Mr. Carter. Welcome. We are very glad to have everyone here 
today.
    Today's hearing is on the Navy and Marine Corps' fiscal 
year 2025 budget request for military construction and family 
housing.
    It is a great pleasure to be here today with the Honorable 
Meredith Berger, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, 
Installations, and Environment; Vice Admiral Jeffrey Jablon, 
Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Installations and 
Logistics; and Lieutenant General Edward Banta, Deputy 
Commandant, Installations and Logistics, the United States 
Marine Corps.
    Military construction and family housing makes up only 
about 2 percent of our budget when we look at defense, and yet 
it has a tremendous impact on our sailors and our marines and 
their families who feel the impact of infrastructure 
investments daily.
    Military construction dollars not only account for quality 
of life in family housing projects, but they also directly 
impact the recruitment, training, and readiness of our forces.
    Infrastructure is a form of deterrence. With the unrest we 
see today, it is clear that we must increase our investment in 
infrastructure to strengthen our ability to deter aggression 
wherever it occurs.
    With this in mind, I look forward to discussing the 
challenges and opportunities for the Navy and the Marine Corps.
    Investing in facilities and infrastructure is critical to 
supporting our sailors and marines, and their readiness is most 
important because they invest their lives in the fight, and we 
need to invest in their families.
    Now I would like to introduce and recognize my good friend 
and counterpart, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate the opportunity to provide an opening statement for 
our hearing with the Navy.
    I want to welcome back Assistant Secretary Berger and 
Lieutenant General Banta, and welcome, for the first time, 
Admiral Jablon.
    We really appreciate all of you being here today and your 
service.
    The Department of the Navy's fiscal year 2025 budget 
requests $5.2 billion for Navy and Marine Corps military 
construction, Navy Reserve military construction, and Navy and 
Marine Corps family housing construction and operation. That is 
a cut of a billion dollars compared to the enacted level.
    This is also a billion-and-a-half-dollar cut from last 
year's budget request, despite our year-over-year efforts to 
get military construction funding up to a level that adequately 
addresses the true needs of the military.
    Now, I know we are in a tight funding environment. We had 
an opportunity to talk about that yesterday. The top-line 
funding level for defense spending is essentially flat with 
last year, so I realize we are going to need to see cuts, but 
it is a shame that it has to come from the Navy like this.
    I am a big believer in your budget request representing 
your values, and I think this is especially true in tight 
fiscal environments. You really have to prioritize what is most 
important.
    The Navy is prioritizing SIOP with an investment of $2 
billion through construction projects in planning and design 
this year. SIOP is critical to secure and modernize our 
Nation's shipyards, which is vital for our national security.
    The Navy is also prioritizing sustaining and strengthening 
U.S. deterrence against China with $1.8 billion for projects in 
the Pacific, including projects in Hawaii, Australia, and Guam, 
all of which I have traveled to.
    However, it is clear that the Navy is not prioritizing 
quality of life in this year's request, with only one quality-
of-life project in its entire Active Component military 
construction request.
    I understand that there are a number of competing 
priorities, and I do not envy you for having to make the tough 
choices between mission readiness and ensuring the Department 
is meeting all the other needs of our sailors and marines by 
providing adequate childcare, ensuring housing is clean and 
livable, and reducing the prevalence of sexual assaults.
    While those things may not seem as mission critical, they 
most certainly are. Sailors and marines cannot be expected to 
perform at their highest level if they are worried about 
affordable and convenient childcare or mold or vermin-infested 
housing.
    Quality of life directly affects mission readiness. It is 
our duty to care for the whole servicemember, not just the 
warfighter part of them, and that includes taking care of them 
and their families holistically.
    Again, I am extremely disappointed, to say the least, of 
the lack of quality-of-life projects in the budget request this 
year. Do you not have a backlog of Navy and Marine Corps 
families seeking childcare? There are 13 child development 
centers requested across the FYDP but none prioritized this 
year.
    The Government Accountability Office recently came out with 
a report, back in September 2023, addressing military barracks 
conditions. The Department of the Navy was not without fault. 
And to see no military construction in this year's budget to 
address these deficiencies is disheartening, to say the least.
    Now, I know there are other funding sources to support 
barracks, so the Defense Subcommittee's bill and MILCON is not 
always the answer. But I am interested to hear the Department's 
plan to address inadequate, unlivable housing conditions across 
the board.
    With our recruitment and retention problems, which we have 
all talked about, we need to be making the U.S. military more 
desirable, not less, as a career. We need to be showing people 
that the Department of the Navy is and will continue to take 
care of our sailors, marines, and their families.
    In short, there just needs to be more balance in your 
request than you currently have. And I know we are in a tough 
spot. Once again, we have to work within the confines of the 
law.
    But I am interested in digging in deeper to the details 
that make up this request, and I hope to gain a better 
understanding of your priorities this year and how you are 
prioritizing the people, not just the mission.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Well, thank you.
    Thank you again for taking the time to be here with us.
    Without objection, your written statements will be entered 
into the record. Please summarize your remarks in about 5 
minutes each.
    We will begin with Madam Secretary.
STATEMENT OF HON. MEREDITH BERGER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE 
            NAVY (INSTALLATIONS, ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT), CHIEF 
            SUSTAINABILITY OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
    Ms. Berger. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman 
Schultz, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you 
for inviting me to come talk to you today about our fiscal year 
2025 budget request.
    To fight and win, the Department of the Navy requires 
ready, reliable, and resilient installations, and that includes 
the buildings, systems, and assets that comprise them.
    The majority of our infrastructure--whether barracks, 
utilities, or our public shipyards--is not in good shape.
    As an institution, we have allowed these assets to degrade 
over time. We have accumulated and deferred significant risk 
and allowed the risk to accumulate and compound until it has 
created apparent impactful consequences for readiness, most 
tangibly for our sailors and marines.
    We are redoubling our efforts not only to prevent, 
remediate, and mitigate the risks resulting from 
vulnerabilities in the shore portfolio, but also to restore and 
demolish and build new when needed.
    As I talk about my portfolio, I often talk about 
communities, critical infrastructure, and climate action. What 
I am talking about are our people, our power projection 
platforms, and making sure that we are ready, resilient, and 
survivable. This is mission critical.
    A sailor or marine recruited and retained--healthy, safe, 
supported, and trained, with a physical space to achieve the 
task at hand--will return infinitely more value to our 
warfighting force than the dollars that it will cost.
    The cost of construction is on the rise, and it will cost a 
lot to get it right. Lockstep with my Marine Corps and Navy 
teammates, we are prioritizing projects that assure mission 
with the funds we receive.
    The Navy and Marine Corps are taking steps to improve how 
we resource these critical requirements through the 
Installation Investment Plan and the Facilities Investment 
Strategy, respectively.
    These efforts inform the development of the Department of 
the Navy's 30-year infrastructure plan, which looks at the 
interdependencies among projects through mission assurance, in 
order to prioritize and sequence necessary investments in the 
infrastructure that keep our people safe and project power 
around the globe.
    The Department of the Navy is focused on the essential 
warfighting, readiness, and quality-of-life support that naval 
facilities provide. From the Marine Corps' Barracks 2030 wall-
to-wall inspection, the Navy's decisive investment in the 
Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, to strengthening 
relationships with communities, Tribal and indigenous partners, 
and enhancing quality of life and resilience via improvements 
to energy, water, and wireless, we are implementing policy and 
authorities to make our appropriations go farther.
    Our Navy and Marine Corps respond when the Nation calls. 
Around the globe, around the clock, our naval forces are where 
they need to be when they need to be there, able to do all that 
we ask of them because of the critical readiness enablers 
across the Energy, Installations, and Environment portfolio.
    I am grateful to the sailors, marines, civilians, and their 
families who answer the call, and to you for supporting their 
work. They are trusting us to get it right. Thank you for the 
chance to work with you to do just that.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. Admiral.
STATEMENT OF VICE ADMIRAL JEFFREY T. JABLON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF 
            NAVAL OPERATIONS, INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS, 
            DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
    Admiral Jablon. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman 
Schultz, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for 
the opportunity to testify on the importance of our 
infrastructure, its resiliency, and the entirety of support 
required to meet the critical Navy and Joint Force mission.
    It is an honor to appear before you and represent the 
thousands of Navy sailors and civilians who work and live at 
our 70 installations around the world.
    Backed by strong support from Congress, the Navy continues 
driving improvements in our installations to maximize the 
operational readiness of our force as well as the quality of 
service for our sailors and their families.
    Additionally, thank you for your trust, confidence, and 
commitment to ensuring our Navy's ability to preserve the 
peace, respond in crisis, and win decisively in war.
    The Chief of Naval Operations recently issued ``America's 
Warfighting Navy'' highlighting the Navy's goals in alignment 
with the National Security Strategy and the National Defense 
Strategy through the framework of warfighting, warfighters, and 
foundation.
    Should we be called upon to win in combat, our success 
depends on sustainment of the Joint Force. The CNO's strategy 
for improving this critical warfighting function begins with 
the principle that all sustainment starts from the shore. The 
shore enables the naval logistics enterprise to execute 
priority missions abroad, such as our surface warriors are 
conducting in the Red Sea, and at home, where the Navy is 
supporting salvage efforts to reopen the Baltimore Harbor 
channel following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
    The Navy's PB-25 submission maintains our momentum for 
achieving a sustainable, resilient, and ready foundation of 
installations that deliver fleet readiness and combat logistics 
capability.
    In PB-25, the Navy requests $3.4 billion for MILCON for 11 
projects in fiscal year 2025. This includes investments in the 
Fallon Range Training Land Acquisition and critical Shipyard 
Infrastructure Optimization Program, or SIOP, projects, such as 
the first increment of Dry Dock 3 Modernization in Portsmouth, 
VA, and planning and design for a multi-mission dry dock at 
Naval Base Kitsap, Washington.
    Alongside warfighting priorities are equally essential 
quality-of-life investments for our warfighters, to include 
investments in unaccompanied housing and child and youth 
programs.
    Our sailors, civilians, and their families are the backbone 
of our Navy, the true source of our naval power, and we cannot 
operate without a proficient and motivated workforce.
    PB-25 requests $206 million in fiscal year 2025 for 
restoration and modernization of unaccompanied housing 
facilities, both domestically and abroad.
    Additionally, we continue to implement quality-of-life 
initiatives, including the high-speed WiFi pilot initiated in 
the Hampton Roads, VA, area, provided to our sailors free of 
charge.
    PB-25 also requests $437.4 million to fund Navy child and 
youth programs, including fee assistance subsidies, additional 
childcare providers, and pay increases.
    We have already seen the results of previous investments, 
as the wait list for Navy Child Development Centers is now at 
3,500, down from 5,300 at the start of fiscal year 2023.
    However, we strive to further lower the wait list by 
continuing work on increasing staffing levels and expanding 
utilization of the Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood fee 
assistance program.
    Our request also includes $826.7 million in fiscal year 
2025 to improve installation cybersecurity, energy efficiency, 
climate change modeling and simulation, and other installation 
resiliency investments.
    We remain focused on identifying vulnerabilities and 
increasing resilience via exercises which test an 
installation's ability to continue its mission upon a total 
loss of commercial power, increasing our ability to mitigate 
disruptions that may impact fleet operations.
    I would like to express my sincere thanks for Congress' 
$268 million increase in our fiscal year 2024 Facility 
Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization funding. These 
funds will help improve critical utility infrastructure and 
safety on our installations.
    In fiscal year 2025, sustainment funding is targeted at 100 
percent for nuclear deterrence, naval operational architecture, 
unaccompanied housing, and fitness centers.
    Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, 
and thank you for supporting our uniformed personnel, 
civilians, and their families, who are all over the world doing 
incredible work on behalf of the security of our country, a 
world that is dangerous, complicated, and interconnected.
    I understand and embrace the depth of my responsibilities 
as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Installations and 
Logistics, and I look forward to working with you in the 
pursuit of warfighting capability, readiness optimization 
afloat and shore, and support for our sailors, civilians, and 
their families.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. General Banta.
STATEMENT OF LT. GENERAL EDWARD D. BANTA, DEPUTY COMMANDANT, 
            INSTALLATIONS AND LOGISTICS, UNITED STATES MARINE 
            CORPS
    General Banta. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman 
Schultz, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank 
you for the opportunity to discuss the Marine Corps' fiscal 
year 2025 military construction budget request.
    First off, I would like to thank you for funding last 
year's budget request and our unfunded priority list. Congress' 
support will accelerate improvements for the quality of life 
for our marines. It will enable Marine Corps modernization 
initiatives and improve our INDOPACOM posture.
    In this year's budget, we are requesting $1.2 billion for 
nine military construction projects, unspecified minor 
construction, and planning and design funds.
    This request aims to modernize our installations and 
reflects a balanced investment approach to support our marines 
and our families. Viewed through an operational lens, these 
investments allow to us posture ourselves in the best manner to 
serve the Nation.
    First, I would like to highlight our Barracks 2030 
initiative. This is the most consequential barracks investment 
plan we have ever undertaken.
    In February of 2023, the Commandant of the Marine Corps 
directed the service to review our barracks portfolio and 
identify opportunities to improve the quality of life for our 
marines.
    From this review, we began our Barracks 2030 initiative, 
and we identified three areas to focus our efforts: management, 
modernization, and materiel.
    These investments will include the professionalization of 
our barracks management workforce with the addition of 347 
full-time civilian employees.
    Next, we will modernize our infrastructure through the 
levers of repair, reconfiguration, recapitalization, and 
rightsizing the number of buildings in our portfolio.
    Lastly, we will prioritize available funds to provide 
functional and updated furnishings for barracks rooms by taking 
advantage of the current centralized procurement contract that 
is in place.
    Also of note, we recently completed a 100 percent wall-to-
wall barracks inspection to further inform these investments.
    I also want to underscore the Marine Corps' investment into 
the Indo-Pacific. Five of our nine projects in this year's 
budget are in the region. These critical projects in Hawaii, 
Guam, and Australia bolster our presence in the region and 
continue our investments to begin the movement of marines from 
Okinawa to Guam this year.
    Funding modern and resilient infrastructure and housing in 
the Pacific is critical to posture marines in a fighting stance 
for both campaigning and crisis response.
    Finally, I want to highlight the recent third-party audit 
we completed this year.
    As we invest in new platforms, barracks, and training, it 
is our responsibility as good stewards of taxpayer funds to 
continue to prove that when the Corps is provided a taxpayer 
dollar we can show exactly where and how it has been invested, 
a responsibility we take very seriously.
    Following a rigorous 2-year audit, the Marine Corps 
achieved an unmodified audit opinion, the best possible outcome 
and the first time in DoD's history that any service has 
received an unmodified audit opinion.
    This audit supports what we have believed for a long time: 
When Congress provides the Marine Corps a dollar, we invest it 
wisely, and we can tell you exactly where and how it was spent 
to further our Nation's national security objectives.
    Thank you again for the opportunity to testify before you 
today and for your continued oversight, input, and support. I 
look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
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    Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, each of you, for your 
testimony. Your prepared testimony will be included in the 
record.
    The committee will ask questions, as we have discussed in 
the past.
    And, General, I am proud of you all for getting that audit 
done. It is a good thing to do, and I hope the rest of the 
services will start following your lead.
    Last year, I went to Guam, and hope to make it out there 
again this year. Guam and surrounding islands are critical to 
our national security of the United States and is our number 
one priority in the Indo-Pacific. However, the Navy budget 
request only includes $243.5 million for Guam, which is 
significantly less than last year.
    What drove the decision to reduce the request for Guam in 
2025, and how will it impact the timeline for the master plan 
for Guam?
    And a couple other questions.
    Fiscal year 2024 NDAA extended visas for Guam to H-2B visas 
for relief for Guam--which I worked hard on--and will impact 
the workforce in Guam, hopefully in a positive way.
    Do you believe the workforce is sufficient to get the job 
done? Is that part of the reasons, that they have already 
utilized money, that we are not going forward with more funds? 
And do you have--do you wish to request more funds for Guam 
that we should know about?
    So I will let the Secretary start.
    Ms. Berger. Thank you, Chairman.
    And I will start with a quick note on a policy approach 
that we are taking as well that I wanted to make sure that the 
committee was aware of.
    So the Deputy Secretary of Defense has recently designated 
the Under Secretary of the Navy as the senior defense official 
for Guam, so in a place where the Navy and the Marine Corps 
certainly have a priority interest in ensuring that, across the 
Department of Defense, we are organized and prioritizing and 
executing in a way that is informed across the enterprise.
    So with that senior defense official for Guam, we are 
tiering out and under organizationally across the Department of 
Defense to drive forward.
    In terms of our budget request, of course, there was the 
Mawar incident which changed the way that some of our 
infrastructure stood in. So as we have put in all of the data 
available and are working with OSD to make sure that we get a 
supplemental request in to address some of those pieces, that 
is one significant impact that took place.
    Then I will thank you for your work on the H-2B visas 
because that is a critical need in terms of getting the 
workforce in place. It is still a strained workforce and a very 
high requirement, and so we have more to do there in terms of 
how we execute all of that.
    I want to make sure to give the opportunity for the Marine 
Corps, which has a major movement, of course, taking place that 
is considered there, and also make sure that Admiral Jablon has 
a chance to address as well.
    Mr. Carter. General.
    General Banta. Thank you, ma'am.
    Thank you, Chairman.
    So just to echo what Honorable Berger said, thank you again 
for the work on the H-2B visas. That has absolutely helped us 
with staying on track with our construction efforts on Guam. We 
estimate that, with that extension, we are probably going to 
save about $1.5 billion in construction costs going forward. So 
it is very helpful.
    We do remain on track with building out our DPRI work on 
Guam. We are about 15 percent complete but quite a bit more 
work to do. So, to your point, that help with the H-2B visas 
will be very helpful.
    We do have two projects on Guam this year. We have Earth 
Covered Magazines, which will help with storing precision-
guided munitions and future capabilities needed on Guam, and 
then we have also have a youth center, which is a quality-of-
life project that will go onto Andersen Air Force Base.
    So we are on track to begin the movement to Guam this year, 
and that will be a relatively small quartering party. But we 
want to make sure that we have the conditions right both in 
terms of what is available on Guam, from quality of life as 
well as operational capabilities, before we really press 
further.
    So we are on track. We appreciate the support from 
Congress. And there will be continued investment going forward. 
I hope that helps, sir.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Admiral.
    Admiral Jablon. Chairman Carter, thank you for that 
question.
    As you state, Guam is of vital strategic importance to the 
Joint Force.
    Firsthand, I talked about my former job as Commander, 
Submarine Force Pacific. During my last tour prior to this job, 
we had upwards of five submarines stationed permanently in 
Guam. So of vital importance to the Navy and the Submarine 
Force.
    As far as infrastructure investments, we have a lot of work 
to do in Guam. As you have visited several times, the utilities 
infrastructure needs to be upgraded, the piers need to be 
upgraded, and we are working towards that end.
    We just finished up--or are starting this year, in fiscal 
year 2024, three communication centers upgrades, an integrated 
missile facility upgrade. And in the FYDP, we do have plans to 
do restoration and modernization of our unaccompanied housing 
and also investments in Polaris Point Pier for our submarines.
    I appreciate the help with the visas. That will help us out 
with getting the workforce that we need to complete those vital 
investments. But, again, that is a priority for me and the 
Navy, to get those right investments into Guam.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    So, Madam Secretary, I mentioned the concern that I have 
over there being only one quality-of-life project in your 
budget request.
    I would like to understand why there are no child 
development centers or unaccompanied housing projects included 
in the budget request. As I said, I understand the tightness of 
the budget requirements, but there is no balance in this 
proposal.
    And while you all just answered the chairman's question--
and we have been to Guam and seen what the challenges are and 
understand that there are workforce challenges--I mean, you 
mentioned it is 15 percent complete. That means it is 85 
percent incomplete. There is a lot left to do. And, obviously, 
the Pacific Rim is and the Indo-Pacific region is really 
important.
    But we can't wait until Guam is finished before we start 
reinserting quality-of-life projects. I mean, if recruitment 
and retention are important, quality of life has to be 
important too, and a budget, like I said, is a reflection of 
our values.
    So, I mean, how did we end up with only one? Is there no 
need for new construction in these higher-priority areas? And 
do you view housing as a priority?
    I mean, we had a GAO-released report in September of last 
year that highlighted substandard barracks, potentially posing 
health and safety risks, inadequate oversight, incomplete 
information on barracks conditions for decision-making.
    I mean, and that is the definition of insanity for us, 
because we have highlighted over and over again what the 
problems were and how poorly our servicemembers were treated in 
privatized family housing.
    One would hope that the military would self-correct and not 
have those same problems when it comes to unaccompanied 
servicemembers.
    So how are the Navy and the Marine Corps planning to 
provide adequate unaccompanied housing without any MILCON 
projects? So it is a two-part question.
    Mr. Berger. Ranking Member, thank you for your attention to 
this. We share the attention. And you mentioned in your opening 
statement digging in a bit more to what the lay-down is. And so 
I am glad to have the opportunity to discuss this in a greater 
context.
    One of the reasons that there are not projects that you are 
seeing is because we got to pull some left. So we are grateful 
for that. Thank you. We were able to pull some of our barracks 
projects into the year last year and get going on those. Some 
of our child development centers are also our sustainable 
materials project that we are doing, and so those actually got 
an earlier start.
    What you will see if you look across the FYDP--I am very 
glad to provide more information on this--is that there are 13 
child development centers across the FYDP, as you noted, in 10 
barracks. So we are laying down the planning and design for 
these so that we can keep sequencing forward and get all these 
projects in place.
    You mentioned that MILCON isn't the only answer that we 
have, and so we have taken lessons that we have learned through 
MHPI and applied them.
    One authority that we have received is to be able to 
privatize unaccompanied housing both in San Diego and in 
Norfolk. We were able to see results that indicated very strong 
quality of life from the sailors that were living there, and 
that allowed us to be able to put some of that sustainment, 
some of that maintenance as part of the bill that we were 
paying, which yielded high quality of life.
    We are interested in evaluating whether there is room to 
use more of that authority to continue to increase quality of 
life.
    I would like to give each of my colleagues just a minute to 
provide some service-level context, but I will encourage that 
quality of life is a very broad and interdisciplinary approach. 
So as we look at energy, water, things like WiFi, we are 
providing quality of life in ways that go beyond some of the 
infrastructure specifically and take that very seriously.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
    General Banta. Thanks, ma'am.
    Ranking Member, thanks very much for the question.
    I should have mentioned in my previous response that we do 
have 136 homes being built on Guam as part of the 2025 budget 
submission under family housing construction. So I would offer 
that is an additional quality-of-life investment we are making 
for families on Guam.
    With respect to unaccompanied housing writ large, I 
mentioned our Barracks 2030 initiative. That really is our 
effort to improve quality of life for our single and our 
unaccompanied marines, which are the most important thing in 
our portfolio right now.
    We are doing that through three phases. Management, by 
improving the management of the existing facilities that we 
have, to include civilian barracks managers. Maintenance teams. 
And as well as a Resident Advisor Program to provide more 
senior leadership in the barracks.
    Getting to your point about the lack of MILCON, we are 
prioritizing restoration and modernization initially in that 
plan. There will be MILCON in the future. But until we figure 
out exactly which barracks we need to maintain and which ones 
we need to demolish in order to ensure we have got the right 
size portfolio, we will focus on restoring and modernizing. And 
we do have funds, $275 million in the base, for nine barracks 
this year.
    And then for the materiel aspect of it, again, just getting 
after improved furniture, a consistent and lock contract to 
ensure that we have secure barracks across the entire force.
    But this is our initial effort. It will be a long-term 
effort, and it will require investment going forward, and we 
appreciate Congress' support towards that end. Thank you.
    Admiral Jablon. Ranking Member, thank you for that 
question. It really is such an important question.
    And the CNO's recent ``America's Warfighting Navy'' 
outlines warfighting, warfighters, and foundation is a 
priority. Quality of service falls under warfighters.
    So we take this very seriously. It is a priority for us. 
And, as you mentioned, it affects retention and recruitment.
    Some of the things that we have done for unaccompanied 
housing is we have issued the Unaccompanied Housing Bill of 
Rights and Responsibilities, similar to what we have done for 
family housing.
    So we get that feedback from the sailors through the rights 
and responsibilities and the surveys that they take so we can 
listen to the issues that they have.
    We also implemented a QR code for maintenance issues where 
the sailor can take their iPhone, snap the QR code, and put in 
what the maintenance issue is. And what has happened is it has 
had a 24 percent increase in maintenance calls and responding 
to those maintenance calls.
    We have also increased our inspection program for 
unaccompanied housing. We have mandated commands to do monthly 
inspections of unaccompanied housing. And Commander, Navy 
Installations Command for the regions do quarterly inspections 
of unaccompanied housing to make sure they are up to the 
standards and we are taking care of the issues, if there are 
any issues.
    Commander, Navy Installations Command just recently 
authorized use of small appliances in the room. That wasn't 
previously authorized. It adds more flexibility for the sailor 
to cook in their room if they wish to do so.
    And as far as infrastructure funding for unaccompanied 
housing, we are funding unaccompanied housing sustainment to 
100 percent. We also have restoration and modernization funding 
for fiscal year 2025 of six unaccompanied housing facilities.
    And then Commander, Navy Installations Command has also 
generated a 110 list of 55 unaccompanied housing facilities 
that are prioritized for restoration and modernization and 
MILCON for fiscal year 2024 to 2031, which we are following 
that plan for infrastructure funding.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, I know I am over 
time--and I will come back to it when we do a second round--but 
I am really from the school of thought, like, don't tell me 
what you are going to do. Your budget request reflects what 
your plans are.
    And the responsiveness with military family housing has 
been atrocious, so much so that we had to put in$130 million 
and then $140 million in the last 2 years for oversight at the 
military leadership--at the DoD level. And in this year's 
budget request, you proposed cutting it by $16 million.
    So, I mean, if you are cutting the oversight funding--
which, when it wasn't there, left people really in the Wild--
servicemembers in the Wild West and their families--it is hard 
for me to understand how you are going to meet the needs of the 
kind of repairs and response time that is essential. But we can 
get back to that when I go again.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Rutherford.
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I thank all of our witnesses for being here today. I 
thank you for your service.
    Admiral, I want to talk a little bit about Naval Air 
Station Jacksonville. That is the home of the P-8s on the East 
Coast, and they have brought tremendous additional capability.
    But they have also brought tremendous additional weight, 
something that I was just made aware of, and not just for 
Jacksonville, but, as you know, we are also training countries, 
our allies around the world, there in Jacksonville.
    The additional capability has come with that weight that I 
was just talking about, and we are literally crushing the 
concrete aprons in NAS Jax. And as they replace them, the way 
it was explained to me, it is really a unique situation. When 
you replace one pad, it disperses the weight against the pads, 
the surrounding pads, and then those crack.
    Now, they had been on a replacement schedule for some time 
and, for whatever reason, that replacement schedule fell out of 
the funding priorities, I suppose, and as it stands there is no 
military construction program to replace these parking aprons 
at NAS Jax for the next 5 years. That is really a concern.
    So my question is, how can we help you with the continuity 
of the P-8 operations in repairing this concrete and come up 
with a comprehensive plan going forward?
    And I know in your comments you mentioned also the $268 
million in the Facility Sustainment, Restoration, and 
Modernization that we gave you the last year. And I would just 
ask if there is any way to possibly move some of that funding 
around, Madam Secretary, to really address this thing in a 
sustained way going forward.
    Admiral Jablon. Congressman, thank you for that question. I 
very much appreciate it.
    And I do understand the criticality of the P-8. As a 
submarine warfare officer, I have played with P-8s throughout 
my career, and they are a vital platform, they really are, and 
in addition to training our allies and partners in the P-8. So 
I agree wholeheartedly with you.
    And you are exactly right, we do not have any program funds 
for repairing the aprons in Jacksonville. But you have my 
commitment, sir, that I will look into it, and we will get on a 
program to repair those aprons.
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you very much, Admiral. And just 
reach out and let us know how we can help.
    Now, I would also like to talk to you about Mayport a 
little bit specifically. This committee has conducted a lot of 
oversight on the privatized military housing issue. I did a 
little drive around at Mayport with the base commander and some 
others, and there is a large track of off-base privatized 
housing that is clearly uninhabitable. You can see mold. In 
fact, it is fenced off.
    And I am sure that we could use that space. We could use 
additional housing at that location. And I know the price of 
housing is still so high across the country, and it seems that 
even the BAH can't keep up with the increases, although we are 
going to, I think you have got a commitment from this 
committee, we are going to try to do that, keep up with that. 
And I know we restored the full BAH funding in the 2024 NDAA, 
so it is 100 percent now.
    But my question to you is, Admiral, can you talk a little 
bit about the efforts with some of these privatized owners and 
partners and how we can get them to make the capital 
investments, working with us, so that we can provide this 
housing--this much-needed housing, I should say--for our folks 
there at Mayport?
    Admiral Jablon. Thank you for that question. Very important 
question. And, again, that goes to the quality of life and 
quality of service of our sailors and their families.
    And I believe you are talking about the 88 homes in the 
Ribault Bay area that are uninhabited right now and unsuitable 
for housing. Those were initially allotted for junior enlisted 
housing. Our privatized partner, Balfour Beatty, currently has 
no plans of bringing those back online, and, financially, they 
don't have the ability to demolish them.
    I can tell you that does not preclude our ability to house 
those junior enlisted sailors in other housing. So it is not 
affecting our ability to house sailors. We are in talks with 
our privatized partner of possibly transferring those houses 
back to the Navy so we can demolish them, but those talks will 
hopefully progress to that end.
    Mr. Rutherford. OK. Well, I have to tell you, I am glad you 
know about it and you are on top of it. So thank you.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. My time is out.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, thank 
you for the opportunity to participate in today's hearing. And 
it is an honor to serve on the subcommittee alongside you as we 
advocate for our Nation's defense and the well-being of our 
servicemembers and their families.
    I want to extend my appreciation to our witnesses. Ms. 
Berger, Admiral Jablon, and General Banta, we appreciate so 
much your valuable service. It means so much in informing us of 
how we can be helpful in assuring what your needs are and how 
we can address them.
    Let me ask you with respect to the budget. The Marine Corps 
has a deferred maintenance backlog that exceeds $15.8 billion, 
and it requires a $1.5 billion annual expenditure for barracks 
and maintenance. But the fiscal year 2025 budget request 
allocates $274 million, which reveals a significant budget gap.
    Although there is a request for $642 million in the 
unfunded priorities list for barracks, restoration, and related 
services, it does not meet the annual upkeep requirement.
    So can you summarize the steps that the Marine Corps is 
taking to address the funding gap for barracks maintenance 
while at the same time prioritizing the quality-of-life 
initiatives? And if you might follow that up with a comment on 
what risks might the Marine Corps face if the funding shortfall 
should persist.
    General Banta. Congressman, thank you very much for the 
question. It is a great question because it does highlight kind 
of our Barracks 2030 initiative and our efforts to get after 
the quality-of-life improvements that we know we need to make 
for our marines in unaccompanied housing.
    So, as we look at the budget request, yes, we have $275 
million in the base to get after restoration and modernization 
of barracks. And we are, frankly, biased towards restoration 
and modernization vice sustainment. We have 658 barracks across 
the Marine Corps. About 83 percent of them are in pretty good 
shape; 17 percent are not.
    So we are focusing on determining, where do we put our 
money to ensure that we get the most consequential outcome for 
those investments? And we have done a study that looks at the 
current conditions of the barracks rooms, and we are taking 
that for action right now. That will inform these investments 
going forward.
    So you are right, we do have a request for additional 
funds, an additional $230 million that would help us with 
restoring and modernizing additional barracks as well as buying 
more of the maintenance team capabilities up front. And then we 
have got $61 million requested towards planning and design for 
future barracks MILCON. So those are all efforts towards 
getting after this shortfall that you request.
    We will not get out of this in 1 year. We will not get out 
of this in one FYDP. This is a long-term investment, 
commitment, and requirement that we will have.
    So, to your point, we very much appreciate the Congress' 
support in this as we go forward and we continue to refine 
where the most consequential investments will be to improve the 
quality of life and get after that sustainment shortfall that 
you mention. I hope that helps answer your question, sir.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you, sir.
    Ms. Berger, the 2023 GAO report entitled ``DoD Can Further 
Strengthen Oversight of Its Privatized Housing Program'' 
highlights the gaps in guidance and training, particularly in 
dispute resolution, tenant advocacy roles, and housing 
inspection. Six out of the 19 recommendations are aimed at the 
Navy.
    And given these concerns, how does the Department of the 
Navy intend to improve oversight and to build trust among 
residents in the privatized housing program through the 2025 
budget request?
    Ms. Berger. Congressman Bishop, this is a place that you 
will see the Barracks 2030 plan and the infrastructure 
investment plan at play. So we build trust by taking action 
towards things that count to our sailors and marines.
    And so, drawing on the ranking member's question a little 
bit ago, with the MHPI we realized a bill of rights was 
something that was a useful tool in creating oversight and 
execution. Both the Navy and the Marine Corps have now stood up 
a bill of rights for their unaccompanied housing so that 
tenants know both their rights and responsibilities.
    We are tiering off of our colleagues in OSD who set some of 
the standards that we will need to follow, and we are taking 
decisive action where we can and using those RM dollars and 
making sure that we are starting to look across the stretch of 
our portfolio to put a dollar where it counts, whether it is 
demolishing and building new--as we did make some demo money 
and have a new authority that we can use to make sure that we 
move forward--but also make sure that we are implementing 
things like Admiral Jablon mentioned in terms of the QR codes, 
being responsive to when we hear that there is something that 
needs to be fixed, because it is the action that builds 
credibility, and then we put the dollars where they count.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you.
    I think my time has expired. I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Valadao.
    Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chairman.
    Thank you to our guests for being here today, and 
appreciate your time.
    One of the report recommendations was the Secretary of the 
Navy should develop and implement a method to ensure that both 
the Navy and the Marine Corps have visibility into all 
barracks' military construction requirements identified at the 
installation level, regardless of whether they are submitted 
for funding. Is this recommendation being acted upon?
    Ms. Berger. We are acting on all of the recommendations.
    At the Department of Defense level, there is a working 
group among myself and my colleagues. So we are looking to see 
how we can make sure that we are implementing with clarity and 
consistency as well with specificity on the requests that are 
there. It is something that we are making sure that we have the 
data inputs and that we can look across the portfolio.
    So not only are we aware of what the asks are but also 
where we might be able to create efficiencies in terms of 
acquiring the appliances, the materiel, or other things that 
will support the improvements that we need to make. And then 
also making sure that we are considering timing in aggregate 
against what can be either supply chain or workforce demands.
    Mr. Valadao. All right.
    And, again, Ms. Berger, during our quality-of-life hearing 
I flagged a concern that Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, which 
supports servicemembers stationed at Naval Air Weapons Station 
China Lake, recently announced that they would be suspending 
their labor and delivery services due to the unprecedented 
financial challenges. This loss in care means that our 
servicemembers at China Lake will need to drive almost 2 hours 
to the next-closest labor and delivery unit, which places an 
incredible hardship on our servicemembers and their families.
    As the Defense Health Agency moves forward with their plan 
to consolidate all on-base hospitals and clinics in the coming 
years, I am concerned that we will not be able to rely on 
community care to provide the level of healthcare our 
servicemembers deserve, especially in rural communities.
    Is this an issue you are tracking? And what steps is the 
Navy taking to ensure essential healthcare services are readily 
available to our servicemembers?
    Ms. Berger. Congressman Valadao, tracking and critical. 
This is something that, portfolio-wise, I share with my 
Manpower and Reserve Affairs Assistant Secretary, but it is one 
that has an impact, as you note, on our installation COs and 
our servicemembers who are in these communities. It is a 
national problem that impacts both inside and outside defense 
lines.
    So, yes, tracking the instance that you cite, but it is one 
that replicates in other environments as well. So, as the 
Defense Health Agency transfers, it is with BUMED that the 
closest connection is at the service level. It is at Manpower 
and Reserve Affairs and the Secretary. But, certainly, it is a 
transition that is taking place.
    And as DHA manages it ultimately, I would encourage you to 
also connect with those. I am happy to make that connection. 
But that is where a lot of the decision-making authority is. 
But we are making sure that we are taking care of our 
servicemembers to the best of our ability and advocating within 
that process.
    And I will make sure that I am not missing anything from 
either of my colleagues.
    Admiral Jablon. Congressman, thank you for that question. 
That is really an important question that goes to, again, 
quality of service for our sailors and their families. And 
healthcare is something, obviously, that is provided and 
promises a provision when sailors join the Navy, so we need to 
live up to that.
    With respect to China Lake and Ridgecrest Regional, China 
Lake, as well as some of our other installations in the 
continental United States, has been designated as a remote 
location.
    Because of that, we screen families before they go to 
remote locations ahead of time. This is one of the provisions 
we have put in place to hopefully prevent these types of 
situations. If there is a medical need that the remote location 
can't service, we won't send the sailor to that area.
    Now, for labor and delivery, that is not something we could 
screen ahead of time. I know BUMED and DHA are working this and 
trying to find a solution to this issue. But very important 
topic.
    Mr. Valadao. All right. And it is one that, obviously, is a 
little more closer to home for me, and that was one that--I 
mean, my nephew and, I think, my niece were both born at the 
hospital there on base. And that facility is no longer open.
    Now they are moving into the Hanford hospital, a community 
hospital, which, apparently, they are doing a great job. But I 
worry about some of the other bases not having a hospital like 
that close enough.
    So that was the only question I have got, so I am going to 
yield back the remainder of my time. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter. Ms. Lee.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to thank the ranking member and all the witnesses 
here today.
    I represent Nevada, and Fallon--obviously, the naval base--
is important to our portfolio in our State. Nevada military 
families continue to remain concerned about their access to 
quality healthcare. They describe long wait times for primary 
and specialty care as well as facilities not being located or 
staffed to handle the workload.
    Secretary Berger, now that the Defense Health Agency is 
responsible for military medical facilities, how are you 
partnering with them to ensure that your mission, impacting 
infrastructure shortfalls, are appropriately prioritized with 
them?
    Ms. Berger. Congresswoman Lee, thank you for your attention 
to this issue as well. This is exactly the type of location 
that Admiral Jablon was just referencing where, when there is 
distance, there is less access.
    And so through DHA and the Assistant Secretary of Defense 
for Health Affairs, that is where this is focused in terms of 
the Department of Defense. It is through BUMED that the Navy 
and my counterpart in Manpower and Reserve Affairs, how we are 
handling that from a policy and a programmatic approach.
    I will note, though, that one of the things that we have 
learned from the work that took place at the Fallon Naval Air 
Station--and thank you for your attention to the support for 
the modernization there--is that that is the ultimate example 
of a defense community.
    And so, as we look at a challenge that is both inside and 
outside the fence line, there is an opportunity there to make 
sure that we are considerate of both the servicemembers that 
call it home but also the people that are part of that 
community. So I am thinking of some of the Tribal nations who 
also need healthcare there. Our servicemembers need it. The 
community needs it.
    And so we are working very diligently with DHA, through 
BUMED, through the Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and Defense 
Health Agency, but there is an opportunity there to make sure 
that we are benefiting an important defense community.
    Ms. Lee of Nevada. Thank you.
    I really appreciate your ability to look beyond the fence 
and to look at access to healthcare as a community issue. And, 
obviously, the partnership with the Tribes there is incredibly 
important.
    I just want to point out, I just spoke to the Under 
Secretary of Agriculture, Cindy Axne, who was in Fallon, on 
this specific issue. So I would love to connect you because--I 
know we talked about the Department of Indian Affairs, but, 
also, the Department of Agriculture does a lot with access to 
rural healthcare. So I think it would be a good connection to 
make on that.
    And that is all I have. Thank you.
    Ms. Berger. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Zinke.
    Mr. Zinke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And I was listening attentively to our ranking member's 
introduction, and I found myself agreeing with her, especially 
on priorities. And looking at the budget, we are amiss in 
barracks and a lot of features that we need.
    But, also, I noticed in the budget that you have $1.256 
billion for electric vehicles in the Department of Navy's 
budget. How would you rack and stack electric vehicle priority 
to barracks, per se? Because we are short in barracks, I think, 
100-and-some million dollars, and we are plus $1.256 billion in 
electric vehicles.
    Ms. Berger. Congressman, let me go and double-check that 
number for you.
    But, in terms of the barracks, we have a decided and 
purposeful investment both on the Navy and Marine Corps side 
that we have had a little bit of a chance to talk about. But, 
certainly, we are prioritizing----
    Mr. Zinke. Would your priority be electric vehicles or 
barracks?
    Ms. Berger. My priority is making sure that we give our 
sailors and marines everything that they need to do in order to 
do what we ask of them and, as we look at a transition----
    Mr. Zinke. Is that electric vehicles or barracks?
    Ms. Berger. It is a----
    Mr. Zinke. Because your priority--you have 1.256 electric 
vehicles and climate change research--I can go through the 
whole list--but the barracks is short.
    So the priority of the United States Navy at the moment is 
not barracks, it is electric vehicles. Would that be fair, 
given the budget?
    Ms. Berger. The priority is readiness and quality of life. 
And there are barracks, as we discussed, that happened 
throughout the FYDP and that we have been able to pull left in 
a very purposeful plan to make sure that not only are we using 
MILCON but also RM and putting sustainment dollars where they 
count.
    I know that you know well that electrification is an 
opportunity to reduce our heat signature, to be quieter, to be 
less discoverable, and so----
    Mr. Zinke. I am glad we are quiet when we are outside of 
Las Vegas.
    General, I have a question for you, sir. The first AD 
commander, I was reading it, and his comment was--you know, he 
was out at Fort Bliss.
    He found a significant portion of the barracks--the 
condition of the barracks--cleanliness, general upkeep, and 
maintenance--as a result of the soldier not being instructed in 
basic cleaning, basic adult--being an adult, and those things.
    Are you finding the same things in the Marine Corps, given 
that the standard has been lowered, I guess, with college or 
high school diplomas? What is the condition of the barracks in 
the Marine Corps? Do you have the same problem?
    General Banta. Congressman, thank you very much for the 
question.
    So I would say, no, I don't think we have that same 
problem. We have not lowered the standards for our marines. We 
are not putting the condition of our barracks on the backs of 
our marines. This is an enterprise problem that the Commandant 
has taken on, hence the Barracks 2030 initiative.
    So we will continue to hold our marines to high standards, 
whether it is training, physical fitness, marksmanship, or 
cleanliness of the barracks.
    But Barracks 2030 is about putting the investments where 
they will be the most consequential to improve the quality of 
life for our most important asset, and that is our marine.
    I hope that helps answer the question, Congressman.
    Mr. Zinke. And I respect my Army comrades, and I assume the 
first AD commander is absolutely truthful in his remarks.
    I am interested because I don't see the same thing in the 
Marine Corps. The buildings and barracks that I have looked at 
are clean. They just happen to be old and rusted.
    And, Admiral, I am going to venture to ask you, do you have 
the same issue as the first AD commander, or are you along with 
the Marine Corps that basic skills on discipline and 
cleanliness of the barracks--some reliance on the sailors to do 
that--are you finding that it is different with this 
generation?
    Admiral Jablon. Congressman, thank you for that question.
    As I mentioned previously, our commands for each of those 
sailors do monthly inspections of the barracks. We do quarterly 
inspections by the region commanders of the barracks.
    I have heard no feedback to the description of what you 
talked about for Army barracks, and in my touring of barracks I 
have seen nothing with respect to the cleanliness.
    So I don't think we have that problem in the Navy.
    Mr. Zinke. That is great to hear. Overseas. I am 
particularly concerned about MILCON with our fuel capacity, 
ammo capacity, delivered specific to the Pacific. So I noticed 
in the budget, where is the priority on fuel and ammunition, 
bunkers, and facilities on the Pacific?
    Ms. Berger. In terms of how we are prioritizing, we are 
forward deploying some of our fuel. And one thing that I will 
note for you is an exercise that I would love to give you the 
readout of on Philippine and energy and operational energy, and 
how we are making sure that we are testing, exercising and 
getting ready for exactly the things that you are identifying. 
But let me make sure that I give my colleagues their chance to 
discuss that as well.
    Mr. Zinke. General, are you concerned about where you are 
going to get the fuel in the Pacific and the ammunition for our 
depots and stockpiles?
    General Banta. Congressman, yes, sir. Thank you for the 
question. I think that the fuel laydown is incredibly important 
as well as the distribution network towards that end. In terms 
of the ordnance storage and ammunition, as I mentioned, we do 
have a project on Guam, earth-covered magazines, getting after 
that. As a kind of separate but related issue, prepositioning 
is incredibly important for us, and if you are interested, we 
would be happy to come back and give you a brief on our global 
positioning network that looks at how we are distributing 
capability around the Pacific in order to ensure that we are 
ready to fight.
    Mr. Zinke. Do you think you have the resources and assets 
to do that?
    General Banta. We have got money in it right now, 
Congressman, but there is probably more work to be done. Yes, 
sir.
    Mr. Zinke. Admiral, same question, sir
    Admiral Jablon. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. As 
part of our infrastructure development for each POM cycle, we 
develop an infrastructure investment plan. That is based on six 
priorities: intermediate and depot level maintenance, 
unaccompanied housing, critical utilities, airfield operations, 
port operations, and ordinance and magazines. So that is one of 
our six priorities that we look at for investments to ensure we 
get after exactly what you are talking about.
    Mr. Zinke. You think you have the fuel and ammunition to 
fight in the Pacific at the moment forward deployed.
    Admiral Jablon. As far as the ammunition and munitions, we 
need to work on that. We need to fully fund development of our 
munitions. As far as fuel, along with General Banta, we can 
provide a classified briefing on the INDOPACOM strategy for our 
fuel distribution in the Pacific.
    Mr. Zinke. I remain concerned. I will do what I can to help 
make sure we win. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Mrs. Bice.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank our witnesses 
for being here this afternoon.
    First, let me start out by saying I want to congratulate 
the Marine Corps for successfully passing the financial audit, 
the first to do so. I appreciate the Marine Corps' commitment 
to accountability and transparency and managing the funds 
appropriated by Congress. So thank you for being diligent. 
Achieving that clean audit is no small feat, as we all know, 
and it required a significant amount of time from your 
organization.
    Let me start by saying I am proud to represent the Oklahoma 
City metro area, which is home to Tinker Air Force Base. In 
early 2000, sailors who make up the Navy's strategic 
communications wing 1, also known as TACAMO--never thought a 
Marine base would be in the middle of Oklahoma, but here we 
are. As the witnesses know, this unit plays a very critical 
mission in safeguarding the national defense by ensuring the 
security of communications between the Commander in Chief and 
much of our Nation's nuclear arsenal.
    Admiral, as you know, the E6B Mercury is slated to be 
replaced with the C130 J variant in the near future. I would 
first like to start out by asking you, what is the expected 
timeline for the platform for the transition?
    Admiral Jablon. Congresswoman, thank you for that question. 
Very important. I know firsthand 86 Bravo, when I was stationed 
at STRATCOM, I rode in 86 Bravo as part of the TACAMO missions. 
So very professional crews and very impressed by them. As you 
said, it is such an extremely important program. Right now, 
with the extended service life of the 86 Bravo, it is out to 
2038.
    Mrs. Bice. What can you tell me about the expected MILCON 
needs for that particular project, when we get to that point, 
and how many aircraft are we looking to potentially acquire?
    Admiral Jablon. Ma'am, I know the planning has started for 
replacing aircraft. As far as the MILCON, 2038 is a little bit 
too far in the future to figure out where that platform will be 
stationed and what the MILCON needs are.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you.
    I want to throw this out to General Banta and Vice Admiral 
as well. In my first year in office, I worked on a provision in 
the NDAA, which prohibited private housing contractors from 
actually charging out-of-pocket expenses to servicemembers for 
ADA upgrades to accommodate a disabled family member of a 
household utilizing base housing units.
    Can you give me any updates on if you have heard any or had 
any experiences with contractors pushing back on providing 
these ADA upgrades?
    General Banta. Congresswoman, thanks very much for the 
question. Providing quality housing for all of our families is 
really important. And to directly answer your question, no, I 
am not aware of any issues of contractors trying to charge 
marines for upgrades. We do have ADA-compliant housing units 
within both our public/private venture housing, as well as our 
government-owned housing. When a house is not available, we 
will work with the family requiring that to get the upgrades 
completed, or if there are opportunities out in the local 
economy to get them housing, then we will put them there also. 
I hope that helps answer the question.
    Mrs. Bice. Thank you, General.
    Admiral Jablon. Ma'am, same experience with the Navy, 
exactly what General Banta said.
    Mrs. Bice. I want to pivot. It was mentioned earlier, 
childcare certainly seems to be a hot topic of conversation 
within our service branches. And I recently visited Tinker, and 
we had a conversation around childcare and waitlist.
    I want to pose this question to you, Ms. Berger, around 
childcare. Do you believe that the outstanding waitlist that we 
see currently is impacted by workforce challenges? Recruiting 
and retaining individuals? And I am happy to open this up to 
General or Admiral as well.
    Ms. Berger. Yes, Congresswoman. There is a workforce 
challenge. This is on the list of things that I would say is a 
national challenge as well as a military family challenge. And 
so, it is one of those inside/outside the fence line. We have 
it no matter which way we are looking. We have been able to 
find some places where we have been able to make advances in 
terms of policies that I would love for my service counterparts 
to describe as they have been working on them. But whether it 
is a shared space, looking at licensing requirements and things 
like that are things that would be added to the environment.
    And I will turn to the General and the Admiral to talk 
about some of their initiatives.
    General Banta. Thanks, Madam Secretary. Yes, Congresswoman. 
Thanks for the question. Staffing at our CDCs is a challenge, 
but there are some programs that we have in place to help get 
after that. One of them is a discount for providers who have 
children in daycare; 50 percent for the first child, 25 percent 
for subsequent children. So we find that is helpful.
    Also, increasing wages, putting more funding, against 
offering competitive wages for our childcare providers. And 
then something that we recently started is a noncompetitive 
transfer program where a provider who happens to be, say, a 
spouse of a Marine at Camp Pendleton, he or she gets orders out 
to the East Coast, they can apply and immediately be accepted 
at a position at that new childcare facility. So it facilitates 
employment going forward.
    And in terms of how are we supporting that? Well, we have 
got over $600 million within the FYDP just for childcare 
programs writ large, and we have got $133 million in 2025 just 
to sustain those programs that I just mentioned.
    Mrs. Bice. Fantastic.
    General Banta. Yes, ma'am.
    Admiral Jablon. Congresswoman, thank you for that question. 
And again, that leads to the quality of service and our 
retention and recruitment efforts within the Navy. This is an 
area that we have been working on for a number of years, but it 
is not only capacity, but it is staffing as you talk about. 
Right now, we are 88 percent full for staffing billets within 
our child and youth programs. And we have done that through pay 
raises, recruit bonuses, and childcare discounts, exactly what 
the General talked about.
    But we need to get more staffing, and that is a nationwide 
problem, and we are working on that. One of the unique areas 
that we have worked with is we partner with commercial centers, 
and also with a couple of universities over high peak 
summertime, NC State and Utah State to bring in daycare--
childcare workers during those periods.
    So we have a number of areas that we are working on to 
increase the staffing levels and the capacity levels, though we 
haven't programmed for fiscal year 2025 for CDC MILCON. As the 
Secretary had mentioned previously, we have got four MILCON in 
progress right now for CDC, and 12 across the FYDP.
    Mrs. Bice. Just a final wrap up, General and Admiral, I 
want to thank you for the focus on that. It is incredibly 
important that our servicemembers have access. Tinker is doing 
some very similar work in trying to recruit and retain teachers 
who have children in these childcare centers, and offering them 
free or reduced opportunities for tuition so that they can 
actually have their children in the facility, but also get paid 
in the meantime.
    So thank you for your creativity in trying to help, I 
think, solve this issue. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield 
back.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Franklin.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our 
witnesses for being here this afternoon. I appreciate your 
time.
    Admiral, I was very encouraged to see the $9 billion across 
the FYDP for the SIOP program. I was initially thinking PSY, 
but I am pleased to see that that is the Shipboard 
Infrastructure Optimization Program. I have a lot of concern as 
we retool and refocus from 20 years of fighting in the desert 
to positioning ourselves in great power competition, and 
potentially a fight in the INDOPACIFIC region. Naval warfare is 
going to be a final part of that. The Navy and Marine Corps 
play a huge role there.
    But you know, the struggle we keep facing with regard to 
building our ship fleet back up to where we need to be is the 
capacity to build new ships, and to repair the ones that we 
have. So I appreciate the emphasis there.
    As far as the $9 billion across the FYDP, is that going to 
get us to where we need to be, or is that just a step in the 
right direction and this is just the 5-year program we are 
working on, and it is going to take another 5, 10, 15 after 
that? Where is this going to position us?
    Admiral Jablon. Congressman, thank you for that question. 
As you mentioned, a SIOP, Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization 
Program, is vital to the national security of the country. It 
is targeted for our four public shipyards, and there are three 
lines of effort within SIOP: revitalizing our dry docks are 
well over 100 years old; improving the optimization within the 
shipyard by building new infrastructure, and improving the 
processes within the shipyard; and then also critical 
equipment--buying critical equipment.
    So in fiscal year 2025, our plan is for $2.8 billion of 
investment in SIOP, which will target our nuclear submarines 
and aircraft carriers to get them back out on the field, as the 
CNO likes to say, more players on the field. And that will 
improve the ability of the shipyards to get those platforms 
back out into the water where they need to do the work they 
have been built to do.
    $9 million over the FYDP, I tell you right now, is probably 
not enough. With cost increases due to inflation, labor, and 
materials, we probably will see that cost go up. But this is a 
major defense acquisition program. In 2026, after completion of 
Milestone Bravo Charlie, we will have a final cost estimate for 
SIOP.
    Mr. Franklin. I also saw on the CNO's unfunded priority 
list, the number one is the remaining money for the sub 
industrial base, same challenges there.
    Could you--I guess this would be preaching to the choir. I 
know this answer, but it is really not rhetorical, because I 
think it is important to get it on record here, but also not 
just for the benefit of our colleagues, but for others out 
there. Could you speak to the harm that is caused when we do 
year-long CRs with programs like this when we have things that 
we are trying to focus on the future, and you are not allowed 
to do new starts to programs? How damaging is that going to be 
to our Navy/Marine Corps operational readiness if we operate on 
CRs?
    Admiral Jablon. Congressman, thank you for that question. 
You know, that is a tough question. It does prevent us from 
doing the work that we need to do, the investments that we need 
to make, starting the infrastructure projects that we need to 
make at levels that we are not, programs where we want to be. 
So it inhibits some hardship in our ability to do our job.
    Mr. Franklin. Well, but it is not just incremental changes 
from one year over and other that we can't do. We are trying to 
make some fundamental shifts. The Marine Corps is trying to 
retool and do things in a different way. And you just 
fundamentally, can't do it if you are not allowed to make those 
changes. Thank you for that.
    Madam Secretary, question for you on facility resiliency. I 
had the privilege of serving on the Naval Academy Board of 
Visitors, and my alma mater floods a lot more frequently than 
it did when I was there 40 years ago. It did flood. We had 
floods back then too, but now what may have happened a time or 
two a year now, maybe dozens of times. Thankfully, I was there 
recently touring the work that is going on there as far as 
rebuilding the seawalls, moving a lot of the infrastructure out 
from whoever had the brilliant idea of putting a lot of that 
stuff below sea level to begin with was not very bright, but we 
are fixing those things now.
    But the Academy has the benefit of having some folks with a 
lot of ability to pull some financial priorities around here on 
Capitol Hill. That is not the same for all the Navy and Marine 
Corps facilities out there. A great thing about being in the 
Navy and Marine Corps, we are usually in some pretty good 
spots, the Navy more so than the Marine Corps. But a lot of our 
stuff is ocean front. We could probably fix most of the 
national debt if we sold off some of those, but are we making 
the right levels of investment across places like Jacksonville, 
Charleston, San Diego, and Alameda, and other places around 
there that are facing those issues?
    Ms. Berger. Congressman, thank you for your attention to 
that. We are doing the work to identify the investments. We are 
not always making the investments that we need to fully enable 
the resilience. This is a place where we are using different 
authorities, that we are making sure that we are using land 
well-enhanced use leases, building back the eroded shorelines 
that you note that we enjoy on the coast.
    I will say the Marine Corps uses that to be able to train. 
If there is not a beach to train, then your marines are not 
going to be as ready. And so, we have identified the places 
that we need this resilience. I think that there are many more 
places that we can make those investments to ensure that we are 
protecting the infrastructure that keeps our sailors and 
marines trained, ready, and able to do their mission set.
    You note rightly that the Naval Academy is a place that has 
a lot more floods that threatens our electrical infrastructure 
and other things that are replicated throughout any 
installation that you go to where you are going to see the 
resources that you need to be able to operate threatened 
because there is not that resilience.
    And if you don't mind, one minute on the MILCON question. I 
just wanted to note quickly that when we do not have the funds, 
we are not reliable partners. And so, people are less willing 
to engage in contracting with us and doing the work. And as 
this committee knows this very well, MILCON deferred has a 
domino effect on everything else that we are trying to do, so 
it is very consequential.
    Mr. Franklin. Well, I thank you for that. And also, the 
problems that the Navy has also become problems for the Marine 
Corps. As I heard from the Commandant this morning too, marines 
need to be embarked on ships projecting forward, and if we 
don't have the ships there for them, then it hurts their 
mission as well.
    I am over, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Guest.
    Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to touch on a 
topic that many of the Members have already touched on, which 
is housing for our sailors and marines and airmen. Secretary 
Berger, I know that you addressed that in your written 
testimony, talking about both the quantity and quality. You 
talk about quality of life on page, looks like 6, talks about 
quality of life, investments. And then also, as we talk about 
the availability of housing on bases, you talk about the 
barracks 2030 initiative that appears to be basically a 5-year 
program that will be carried out. And there is cost in there of 
$1.2 billion there on page 7.
    Is that $1.2 billion, is that the total cost of the program 
itself? Just walk me through what is covered. And I am looking 
there, just so you will be aware, on page 7 of your written 
testimony, you say, For barracks, this includes $1.2 billion 
over the FYDP for barracks construction.
    And so my question is, is that over the life of this 
program? Is that a single-year outlay? What timeframe are we 
talking about as it relates to that figure?
    Ms. Berger. Congressman, I just want to make sure I am 
clear on your question. Are you referring barracks 2030 when 
you say the program?
    Mr. Guest. Yes, ma'am. The 2030 program. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Berger. OK. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure I was 
answering the right question.
    So as we look at these investments, the Commandant of the 
Marine Corps--and I would like to preserve some time for 
General Banta to talk about the Marines as well--he has said 
this is his number one priority looking at the quality of life, 
looking at all of the returns that we see on these investments. 
Over the course of the program, I would expect it as more of an 
evaluation, including these results of the wall to wall and 
other places that we get more information, it will change the 
funds required for--with the fidelity of the requirements that 
the Marines identify, but that is intended to be over the 
course of time. And I would like to let General Banta talk just 
a little bit about the work that he has been doing as well.
    General Banta. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Congressman, 
for the question.
    I guess first off, Barracks 2030 is not a single year, nor 
is it a single FYDP action. This will take us probably several 
FYDP cycles, several POM cycles to get through. So as we look 
at cost, we know what we need to do now that we are moving out 
on in terms of assessing the condition of the barracks, hiring 
on our civilian barracks managers, bringing on maintenance 
teams so that we can better respond to the challenges that we 
have now, do an additional study so that we can optimize the 
footprint, how many barracks do we need going forward, which 
will then inform both demolition as well as military 
construction and restoration and modernization going forward.
    So as Secretary Berger mentioned, as we continue to gain 
insights and refine our program here, we will make adjustments 
to the funding profile. So for purposes of 2025, we are 
comfortable with what we have, but we are also hopeful and 
thankful for Congress's consideration for what we have asked 
for on the unfunded priority list to help us accelerate those 
actions. So that is where we are right now, Congressman. I hope 
that helps answer your question, sir.
    Mr. Guest. It does. And I do want to thank each of you for 
prioritizing military housing. I represent Naval Air Station 
Meridian, where many of our naval aviators are trained. And we 
currently are looking at challenges with the current number of 
students that routinely come through Meridian. And I am led to 
believe that we are going to see a projected increase of 
roughly 400 students in fiscal year 2025.
    And at a time in which we are having challenges now meeting 
those housing requirements for those students, I guess my 
question is: As we work through this long-term program, as we 
work to evaluate and prioritize, where we are going to be 
building structures, what we are going to modernize, what needs 
to be demolished, my question, I guess, is what is the interim 
plan for places like Meridian Naval Air Station, where we are 
going to see an increase in training, but we are not going to 
have, at least in this budget cycle, money to equip that air 
station to be able to properly house their students?
    And so, if you all can kind of just tell me what the 
interim plan would be as we work towards fulfilling the long-
term plan, and after that, I will yield back.
    Admiral Jablon. Congressman, thank you for that question. 
And as you note, Naval Air Station Meridian is so vital to our 
training for our jet fighter pilots using the T-45 for 
intermediate and advanced jet training. So it is vital that we 
have the accommodations for those students as they go through 
there.
    We do have a plan for fiscal year 2027 to do restoration, 
modernization on naval education training center barracks that 
will accommodate, or address some of your concerns. But other 
than that, we don't have anything else programmed, and we will 
have to take a look at that, sir.
    Mr. Guest. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. I keep seeing us being very slowpoke, drives me 
crazy.
    First off, let me speak a minute to what Ms. Wasserman 
Schultz has been talking about. You know, the cost of taking 
care of kids right now is really almost as bad as the cost of 
college. My daughter has a 6-month old child. And she put him 
in healthcare--I mean daycare. It is going to cost her a $1,000 
for a year to keep that baby in. Grandma and grandpa said, Give 
him to us. They think we are too old and frail or stupid or 
something. But that is ridiculous.
    And think about all the--what the people are doing--while 
you are taking care of their children back home, think about 
the job they are doing and the availability of them being 
contacted from home about the issues. Back in the Vietnam War, 
you couldn't call anybody. Now, you can call, pick up your 
phone and call anybody around the world.
    So I know from experience going out--because I go out of 
town every weekend, or at the end of the weekend. Everything is 
great until I basically get on the airplane. And by the time I 
get off the airplane, everything is going to hell in a hand 
basket back home because that is the nature of family. And if 
you are the father, you are expected to do certain things. My 
wife will be--she will have a list full of stuff for me to do. 
I say, I can't do it, baby, I am in Washington, OK?
    The whole point of that is these sailors and these marines 
are in bad places doing tough things. And the spouses back home 
are having worries. And healthcare, we have got to take that 
healthcare burden off of them. I am going to join my 
colleague--daycare. We need--I want to join my colleague in 
saying we have got a lot of other things that got to be done, 
and I am going to talk about one right now. But don't let our 
marines and our sailors worry about their children when they 
are fighting a war. And they may have to do that.
    But now getting back to something that really, really 
concerns me: shipyards. This committee continues to strongly 
support the efforts to modernize the Navy's four principal 
public shipyards. These shipyards play a critical role in 
securing the Nation. It is important that we have modern, 
highly efficient shipyards to maintain our fleet and support 
the military operations, especially in the Pacific.
    What is included in the fiscal year 2025 request for 
investment in our shipyards, and how does it compare to fiscal 
year 2024, and is it enough? Ms. Berger.
    Ms. Berger. Chairman, thank you for your continued 
attention to what is a critical investment in our national 
security mission that we carry out through our four public 
shipyards. So you will see in fiscal year 2025, as part of our 
MILCON request, just about $2 billion that goes towards our 
Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program.
    Mr. Carter. Is that enough?
    Ms. Berger. It is enough for right now, sir. And so, what 
we owe to you is more clarity on what that big picture looks 
like. I do not have that for you today, but it is something 
that the Department of the Navy will make sure that we are 
communicating with clarity, recognizing that there is a lot of 
cost that goes into this. We are being responsible stewards of 
the taxpayer dollar by making sure that we are providing 
clarity with the request.
    We are taking lessons learned and applying them as we go 
forward in something that we have not done before but should 
have, and making sure that we are projecting forward to 
anticipate what it looks like to keep the investments that we 
are making right now.
    Mr. Carter. Admiral?
    Admiral Jablon. Chairman, thank you for that question.
    The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program is really 
a generational investment that we are making in our four public 
shipyards that is extremely important. This infrastructure 
investment is going to be over probably 40 to 50 years for this 
program. So it is a long-term commitment.
    As you mentioned, we are investing about $2.77 billion in 
fiscal year 2025. We invested $2.73 billion in fiscal year 
2024. So I think anywhere between $2\1/2\ and $3 billion is the 
right amount of money to continue investment. But what we need 
is a stable funding profile throughout that time period, and we 
are talking about between $2\1/2\ and $3 billion every year to 
upgrade our dry docks, to upgrade the facilities within those 
shipyards, and also, the capital equipment that we need to get 
those ships out on time to make sure they do what they were 
built for.
    Mr. Carter. I realize we are talking about aircraft 
carriers and submarines that are big, big things.
    Admiral Jablon. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Carter. But what about private shipyards? Are you 
utilizing private shipyards? Are there any you could utilize?
    Admiral Jablon. Chairman, thank you for that question. For 
private shipyards, specifically, we are using those shipyards 
for shipbuilding predominantly, for Virginia class submarines 
and our forwarded class aircraft carriers. Whereas, we are 
using the public shipyards for maintenance, depot level 
maintenance. We need to improve the processes and throughput of 
both the public and the private yards. We are working on that. 
NAFSI is working on that to get those ships out on time. That 
is an area that is very much a priority for the Chief of Naval 
Operations.
    Mr. Carter. If the flag goes up and we get in a fight--I 
mean, we are getting shot at right now over in the Red Sea. If 
they hit somebody over there, and that has got to be repaired, 
are we prepared to do that right now to fix those things, or 
are we going to be at a loss?
    Admiral Jablon. Chairman, I am confident that we are 
prepared right now to fix any battle damage that we have, or 
could have.
    Mr. Carter. That is good. But you know, I look at the 
numbers that the Chinese have, which horribly overshadows the 
numbers we have right now, if the ones reported at least, to 
me, on a report that I got from the Navy, and we are trying to 
catch up. But they, for some unknown reason--well, probably 
because they don't build a good product. I don't know. But they 
seem to be able to turn them out a lot faster than we do. There 
is no doubt about it. And both our building--I am worried about 
our building of our ships, and I am worried about if we get in 
a fight in the Pacific especially--because I keep hearing from 
my colleague over in Washington that they are still working on 
getting one up to speed over there. How is that going?
    Admiral Jablon. Chairman, thank you for that question. As 
part of my job, I am also responsible for contested logistics. 
As part of contested logistics, we have kind of coined the five 
Rs; refuel, rearm, resupply, revive, and repair. So repair is 
one of those issues that we are working on.
    The AUKUS Initiative is going to be very important for 
repair of our submarines when Australia builds that capability 
in Perth, Australia, in their submarine yard. So we will have 
that capability there. We will have it in Guam and Pearl Harbor 
in the Pacific, and also in CONUS, San Diego, and Burmington. 
Also, we do intermediate maintenance in Yokosuka, Japan for our 
aircraft carriers. So we have a lot of work to do. And I am 
concerned about it, but we are moving out on it, sir.
    Mr. Carter. OK. Thank you. As my colleague said, if it is 
not enough, tell us. We sometimes can come up with some more 
money, you know? So don't just be shy. This is a national 
defense issue. You are going to be leading over in the Pacific, 
both the Navy and the Marines are going to be leading over in 
the Pacific. And they have got to be able to get to the fight, 
get in the fight, and win. So even though we are the lowest 
budget in the world, we can magically come up with some more 
money every now and then. Please let us know if there is 
something that you have forgotten to tell us about.
    With that, I will pass to my colleague.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Thank you. I not only 
thank the gentleman for yielding, but I just want to point out 
and appreciate that he and I work very closely together. And we 
have an unusual partnership in that we have both been in these 
roles interchangeably for longer than most of our colleagues 
who kind of rotate through their committees in different 
Congresses. So not only do we have a good relationship, but we 
are pretty aligned most of the time, nearly all the time.
    So when he says let us know if--and I will just add, we 
know your constraints in terms of what you might have requested 
and that goes up the chain and to OMB and what comes back to 
you after you have sent it up. But the good news is that we get 
the last word--well, the President does because he gets to 
decide whether to sign it. But I think we are both pretty 
confident that what we send him is likely something he would 
sign. So, Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate our partnership.
    I do just want to correct the record from my friend from 
Montana because the number he cited, which I heard the 
skepticism in your voice, Madam Secretary, of $1.256 billion 
going to purchase electric vehicles is actually the amount for 
the entire climate action strategy budget that the Navy--the 
Department of the Navy has proposed. It is not $1.256 billion 
for electric vehicles, and certainly doesn't remotely reflect 
it being a priority to purchase electric vehicles versus 
barracks. And quite frankly, addressing global warming and 
climate change, and the impact it has on the deterioration of 
our infrastructure certainly is a quality-of-life issue. One 
only has to go to Okinawa or to Hawaii or any--or to Tyndall, 
and see the impact that climate change and global warming and 
beach erosion and sea level rise has on our infrastructure. And 
by the way, the proposed amount this year is a cut from fiscal 
year 2024. So the administration is actually proposing less 
funding for your climate action strategy, not more. Certainly 
that whole amount does not go to electric vehicles, but that is 
not what I want to talk about right now.
    I want to just focus a little bit more granularly on the 
potential for privatized housing, because as you might imagine, 
we are a little bit skeptical about expanding privatized 
housing, given the really poor track record of the company in 
multifamily housing, and you know, officer housing.
    So, is the Navy or Marine Corps planning privatized 
unaccompanied housing projects? I think you are, but how many 
additional sites are considering? How did you determine where 
the locations are? What locations are for candidates for 
privatization? I know that you have two good examples that you 
mentioned to me, Norfolk and San Diego.
    But I mean those are new properties, and so they are not 
going to have maintenance needs for many years. And so, my 
concern is later, when significant investments are required, 
how are the contracts going to be structured so that the 
private companies are having to continue to invest in the 
housing, make sure that the units are maintained. And also, if 
they fail miserably, like they have in previous contracts, that 
we are not stuck in a contract that is too big to fail, and 
that you can't unwind and undo and have the ability for the 
Navy to take it back over if they suck, for lack--that is a 
technical term. Have at it.
    Ms. Berger. Ranking Member, thank you for the record 
correction. Your attention to something that is indeed quite 
critical to the assurance that our Navy and Marine Corps is 
sustained into the future, and also that they do have the 
quality of life and resources that are required to support our 
naval fighting forces.
    With particular attention to the unaccompanied housing 
question that you asked, this is an example where we had an 
authority that we were able to pilot in two locations that you 
noted. And so, the maximizing of that authority is putting 
forth the unaccompanied barracks that are in the San Diego and 
in the Norfolk region. And so, that is the limit of where we 
are right now.
    Very important to note is that we are not thinking of this 
as 100 percent solution. It is not that every single place we 
go privatization is the answer. It is a good option. As you 
note, we have seen from where we started with MHPI, we started 
from a bad place, and we had a lot of work to do, and we still 
haven't--we talked about it today. There is still places to pay 
attention. But what we did do is take what we saw there and the 
things that did work, that were helpful, to include things that 
are helping for oversight, for advocacy, for compliance, and 
also, ensuring that people are able to get what they need out 
of these requirements.
    So as we look at the BAH, we mentioned the bill of rights 
that exists. So we are making sure that people have those 
rights and responsibilities. When it comes specifically to the 
agreements, we have built into the contract that maintenance, 
that sustainment. These are a little bit different than full 
homes, usually more apartment style, but also cognizant of 
where we need to be able to have that oversight and that impact 
in a contractual agreement in a partnership as it is structured 
are things that we have built in here.
    And so, while we are at the front end of the 
infrastructure, it is certainly something that we have learned 
from, applied and that we are anticipating so that when we are 
putting, in this case, BAH dollars down, the dollar that goes 
in is a dollar towards that quality of life and that is how it 
is structured. So that is some of the benefit that we are 
trying to build in, not looking for 100 percent solution, but 
where we have seen a good result trying to replicate something 
that we have seen improve the quality of life.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And what about the structure of the 
contracts if it becomes necessary to unwind them? Are you 
structuring them in a way that makes that possible?
    Ms. Berger. At this point, as we are building out a pilot, 
we are structuring in a way that we are making sure that it 
works. Financing is also a consideration as you build this out. 
And so, some of the length of the contract is due to the way 
that the financing works out. I would love to give you a more 
detailed brief, and certainly, bring some of our Navy partners 
who have actually been working with the partners more directly 
to make sure you get that detail.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Great. There is a $16 million cut to 
the oversight funding in what you proposed. You know, I know I 
had real concerns about making sure that we maintained--it is 
maintained and we even added $10 million in the final result of 
our bill. So, I mean, how are you going to make sure that you 
had enough when you had nothing before we acted and insisted 
that you add a layer of oversight at DoD?
    Ms. Berger. Ranking Member, we did listen when you had us 
do some of these things, and so critically important was making 
sure that we had the tenant bill of rights and the universal 
lease in place. That creates a better structure under which 
people are able to work both for advocacy return. We have our 
civilian housing managers in place. We have plussed that up by 
about 200 people. And so now, we have that oversight in place. 
It brings some of the cost down when you do it well. And so, we 
are able to mitigate on some of the places, because we have 
been able to put more oversight in place. And if there are any 
specific examples, I will offer some space.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Great. Thank you.
    General Banta. Ranking Member, thanks very much for the 
question. So with respect to the public-private housing 
supervision and accountability, if you will, so we remain 
committed to that. Quality housing is extremely important. We 
have made a lot of headway on that. We have a total of 169 
housing professionals that work in our military housing office 
that are advocates for our marines and our families, working 
with our private partners there and we are sustaining that 
going forward.
    In addition to the universal lease and bill of rights that 
we have out there, we are completing the third-party 
inspections of all of our homes this year, which will help, if 
there are problems, then build the plans with the partners to 
get better. So that is in place. I would have to offer to get 
back to you on any specific cuts that we had within the 
sustainment funding there, but it is a priority for us.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. This was oversight.
    General Banta. Oversight. Right. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Thank you.
    Admiral Jablon. Ranking Member, thank you for the question. 
I appreciate the $10 million that was added for oversight. And 
as the Secretary said, that was used to hire about 200 
additional employees, about 150 at the regions, installations, 
and bases, and then 50 at naval facilities engineering command. 
What that enabled us to do is have stronger linkages between 
our privatized partners and our families that are living, and 
be able to react to any problems that are going on.
    I live in privatized housing, and I just got my tenant 
satisfaction survey mailed to me. We act on those surveys, and 
that additional oversight will help to answer any of those 
questions or problems.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. I think we are done. Thank you very much for 
what you brought us today. We are here to help, and we are--
yeah. We are the government. We are here to help you. 
Seriously. Very good presentation as usual. We always expect 
the best, and we get the best from our Navy and our Marine 
Corps. So thanks for coming in to visit with us today. Remember 
and recall when you are looking at things, if there is other 
things we need to know about, give us a call and let us know 
about them, all right? Anything else?
    We are adjourned.

    [Answers to submitted questions follow:]
    
    GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT

                     DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

                                            Tuesday, April 16, 2024

                                WITNESS

HON. DENIS R. McDONOUGH, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
    Mr. Carter. Well, welcome, Mr. Secretary. Good morning. 
Glad to have you.
    I am looking forward to this conversation. We appreciate 
your leadership in the Department and your efforts in 
supporting our veterans.
    More than any other Federal department, the VA recognizes, 
supports, cares for, and lays to rest our Nation's veterans. We 
are in the saddle to build a budget that will back those who 
put us first. I understand the great opportunity this is, and I 
have nearly 65,000 veterans in my community who I hear from on 
a regular basis. And so I truly appreciate you.
    This subcommittee continues to support VA, DoD, electronic 
health records management system. I was disappointed to see 
that your request is a 50 percent cut from fiscal year 2024 and 
does not include any future performance. VA must make this 
system work for providers and veterans in a timely manner, 
while holding Oracle and Cerner to their commitments.
    Many veterans face unique health challenges, and we owe it 
to them to provide the best health care options, whether that 
be at the VA medical center or going into the community. This 
committee, as always, will continue to fully fund VA medical 
care, and we need to make absolutely certain that VA's fiscal 
year 2025 budget request fully funds veterans' medical health 
care needs.
    While every issue that is facing the agency does not reduce 
down to spending, we must do our due diligence to ensure we 
fully fund veterans' programs in a bipartisan and financially 
responsible manner.
    I would like now to yield time to Ms. Wasserman Schultz, my 
good friend and counterpart on this committee, as our Ranking 
Member, for her comments.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I wish 
your throat the opportunity to feel better.
    Mr. Carter. Oh, it will be back. I am happy to be able to 
talk.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And thank you for yielding.
    And, Mr. Secretary, it is good to see you. I just want to 
say, because I have been in this role, either one of our roles, 
since 2014, and I have appreciated the opportunity to work with 
the most communicative, open, collaborative VA secretary that 
we have had during my tenure. We have had an opportunity to 
work together before, either one of these roles. But especially 
because you are, I think, a secretary who has not served in the 
military, one of the first not to, the way in which you have 
gone about really, as you usually do, granularly understanding 
the needs of our veterans, the top-to-bottom approach you have 
taken to the Department, the really remarkable way that you 
have made decisions, so I just appreciate the opportunity to 
have been working with you.
    In our fiscal year 2025 budget request for your department, 
for the Department of the VA, includes $337 billion. And in 
addition, will fully utilize the $24\1/2\ billion provided for 
the Toxic Exposures Fund in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. And 
that funding will support the Department's mission to provide 
world class health care and benefits to our veterans.
    We have historically expanded health care and benefits to 
veterans exposed to toxins during their time in service through 
the passage of the PACT Act. And the Department is surpassing 
expectations in its implementation. More than 1.3 million PACT 
Act related claims have been received, and over 1.1 million 
have been completed. I just want to let that sink in, 1.3 
million received and 1.1 million completed.
    Just last month, VA announced that all veterans who are 
exposed to toxins or other hazards while serving in the 
military are eligible to enroll directly in VA health care 
without first applying for benefits. This is years earlier than 
required by the PACT Act.
    Additionally, VA is ending its discriminatory IVF policy, 
in vitro fertilization, by expanding services to eligible 
veterans, regardless of marital status or sexual orientation, 
and will allow for donated eggs and sperm. This is long 
overdue. I applaud VA for finally taking this important step to 
help veterans start or grow their families. I have worked on 
this issue for many, many years, proposed multiple variations 
of equitable policy, and we are finally on our way.
    2023 was the 100th anniversary of providing health care to 
women veterans, which is the largest growing group of veterans. 
Not just providing access but continuing to expand access to 
gender-specific care is vital to ensure that we are fully 
providing the health care that veterans want and deserve. Women 
are serving this country right next to men, and it is a shame 
how hard we have to fight to provide the necessary resources to 
support gender-specific care year after year.
    VA is continuing to build new state of the art medical 
centers and continuing to modernize and improve current 
facilities. Quality infrastructure is the bedrock to providing 
care to veterans and it must be maintained. We cannot provide 
the necessary care to veterans if buildings are crumbling 
around them. With an estimated capital funding requirement of 
over $160 billion, we have a long way to go.
    VA is on the cutting edge of research, and I am proud to 
say that it will be eliminating the use of research on animals 
within the next two years. Thanks to Judge Carter and our 
counterparts in the Senate working together, we are pushing VA 
to find other scientific methods to conduct this vital 
research. I am especially proud of this. I have been pushing 
for years alongside the Chairman, with his support, to 
eliminate harmful testing on animals, and we were able to come 
to a bipartisan, bicameral agreement in conference last year to 
make this happen.
    The Department of Veterans Affairs is doing incredible 
things for veterans, and we want to make sure that it is able 
to continue to do so. But today, we are essentially covering 
two complete health care systems, the one that we are working 
to expand to make sure all veterans receive the best care by 
the best providers who know how to care for veterans and who 
culturally understand their patients, and the one in the 
community who we are trying to support to fill the gap in 
service for veterans so we can ensure we keep our promise to 
always care for those who sacrifice so much for us. But since 
the passage of the MISSION Act and coupled with dramatic 
impacts from the pandemic that have reverberated, I am worried 
at how much we are relying on the community. Medical community 
care continues to exponentially grow year after year and is 
becoming unsustainable, as we predicted it would. I do not want 
to be over-relying on community care at the expense of 
providing the high quality care and service within VA's 
facilities. Especially with the record hiring the Department 
has done this past year, we should have the capacity within the 
system to do more for veterans. I worry that we are not doing 
enough to show veterans why they should get their care within 
VA, since VA is willing and able to provide it. And we have 
talked about that, and I appreciate it. And especially if VA 
can provide that care better and faster than in the community 
in some circumstances, even if the veteran is eligible for 
community care.
    What has been clear, I think, to all of us is that the 
majority of veterans prefer to receive their care at the VA, 
because this is where they can get care in an environment that 
understands their unique needs. So today's hearing is vitally 
important. Without a third budget category, VA continues to 
compete for scarce resources along with the other domestic 
funding bills.
    Mr. Secretary, once again, I support your request to break 
out medical care as a third budget category, and I urge my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join us in doing 
the same.
    The intensity and reliance on the VA health care system, 
coupled with medical inflation, is consistently driving the 
ever-growing funding requirements of VA medical care. The third 
budget category will ensure that funding for veterans' health 
care will always be taken care of so veteran health care is not 
pitted against other non-Defense discretionary programs, which, 
because this subcommittee unfortunately often is looked at as a 
redheaded stepchild, it is really essential that we make sure 
that we do all we can structurally to help ensure that veterans 
get the care they need.
    So this year, we are working within the tight confines of 
the Fiscal Responsibility Act. It is especially important to 
make every dollar count for our veterans.
    And with that, I look forward to your testimony, Mr. 
Secretary. Thank you so much. And I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You are welcome.
    Mr. Carter. I would like to now recognize Chairman Cole for 
his opening comment.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, 
Chairman Carter, and my good friend, Ranking Member Wasserman 
Schultz.
    Mr. Secretary, welcome. I am delighted to have you here. 
This is my first MilCon VA Subcommittee meeting as chairman of 
the full committee, and it is only fitting that it is focused 
on funding for the VA. Just as our Nation's veterans answered 
the call of duty, so must we on the Appropriations Committee 
meet our constitutional obligations to those that have served 
the country.
    As we start the fiscal year 2025 process, my priorities 
remain focused on our national security and those that support 
a strong national defense. I take President Reagan's 
perspective that we must ensure peace through strength and 
provide the necessary resources to increase our military 
capabilities.
    On our own turf here at home, it is clear we have an 
ongoing national security crisis at the southern border that 
must be addressed.
    And then lastly, but certainly not least, we must take care 
of those who served our country in uniform. Defense, Homeland 
Security, and Veterans are all critical priorities. And working 
with our subcommittee chairs, these objectives will be 
reflected in this year's bills.
    My grandfather and uncle were both career Naval officers, 
or career Naval personnel. My grandfather was an officer. My 
uncle that I am named for was a noncommissioned officer. He was 
also a Battan Death March survivor and Japanese prisoner of 
war. My brother and father both served in the United States Air 
Force. My father served 20 years, and then 20 years as a 
civilian defense worker at Tinker Air Force Base. My brother 
followed a similar pattern. So we know how important as a 
family it is to ensure that veterans have the care that they 
have earned and deserve.
    That personal understanding, along with years of work on 
the Appropriations Committee, have taught me the importance of 
the mission before us. I thank each of you on this subcommittee 
for your commitment to providing adequate resources for the men 
and women who have put their lives on the line for freedom.
    My home State of Oklahoma is a veteran-heavy State. We have 
a variety of facilities and services that our veterans rely on 
every day. The Fourth District alone has over 73,000 veterans. 
And it is clear, health needs of that population are only 
growing. We must prioritize funding to address those rising 
costs.
    As you know, the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center is a 
leading regional provider. That facility has been critical in 
implementing the PACT Act. And I am happy to hear that the 
facility has spearheaded those efforts and implementation in a 
successful manner so far. The example of success is what we all 
want to build on.
    Today's hearing will help us assess how we shape the VA's 
budget and explore avenues to better support our veterans. 
Given the history of bipartisanship on this particular 
subcommittee, there are certainly common interests shared by 
members on both sides of the aisle. As we begin this year's 
appropriations process, I look forward to working with each of 
you to support our veterans and fund the important initiatives 
at the Department.
    Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Chairman.
    Let me now recognize Ranking Member DeLauro for her opening 
statement.
    Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you 
and Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz for holding the hearing 
this morning. And I want to give a warm welcome to Secretary 
McDonough, say thank you to you for appearing before this 
subcommittee today.
    I have said this to each of our secretaries who have come 
forward in the last couple of weeks in these hearings, that I 
just quote to you Shirley Chisholm, the first African American 
woman who served in the House of Representatives, and her 
comments were that public service is the rent you pay for space 
on this earth. And, Secretary McDonough, you have paid that 
rent over and over and over again, and we are so grateful to 
you. We thank you for your leadership to our Nation.
    Upholding our commitments to the Nation's heroes is a 
critical mission. Your stewardship of the Department of 
Veterans Affairs helped ensure that service members and their 
families are receiving the care and the support they need and 
they deserve.
    In the first bipartisan funding package for fiscal year 
2024, I am proud that we supported our veterans with 
investments in health care, including investments that advance 
women's health, mental health, and homelessness assistance. We 
provided $121 billion for VA medical care. We protected funding 
for women's health care, all while defeating attempts to 
restrict women's access to abortion. We beat back poison pill 
riders that sought to politicize the VA. And we increased 
funding for medical and prosthetic research, VA construction 
programs, and construction grants for State extended care 
facilities. I am proud that we secured $153 million for major 
construction funding at the West Haven VA Medical Center for a 
new surgical and clinical space tower, as well as for 
renovation and demolition projects. And I am so grateful to you 
for coming to visit the West Haven VA and hope that you will 
come back.
    Furthermore, we boosted funding for the Veterans Benefits 
Administration as a direct result of the PACT Act, to support 
the more than one million claims coming in, and almost 900,000 
total PACT Act claims approved.
    Looking at the President's request for 2025, I am pleased 
to see funding to expand child care benefits, provide for 
clinical equipment needs, and boost capacity among women's 
health personnel.
    More women are choosing VA for their health care than ever 
before. And the population of women veterans is the fastest 
growing demographic in the VA. We must ensure the Department is 
equipped to address the need for trained primary care, as well 
as gynecology and obstetrics work for us.
    And I am so glad to see last month's announcement that the 
VA will make millions of veterans eligible for health care 
years earlier than required by the PACT Act, opening enrollment 
to veterans exposed to toxins or other hazards during their 
military service.
    Serving in our Nation's armed forces is a selfless and 
patriotic decision to defend America's freedom. And we need to 
do everything we can to ensure that retired service members are 
given the dignity, the respect, and the support they deserve.
    I thank you for all that you and the VA work force do 
towards those ends, look forward to discussing in this hearing 
what we can do to support the VA in its mission of serving 
America's heroes.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. DeLauro.
    OK, we are ready for you to give us your summary of what 
you have put together. We would appreciate it if you would try 
to limit it to five minutes. We will give you some slack if we 
have to.
    Go ahead, go ahead.
STATEMENT OF HON. DENIS R. McDONOUGH, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF 
            VETERANS AFFAIRS
    Secretary McDonough. Chairman Carter, Chairman Cole, 
Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, Ranking Member DeLauro, 
distinguished members of the committee, thanks so much for the 
opportunity to testify today.
    Despite serious injuries from an Army training accident, 
Bob Brownridge remains a very active 75 year old. He swims 
1,000 yards a day, he competes in the Senior Olympics. Because 
he is a dual citizen and lives just across the border in 
Ontario, Bob has access to health care in Canada and in the 
United States. But Bob chooses to drive 11 hours to the 
Philadelphia and Wilmington VA Medical Centers for his care.
    While in the pool late last year, Bob experienced a minor 
cardiac event, and he learned from his local ER that he needed 
a series of heart surgeries. There is no question where Bob 
wanted to go to the VA team that he trusts. Bob says, ``What VA 
Nurse Michelle Bennett went out and did for us is just awesome. 
And Dr. Aymen Alrez, well, he saved my life. Nowhere in the 
civilian world would I get anything approaching the treatment 
and coordination that I experience every time I am at the VA.'' 
In fact, Bob says that his wife, Elaine, who retired from a 45-
year nursing career, is constantly amazed at the attention and 
the treatment he gets.
    We owe vets like Bob, and all vets, including the vets on 
this committee, our very best, and we are fighting like hell to 
give them exactly that, delivering more care and more benefits 
to more vets than at any time in our Nation's history.
    Over the course of the last year, we enrolled 400,000 new 
vets in VA. That's a 30 percent increase over the previous 
year, and an increase in each of the 50 States. Six point five 
million vet patients had over 118 million clinical visits, 47 
million in the community, 42 million in person at VA, and 29 
million via VA Telehealth. That last data point bears 
repeating. Millions of vets use VA Telehealth.
    Now, on to benefits. We decided over 1.9 million claims, 
shattering the previous year's record by 16 percent. You have 
all heard, we have all heard vets' justifiable frustrations 
with C&P exams. But last year, we processed 2.4 million C&P 
exams, a record by nearly 30 percent, and took an average of 
just 31 days to complete them. In total, we delivered $163 
billion in earned benefits to over 6 million veterans and 
survivors, another record.
    And the PACT Act has opened the door to millions of toxic 
exposed veterans and their survivors, bringing generations of 
new vets to VA health care, and expanding benefits for millions 
more. The PACT Act is also delivering additional benefits for 
vets, the GI Bill, VR&E, home ownership, survivors' pensions, 
and so much more, benefits that not only improve veterans' 
lives but also strengthen the American economy.
    We still have a lot of work to do. The President's proposed 
budget fully funds VA so we can continue doing that important 
work. Work is also about preventing veteran suicide, ending 
veteran homelessness, supporting health care for women vets, 
modernizing IT, processing benefits, and honoring vets with 
eternal resting places. No single investment is more critical 
to veterans we serve, and VA's future, than the people we hire 
and we retain.
    Team mates like Richard Saver, a food service worker at the 
VA in Asheville. A proud Marine, he likes coming to work every 
day to serve his fellow vets. That's the kind of deep devotion 
that characterizes VA's personnel. Richard says he is grateful 
for the critical skills incentive he received, a CSI. He spent 
years saving up for a home and, at 65 years old, the CSI has 
given him hope that he might be able to own a home before 
retiring from VA. He says that critical skills incentive, which 
you all made possible in the PACT Act, was life changing.
    The work of caring for the brave men and women who fight 
our wars and their families, survivors and caregivers, is in 
full swing and continues to grow. The MISSION Act, COVID, and 
the PACT Act all enacted or all experienced in just the last 6 
years have changed the American health care landscape and the 
statutory basis for the work we do at VA. Any one of them on 
their own would lead to monumental change for VA. Together, 
they represent a seismic shift in the way veterans receive care 
and benefits. They have changed the way we do business, 
creating enormous opportunities for veterans and for VA.
    And right now, we are at a critical moment for shaping and 
securing the future of veteran health care in America. So we 
will work to reliably offer a VA care option to every veteran, 
even vets who qualify for community care under the MISSION Act. 
We want to bring as many veterans as possible into our care, 
because study after study shows that vets do better at VA. And 
we've made considerable progress. Whether in person via 
Telehealth, in the community, in our community living centers, 
mobile medical units, or elsewhere, vets can access VA care at 
every turn.
    What we do this year and over the next several years, 
building on the generosity of this committee and of the 
Congress in general, and the innovative work of VA's workforce, 
the best workforce in the Federal Government, will determine 
what vets can expect from VA and how we deliver that high 
standard of care well into the future. This budget is the next 
step to continue delivering more care, more benefits to more 
vets than ever, and for generations to come.
    So we look forward to collaborating even more closely and 
effectively with you, to building on what's working, and being 
candid about and fixing what's not.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look very much forward to your 
questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
    GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT
    
    Mr. Carter. Thank you. I remind our members that we will 
follow our usual hearing procedures and we will begin.
    I hate to beat a horse, but I have to go back to something 
I started working on back in 2004, OK?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Carter. VA must make electronic health records systems 
work for providers and veterans. We are encouraged by the VA's 
rollout in March at Lowell, and I have heard it has been 
successful so far.
    The VA's budget request of $894 million for electronic 
records is a cut of approximately 50 percent. Assuming Lowell 
will continue to be successful in restart developments at VA 
sites in other places, how will the proceeds cut impact future 
deployments? That is very important. Are there more resources 
needed? And if so, give us an idea of what you're talking 
about.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, Chairman, thanks very much, and 
we appreciate how hard you have pushed on this since 2004. I 
just want to underscore one more time how much we agree with 
you that we need an enterprise medical record for a single VA-
wide system that communicates effectively with the Department 
of Defense. This is in the veterans' interest for a wide 
variety of reasons.
    By the same token, we have to get it right before leaving 
the current posture of reset. We are committed to this record. 
We are not going to stay in reset forever. I anticipate by the 
end of this fiscal year, we will be in--before the end of this 
fiscal year, we will be in serious discussions about going live 
more broadly.
    Now, when we do that, we will use prior year funding. We 
have prior year funding available to us. It is 3-year money 
that you made available to us here. So that 50 percent 
reduction you see reflected in the discretionary budget before 
you will not impact our ability to move forward. Not least 
because in addition to the prior year funding, we have made a 
series of investments in the next sets of go-live facilities to 
prepare those facilities for the eventual go live.
    So we do not need additional funding above what we request 
in the budget. We have right sized our eyes and our stomach in 
this program, having learned very hard lessons over the course 
of the last almost four years of deployment of the new system. 
And a big part of that is keeping our partner, Oracle Cerner, 
accountable to what they promise us. Using you all's help, your 
all's oversight, we have been able to do that, and we will stay 
on forward lean on that.
    Mr. Carter. Do you have a new date on how Lowell rollout is 
going and what lessons were learned from the prior deployments 
of the system that will improve Lowell?
    Secretary McDonough. We are so far, I think, pleased with 
progress at the Federal Health Care Center in Chicago. The one 
measure of success there is the speed with which we've returned 
to a higher level of predeployment appointments for veterans. 
So overall, that deployment has been on the high level of 
expectations.
    It is still early. If we had had this conversation about 
Columbus, which was the fifth go-live site, at this point, we 
might have said the same things, meaning that the deployment 
was going relatively well at that point, at this commensurate 
point in Columbus as well. So we want to take this very 
carefully.
    Nevertheless, so far, very positive in Lovell. One of the 
big takeaways is that the increased personnel on site and the 
increased at-the-elbow presence for the training at those 
facilities made a considerable difference. That was, as I think 
we have all discussed in other settings, not entirely the case 
in the first five go-live sites, for a lot of different 
reasons, including for example the pandemic.
    Lastly, Lovell did roll out at the same time as we are 
experiencing challenges associated with Change Healthcare and 
the ransomware attack at Change Healthcare. There are still 
challenges with the United Health Group. We had a very serious 
meeting with them just last night about that. And so it is hard 
to discern, you know, some of our concerns about, for example, 
the pharmacy function in our record and how much of that is a 
reflection of Change Healthcare and the interoperability of 
that system with ours now, and how much of that is the new 
system.
    But we will stay on top of this, Judge. Let me just 
reiterate one more time, we are committed to this. We see this 
as in the veterans' interest. But this only works if we have 
the full attention of the contractor and we have the buy-in of 
our workforce, and we are working really hard to get that trust 
back from our workforce because, frankly, in the first five 
sites, we did not do a good enough job of that.
    Mr. Carter. Let me know if we can help.
    Secretary McDonough. You have been great so far, and you 
have been very generous, not only with EHRM, but----
    Mr. Carter. You get some people's attention, we can step on 
their air hose.
    OK, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Note to self, do not make Judge 
Carter mad. I do not want anyone stepping on my air hose.
    OK. As I mentioned, Mr. Secretary, in my opening remarks, a 
big part of your budget hinges on being able to bring more 
veterans in to VA for care. We are essentially supporting two 
systems. It is not sustainable. We have said since the debate 
over the MISSION Act that it was not going to be sustainable 
and that the cost of community care was going to chew up the 
care that we have to provide for the VA. And we have challenges 
with the rest of the nondiscretionary funding for all the other 
bills. So community care is not only growing, but you also had 
a record amount of hiring in VA this past year which, you know, 
intuitively means that you should be able to be serving more 
veterans.
    So how--what is your plan to bring veterans back into the 
VA for care? And it is not that they are leaving because they 
want to. It is just that that option is available. I mean, if 
changes are not made, are there more drastic changes at the VA 
that are necessary, like tightening the access standards for 
community care? It is especially frustrating that we are at 
times sending veterans out into the community when the private 
sector does not get them care any faster. And that is important 
for people on this committee to understand. The purpose of the 
MISSION Act was to get veterans care more quickly than we were 
able to get them care at the VA, both in terms of time and 
distance. And the community care is often taking as long if not 
longer.
    So how much risk are you assuming in your budget? And I 
have some other questions related to this as well.
    Secretary McDonough. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, thanks very 
much for the question. I think your characterization that we 
are kind of servicing two separate systems is correct. And 
there are certain inefficiencies built into that. And we are 
actually robbed of certain kind of economies of scale as a 
result as well, one from the other.
    But I think it is important to underscore that trust 
ratings in the system, notwithstanding the difficult 
challenges, are at historic highs, and we are really proud 
about that. Nevertheless, we do think that focusing on the 
highest quality outcomes for veterans, which inevitably are in 
the VA direct care system, will get us on the right path. The 
question is, how do we do that?
    There are, I think, reasonable steps that we can and should 
take to reflect the current way health care is delivered. For 
example, we think it is time to look at the access standard as 
it relates to accounting for Telehealth. And so we will be in 
touch with the committee on that over the course of the coming 
weeks and months.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So the potential for Telehealth to 
count as care in the VA?
    Secretary McDonough. Correct. Because what we are 
experiencing is veterans who get referred out are oftentimes 
referred out to Telehealth in any case. OK?
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK.
    Secretary McDonough. And so--and, by the way, veterans need 
not accept Telehealth. But many veterans are choosing 
Telehealth, including in the VA system.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So if you have a chance to get them 
Telehealth at the VA and it counts as within the standard of 
time frame and their needs, I mean and the distance, obviously, 
because that is not an issue, then----
    Secretary McDonough. And it continues to score as highly as 
it does on the trust scores as it is now, we think that's a 
win-win for veterans.
    Secondly, you are right that we should see an increase in 
productivity and an increase in the number of veterans coming 
into the direct care system more quickly because of the record 
hiring year. So we tested that between October and February. We 
saw 25,000 more new patients in that window, that is an 11 
percent increase, than in the same window preceding year. 
Eighty-one percent of VA sites saw more new patients in that 
window. As a result, 14 percent fewer new patients waited for 
appointments in the community.
    We did that by offering more convenient and accessible care 
options for vets, evening appointments, weekend appointments, 
and we are working to sustain those options now in light of the 
fact that we have the clinicians that we hired. And, by the 
way, historic highs in terms of retention. Quit rates are down, 
retention is sticker, partly because of the critical skills 
incentives and other pay incentives that you gave us over the 
course of the last year and a half. Not only gave us, but then 
also funded us to implement.
    The third issue is what I was saying earlier, which is we 
think it is important that the veteran have an apple to the 
apple every time to compare every time we refer that veteran 
into the community. In many of your states, Texas, Oklahoma, 
Florida, Georgia--in particular Georgia and Nevada I would 
highlight--Georgia is part of VISN 7. VISN 7, 70 percent of 
veterans are qualified for a referral based on drive time alone 
in the first instance, right out of the box, because of drive 
time. The available options for them in the private sector are 
no more accessible than the VA options. And so we have to make 
sure that the vet--we can get the vet an apple to an apple, to 
compare drive times and compare wait times so that they have 
that basis on which to make those decisions.
    We think, when presented with that option, as you suggested 
in your question, the vet is going to choose not a hundred 
percent of the time with VA, but we think that we are going to 
be more competitive there because, in that transparent 
offering, I think the veteran will come to understand lastly--
you all understand this better than I do because it is your 
districts and your States--I think the states and districts and 
the offerings of health care have fundamentally changed as a 
result of the pandemic. There are fewer providers in the 
private sector. Especially in rural settings, it is a 
particular challenge.
    Inasmuch as veterans are more likely to be in rural 
settings, we feel very strongly that we have to make sure that 
we are giving them real options in the VA system in rural 
settings.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield 
back.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Cole.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, you know, I think probably one of the things 
that Congress was proudest of last session was the PACT Act 
and----
    Secretary McDonough. You should be.
    The Chairman [continuing]. it was a great bipartisan 
victory. But obviously, when you launch a program of that scale 
and size, there are going to be both challenges and successes. 
So I would like just a quick assessment from your point of view 
of where we are at in terms of the implementation, what are the 
things you think we have done successfully, and where do we 
have challenges.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, thanks very much. First of all, I 
thank you very much for the law. I think it is a really 
important law, and I think claims on the high end of what we 
had hoped. Interestingly, the real question for us is when do 
we peak on the inventory, because the inventory is directly, 
obviously, correlated to backlog. Backlog is any claim that 
sits for more than 125 days without the decision being--any 
part of the--the entirety of the decision being afforded to the 
veteran.
    We are actually beating our assessment on the backlog and 
on the inventory. That is because we think there was more 
aggressive enrollment, in submission of claims last summer. So 
what we thought was going to be a series of claims spread out 
over the course of this calendar year actually got compressed. 
And because we have been able to hire, another positive of the 
PACT Act, hire more quickly, those numbers are coming down 
faster. That is a positive. More enrollees, also a positive.
    But to be honest, I think the enrollees are on the low side 
of what we might have expected. We will see over the course of 
this year, because we are biasing toward, and there is some 
risk in this, we are biasing toward aggressive outreach.
    Each of you highlighted in the opening the fact that we 
compressed and brought forward eligibility for enrollment for 
all the veterans, shrinking what was a nine-year period into 
one, basically, the President making available on March 5 
enrollment for every veteran, in effect, envisioned in the PACT 
Act. We have bias toward reaching out to them. We have 550 
events to reach them in each of your states, in each of your 
districts already scheduled for this calendar year. That number 
will grow. The risk there is that we over-enroll veterans. If 
that is the case, then we may be coming back here to talk to 
you about a second bite. But as you saw, we did not ask for a 
second bite in the budget.
    So in outreach and enrollment, a positive. Even if 
enrollment to date is on the low end of expected.
    Lastly, a particular challenge for our Vietnam vets, 
remember that the PACT Act said if you're a Vietnam vet exposed 
to Agent Orange, today you have hypertension, that is now--your 
hypertension is connected to your service. The ratings are 
coming back lower, in many cases zero percent service 
connected. Zero percent is not meaningless. In fact, it is 
meaningful for a lot of reasons. But it is surprising on the 
down side for veterans.
    Lastly, one more positive as it relates to claims. There is 
a 17 percent increase in the number of veterans 100 percent 
service connected. Right? So that is going to mean things like 
increased access to dental care. So that is a real challenge 
for us, getting more dental beds, more dental chairs, more 
dentists. And, throughout the course of this year, 350,000 new 
veterans with service connection. So they had none before and 
they now have service connection. That is really important, 
both for benefits in the long term and ultimately access to 
care. And because of what we were able to establish in this 
year's Suicide Prevention Report, a correlation between reduced 
suicidality and a relationship with VBA. That is ultimately in 
the net interest of vets as well.
    So those are some of the positives. The real challenge is, 
as we get more vets into our care, are we in a position to take 
care of them? So far, the answer to that is, yes. And we are 
going to stay on top of that and make sure that we are candid 
with you about it.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much. I don't have a lot of 
time left. But I noticed your construction budget is $2 \1/2\ 
billion. It is about a billion dollars higher than last year. 
Can you give us a quick summary of the differences, the reasons 
for the increases, where your emphasis is?
    And I will be shamelessly parochial. Ms. Bice and I, she 
actually represents the Oklahoma City Veterans Center, and I 
have a lot of constituents that go there. And so we are 
particularly interested in that facility and how we're coming 
there. I know we've got some new expansions under way.
    Secretary McDonough. We are really proud of that facility. 
I think the director there, Wade Vlosich, is one of our finest. 
And he is excellent, and in fact just taken a really hard 
assignment outside of Oklahoma City to help us with a big 
challenge that we have had because we have such great respect 
for him.
    We are in the middle of a $63 million expansion of the 
operating room and the surgical ICU at Oklahoma City. It is a 
long time coming because of some challenges that we have had 
there. Frankly, we got to the bottom of those, and we are proud 
of that. And that money is now in the system.
    Also in Oklahoma, we just purchased in December of 2022 a 
facility, a prior hospital in Norman. Our plans are under way 
to convert that to a residential treatment facility for 
substance use disorder and for residential mental health care. 
So that is very positive.
    And what you see also in Oklahoma City is a reflection of 
what you see in the budget, meaning we are, notwithstanding the 
fact to have the demand to have new hospitals. San Antonio is a 
perfect example. Miami has major challenges. Obviously, so does 
West Haven.
    Notwithstanding the need to have major new hospitals, the 
future in VA health care, as in many health care systems, is 
outpatient care. So we are, in Oklahoma City and across the 
system, afforded by this budget, investing aggressively in new 
leasing opportunities for increased access to outpatient care. 
An example of that is activations in this new budget. So that 
is opening new facilities.
    Activations account for $623 million, which is an increase 
of almost 60 percent over the year prior. That is because so 
many new facilities, like a big new facility north of Mr. 
Rutherford's district, but also here in Fredericksburg, VA, 
which will be the biggest CBOC in the entire country, is 
opening this year. So those activations are expensive, the 
staffing of them is really important. But those reflect a VA 
closer to where veterans are, in outpatient settings, less 
reliant on the big hospitals that really were the basis for the 
VA system going back to the post World War II era.
    The Chairman. Thank you very much.
    And thank you for your generosity with the time, Mr. 
Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Absolutely.
    Ms. DeLauro.
    Ms. DeLauro. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, recently the Department announced in vitro 
fertilization coverage would be provided to eligible unmarried 
veterans and eligible veterans in same sex marriages. 
Additionally, VA will now allow veterans who are unable to 
produce their own eggs or sperm due to service-connected 
injuries and health conditions to utilize donated gametes.
    While this is significant improvement over past policy, I 
am concerned about those veterans who may not meet the service 
connection requirement, yet they struggle with infertility. 
With the average cost of IVF being upwards of $20,000, for 
veteran families that need IVF to build their family but do not 
have a service-connected injury, that opportunity may be out of 
reach.
    Why does the VA require veterans to demonstrate that their 
infertility is service connected? Does the VA require that of 
any other health care besides dental care?
    Secretary McDonough. I will double check on the last 
specific question. I think it is dental care and IVF. But there 
may be others. And I will come back to you, if I can take that 
one for the record.
    There are two, really two challenges to the administration 
of IVF outside the updated policy that this committee has been 
so helpful in ensuring that we have a foothold for. The first 
is the ability to provide care to the non-veteran partner in 
the event that the family is looking for that care. We would 
need independent authorization for that. Your bill, this bill, 
has generally provided us that.
    Secondly, it is a cost issue. It may be that removing the 
service connection increases costs as much as two orders of 
magnitude, which is obviously, notwithstanding of the very 
generous funding we get from you and the significantly large 
budget that you afford VA, you know, growing the program at 
that rate would be a substantial expansion and a costly one.
    So those are the two issues. Support to the non-veteran's 
partner, spouse, partner, and the cost of the expansion outside 
the service connection.
    Ms. DeLauro. And I would appreciate your looking into 
that----
    Secretary McDonough. I will. And you got that, you got my 
commitment on that.
    Ms. DeLauro. Yes, right, because that seems to--anyway.
    Secretary McDonough. Fair enough. Yes.
    Ms. DeLauro. Cost issues.
    Let me ask you, this is PACT Act, and I will just say this. 
I did a tele-town hall a few weeks ago. This was in the Third 
District in Connecticut, and it was just about the PACT Act. 
And in the midst of that, they do some polling questions. And 
one of the questions was, how much do you know about the PACT 
Act? And what we found is, with that universe, and maybe it is 
a small number, but 63 percent of the people who were on that 
call did not know anything about the PACT Act.
    So I am going to make it, you know, my business in terms of 
our community, our State, to get that word out. But I do not 
know if that is being experienced in other parts of the country 
as well as the knowledge about the PACT Act. It has been, 
overall, I believe a success. And if you could speak about 
that?
    You know, expanding it, what are the problems with 
implementing it, and how could we best support? I understand 
funding. Do you foresee that--does the fiscal year 2025 
budget--I think I heard you say that it does not cover the PACT 
Act expansion. And do you foresee needing additional funds, 
given what happened in March, et cetera, and some of the other 
areas, and reaching out to those who do not now know about the 
PACT Act.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, so I am surprised at that high 
number. I am not surprised about the content----
    Ms. DeLauro. I was, too.
    Secretary McDonough. I am not surprised about the idea, but 
I am surprised about the high number. But this is why we 
continue to do aggressive, in-person outreach.
    As I said, we already have for this calendar year, the rest 
of this calendar year, 550 events scheduled. And these events 
are--we have a belief at VA that we should be making sure our 
programs and our outreach fits into veterans' lives, rather 
than asking veterans to change their lives to fit into our 
programs.
    So for the first time, starting late last year, we began 
using text communication with veterans who are not currently 
tethered or associated with VA. We are aggressively texting and 
emailing to make sure that veterans know about it.
    But, you know, that is on us. Because like there are 19 
million vets in the country. Our goal is to have a relationship 
with all 19 million vets in the country, rather than the 60 
percent or so that we currently have relationship with.
    Second, the budget, the fiscal year 2025 budget does fund 
PACT Act. It does that because of the TEF, the Toxic Exposure 
Fund, to the tune of about $24.7 billion. It is really 
important. That is all as envisioned in the PACT Act. That is 
all expenditures for toxic exposure care above the baseline of 
fiscal year 2021. We now have methodologies that we have 
briefed to your team, we have briefed to the authorizers, we 
have briefed to the IG, we have briefed to the OMB, 
methodologies for VHA, for VBA, for our Office of General 
Counsel, for our human resource department to make sure--for 
our Office of Information Technology, to make sure that we can 
invest in caring for those veterans.
    Lastly, a couple of challenges that we face is there are 
veterans who feel that they are on the outside of the PACT Act 
looking in. Veterans who deployed to K2, a facility in 
Uzbekistan early in the post-9/11 fight feel like they were 
exposed to wastes there. They so far do not have conditions 
that are covered by the service connection.
    Missileers, so Air Force and Navy personnel who work with 
missiles feel that they have conditions that are not yet 
covered. So a big part of the PACT Act is a new way for us to 
establish new service connection. We're pushing really hard to 
use that because we want to make sure that those vets who feel 
like they're on the outside looking in know that we're working 
really hard to get to them.
    Ms. DeLauro. My time is well over. If we could, I would 
like to get information on the usage of PACT Act by Vietnam 
vets.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Ms. DeLauro. And female veterans to see if they are coming 
forward. Normally, they are pretty reticent about coming 
forward.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. We'll get that.
    Ms. DeLauro. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Rutherford.
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, it is great to see you. I would like to ask 
a little question, kind of parochial to start off. As you know, 
the veteran population in northeast Florida is----
    Secretary McDonough. Exploding.
    Mr. Rutherford. It is growing, surging and while we have 
upgraded our clinic services recently, many of our veterans 
still have to travel for hospital services 2 hours away to 
Gainesville.
    Can you give me any update on the plans to bring a VA 
hospital to northeast Florida?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, thank you very much. And I've 
appreciated how much you've advocated on behalf of this, both 
in our private conversations and your work here on the 
Committee.
    Right now, as we have discussed, the major effort is a 
massive new outpatient clinic on the north side of 
Jacksonville, which we'll cut ribbon on here in about a week 
and a half.
    Mr. Rutherford. We are looking forward to that.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Rutherford. That is a great expansion.
    Secretary McDonough. That expansion we believe will cover 
the 42,000 additional vets who are now enrolled in that 
catchment area for the next couple of years.
    We're working through but do not yet have a Jacksonville 
based hospital plan on what we call our strategic construction 
list, our skip list. But I know this is a priority for you 
because you've continued to raise it with us and we'll look for 
opportunity to do that as we work down this major construction 
budget.
    Mr. Rutherford. Very good. You know, I know the chairman of 
appropriations now, so.
    Well, Mr. Secretary, if I could, you know, in the MISSION 
Act I had a bill that was veterans armed for success.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Rutherford. Which was assisting members and their 
spouses as members would transition out of the military and 
into private industry.
    And Operation New Uniform that runs in Jacksonville does an 
amazing job of placement and training with these veterans who 
are, you know, going through TAPs. My question is this. I know 
the Veteran and Spousal Transition Grant Program came out of 
the MISSION Act and that was the implementation of ONU.
    And they're the model that I really want to see us 
replicate around the country because their success rate is 
truly amazing. I mean, their placements are like over 96 
percent, I think. So we have been waiting now I think two----
    Secretary McDonough. A long
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you. And look, I know some of it is 
COVID and we have had a lot of interruptions in that last two 
years. But first quarter of this year, I think they said that 
it would be available.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. So we published a rule on this 
last July. We received four comments on it. That's now 
sitting--we have respond. We have drafted through responses to 
those comments. This is publicly available information.
    It's now sitting for review at the Office of Information 
and Regulatory Affairs at OMB. So it will come relatively 
quickly. I both don't know how quickly, but I also, if I did 
know, couldn't tell you specifically how quickly it will come.
    But it's in the last steps of review for publication based 
on that rule that we received comment on over the course of the 
last year.
    Mr. Rutherford. And I know some of that was our delay in 
the fiscal 2024 budget, getting the money for the grants.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, I think you're being very 
generous. I think the delay on this is ours, but we're going to 
get this out the door and we're going to get it out with 
dispatch and I hope that's very, very soon.
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you. Thank you very much. Last, I 
would like to ask very quickly about the PAWS Program versus 
the model that is normally run by groups like K9s for Warriors, 
which is a great group.
    And I know the model is being--are they reporting out the 
findings of the beta test?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. Each of the pilot sites is now 
active. The next step will be once they have sufficient data 
from the five pilot sites to report to us.
    I think as you and I have discussed, I think that would be 
the moment at which, when we have those reports back, for us to 
make some assessments, both the usefulness of those five pilot 
sites and then the usefulness of those five pilot sites as 
against known high performing facilities like K9s for Warriors, 
which I've heard an awful lot about myself.
    Mr. Rutherford. So would it be, Mr. Secretary, would it be 
possible to do a comparison of the statistical information that 
we have gathered at K9s for Warriors once the report comes out 
on PAWS?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. Mindful that I want to commit, 
like I took statistics, but I wasn't that good at them. So I 
want to make sure that I don't commit to something that our 
kind of statisticians and our researchers are going to like, 
say I've committed heresy on.
    But you have my commitment to make sure that we take a look 
at this, both the pilot, but then also the pilot as against 
other proven performers on that and we'll work with you on 
that.
    Mr. Rutherford. Thank you very much. I see my time is up. I 
yield back, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, I 
appreciate the chance to join you in today's hearing. I want to 
express my gratitude to our esteemed witness, Mr. Secretary, 
for your service to our veterans and their families.
    The budget request before us today represents more than 
just a set of numbers and allocations. It reflects our Nation's 
commitment to its veterans. It is a statement of our values and 
our priorities as a society. And it is a testament to our 
unwavering dedication to those who have served.
    Mr. Secretary, the GAO Report from July of 2023, showed 
differences in the initial claims approval rates between black 
and white veterans, with black veterans having the lowest 
approval rate at 61 percent.
    Given these disparities, it is crucial to understand how 
the VA plans to address the racial and ethnic inequalities that 
are highlighted in that report. Through the FY 2024-25 budget 
request, what steps does VA propose to take in order to 
mitigate these disparities and to ensure fair treatment for all 
veterans, irrespective of race or ethnicity?
    Secretary McDonough. Mr. Bishop, thank you very much for 
the question. The first thing we did is we established the 
Office of Equity Assurance in the Veterans Benefits 
Administration.
    The Office of Equity Assurance did an initial study 
paralleling--including some of the findings from the GAO, and 
they came back with our first two actionable items
    One, evidence shows that veterans who apply--who submit a 
claim closer to transition, including during transition, are 
likelier to have a higher service connection rating.
    Secondly, veterans who use Veteran Service Officers to file 
those claims will also have a higher service connection rating. 
So what we're doing in light of those two findings is we are 
increasing our outreach, including through the deployment of 
VSOs during TAP classes.
    But we're increasing our outreach at VA--sorry, at Army, 
all active duty stations across the country during transition, 
to ensure that all veterans, black and white and brown, apply 
during transition and apply using Veteran Service Officers.
    When they do that, the evidence shows that the service 
connections are higher.
    Mr. Bishop. What about those who have already transitioned, 
who are already out, and who now are feeling the residual 
impacts of their service?
    Secretary McDonough. I think it's a really important 
question, and we've bifurcated this question in two ways. One, 
we snapped the chalk line at the PACT Act because that's an 
actionable thing for us.
    Mr. Bishop. And that's been very helpful.
    Secretary McDonough. Right. And we say the PACT Act, which, 
by the way, when you incorporate the force from Vietnam, plus 
the force in all those intervening periods, but also people 
like Mr. Gonzalez who served post 9/11, those have to be like, 
I'm not a demographer and I'm not an historian, but those have 
to be the most diverse forces in the history of the planet, by 
gender and by race.
    So we're making sure snap line is chalk line forward. We're 
saying, let's make sure that we get those people to file claims 
early. The chalk line back, what happened prior that right now 
is the subject of litigation.
    So I'm trying to be really careful about what I say about 
that. But that's also something that we're going to have to 
come to terms with. And the Office of Equity Assurance will 
continue to look at that question too.
    So I don't want to tell you it's tough luck. It's not. But 
I also want to make sure that you understand that we have 
bifurcated this question, which is chalk line back. Let's 
figure out what happened and make that right.
    Chalk line forward. Let's make sure that we use this tool, 
the PACT Act, to make sure that all veterans, including those 
veterans of the most diverse forces in the history of the 
planet, have access to those benefits and have access to that 
care.
    Mr. Bishop. Thank you. My time is about expired, so I will 
yield back. I did have another question.
    Secretary McDonough. Sorry.
    Mr. Bishop. That is OK.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Gonzalez.
    Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you, 
Secretary, for your service to this country.
    As you can tell, you know, we had the overall committee 
chairman and the ranking here. There's a lot going on, on the 
Hill and they were here to grill you, right?
    So for a couple reasons, it shows the importance of 
veterans to us and also the partnership that I think that this 
Committee has worked with you. You know, you and I visited 
Audie Murphy Hospital in San Antonio and one of the things that 
came up is San Antonio is the fastest growing community for 
veterans in the country.
    So I am looking at why, let's see here. So, the Audie 
Murphy hospital in San Antonio is important. I see some funding 
line items in fiscal year 2025 budget to support this. What is 
being done to construct a new hospital, a new state of the art 
hospital in San Antonio?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. Well, thanks very much. And it's 
amazing in San Antonio, the veterans that we have there, the 
expansion that we have there.
    I will say that, reflective of this challenge we have with 
increased access to care, let me just tell you a quick story. 
Which is Julie Flim (phonetic) there. The doctor who's a VAMC 
director, just made a really tough decision last week, hired 
two GI experts. She'd been trying to get them for 3 years.
    And mindful of this challenge that Ms. Wasserman Schultz 
raised, which is how do we make sure that we have the providers 
in house, to make sure that we have the care? She went ahead 
and made that decision to hire those two providers because we 
have a serious demand in San Antonio.
    The other challenge is going to be clinical space. So we 
asked for, and you gave us money in FY 2024 to do an assessment 
of what the future footprint in San Antonio should look like.
    That work is underway, being led by the team in San 
Antonio. When that comes back, then we'll make some decisions 
about where and how, as against the other requirements in the 
country, the other needs in the country, and as against our 
major construction list. But San Antonio is near the top of our 
needs.
    Mr. Gonzales. So when that feasibility study comes back and 
shows that 26 percent of, in the next 15 years, San Antonio or 
South Texas is only going to grow even more, what is the next 
step after that feasibility?
    Secretary McDonough. The next step will then be to take 
that feasibility study and make some decisions.
    Mr. Gonzales. The decision part of it?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Gonzales. Is there a timeframe on that? How about this? 
When is a feasibility study supposed to be completed?
    Secretary McDonough. Well, I anticipate that during the 
course of this fiscal year.
    Mr. Gonzales. This fiscal year?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, because it's this fiscal year's 
money. So we'll make sure that we're keeping an open line with 
you on that.
    Mr. Gonzales. OK, excellent. So that is kind of the front 
end of a veteran's access after they get out.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Gonzales. I want to talk about the back end. Fort Sam 
Houston, the cemetery at Fort Sam Houston is very important to 
San Antonio and South Texas.
    There is not a community that doesn't have a direct 
connection to that. My grandfather is buried there. I will be 
buried there. There is a lot of people in San Antonio. This is 
a priority for many of us.
    I know Henry Cuellar, who also represents a large part of 
San Antonio. We always hear about Fort Sam Houston.
    Your Under Secretary Quinn, visited there with myself. We 
walked through some things. Some of the things that--I am going 
to ask a question here.
    I am also very interested in is, let's see here, how can we 
work together to address improvements for Fort Sam cemetery in 
San Antonio?
    I want to be specific. Like, some of the improvements are 
the gate, the road. We weren't talking about plots. We weren't 
talking about some of the heavy lift stuff of purchasing more 
land. That is all kind of taken care of there.
    It is the fact that Fort Sam has over 5,000 burials a year. 
And the gate is the same gate it is been for 50 years. That 
same road is trash to drive on. These are some of the things I 
am looking at, and I think my colleague, Mr. Cuellar, would 
agree that area needs to be updated.
    Secretary McDonough. Well, we really appreciate that you've 
been in active conversations with Undersecretary Quinn on this. 
We do have, currently, because of your observations, we do have 
active work going on on the roads in the facility.
    I know you and Matt, Undersecretary Quinn have talked about 
the gates. I know that there's an upcoming meeting among you 
guys to work that through, but you're absolutely right that the 
facility is going to need some improvement there. And we want 
to work with you on that.
    Mr. Gonzales. And I definitely want to work on that area. 
We always talk about mental health. We always talk about kind 
of the front end of the veteran process, but at the very end, 
the cemetery piece of it is just so critical to many people's 
closure of it. And that is an area of need. So count me in as a 
partner.
    I am sure this Committee as well is committed to that. So 
thank you again for your service. And Mr. Chairman, I yield 
back.
    Mr. Carter. Ms. Lee.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 
ranking member as well as you, Mr. Secretary, for being here.
    Veterans in southern Nevada and throughout the country 
truly deserve the highest level of care. The efforts that the 
VA has made to expand and improve services has not gone 
unnoticed.
    And in southern Nevada, the veterans I meet with echo this 
appreciation with the progress that has been made, and 
obviously us asking the VA to do more with less resources.
    I want to first associate myself with the questions of 
Ranking Member DeLauro about in-vitro fertilization. You and I 
spoke about it last night or yesterday.
    I wanted to ask you just you say that removing the service 
connection would increase the cost by twofold. What is the 
dollar amount like? Do we know?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. When I said that, I thought to 
myself, I better remember the number. And now I can't. But I 
can get you the number as soon as we can.
    Ms. Lee. Sure. Thanks for that.
    Secretary McDonough. I can dig through my book right now, 
but it would look awkward.
    Ms. Lee. OK. I would appreciate that follow up.
    Secretary McDonough. But we're talking about, in the ones 
of millions right now. So we're talking about if the number, if 
I remember the number, I think we're talking about a couple 
hundred million dollars.
    Ms. Lee. OK.
    Secretary McDonough. But again, let me just make sure that 
I come back to you with the specifics on that.
    Ms. Lee. OK. Speaking of women veterans, we have seen women 
account for 30 percent of the increase of veterans served in 
Nevada.
    This is sort of a niche issue, with respect to the Southern 
Nevada Medical Center, especially women who have been victims 
of MST. There is concern--they keep asking me and advocating 
for a separate women's clinic.
    Again, I understand the cost associated with that, but I 
just want to put a bug in your ear that maybe moving the clinic 
so that these women can have a separate entrance.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Ms. Lee. Right now they are getting mixed in with the 
general population, and most importantly, they need to have a 
safe place to receive care.
    Secretary McDonough. I will take that for action. It's 
absolutely best practice. So I'll make sure that we're doing 
their best.
    Ms. Lee. Thank you. Yes. Right now it is on the third 
floor. They got to go through the whole clinic.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Would gentlewoman yield for a 
second?
    Ms. Lee. Yes.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I just want to also add that that is 
not the case. That is the case in many, sadly----
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. So we're working this.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. It is really important that women 
have separate care in separate centers.
    Secretary McDonough. Agreed. Agreed.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
    Ms. Lee. One issue I have also been following is the VA's 
plan changes to emergency transport reimbursement rates. And I 
agree with the need to reevaluate these. But I am also 
concerned that with the new proposal, the reduction will cut 
too deep, most importantly impacting veterans in rural areas 
who may find themselves without life-saving transportation 
options.
    I was glad to see the VA's recent contracting proposal, 
which allows the contracted rate between a VA initiated 
transport to and from a VA facility. But I hear that only makes 
up a small percentage of transport total transports.
    Can you fill us in on what the VA is doing to deal with 
this solution and the rest of the need?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, I really appreciate the question. 
I've had this ongoing conversation with the Chairman as well, 
and I think I'm OK to say this, Mr. Chairman, but he and I 
talked last Friday, and I think it makes sense for me to sit 
down with the Chairman and with some of the leaders of that 
industry to make sure that we understand from the national 
level what those particular challenges are.
    My hope continues to be that this will be able to be 
resolved at the market level, at the facility level, where 
they're going to have much greater granularity and 
understanding of the individual market, including costs.
    And I'd like to get away from a system where we're paying 
basically by bill on that, which is not in the veterans best 
interest, not in the taxpayers best interest.
    But I think I'm looking forward to that conversation. I 
appreciate the Chairman offering his good offices on that, and 
I appreciate all of you keeping us focused on that.
    Ms. Lee. Thanks. And before I end, one real quick question 
about this new ruling on realtors.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Ms. Lee. And knowing that the VA has a rule prohibiting 
payments for fees and commissions, can you share what the VA is 
doing to determine the implication on veteran borrowers and 
what changes might be required?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, thanks very much. We're working 
with DOJ and with the industry to make sure that no veteran 
using VA Home Loan Program is disadvantaged or overcharged for 
real estate broker commissions.
    We don't believe new legislation is necessary here. While 
the rulemaking process can be quite lengthy, we believe we 
actually have an option to expedite changes in areas where it's 
necessary.
    And we hope that we'll be in a position to move soon on 
that. And we'll work with you guys, obviously before we move. 
So you're not surprised by that.
    So as we consider revisions of policy in light of the 
market developments, we're working through the types of 
guardrails that can help veterans remain competitive in the 
home buying process without jeopardizing their financial 
wellbeing.
    So we think we've got important tools here embedded in the 
existing statutory basis for that program, and we'll be in a 
position to move quickly on that. We're working closely with 
Department of Justice and with other industry leaders. I'll 
make sure following up on your question about the VA real 
estate, the veteran real estate agents that were staying in 
close touch with them as well.
    Ms. Lee. Great. Thank you. I'm over my time.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Franklin.
    Mr. Franklin. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you Secretary McDonough, appreciate your time here 
with us today.
    Secretary McDonough. And nice to see you, sir.
    Mr. Franklin. As one who represents a lot of veterans, as 
we all do in all of our districts, but also as a veteran, there 
is probably nothing in the portfolio stuff I work on that 
matters more to me.
    So thank you again for being here. I want to talk a little 
bit more about PACT and we discussed that it is the largest 
expansion of VA benefits probably in history, I think.
    Is it roughly a million claims or so that have been----
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. 1.3.
    Mr. Franklin. 1.3 and growing. I noticed on your website, I 
think it says right now it is roughly taking 160 days to 
process or process those through to completion. Where is that 
in relation to your target? Where are you on progress in that 
and what is the ultimate goal?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, thanks very much. There's two 
ways to measure this. First is, where we are right now is I 
think we're at--I want to say we're at about 900,000 claims in 
the inventory.
    And of the inventory, about 330,000 are considered 
backlogged. So that means they're over 125 days. Remember that 
any individual claim will have multiple contentions, so it will 
not be considered completed until every contention is resolved, 
even if, let's say there's five contentions, and we resolve 
three, and are even beginning to pay benefits based on those 
three, we will not consider it closed until all five are 
closed.
    Right now, current course and speed, we believe that we 
will be down to a backlog of about 50,000 by December 2025.
    Mr. Franklin. OK.
    Secretary McDonough. That's one way to look at it. The 
other way to look at it is average days to completion, which is 
the number you used. Right now, we're about 17 days faster than 
last year.
    Mr. Franklin. OK.
    Secretary McDonough. So we want to keep bringing that 
number down. Lastly, we also just don't do a great job of 
staying in touch with a veteran such that the veteran, even if 
it's going to be longer number of days, the veteran just needs 
to know that we haven't forgotten.
    Mr. Franklin. Well, and I appreciated you sharing the 
anecdotal stories upfront, and those are great. And I would say 
overall, VA does tremendous work the vast majority of the time, 
but like an air traffic controller, you know, 99.99 percent of 
the time is good enough.
    And, you know, unfortunately, I do have a data point to 
share with you, and I know this isn't necessarily 
representative of the system, but if it's you, it matters.
    And as I've heard before, I don't know if it's true. It 
takes twelve positive touches to overcome one negative. I don't 
know if that's the right number or not, but what I do know is 
veterans talk a lot, probably more than any other group out 
there.
    But I have a constituent had, sadly, Mr. James Conine, who 
made an initial filing of a PACT claim on July 11, 2023. He had 
been diagnosed with a terminal condition at that time was 
receiving private care.
    Unfortunately, 260 days went by without getting his first 
appointment. He was finally granted an appointment and 
unfortunately was not able to make that and died 2 days later.
    So somewhere between the 160 day average and 260 in this 
gentleman's case, to have not received even an appointment, 
that is my understanding. And I could be--that might not be 
accurate, but that's how it has been explained to our office.
    But I am just trying to understand when you have chosen to 
accelerate the rollout timeline and compressing your timeline 
from nine years to one, do you have the adequate staffing to 
take care of these veterans and make sure, assuming that this 
information is accurate, this kind of thing doesn't happen?
    Secretary McDonough. First of all, there's no justification 
for Mr. Conine's the situation that he's experienced or that 
his survivor and his family members are experiencing.
    That's first. Second, you know, we've grown the VBA 
workforce by about 25 percent going back to September 2021, to 
be ready for this significant uptick in claims, and there's two 
challenges to that.
    One is to be ready for it and to make sure that we bring it 
down faster. And I think we are doing that as against our 
assessments. But again, I don't want the assessments or our 
planning to overshadow what is an absolutely unacceptable 
outcome for Mr. Conine.
    But the other challenge is we don't want to have a big 
workforce that doesn't have work to do on the other side of 
that big hump of work. So we're working that through very 
aggressively and that's why the budget envisions an end 
strength at the end of 2025 that's reduced for VBA because we 
will have been through the lion's share of those claims by 
then.
    So again, no acceptable, there's no acceptable 
justification for what happened to Mr. Conine, although I'd 
like to work with you in your office to make sure that we're in 
touch with his family.
    Secondly, we have been getting ready for this and which is 
why we felt good in the decision to compress because it's not 
like the conditions that Mr. Conine has or any of the other 1.3 
million vets who have filed claims went away.
    Those conditions didn't happen or not happen because of the 
PACT Act. Those happened and we got to make sure that and what 
you guys are saying in the law and what we are really happy to 
do is let's make sure we're addressing those with dispatch, 
obviously, and in a high quality manner.
    Mr. Franklin. Very good. Thank you Mr. Secretary and, 
Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
    Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. And Ranking 
Member also. Secretary, sorry about being late. We have, I 
think we had three committee meetings and I was stuck in 
Homeland. I think we know that.
    First of all, thank you for what you and your men and women 
do for the veterans. As you, I think when we spoke earlier, we 
were talking about that, I think Tony Gonzalez and myself 
represent the fastest growing area, the fastest growing State 
when it comes to veterans.
    I know the Waco office and I work more with the San Antonio 
office. I appreciate the work that you all have done to hire 
more people and move some of those claims faster.
    Also, I want to associate myself with Representative 
Gonzalez on the feasibility study on that and look forward to 
working with you all. And also the Fort Sam situation.
    I don't think it takes a lot of money. It's a gate, the 
roads, and whatever you said, quote, we want to work with this, 
with you. Also, let us know what we need to do to help you on 
that.
    Secretary McDonough. You can bank on it.
    Mr. Cuellar. And then finally, the last thing I certainly, 
I think you been to San Antonio. I'm sorry I missed you at that 
time. But if you ever go down the border, let me know. I 
certainly want to invite you there, because the border area, 
Laredo, Corpus, the valley, used to be part of the San Antonio.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Cuellar. And it was very hard for us to go travel, the 
veterans go up there. Once we establish our own area there, 
things got a lot better. And I would ask you, let me know who I 
need to talk to about getting the status of the south Texas 
border area.
    I represent the San Antonio area, but I still represent the 
border area. I would like to follow up on some of, see where we 
are on the services. Again, we have gone a long way. We have 
established clinics in Laredo and McAllen, hired a lot of 
folks.
    We are doing a lot of the work with the private sector. 
Things have gotten a lot better. But I just want to see where 
are we? A snapshot of what we are with the border area on that.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. So I did visit the McAllen 
(inaudible) facility. I think it's a beautiful facility, but 
it's like many of our facilities. Once it's built, it's 
already, or at least it's already too small.
    We're experiencing that in Portland, actually, as well. So 
I think the best way to plug into this is under the MISSION Act 
we had something called the Air Commission.
    The Air Commission was a process by which we had look at 
market by market across the country. What does veteran demand 
look like? What do we expect from that veteran demand over the 
next ten years? And then what is the capacity in each market?
    The last assessment we published in March 2023, along with 
an infrastructure plan that did not end up going anywhere. The 
underlying assessments, though, and we're doing the second 
assessment now, the underlying assessment of that process, will 
help us inform us on decisions like the one Mr. Rutherford 
asked, like the one that you and Mr. Gonzalez are asking about, 
which is, where are the new hospitals? Where do we need new 
hospitals?
    Importantly, the big part of the assessment this time 
around, which, frankly, we did not do a good enough job last 
time around, is not only asking what is the infrastructure 
capability in each of your markets, but what is the staffing 
look like in each of those markets, because there's actually 
facilities that are not appropriately staffed, as far as the 
private sector is concerned, which is why we're also using this 
process to dramatically deepen our cooperation with the 
Department of Defense, where we're putting VA personnel into 
VA--sorry. We're putting VA personnel into DoD facilities, 
where our people then see active-duty, family members, and 
veterans at no extra cost to American taxpayers.
    Mr. Cuellar. Yes, and I certainly want to follow up on that 
because, you know, the narrative sometimes by my colleagues is 
that the border is a very dangerous thing. But if you look at 
FBI stats, you will see that the crime rate is lower at the 
border than other places.
    And the reason I say that is because I have talked to some 
of the VA facilities, and they say it is hard to bring doctors 
because they are afraid of the border.
    So I certainly want to follow up on the staffing and how we 
can do that. Finally, my time is almost up, but Fort Sam is 
very important.
    I know the valley has a cemetery over there, but then you 
have areas like Laredo that is isolated. I know that the 
Chairman and I had worked on public/private partnerships on 
CBP.
    Love to look at public/private partnerships on cemeteries 
where there are entities that are willing to work with you all. 
I don't know what sort of authorization, but you got areas like 
Laredo and other places that the valley is too far. San Antonio 
is too far, 150 miles. I would love to work with creative 
ideas.
    Secretary McDonough. I would love to put you in touch with 
Under Secretary Quinn, because we have some existing 
programming there that I think could be helpful.
    Mr. Cuellar. Thank you. And again, thank you to your men 
and women.
    Secretary McDonough. Thank you.
    Mr. Cuellar. Go Hoya Saxa.
    Secretary McDonough. Hoya Saxa.
    Mr. Carter. Mrs. Brice.
    Mrs. Brice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Secretary. It's 
great to see you again.
    Secretary McDonough. Nice to see you.
    Mrs. Brice. First, let me say thank you for your 
organization and helping expedite the reopening of the Shawnee 
VA clinic that was destroyed in a tornado last year.
    It is up and running, and I know that it was a priority for 
Director Vlasic to make sure that it was functional again.
    Again, let me start by asking you about how the VA is 
addressing healthcare in rural areas. What specific measures 
are you implementing to improve access for veterans in these 
areas?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. Thanks. We have our Office of 
Rural Health. You see, it's basically been flat funded the last 
couple of years, because what that does is it develops, grows, 
and then deploys innovative new care options for rural 
facilities.
    It also funds our five national centers for Rural Health 
Innovation. They also develop new policy options to deploy. So 
that's where a lot of our telehealth options, our home-based 
primary care options were developed in those settings.
    So that's the first thing we do is we have concerted effort 
on developing new strategies and new capabilities and new 
technologies to deploy to our rural friends.
    Mrs. Brice. Very supportive of telehealth strategy that you 
are using. So thank you for that.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. The second thing we do is we are 
using outpatient-based structure, building new and leasing new 
clinics, including in rural areas.
    What we're doing increasingly is using those as areas where 
we can forward deploy specialty care. A perfect example is a 
veteran who is going to get infusion, be that for rheumatoid 
arthritis or for cancer treatment.
    He should not have to drive only to Oklahoma City to get 
that care. Or increasingly, those infusion centers, even if 
they're private sector, are also in Oklahoma City.
    So what we do is we take the infusion pharmaceutical and 
the professional, deploy them, the clinician to the community 
based outpatient clinics in a program called Closer to Me, 
meaning the veteran gets the care closer to him. OK, so those 
are some examples.
    Mrs. Brice. Great. Thank you for that.
    It has been brought to my attention that when someone goes 
to a private ER, one of the intake questions at the hospital is 
whether the patient is a veteran. And if the answer is yes, the 
hospital is charging the VA regardless of whether or not the 
person has medical insurance.
    To what extent are you aware that this is actually 
occurring? And, you know, what do you think the options would 
be for potentially addressing this?
    Secretary McDonough. That's a really good question. One of 
the rules, in terms of access, for community care is that we 
have a limited--we have a number, but it's a limited number, a 
number of potential visits to an emergency department that is 
covered by VA and by community care.
    There's a challenge there, and one of the things we're 
doing about that--well, so the challenge is what is emergency? 
But more importantly, oftentimes the major costs and, 
potentially, not best care is the veteran then being taken into 
inpatient care, right?
    And so if you look at the top ten lists of community care 
investments for VA, emergency department care by an order of 
magnitude is number one. So what are we doing about that?
    I think there's two things that are worth highlighting. 
One, we are deploying now, it's only been tested in 25,000 
cases, but we're calling it tele-emergency care. 25,000 cases, 
10,000 last year, 15,000 so far this year.
    In the, in the majority of cases, we resolved the veterans 
issue within 30 minutes.
    Mrs. Brice. So what's a percentage of those 25,000 cases 
that you were able to resolve?
    Secretary McDonough. I don't have--the numbers in my book. 
I can't remember it right now, so I'll get you that number 
after the hearing.
    Mrs. Brice. OK.
    Secretary McDonough. The last thing I want to say is you 
all passed a No Surprises Rule for Medicaid and Medicare 
emergency department appearances.
    We do experience where veterans come in, they're told 
they're going to be covered. The veteran doesn't know that this 
is not authorized by VA. The provider then provides the care 
and then bills VA, but we say this wasn't a referred care, in 
which case they bill the veteran. We thing that's not right.
    In the majority of cases, we can get that worked out with 
the hospital, but I think this is one of those issues, as we 
think about the durability of the system over time, I think 
this bears looking at the way you all looked at this No 
Surprises Rule for Medicare and Medicare.
    Mrs. Brice. I think it is important for us to recognize 
that there are cases where private hospitals are actually using 
VA benefits as a first stop rather than private insurance.
    Secretary McDonough. I'd agree with that.
    Mrs. Brice. And because of that, we are actually putting a 
strain on the benefit cost to the VA. And so I definitely think 
it is something that we should look into to see what the 
prevalence of this is and how we can try to address it long 
term to bring down costs.
    So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
    Secretary McDonough. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter. Ms. Pingree.
    Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    Mr. Secretary, thanks for being with us today.
    Secretary McDonough. Nice to see you.
    Ms. Pingree. Nice to see you. Thank you for your visit to 
Maine. I know that was really a great visit, and we appreciate 
it all the time you gave to our State.
    So first I want to talk a little bit about military sexual 
trauma. In March, the Disabled American Veterans released their 
2024 Women Veterans report. The report highlighted a 24 percent 
increase in suicide rates among women veterans between '20 and 
'21, 2020 and 2021. That is four times higher than their male 
counterparts during that time.
    Another striking finding was that firearms were used in 
over 50 percent of women's veterans suicides. The veteran's 
community has struggled with suicide and mental health for 
years, and while I applaud how far the VA has come with mental 
health and suicide prevention, I am seriously concerned about 
the impact of military sexual trauma that it has on our women 
veterans.
    One in three women veterans enrolled in the VA report 
experiencing MST, which is a leading cause of suicide in women. 
Based on the DAV's report, it's clear that the VA is still 
struggling to process MST claims and to properly screen women 
veterans for MST.
    How does this budget address MST and the survivor's mental 
health issues?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, thanks very much. We've increased 
investment in--we've sharpened the training for claims 
processors who only work MST claims. They are now aggregated in 
one regional--well, it's coming. It will be aggregated down to 
one regional office.
    So we're developing expertise and making sure that 
expertise is deployed only against MST claims. You know, 
because sometimes it's the absence of evidence that is the most 
powerful indicator that MST occurred.
    An unplanned, unannounced, unexplained--one example is 
unplanned, unannounced, unexplained transfer to the Republic of 
Korea for a young woman soldier, which happened to coincide 
with what she was telling the claims processor, was the moment 
of MST.
    So that kind of expertise, working only MST claims, is 
important. That has had an impact.
    Over the course of 2023, 61 percent of cases of MST claims 
were awarded in the interests of the veteran. Now, that's still 
low, but it's up from 41 percent. So we have to make extra 
effort on that.
    In particular, what we do in this budget is that the 
overtime available for VBA is, in the first instance, going to 
be dedicated to those MST specific claims raters. So we're 
going to not only have their expertise, but we'll have their 
expertise deployed more aggressively, meaning for more hours, 
because even though the number 61 percent is better, it's still 
taking too long to Mr. Franklin's question. And quality has 
suffered during this same period. So we've got work to do.
    Ms. Pingree. Well, thank you for your attention to that, 
and really thank you for trying to look into the root causes 
of, you know, whether it is the training expertise of the 
investigators, but certainly I appreciate your working to get 
those numbers where they should be.
    So we will continue to follow that with you. One other 
thing I wanted to bring up is the Maine veterans' homes. 
Veterans housing is a big problem across the country. Maine is 
no exception to that, and veterans' homes are in serious need 
of funding for more healthcare staff, infrastructure costs, and 
expenses associated with complex medical conditions for the 
veterans living in the homes.
    VA's reimbursement rates are not keeping pace with overall 
cost of care. And I am concerned that this isn't getting the 
attention that it deserves or the funding that is needed to fix 
the problem.
    Does the VA have a plan to increase assistance with 
veterans' homes as the cost of care outpaces your rates? Are 
any plans or capacity to do a rate study also to reflect labor 
increases and other changes that have been experienced?
    Secretary McDonough. So this does have my attention, both 
because you raised it. It came up when we were together in 
Maine, and it's come up from other of our State leaders, 
including the Association of State Run Veteran Facilities.
    There's two big challenges. One is that veterans who are in 
State run facilities have, as your question suggests, more 
complicated, more complex healthcare situations.
    Meaning the staff of those facilities have to have those 
expertise that drives up costs. The second is the medicines 
that those veterans are on are also quite expensive and the 
states assume the care for those veterans, including the 
pharmaceutical backbone of that care.
    So we are in active discussion with the states on both of 
these questions. I told you, I just find out if we have a 
specific rate study. I have not yet found that out, but we are 
on top of this.
    Our partner, you know, no veteran thinks that they're going 
to the State VA or the Federal VA. They just think they're 
going to the VA to be taken care of. We just have to make sure 
that we operate consistent with what those veterans' 
expectations are. This is a good example of what we have to 
make sure we're staying on top of.
    Ms. Pingree. Thank you very much.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Mr. Zinke.
    Mr. Zinke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good to see you again, 
Mr. Secretary.
    One of my favorite, and I am sure yours is too, is the 
ambulance, air ambulance. Thank you for delaying the rule.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Zinke. That was good. But when you said you would work 
with us, I assume that meant, I hold you to your word, there's 
still work to be done. Because for the benefit of everyone, air 
ambulances, you know, when Montana, I keep reminding people 
Montana is the same size as Washington, D.C. to Chicago plus 45 
miles. So pretty big out there.
    And when you are in the middle of nowhere and you get an 
auto accident and need ambulance, that ambulance generally is 
life flight. And there is uncertainty in the life flight area 
about they can't invest until the rule is in place and the rule 
works.
    So again, do I have your commitment to work with, and if I 
could, a commitment to have a meeting with the next 30 days 
with the staff so we can kind of work this thing out?
    Mr. Carter. Would you yield for just a moment?
    Mr. Zinke. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Carter. We are working with, with the VA. I will 
include you at the meeting.
    Mr. Zinke. That would be outstanding on that.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Mr. Zinke. It's a big issue in my----
    Secretary McDonough. Yes, you've been clear about this. I 
got it. You've got my commitment. I've given the same 
commitment to the Chairman and the Ms. Lee, and I get it. It's 
important. We'll stay on top of this. I owe it to you guys, and 
we owe it to the vets.
    Mr. Zinke. Thanks. And then secondly, is we've had a 
conversation about the Montana hospital. It has gone through 
several layers of leadership over about as many years, and 
sometimes a director, you know, pulling it from Jobs USA, it 
may not deliver the best solutions.
    My solution, quite frankly, is you have Major General Quinn 
is working with you. I think you have the authority or deputy 
to transfer him, at least temporary there, because Montana is 
sitting out there with a VA hospital. While he is not a 
professional in hospitals, he is professional in National 
Guard.
    And certainly he is at a point of position and he has a 
leadership background. So if you would take a second look at 
that and see if that is a possibility, and certainly you will 
have my support because we need leadership out there. We have 
had a series of years and stuff like that.
    Secretary McDonough. You and I have had this, a version of 
this conversation. I'm having that conversation with Matt.
    Mr. Zinke. And lastly, really quickly, you have been now in 
the office for a while. I always looked at the VA as I am not 
sure it is fixable without reorganization.
    So now, if you had your chance of being in there a year and 
looking at the ever expanding role of VA, never seems to be 
enough money. You have 52 different unions. How would you 
approach to look at it? Would you reorganize? What is your--
looking at it, your appraisal of where to go?
    I know it is a big question in a short amount of time, but 
do you agree that we should reorganize and what steps would you 
take?
    Secretary McDonough. Look, I think. I think the two most 
important concepts are veteran centered decision making and 
expertise driving decision making. And we have the tools in 
place to do both, meaning the veteran signal, right? We're 
putting out new data today about what the trust score says.
    The trust score is a really important thing because it's 
actual intel. It's statistically important because between 13 
and 14 percent vets accept the survey. That gives us hotspots 
and gives us indications of what's happening.
    So when you have that intel, that means you know what's 
happening. Secondly, as it relates to the delivery of care. 
Secondly, we have to make sure that it's experts, not 
bureaucrats like me, but experts making decisions about care.
    This is why docs want to come work with us is they don't 
like running their ideas through the accountants at Blue Cross 
Blue Shield. They want to just provide for the care.
    So we have that too with this higher liability 
organization, HRO. This is something that I had nothing to do 
with. This is Dr. Stone going back 5, 6 years, starting this 
process.
    That process says to providers, healthcare providers, 
you're at the point closest to care, we accept your decisions, 
feel empowered to make those decisions, and we're going to hold 
you accountable.
    Lastly, what do we expect in return? Free flow of 
information. We've not always had that in Montana. We've not 
always had that in other facilities too here.
    So that's the trade. Good intel about what the veterans 
experience, experts making decisions, and, in exchange for all 
this, people are very honest about where they make mistakes.
    So that we come before you guys and we're giving you 
realistic information, right, including cost for care and 
things like that. Those things are all there. And so I have 
almost nothing to do with any of those except this thing where 
I say, look, my job is to help you manage risk.
    The best way for me to manage risk is you guys to be honest 
with me and to share when you encounter problems. And I'll do 
the same with them, right? Teams are really good, retention's 
up. We're hiring people, still too slow, but they want to come 
work for us.
    And veteran satisfaction is up. Not perfect by any means. I 
think those are the indications of a place that's working 
really well, you know, and can work better. No doubt about it.
    We just heard Mr. Franklin's story. That just really pisses 
me off that that veteran died before we got to him. That's 
absolutely unacceptable. So it's not perfect by any means, but 
it's a good, solid organization.
    Mr. Zinke. I appreciate your service.
    Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you. And we are going to do a brief 
second round because we are down to a short crowd here.
    Secretary McDonough. OK.
    Mr. Carter. But I will start off with how much is the 
medical community care grown over the last year? And veterans 
have a unique healthcare need and community healthcare can be a 
lifesaving for many of them. Will you elaborate on 
Administration's view on community healthcare?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. Thank you very much, Chairman.
    Since I've been in the job, the community care has grown at 
a rate of about 15 percent to 17 percent a year. We put in the 
budget a target for next year for FY 2025, 15 percent. I forget 
if it's 15 or 13 percent growth.
    So our goal is that, not that we fully restrict it, but 
that we restrain the growth. Right now, over the course of this 
year so far, you know, I think at the end of last year, I think 
as we've briefed your staff, we saw a significant second half 
of FY 2023, we saw a significant increase in community care.
    In some cases above that annualized mean of about 15 to 17 
percent. And during the course of the early part of this year, 
FY 2024, it's remained high in some places and reduced in other 
places.
    So we're at kind of a very steady increase. I say it's 
variable, but that's generous. It's variable in one direction, 
and that's up.
    So I think that invites a series of important questions, 
including what is the quality of the care in there? Well, how 
good a partner are we to the providers in the community? Are we 
paying on time? Are we getting records back from them on time? 
Are we giving them a bunch of red tape?
    I increasingly meet with providers when I travel to hear 
about their experience of working with us, right? Because, you 
know, I hear a lot from our people about their working with 
them. So I want to hear the other side of the story.
    What is our view about community care? Our view is that 
community care is and always has been a critical part of VA 
care. And the provision of care to our veterans, by virtue of 
the MISSION Act, has this time basis on it, including drive 
time.
    I think those expectations from veterans are good, right? 
Because it disciplines us. Some of them, though, like 70 
percent of VISN 7 being qualified for referral in the first 
instance based on drive time alone.
    We know that rural care in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia is 
not, let's call prevalent. So we ought to make sure that we're 
not just pushing them into the community and then making it 
their problem to get the care somewhere else.
    But it's a critical part of the care. It should be time 
bound. But we ought to lose sight of the fact that, that 
veterans who are in our care do better.
    The reason they do better is we can coordinate the care. 
And the more a veteran is being referred to the community, the 
harder it is for us to coordinate the care.
    And so our commitment to the veteran is to provide best 
possible healthcare, best possible outcomes. I want us, as an 
organization, to be focused on that. And when we do that, we'll 
be making a case to each veteran that we want them in our care 
and we'll fight for them in our care and we'll compete for them 
in our care.
    And when we do that, I like our options.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. I have just two 
additional questions, Mr. Secretary.
    I want to focus on childcare centers at the drop off 
centers at the VA.
    Secretary McDonough. Yes.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So efforts are underway now to 
establish 10 onsite drop-in childcare centers in 2024 and 
followed by 20 additional sites in 2025. The budget requests 
$18.6 million to fund the Veteran Child Care Assistance 
Program.
    And I am incredibly supportive of that program, especially 
because you have a 58 percent no-show or cancellation rate of 
VA appointments for veterans with children due to a lack of 
childcare.
    And so it is obviously a huge obstacle to them getting 
care, but this program should not be funded out of the women's 
healthcare budget.
    Secretary McDonough. I agree with that.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. It is not a component of women's 
healthcare, and there are male veterans who have children too, 
and who avail themselves of its services.
    So what is your plan, in light of your agreement that it 
shouldn't be funded out of women's healthcare budget to move it 
out of it?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. So first of all, the plan for the 
program, for the administration of the program is a two-pronged 
plan.
    One is that we reimburse a veteran if they get care to 
cover the appointment and or we have, as you say, drop-off 
facilities, drop-off arrangements at the facility.
    The two facilities closest to ready there are Fresno and 
Shreveport, and those are for drop at the facility care. I've 
told you and I've also told my team that I don't think it's not 
a good--it just doesn't make sense to fund this out of women's 
healthcare.
    And so we'll keep working on that. We'll have another 
budget submission, and I hope that we've changed that because 
it doesn't make sense. And so my commitment to you is to keep 
working on it. I don't have a specific plan other than to 
change the budget submission.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But the current budget submission 
has it still within women's health care.
    Secretary McDonough. It does.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And is it possible that we can move 
it out in this fiscal year?
    Secretary McDonough. I think so. It's just been a question 
of kind of pay for and how we account for the financing in each 
of those places. But, yeah, I'd be more than happy to work with 
you on that.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK, great. Thank you.
    And then I want to just go back to the subject of the third 
category. So I have been supportive of the request for the 
third budget category for VA medical care.
    As I mentioned in my opening remarks, I have been saying 
since the passage of the MISSION Act that health care costs 
were going to grow too quickly to account for them within the 
non-defense discretionary top lines.
    Can you walk us through--well, there are only two of us 
here, but at least it is for the record how the third budget 
category for VA medical care would better protect veterans 
compared to maintaining this funding within the non-defense 
discretionary category?
    Secretary McDonough. Yes. So, I mean, especially when 
you're operating as we are now under the cap of the budget 
agreement, and it's very generous to us. I'm not complaining.
    But part of why you see the decisions that we've made 
inside the budget, including a reduction of 10,000 full-time 
equivalents by the end of 2025 at the Veterans Health 
Administration, is a reflection of my belief that prudence 
leads one to conclude that we're going to be operating in a 
capped situation for some time and we ought to be in a position 
to, as I say, prudently manage to that outcome.
    So the idea behind the third budget category is that we 
recognize that the care afforded veterans in the health care 
account, the medical care account, is going to be subject, as 
many of the other mandatory investments are, to health care 
inflation, and routinely that health care inflation is above 
inflation in the rest of the budget.
    So as a result, you throw investment priorities that are 
growing at different rates into the same basket, and especially 
when that basket is capped, creates an entire zero-sum game.
    And ultimately, that's not in the veteran's best interest 
in our judgment. And that's why for the second year in a row 
here we're or maybe the third year in a row, we've submitted a 
proposal that seeks to create that third budget category.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes.
    Mr. Chairman, I mean, forcing a robbing of Peter to pay 
Paul, and on top of that, adding a capped situation really 
squeezes VA on the decisions that they can make, the kinds of 
investments that they can make.
    You add, you know, you've got community care pressure, PACT 
Act pressure. I mean, we shouldn't be, I am of the view that we 
shouldn't be structuring the way we allocate funds in the same 
way just because that is the way we have always done it.
    And so as we have made dramatic, significant, important 
changes to help improve the quality of care that we provide for 
veterans, we have to make sure that we are not undercutting 
ourselves in that effort and losing the ability to improve 
their care and the service we provide to them as much as we 
could have.
    So I really hope we can seriously consider and that we can 
talk about the efficacy and reasonability of the proposal to 
create the third budget category.
    Mr. Carter. I want to go over to the (inaudible).
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That is what creating a third budget 
category does. Because, as we said when we first started 
debating the MISSION Act and it's playing out.
    You know, our discretionary funds that are allocated to 
this Committee get chewed up by the whole rest of the--all the 
rest of the competing interests outside of MILCON VA.
    And then within MILCON VA, there are competing interests 
for the non-discretionary funding. So I mean, eventually the 
consequences are that you could end up having more and more 
moves toward privatization, more restrictions on the ability of 
the VA to fully serve the veterans and meet the commitments 
that they have made. And I just think this is an item worthy of 
substantive discussion.
    Mr. Carter. We will have a discussion on that.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I look forward to it.
    I yield back. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you very much for being here.
    Secretary McDonough. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. We will get together all that ambulance thing.
    Secretary McDonough. Yep.
    Mr. Carter. We are talking about it, we will get notice out 
and I will include the two that asked questions here. Ms. 
Wasserman Schultz, of course I will include her if she wants to 
be there.
    Secretary McDonough. Good. Great. I appreciate it very 
much.
    Mr. Carter. And we'll have a conversation and try to come 
up with some solutions.
    Secretary McDonough. I look forward to it.
    Mr. Carter. OK?
    Secretary McDonough. Excellent.
    Mr. Carter. OK. Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation.
    Secretary McDonough. Right back at you. Thank you very 
much, Chairman.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    Secretary McDonough. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
    Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much.

    [Answers to submitted questions follow:]
    
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