[House Hearing, 115 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] . [H.A.S.C. No. 115-30] HEARING ON NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2018 AND OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION __________ SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS MEETING JOINTLY WITH SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES OF THE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ON THE CURRENT STATE OF U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND __________ HEARING HELD MARCH 30, 2017 [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] __________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 25-146 WASHINGTON : 2018 SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS JOE WILSON, South Carolina, Chairman ROB BISHOP, Utah MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii MIKE ROGERS, Alabama CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona, Vice Chair ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida TRENT KELLY, Mississippi RO KHANNA, California MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin Margaret Dean, Professional Staff Member Brian Garrett, Professional Staff Member Jodi Brignola, Clerk ------ SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri SUSAN A. DAVIS, California BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama, Vice Chair JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin JOHN GARAMENDI, California DUNCAN HUNTER, California DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey PAUL COOK, California SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii STEPHEN KNIGHT, California A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana David Sienicki, Professional Staff Member Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member Jodi Brignola, Clerk C O N T E N T S ---------- Page STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS Courtney, Hon. Joe, a Representative from Connecticut, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces......... 2 Wilson, Hon. Joe, a Representative from South Carolina, Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness...................................... 1 Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces....... 4 WITNESSES McDew, Gen Darren W., USAF, Commander, United States Transportation Command......................................... 5 APPENDIX Prepared Statements: McDew, Gen Darren W.......................................... 33 Wilson, Hon. Joe............................................. 29 Wittman, Hon. Robert J....................................... 31 Documents Submitted for the Record: [There were no Documents submitted.] Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing: [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing: Ms. Hanabusa................................................. 59 Mr. Langevin................................................. 59 THE CURRENT STATE OF U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND ---------- House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Readiness, Meeting Jointly with the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, Washington, DC, Thursday, March 30, 2017. The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 9:02 a.m., in room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Joe Wilson (chairman of the Subcommittee on Readiness) presiding. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE WILSON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS Mr. Wilson. Ladies and gentlemen, I call this joint hearing of the Subcommittee on Readiness and Seapower and Projection Forces of the House Armed Services Committee to order. I am pleased to welcome members of the Seapower and Projection Forces and the Readiness Subcommittees to the hearing today for an unclassified session on the current state of U.S. Transportation Command [TRANSCOM]. I would especially like to thank Congressman Rob Wittman, chairman of the Seapower and Projection Subcommittee, and Congressman Joe Courtney, the ranking member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, joining us today in our effort to better understand the topic. This hearing follows a series of hearings and briefings highlighting the individual readiness challenges of each military service, which further confirms that our services are indeed in a readiness crisis. The cornerstone of the U.S. military is its service members. Underpinning their success is the ability of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines to go where they are needed and to have fully operational equipment ready to be used. While I firmly believe the United States military remains the world's best, I am concerned about shortfalls in readiness and the trend lines that we see. U.S. Transportation Command enables our military to deliver an immediate and powerful force against U.S. adversaries anywhere in the globe through airlift, air refueling, and our strategic sealift. As members of these subcommittees know, U.S. Transportation Command will always answer the Nation's call. But there are challenges that demand our attention today to ensure the readiness of our military. I reiterate my belief that the first responsibility of the Federal Government is to provide for the security of its citizens, to accomplish for citizens what they cannot do for themselves. Therefore, it is our responsibility as members of these subcommittees to continue to better understand the readiness and force structure situation of the United States Transportation Command, to understand where we continue to take risk and understand where more attention is needed. I would like to welcome our distinguished witness who we are honored to have with us today. General Darren W. McDew, U.S. Air Force, Commander of the United States Transportation Command. And I do like to point out that Congressman Wittman and I were both commenting just now, a distinguished graduate of the Virginia Military Institute of Lexington, Virginia. I thank you for testifying today and look forward to your thoughts and insights as you highlight the current state of the U.S. Transportation Command. I would like to now turn to the ranking member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, also ranking in as member of the Readiness Subcommittee, Congressman Joe Courtney, for any remarks you may have. [The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson can be found in the Appendix on page 29.] STATEMENT OF HON. JOE COURTNEY, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CONNECTICUT, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you again to my colleague from Virginia, Mr. Wittman, for coordinating this joint hearing this morning. It is a good, efficient way to get, you know, the message out to as large a group of us as possible. And I think this hearing offers an important opportunity for our two panels to receive a timely update on the readiness status of the U.S. Transportation Command, which plays a critical but too often overlooked role in our airlift and sealift capabilities. Getting the people, supplies, and equipment to the locations they are needed when they are needed is one of the foundational pieces of our Nation's ability to project power around the globe. Under TRANSCOM, the mix of organic military assets and commercial partners makes a powerful combination that must be carefully managed and sustained. And while I believe that TRANSCOM remains ready today to fulfill its important mission, I am concerned about some of the longer term challenges it will face without action by Congress. For example, while the emerging buildup of our Navy fleet has received significant attention in the recent months, the state of our sealift capabilities is just as important. Many of the sealift ships that reside in the fleet today are the result of congressional urging and funding due to insufficient prioritization and planning within the executive branch. As the Navy potentially embarks on an increased shipbuilding initiative for combatants to support the new FSA [Force Structure Assessment], it is just as critical that our sealift requirements are not once again sidelined. America's Ready Reserve fleet and the vessels within the Maritime Security Program [MSP] are strategic and irreplaceable national assets. And like other strategic assets, we must ensure that we do all we can to maintain, support, and replace the ships that comprise them. I am deeply concerned, however, that we have not paid enough attention as a nation to the health and viability of our pool of vessels or the mariner pipeline needed to crew them. As we look at addressing some of the more urgent near-term needs facing our sealift capability, it is important as well to have a clear and long-term path towards fully recapitalizing our sealift fleet and the mariners needed to man them. In the near term, I believe we need to take action to ensure that the MSP has the resources and support it needs. Chairman Wittman and I have teamed up to lead a bipartisan letter of more than 50 other Members to the House appropriators urging them to fully fund the Maritime Security Program for fiscal year 2018. The Maritime Security Program provides an extremely cost-effective means of ensuring critical sealift capability during times of crisis and deserves strong support as we consider the budget in the months ahead. I am also proud that the Seapower Subcommittee has led the way to assure that we continue to have the ability to train the next generation of mariners that will support our sealift needs. Last year, we authorized the construction of a national security multimission vessel that will replace the aging fleet of training ships allocated to our State maritime academies. Together, these institutions provide the majority of our Nation's trained mariners, and this program is key to ensuring that we protect and grow this vital pipeline. Equally important to America's ability to deliver the fight is our strategic airlift capacity. This subcommittee has strongly supported the recapitalization of key assets, like the KC-46A tankers, while also backing cost-effective modernization efforts of other platforms like the C-130H fleet and the C-5Ms. While each service must balance competing efforts to restore readiness, as we have heard during the state of the Air Force hearing last week, continued modernization efforts in our C- 130H fleet must be prioritized as a relatively inexpensive means of maintaining critical capacity. And we heard a shout out for Virginia a few minutes ago. I just want to recognize that the C-130H airlift wing of the Connecticut Flying Yankees, I say that grudgingly as a Red Sox fan, are deployed right now overseas supporting the important mission in the Middle East. And, again, that was a lot of hard work, and I want to thank the Air Force and the Air Force Reserves for basically getting that flying mission back in action again. And again, I want to thank the general for being here today, and again, salute his outstanding service to our Nation. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman Courtney, and thank you for being dual-hatted today, serving as also the ranking member of the Readiness Subcommittee. Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo, I know, would want to be here today, but she is back in Guam, the beautiful territory of Guam, to provide a presentation on--her annual presentation on service in Congress to the people of Guam, and we know of her great affection for the beautiful territory of Guam. I now turn to the gentleman from Virginia and chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, Congressman Rob Wittman, for any opening remarks that he may have. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER AND PROJECTION FORCES Mr. Wittman. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, General McDew, welcome. Thanks so much for all of your time and effort on this extraordinarily important issue. And in deference to that great school there in Lexington, ``Go Keydets.'' I also want to thank Chairman Wilson for offering to have this joint subcommittee hearing today. And I believe that there are a number of overlapping issues with the Readiness Subcommittee, and I look forward to working with the distinguished gentleman from South Carolina to make sure we move these issues forward in this year's NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] markup process. General McDew, as you know, we are a seafaring nation, and this was the vision of our Founding Fathers when they commissioned the U.S. Navy in 1775, and our seafaring nature is now the bedrock of our economy. Today, merchant ships carry around 90 percent of everything, with that total amount having more than tripled since 1970. Unfortunately, our national security--unfortunately for our national security, this seaborne trade is being increasingly outsourced to other nations, and our own merchant fleet is in rapid decline. Between the years 2000 and 2014, our U.S. commercial fleet has shrunk from 282 vessels to 179 vessels, a reduction of almost 40 percent. This decline in our commercial fleet increasingly represents a national security challenge because the mariners that support our commercial sector will be used extensively by the U.S. Transportation Command during times of war or mobilization. The Maritime Administration has indicated that our commercial sector does not have sufficient mariners to sustain a prolonged mobilization of our Ready Reserve forces. Our Nation cannot presume that a foreign-owned maritime sealift component will be available during times of conflict to deploy into contested waters. Our Nation needs U.S. mariners on U.S.-flagged ships. As our strategic airlift capabilities, today we depend on a much smaller fleet to move cargo, personnel, and to medevac the wounded from more remote battlefields than during the Desert Storm era. Even with the larger Desert Storm force, a 1993 RAND study found that more than 60 percent of our troops and 23 percent of the cargo airlifted in or out of the theater went by the private sector. In future major theater wars, the Civil Reserve airlift fleet may be asked to absorb even more of the demands for cargo and troop movements. I am concerned that outdated planning assumptions need to be reviewed. The new administration has made it clear that it wants to increase Army and Marine Corps force structure. However, at the same time, areas of the globe are becoming less permissive for civilian aviation operations to deliver these additional soldiers and Marines to their areas of operation. I believe TRANSCOM should thoughtfully consider how to best increase strategic airlift capacity in its ability to operate in contested environments around the globe. I thank Chairman Wilson for working within the Seapower and Subcommittee Projection Forces Subcommittee on this important issue, and I yield back the balance of my time. [The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 31.] Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman Rob Wittman of Virginia. We now begin with the opening statement from General McDew. We look forward to your testimony today. STATEMENT OF GEN DARREN W. McDEW, USAF, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES TRANSPORTATION COMMAND General McDew. Good morning, Chairman Wilson and Wittman, Ranking Member Courtney, and distinguished members of both subcommittees. It is an honor and I am nearly giddy this morning to have the privilege to be here with you today representing the fine men and women of the United States Transportation Command. I thank you for your continued support of our dedicated professionals who are all working together to provide our Nation with a broad range of strategic capabilities and options. I also want to emphasize the vital role that you mentioned that our commercial industry, who I call our fourth component, plays in our success. As I appear before you today, I can say confidently that your United States Transportation Command stands ready to deliver our Nation's objectives anywhere and anytime. We do this in two ways. We can provide an immediate force tonight through the use of our airlift and air refueling fleets, and we can provide that decisive force, when needed, through the use of our strategic sealift and surface assets. You see evidence of this every single time you read or watch the news. When North Korea increased its provocation of our Pacific allies, America responded with assistance. USTRANSCOM delivered that assistance in the form of missile defense systems, personnel, and support equipment flying 3,000 miles within a matter of hours. When you read about America's brigade combat teams rolling through Europe, it was USTRANSCOM's ability to provide a decisive force to reassure our European allies. When America needed B-2 Stealth bombers to fly 11,000 miles from Missouri to Libya and back to deliver over 100 precision weapons, our air refuelers got them there. From national disasters to epidemics to acts of war, the men and women of USTRANSCOM are standing ready to deliver this Nation's aid, assistance, and hope to a world in need. These missions must execute seamlessly and without fail. All the while these great professionals quietly manage a myriad of daily tasks around the globe, which most Americans will never hear or read about. It takes, I believe, great diligence, skill, and innovation to provide that kind of readiness for America, and since 1987, nearly 30 years now, the men and women of USTRANSCOM have never let this Nation down. I am proud to serve next to them, and I say with confidence that our organization is ready to respond when our Nation calls. Now, I have great confidence, but my confidence comes, however, is not without concern. The environment we operate in today is increasingly complex, and we expect future adversaries will be more versatile and more dynamic, forcing us to adapt, change, and evolve. Furthermore, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joe Dunford laid out in his vision for our future, we are viewing potential adversaries through a transregional, multidomain, and multifunctional lens. Properly understanding the potential threats from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, as well as worldwide global violent extremists, in the global context, is of utmost concern, and it is a concern for our national security. In each of these scenarios, I believe, logistics plays a critical but often overlooked role. Today, USTRANSCOM is critically examining how we execute our logistics mission in the contested environments of the future, a space we haven't had to operate in, at least logistically, for a very, very long time. We are exercising in wargaming scenarios, forcing planners to account for transportation's vital role and potential loss. Earlier this year, USTRANSCOM held its first ever contested environment war game, imagining a scenario where we didn't, hard to believe, dominate the skies or own every line of communication. This war game uncovered a surprising amount of lessons learned, which we have already started absorbing into our tactics, techniques, and procedures accordingly. I am also concerned about our national strategic sealift capability. A delay in recapitalizing our military sealift fleet creates risk in our ability to deploy forces across the globe. These concerns are compounded further by merchant mariner shortages and the reduction of U.S.-flagged vessels. Today, our resources make us capable of meeting today's logistics needs. However, if we don't take action soon, many of our Military Sealift Command [MSC] vessels will begin to age out by 2026. A significant portion of the DOD's [Department of Defense's] wartime cargo capability moves on these ships. My final concern is one that runs throughout our operations and no doubt concerns us all. The cyber threat. We aren't the only government agency to face these threats, but USTRANSCOM has a unique problem set. Unlike other combatant commands, commercial industry plays a vital role in how we accomplish our mission. The DOD's information network is relatively secure, but how do we guarantee the security of military data on commercial systems? In short, we operate in an ambiguous seam between DOD and DHS [Department of Homeland Security]. Our mission includes both dot-mil and dot-com domains. We are accelerating several initiatives and also our thinking to help try to close that gap between DOD and DHS. Also, before I conclude, I would like to extend my gratitude to Ms. Vickie Plunkett, a member of the Readiness Subcommittee professional staff, for her dedication and her work with USTRANSCOM. To our Nation's benefit, she has always asked the tough questions, and she knew how to match Congress' intent to the capabilities TRANSCOM delivers. We thank her for all she has done for the Nation and wish her the very best in retirement. Thank you again, Chairman Wilson and Wittman and Ranking Member Courtney and members of the subcommittees, for inviting me,interesting, inviting me to speak to you today. I respectfully request my written testimony be submitted for the record, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you. [The prepared statement of General McDew can be found in the Appendix on page 33.] Mr. Wilson. General, thank you very much. And we have just been notified that we may be having votes around 10:00, and so, fortunately, we have Margaret Dean here who is going to maintain a strict 5-minute rule beginning with me, and so it shall begin. And I am really grateful, again, that you are here and the challenges that you have indicated that become even more gruesome as you approach 2026. But additionally, in line with that, every week we read about potential adversaries challenging our freedom of navigation by air or sea in areas such as the South China Sea, Straits of Hormuz, and the Baltic Sea. Is TRANSCOM prepared to deliver combat capability in these potentially contested areas? General McDew. Chairman, this is a new challenge for us. For 70 years, we have had domain dominance. We haven't been challenged in any domain for as long as I can remember in my military service and long before that, so it is definitely something we are now coming to grips with. Our contested environment war game that we had recently that had 64 different agencies, part of it every COCOM [combatant command], everybody in the logistics community, some commercial partners and others, has brought us to the realization that we can't always assure that everything we send in a direction will make it. We can't always be sure that we will have the clear lines of communication that we need. We haven't, to this point, planned for any losses in logistics. It is 100 percent success, and 100 percent of the things get there at 100 percent of the time. I don't think that is a valuable proposition going forward to think that way, so we are changing the way we think, and we are putting it into every exercise to try to get at it differently. Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much for being so proactive. And you mentioned, of course, cyber as a threat. With the threats increasing, are they impacting readiness? Are there any threats or challenges in this domain that are unique to TRANSCOM and may not be currently addressed by DOD or the interagency? If so, what is being done to ensure operational security in the cyber realm? General McDew. Chairman, we spent--about a year ago, we started down a path of discovery on cyber. We were not ready to have this kind of dialogue a year ago when I sat in front of you. I was understanding that the threat was approaching, but I didn't understand the depth of the problem. We have had three cyber roundtables over the last 18 months, and in those cyber roundtables we have had academia, we have had business leaders, we have had hackers join us to take us from cyber awareness to cyber knowledge. And now we understand how nervous we should be in this domain. The seam that exists between DOD and DHS is a real seam for us. Because we have 90 percent of my activity on a daily basis runs through the commercial networks, we are becoming more and more vulnerable because those commercial assets are part of national security. Our industrial base is part of national security in my realm, and I don't believe that we protect the rest of the Federal Government the same way we protect inside of DOD. So that is our challenge, and we are trying to bridge that gap and make that understanding more relevant. Mr. Wilson. Well, again, thank you for being so proactive, and the changes over the past year certainly are positive. Our government continues to operate under a continuing resolution. The military services are taking risks to prevent capability gaps. How will a full year of continuing resolution impact U.S. Transportation Command's readiness? Are there cascading impacts to the service members or their families? Are we breaking faith with the service members and their families? General McDew. Chairman, a continuing resolution is not good for anybody, really. Directly impacting U.S. Transportation Command, they are not as prevalent as they are in the services, but that is a direct indirect on USTRANSCOM. So as the services individually take risks in their portfolio because of their lack of ability to plan or to program for different things, and they take risks in what they can continue to operate, it disproportionately impacts the logistics and transportation communities. If a Marine decision is made to take a risk in logistics, if an Air Force makes the decision to take risk in logistics and so on, all of those are compounded by the time they come to my joint command at U.S. Transportation Command. And what I have seen over--through sequestration and years of continuing resolutions, is that is starting to now hurt in ways in the services and now in my enterprise. Luckily, I have the transportation working capital fund that allows me to continue to operate, but the resourcing, the ability to get after how many C-5s we have available and flying, how many C-17s are in the Active Duty force, all of those are impactful now. Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much. We now proceed to Congressman Courtney. Mr. Courtney. Thank you, General. I am just going to ask really one area and give some of the members a chance to jump in because I know we are going to have votes coming up pretty fast. So again, one of the--your command really is an interesting one because you kind of have your feet in a lot of different other agencies that fall outside of DOD. And, you know, one of the issues that we have tried to work on Seapower over the last couple of years is really this workforce issue in terms of just making sure that we have merchant mariners ready to perform the mission that you quarterback. And obviously, one of the big needs is having training vessels at the maritime academies. And again, that is not directly under your portfolio, but I just wonder if you could sort of--we put some authorizing money to jump-start design and construction of some new vessels, and if you have any thoughts or perspective, we would--you know, that would be helpful in terms of trying to create a record as we go into next year's NDAA. General McDew. As you know, the merchant mariner force is the bedrock to how we move the force in our country. It makes the difference between us being the most powerful military in the world and us not being the most powerful military in the world. There are nations around the world that wish they had the power projection ability we have. The mariner force we have today is insufficient to go to war for an extended period of time. We have got to continue to grow and nurture that seed corn that comes from the State military academies. I have met with many of them. I am about to do another commissioning or graduation speech and another one pretty soon. Some great Americans serving their nation in a powerful way, and we have got to give them better training tools, and we need to change it fast. Mr. Wilson. Thank you. We now proceed to Chairman Rob Wittman. Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General McDew, thanks again. Thanks so much for your service. I wanted to talk about the--well, for you to give us your perspective on the--first of all, the importance of the Ready Reserve fleet. Secondly, today, is there the capacity there for a full mobilization, if necessary? And this other realm is, if we lose a couple of hundred additional merchant mariners, is Ready Reserve fleet even in a position to be able to begin an initial activation for moving supplies and personnel to an engagement? So can--give us your perspective on that. General McDew. Thanks, Chairman. The Ready Reserve fleet, about 61 strong ships, is aging rapidly. We have ships as old as 54 years in the fleet, and the average age is somewhere around 39 years in this fleet. Not optimal. We are working very strongly with the United States Navy on a recap [recapitalization] program that is going to have to be multifaceted. But to get to the core of your question, are we ready right now? We have found some readiness cracks over the last few months on being able to activate these ships and get them underway. We believe we have the numbers of ships to be able to start the initial deployment and maybe the second round of deployment, but maybe beyond that, we are starting to be hurt by how available these ships will be and the capacity of the mariners. I think the first impact we will have is the mariners--we will fall short of the mariners. So 11,280 by MARAD [U.S. Maritime Administration] is what we need, but that has some assumptions that all of those mariners will be available right when we need them. I am not sure that is an assumption we can hold to. There are larger numbers of mariners out there, but the standards we put on them, we would like our mariners to have at least 18 months of relatively current training before we put them onboard to go to war, so there is other things we have got to look at. The NDAA this past year put together a working group to get after the mariner question in more depth. U.S. Transportation Command will work with the Coast Guard and MARAD to get after those numbers and more. Mr. Wittman. I want to look at a little bit now about our airlift capacity. As you know, you have been looking at what the increased demand signal will be for increasing the number of soldiers and Marines, and the airlift capacity that goes along with that in having to move those individuals to theaters, if necessary. We know that the Civil Reserve Air Fleet [CRAF] has a certain amount of capacity. We also know that within the current lift capacity within the Air Force, it is--it has been static at best. We know the C-17 line now is closed. We do know, though, that we have 27 C-5s in storage at the Aerospace Maintenance Regeneration Group out in Tucson. The question then becomes is looking at CRAF and looking at the current capacity with airlift within the Air Force and TRANSCOM assets, should TRANSCOM consider increasing the strategic lift capacity by returning the C-5 aircraft to service through the C-5M model conversion program as we are upgrading or bringing those aircraft back in? Should that be something that we look at to make sure that going forward we have that capacity? General McDew. Chairman, thanks for that question and the opportunity to talk a little bit about airplane stuff, which I don't get a chance to talk to about much anymore. Our capacity on the lift side is being challenged. As we drew back forces from overseas locations, I mean, when I was a youngster, there were 300,000 soldiers in Europe. Now, there is about 60,000 soldiers in Europe. As I talked to General Scaparrotti, his concern is how we can get the forces to him in time. That primarily, without great indications and warnings, will be airlift and air refueling, so that is a concern. I would first like to start with where the Air Force is taking risk in its portfolio today. So a couple of years ago, the Air Force decided to put two squadrons of C-17s in back of inventory, purely a fiscal decision, not because the airplanes weren't performing or the squadrons weren't performing, and took down two flagged on Active Duty, put them in backup inventory. We also put eight C-5s in backup inventory. What that has done is put us closer on the risk scale of what we can move when. The plan is for the Air Force to be able to afford to bring those airplanes back from backup inventory into primary inventory and put them in the Guard and Reserve. I love the Guard and Reserve. I am a big advocate for the Guard and Reserve, but what we now have is a problem of balance. We now have so much assets in the Guard and Reserve because, initially, we thought it was going to be cheaper and that risk was more affordable there, but then it becomes a timing issue. Those guardsmen and reservists aren't at their duty locations every single day ready to respond immediately. When they come up on duty 30 days in, I have great faith and confidence in their ability, but what can we do to hasten those airplanes being brought back into primary inventory, because we need those assets to get to moderate level of risk. Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Mr. Wilson. And thank you, Chairman. And we now proceed to Congressman John Garamendi of California. Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. I guess I was surprised when I found my colleague and chair of our--the Navy talking about the Air Force. So here I am, I am going to talk about the Navy. So let's go at that. The mariner issue, there has been some discussion--my apologies for having to step out. There was another general who--Mr. Oliver--General Oliver who wanted to talk about some of the issues that are your turf also. Where to go here. In your written testimony, General, you talked about the problem of the Ready Reserve, the MSP, and the fact that we don't have--we will not have many mariners in another 10 years or even 5 years. And I understand, in my absence, Mr. Courtney brought up the issue of training and the training ships, all of which are important, but the fundamental problem is there won't be any place for these mariners to work. And I believe some of the earlier discussion centered on the fact that our commercial maritime fleets all but disappeared, and so we may train people, but where are they going to work. And so what I want to really get into here is detailed on how--what your plans are to deal with the Ready Reserve fleet and then the MSP fleet. The MSP, I believe, there was a discussion earlier about the necessity of the subsidy. I think we are in agreement on that. Whether there is money for it or not, that is another question. But nonetheless, that is not where I want to go. I want to go to the ships. I want to hear your discussion about what to do with the ships for the Ready Reserve. I noticed that they are aged. So, please, if you will get into that in some detail with us. General McDew. Congressman, the Ready Reserve fleet is a vital part of our portfolio to be able to project--a vital part of our portfolio to be able to project the Army particularly to war. Those 60 ships are the ones we have available initially to get moving. You are correct. We are having an issue with the maritime community writ large, the lack of cargo. But if you get back to the Ready Reserve fleet, we are working with the United States Navy to recapitalize that fleet that is averaging now 39 years of age. Some of them are as old as 54 years. We are starting to see cracks in their availability. When we activate those ships for readiness, they are not always getting underway. Now, right now, today, I have got five of those ships globally engaged working fine. But we need more than just the five, and I am sure we have more availability than just five, but we are finding that we don't have 100 percent availability of those ships. The recap of those ships will take a multifaceted solution. Rebuilding new ships is where we all want to go. That won't happen very, very quickly. I would guarantee that the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] of the Navy probably doesn't want to put my sealift ships at the top of his list when he is going to recap the Navy. I understand. So but that is part of the portfolio. The other part is to see if we can service life extend some of our younger ships out a few more years to bridge the gap. And I believe we ought to consider what we can do with some of the ships we are using every day in the Maritime Security Program, those U.S.-flagged ships with U.S. mariners that we are using every single day, can we buy some of those used ships and put them in the Ready Reserve fleet to augment that force? Some of those ships are available at 10 to 15 years of service, and we can use those for a number of years as a bridge. Mr. Garamendi. In doing so, we come up against what I think is a fundamental issue, and that is, are they American built? And this is something we are going to have to wrestle with as a team here. And I think most of us are advocates of buy America, build America, and we may find that some of those ships that you want to buy may not be American made. We need to work our way through that. I am going to take my last 40 seconds here to really lobby my colleagues here on the dais. We can expand the American maritime fleet, the commercial maritime fleet by requiring that the export of oil and gas be on American-built ships. And we can start at 10, 15 percent and then ramp it up. That would give us an opportunity for mariners to be trained and ready for the Ready Reserve or the MSP. We can also build ships by requiring that those ships be American built. There is legislation to do this. This is part of what the subcommittee in the Transportation, Coast Guard, and Maritime Committee is working on, so I am going to lobby my members here on that. But we really need detailed plans, General, from you on how you are going to transition this. It fits directly with the work that we are doing over in the Transportation Committee. And it is possible, it is going to take some money, and frankly, it is going to take some of that 54 additional ships that the Navy wants to be the--to be this piece of it. With that, I best yield back because I am 37 seconds over. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. We now proceed to Congressman Austin Scott of Georgia. Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, great to see you. I want to reiterate the importance of our merchant marines and the Merchant Marine Academy; whatever challenges we have there, we need to overcome those challenges and move forward. Those young men and women there are a tremendous asset to the United States, and I know that you couldn't function without them. I want to go back to what my friend Rob Wittman brought up on the C-5s. I represent Robins Air Force Base, obviously, one of the three Air Force depots. We do depot level maintenance on the C-5 Galaxy, the C-17 Globemaster for the strategic airlift, the C-130 Hercules for tactical airlift. You stated that we are seeing stress on the strategic airlift fleets, in your testimony. Would you please expound on these stresses and what the concerns are? And can you outline for me the plan for large airlift platforms like the C-5, if we intend to bring them back? And then one final question. I am extremely concerned as we look at Europe, because we don't have--I mean, the rail system is not there to move forward. The gauges are different on rail. Do we have the ability to land those C-5s in the areas that we would need to land them for any type of conflict in Europe? General McDew. If I step back for just a second, Congressman, on your question, it is a matter of capacity. So our strategic airlift capacity is what it is. It depends on what we will ask the community to do and to what level of risk we are willing to assume. I can always tell you that I could use double the numbers of C-17s and C-5s that we have, but that may not be practical. One, we can't make any more C-17s, and it may not be practical to bring all those airplanes back and modify them. But we may not need all of them if we manage the risk on the ones that we do have. I would say that the number of airplanes we have in the backup inventory and our plans to wait to bring them back on active inventory for a couple of more years as the Air Force can afford them is one that puts us in greater risk than I believe we should take. And when we bring them back on active inventory, I believe they should go back to an Active Duty unit and bring those airplanes back so that they are readily available more quickly. As I talk to General Scaparrotti about Europe and the problem set that he faces, he will tell you that response quickly is going to be important. The rail gauge issue in Europe is a big one. Most of our command spends time all around the globe every single day in looking at our master plan for access and points that we can use, ports, rail, and airfield, all around the globe. So I believe we have some places in Europe we can go. Are there as many as we used to have? Probably not. Are we as practiced at rolling through some places in Europe as we once were? Not, again. But we are going after trying to exercise in a different way. General Scaparrotti is leading that effort for Europe, but we are also working the other combatant commands for similar issues around the globe. As we have drawn back forces into the United States, how will we project power, how will we project aid, how we can project our assistance to these nations that rely on us. Mr. Scott. General, if you decided today, if we as a country decided today that we were going to bring back a squad of those C-17s, how long would it take to have that squad, the command and control of the squad, as well as the units ready to fly? General McDew. I am going to speak slightly out of my lane because I am--although I am wearing a nice-looking blue uniform right now, I am not in the Air Force this moment, and so I would have to defer a little bit to my air component. But I believe right now we have not fully drawn down those aviators in those Active Duty units that were just stood down about a year ago. They are slightly overmanned today, but we are going to slowly bring those down if we don't do something relatively quickly because that is what the budget will do. It will bring down to 100 percent manning. If we react today, which I don't think we can, we can maybe salvage those crewmembers and not take them down with a plan to bring them right back up with the airplanes. Mr. Scott. So if we act today, it would not take that long to bring the units back? General McDew. I don't believe so, and I don't want to speak too much out of turn because, like I said--but I believe, right now, those units, in Charleston in particular, are still overmanned with C-17 crew members, and we could probably bring those airplanes back out of backup inventory into primary inventory and use those crewmembers to still man those airplanes. Mr. Scott. General, thank you for your service. Mr. Chairman, my time is expired. My concern is, if we do this in BCT [brigade combat team] numbers, if you take down a BCT, it takes a couple of months to take one down, it takes 3 years to bring it back. And that is my concern with the actions we are taking. With that, I yield the remainder of my time. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. General McDew. I am not sure that the Air Force has the capacity to rapidly generate that many pilots right now anyway if we let them all go away. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. And we now proceed to Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii. Ms. Hanabusa. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, General, and thank you for acknowledging Vickie, who made my first transition here very easy. General, I want to talk--I am kind of following up from Congressman Garamendi, because one of the things that I am interested in is the military sealift portion of it. I am--I was interested in your testimony from pages 9 to 10 when you talked about the MSP program, and then you also spoke about the Jones Act. And you do say, in your testimony, that by subsidizing a robust domestic maritime industry, including U.S. industrial shipyard infrastructure for building, repairing, and overhauling U.S. vessels, and we are of course talking about, in terms of the Jones Act, that is the only requirement that we build America, and in addition, they also have to have the mariners staff. So on the MSP program, you have about 60 U.S.-flagged. Is that about correct? General McDew. That is right. Ms. Hanabusa. And we, meaning Congress, has authorized, and the military subsidizes it, the program, to the tune of about $186 million. We, of course, do not subsidize any Jones Act carriers. First, tell me, are we--is there a requirement that while they receive the subsidy, that they be manned, quote/ unquote, manned, not to be sexist, but manned with our mariners only? General McDew. Yes. Ms. Hanabusa. So they have our mariners, but they are not built in the--in the U.S. General McDew. Those ships are not required to be built in the U.S., but they have to be U.S.-flagged---- Ms. Hanabusa. Right. General McDew [continuing]. And U.S. mariners on board the ships when they carry our goods. Ms. Hanabusa. So when we are looking at a situation like, for example, we all can recognize that our shipbuilding industry depends too heavily on the military, and what we really would like to see is a robust commercial aspects of it. I am sure my colleagues from San Diego and Norfolk would agree with me that what we don't have is that component with the MSP program. However, we do subsidize them, correct? General McDew. I like to use the word ``stipend.'' Ms. Hanabusa. Okay. So what is the stipend that they receive? General McDew. They receive a stipend, basically, to stay with us. Congresswoman, as you may know, back in the 1950s, there were 1,500 ships sailing under U.S. flag in international trade. Ms. Hanabusa. That is a little before my time, but okay, I will take your word for it. General McDew. I am old. 1,500 ships, but today, there are only 78 in U.S. international trade. We are still a maritime nation, from what I understand, but that is--that is the decline you are talking about. Ms. Hanabusa. So how does the stipend work? So I mean, what do they get the stipend for? General McDew. They basically get the stipend to being available to move our goods and services when we need them and to be ready to go to war when we need them. Ms. Hanabusa. But they do not have to be actively engaged in any military activity at the point that they receive the stipend, though. General McDew. No. Ms. Hanabusa. So they can be moving commercial goods and receive the stipend. General McDew. Yes. Ms. Hanabusa. So we--and do you know, on an average, what the stipend is that we provide to the MSP program? And is it like per vessel, per route? How do you do it? General McDew. It is per vessel. Ms. Hanabusa. Okay. General McDew. It is currently $3.2 million per ship--$3.5 [million] per ship. Ms. Hanabusa. Is that in a year? General McDew. Per year. Ms. Hanabusa. Per year. General McDew. It is authorized up to $5 million, and in the out-years of the plan, it goes to $5.2 [million], I believe. Ms. Hanabusa. So they could never move any military goods or services, whatever we may call upon them, and they will still receive that stipend per year? General McDew. Theoretically, that could happen. Realistically, I can't imagine it happening. I use those ships daily. Ms. Hanabusa. But it may not be the same ship. There are 60-some-odd number of them, correct? General McDew. That is right. Ms. Hanabusa. So you could be using one or two or whatever the number may be. General McDew. I can get you the exact numbers, but we have a robust use of those 60 ships. Ms. Hanabusa. I would appreciate that. But isn't also a major component of it that they do not in any way compete with our domestic, quote, Jones Act ships? Isn't that a requirement under the law that established the MSP program? General McDew. I would have to double-check that one. I-- the Jones Act allows us to have additional ships in U.S. trade with U.S. flag. It also provides additional mariners. So the Jones Act, for me, is part of the overall readiness of our maritime industry and our ability to go to war, because it provides---- Ms. Hanabusa. I agree with that, General, but the Jones Act has that additional requirement that keeps our industrial base there, which your MSP program does not. So what I would like to know, if you would, is to provide me all that information. And I would also like to understand, with the chair's permission, how is it that we are subsidizing non-U.S.-built ships and our U.S.-built ships are the ones with all these additional constraints on, and it doesn't help my colleagues with the great shipbuilding yards in their neighborhood. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congresswoman. We now proceed to Congressman Bradley Byrne of Alabama. Mr. Byrne. Good morning, General. We are pleased to have you here. Before I get started on my questions, I want to let you know my Uncle Jack was a merchant marine officer during World War II. Tragically, he and all hands went down on his ship while they were performing a very important task for the American military. So I am always conscious of the fact that these mariners are not only performing an important task, they too are in harm's way, and I appreciate that. I want to talk to you about the expeditionary fast transport vessel, the EPF. I was in Singapore last month and saw two of them at dock preparing to be loaded. I would like to know how you and TRANSCOM are using those ships. They seem to be pretty good ships, seem to be utilized a lot. I would just like to know in general how you are using them. General McDew. Thanks, Congressman. First, for the mariners. During World War II, I believe they were one of the largest groups of losses that we had in any single grouping in World War II. I think some 9,000-plus mariners were--civilian mariners were lost during the war. They are valiant servants of this Nation, and we can't do what we do in U.S. Transportation Command without those mariners. On the vessels that you just mentioned, they are underneath the United States Navy. I don't have direct access to those ships, those vessels. Our Military Sealift Command and through the U.S. Navy channels is how those will get used, but they are not part of the TRANSCOM portfolio. Mr. Byrne. And let me ask you once again to go over the continuing resolution. I was listening very carefully to what you said because, you know, we are imminently going to have to make a decision about that. If you would, go down a little bit further in your testimony and tell us very precisely, as succinctly as you can, if we adopted a continuing resolution in April, what would it do to you? General McDew. And again, Congressman, the--directly, because of the transportation working capital fund, which is a revolving fund that allows me to continue operating without-- basically, allows me to continue operating yearlong, because I have to be ahead of the fighting force. If you--we decided to deploy the fighting force, I can't wait for the money to move because I have got to move ahead of time. So directly, not that much of a direct impact on U.S. Transportation Command. Indirectly, if the CR causes the Air Force to stop flying, which I just read this morning, if the Air Force has to stop flying 6 weeks--the last 6 weeks of the quarter, that will impact my ability to maintain ready pilots and crews to man those ships--man the airplanes. And conversely, if the other services have to take risks in order-- because they don't have the money they thought they were going to have to have--because the CR really is a budget cut. You are planning on the money from last year, so it is in--somewhat of a cut. So if you don't have that money available and you have to stop operating, then it starts to impact my ability to do my job. Mr. Byrne. Well, I know you said it is indirect, but it sure feels like it is direct, because you are not able to carry out the function that you are supposed to be carrying out as a result of it. General McDew. I only say it is indirect because I can't know how the services are going to take the risks when the CR comes on them. I can make assumptions that they might reduce this or reduce that, but until they actually get faced with it and make the actual decision, then it becomes my problem. Mr. Byrne. Do you plan as if you are going to have those planes at your disposal? Or do you plan--or do you have contingency plans if they are not there? General McDew. My contingency plans are always being worked. That is the nature of the business we are in. We always have to plan, so that is why we have the civil side of our work. If--you know, if I don't have the military side, I can, through the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, potentially get after some additional civilian aircraft to do that if we are in a permissive environment. If it is nonpermissive, then our next step would be the Guard and Reserve. There is a lot of options we can take, but CRs can start to impact a lot of those things other than the civil sector. Mr. Byrne. Well, I hope that we avoid that---- General McDew. I do too. Mr. Byrne [continuing]. For a lot of different reasons. We appreciate what you do, and please let us know what we can do further to support your very important component of defending the United States of America. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. We now proceed to Congressman Don McEachin of Virginia. Mr. McEachin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, I am a freshman, and so I am trying to make sure I understand about all sorts of things and learn about all sorts of things. Can you help me understand to what extent TRANSCOM is reliant on civilian facilities and infrastructure? General McDew. Broadly, Congressman, and don't be reluctant to ask me really strange sounding questions. It is not a simple portfolio, although it seems to be simple on the surface. We rely on just about everything this Nation has to offer when it comes to infrastructure: civilian rail, trucking, civilian air. So all of that infrastructure that would impact what most people would think would be the economic viability of a commercial company is actually part of national security, and in, for my case, national defense and our ability to project power in war. We can't move an Army unit, we can't move Marines or anything through this country without using some commercial port, some commercial rail, or some commercial trucking company. Mr. McEachin. Well, this then may be a difficult question for you to answer, but perhaps not. Do you see any significant investments in civilian infrastructure that is needed to help you complete your mission? General McDew. We always need improvements in rail, road, seaports. We are always working with commercial entities to ensure that the latest technology is incorporated, that cyber defenses are incorporated in these. My request, if I could make one of you, is anytime you are looking at improving or changing something in the commercial industry, think about the impact to national security. For me, it is national security. Most agencies don't think of all of those mom-and-pop trucking companies as potentially being something that may take our Nation to war. That is the way I view it, Congressman. Mr. McEachin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Congressman. We proceed to Congressman Duncan Hunter of California. Mr. Hunter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General, good to see you. I remember in 2004, when I deployed, I was the embarkation officer and dropped off our artillery pieces on a railroad in San Diego, which met us in Kuwait, which we then went up into Iraq with. So I have got an on-the-ground in touch with this. I guess my first question is, if you had to do North Korea and Russia at the same time, do you have enough ships? Pretty easy. General McDew. No. No. Mr. Hunter. Okay. How short would you be? General McDew. It depends. We really have to take a look at the actual scenario and what effects you would have to try to make and what timing. If it is completely simultaneously, I don't know if there is enough ships in the world. But depending on what effects at what time scale and what the TPFDD [time- phased force deployment document] would have to go through, we would have to see. And I can get the analysis folks to take a look at it, and I am sure we can come up with that number. Mr. Hunter. And if you just had to do one of them and you calculate attrition, what is the attrition rate that you calculate? Let's just take Korea, because they are being crazy. General McDew. I am ashamed to say, up until recently, we didn't account for attrition. We assumed---- Mr. Hunter. You assumed that none of the ships would get sunk. General McDew. We have never battled lack of domain dominance for this Nation in 70-plus years. We are there now. We are in a different mindset today. We are looking at a different enemy, a different fight. We have to think differently. We are now incorporating attrition, but not before now. Mr. Hunter. So when you look at the Ready Reserve fleet and the MSP, is attrition going to be built into your next recommendation to Congress of what we authorize and appropriate for those ships? General McDew. It has to be. It doesn't necessarily have to be an increase. Mr. Hunter. Well, I am assuming your numbers are going to go up. General McDew. Well, it also has to mean we have to change our tactics, techniques, and procedures. Not everything is an increase in numbers. Sometimes it is just how we employ, how we deploy. The fact that you still remember how to put some stuff on a ship---- Mr. Hunter. Not how. General McDew. I would like to bring you back to the G-4 [Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics], but---- Mr. Hunter. I just got it there. My Marines did it. I didn't. General McDew. But we don't have--actually, many people left in the military who remember what it was like to actually deploy. What we have been in for the last 15, 16 years is sustainment. That is a completely different proposition. Mr. Hunter. Second question, totally different thing. What ability do you have to bring life support in in big amounts, giant massive quantities of life support or ammo--let's just call it ammo, life support, beans, bandages, bullets to a--if you don't have a port and you don't have an airstrip? General McDew. We are challenged if you don't have a port or an airstrip. There is always airdrop. There is ability to get in behind lines, but we have got to look at the contested environment and the ability for the enemy to deny us that, the ability to get in there. If we don't have air superiority, we don't have a lot of things. And so I rely on that still being a fact, but if it isn't, we start to look at different ways to bring problems to bear and bring solutions to bear. Another piece, you talked about bringing medical evacuation. That is another part of my portfolio that has been underrepresented, probably by me as well, in understanding the impact of our ability to evacuate large numbers of people from a hostile zone. So we are looking at all those things, and I believe we have plans that take care of some of them, but this antiaccess, denial by an adversary is new for all of us, and we have to think differently. Mr. Hunter. I would just throw out there, there is a thing called the Aeroscraft, the ability--I mean, it is a giant blimp, basically, that can hold three or four tanks. It can hold a lot of supplies and stuff, and they can just drop in, if you have air superiority, obviously. A floating airship is easy to shoot down, right? General McDew. Yeah. Otherwise, they call those targets. Mr. Hunter. Right. Last thing. Do you think--would you say there is anything more important than the Jones Act for the maritime industrial base in U.S. law at all? General McDew. There are several pieces of U.S. law that are part of the industrial base, and it is not just one. The Jones Act is probably the anchor for it. But without the Jones Act, without the Maritime Security Program, without cargo preference, our maritime industry is in jeopardy and our ability to project the force is in jeopardy. If we think we need to project our force with U.S.-flagged vessels, with U.S. mariners on board, we need all of those things right now to secure that. Mr. Hunter. And your stipend, you said, is like $3.2 million right now for MSP. We have authorized and appropriated $5 million. We have upped that. If these U.S.-flagged vessels were not doing commercial work at all, they were just sitting there, what would the stipend have to be? General McDew. You could debate the number a little bit, but it would be upwards of $7-, $8- to $10 million a year. Mr. Hunter. If it just sat there? General McDew. Yeah. Mr. Hunter. Okay. Thank you, General. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. We now proceed to Congressman Don Norcross of New Jersey. Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman. General, thank you for being here today. Very sobering. The things that appear not to be immediately in front of us tend to fall off the edges, whether it is deferred maintenance or building air transportation, but as we all know, we are only as strong as our weakest link. What area in your portfolio keeps you up at night? General McDew. Air refueling tankers. Mr. Norcross. And that doesn't get better for another 3 years, at the earliest? General McDew. At the earliest. If we had 1,000 air refueling tankers, it might be enough. But if you look about any contingency around the world, so you pick a spot in the world, and you bring up any kind of issue. If you had a simultaneous or even a competing regard anywhere else in the world, your tanker UTE [utilization] rate goes up to a place that I can't even--that I can imagine, but the numbers are daunting, because any significant battle also brings up the rate of defense of the homeland, and any corresponding COCOM near that area has to bring up their defenses. All of that needs air refueling tankers. Mr. Norcross. So when your recommendations go in, as you heard earlier, for the NDAA, is that your largest and most focused request? General McDew. It would be 1-A. One would be getting back the C-5s off backup inventory and into active inventory; 1-A would be accelerating the tanker program as best we can and taking us out of the risk bathtub we have been in for a while on tankers. We have made some of it intentionally, but now we have got to climb our way out. Mr. Norcross. We read recently where that might be even pushed back a little further due to a number of technical issues in the production line. When is the earliest, given what you have seen, you think the first one will be delivered? General McDew. I wish I could really tell you. There is a projection by the manufacturer, and there is a projection by the United States Air Force, and they are not the same projections right now. And I would hate to speculate between the two of them. The Air Force is primarily working with Boeing to make sure that that is as quick as they can make it. Mr. Norcross. What is plan B? General McDew. There are some programming actions out there on a plan B that we are probably not going to be able to execute. You know, right now, the plan to retire the KC-10s may have to be revisited, although I understand the expense that is going to come with trying to keep the KC-10s around longer than the plan, but we have to find a way to climb out of the bathtub if the KC-46 is not going to be online in a reasonable amount of time to allow us to potentially accelerate that recap. And at 12 aircraft per year, that is going to take a long time. We built 700 of them in 7 years in the 1960s, and we are looking to recap them at 12 a year. Mr. Norcross. So let me understand this. Your biggest concern are the refuelers, and yet we are not making a decision to keep them active enough to take that risk off your plate? General McDew. The decision is there for the next few years. I don't recall, and I'll get you the exact date, that the Air Force plans to retire the KC-10, but it was also based on bringing the KC-46 on. So it may be shifting as we speak. I just don't want to speak for the Air Force right now on that particular issue because those negotiations are going on almost minute by minute. Mr. Norcross. Very sobering. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. We now proceed to Congresswoman Martha McSally of Arizona. Ms. McSally. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony and your service, General McDew. It is good to see you. We moved a lot of assets out of the European theater over the last years, thinking that there is a lasting peace there, to include A-10s and other fighters and Army units. And now, as part of the European Reassurance Initiative, we are deploying them back on a rotational manner. So my concern is with the strains that you have talked about today, what tax does that have on TRANSCOM to be continuously deploying units to meet the requirements for security and reassurance and dealing with Russian aggression in Europe? You know, I think we really need to, and this is really more the services, do a cost-benefit analysis here. But I just want to know, have you quantified that tax both on tankers and cargo to be constantly moving units back and forth now versus having them stationed there? General McDew. Congresswoman McSally, well, first of all, it is good to see you again. You may not remember having met me 20-some-odd years ago, but Lieutenant McSally, when you were first selected to go fly combat aircraft, there was a young captain in the Pentagon who researched all the women who could have actually selected combat aircraft, if it had been made available to them at the time. It was Captain Darren McDew that actually did some of that research back in the day, so it is good to see you where you are now. Ms. McSally. Good to see you again, too. That's great. General McDew. So some of that tax is not necessarily a tax. One of the things that we have realized, that we have been in 15 years of sustainment, and so some of it we need to exercise the muscle again. And as long as these rotations are planned and scheduled, it is not that bad, and it is actually good. We have forgotten, units, how to move themselves from Alaska through the continental United States to a port, get on a ship, and move to Europe or the Pacific. That muscle memory is a good exercise for the Army. It is not a bad one for the enterprise of ours. We recently tried one of those and blew a bunch of tires on a bunch of Stryker vehicles because of things that we had forgotten how to do. So not all of it is a bad tax. What is bad for us is if it is emergent, not planned, like say for a real war contingency. Ms. McSally. Or if another contingency emerges, right? General McDew. Right. Ms. McSally. In a resource-constrained environment, you know, that may be nice to do, but there is a cost with that as well, right? Have you captured what that cost is of the rotation versus what it would be steady state if we weren't doing that? General McDew. Not really, because that would take us assuming what level of presence the Army or the Department of Defense would like to have in Europe. Ms. McSally. Yeah. General McDew. You know, would it be the 300,000-plus we used to have? Would it be something short of that? Given those assumptions, we could probably make that calculation fairly easily. Ms. McSally. Great. Thank you. I know votes are being called, so I will yield back. Thanks, sir. Good to see you again. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congresswoman. We now proceed to Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler of Missouri. Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, General, for all that you do. I wanted to hone in just a little bit on the rail situation. I have heard some concerns from some other commanders in National Guard units and such from my district who were over there in the Baltics, and they were explaining the difficulty with the different rail gauges. Can you address what steps are being taken to rectify this situation? General McDew. Congresswoman, one of the first things we are doing is realizing that the problem is a problem. Mrs. Hartzler. Okay. General McDew. So we haven't been in Europe in this manner in a while, and so it is realizing--we know that the rail gauges are different, but what has transpired in Europe has been similar to what has transpired in other places around the world. If you don't use it for a while, you have got to go back and figure out how to use it again, and how it is being used, i.e., what is being contracted out, what is owned by the government of the nation that we are trying to go through. What are the ways to connect those dots? That's what we are trying to relearn. The rail gauge issue has been around for a long time, but we had enough people there before and we had enough access and we had enough kind of muscle memory that it wasn't as big a problem as when you are trying to start all over again. Mrs. Hartzler. How does that tactically work now? What plan do you anticipate doing getting to the border and unloading and putting it on their railcars that do match? Or are we looking at changing the types of railcars that have, you know, perhaps a movable gauge capability? I don't know, but how are you going to address this? General McDew. We are not there with the movable rail gauge, but maybe I can have my team start to work on that one. We would have to transload onto railcars that would be available to move on that rail gauge, and we have contingency plans for that, but we have got to go back and look at it again. One of the things that we are starting to realize--not starting to realize--we had all these management headquarters cuts. And I understand efficiency. I understand budgets and all that stuff. But what has happened is our ability to think, our ability to project different, to go after those problem sets, is starting to slow down. So we can identify the problem. It takes us a while to get to that as we are addressing all the myriad of problems we have. And so my request is, the other thing is, as we cut all the commands and we brought down their manpower, where did they make those cuts? I would guarantee you not many of them tried to salvage their logistics transportation planners. Mrs. Hartzler. Sure. General McDew. And so what I am finding is I am trying to help all those other combatant commands try to get after these problem sets too. Mrs. Hartzler. Okay. Just a quick question about ``the last tactical mile.'' It is my understanding that DOD has not incorporated those distribution metrics into their plan, and it is the responsibility of the distribution process owner to oversee the overall effectiveness. So what progress is USTRANSCOM making in working with the combatant commands to routinely collect distribution performance information for the last tactical mile? General McDew. I am thankful that the combatant commands are thinking differently than when TRANSCOM was given that moniker of the distribution process owner. When TRANSCOM was first given that moniker of the distribution process owner, not everybody was happy about it. And the reason the word is ``owner'' and not ``commander'' or ``director'' is because they wanted TRANSCOM to have less power in some of those areas to make decisions. Today, moving forward, all the combatant commands understand how much we need a global person to look at transportation writ large. At the last distribution process owner executive board, I let the team know of all the people who were represented, that we are going to make some decisions now about a number of things, and many of them are welcoming TRANSCOM's role to look more deeply at the end-to-end solution. That wasn't there a decade ago when we got this decision. Mrs. Hartzler. Thank you very much. I'll yield back. Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Congresswoman. We will now be concluding with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York. Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Wilson. And thank you, General McDew, for your service and for your testimony today. In your testimony, you discussed how our enemies continue to use our dependence on the cyber domain against us and that the greatest challenge for TRANSCOM is the threat of an attack in the cyber domain. Obviously, we have some unique challenges in cyber, especially when compared to the rest of the DOD. Can you describe some of the ongoing activities related to cyber and then, specifically, how are you working with Cyber Command to better protect your networks? General McDew. Congresswoman, our networks are fairly well- defended. CYBERCOM, I have great confidence in what they are doing to protect our networks. It is the rest of my network that I am most concerned about. It is the part outside the Department of Defense network. I extend throughout the entire country and around the world. Most of it on commercial dot-com networks is where I have to do my business. If a combatant command were to give me all their best secret information, I have then still got to contract it out. And right now, that chasm between DOD and DHS and how we think about cyber and what authorities we have to bridge that gap are my most relevant concern. Ms. Stefanik. And then just quickly before I have to run to votes, I want to ask specifically what the impact of a CR would be on your cyber efforts. Similar to Mr. Byrne's questions, this is an issue that we are going to continue grappling with, and we know that CRs are devastating to DOD, but I am asking specifically when it comes to cyber. General McDew. Well, that would be a direct impact on our cyber protection force, that Cyber Command puts a force against protecting our networks. The training and resourcing of that team would slow down probably, and the training would be impacted. I would imagine that would eventually get to maybe a less defending of our network, but I would hope that they would find a way to get around it. Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. I yield back. Mr. Wilson. And thank you very much, Congresswoman Stefanik. And, General, thank you very much for being here. And we are in the midst of votes. But I am just so grateful for the members who have taken time to stay the entire time, their dedication and appreciation of your service. We are adjourned. [Whereupon, at 10:13 a.m., the subcommittees adjourned.]