    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                             [H.A.S.C. No. 116-21]

                                    HEARING

                                       ON

                       NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

                              FOR FISCAL YEAR 2020

                                      AND

                  OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

      SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES
                                    HEARING

                                       ON

                      FISCAL YEAR 2020 BUDGET REQUEST FOR

                         DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SCIENCE

                            AND TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS:

                         MAINTAINING A ROBUST ECOSYSTEM

                           FOR OUR TECHNOLOGICAL EDGE

                                   __________

                                  HEARING HELD
                                 MARCH 28, 2019

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                   __________

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    36-862                  WASHINGTON : 2020

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

       SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

                   JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island, Chairman

    RICK LARSEN, Washington              ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
    JIM COOPER, Tennessee                SAM GRAVES, Missouri
    TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii                RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana
    ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland           K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
    RO KHANNA, California                AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
    WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
    ANDY KIM, New Jersey                 MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
    CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania       MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
    JASON CROW, Colorado, Vice Chair     DON BACON, Nebraska
    ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan             JIM BANKS, Indiana
    LORI TRAHAN, Massachusetts
                    Bess Dopkeen, Professional Staff Member
                   Eric Snelgrove, Professional Staff Member
                             Caroline Kehrli, Clerk

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                  STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Langevin, Hon. James R., a Representative from Rhode Island,
      Chairman, Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and
      Capabilities...................................................     1
    Stefanik, Hon. Elise M., a Representative from New York, Ranking
      Member, Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and
      Capabilities...................................................     4

                                   WITNESSES

    Geurts, Hon. James F., Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
      Research, Development and Acquisition, Department of the Navy..     8
    Griffin, Hon. Michael D., Under Secretary of Defense for Research
      and Engineering, Office of the Secretary of Defense............     5
    Jette, Hon. Bruce D., Assistant Secretary of the Army for
      Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, Department of the Army..     6
    Roper, Hon. William B., Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Air Force
      for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Department of the
      Air Force......................................................     9

                                    APPENDIX

    Prepared Statements:

        Geurts, Hon. James F.........................................    60
        Griffin, Hon. Michael D......................................    43
        Jette, Hon. Bruce D..........................................    53
        Langevin, Hon. James R.......................................    39
        Roper, Hon. William B., Jr...................................    71

    Documents Submitted for the Record:

        [There were no Documents submitted.]

    Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

        Mr. Banks....................................................    96
        Mr. Brown....................................................    94
        Ms. Houlahan.................................................    94
        Mr. Langevin.................................................    93
        Mr. Waltz....................................................    96

    Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

        Mr. Conaway..................................................   101
        Mr. Scott....................................................   102

                      FISCAL YEAR 2020 BUDGET REQUEST FOR

                       DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE SCIENCE AND

                   TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS: MAINTAINING A ROBUST

                      ECOSYSTEM FOR OUR TECHNOLOGICAL EDGE

                                  ----------

                      House of Representatives,
                           Committee on Armed Services,
         Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and
                                                  Capabilities,
                              Washington, DC, Thursday, March 28, 2019.
        The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:06 a.m., in
    room 2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James R.
    Langevin (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES R. LANGEVIN, A REPRESENTATIVE
     FROM RHODE ISLAND, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND
                   EMERGING THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

        Mr. Langevin. The subcommittee will come to order. I want
    to welcome everyone to today's hearing on the fiscal year 2020
    President's budget request for the Department of Defense
    science and technology programs. I am pleased that for the
    first time in many Congresses we have the highest S&T [science
    and technology] leadership from the Department providing
    testimony. By having the top leadership, this hearing aims to
    elevate the discussion of S&T to the same level of importance
    as to how many fighters, ships, and satellites the Department
    is buying.
        The Department's S&T ecosystem is complex and comprises
    agencies; offices; laboratories; federally funded research and
    development centers; university affiliated research centers;
    academic partnerships; test and evaluation entities; and
    partnerships with the private sector, including small
    businesses. This S&T ecosystem is charged with delivering the
    best capabilities to the warfighter in the near, mid and long
    term.
        For such an important portfolio, the fiscal year 2020
    President's budget request totals $14.5 billion, which is only
    2.7 percent of the Department's base budget and only 3.2
    percent above the fiscal year 2019 requested funding level.
    Adjusted for inflation, the fiscal year 2020 request is only 1
    percent higher, despite the increasing cost escalation of
    highly specialized technical labor, like scientists and
    engineers with advanced degrees and Ph.D.s.
        To say it another way, normalizing for inflation and labor
    cost escalation, this S&T budget has effectively been shrinking
    for years. And this is the budget that must lay the groundwork
    for today, for our future technological edge in the next 10 to
    20 years.
        I also want to point out that, unlike the shrinking of the
    S&T request, the Department's fiscal year 2020 investment in
    advanced component development and prototypes funding grew by
    5.8 percent from the fiscal year 2019 request, or by 27
    percent. Although I strongly support efforts to get new
    technologies across the ``valley of death'' into the hands of
    our service members as soon as possible, we must be cognizant
    of the fact that we must also invest in the long-term basic and
    early-stage applied research that will allow for revolutionary
    advancements down the line.
        In the past three National Defense Authorization Acts
    alone, Congress has granted almost two dozen authorities to
    improve the Department's S&T workforce, facilities, and
    infrastructure to champion inhouse innovation for the future of
    force modernization, warfighting, operational concepts, and
    acquisition. I remain disappointed that many of those
    authorities have gone underutilized or unused by the
    Department. This is also hard to reconcile with the National
    Defense Strategy, which highlights long-term strategic
    competition with China and Russia and the need for an
    unparalleled national security innovation base. It is no secret
    that China is stealing our intellectual property to further
    their objective to be a research and engineering powerhouse and
    compromise our warfighting edge. Make no mistake about it,
    however, China is not the only nation conducting these types of
    activities. China is, though, one of the few state actors that
    has coupled such tactics with considerable investments and
    resources behind a national strategy that involves a whole-of-
    government effort and leverages society to promote indigenous
    innovation. Yet the President's budget request decreases S&T
    and R&D [research and development] funding across the executive
    agencies, including the Department of Energy's Office of
    Science, and the National Institute of Standards and
    Technology, and the National Science Foundation.
        If the U.S. is to remain a global leader in technology, we
    cannot simply play defense. We must also play offense.
    Investments in science and research and other development
    efforts across the whole of government are necessary and vital
    to maintaining a technological edge.
        So, beyond the R&D specific funding, we must also invest in
    STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] education,
    programs to develop junior talent into future tech leaders, and
    implement policies that promote a sound economic, political,
    and strategic environment on U.S. soil where global
    collaboration, discovery, innovation in public institutions and
    industry can thrive.
        I recognize that the open dialogue and debate of academia
    can be anathema to the secrecy we rely on in the Department of
    Defense. But we must also recognize and embrace the competitive
    advantage our free society gives us to out-innovate and develop
    better products faster than anyone else in the world.
        Setting ourselves apart from our strategic competitors also
    means abiding by our American values and keeping our policy as,
    or more, developed than the technology itself.
        The functional work for the current understanding of
    artificial intelligence done in the 1950s and 1960s was funded
    by DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency] and the
    Office of Naval Research and aided by the convening power of
    universities. Now, we have been working on this technology for
    over half a century. Yet, in the John S. McCain 2019 NDAA
    [National Defense Authorization Act], Congress had to create a
    National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence to
    expedite the policy, strategy, and implementation plan that
    absolutely must be thought through for our Nation to
    effectively and ethically use these capabilities. For AI
    [artificial intelligence] and for each of the other seven rapid
    technological advancements outlined in the NDS [National
    Defense Strategy], I am looking to the Department to lean
    forward on strategically developing policies on how we should
    use and deploy those future technologies and how these emerging
    capabilities will contribute to our new national strategies--
    new security strategies. Such effort is especially important
    with hypersonics and directed energy, which present a myriad of
    policy and political considerations and challenges.
        Finally, I must emphasize that we will not attain the
    technological edge we need if we refuse to take risks in our
    R&D portfolio and if we do not empower risk-takers who are
    willing to push the boundaries on innovation. I realize that
    this will not come easily for the Department of Defense because
    the overriding culture is one of never failing. After all, in
    many aspects of the Department's mission, failure means people
    will die. However, in the S&T space, an attitude that
    conservative means we will never conceive of the technological
    leaps that will ensure our warfighters never go into a fair
    fight. It is incumbent upon the leadership in the Department to
    avoid perpetuating an overly conservative culture in the S&T
    enterprise. And I hope to hear from our witnesses today what
    they are doing to encourage reasonable risk-taking. In turn, so
    long as the Department is transparent about such failures,
    Congress and this subcommittee in particular must be willing to
    provide top cover for those that fail fast, fail smart, fail
    forward, and internalize the lessons learned from those
    failures.
        So, before us today we have the services' technology and
    acquisition executives. These individuals must divide their
    attention, creating--fielding the best technology to the
    warfighters as quickly and as effectively and efficiently as
    possible in the near and the mid term and protecting the
    scientists and innovators working on the test--the next
    generation of S&T that will enable the Department to keep its
    technological edge over the long term.
        In section 901 of the fiscal year 2017 NDAA, Congress split
    the former Under Secretary of Acquisition, Technology, and
    Logistics into two and created the Under Secretary of Defense
    for Research and Engineering [R&E] to empower the Department
    leadership to drive towards better innovation, advancing
    science and technology, and reducing risk intolerance in the
    pursuit of new technologies.
        Dr. Griffin, the first USD [Under Secretary of Defense] R&E
    since its charge, is the chief technology officer for the
    Department and is responsible for the research, development,
    and prototyping activity across the DOD [Department of Defense]
    enterprise. He is mandated with ensuring technological
    superiority for the Department of Defense.
        Dr. Bruce Jette, the Assistant Secretary of the Army for
    Acquisition, Logistics and Technology; Mr. James ``Hondo''
    Geurts, the Assistant Secretary of Navy for Research,
    Development, and Acquisition; and Dr. Will Roper, Assistant
    Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and
    Logistics are the three service acquisition executives
    responsible for executing and overseeing the services'
    research, development, and acquisition activities. So I welcome
    you all here today.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on the fiscal
    year 2020 S&T request and note that following this discussion,
    we will continue in a closed, classified, follow-on discussion
    with representation across the spectrum of the S&T ecosystem--
    the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department's
    laboratories and academic partnerships, the Strategic
    Capabilities Office, and the Defense Innovation Unit.
        So, with that, I will now turn it over to Ranking Member
    Stefanik for her remarks.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Langevin can be found in the
    Appendix on page 39.]

    STATEMENT OF HON. ELISE M. STEFANIK, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEW
    YORK, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND EMERGING
                        THREATS AND CAPABILITIES

        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Chairman Langevin.
        And thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
        I want to stress how important our investment in science
    and technology and the innovation ecosystem is to our national
    security. The National Defense Strategy frames the current
    security environment as one of, quote, rapid technological
    advancements that is changing the character of war [end quote].
    Now, more than any time in recent history, our military
    superiority is determined by our technological superiority. We
    are entering a new era of strategic competition where our
    ability to harness the power of our innovation ecosystem is
    being challenged by our adversaries.
        I am concerned that our S&T investments represent an
    alarmingly small percentage of our overall defense budget and a
    shrinking percentage of our total RDT&E [research, development,
    test, and evaluation] budget and at the same time that our
    adversaries are significantly increasing their S&T spending.
        While I am encouraged by the Department's investment in
    near-term advanced component development and prototyping, this
    cannot come at the expense of DOD's investment in our future. A
    properly resourced S&T enterprise reduces risk and
    technological surprise and, when properly executed, can
    generate disruptive new technologies that transform the way the
    Department does business, deters conflict, and wages war.
        I also want to highlight the importance of basic research
    to our future military capabilities. In fact, at a hearing I
    chaired in December on artificial intelligence, Dr. Lisa Porter
    cited DOD's 40 years of funding of AI basic research as the
    single most important factor for why we still maintain a slight
    lead over China's AI capabilities. As the pressure grows to
    accelerate and apply new technologies to today's problems, we
    must continue to balance this with the investment in future
    R&D. Any degradation in our future R&D will put the U.S. at a
    competitive disadvantage 10 to 20 years from now and weaken the
    bench of domestic science and technology expertise, which is
    already, as we know, in very short supply.
        Now more than ever, our science and technology enterprise
    plays a strategic role that is fundamental to our national and
    economic security. We must invest in it, and we must also
    protect it. Industrial espionage, cyber theft on a massive
    scale, illicit technology transfer, and foreign influence on
    our campuses are just a few of the malicious practices that our
    adversaries, most notably China, are using to undermine our
    national and economic security.
        Our universities, service laboratories, research and
    development centers, and pioneering small businesses are
    particularly vulnerable in our democratic and open society. We
    must do more to educate, inform, and protect our defense
    innovation ecosystem from these threats or we run the risk of
    arming our adversaries with technologies they will use against
    us in future conflict.
        Finally, we cannot allow our own bureaucracy to constrain
    the services from acquiring new technologies or the talent
    needed to implement these breakthroughs. Congress has made
    strides over the last several years to provide flexibility to
    the Department in hiring, funding, and sustaining our science
    and technology enterprise. I am particularly interested in
    understanding how these authorities are being utilized and what
    more we can do to improve our defense innovation ecosystem.
        Thank you again to our witnesses here today, and I yield
    back to the Chair.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ranking Member Stefanik. I want to
    thank you for your remarks.
        And we will now hear from our witnesses, and then move to
    the question-and-answer session.
        With that, I would like to now recognize Secretary Griffin
    for an opening statement.

       STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL D. GRIFFIN, UNDER SECRETARY OF
     DEFENSE FOR RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
                               OF DEFENSE

        Secretary Griffin. Thank you. Chairman Langevin, Ranking
    Member Stefanik, and members of this subcommittee, I want to
    thank you for the opportunity to discuss the ways in which we
    are advancing defense modernization in response to the threats
    posed by our adversaries. I have a few brief opening remarks. I
    have submitted my written testimony. I would like my written
    testimony to be entered into the record, if you so approve.
        Mr. Langevin. Without objection.
        Secretary Griffin. Thank you.
        I don't have to explain to this committee the threats that
    we face from Russia and China. Our adversaries have self-
    declared, and our only choice is to respond appropriately or to
    cede the primacy of the rules-based order that the United
    States established in the aftermath of World War II and has
    nurtured for now three full generations.
        Congress has paid very careful attention to these
    existential threats by our adversaries and has taken action to
    meet them. Through authorization, law, and funding, you have
    done your part to address these challenges, and we thank you
    for that support.
        For our part, we must work to change the processes,
    culture, and investment decisions of the DOD to regain and
    maintain the technical dominance that deters our adversaries.
    It is the role of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research
    and Engineering, working with the service acquisition
    executives who are here today, to align the Department's
    investment portfolio to that end.
        The 2018 National Defense Strategy outlines a clear path to
    the technical advantage we seek. It prioritizes hypersonics,
    directed energy, space, autonomy, cybersecurity, quantum
    science, microelectronics, artificial intelligence,
    biotechnology, machine learning, network command and control
    and communication. This is a smorgasbord of items; all are
    important. To pursue these priorities, the President's fiscal
    year 2020 budget includes $14.1 billion for cross-department
    science and technology.
        Our request for--as one example of what we are doing with
    this funding, our request for $2.6 billion for hypersonics in
    fiscal year 2019 and our request for $11.2 billion over the
    next 5 years will allow us to increase flight testing and field
    operational capability years earlier than we had previously
    planned. DARPA continues to build on work begun almost 60 years
    ago with its $2 billion multiyear AI Next campaign.
        To respond to the adversarial activity we observe today by
    China and Russia in space, the Department has created the Space
    Development Agency to design and field critical space
    technologies more rapidly than has been the case recently.
    These are just a few of the ways in which we are pursuing
    defense modernization.
        We will not succeed by fighting tomorrow's conflicts with
    yesterday's weapons. It is not our goal merely to match those
    who reject the values we espouse and the freedoms we protect.
    Instead, we are working to build and sustain a level of
    dominance so overwhelming that no adversary will start a fight
    because they know they will lose. That is our goal.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Griffin can be found
    in the Appendix on page 43.]
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Griffin.
        Now Secretary Jette is recognized.

     STATEMENT OF HON. BRUCE D. JETTE, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
     ARMY FOR ACQUISITION, LOGISTICS AND TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF
                                THE ARMY

        Secretary Jette. Thank you. Chairman Langevin, Ranking
    Member Stefanik, and distinguished members of the subcommittee,
    thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss
    the U.S. Army's program for science and technology for fiscal
    year 2020.
        The subcommittee's vital role in supporting Army S&T
    ensures the U.S. Army shall continue to modernize to meet
    future readiness requirements to encounter emerging and future
    threats. As Secretary Esper discussed in testimony Tuesday of
    this week, Army's Futures Command was formed to define the
    operational vision for multidomain operations; identify the
    technology requirements near, mid, and far; and to provide
    management of the technology enterprise. Your demonstrated
    commitment to our program was clear in your support of our
    fiscal year 2019 budget submission for $2.3 billion in S&T,
    which represented a stable inflation-adjusted growth and laid
    the foundation for closing critical technology gaps. Congress
    added $1.3 billion, allowing us to advance even further and
    faster as we focused on those technologies outlined in the NDS,
    some of which Dr. Griffin just mentioned, which will provide a
    decisive overmatch.
        Thank you for your support and thank you for passing the
    budget in time for the fiscal year. The Army's fiscal year 2020
    budget request for $2.4 billion S&T again remains inflation-
    growth protected. Approximately 83 percent is aligned with the
    Army's six modernization priorities focused on maturing
    technology, reducing program risk, developing prototypes to
    better define affordable and achievable requirements, and
    conduct experimentation with soldiers to refine new operational
    concepts.
        The Army's 12,000 civilians and scientists are critical
    assets in identifying, developing, and demonstrating
    technologies, and leveraging more commercially based research,
    and executing military-unique research. Through NDAA
    authorities, we have implemented a number of efforts to build,
    enhance, and retain our workforce, for which I would also like
    to thank you.
        The Army relies on its laboratories to foster innovation to
    help transition basic research. The laboratories directly
    support military operations through various services and
    limited product development and production. State-of-the-art
    facilities are imperative to the success of Army basic,
    applied, and advanced technology development and research.
        Chief among the reforms is the new intellectual property
    [IP] policy, which fosters greater communication with industry,
    researchers, and entrepreneurs early in the process, clarifying
    our data requirements and, I would say, addressing some of the
    concerns of protecting the IP.
        Having patents in IP myself as a small entrepreneurial
    business owner only a year and a half ago, I know the important
    role IP plays in the ability to leverage the broader spectrum
    of cutting-edge technologies out there. With great support from
    the Secretary, we also are focusing on talent management in
    both our military and civilian workforces. Our laboratory
    system has been leveraging those authorities you provided to
    recruit and retain top talent to keep the Army on the cutting
    edge. Grants, when combined with such efforts as open campus
    and industry outreach programs, have expanded the pool of
    exceptional talent, to include 18 Nobel Prize winners and most
    recently the 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry, Dr. Frances Arnold.
        The Army continues to benefit from the many additional
    programs and has extended its outreach to nontraditional
    partners.
        Thank you again for strong support for the Army's programs,
    the authorities you provided, and the opportunity to discuss
    Army S&T. I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Jette can be found in
    the Appendix on page 53.]
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Jette.
        Secretary Geurts, you are recognized for 5 minutes.

     STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES F. GEURTS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE
     NAVY FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ACQUISITION, DEPARTMENT OF
                                THE NAVY

        Secretary Geurts. Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member
    Stefanik, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thanks
    for the opportunity to appear before you today to address the
    Department of the Navy's science and technology efforts and how
    they support both the National Defense Strategy and, more
    importantly, our sailors and Marines.
        It is a real exciting time for science and technology
    ecosystem, and it's truly my honor to be here to represent all
    of them with you today.
        I have a few brief opening comments, and then I request my
    full statement be entered into the record.
        Mr. Langevin. Without objection.
        Secretary Geurts. The Navy's fiscal year 2020 budget
    request includes $2.3 billion in basic and applied research,
    which represents a key enabler to ensure the Department of the
    Navy maintains and expands its comparative overmatch against
    our competitors. It maintains our strong commitment to science
    and technology to further our advantage for our sailors and
    Marines.
        I would like to thank the subcommittee and Congress for
    passing the fiscal year 2019 budget on time. On-time receipt of
    the full budget allowed us to expedite the delivery of
    technology, lethality, and readiness to our sailors and Marines
    while achieving cost savings through efficient contracting. It
    also helped us accelerate our contracts through a broad network
    of science and technology partners in the ecosystem, including
    academia and small businesses, all of whom suffer
    disproportionately when we go into a continuing resolution
    period.
        I would also like to thank Congress for the wide range of
    science and technologies authorities it has provided the
    Department of the Navy. Authorities such as section 233 have
    allowed us to reduce our contracting timeline by over 27
    percent in the first year alone and saved us over 154,000
    processing days.
        Section 219 authorities have allowed us to invest an
    additional $250 million annually in science and technology
    workforce development programs, basic and applied research,
    technology transition, and facility revitalization. These
    authorities are remarkable and are really making a difference
    to ensure we can both recapitalize our capital assets as well
    as focus on our priority, which are our people.
        For the 18th year in a row, the Navy has led all government
    agencies in the number of patents, thanks largely to these
    authorities.
        As we continue to leverage these authorities and increase
    our iteration speed, we are also executing innovative and
    sustainable business and architectural strategies so that the
    discoveries made in S&T have a quick, fast lane to get deployed
    to the field. Ensuring this clear fast lane from discovery to
    deployment allows us to harness the amazing science and
    technology discoveries into rapidly fielded capabilities so we
    can maintain and grow our advantage.
        Winning in a great competition requires us to maximize all
    the assets we have and derive the most value we can from the
    taxpayers' dollars. I would like to recognize the strong
    collaboration and teamwork we have achieved across the services
    and with Dr. Griffin. We are working very closely together,
    learning from each other, removing redundancies, and allowing
    us to accelerate capabilities to the field for all of our
    services.
        Thanks for the strong support this subcommittee has always
    provided our sailors and Marines. And thanks for the
    opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to
    answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Geurts can be found in
    the Appendix on page 60.]
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Secretary Geurts.
        Dr. Roper, you are now recognized.

    STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM B. ROPER, JR., ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
       THE AIR FORCE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS,
                      DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE

        Secretary Roper. Chairman Langevin, Ranking Member
    Stefanik, and members of the committee, thank you very much for
    holding a hearing on this very important topic.
        Mr. Chairman, you hit it on the head: Science and
    technology needs to be more important to us if we are going to
    keep the military edge that we have enjoyed from the last
    century into this one.
        I have prepared a written statement. I ask that it be
    entered into the record, but I am just going to give some brief
    oral remarks, if that is okay.
        Mr. Langevin. Without objection.
        Secretary Roper. Mr. Chairman, preparing for an S&T hearing
    is really good for the soul. It gives you a chance to drill
    down to what people are doing in our laboratories and in small
    business work. It is amazing to see the broad array of ideas
    that are being cultivated by our scientists and engineers. And
    it makes you excited about what the future is going to be for
    the Air Force.
        A lot of the technology areas you know, hypersonics and
    directed energy and space, we talk about these a lot, and they
    are critically important to us. But it is fun to discover some
    things you didn't know, like the Air Force is looking at bio-
    inspired materials that will let us make sensors inspired by
    geckos' ears, making them smaller and more compact or that we
    are using centuries-old ideas about origami to make antennas
    that can fold up and deploy in space, cool ideas that are being
    developed across the country. And these are just a few of the
    things that I enjoyed seeing in my prep.
        Our science and technology budget is at $2.8 billion for
    this year, up 6 percent from last. We certainly hope to do
    better in the future, but this shows the commitment that the
    Air Force has to maintaining investment in science and
    technology so that the future Air Force remains dominant.
        Our Secretary is conducting a full review of science and
    technology in her 2030 study. We expect the results will be
    announced in the next couple of weeks. But expect sweeping
    reforms in how we address this critical part of the Air Force.
        Everyone has hit in this opening part of the hearing the
    most important thing we have to bring to this portfolio, and
    that is a competitive mind-set. This is not broadcasting seeds
    that we can't carefully tend. This must be the place where we
    grow technologies that our future airmen and the services who
    rely upon them will depend upon. We must treat it more
    strategically and make each day count. We have to compete for
    talent. And this subcommittee and Congress have given us the
    authorities to do that, but we need to use them more
    aggressively. Whether it is direct hire authority or direct
    hire for STEM, enhanced pay authority, the Air Force has gotten
    out of the starting blocks using them, but we need to fully use
    the authority to make sure that our laboratories are staffed by
    people that are world leading.
        But we can't just compete inside our laboratory walls. We
    need to get outside of them. We are part of a much broader
    technology ecosystem. We are expanding our work with
    universities, having fully embedded laboratory personnel
    onsite, using the university as a place that conducts research
    just as if it was part of a government facility. Universities
    like Purdue have helped us on hypersonics, creating higher Mach
    wind tunnels where we can do cutting-edge research.
        New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology is working
    with us on electronic warfare, and we are in discussions with
    MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] on an AI center so
    that we leverage the best that universities bring.
        We have to acknowledge that the world is changing.
    Technology is not being developed just inside of government
    facilities. We have to understand that universities, as well as
    commercial startups, play an increasingly larger role in this
    ecosystem. We have focused very hard this year on making it
    easy for tech innovators to work with us, lowering the
    contracting time from months down to being able to have a
    company pitch to us, approve their idea, put them on contract,
    and pay them in less than 15 minutes. We have to have
    competitive speed, given the competition for ideas in the
    technology world.
        But it is not just the kinds of technologies you may think
    about--AI, bio--that [we are] are seeing. Small business can
    now play an increasing role in high-end technology development.
    One of our small businesses has been awarded the first X-plane
    designation ever given to a small business. The X-60 Alpha,
    which is a reusable hypersonic test bed, will allow us to
    collect better data to infuse back into fundamental research.
    Pretty awesome a small business is doing that for us.
        We also have to compete ideas. There are so many
    technologies that could change the future of military: AI,
    autonomy, quantum, directed energy. So we need to make sure
    ideas are not just peanut-buttered across everything but are
    strategically placed on capability areas that will be war-
    winning. We have created new programs, like SkyBorg, to make
    artificial intelligence real, not just a laboratory
    demonstration, fieldable, usable AI.
        We are working on collaborative weapons so that we get the
    benefit of networking that so many of us experience in our
    everyday lives, and there are many more examples that I am sure
    we will discuss today.
        Ranking Member Stefanik, you used a really good word in
    your opening remarks. You used the word ``ecosystem.'' And it
    is a nice-sounding word, but if you think about it, an
    ecosystem is not a very hospitable place. It is people
    competing for scarce resources that can be used by all. We need
    to think of ourselves as part of an ecosystem where we can play
    a valuable role to universities and businesses and government
    facilities in this country but where those same technologies
    can be enjoyed by our adversaries and used against it. And it
    has to be our sacred duty to plant seeds in today's budget that
    will be reaped by those that come after us. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Roper can be found in
    the Appendix on page 71.]
        Mr. Langevin. I thank all of our witnesses.
        We are going to questions now and then followed by the
    closed session.
        My first question is for all of our witnesses, the
    Department has advertised that this is the largest R&D--RDT&E
    budget in some time. And yet the S&T request that we are here
    to talk about today, which includes activities in 6.1, 6.2, and
    6.3, has effectively decreased in buying power. And S&T is seen
    as the source of future innovations essential to the United
    States ability to compete with near-peer adversaries. If
    adjusted to account for inflation and highly skilled labor cost
    escalation for scientists and engineers, then if you look at
    it, the Department has been on an overall downward trend in its
    S&T budget.
        Conversely, the Department's fiscal year 2020 request for
    advanced component development and prototype, 6.4, funding,
    grew by $5.8 billion from the fiscal year 2019 request or 27
    percent. So I am certainly a supporter of prototyping and risk-
    taking, but we also need to invest in our future science and
    technology. So, given the new challenges on the horizon and the
    promise of powerful emerging technologies, why should we be
    effectively decreasing investments in DOD S&T?
        Dr. Griffin, let's start with you. I would like to hear a
    comment from all of our witnesses.
        Secretary Griffin. Yes, sir, thank you.
        Well, I cannot argue with your figures. You are, of course,
    correct. I will note that many of the scientists and engineers
    to whom you refer can work across the boundaries of 6.1, 6.2,
    6.3, 6.4. So I don't think our individual talent pool is at
    risk because of the prioritization that we are doing. And if
    you look at RDT&E as a global enterprise from 6.1 through 6.7,
    we are actually up--across base and OCO [overseas contingency
    operations], we are up 9 percent. And across base alone, we are
    up over 8 percent. So I prefer--I do very much understand your
    point about the difference between S&T and prototyping. I do
    tend to look at the RDT&E enterprise as a continuous stream.
    And in that sense, we are up. So I will stop there and let my
    colleagues comment as well.
        Mr. Langevin. Okay. Dr. Jette.
        Secretary Jette. Mr. Chairman, our objective in the Army
    has been to make sure that we have taken the money for 6.1,
    6.2, and 6.3 and adjusted it for inflation and inflationary
    factors and salaries and those types of things and then try to
    make sure we keep that at a level playing field.
        We sacrificed in our 6.4 for some time, and we have now
    increased, and that is one of reasons our 6.4 budget has
    significantly increased.
        One of the things we are doing to try to get at the issue
    of salary disparities between some of the greater talent that
    we might want to reach out to, is to leverage some of the
    authorities that you have given us, pay banding, renewable
    term, educational partnerships for individuals that may not
    want to leave full time their university institutions. So,
    rather than trying to purely obtain the talent on a full-time
    basis, we can leverage other methodologies. So we think at this
    point that we have been able to structure our overall budget to
    keep ahead of the loss of talent. In fact, we think we have a
    good talent pool going and particularly with some of our
    outreach programs over 240 universities that we work with, we
    think that we are also bringing in a number of interns to and
    direct hires. It appears at this point, though, I would say,
    our talent pool is pretty stable and sound.
        Mr. Langevin. Secretary Geurts.
        Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir, absolutely a critical point. I
    guess we are attacking the overall issue from a couple of
    different directions, which I will kind of cover in top level
    and can certainly follow up in more detail, either in questions
    or in followup. The first thing is, how do we maximize the
    investment that we have made? So $2.3 billion, while not a huge
    amount of growth from previous years, is still a lot of money.
    And so my first goal is to maximize the return in value we get
    for that funding. That is through getting rid of inefficiencies
    in our processing, making sure we have those funds focused on
    the most critical needs for the Navy and the Marine Corps and
    for the Department of Defense.
        The second piece is, are we really maximizing the tools we
    have? Partnership intermediary agreements, cooperative
    agreements, other tools to bring in folks to the ecosystem. So,
    if I look at our numbers just in terms of CRADAs [cooperative
    research and development agreements], last year we had 478; we
    already have 266 new ones. So we are continuing to see that
    raise increase. Use of OTAs have gone from 8 to 42 in one year.
        The third element is creating a clear path from discovery
    all the way through to deployment. And so we have reorganized
    the back end of our R&D portfolio to really focus on two
    things: future naval prototypes, which is a path in terms of
    getting that S&T pipeline into the programs of record so we can
    get it into our acquisition programs; and then also innovative
    naval prototypes, things where we don't have requirements yet,
    ideas, things we want to challenge, take high risk, and move
    that into the system. Creating those pipelines then really
    leverages that 6.1, 6.2 and these other agreements with
    industry to give them a clear path to the sailors or Marines
    that we have.
        And, finally, it is boldly experimenting, boldly and
    relentlessly experimenting, and allowing that basic research,
    that applied research to get in the hands of a sailor or Marine
    as quickly as possible. Because many times we find what they
    designed the technology for may not be ultimately where it has
    the most value into our ecosystem and vice versa. We may not
    have asked for something until we see it. That is how we are
    really trying to get at maximizing that investment. As we
    maximize that investment, we will continue to look at adding
    more as the years come.
        Mr. Langevin. Mr. Roper.
        Secretary Roper. Mr. Chairman, I think the Air Force has
    really tried to approach the valley of death issue with this
    budget. We have had great technology work going on for--since
    our inception, going on for decades. But in the collapse of the
    Soviet Union, we lost a peer adversary that forced, as a
    mandate, to keep competitive edge, that forced high-tech
    technology into new systems. And with prototyping funding going
    down year after year, we got accustomed to there being
    significant funding in S&T and then significant funding in
    program of record. So you are seeing the Air Force put a lot of
    its investments this year into the 6.4 prototyping fund, it's
    $1.64 billion to try to get things like hypersonics, directed
    energy, AI out of the laboratories into the field, into
    operators' hands where they can be used. We hope that once
    there are programs of record in place, that creates a natural
    draw and demand from the S&T enterprise to keep modernizing,
    keep pushing the envelope of technologies because there is a
    place to transition it in field for warfighter.
        I expect that over time, as we get a lot of the mature
    technologies out of our research lab--I would also like to
    recognize a lot of our important innovation partners, DARPA,
    SCO [Strategic Capabilities Office], and DIU [Defense
    Innovation Unit], are here today. We take the best ideas where
    we find them. And we want to make sure that we have the funding
    in place for prototyping to make sure that we can apply them to
    mission. But I expect that, over time, we will start
    rightsizing across the whole RDT&E portfolio to make sure that
    we have optimized for that transition. We can't transition 20
    programs a year. We have to determine the number that makes
    sense for us to keep our dominant edge and then rightsize the
    rest of the S&T underneath it. But the focus for me this year
    is going to be transition rate. It is time to create some new,
    new programs in the Air Force. I am hoping we will do that in
    our 2021 budget request.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you all. I just hope we will not lose
    sight of striking the balance of optimization. I don't want to
    do one at the expense of the other, especially when we are
    talking about developing those leap-ahead, next-generation
    technologies. We can't eat our seed corn. We have got to make
    sure that we are planning for the future and properly investing
    in the R&D part, along with the prototype and getting things
    out of the lab and into the warfighters' hands as soon as
    possible.
        As I mentioned in my opening statement, concurrency in
    policy and tech development is critical to successful
    employment capabilities and being a global leader and
    establishing norms for use of technologies, yet too often
    policy lags behind tech development. So, to the witnesses, in
    your view, what actions does the Department need to take to
    promote currency in policy employment concepts, training,
    doctrine, and other matters as technology matures?
        Secretary Griffin. I guess I can start. One of the things
    we are trying to do on the research and engineering side of the
    house is to work more closely with the Joint Staff as they plan
    execution concepts. They need to know what technologies could
    be available if they want them. And we need to know how they
    would like to fight, if we could give it to them. We have made
    I would say very significant efforts in improving regularizing,
    increasing the frequency of those interactions so that, as we
    plan the future force, we know what the people who have to
    fight want and they know what we have a chance to give them.
    Working very aggressively on that.
        To that end in fact, just to pick one arena, in that of
    directed energy, we recently started a program to put a high-
    energy laser on a littoral combat ship. Initially, this will be
    a demonstration. If it works out well, we can take it to the
    next step, but it is time to get these systems out of
    laboratory and into the field, and that is where we are going.
        Mr. Langevin. Anybody else care to comment.
        Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir, I think the way we are
    approaching it, to Dr. Griffin's point, and my experience at
    SOCOM [Special Operations Command], the faster you can get
    something in the hands of the warfighter, the faster you can
    understand where you have the real practical policy
    implications and start working our way through that. So efforts
    like our Sea Hunter, where we autonomously transited from San
    Diego to Pearl Harbor and back with a DARPA-developed product
    that the Navy is now working on, is a great example. As Dr.
    Griffin said, getting lasers, we are putting 150 kilowatt laser
    on the Portland this summer. Get it out in the hands of the
    fleet. Let them experiment. The two other tools we use are
    innovative naval prototypes. Those are things that we do not
    yet have a requirement for but looked like they may be
    disruptive technologies. And we found the faster we can put
    them out in the field, the faster we understand where those
    policy pieces we need to work on or where the technology
    disruption opportunities are, and that is kind of our focus.
        Secretary Jette. Mr. Chairman, we have done a number of
    things to try and address the issues that you have raised. One
    of them is a policy that we put in place, it is commonly known
    amongst us as the 60/40, 80/20 policy. It gives us the freedom
    where you take 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 money, in the past, often you
    tried to find a way to link all your funding to something that
    you are going to do later. The later in the 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, you
    ended up needing a transition agreement; very formal process,
    so formal that what it did was it constrained our innovation,
    particularly at the lower levels and our ability to look at
    things that might not be so clearly tied to a current
    operational need. In our current approach, things like 6.1
    money is 100 percent optional. Just give me a good reason why
    we are doing it that might have military utility. You don't
    have to tie it to an existing program or a defined need. The
    same type of approach for 6.2 is somewhere in the ballpark of
    50/50; 6.3 starts to get it closer to 80/20; and 6.4 tends to
    be something that we are trying to get focused against a
    particular outcome. This way, it gives us a little bit of
    structure but assures freedom on the part of developers to be
    able to think outside the box and outside of the current
    requirements.
        We have done a couple of other things that I think are
    important. One of them is we have the Army's established Army
    Futures Command. The objective of the Army's Futures Command is
    to do a from stem-to-stern integration of the concepts. I have
    got operational concepts. I am looking for technologies, and I
    want the technology development community to then influence the
    operational concepts. So it is a spiral type of approach to
    coming up with new directions that we need to focus. And then
    when we do develop the new technology, how best we apply that?
    How do we develop the doc on the TTPs [tactics, techniques, and
    procedures], and who exactly does that? So that it is not that
    we just give them a new item--I have fielded many things.
    Sometimes you give it to somebody, they do not have a real good
    idea of how to use it; it is no better than what they had and
    maybe even worse.
        We have instituted the Rapid Capabilities and Critical
    Technology Office to try and accelerate, particularly in the
    area of AI, hypersonics, space, directed energy, our SAP
    [Special Access Program] programs to get them more under
    control, make sure that we know that they are focused and make
    sure that they are properly resourced. And we put--you
    mentioned in your discussion, how do we increase the
    willingness to take risk? Organizationally, people are not
    particularly fond of taking risk, not in the government. It is
    just not one of those things that is core characteristics. So
    we establish a policy where we require people to put stage
    gates in. This comes out of something that I used in the
    commercial sector in a lot of work that I did. You move your
    highest risk to the front; fail early if you need to. Highest
    risk to the front, and then you have off-ramps at various stage
    gates. And if you run into a place where you found that
    something is not going the way you want, you can all jointly
    make a decision: Was it a true failure, or do we have to adjust
    our target? So we are putting a number of these different
    pieces in place to try and see if we can get at this overall
    methodology by which we attack these technology problems.
        Mr. Langevin. Well, I think the doctrine policy is just as
    important in many ways as developing capabilities as well,
    making sure they are responsibly used.
        So, unless you have anything to add, Dr. Roper.
        Secretary Roper. I think most of my colleagues covered it,
    Mr. Chairman. I will just say briefly, in addition to trying to
    tackle the Valley of Death issue and create a gradient from the
    lab to the field, we are working hard to turn ourselves inside
    out. We have to determine the right way to have an S&T
    enterprise in a global ecosystem. So we have made great strides
    over the last year, increasing our work with universities and
    with small businesses. But we are really focused just inside of
    this Nation, and we should. We have got cutting-edge companies,
    the best in the world here, but it is going to be increasingly
    important to think about, how do we play a role in the global
    ecosystem as technology is developed everywhere? It can be
    developed by a company in country X; it can be used by anyone.
    And so we really need to focus on time to market, not
    technology exclusivity anymore. And that is going to mean
    thinking differently about how we work with universities and
    companies and individuals that are not in the U.S. And we are
    hoping to earn our way to those problems by being able to work
    very well with the innovators that we have in the U.S.
        Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you.
        I have additional questions that I will ask before we go to
    closed session on the condition of the labs. Also, I want to
    talk about authorities that may be going underutilized.
        With that, I hold those and turn to the ranking member for
    questions--her questions.
        Ms. Stefanik. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I am going keep my questions to 5 minutes so we can get to
    other members.
        My first question is for Dr. Griffin. Last year, when you
    testified before this committee, you highlighted that there
    were over 500 separate artificial intelligence projects within
    the DOD. Fast forward about a year, the Department has
    undergone a significant realignment of its AI portfolio with
    the establishment of the JAIC, the Joint AI Center, which
    reports to the CIO [Chief Information Officer]. How has your
    outlook on AI changed over this time period? Do you have a
    better understanding on what AI projects are underway? And what
    more can we do to accelerate the implementation and deployment
    of AI capability to the warfighter?
        Secretary Griffin. The count I offered in that hearing was
    based on an inventory we took at the time. I have no reason to
    disagree with it. I think the point of that comment is that it
    shows how broadly distributed the possible applications of AI
    and intriguing research areas exist. And we are trying to take
    full advantage of those.
        Ms. Stefanik. Let me just clarify my question. It wasn't to
    say, is that the number still today? It was more to say that we
    shifted from having a lot of different programs to a more
    comprehensive approach and a joint approach in terms of, how do
    we learn the lessons across DOD and centralize it in a hub-and-
    spoke model through the JAIC?
        Secretary Griffin. Okay. Thank you. That helps. The Joint
    AI Center under the CIO has as its task the taking of research
    efforts which have proven to be successful or look like they
    could be successful in the near term and apply them to urgent
    or existing--I won't say just warfighter, but urgent or
    existing challenges of the operational community, everything
    from reforming business practices to pulling targets out of ISR
    [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] data to
    signals out of clutter, et cetera.
        The other focus--and I believe that Lieutenant General
    Shanahan, who heads that activity, working for Mr. Deasy, our
    CIO, I think he is all in. I think the people in the center are
    all in on doing this.
        On the research and engineering side, we have the task of
    bringing those tools into being. The tools that the JAIC is
    using are things which have emerged from quite literally 60
    years of AI work, mostly at DARPA. Now, as it happens, when you
    move into the closed session, you have those experts with you,
    and I am not one of those. I would urge you to quiz them.
        At the R&E level, we are trying to make sure we are
    covering the whole field, from research to today's
    applications. So that is one of the modernization priorities in
    the National Defense Strategy. As you may know, my deputy, Dr.
    Porter, and I have organized the research and engineering
    establishment around those priorities. The core of our
    organization is an assistant director for each of the NDS
    modernization priorities. We regard AI as so critical that the
    Assistant Director for AI will report directly to the two of us
    as opposed to going through other channels in the organization.
    Again, the goal is so that we have right in our front office a
    holistic knowledge of what is going on in AI across the
    Department but more importantly, across the entire field
    because the U.S. Government expenditures in research on AI,
    while extraordinarily significant, are by no means the total
    sweep of such expenditures. Let me stop there.
        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you for that. I have 1 minute left.
        Mr. Geurts, shifting gears here, additive manufacturing is
    increasingly becoming an important transformative capability
    across the services. And the DOD recently announced the
    investment of $60 million of RDT&E in the Digital Manufacturing
    and Design Innovation Institute to continue to transform
    digital manufacturing. I believe strongly that additional
    investment in additive and digital manufacturing will
    strengthen our domestic industrial base and therefore bolster
    our supply chain resiliency and accountability. I have a great
    example of the leader in my district, Norsk Titanium. Can you
    talk about how additive manufacturing is transforming logistics
    across the Department and how we can leverage those business
    leaders across the country who are investing in additive
    manufacturing?
        Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I will give you a couple of
    top level remarks and then happy to discuss it in more detail.
    It is transforming us both--you know, we have an expeditionary
    force. We are distributed all around the world. We have ships
    far away from logistics bases. We have Marines in expeditionary
    bases. So we have fully leveraged that to get after this
    logistic--we have 3D printers on ships. We have 3D printers
    with our Marines. We are 3D printing cement bridges. We are
    employing this across our entire ecosystem. And we have really,
    I would say, spent a lot of time on how to get certified parts
    and describe what parts and what families of parts can be
    printed locally with 3D printers and working through that whole
    piece very aggressively.
        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you. I want to abide by my time. I will
    follow up that in the second round. Thank you. I yield back.
        Mr. Langevin. Mr. Larsen is now recognized.
        Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Dr. Griffin, I took your advice and entered the key words
    ``ITAR [international traffic in arms regulations] free
    satellite'' in my favorite internet search engine, and I found
    the synonym ``knowledge-free policy.'' And that gets to your
    point in your testimony about the U.S. removing itself from the
    marketplace. By withdrawing much of our own industrial base in
    the global market, we restrict the competitive environment for
    our own domestic firms, which over time has the effect of
    eroding technological advantage we want to protect. That does--
    those are your words from your testimony. It seems that might
    apply to the people side as well. And I want to get your views
    on how we should approach contracting with universities or with
    companies, as we heard contracting with companies, even if they
    are in the United States that either have researchers or owners
    or entrepreneurs who are either from competitor countries or
    maybe are even second generation in the U.S. What is the
    approach we ought to be taking based on your idea that limiting
    doesn't necessarily get you the policy result you want?
        Secretary Griffin. Sir, that is a subject very dear to my
    heart, as you saw in my testimony. And I--we have only a few
    minutes to cover it. I will do my best.
        Mr. Larsen. You have less than that because I have another
    question.
        Secretary Griffin. Yes, sir. We have to strike a balance
    between short-term security needs and long-term security needs.
    The United States got where it got, which is the world's global
    power still, by unfettering our innovators by being a place
    where other innovators wanted to come and stay, by allowing the
    free movement of capital and ideas to the maximum extent
    possible. There are absolutely things we need to protect. I am
    not naive about that. I am in fact paid to know what our
    adversaries are doing. With that said, we need to define the
    smallest possible areas around which we erect high walls in our
    industrial base, and for the rest of it, we need to let the
    competitors compete in the belief that our Nation will prevail.
        Mr. Larsen. So, if I can stop you there, we tend to apply
    that principle to things.
        Secretary Griffin. It applies equally to people, sir. It
    applies to people. I just the other day signed out a clarifying
    memo on how we are going to handle grants from the DOD, what we
    are going to know about the people who are working on those
    grants. That is a not insignificant topic, but our goal has got
    to be to attract the best and the brightest to our country and
    to keep them here.
        Mr. Larsen. You have laid out in one of your paragraphs in
    your testimony to address a leakage of leading-edge IP from our
    academic institutions, we need more counterintelligence
    resources; we need to educate our universities of threats of
    industrial espionage and assure they employ their best
    practices to protect sensitive research. Does the DOD have a
    specific program to educate universities and other elements of
    academia on best practices on counterintelligence? Are we
    active in that regard?
        Secretary Griffin. We are working that as I sit here, sir.
    We have a DOD-wide protection--protecting critical technology
    task force led by Air Force Major General Murphy. My piece of
    the organization is the executive secretariat for that. We have
    been and will continue to have conversations with university
    administration about what to do and what to protect and how to
    go about it.
        While I am in favor of the maximum--of fostering the
    maximum amount of competition we can arrange because of the
    benefits I believe it brings, I equally believe that we should
    be very aggressive in searching out and punishing IP theft and
    espionage. In fact, if we stop trying to protect every single
    thing we might want to protect, that will allow us the
    resources to go after those individuals and those efforts which
    are targeting our IP.
        Mr. Larsen. So you are currently not taking a one-size-
    fits-all or an approach where you are cutting off universities
    and research 100 percent?
        Secretary Griffin. We are not doing that, nor do we want to
    cut off foreign student enrollments 100 percent. We want to
    look for the bad actors and deal with them as bad actors. But
    withdrawing ourselves from the globally competitive marketplace
    will in the long run damage rather than aid U.S. national
    security, in my opinion, sir.
        Mr. Larsen. Well, it happens to be my opinion as well. It
    may not be the majority opinion, but it is----
        Secretary Griffin. I have never been accused of worrying
    over much about that, sir.
        Mr. Larsen. Neither have I. Thank you.
        I yield back.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Larsen.
        Mr. Banks is now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
    Chairman, for holding this important hearing as well.
        Look, with more and more of our R&D being led by the
    commercial sector, the challenge is integrating commercial
    state-of-the-art capabilities into national security systems,
    as all of you have already said.
        The Department's efforts in microelectronics is a perfect
    example. The Department's microelectronics initiative for
    national security and economic competitiveness and the Trusted
    and Assured Microelectronics programs are focused on developing
    a trusted supply chain of state of the art for our critical
    national security programs.
        As you know, the Indiana ecosystem is a significant
    contributor to that. Our Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane and
    universities like Purdue, who Dr. Roper mentioned a little bit
    ago, Notre Dame, and Indiana University all support these
    efforts.
        So, with that, Dr. Griffin, going forward, what do you see
    as the role of DOD in supporting development of technology
    areas with national, commercial, and economic impact like
    microelectronics and 5G?
        Secretary Griffin. DOD has played, has a continuingly
    critical role to play in those developments. I have been out to
    Crane within the last 10 or 11 months. I forget exactly what
    date. I was blown away by the progress they are making on
    things that we can't talk about in this hearing. If you pursue
    that same line of questioning in the closed hearing of DARPA, I
    think they might offer you some exciting information.
        But, broadly speaking, the DOD has a critical role to play.
    I--however, I do have to put on the table that the issue is
    broader than just trusted pieces of hardware. I am going to be
    careful to restrict my comments to unclassified, those of an
    unclassified nature, and so those who have heard me offer these
    examples before will be rolling their eyes and saying, ``There
    he goes again,'' but these are unclassified examples and they
    are relevant.
        So I think 2 years ago everybody saw--most people saw an
    extensive treatment in Wired Magazine of a collateral damage
    caused by a Russian cyber attack on the Ukraine which spilled
    over into the Maersk shipping line, and that globally important
    company came within one computer of losing all of their
    records. That one computer happened to be located in Africa and
    had been offline because of a multiday power failure.
        So Maersk was able to reboot its system because there was
    one computer in their whole network that had not been
    contaminated. Last summer, I think everybody saw the front page
    news from the FBI: Please turn off your router because it is
    necessary in order to reboot the software to get the Russians
    off your network.
        We have talked to our--I mentioned Dr. Porter earlier. She
    recently had occasion to talk to some of our Eastern European
    allies, relatively newly freed from Russian domination. They
    have Russians all over their network. What is my point here?
    The Russians aren't making and selling any hardware. Nobody is
    buying any Russian microelectronics, and they are still a
    network threat everywhere we look. So it is about the hardware.
        Mr. Banks. Let me move on there. We can unpack that more in
    a different setting.
        Secretary Griffin. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Banks. According to an Axios article published today,
    Chinese telecom giant Huawei is poised to claim close to half
    of the 5G market. AT&T CEO [chief executive officer] Randall
    Stephenson also stated about Huawei, quote, ``You can't
    separate national security from competitiveness and
    innovation,'' end quote.
        What portion of the 5G market do U.S. companies currently
    have?
        Secretary Griffin. I don't know, sir. I can take that for
    the record. 5G is in its infancy. It is not--it is deployed, I
    think, in South Korea and on the Facebook campus, but it is not
    a finished product.
        [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
    on page 96.]
        Mr. Banks. Okay. Your office is managing the DOD 5G effort,
    correct?
        Secretary Griffin. We are developing the DOD 5G strategy,
    yes, sir.
        Mr. Banks. So how do you synchronize all of our DOD efforts
    in a space that is primarily commercial?
        Secretary Griffin. That, of course, is the key question.
    And so we see as our function the enabling of commercial
    enterprises to help them compete in what is a worldwide
    competition. But our companies view themselves as competing
    with other companies irrespective of where they are located.
    They don't view themselves as being in a country-to-country
    competition.
        Huawei is an established competitor at this point. AT&T and
    Verizon and Sprint and T-Mobile and other companies do and will
    want to compete successfully with them, and I think by
    collaborating with them in specific areas, we can help them do
    that.
        Mr. Banks. Thank you very much. My time is expired.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Banks.
        Mr. Kim is now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Kim. Hi. Thank you so much for taking the time to come
    out and talk with us. This is very enlightening to me to hear
    your different perspectives.
        And it is kind of similar, going off of the last line of
    questioning here, for me, as I am approaching this, and we are
    understanding that even the title of this hearing, we are
    talking about the technological edge, and each and every one of
    you have talked about it in that context as well, and we know
    that overhanging everything you are talking about is this
    discussion about near peers and Russia and China and others in
    terms of where they are at.
        So, from my perspective here, I want to tell you that it is
    hard for me to understand our budgeting and the work that you
    are doing if it is--if it were at the right pacing and the
    right levels without understanding, you know, where that stands
    vis-a-vis that competitive edge.
        You know, Dr. Roper, I think I really enjoyed how you
    crystallized it in a couple different frames here, and I wanted
    to just dive into that. You were talking about that competitive
    mindset, which includes, you know, the staffing competing for
    the talent. You talked about the competitive speed, including,
    you know, the speed with which we get--bring things to the
    warfighter, and then also that competitive ideas that make sure
    that we are on that edge.
        So I guess I would like to start with you and just get a
    sense, with those three competitive, you know, categories,
    should we say, what is your assessment of how we stack up
    against our--the near peers, China and Russia, that is
    overhanging a lot of the discussion that we have today? You
    know, are we ahead? Are we keeping pace? Do we have some
    catching up to do? It will help provide me with some context as
    I am trying to assess the budget levels that we are talking
    about.
        Secretary Roper. Congressman, I will keep comments at a
    high level to not go into details we shouldn't discuss openly.
        I am comfortable with where we are now but not comfortable
    with the trend. So China has made significant advances in
    innovation and technology, but we are a country that has been
    good at it for decades. The impediment that I see is that
    technology development has transitioned from being mainly led
    by the U.S. Government in the Cold War to now being developed
    across the world.
        So we have to change from being a technology inventor to a
    technology user. And we are not going to quit inventing
    technologies, but primarily we need to be able to ingest and
    get new technologies to market and our systems.
        So I think the paradigm we have got to adjust to is not
    being a military that has technologies no one else has or will
    have, but having technologies first and keep putting our hand
    up on the baseball bat faster and faster than any other
    opponent.
        And I like our chances because we are an innovative country
    with innovative universities and innovative companies to work
    with. We need to get everyone connected. We need to get the
    bureaucracy out of the way we do contracting and small business
    work and get moving.
        Mr. Kim. I appreciate that.
        And, Dr. Griffin, I would like to go to you for your
    assessment here, you know, in this unclassified setting, just
    to get your overall impressions of where we are stacking up.
        Secretary Griffin. Well, my overall impression is that
    overall the United States is still the world's superpower, the
    world leader in most technologies of interest to the Department
    of Defense. There are some areas where we have some catching up
    to do.
        In a completely unclassified setting, I can say go to the
    internet and look up the Chinese DF-26 [Dong-Feng 26]. It is a
    hypersonic missile that, in an unclassified setting, you can
    see that they refer to it as a carrier killer. It is
    operational. It can range Guam from the Chinese mainland. That
    is a concern. We don't have similar systems yet. We will.
        On the other hand, it is often touted that, because China
    is spending a huge amount of money on AI, that they are ahead
    of us. They are not. Our best assessment is that, although we
    are spending much less, we are spending it wisely and that this
    is still an American province.
        We cannot take comfort from parity. We cannot take comfort
    from the fact that in some areas we are ahead. We have to
    recognize--and I will give credit to Will for pointing out that
    much of what is going on in the R&D world today is being done
    commercially as opposed to being solely the province of the
    national security community.
        So, if it is in the commercial world, it is available to
    everyone. So we need to take advantage of that. We need to do
    it quickly. We need to keep up our own efforts on those areas
    which are not commercial. There is no finish line here.
        We will not maintain the national security capability that
    has, broadly speaking, kept peace in the world for 75 years, we
    won't reach a point where we own that and no one else can touch
    it. There is no finish line. It is a work in progress and
    always will be if we want to support peace and freedom in the
    world.
        Mr. Kim. Well, I appreciate that. I yield back.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Kim.
        Mr. Waltz is now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you, gentlemen, for coming out today.
        Just to very quickly just share with you kind of, you know,
    we all are influenced by how we approach a problem, right. Mine
    is as a special operator, spent time in the Pentagon in the
    building and then as a small business owner where it was
    incredibly frankly painful to do business with the U.S.
    Government, with probably about an additional 25 to 30 percent
    of overhead just to handle all of the regulatory stuff
    required.
        So I have seen this movie from a couple of different
    angles. A few questions. Our S&T ecosystem, I agree, is one of
    the best in the world. We are great. We are fantastic as a
    government at throwing money and resources at a problem.
        And just as, you know, as I look across the DOD labs and
    centers, dozens and dozens of these, as I look at what we have
    tried to do in the last few years to fix the problems in those
    labs by creating additional parts of the ecosystem, like SCO
    and DIUx [Defense Innovation Unit Experimental], I mean, how
    are you, Dr. Griffin, getting your mind around and getting it--
    bureaucratically getting our arms around everything that we are
    throwing at this problem, from the labs to SBIRs [Small
    Business Innovation Research programs] to academia.
        You have stuff that is not even mentioned like CTTSO
    [Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office] at SOCOM, DARPA,
    all of these centers, how the heck do you know what is going
    on? How is that bubbling up? How are you synchronizing that
    entire ecosystem?
        Secretary Griffin. If I have somehow created the impression
    that I know what is going on, please let me----
        Mr. Waltz. I hope so.
        Secretary Griffin [continuing]. Disabuse you of that
    notion.
        Mr. Waltz. Because you are asking for yet more resources to
    throw at it.
        Secretary Griffin. We are. And we are trying very hard to
    make sure we do understand the overall landscape and that we
    can address exactly the issues you have raised.
        I have run two medium-sized companies, and one of them was
    a GPS [Global Positioning System] company some years back, and
    I sold--the company sold GPS navigation products to the U.S.
    Government. We also made commercial, handheld GPS units, and we
    also made survey equipment.
        We did not allow the survey equipment folks and the
    handheld commercial unit manufacturing folks to have anything
    to do with the people who made missile guidance and navigation
    stuff because they were contaminated by U.S. Government
    processes, and if we allowed those two to mingle, the only
    practical effect was going to be I was going to ruin my
    commercial company.
        Mr. Waltz. I totally understand the problem. Just----
        Secretary Griffin. I get your point. So, to that end, sir,
    we have recently expanded the entire Defense Innovation Unit,
    its scope, and its authority, and its funding because the goal
    of that group is to offer a low-impedance approach to pieces of
    the commercial industrial base who could be but don't think of
    themselves as defense contractors. That is one of the things we
    are doing.
        Mr. Waltz. Oh, that is great. So I would just leave with
    you a few other questions. We just have to be very careful. We
    do it across the government. It is not blaming anyone here.
    Rather than fixing a problem within our government we throw
    additional pieces on top of it. So, if you could just submit
    for the record, it is still not clear to me, SCO, DIUx, the
    labs and really what they are doing better and differently.
        [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
    on page 96.]
        Mr. Waltz. Dr. Roper, you mentioned in--the last time we
    were here, you made a statement that I found interesting, and
    frankly concerning, as someone who has been out on the ground
    the last 20 years, that if we prepared for great power
    competition, that we would therefore--you submitted we would
    therefore be prepared and continue to be prepared for
    counterterrorism, stability operations.
        I think if that were the case, we wouldn't have found
    ourselves scrambling post-9/11 things like JIEDDO [Joint
    Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization], MRAP [Mine-
    Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle], all of those other
    technologies. And as someone who was on the ground, who we
    didn't have what we needed, and often what we did, when it
    arrived, we threw it in the CONEX [shipping container] because
    it wasn't what we needed.
        I am concerned, and I just would like to know, you know,
    obviously building things that fly high, fast, and far is very
    different than understanding culture, language. We have special
    operators--I know you know this, Mr. Geurts--on the ground in
    60 countries. What do we do in--we can't take our eye off that
    ball, and I am concerned the pendulum is swinging too far.
        Secretary Roper. Congressman, I appreciate you raising that
    because I certainly don't want to imply that, in a generic,
    abstract sense, that if you are designing for the high-end
    threat, you are always good for the violent extremist threat.
    But in this case, as we think about conflicts in the future,
    potential conflicts in Europe or in Asia, by designing----
        Mr. Waltz. Keep in mind, we are still in these conflicts.
        Secretary Roper. Absolutely.
        Mr. Waltz. As much as people would like to wish them away,
    and a lot of people in this town would, we are still there.
        Secretary Roper. Absolutely.
        And, Mr. Chairman, I will ask just your forbearance to
    answer the Congressman's question, if you wouldn't mind. Thank
    you, sir.
        Mr. Langevin. Just briefly.
        Secretary Roper. So, in one case, to give you an example,
    we are working on the advanced battle management system, which
    is to provide support to Marines and soldiers that are on the
    ground, similar to what JSTARS [Joint Surveillance Target
    Attack Radar System] does today. We are designing that to be
    able to go into areas where things are going to try to contest
    our ability to operate there, but we are mindful that we need
    that system to also be able to go into the Middle East and
    Africa to do mission today.
        So we are very mindful. If we design for the high-end
    threat, there has to be an offshoot for the uncontested
    environment. So my statement is a forward-looking statement,
    not a rearward-looking one. So I appreciate you asking that
    question, sir.
        Mr. Waltz. Thank you.
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Waltz.
        Ms. Houlahan is now recognized for 5 minutes.
        Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        And thank you, gentlemen, for coming here today. And I
    think I join many of the other colleagues who came before me,
    including our chair, in our concern about the fiscal year 2020
    budget and the cuts that I think are in there for S&T and DOD
    related research.
        Many of the technologies that I worked on when I was Active
    Duty in the military are now in the field today. We benefited
    from investing 20, 30 years ago, and the warfighters of today
    are reaping those rewards. And it is really important that we
    continue that sort of effort to be forward thinking.
        I have three questions, and so I will ask the three of
    them. I believe they are mostly for Dr. Griffin, and the final
    one is for you all together. The first one is on artificial
    intelligence and recognizing the importance of the DOD
    relationship with industry, with universities, and research and
    development in the labs.
        My first question has to do with what you are doing to make
    sure that we align and better engage basic research in our
    laboratories and universities in supporting the advancement of
    AI technologies and initiatives. So that is my first question
    which relates to AI.
        My second one relates to advanced manufacturing. I was an
    entrepreneur and an engineer, and about 15 years ago, I was in
    the footwear industry working with 3D technology working to
    innovate with printing footwear using 3D printers overseas.
        And so, 15 years later, I am really intrigued by--still
    intrigued by supply chain improvements and initiatives that
    reduce costs for us, that increase our flexibility and our
    supply chain and reduce our reliance on foreign manufacturing.
        And so my second question has to do with what opportunities
    exist in research and advanced manufacturing that can help
    transform the DOD and the industrial base and what research
    activities are underway to support them and to the degree that
    you can answer that question in this setting.
        And then my final question for the entire panel actually
    has something to do with what the chairman introduced with,
    which he said he was pleased to see the highest leadership here
    today. And I also am pleased. I am very grateful to see you
    here.
        But what I also see is something different because what I
    see is a bunch of White men, and what I am interested in is
    what we are doing to make sure that we elevate people of color
    and women to those highest positions of responsibility, STEM
    and STEAM [science, technology, engineering, the arts, and
    math] education. What sort of specific initiatives are we doing
    within our communities to make sure that I, as a young engineer
    and now as a Congresswoman, would like my children to be able
    to see a different face in front of me when I next see people
    here?
        So that would be my final question, and I have about 2\1/2\
    minutes if you wouldn't mind helping me with those answers.
        Secretary Griffin. We are actively working in AI across the
    entire industrial base, universities, laboratories, companies.
    I mentioned earlier that the U.S. Government investment in AI
    is not the biggest dog there. So we get that, and we are
    working with them.
        With regard to advanced manufacturing, 3D printing, all of
    that, what are our options, I am going to have to that that for
    the record. I am--as I like to say, sometimes I am a simple
    aerospace engineer from a small town, and I am not up on 3D
    printing and manufacturing, so we will take it for the record.
        [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
    on page 94.]
        Secretary Griffin. With regard to the leadership, the USD
    R&E Deputy Under Secretary, Dr. Lisa Porter, as her name was
    brought up by Ranking Member Stefanik in another context,
    unlike me, she is not an old, White guy. And she is sitting at
    home cringing now watching this because I would be happy to
    have her being here instead of me. Trust me.
        Ms. Houlahan. No. And I completely appreciate that. It is,
    you know, making sure that it is more than just one person that
    we can point out, you know, making sure that we have a pipeline
    of people who look different than all--than, you know, who
    reflect the face of our Nation.
        Secretary Griffin. Well, Dr. Nikolich will be testifying in
    the closed session. His deputy is Mary Miller, whom you, I
    believe, know. She is a long-time employee.
        The Assistant Director for Microelectronics is Nicole
    Petta. Microelectronics was raised by Mr. Banks earlier. Nicole
    ran a division for me in a company that I previously ran. I
    managed to trick her into coming to the DOD to help.
        Ms. Houlahan. Are there programs----
        Secretary Griffin. I think we are doing everything we can.
        Ms. Houlahan. Are there specific programs aside from
    specific seats that--you know, maybe, Mr. Geurts, it seems as
    though you might have an answer to that.
        Thank you, sir, for your time.
        Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I am happy to bring you some
    more of the details.
        Ms. Houlahan. Thank you.
        Secretary Geurts. We have got a number of programs, our
    Chief of Naval Research Deputy, senior civilian for our
    research, is a female. But to your point, we are not going to
    compete and win if we cannot fully leverage diversity in all of
    its elements, and so we would be happy to talk about that. We
    have got an Asia-Pacific partnership STEM program. We have got
    a lot of other ones we can describe for you. It is such an
    important topic.
        Ms. Houlahan. Thank you.
        And if I could just have 10 more seconds, I just wanted to
    conclude by asking if we could, in fact, get more information
    about the 3D printing. And I would love to hear a little bit
    more about how we are engaging the universities and R&D labs
    more effectively for the record. That would be great. So thank
    you so much for your time.
        Secretary Griffin. Yes, ma'am. We will take that for the
    record.
        [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
    on page 95.]
        Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Ms. Houlahan.
        Mr. Brown is now recognized.
        Mr. Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Starting on a lighter note, Dr. Jette, great to see you. I
    will not report back to the Army that you used a naval metaphor
    stem to stern to talk about the approach of the Army Futures
    Command. Yeah, it is a joint force. I get it.
        So my question, so I also have concerns that in the 6.1,
    6.2, 6.3 categories where we seem to be, you know,
    underfunding, that is where we are planting the seeds for the
    military's future technology.
        In the 6.4 funding area, advanced component development and
    prototypes, let me ask you this: What percentage of that
    prototyping is done inside established systems of acquisition
    oversight for programs of record, and how much of that
    prototyping is done outside of a program of record? Any
    ballpark?
        Secretary Griffin. I do not know. I will take that for the
    record. If my colleagues happen to have that at their
    fingertips, I welcome their answer.
        [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
    on page 94.]
        Mr. Brown. And the reason why I raise it, and I think, Dr.
    Jette, you will be able to speak to it is because, you know, as
    I understand it, the GAO [Government Accountability Office] has
    expressed a concern that when it comes to prototyping--and they
    were looking at the Army Futures Command--that a lot of
    prototyping more and more seems to be done in a relevant
    simulated environment versus in an operational environment. And
    they expressed the concern that we are moving to weapons
    systems development at a lower level of maturity. Does that
    have to do with where the prototyping is taking place?
        Secretary Jette. Congressman, I think that, first, to give
    you an idea, I mean, the vast majority of our prototyping is
    done in a controlled approach, so there is a program manager or
    a lead integrator that is responsible for doing a prototype,
    and probably on the order of 90/10.
        So we try to make sure that, as we are doing prototyping,
    it is not just willy-nilly and that it is also associated with
    a program--a plan to some success if the program plan is, in
    fact, successful.
        Mr. Brown. So, given that it is not willy-nilly, you still
    have the difference between a relevant simulated environment
    and an operational environment. I am sure you are familiar with
    the concern that the GAO expressed. And what is the response of
    the Department of the Army?
        Secretary Jette. Well, so I think there are two approaches
    the Army is taking to that. First, we work very hard at trying
    to make our simulated environment as close to those
    characteristics of the actual environment we expect to see or
    are seeing as possible.
        And we have organizations specifically designed to do that,
    and it is part of our test and evaluation master plans that we
    put together: How close are we to what we need from the
    operational perspective to make sure that we have actually
    tested the equipment in an environment that is relevant? So
    that is a significant part of how we come up with the test
    plans.
        The second piece is that we do an awful lot of prototyping.
    The other 10 percent, in many ways--we have the Rapid Equipping
    Force. We answer calls from theater for various types of
    equipment. And those in many ways also form a variant of a
    prototype because they are usually small sets, certain
    missions, certain numbers. We go out. We study how they are
    doing in the actual operational environment and then return
    them.
        I think the--probably the other one thing is we have a lot
    of partners internationally, other countries who have various
    issues in their environments, and we work closely with them to
    try and see how they are using their innovative components
    early.
        Mr. Brown. Let me see if I can just get one more question
    in. Is there an idea--and, again, I always go back to what the
    GAO kind of recommends or highlights to Congress. And they are
    recommending a high-level DOD-wide strategy that communicates
    strategic goals and priorities and delineates roles and
    responsibilities among DOD's prototyping and innovation
    initiatives.
        They claim that there is not such a strategy. What is your
    response to that? Is there an overarching DOD-wide science and
    technology strategy that delineates roles and responsibilities,
    and is it in writing?
        Secretary Griffin. I guess the best I could tell you, sir,
    is that from their R&E under secretariat that is a work in
    progress.
        Mr. Brown. Okay.
        Secretary Griffin. The National Defense Strategy has been
    referred to here several times earlier. That is our guidebook
    for what modernization should look like. We are trying very
    hard across the Department to reorchestrate our development
    portfolio in line with those modernization priorities.
        We are judging new programs according to whether they fit
    within this priority scheme or not, not that they can't be
    funded even if they don't, but that that certainly is a
    relevant fact. We are trying to realign our S&T and portfolio
    and right through RDT&E to fit what it is that the Nation's
    overall defense modernization strategy supports. We are not
    done yet. The NDS was released 14 months ago.
        Mr. Brown. And will that--and, Mr. Chairman, just one
    followup.
        The end result, will that be a work product? Will that be a
    document that can be reviewed and evaluated?
        Secretary Griffin. I think we will be able to put together
    the end products from a number of these different areas and
    bring them to you if you wish, sir. I don't believe we are--I
    am not working on preparing one document which summarizes all
    of it in one place.
        Mr. Brown. Okay.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Mr. Langevin. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Brown.
        We are going to go into a brief second round, but I want to
    start with a question for all of you. According to the 2017
    report by the Defense Science Board, most lab directors feel
    that they are unable to maintain the facilities and
    infrastructure at a reasonable standard.
        So I want to know, can each of you please discuss the state
    of your research labs and how the budget addresses concerns
    about maintaining the labs at the standard necessary to conduct
    cutting-edge research.
        Secretary Griffin. Chairman Langevin, I guess I will start.
    We have had challenges in this area. When we get military
    construction money it goes for a very wide range of priorities,
    all of which are real, and only some of it goes to laboratories
    and facilities.
        So I have had occasion to see--in my 14, 13 months in the
    job so far, I have had occasion to see quite a number of
    facilities and laboratories which are in the process of being
    upgraded. I have seen many more which need it, and it isn't
    happening soon. I think I should stop there. It is a very
    difficult problem. We don't have all the money for laboratory
    and facilities upgrades that we would like. We are working on
    it.
        Mr. Langevin. We need to keep focused on that. We can't----
        Secretary Griffin. I could not agree more, sir.
        Mr. Langevin. Okay. Dr. Jette.
        Secretary Jette. Mr. Chairman, this is an area of concern
    certainly for the Army. If you just take a look at the
    capitalization in the laboratory systems and the funding that
    is directly applied to that, we have insufficient funding to
    make sure that the labs remain up to date if that is the only
    method by which we actually do so.
        One of the benefits we have is you have given us
    authorization in 2363 to tack 2 to 4 percent onto our research
    and development efforts, take that money back in, and then
    provide it to the lab directors to do upgrades and enhancements
    that are necessary to keep the lab at a cutting edge.
        We fully implemented that. It took a little bit to get it
    past some cultural issues, but that, in fact, is working well
    and helping us. We do have a number of MILCON [military
    construction] projects, and we are I wouldn't say accelerating
    but we are getting a few more per year.
        Picatinny has $41 million in Explosive Ordnance Disposal
    Technology Facility. Soldier Center at Natick has $44 million
    in Human Research Engineering Lab. There is--Aviation & Missile
    Center has a propulsion systems lab for $30 million in 2022.
    ERDC [U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center] has,
    in 2023, communications center for 14.8, and 2024, a risk
    assessment lab for 30.
        So we are trying to work with the labs to help them
    identify specific things that we can get through the MILCON
    process.
        Mr. Langevin. Secretary Geurts.
        Secretary Geurts. Sir, briefly, the average age of our
    facilities in the labs is 61 years old. So the problem is real.
    It is something we have been attacking. As Dr. Griffin said,
    you are competing the average age of the Navy dry docks and
    piers is 62 years. So, you know, there is certainly competition
    for it.
        I would like to thank the committee. You have given some
    additional funds in 2018, $20 million, which allowed us to burn
    back 25 percent of our backlog in minor MILCON, which was
    really powerful for the labs, and we have taken full advantage
    of that.
        I do think there is more opportunity. We are looking at
    both using some of the authorities, like the 219 authority, to
    allow us to do some more without going through the former
    MILCON process for some of the minor mods. There are probably
    some opportunities to relook at that authority to see if there
    is a little more flexibility.
        And then, finally, we are looking at some new models, as
    Representative Stefanik talked about the ecosystem. It is not
    clear we have to wholly own every one of these facilities if
    there is a way we can work with some of our partners and come
    up with win-wins in terms of joint research facilities and
    whatnot. So we are just on the front end of that. We are
    looking at all the available means to take on this problem
    because we will not stay relevant and attract talent if we
    don't.
        Mr. Langevin. Great.
        Secretary Roper. Mr. Chairman, I will say briefly, I think
    it will always be a systemic problem that modernization of
    laboratories will have a difficult time competing against
    MILCON that is for immediate readiness, a warfighter who needs
    something done immediately.
        So I am very appreciative of the authorities that this
    committee and Congress writ large has given us to use RDT&E
    funds to do minor modernization, minor MILCON, so the section
    219 authority. We have been able to do modernizations at AFRL
    [Air Force Research Laboratory], about $83 million worth that
    would have never made the MILCON budget.
        I believe these authorities are set to expire in the
    future, in 2025, so I would ask to be able to work with you and
    other members to either extend the authority or remove the cap
    and potentially raise the threshold of funding we are able to
    spend.
        I think it makes sense for modernization of facilities that
    do science and technology to be funded out of science and
    technology work. The laboratory is much more than a building.
    It is a factory for new ideas and technologies. So we should
    have a different way of working with it. Thank you.
        Mr. Langevin. All right. Thank you all.
        So I am going to state this question, and then I would like
    you--for the record, and then I would like to have you respond
    to that one, this last one in writing.
        But, Secretary Geurts, you have told us that the Navy is
    leaning forward on fiscal year 2017 NDAA, section 233, which
    allows each acquisition executive to waive policies and
    guidance of the Science and Technology Reinvention
    Laboratories, the STRLs, to allow for the development and
    implementation of alternative and innovative methods for
    effective management and operations in your laboratories,
    warfare centers, and system centers.
        Your letter from October 2018 mentioned that the Navy
    implemented 12 management initiatives, including expanded
    personnel authorities, revised contracting and procurement
    thresholds and provided business process relief. To our
    knowledge so far, you are the only service to use this
    authority.
        So, from you, I just wanted to ask, again, for the record,
    what kinds of implementation have you already seen in your
    STRLs with these authorities, and do you have suggestions on
    how it and any of the authorities given can be improved to
    facilitate quicker development and delivery of cutting-edge
    technologies to the warfighter?
        For Dr. Jette and Dr. Roper, I want to know, what is
    preventing the Army and the Air Force from also taking
    advantage of section 233 authorities?
        And then, Dr. Griffin, for you, finally, what can you do to
    better help and incentivize the services to use section 233 and
    other authorities to improve lab management and operations?
    Time doesn't permit for us to get to that--these right now, in
    this session right here, but I want those for the record, if
    you would please.
        [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
    on page 93.]
        Mr. Langevin. With that, I will turn to the ranking member
    for final questions.
        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you.
        I wanted to follow up on my first line of questioning, Mr.
    Geurts, regarding additive manufacturing. You talked about the
    Department's understanding of how transformative this is to
    many of the challenges we face. Can you talk about how we can
    leverage private sector additive manufacturers and use their
    investments that they have made to benefit the Department?
        Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. Just as a followup, we have
    already declared thousands of parts as 3D printable, certified
    for use. And so the first easy answer to that is then you go
    for the first provider who can provide that part at the best
    price, 3D printed, from wherever they live.
        So I think the first item is getting the parts certified
    for 3D printed, getting the specifications set for those, and
    then allowing the marketplace to compete and build those parts
    for us.
        As I said, we are also working on the networking and the
    R&D aspect of it. I am sorry the Representative left there. We
    have got $23 million in our 2020 budget in R&D just for the
    research and development of 3D printing technologies and $66
    million across the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program]. A lot
    of that is so we can network all of our 3D printed files
    together, create models.
        One of the challenges is how to certify a part where the 3D
    printed technology that has been certified traditionally. That
    is where that research is going. So those are two pretty close
    ones. And then we are the executive agent for a 3D printing
    center for the government, and we are using that as well to get
    to practical ways to get that out.
        And then I would comment that Dr. Jette's policies on
    intellectual property and 3D also play into this.
        Ms. Stefanik. Absolutely.
        I also wanted to give Dr. Roper an opportunity to comment
    because I know you have thought a lot about additive
    manufacturing and 3D printing from your perspective. Did you
    want to comment on my question?
        Secretary Roper. Yes, ma'am. When you are waiting months,
    sometimes years, for airplane parts, you think a lot about
    different ways to make them. It is making a huge difference
    already in the Air Force. We have certified broad swaths of
    parts that can be printed and put on aircraft. We are trying to
    go after certifying materials and machines so that even parts
    we haven't thought about can be made and certified and get a de
    facto air worthiness agreement.
        We created an entire permanent executive officer, a three-
    star that is responsible for bringing in innovation into
    sustainment. That is 70 percent of our budget, and we are not
    focusing innovation there. So now we are starting to do that.
        They have transitioned 3D printing and additive
    manufacturing and additive repair into our depots. They have
    done other innovation and sustainment initiatives, like
    predictive maintenance, which is AI applied to maintenance.
        I think the thing I am seeing, Congresswoman, is that when
    you are pushing the fundamental science and engineering, that
    is something that is not being done in the broader ecosystem.
    Companies are holding onto their tradecraft, and since we don't
    own IP in the government, we are publishing everything we are
    doing and are having companies come to us to try to apply
    technologies that we have developed to their own individual
    investments.
        And I won't say the specific companies here, but I would be
    happy to share with you offline. But companies that are working
    on cutting-edge engines are coming to the Air Force to
    determine how are we printing high-temperature materials. And
    the reason that they know to come to us is that we publish our
    results. So I think the government can play a huge catalyst
    role in the broader ecosystem for additive just by driving the
    fundamental technology.
        And then, to Secretary Geurts' point, once we have our
    processes and certifications in place, we should let the market
    do its job, which is bring our prices down and get ultimate
    readiness up to the warfighter.
        Ms. Stefanik. Thank you for that.
        In my minute remaining, Dr. Griffin, I wanted to go back to
    you. Shifting gears, I wanted to ask about 5G. You have tapped
    your deputy, Dr. Lisa Porter, to spearhead the initiative in
    your Department. And there has been a lot of public debate on
    5G and what should be done to contain China's global influence
    in this space but little coverage on what more we need to do
    domestically to mature and deploy 5G technology.
        Can you talk about your Department's approach when it comes
    to 5G and specifically what we need to do to jump start our
    technology to compete in the 5G space?
        Secretary Griffin. Very briefly and we can--I am sorry. I
    can answer very briefly, and we can take more for the record.
        Yes, the R&E establishment in DOD has been assigned the
    lead for developing a DOD strategy, and as you mentioned, Dr.
    Porter has the baton for that.
        What needs to be understood, despite all the hype, is that
    5G is in its infancy everywhere in the world. It is in its
    infancy. It encompasses both standards and hardware, and much
    of that is hardware yet to be developed. The so-called Internet
    of Things depends upon the routine use of much shorter
    wavelengths, higher frequencies than is in common practice
    today.
        So there is a huge development challenge. There is a huge
    infrastructure build-out challenge. We will need--in comparison
    to, as a very rough number, 10,000 cell towers in the United
    States today, we will need north of 10 million cell towers or
    equivalent base stations. So there is an infrastructure build-
    out challenge.
        DOD and the U.S. Government broadly can be part of the
    solution. We want to be. We think the part that we can play is
    in the development of some of those fundamental technologies.
    DARPA is the world leader in the development of millimeter wave
    technologies, the kinds of frequencies and wavelengths that we
    will need for 5G.
        So the technology end is one piece of it. Another piece of
    it is providing the testing ground, if you will, for how we are
    going to actually build out and deploy some of these things.
    Security is going to be--cybersecurity is going to be an
    extremely important part of this, and DOD can't afford to use
    any technology, no matter how attractive, if we can't make it
    secure.
        So offering to our developers, commercial developers,
    government developers, whatever, offering them the geography
    and the opportunities for experimentation, putting things into
    practice, prototype systems, without the necessity of gaining
    State, local, county permits to erect a tower, that could be
    extremely powerful.
        So, on those fronts, broadly speaking, I think is where our
    ability to contribute lies. It does not--it emphatically does
    not lie in having the DOD take custody of a national telecoms
    build-out, infrastructure build-out. That is not the right
    path.
        Ms. Stefanik. I wanted to just add one comment. You talked
    about how we can be and we want to be part of the innovation
    and solution when it comes to 5G. I want to add a note that I
    think we have to be when this is a global race for 5G
    technology. And as you correctly point out, the security risks,
    specifically the cybersecurity risks that come from 5G, it is
    incredibly important that we have a strategy to mature and
    deploy 5G technology that meets our security standards.
        And, with that, I yield back.
        Mr. Langevin. I thank the ranking member.
        I want to thank all of our witnesses for your testimony
    today. I ask that you follow up on the questions I posed at the
    end, and other members may have questions that they will submit
    for the record. And I ask you to try to get back us to with
    those answers in a timely manner.
        With that, thank you all for your testimony, the work that
    you are doing.
        This hearing stands in recess--adjourned, and now going
    into the closed session.
        [Whereupon, at 12:52 p.m., the subcommittee proceeded in
    closed session.]

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                                A P P E N D I X

                                 March 28, 2019

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                  PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

                                 March 28, 2019

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        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

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                  WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING

                                  THE HEARING

                                 March 28, 2019

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                RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN

        Secretary Griffin. First, I would like to thank this body for the
    authorities granted which have been extremely useful for the Defense
    Laboratories. These authorities have been implemented extensively
    across the Services, particularly those affecting Personnel,
    Infrastructure, and Technology Transfer. In the FY17 NDAA, Section 233
    provides an opportunity for the Services to consider and approve
    alternative and innovative methods which would provide eligible centers
    more flexibility to manage and operate research and development
    activities; facility management, construction and repair; business
    operations; personnel management policies and practices; and intramural
    and public outreach; as well as enable more rapid deployment of
    warfighter capabilities. To date, 18 methods were approved by Assistant
    Secretaries concerned (12 were approved for the Navy and 6 were
    approved for the Air Force). The Army is currently proposing one method
    for approval. The Military Departments expect to submit more
    initiatives for approval as they continue to work on streamlining
    internal departmental processes. The wider adoption of this authority
    and others is not a case where incentives are lacking, but rather a
    case where higher commands are prohibiting the use of the available
    authorities. Section 211 of the FY17 NDAA formally established the
    Laboratory Quality Enhancement Program (LQEP) which has facilitated the
    use of the authorities to convening quarterly to review policies and
    practices affecting the Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories
    (STRLs). The panels for Personnel, Infrastructure, and Tech Transfer
    created as a result are charged with reviewing and reinterpreting
    existing statute and implementing regulations with emphasis on
    component policies that present barriers to innovation. Military
    Departments have used several authorities to fund minor MILCON projects
    that have greatly impacted the laboratories. Over the last three fiscal
    years, the Army has spent $211.2M; the Navy has spent $70.3M and the
    Air Force has spent $78.2M on minor MILCON. Funding for these projects
    was authorized by section 2363 (Mechanisms to Provide Funds for Defense
    Labs for Research and Development of Technologies for Military
    Missions) and section 2805d (Unspecified Minor MILCON). These
    authorities are vital to maintaining and modernizing the laboratories
    and warfare centers.   [See page 30.]
        Secretary Jette. The Army sees tremendous value in the pilot
    program under the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act
    Section 233. In June 2017, ASA(ALT) established a policy that enables
    rapid adjudication of waivers submitted for the Section 233 program,
    and provided a mechanism for all Army labs to implement the waiver
    under the auspices of their command structure. Such an innovative
    program has taken some time to instill in the organization. But we have
    a significant number of pending waivers that are currently being
    considered.   [See page 30.]
        Secretary Geurts. The Navy has implemented Section 233 of the FY
    2017 NDAA in the following Navy Science and Technology Reinvention
    Laboratories (STRLs) as part of the pilot: Naval Sea Systems Warfare
    Centers; Naval Research Laboratory; Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft
    Division; Naval Air Warfare Center, Weapons Division; Naval Information
    Warfare Center, Atlantic; Naval Information Warfare Center, Pacific;
    and Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center. The
    Navy's implementation approach has been in phases so as to best
    evaluate the impact. The first phase implemented 12 business
    operations, contracting and facility management initiatives on November
    16, 2017. The second phase has been comprised of initiatives in the
    following focus areas: business operations, personnel management
    policies and practices, and facility management construction and
    repair.
        The vetting of the initiatives with stakeholders is ongoing and
    will be incrementally implemented in three sprints.
         Sprint I approved 12 contracting and facility management
    initiatives on March 5, 2019.
         Sprint II will approve 10 Information Technology Purchase
    Request and Authority to Operate and business process initiatives in
    April 2019.
         Sprint III to provide additional business process relief
    is targeted for approval later in CY 2019.
        The Navy has been looking at pilots in five focus areas: business
    operations, contracting, personnel management policies and practices,
    IT policies, and facility management construction and repair with
    benefits resulting in a 30 percent decrease in contract processing
    time, equivalent to 354,000 processing days saved. The Navy recommends
    extending the sunset clause beyond FY 2022 to at least FY 2025. This
    extension will allow time to incorporate lessons learned and to
    investigate new opportunities.   [See page 30.]
        Secretary Roper. I greatly appreciate the authorities that Congress
    has provided our Service laboratories over the last few years. The
    Section 233 authority is a powerful tool for our laboratory commander
    to remove barriers to innovation. I'm confident that we've worked
    through our internal challenges and have developed the level of
    advocacy we need to get proposals through the approval process. This
    will definitely enable the Air Force Research Laboratory to take full
    advantage of this authority. A new call for proposals recently went out
    by the Air Force Research Laboratory. After a review by the Commander
    of the Air Force Materiel Command, I look forward to seeing and
    approving the proposals when they reach my desk and hope to do so this
    year.   [See page 30.]
                                     ______

                  RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BROWN
        Secretary Griffin. From RPP: The Rapid Prototyping Program (RPP)
    began in 2017 and is DDR&E(AC)'s only enduring prototyping program with
    6.4 funds. Over these three years, 96% of RPP funding is associated
    with Service/Agency programs. Additional details here:
        FY 2017-2019 Total execution value $234.4M (FY17: $100M; FY18:
    $45M; FY19: $89.4M)
        Associated with Programs of Record: $223.9M/93% (FY17: $91.7M; FY18
    $42.8M; FY19: $89.4M)
        Not directly linked to a Program of Record: $10.5M/7% (FY17: $8.3
    FY18: 2.2M; FY19: 0)
        From RIF: 100% of the RIF program ($250M annually) is outside of a
    Program of Record (POR). The purpose of RIF is to insert emerging
    innovative technologies that DIRECTLY SUPPORT the National Defense
    Strategy (NDS), Modernization Priorities, and Component goals into DOD
    Programs of Record (POR). RIF leverages innovations from Phase II Small
    Business Innovative Research (SBIR), defense laboratories and other
    sources to enable PORs to insert new technology with minimal program
    disruption.'' Since 2011 RIF has invested $1.8B in over 800 projects,
    transitioning over 60% of successful projects into PORs, program
    requirement documents, or other Agency programs.
        From SCO: All of SCO's 6.4 work is similarly outside of PORs. SCO's
    mission is to identify, analyze, and prototype new and disruptive
    applications of existing and emerging systems, as well as near-term
    technologies, to create operational strategic effects, specifically:
    deterrence, power projection, cost imposition, surprise, and overmatch.
    The resulting prototyping projects--motivated primarily by INDOPACOM
    and EUCOM operational challenges--either transition to enhance existing
    PORs (e.g., buy down risk, prove out new missions/capabilities) or
    establish new PORs.   [See page 26.]
                                     ______

                RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. HOULAHAN
        Secretary Griffin. AI Efforts: The Department is moving across a
    broad front to engage and align the numerous efforts of our
    laboratories and agencies to increase our outreach to Universities for
    their key contributions. Basic research investments in applied
    mathematics will allow us to push the envelope on AI technology to
    enable capabilities that do not currently exist. First, new applied
    math methods might allow the Department to work with data sets that are
    not well curated. In essence, new methods are required to take optimal
    advantage of sparse data sets that are incomplete and noisy. Second,
    better understanding of cognitive neuroscience and biological neural
    nets may allow us to develop the next generation of AI that mimics the
    human or animal brain. Finally, both of the above activities will allow
    for the Department to generate AI that is more understandable to humans
    for optimal human-machine teaming. In the months leading up to the
    publication of our AI strategy in June 2018, the Department's research
    laboratories and agencies such as DARPA, as well as the intelligence
    community collaborated to forge a strategy. We have continued to
    develop and strengthen our engagement by using our Communities of
    Interest to host focused workshops on the impact of machine learning
    and AI to areas including: autonomy; Command, Control, Communications,
    Computers and Intelligence (C4I); and cyber. We have also reached out
    to our Allies including the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan,
    and Korea and found them ready to engage and align efforts in this key
    area. Through our Basic Research Offices, we continue to reach out with
    the Services and DARPA as part of the AI next campaign. We are also
    engaging with some Universities through FFRDCs including the Software
    Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon and MIT Lincoln Laboratory
    where we are ramping up efforts. We are discussing with Universities
    the key role they can play in strengthening discipline of ``AI
    Engineering'', increasing the production of talented AI graduates, and
    contributing new ideas that greatly improve our ability to trust and
    understand AI systems. The Department is increasing scholarship
    offerings for those pursuing AI studies. And the Services are reaching
    out to Universities to establish new AI institutes.
        Additive Manufacturing: DOD's research and development community
    has multiple investments in advanced manufacturing under the
    Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program. ManTech is authorized by
    Section 2521 of Title 10, United States Code and is part of the
    USD(R&E) portfolio. ManTech, as an investment program, began in 1956
    and continues to this day with funding across USD(R&E), Army, Navy, Air
    Force, Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), and Missile Defense Agency
    (MDA). The other two funded investment programs in manufacturing are
    the Defense Production Act Title III, and the Industrial Base Analysis
    and Sustainment (IBAS) efforts, both managed by the Industrial Policy
    Office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Acquisition &
    Sustainment. DOD uses these accounts to address issues with the
    capability and capacity of our manufacturing industrial base. Within
    USD R&E DOD ManTech programs invest in individual manufacturing
    projects focused on bringing new manufacturing and production processes
    and systems to acquisition program managers, thus helping to bridge the
    gap between discovery and implementation of new capabilities for the
    warfighter. Sample projects funded out of the USD(R&E) Program Element
    include:
          Cold Spray Additive Repair
          High Temperature Engine Components (HighTEC)
          Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Inertial
    Navigation System
          Manufacturing of Carbon-Carbon Composites for Hypersonic
    Applications (MOC3HA), and
          Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers
        The USD(R&E) ManTech investment uniquely supports the eight DOD
    manufacturing innovation institutes. DOD established the Manufacturing
    Innovation Institutes (MIIs) as public-private partnerships to address
    critical manufacturing risks, boost manufacturing innovation for the
    DOD, encourage re-development of US manufacturing capabilities, and
    provide an integrated whole-of-sector approach in each of eight
    technology-focused areas. To date, the DOD has invested over $600M to
    establish MIIs for additive manufacturing; lightweight and modern
    metals; digital manufacturing, design, and cybersecurity; integrated
    photonics; flexible hybrid electronics; revolutionary fibers and
    textiles; regenerative tissue manufacturing; and advanced robotics. DOD
    funding for the MIIs has engendered more than $1.6B in additional
    state, industry, and academic cost-share contributions that
    substantially improve the DOD return on investment.
        Since 2011, the DOD has invested $113.5 Million in research and
    development projects for Additive Manufacturing, sometimes also
    referred to as 3D Printing, in a public-private partnership with
    America Makes, the national AM innovation institute to advance the
    technology for DOD and the nation. Similar to 3DP, Additive
    Manufacturing (AM) is an emerging technology based on building up
    material using computer-controlled equipment to make sophisticated
    parts and assemblies. AM technology is used in sustainment to
    manufacture noncritical replacement parts in the field and support
    activities resulting in increased readiness and reduced operational
    problems on the front lines. AM enables the manufacturing of parts that
    weigh less and perform their functions better than those made with
    traditional subtractive techniques. DOD also established the Joint AM
    Steering and Working Group to work to foster coordination and
    collaboration between the Services and Defense Agencies. These groups
    seek to maximize the application of additive manufacturing in support
    of the warfighter and sustainers and promote AM-based designs where
    beneficial. These groups are tasked to: develop a DOD AM vision;
    disseminate information on DOD AM efforts throughout the Services and
    Components; provide recommendations for a joint AM investment strategy;
    identify and share AM best practices; and encourage joint approaches to
    accelerate AM qualification and certification.   [See page 25.]
        Secretary Griffin. Since 2011, the DOD has invested $113.5 million
    in research and development projects for Additive Manufacturing (AM),
    sometimes also referred to as 3D Printing, in a public-private
    partnership with America Makes, the national AM innovation institute to
    advance the technology for DOD and the nation. Similar to 3DP, AM is an
    emerging technology based on building up material using computer-
    controlled equipment to make sophisticated parts and assemblies. AM
    technology is used in sustainment to manufacture non-critical
    replacement parts in the field and support activities resulting in
    increased readiness and reduced operational problems on the front
    lines. AM enables the manufacturing of parts that weigh less and
    perform their functions better than those made with traditional
    subtractive techniques. As a result of the America Makes partnership,
    the DOD developed a strategic roadmap for AM across the Department.
    Within the strategic roadmap, each Service maintains an AM
    implementation plan, which details specific actions and milestones to
    incorporate AM technologies through investments in AM research,
    development and deployment projects.
        The Services are also experimenting with the application of AM to
    mission critical parts. A full Report to Congress detailing these
    activities was provided in 2017 to the House and Senate Armed Services
    Committee. DOD is working to more effectively engage the universities
    and R&E labs in AM in a number of ways. Universities currently
    participate in AM as members or hosts of the Manufacturing Innovation
    Institutes and through ManTech funded projects. Universities such as
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, SUNY Polytechnic Institute,
    Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Michigan are closely
    coupled with the non-profit organizations that operate the MIIs. They
    bring access to existing resources to support the federal investment in
    the MIIs. Other university members are engaged in the development of
    advanced manufacturing technology projects and the support of education
    and workforce development training and programs accessible to both the
    public and private sectors.   [See page 26.]
                                     ______

                  RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BANKS
        Secretary Griffin. Huawei has a strong market position, but the 5G
    ecosystem extends far beyond Huawei's market penetration. This 5G
    ecosystem has many parts and a specific claim about market penetration
    in any of these aspects is problematic. DOD's perspective is to provide
    for national security to create an environment where U.S. companies are
    free and empowered to do what they do best: innovate and globally
    collaborate to bring transformational products and services to the
    market.   [See page 20.]
                                     ______

                 RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WALTZ
        Secretary Griffin. We, in USD(R&E), are collectively taking best
    practices across the research and engineering enterprise such as SCO,
    DIU, the labs, and others and institutionalizing their missions while
    also utilizing pilot programs such as the Army Open Campus initiatives
    that leverage regional expertise and facilities to accelerate the
    discovery, innovation, and transition of science and technology in
    places like Boston MA, Chicago IL, Austin TX, and Playa Vista CA.
    Another example is the Navy innovation hub formed around NSWC Crane as
    an anchor technology driver that is in partnership with major regional
    universities (Indiana University, Purdue University, University of
    Southern Indiana, Notre Dame) and industry (defense, commercial, and
    non-profit).
        1) Bringing the Missions of Core DIU, NSIN, and NSIC Together
        In February 2019, OUSD(R&E) directed DIU to assume operational
    management of two entities: (1) NSIN, formerly known as MD5-National
    Security Technology Accelerator, and (2) NSIC, a new entity authorized
    in the John S. McCain NDAA for FY 2019. To avoid confusion as DIU
    assumes responsibility for three organizations, DIU uses the term
    ``Core DIU'' to refer to the DIU activities focused on prototyping
    existing commercial solutions for DOD customers. Together, Core DIU,
    NSIN, and NSIC encompass the full range of technology readiness levels
    and create new opportunities for National Security Innovation Base
    (NSIB) participants to solve national security challenges.
    Consolidating these activities under DIU--and more broadly under
    OUSD(R&E)--will streamline operations, improve coordination, and foster
    growth in the NSIB. The graphic below depicts how core DIU, NSIN and
    NSIC will operate across the technology maturity spectrum and with
    different elements of the NSIB ecosystem. [The graphic referred to was
    not available at the time of printing.]
        2) Overview of DOD Innovation
        In February 2018, the DOD re-established the Office of the Under
    Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)). This
    reorganization consolidated a number of organizations tasked with
    specialized yet complementary missions under OUSD(R&E) leadership to
    advance research and increase the speed of delivery and return on
    investment of new technologies and discoveries for the services and
    DOD.
         DOD laboratories: Conduct basic and applied research on
    service-specific challenges.
         DIU: Prototypes existing commercial solutions for DOD
    customers. It is also a member of a working group with the Defense
    Innovation Board (DIB) and NSIN to develop frameworks and paths for
    enhanced collaboration across the NSIB.
         Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO): Creates near term
    strategic operational effects to support U.S. Indo-Pacific and European
    Command, using existing and emerging government and commercial systems.
        These three organizations are an example of the broader R&D
    ecosystem that the Department relies upon to provide superior
    technological capabilities to the warfighter, now and in the future.
    [See page 23.]

    =======================================================================

                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                                 March 28, 2019

    =======================================================================

                       QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY

        Mr. Conaway. Thank you for taking the time to appear before the
    committee. With regards to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service and
    ensuring the most effective spectrum management, I have a few
    questions.
        a) Does DOD foresee any issues with the CBRS Spectrum Access System
    (SAS) [the SAS is tasked with protecting the higher tier users from
    harmful interference and assures efficient use of the 3.5 GHz band for
    everyone] and Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) certification that
    could be a hurdle to a quick approval process?
        b) Has the DOD and FCC finalized the approval process for CBRS
    certification reports?
        c) The NTIA, DOD, and other Federal agencies have identified the
    3450-3550 MHz band for potential repurposing to spur commercial
    wireless innovation. What is the timeline for the DOD submitting a
    proposal under the Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2015 to study the potential
    for introducing advanced wireless services in this band without harming
    or interference with critical government operations?
        d) Is the NTIA or FCC considering the 3.1-3.45 GHz band for sharing
    with commercial operations as well? Are there dynamic techniques that
    can be used for more efficient spectrum sharing?
        Secretary Griffin. a) The Department has been proactively engaged
    in working with industry and the national regulators (i.e., FCC, NTIA)
    on this innovative sharing framework and see no hurdles to approval at
    this time. In general, the SAS/ESC construct is designed to not only
    protect DOD systems, but will enable mid-band 5G spectrum. Our work
    with WinnForum is a good example of the value of partnerships with
    industry and how trusted engineering can be used to assess the
    feasibility of a new sharing concept between federal and non-federal
    applications. We would defer any questions on the approval process
    regarding certifications to the national regulators (i.e., FCC).
        b) The approval process for CBRS certification reports has been
    established and we have a way forward. DOD looks forward to continuing
    to work in partnership with NTIA and FCC to conduct a comprehensive
    review of each ESC and SAS certification report to ensure each
    company's technical solution satisfies DOD requirements.
        c) DOD is engaging with other key stakeholders, including NTIA,
    FCC, and interested commercial entities, to define the scope of funding
    required for DOD under the Pipeline Act for specific activities that
    would potentially increase commercial access to the band on a shared
    basis.
        d) This sub-band is part of the 3100-3550 MHz range, for which the
    MOBILE NOW Act requires NTIA, in coordination with FCC, to submit a
    report to Congress, which is currently in development. DOD is
    supporting NTIA studies to determine the feasibility of sharing the
    band with a commercial system. We defer any specific questions on this
    effort to NTIA and FCC.
        Mr. Conaway. Thank you for taking the time to appear before the
    committee. With regards to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service and
    ensuring the most effective spectrum management, I have a few
    questions.
        a) Does DOD foresee any issues with the CBRS Spectrum Access System
    (SAS) [the SAS is tasked with protecting the higher tier users from
    harmful interference and assures efficient use of the 3.5 GHz band for
    everyone] and Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) certification that
    could be a hurdle to a quick approval process?
        b) Has the DOD and FCC finalized the approval process for CBRS
    certification reports?
        c) The NTIA, DOD, and other Federal agencies have identified the
    3450-3550 MHz band for potential repurposing to spur commercial
    wireless innovation. What is the timeline for the DOD submitting a
    proposal under the Spectrum Pipeline Act of 2015 to study the potential
    for introducing advanced wireless services in this band without harming
    or interference with critical government operations?
        d) Is the NTIA or FCC considering the 3.1-3.45 GHz band for sharing
    with commercial operations as well? Are there dynamic techniques that
    can be used for more efficient spectrum sharing?
        Secretary Geurts. a) The Navy has expressed concerns about the
    potential risks and vulnerabilities related to the interoperability of
    the SAS platform. The Navy participated in multiple Service, joint and
    interagency working groups with DOD, FCC and NTIA to identify the risks
    that are most relevant to maritime operations. The Navy has provided
    input at all levels to shape the guidelines related to the ESC and SAS
    certifications.
        b) We defer to DOD and FCC on this question.
        c) We defer to DOD on this question. The Navy has participated in
    the planning of this effort and has submitted multiple proposals for
    feasibility studies, which are now informing the efforts of the lead
    organization for this project, NTIA. The Navy has and will continue to
    provide a member to the NTIA-led working group to advise on Navy
    equities and concerns.
        d) We defer to NTIA on this question. While the Navy is not
    currently included in NTIA's efforts for this study, the Navy stands
    ready and looks forward to the opportunity to collaborate with NTIA on
    a more strategic way forward that prioritizes projects as band-width
    allows.
                                     ______

                        QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT
        Mr. Scott. Dr. Griffin, I appreciate the letter you sent to me on
    March 8, 2019. expressing support to Hacking for Defense, where you
    stated that programs like this ``provide clear value to the
    warfighter'' and ``stimulates the National Security Innovation Base.''
    I was happy to see that your support of this program is reflected in
    the President's Fiscal Year 2020 budget request. Programs like this are
    key innovation programs within the Department of Defense because they
    not only work on real-world DOD problems but help produce real-world
    solutions for the Department.
        a. Given the success of Hacking for Defense, what other
    applications are available to support the DOD?
        b. Have we incorporated successful practices into other facets of
    the Department?
        Thank you for your attention to the subject.
        Secretary Griffin. From DIU: Hacking for Defense has been
    successfully delivered at more than 21 universities throughout the
    country, but it is only one of myriad programs offered by the DOD
    sponsor for Hacking for Defense, the National Security Innovation
    Network (NSIN; formerly MD5). In addition to Hacking for Defense, NSIN
    also manages and executes 13 other programs designed to combine DOD end
    users with students and faculty from top research universities and
    early stage ventures from commercial innovation hubs throughout the
    country. Among these are NSIN's ``Hacks'' program, which delivers 48-
    hour hackathons focused on a DOD capability gap and includes transition
    funding to develop rapid prototypes of the Minimum Viable Products
    (MVPs) developed at the hackathon. Additionally, NSIN sponsors the
    Washington, DC-based ``Fed Tech'' program, which is designed to
    identify extant DOD Lab Technology that could answer a current DOD end
    user pain point, build an entrepreneurial team around it, and then
    launch a dual-use venture that can be added into the National Security
    Innovation Base (NSIB) and improve the technology transfer and
    transition (T3) rates of the DOD Labs. NSIN also leverages a network of
    more than 30 universities throughout the country to engage students and
    faculty in applied problem-solving to help enable the Department's
    modernization priorities by focusing on areas such as AI/ML, quantum
    computing, edge processing, advanced materials, and counter-drone
    measures. Applying the Hacking for Defense methodology to other areas
    of the Department is certainly worthy of further study; the most direct
    applications to other areas of the Department are probably in areas
    like advanced manufacturing and supply-chain management issues, both of
    which fall under the purview of the Office of the Under Secretary of
    Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment.
        Mr. Scott. In January 2018, the U.S. Army renewed a 10-year, $2.3
    billion dollar contract with Georgia Tech to assist the Department of
    Defense (DOD) with research and development and provide increased
    responsiveness to the nation's warfighters. I appreciate the addition
    of some of the nation's brightest STEM professionals in solving our
    toughest research problems.
        a. How effective have DOD partnerships with universities been to
    lighten the load of DOD research?
        b. Can you give a few specific examples of how our investments in
    universities have made impacts to today's warfighters?
        Secretary Jette. a. Army scientists and engineers work closely with
    academia to extend our core competencies across a number of
    disciplines, bringing together cutting-edge academic research with Army
    research staff who keep the collaboration oriented towards solving
    Army-relevant problems. This approach lightens the load of DOD research
    not only by leveraging academia's intellectual capital, but also their
    world-class facilities, instrumentation, and other infrastructure
    investments as well.
        b. The Army's investments in universities through Army Single
    Investigator Grants, University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs),
    and other extramural programs have resulted in knowledge products that
    have impacted Army investments. For example, the Army's support of
    Nobel Prize winning research into ground-breaking methods to produce
    new enzymes directly led to commercial, cost-effective synthesis of
    biofuels for aviation platforms. Army support to universities has also
    resulted in the development of extended range munitions; informed
    development of next generation weapons; improved computer network
    defense; and resulted in advancements in vehicle armor.

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