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

                  DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2022

    _______________________________________________________________________

                                     HEARINGS

                                     BEFORE A

                               SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                             HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                                  FIRST SESSION

                                    ________

                             SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE

                         BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota, Chair

      TIM RYAN, Ohio                             KEN CALVERT, California
      C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland        HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
      MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio                         TOM COLE, Oklahoma
      HENRY CUELLAR, Texas                       STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
      DEREK KILMER, Washington                   ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
      PETE AGUILAR, California                   JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
      CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois                     MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
      CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
      ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona

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

       Chris Bigelow, Walter Hearne, Brooke Barnard, Ariana Sarar, Jackie
                                     Ripke,
        David Bortnick, Matthew Bower, William Adkins, Jennifer Chartrand,
        Hayden Milberg, Paul Kilbride, Shannon Richter, and Kyle McFarland
                                Subcommittee Staff

                                  _____

                                  PART 1
                                                                       Page

      Future Defense Spending, Pt. 1..............................        1

      U.S. Military Academies Overview............................       69

     Climate Change, National Security, and
     the Arctic...................................................      169

      Future Defense Spending, Pt. 2..............................      233

      U.S. Southern Command......................................       333

                                    _____

                        U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    45-770                      WASHINGTON : 2021

                          COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                                    ----------
                      ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut, Chair

      MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio                                  KAY GRANGER, Texas
      DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina                      HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
      LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California                   ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
      SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia                     MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
      BARBARA LEE, California                             JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
      BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota                           KEN CALVERT, California
      TIM RYAN, Ohio                                      TOM COLE, Oklahoma
      C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland                 MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
      DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida                   STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
      HENRY CUELLAR, Texas                                JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
      CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine                              CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
      MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois                              JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
      DEREK KILMER, Washington                            DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
      MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania                       ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
      GRACE MENG, New York                                MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
      MARK POCAN, Wisconsin                               CHRIS STEWART, Utah
      KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts                   STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
      PETE AGUILAR, California                            DAVID G. VALADAO, California
      LOIS FRANKEL, Florida                               DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
      CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois                              JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
      BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey                   JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
      BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan                        BEN CLINE, Virginia
      NORMA J. TORRES, California                         GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
      CHARLIE CRIST, Florida                              MIKE GARCIA, California
      ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona                            ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
      ED CASE, Hawaii                                     TONY GONZALES, Texas
      ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
      JOSH HARDER, California
      JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
      DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
      LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
      SUSIE LEE, Nevada

                     Robin Juliano, Clerk and Staff Director

                                       (ii)

     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                  DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2022

                                  ----------

                                          Wednesday, February 24, 2021.

                            FUTURE DEFENSE SPENDING

                                   WITNESSES

     MR. TODD HARRISON, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE BUDGET ANALYSIS, CENTER FOR
        STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
     DR. THOMAS G. MAHNKEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND
        BUDGETARY ASSESSMENTS
     MS. ELIZABETH FIELD, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT,
        U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

                      Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

        Ms. McCollum. Good morning.
        This hearing is fully virtual, and so I am going to start
    out with a couple of housekeeping matters.
        For today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by
    the chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
    under recognition for the purpose of eliminating background
    noise.
        Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves.
    If you notice that you have not unmuted yourself when you are
    talking, I will ask you to do that. If you can, indicate that
    you need help by staff by just nodding. So if you want the
    staff to unmute you, just nod.
        I remind all members and witnesses that there is a 5-minute
    clock and it still applies and it is located on the screen. And
    if there is a technology issue, we are going to move right to
    the next member until the issue is resolved. That member who
    was interrupted, we will keep track of your time and you will
    have your full time returned to you.
        You will notice the clock on your screen and how much time
    is remaining. At 1 minute, the clock will turn yellow. At 30
    seconds remaining, I will gently tap the gavel to remind
    members that their time has almost expired. And when your time
    is expired, the clock will turn red and I will start to
    recognize the other member.
        In terms of speaking orders, we are going to follow the
    order set by the House rules, beginning with the chair and the
    ranking member. Then the members present at the time the
    hearing is called to order, they will be recognized in order of
    seniority. And, finally, members not present at the time of the
    hearing is called to order.
        Finally, the rules of the House require me to remind you
    that we have set up an email address to which members can send
    anything they wish to submit in writing to any of our hearings
    or markups. The email address has been provided in advance to
    your staff.
        Now that I have got all the disclaimers out of the way, I
    welcome everyone to our first official committee activity of
    the year. So I am going to go right into my remarks and keep
    them a little brief here.
        Because of the delay in the release of President Biden's
    fiscal 2022 budget, over the next few months we will be hearing
    from a diverse number of viewpoints on emerging threats, on
    regions that deserve more attention, and defense spending at
    large. The information will help us later this year when we
    analyze the budget request. This is the first of those hearings
    that we will hold to examine the larger issues impacting this
    subcommittee.
        Today's hearing, we will focus on the possible future of
    defense spending. We will not only look at the direction the
    Pentagon may take us in the next 5 years, known as the Future
    Years Defense Program, but we also stand to benefit by thinking
    where we want to go, where we want to be in 10 or 20 years from
    now. And that way, when we write the 2022 Defense
    Appropriations Act, we will do so with medium and long-term
    goals in mind.
        This is a new era for our committee. We have a new
    President in the White House and new leadership in the
    Department of Defense, and in Congress 64 percent of the
    Members of the House were elected after the Budget Control Act
    was enacted, something which I didn't vote for. And this will
    be the first time in 10 years we will be preparing a budget
    without the caps and the firewalls on defense and nondefense
    investment that the Budget Control placed on Congress.
        So these hearings provide us a great opportunity to
    reassess what our future national security priorities are both
    on defense and nondefense side, because we know the investments
    on domestic priorities, like education and workforce
    development, directly impact America's national security and
    America's workforce.
        How do we know to work with the Biden administration in a
    way that allows us to shape and be more diverse with the
    workforce in the Department of Defense that reflects our
    changing fabric of America? What kind of defense budget do we
    want to see, not only in fiscal year 2022, but how do we shape
    our national priorities 5 and 10 years out? And, yes, how do we
    take a hard look or even cut strategically unnecessary,
    outdated programs that just aren't working or just aren't
    necessary?
        As appropriators who make critical decisions on where our
    tax dollars will be used, we have a responsibility to ask these
    questions. That is the work of this committee, and we will
    tackle it in the months ahead. I look forward to the
    contributions of every member on the subcommittee as we do
    that.
        But today we have three witnesses. Elizabeth Field,
    Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the U.S.
    Government Accountability Office. And we have Mr. Todd
    Harrison, Director of Defense Budget Analysis at the Center for
    Strategic Studies. And Mr. Thomas Mahnken, President and CEO of
    the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
        They are going to kind of set up where the Pentagon is at
    right now, today. And then we will have, as I said, future
    discussions on where to go and ideas about what we can do
    differently in the future.
        I welcome all the testifiers today.
        But first I want to give a few minutes to my good friend
    and our ranking member, Chairman Calvert, for his opening
    statement.
        Mr. Calvert.

                         Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        And first I would like to start off by congratulating our
    new chair. Not only is she our new chair, she is a good friend
    and a trusted partner over the years. And I am looking forward
    to seeing what we all can accomplish in the subcommittee with
    her at the helm.
        Next, I want to thank our witnesses for appearing before us
    today. Your input is invaluable as we consider the important
    topics in great detail.
        This hearing today couldn't come at a more critical moment.
    As the 2018 National Defense Strategy tells us, we are in an
    era of great power competition, primarily with China, who is
    investing in military capabilities at an extremely alarming
    rate.
        This competition is largely the lens through which the
    Department prioritizes its resources, and rightfully so. I
    believe without question that we should continue to prioritize
    key modernization and readiness efforts that equip and prepare
    us decisively to win a war against a peer adversary.
        However, we as a Nation continue to ask more of our
    military than just preparing for this type of conflict. As we
    are winding down our troops in the Middle East, we are still
    engaged in counter-extremist operations, low-intensity
    conflicts around the world that require significant manpower
    and resources.
        We are also in the age of rapidly evolving technology, like
    artificial intelligence, quantum computing, capabilities that
    will drastically change the nature of warfare in ways currently
    inconceivable to us. Developments in cyber warfare and space
    pose significant and expensive challenges to our Nation.
        For years we have asked our military to do more and do it
    with less. While Congress has provided significant funding for
    the Department of Defense in recent years, it would be
    shortsighted of us not to recognize that budget instability and
    unpredictability is also a great threat to our military
    readiness and modernization efforts.
        While I believe that most Members of Congress understand
    the important results yielded by current defense spending
    levels, I also know that many of my colleagues are seeking to
    significantly decrease defense spending.
        Even with a flatline budget, we have to begin the hard work
    of aligning budget priorities with the realities of the future.
    This will mean divesting legacy systems, reforming the way that
    DOD does business, making significant reforms to both civilian
    and uniform personnel end strength, and preparing for the
    conflicts of the future.
        I look forward to hearing from our experts on these issues
    and to begin the budget process for the upcoming fiscal year.
        And again, Chair, I would like to thank you for bringing
    these witnesses before us today, and I will yield back the
    balance of my time.
        Ms. McCollum. I thank you very much, Ranking Member
    Calvert.
        As of right now I am not seeing Chair Rosa DeLauro of the
    full committee or Ranking Member Kay Granger of the full
    committee, so we will get just right into testimony. And if
    they join us, we will give them the courtesy of making any
    statements.
        So I am very happy to say that we are hearing first from
    Elizabeth Field from GAO.
        Thank you, Ms. Field, for being with us. I found reading
    through the report a lot of questions that I now have for folks
    when they come into the office from the Pentagon, some good,
    hard ones.
        So thank you for your testimony. Please begin.

                         Summary Statement of Ms. Field

        Ms. Field. Thank you, Chair McCollum, Ranking Member
    Calvert, and members and staff of the subcommittee. I really
    appreciate this invitation, and it truly is an honor to testify
    before you on this important subject today.
        Today's hearing comes at a time of significant challenge
    for our country. As you know, this week marked more than
    500,000 Americans lost to COVID-19. This deadly pandemic has
    exacerbated what is already an unsustainable long-term fiscal
    path for our Nation, caused by an imbalance between revenue and
    spending.
        As the single largest category of discretionary spending,
    the defense budget is likely to play a large role in any
    discussion of future Federal spending. These discussions will
    consider difficult questions about what our top priorities are
    for national security, what tradeoffs we can and are willing to
    make, and what our long-term vision is for defense spending.
        It is not, of course, GAO's role to answer those policy
    questions. So I would like to focus my remarks this morning on
    a few key areas where we think DOD can and should improve its
    management of defense spending, regardless of where the defense
    top line lands in fiscal year 2022 and beyond.
        First, DOD must improve its overall budgeting and execution
    of funds. Each year DOD allows billions of dollars appropriated
    by Congress to expire, and a lot of this funding ends up being
    canceled. Between fiscal year 2013 and 2018, DOD canceled more
    than $81 billion, returning those funds to the general
    Treasury.
        This problem indicates both that DOD needs to better
    estimate its annual budget requirements and ensure that it has
    better systems in place to use the funds it receives consistent
    with congressional direction.
        Second, DOD must more clearly define its future resource
    requirements related to Overseas Contingency Operations, or
    OCO. In its fiscal year 2021 budget request, DOD estimated that
    $48.5 billion of its $69 billion request for OCO was for
    enduring or base requirements, and DOD's long-range forecasts
    reflect these enduring costs as part of the Department's base
    budget. However, we know very little about what makes up these
    enduring costs or how they were calculated.
        Given the expiration of the 2011 budget caps, as you noted,
    Chair McCollum, and the changing nature of contingency
    operations around the world, it is imperative that the
    Department bring greater transparency to its use of these
    funds.
        Third, DOD must continue efforts to reduce improper
    payments. When we have examined DOD programs vulnerable to
    improper payments, we have found substantial weaknesses that
    needed to be addressed.
        For example, in 2018, GAO identified problems with how DOD
    was estimating improper payments in military pay, calling into
    question the accuracy of its assessment and its usefulness in
    developing corrective action plans.
        DOD has since implemented all of the recommendations we
    made as a result of this review. However, in the last fiscal
    year alone, the Department estimated that it paid about $11.4
    billion in improper payments, indicating that this continues to
    be an area for improvement.
        Strengthening the Department's overall financial
    management, an area that has been on GAO's high-risk list since
    1995, would undoubtedly help with this problem. DOD is, as you
    know, the only major Federal agency that has been unable to
    receive a clean audit opinion on its financial statement.
        Last but certainly not least, DOD must pay serious
    attention to strengthening and refining its Department-wide
    business reform efforts. For more than a decade, the Department
    has sought to find efficiencies. But many of these so-called
    reform initiatives have fallen short of expectations.
        The most recent such initiative, Secretary Esper's zero-
    based review, did identify about $37 billion in savings, and
    the fact that we could see those savings figures reflected in
    the Department's budget documents was notable progress.
        But we also found that some of these savings were not
    really the result of reform. For example, some were the result
    of delayed contracts, costs that will still be realized in
    future years.
        True business reform means fundamentally transforming the
    way the Department does business across the board, and it will
    take sustained senior leadership commitment. Given the recent
    elimination of the Chief Management Officer position at DOD, it
    remains to be seen how the Department will sustain recent
    progress in this area.
        In sum, DOD has key opportunities to better execute the
    funds it has appropriated, to more reliably and transparently
    determine its resource needs, to safeguard funds from waste by
    reducing improper payments and strengthening financial
    management practices, and to maximize efficiency through
    meaningful business reform.
        Taking these steps would give both DOD and Congress greater
    assurance that as strategic choices are made about tradeoffs
    and where to prioritize investments, those investments that are
    made will be put to best use.
        Thank you again for this opportunity, and I look forward to
    your questions.
        [The information follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. And
    you made me make a whole list of questions to ask, as I said,
    when we move forward.
        Next we are going to hear from Mr. Harrison.
        And I really, in reading what you put forward, really the
    takeaway was how we are getting less for more.
        So please address the committee. Thank you for being here.

                       Summary Statement of Mr. Harrison

        Mr. Harrison. Thank you.
        Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and distinguished
    members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you for inviting
    me to testify today on the future of the defense budget.
        But to understand what lies ahead for the Department of
    Defense, we must first look at how we got to where we are.
        Adjusting for inflation, the defense budget today is higher
    than it was at the peak of the Reagan buildup in 1985, but the
    size of the force is smaller by nearly any measure. The number
    of aircraft in the Air Force inventory today is 43 percent less
    than in 1985, the number of the battle force ships in the Navy
    is 46 percent lower, and the Army total force is 33 percent
    smaller.
        The trend is clear: We are spending more for less. The
    driving factors behind this trend are higher personnel costs
    and the steadily increasing costs of operating and maintaining
    our weapon systems.
        From 2000 to 2012, the average cost per Active-Duty
    servicemember grew at a compound annual rate of 3.6 percent
    above inflation, and that excludes war-related compensation
    costs.
        Since 2012, the cost per person has held relatively steady
    thanks to reforms enacted by Congress to arrest the growth in
    healthcare, retirement, and other personnel costs.
        We see similar trends in operation and maintenance.
    Excluding healthcare and war-related costs, the O&M cost per
    person in the military has grown at a compound annual rate of
    2.6 percent above inflation all the way back since the end of
    World War II.
        Over the past 20 years, the Air Force's O&M cost per plane
    grew by 157 percent above inflation. The Army's O&M cost per
    soldier grew by 117 percent. And the Navy's O&M cost per ship
    grew by 99 percent.
        When the committee hears senior civilian and military
    leaders talking about the need for 3 to 5 percent real annual
    growth in the defense budget, these are some of the reasons
    why. A flat defense budget leads to difficult tradeoffs among
    readiness, force structure, and modernization.
        But this is a false choice. We should not accept steadily
    growing O&M and personnel costs as a fact of life. It is an
    unsustainable trend that over time will lead to a progressively
    smaller and less capable force.
        Increasing the defense budget without addressing this
    underlying trend merely delays the day of reckoning. We must
    attack the problem at its core, however painful and unpopular
    that may be.
        While there is no one answer or magic bullet that can fix
    these problems that have been decades in the making, my
    recommendation is to focus on three priorities going forward
    that can bring us closer to the answers we need.
        The first priority should be improving the way DOD measures
    and reports readiness. Despite previous attempts at reforming
    the readiness reporting system, the military continues to
    measure readiness primarily in terms of the resources applied--
    inputs--rather than the performance achieved--outputs.
        DOD should instead develop performance-based readiness
    metrics derived from the existing mission-essential task lists
    for each different type of unit.
        For its part, Congress should require DOD to submit more
    detailed budget justification documents for O&M accounts. The
    current O-1 documents do not provide sufficient detail to show
    operating costs by platform or unit type, and they do not
    include cost projections for future years. This lack of
    transparency limits effective oversight.
        A second priority should be to conduct a strategically
    scoped roles and missions review. Without clearly assigned
    roles and missions, gaps in capabilities can emerge where no
    service claims responsibility and precious resources can be
    wasted on redundancies among the services.
        This review should be narrowly focused on the gaps,
    overlaps, and areas of ambiguity that stem from the creation of
    the Space Force, advances in new technologies, changes in
    current military missions, and the emergence of new mission
    areas that are strategically important to DOD.
        A third priority is to identify and build consensus around
    the crown jewels of the future force.
        One of the key enablers needed to prevail in conflict over
    the next 5 to 10 years is the ability to share data fluidly
    across forces to provide a more complete picture of the battle
    space, what has become known as JADC2, Joint All-Domain Demand
    and Control.
        The nodes and connectors of this network are critical to
    making it a reality, and this is where I believe the crown
    jewels of the future force can be found.
        The future force requires stealthy long-range aircraft,
    resilient communication links, robust space defenses, highly
    proliferated constellations of satellites, long-range air and
    missile defense systems, and light-footprint ground forces that
    can operate within and on the edges of contested areas.
        In conclusion, the budgetary and strategic challenges we
    face today are significant. But I remain optimistic, because
    the main obstacles to our success are within our control.
    Making the hard choices now will prevent us from having to make
    even harder choices in the future.
        I thank you and look forward to your questions.
        [The information follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you very much.
        And finally we are going to hear from Dr. Mahnken. And Dr.
    Mahnken has kind of worked out some scenarios for what may or
    may not be decisions the Pentagon would make with different
    budget scenarios.
        Dr. Mahnken, welcome. Thank you.

                        Summary Statement of Mr. Mahnken

        Mr. Mahnken. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
    distinguished members of the committee, thank you for your
    invitation to appear before you today to discuss future defense
    spending.
        Chairwoman McCollum, as you noted, my testimony today draws
    upon the results of a recent series of budgetary exercises that
    the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and the
    Ronald Reagan Institute organized with a really distinguished,
    bipartisan group of leading defense policy and budget experts
    in October 2020.
        We gathered a group of current and former policymakers,
    current and former legislators, folks from industry, various
    perspectives.
        And these sessions assessed the impact of fiscally
    constrained adjustments to U.S. defense strategy and military
    forces over the coming decade. And each team used our Strategic
    Choices Tool to implement changes in U.S. defense spending over
    the next 10 years.
        And here I would particularly like to acknowledge Todd
    Harrison, who really developed the first iteration of the tool
    during his time at CSBA. We are now in the third iteration of
    that tool.
        Essentially, what it does is it instantiates the Future
    Years Defense Program, the FYDP, over the next 5 years, and
    then a notional FYDP after that. So it allows users to make
    choices, the types of strategic choices that we are talking
    about, based on an overall level of budget. So you can add or
    subtract programs from the budget and see what the implications
    are.
        Specifically, the teams were asked to use the tool to
    adjust U.S. defense spending under two distinct budget
    scenarios. The first was an immediate 10 percent cut to defense
    spending, followed by annual inflation increases. And the
    second was an annual 3 percent increase in defense spending, as
    called for by former Defense Secretary Mattis, former Chairman
    Dunford, and the congressionally mandated National Defense
    Strategy Commission.
        I am going to focus on the former scenario, the budget cut,
    and just say briefly what we found.
        In the 10 percent defense cut scenario, teams were required
    to cut $444 billion in the first 5 years, the first FYDP, from
    fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2026, and $200 billion more in
    the second 5 years, fiscal year 2027 to 2031, relative to the
    PB21 defense budget.
        Now, this budgetary target forced participants to make some
    heroic political and strategic assumptions. For example, teams
    had to make large-scale cuts to personnel, force structure, and
    modernization.
        Moreover, the force that remained after these cuts was
    incapable of carrying out the current National Defense
    Strategy. It lacked the ability to respond to the range of
    military contingencies that the United States could reasonably
    expect to face and was too small and brittle to respond to
    unforeseen challenges.
        Let me start with the areas that participants chose to
    invest in, even in this down-budget scenario.
        Teams began by identifying their top strategic priorities,
    things that were must-haves and even needed to be plussed up.
        These included nuclear modernization. Nearly all teams
    chose to preserve all elements of the nuclear triad.
        Attack submarines was another area of emphasis. All teams
    chose either to maintain or increase the size of the attack
    submarine fleet, believing that these platforms are critical
    for operating forward in the face of increasingly capable
    adversaries.
        All teams also emphasized unmanned assets, to include
    attritable systems. Participants believed that unmanned sea and
    air platforms should be procured in sufficient numbers for a
    protracted conflict against a capable adversary.
        And then, finally, teams maximized the joint force's
    ability to deliver precise long-range fires from land, sea, and
    air.
        So those were areas where the teams believed we needed to
    double down.
        To generate the resources necessary for those priorities,
    teams made some difficult offsetting cuts, including to
    tactical fighter aircraft, aircraft carriers, ground force
    structure, and personnel.
        All teams reduced heavily planned procurement of tactical
    aviation. Although most teams wanted to focus on legacy fourth-
    generation aircraft, they were ultimately forced to reduce
    fifth-generation aircraft to find needed cost savings.
        All teams also chose to reduce the aircraft carrier fleet
    by 2, bringing the total down from 11 to 9 ships. Although
    partially driven by an effort to move towards a more
    distributed fleet, this was also a budget-driven decision to
    generate cost savings.
        All teams also cut Army force structure, with average cuts
    of four Armored Brigade Combat Teams, six Infantry Brigade
    Combat Teams, and five Stryker Brigade Combat Teams.
        And then, finally, teams made large reductions to civilian
    personnel and military end strength. Now, about half of these
    cuts were embedded in the divestment of platforms and force
    structure, but teams also made standalone cuts to personnel.
        All teams cut the contractor and civilian workforce,
    resulting in reductions of approximately 10 percent and 30
    percent, respectively.
        So some pretty severe cuts, and the implications of those
    cuts were several. One of the most important was that a 10
    percent budget cut would jeopardize the Defense Department's
    ability to maintain a force that can win one war while
    deterring another, which is really the basis of our current
    National Defense Strategy.
        For example, the decision to cut force structure might lead
    the United States to emphasize one great power competitor over
    another, but with the conflict's outcome still highly
    uncertain. All teams chose to accept the greatest risk in
    Europe, while maintaining or expanding forward presence in the
    Pacific.
        The United States would thus face the possibility of not
    merely having a one-war force, but a force designed for a
    particular geographic region. And even there I think
    participants questioned our ability to prevail in some of the
    scenarios that we might encounter.
        The cut would also force a real stark choice between force
    structure and modernization, would result in increased strain
    in the remaining force. And we also had concerns over the
    economic impact of these cuts on the defense industrial base
    and the broader national security innovation base.
        I am happy to go into these results at greater depth. Also
    happy to talk about the alternative scenario, the increase
    scenario. But hopefully this has laid the table for a good
    discussion with the committee.
        Thank you again for inviting me to testify, and I look
    forward to your questions.
        [The information follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. McCollum. Great. Thank you.
        I have got a couple of questions, but I am just going to
    ask one for now and save one for later so we can get around to
    other members. And this one is for Ms. Field.

                        Overseas Contingency Operations

        So you in your testimony talked quite a bit about, when I
    was reading through it, the Overseas Contingency Operations
    account there. And you talked about how DOD and Congress needs
    a clear determination of DOD's future resource requirements,
    especially how they are going to incorporate the enduring
    Overseas Contingency Operation.
        When I was in the statehouse, we called those tails, you
    know. We always said, you know, this is how much it is going to
    cost. Now what are the tails?
        So part of what you put out there are some scenarios of how
    to have more transparency. So lots of times, I think, when
    Members are voting on Overseas Contingency, they kind of tend
    to think of it as a 1-year account, a 1-year expense, and quite
    often sometimes it is. But other times it does have these
    enduring costs to it.
        So with fiscal year 2020 and 2021, with base and OCO
    spending increased by $2.5 billion, and just looking at the OCO
    part of it, what would be some of the things, if we are going
    to have real, clear accounting as we look to make cuts and
    changes in defense spending, for the committee tell a little
    bit some of the concerns that GAO was raising to the Pentagon
    so that there would be full transparency in the enduring costs
    or tails of the Overseas Contingency Fund.
        Ms. Field. Sure. So there are a lot of really important
    issues there, and I think you hit on a lot of them.
        I think fundamentally a concern that we had is transparency
    and what exactly the Department intends to use these funds for.
        A few years ago we made a recommendation to the Department
    that they move enduring OCO costs into the base budget, and
    they have started doing that, which is, I think, positive
    because if there are costs that are expected to last for
    several years it would make sense that they would be in the
    base budget.
        That said, when we look at the budget request and the
    justification for the budget, there is not a lot of detail in
    there about these funds. So a fundamental recommendation to the
    Department would be use this opportunity of the budget cap
    expiring to be more transparent and detailed about what these
    funds are going to be used for.
        You noted--and I will just very briefly cover this--you
    noted that we have made or we have offered some options that
    are open not just to the Department, but to Congress, for
    ensuring better rigor in how the Department uses OCO funding.
    And I will just mention a couple of them.
        One would be for Congress to use legally binding language
    in the annual appropriations act to very clearly specify the
    purposes for which the funds could be used. There is right now
    general language about how OCO funds can be used, but it is not
    legally binding and it is certainly not very specific.
        Another would be to create separate appropriation accounts.
    Right now, even though they are called something different,
    they are put into the same account, which can make it hard to
    track them.
        There are a lot of others issues here, but I will stop
    there, and hopefully that was an answer to your question.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you.
        Gentlemen, to our other testifiers, I will save my--I have
    got a really good question for you, but I am going to, like I
    said, because other people are attending hearings and that, I
    am going to turn to Mr. Calvert for a question he might have.

                               Civilian Workforce

        Mr. Calvert. Well, those of you who know me probably know
    that the first thing I will delve into is cost figures.
        Any time you have a large organization--and, of course,
    this is probably the largest enterprise that we are involved
    in, in the United States Government, is the Department of
    Defense--and obviously the biggest cost is personnel, both
    uniform and civilian.
        And right now many of you already know that we have the
    highest ratio of civilian employees relative to uniform
    employees in the history of the Pentagon. And, obviously, that
    is not something that can be sustained, and I suspect that--I
    know a lot of thought has been put into this. But I think I
    will ask the question for the panel.
        How do we bring the civilian workforce back into a ratio
    that has been historically what we have had? And by the way, I
    think it would actually create much more efficiencies within
    the Department if we could delve into that problem.
        So I will just listen to the answers. Thank you.
        Who would like to take it first?
        Mr. Harrison. I would be happy to jump in there first.
        You know, I think you are right that we do need to take a
    very hard look at the size and scope and the use of the DOD
    civilian workforce. I would urge some caution, though.
        First of all, if you look at the average cost per DOD
    civilian, it is actually lower than the average cost per
    Active-Duty military personnel. So we need to be careful in
    looking at are we eliminating civilian jobs and that work will
    then be done by a more expensive military person, because that
    is not going to save us money in the long run.
        Also, we need to remember that about 95 percent of the DOD
    civilian workforce is outside of the Pentagon, outside of the
    DC area. Many of them are actually employed in the various
    government owned and operated depots around the country where
    they are performing essentially blue collar types of jobs.
        Mr. Calvert. If I could interrupt just for a second. I am
    not talking about depots. My friend, Mr. Cole, is probably
    listening to this and jumping out of his chair.
        I am talking about primarily the middle management
    bureaucracy within the Department itself. And, by the way, not
    just through the Department of Defense, through the
    intelligence agencies and through the entire enterprise. And,
    it is fast. It is at the historic high.
        And I understand the value of civilian employees. But how
    do we justify a ratio that is significantly higher than any
    time in the history of the Pentagon?
        Mr. Harrison. Well, I guess my point is that ratio, that it
    is at the highest level relative to the Active-Duty force,
    includes all of those blue collar, depot-related civilian
    workers, right?
        If you are just looking at that middle management--and I
    agree with you----
        Mr. Calvert. Let's just take the depot out of this. But it
    is across--I am talking about across the enterprise.
        Mr. Harrison. Yeah, if you look at that middle management,
    it is actually a pretty small percentage of the overall DOD
    civilian workforce. And absolutely we should look at ways to
    reduce that. I don't think you are going to find the savings,
    though, the magnitude of the savings that we need to address a
    lot of our challenges going forward.
        Mr. Calvert. The civilian, the Business Board disagrees
    with you on that.
        Mr. Harrison. Well, if you are referring to the Defense
    Business Board report from I think it was about 5 or 6 years
    ago, if you look carefully at their methodology, what they did
    is they looked at all of the overhead-related functions in DOD,
    they summed up the dollar amount, and then they made a massive
    assumption.
        They said that in the private sector they can generally
    trim about 5 percent from overhead functions, and then they
    applied that 5 percent to overhead functions at DOD. That is
    how they arrived at their $25 billion-a-year savings estimate,
    $125 billion over 5 years.
        So they did not actually identify specific functions and
    specific DOD civilian offices and head counts that could be
    reduced. They just made a big assumption based on their
    experience doing similar things in the private sector.
        Now, with that said, I think there are significant savings
    to be achieved----
        Mr. Calvert. I know my time has expired. But I know that a
    number of comptrollers in the Department of Defense that have
    been in the past disagree. They believe that the civilian
    workforce can be brought--you know, a cut of 5 percent, I am a
    business guy, that is a doable thing in a large organization.
        So with that, Madam Chair, I will yield the balance of my
    time.
        Ms. McCollum. To be continued, I am sure, Mr. Calvert.
        And a lot of the folks that I found that were some of the
    civilian employees, when we started mobilizing for Afghanistan
    and Iraq were also dual-hatters, where they had a position
    where they also were in the Guard or the Reserve as well.
        Mr. Ruppersberger is having technical problems. We are
    trying to work those out. And hopefully he just might be--he is
    driving in and he is having problems with the video. And so we
    just might go to audio. But we are going to skip Mr.
    Ruppersberger just for a minute now.
        And so I am going to go to Mr. Kilmer, and then Mr. Rogers
    will be next.
        Mr. Kilmer.

                           Climate Change Resilience

        Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair.
        For my first question, I was hoping to direct it to Mr.
    Harrison.
        I keep thinking about that old FRAM oil filter commercial,
    ``Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later.'' It seems like we have some
    issues related to the resiliency of some of our infrastructure
    that sort of fits that tagline.
        I think about our Naval installations, including in my
    district, Naval Base Kitsap and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in
    my district. They are already facing climate-related
    challenges, like sea level rise and coastal erosion and more
    frequent and severe storms that really threaten the safety of
    workers and, frankly, risk jeopardizing some of these critical
    defense assets.
        The shipyard at Puget is the Navy's only dry dock on the
    West Coast that is capable of completing carrier repairs and
    retrofits, and it plays a very outsized role in supporting our
    Nation's defense posture in the Pacific.
        So recognizing the threats that are facing not just the
    Puget Sound Naval Shipyard but the other public shipyards, the
    Navy released its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan, or
    SIOP, in 2018, which is a 20-year, $21 billion effort to
    revitalize and modernize those shipyards to increase climate
    resilience and improve resistance to seismic events.
        Personally, I think it is really important for Congress and
    the DOD to work together to keep SIOP on track to shore up that
    critical infrastructure, to address any deficiencies at the
    shipyards, to protect our defense posture in the face of any
    sort of unpredictable and, frankly, an evolving climate or we
    will pay later.
        So my question, Mr. Harrison, as a budget analyst is, what
    do you recommend Congress can do to ensure that that Shipyard
    Infrastructure Optimization now Program and other similar
    resiliency plans can stay on track over not just the next 10-
    year trajectory but also the 20-year proposed plan?
        Mr. Harrison. Thank you, Representative Kilmer.
        I think you raise an excellent point, and it is broader
    than just the Navy and the shipyards. Since the Budget Control
    Act was enacted and went into enforcement in 2013, the
    Department of Defense has repeatedly and consistently
    shortchanged funding for bases and maintenance and military
    construction, and we continue to see that in the fiscal year
    2021 request that was released last year.
        It is an easy piggy bank to go to, because you can rob some
    money from it now and promise to pay it back in the future. But
    as you note, the longer you delay the critical maintenance that
    is needed in a lot of these facilities, the more it will end up
    costing in the long run. This is something we need to look at
    Department-wide.
        And I will raise an ugly word that the committee probably
    doesn't want to hear: BRAC, Base Realignment and Closure. That
    is something the Department has got to look at.
        Now, if you look at the numbers produced by DOD, the Navy
    is not the service that is in need of a BRAC. It is primarily
    we see excess bases and facilities in the Air Force and in the
    Army.
        And so I think that should be part of the next defense
    strategy, is taking a hard look at where can we consolidate,
    where can we close some of our bases and facilities to reduce
    the costs that we incur every year to maintain these facilities
    that we don't actually need and are not critical to our force,
    so that we can redirect those resources into more critical base
    maintenance and military construction activities that are
    needed.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.

                                   Healthcare

        With my remaining time, Ms. Field, I know that healthcare
    costs are a strain for the DOD just like they are a strain for
    everybody else. I have been hearing concerns from folks in my
    district that DOD health facilities in our neck of the woods
    won't have the capacity to treat retirees, both on TRICARE for
    Life and TRICARE Prime insurance plans, as part of the Military
    Health System reform due to a reduction in billets.
        I am concerned about how staffing cuts, for example, again,
    in my neck of the woods at Bremerton Naval Hospital, at Madigan
    Army Medical Center, will impact access to care in the
    communities I represent.
        In fact, over the past year Bremerton Naval Hospital
    reduced manning levels by about 100 personnel, with those
    Active-Duty billets being removed from Bremerton's manning
    document and those positions no longer being refilled when
    members retire or transfer or separate.
        And that is not unique to Bremerton Naval Hospital. Those
    cuts are already impacting access to care for retirees who have
    dedicated their life to defending our country.
        So my question is, what steps would you recommend to ensure
    that the Military Health System reform accomplishes its goals
    of streamlining the system and enhancing medical force
    readiness and providing access to quality care without
    sacrificing services to people who have earned those services?
        Ms. Field. Thank you.
        So my colleagues in the defense group have looked quite a
    lot at this issue of defense health reform, and as a result of
    some of their reviews I think there has been a bit of a pause
    in sort of how this reform is rolling out, and I think in large
    part because of some of the same concerns that you just
    identified.
        My colleague, Brenda Farrell, and her team have an ongoing
    review right now looking more closely at military treatment
    facilities and what is going on with them. When that work comes
    out, I think they will have some particular recommendations
    focused on what you are interested in.
        I am sorry that I don't have a more detailed answer for you
    right now. But, bottom line, I think your question is well-
    taken. The concerns are valid. And in general we would like to
    see the Department have a more clearly defined strategic plan,
    performance measures, ways to monitor how the reform effort is
    being rolled out.
        I would also very quickly say in response to your question
    about climate resilience, we have, as you know, put the
    government's fiscal exposure due to climate change on our High-
    Risk List and DOD is a key player in that. Two things we have
    seen.
        First, the Department has not necessarily clearly
    identified which of its installations and other parts of
    infrastructure across the different services are most at risk
    because of climate change. And so that would be an important
    place for them to start.
        We have also found that the Department has not done mission
    assurance for commercial assets that have been deemed critical
    to determine what their vulnerability is to climate change.
        So I just wanted to add that point very quickly.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
        Thanks. I yield back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Kilmer.
        I was with the Acting Secretary of the Army yesterday and
    healthcare came up. So we are going to take some time and do a
    deep dive on healthcare. And we will work with GAO and see if
    we can time it with the report, because sometimes they like to
    wait until they are done before they comment. But we will work
    with your office to make sure that that happens.
        We are also going to be having in one of our future
    hearings discussions, food for thought, we are going to talk
    about climate change resiliency and energy use.
        So all good things and things that we have to take in
    account when we are doing our budget.
        Mr. Rogers.

                                     China

        Mr. Rogers. Congratulations to you, Madam Chair, for
    assumption of this heavy chore of leading this great
    subcommittee.
        Let me talk to you about China, which is on everyone's mind
    these days.
        In its first month, the Biden administration started a
    review of its strategy toward China. The Department has
    established a task force to provide a baseline assessment of
    its policies and programs related to China.
        A lot of our defense spending obviously is to counter our
    adversaries' spending on programs. Consequently, we need to
    know what our near-peer China is doing in its defense policies
    and spending.
        My question to any of the panelists. How do we know what
    China is spending on what we would call defense? I mean, they
    use PLA money for their trade policies, the Belt and Road
    Initiative, around the world, which indirectly, I suppose,
    could be considered defense. But in our definition of defense
    it would not qualify.
        So how are we determining what China is actually spending
    on actual defense, what we would need to prepare to counter?
        Mr. Mahnken. Congressman Rogers, I will take a first crack
    at that, because I think that is an excellent question.
        In the U.S. case not all defense spending is in the defense
    budget, right? We have part of it in DOE with the nuclear
    budget, for example.
        And if we think about China's spending on national
    security, the way they define it, I think actually a majority
    of their spending is not on the People's Liberation Army, but
    it is also--a majority of their spending is actually on
    internal security, organizations like the People's Armed
    Police. Plus, I think, yeah, they have spending in various
    places.
        So getting a good understanding of the Chinese defense
    budget is a real challenge. We actually have an effort ongoing
    right now to get a better understanding of that and to be able
    to look at the strategic choices that China may face, just as I
    briefed you on the U.S. side.
        At one level, again, if you are talking about how much does
    it cost China to procure a fifth-generation aircraft, that is
    the type of thing that you can figure out, because we still in
    the 21st century pay for aircraft by the pound, we still pay
    for ships by the ton.
        There may be some cost savings. There are definitely some
    cost savings through their theft of our intellectual property.
    But still there are things that they have to pay for.
        And I would agree with you that getting a better
    understanding of their costs, what they are spending on, can
    give us a sense of what they value. Also, getting a better
    sense of what they are spending can go give us maybe some
    strategic options for dealing with them.
        Mr. Rogers. Well, I mean, the expenditures that they are
    using to fund their cybersecurity efforts against the U.S. and
    others, that is a huge problem for us and for the world and for
    the future of the economy of China and the U.S. And yet we
    don't have any idea, I don't think, of how much money they are
    actually spending trying to break through cyber matters.
        What do you say to that?
        Mr. Mahnken. I would agree. I think they--they are imposing
    lots of costs on us. We should be thinking about how we can
    impose costs on them.
        You know, they are forcing us to do all sorts of things
    that are expensive and difficult, and they have over the years.
    We need to be thinking about how to do the same to them. Yeah,
    I would agree with you.
        Mr. Rogers. But at the moment they are cleaning our clock
    economically, militarily, socially. So I welcome the commission
    that the administration is establishing, focusing on the real
    big problems our country faces in the near future.
        Madam Chair, thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Next, we have Mr. Cuellar.

                           Russia and China Influence

        Mr. Cuellar. Chairwoman, thank you so much.
        And to our witnesses, I want to thank you.
        My issue has been how do we explain that the United
    States--and I am very supportive of the military--but how do we
    spend more money than China, Russia, and the other countries
    combined and it still seems like they, with less money than we
    spend--and I know a lot of it goes to our military benefits. I
    understand all of that. But my issue is we spend more money
    than they do, but they seem to be in more places than we are.
        For example, one of the things that I am waiting for is I
    am waiting for an assessment that I added on the National
    Defense Authorization to see what we are doing in Latin
    America. And I will be happy to share this with everybody
    later.
        My concern is that, as we are looking at other places of
    the world, in our own backyard we have got--starting to get a
    heavy influence of Russians, but mainly Chinese.
        For example, out of the 31 countries in Latin America, 25
    host Chinese infrastructure projects, 56 port projects. Weapons
    that got sent have been sold. Seventeen out of the 31 countries
    in Latin America are part of the One Belt, One Road loans that
    China has provided since 2007, $155 billion.
        And then the same thing, you know, what they have done in
    Panama, they have done IT smart cities. They have done early
    warning radars. They have sent out their Peace Ark hospital
    ship.
        In Argentina they have a space tracking station where they
    have about 99 percent access and the Argentinians don't have
    anything.
        Mexico is buying a huge amount of vaccines from the Chinese
    and the Russians. You know, this is just right across the
    border itself.
        So my question, as we look at the trends, is we are
    spending all this money on our military, combined more than the
    Chinese and the Russians and a couple of other countries, but
    they seem to be all over the world and especially in my--in our
    own backyard. I live on the border. So I told John Carter I
    don't just go visit there for a few hours. I live there every
    day. So I talk to folks that come in across the border.
        How do we explain this as a trend, for any of the
    witnesses, Elizabeth, Tom, whoever wants to take this on, and
    especially what is happening in our own backyard? It is pretty
    scary, guys.
        Mr. Mahnken. Well, Congressman, if I could lead off. I
    mean, I would agree with you. I was--now it is actually--it is
    going on a year and a half, I was in Bolivia, in Cochabamba.
    And just going through the airport in Bolivia, all of the
    scanning equipment, all of the security equipment was donated
    by the PRC, including facial recognition technology, all sorts
    of things like that.
        I think the United States needs to be very active. We need
    to be active close to home and far from home.
        Now, of course the military is just one instrument to do
    that. And, frankly, the U.S. Government and government
    assistance is only one set of instruments to do that. I think
    our strength as a Nation is not just with the government, but
    it is with private industry. We need to be working with private
    industry to build those ties.
        I think where government can help is that a lot of places
    seek Chinese assistance because there is no strings attached.
    We need to stick with our principles.
        Or I think also the more that the Chinese are out and
    about, the more resentment grows. I think America by and large
    has a good reputation overseas because we have ethics, we have
    laws, we stick to our laws.
        And the complaints that I have heard in Central America, in
    particular in El Salvador, where the government shifted its
    recognition from Taiwan to the PRC, was a sense of betrayal on
    the part of a lot of Salvadoran businessmen who had spent a lot
    of time building relationships with businessmen on Taiwan and
    had basically been sold out by their government.
        So we need to be able to provide support for those people.
        Mr. Cuellar. And thank you so much.
        And let me just say thank you, my time is up, Chairwoman
    and Mr. Calvert and members.
        Yeah, the assessment I called for was not only the
    military, but it also called the State Department, AID, and I
    even had a conference with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that
    they are also worried about the Chinese coming in, into Latin
    America, because we as a country, we export about 40 percent of
    all of our exports go into Latin America but our attention is
    certainly not 40 percent to there. And even the private sector
    are seeing the Chinese.
        So I am just asking the committee. I know this is only
    part. It still takes the other part, as you mentioned, Tom.
        But we really need to start doing this because we are going
    to wake up like they did back in the 1980s where they said,
    ``Oh, my God, look what has happened in Nicaragua. The
    Sandinistas have taken over.'' Sent Oliver North and da, da,
    da, all that.
        We can't just wake up one day and find out that this
    presence of the Chinese and the Russians, especially the
    Chinese, are just right across the Rio Grande itself.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Cuellar. But, anyway, thank you so much. I appreciate
    it.
        Ms. McCollum. Yes. You are welcome.
        Judge Carter, welcome. And it is your turn to ask a
    question, please, sir.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you, and good to hear from you. Thank
    you. And congratulations. Well earned. We are looking forward
    to your leadership. And thank you very much for recognizing me.
        In your testimony, Mr. Harrison, you state that the future
    force requires stealthy, long-range aircraft, resilient
    communication links, robust space defenses, highly proliferated
    constellations of satellites, long-range air and missile
    defense systems, and special operations and light-footprint
    ground forces.
        Currently, the Army's six modernization priorities consist
    of, one, Long-Range Precision Fires; two, Next-Gen Combat
    Vehicles; three, future lifts; four, Army networks; five, Air
    Force missile defense; and, six, soldier lethality.
        Now, is the U.S. Army on the right trajectory to seamlessly
    integrate into the Joint All Domain Command and Control--
    JADC2--framework as a result of the concerted efforts of
    initiatives filtered through the ArmyFutures Command? This
    command is my neighbor, and I take great interest in it.
        Mr. Harrison. Thank you, sir, for the question.
        And, you know, I think that the Army's modernization
    priorities may be right for the Army. They are not necessarily
    the top priorities overall for the Department of Defense. And
    that is true for each of the services, quite frankly.
        I think where the Army can play a big role in the future
    force, particularly looking at the challenges we face from
    China and operating in the Pacific region, is helping to
    develop longer-range air and missile defense systems.
        I think that is an important role for the Army, the ground-
    based air and missile defense that can be deployed and can
    extend out coverage out over a much farther range than we are
    capable of doing today.
        I think that that would be an important contribution to the
    future force. So that is why I consider it one of the crown
    jewels that should be protected.
        In terms of the Army's ability to integrate with this
    larger battle network of the future that we are calling JADC2,
    Joint All Domain Command and Control, I think they are taking
    some initial steps with the Air Force now. They have a 2-year
    partnering agreement to explore how the network the Air Force
    is attempting to build can be integrated with the Army's future
    battle network.
        But it is not enough. And that is one of the reasons I
    think we need a roles and missions review, is because this
    battle network of the future, JADC2, it falls into gaps among
    the services. And so we need a lead service designated to build
    that overall architecture for JADC2, the network protocols, the
    security standards, all of the details that everyone else can
    plug into.
        If we don't do that, if we allow it to continue along this
    path where each service is doing their own thing and they may
    have ad hoc temporary partnerships along the way, we are not
    going to get to where we need to be. It is a recipe for
    failure.
        So I would urge the committee and the Department of Defense
    to take a proactive look at this and assign a lead service for
    JADC2 and then set up a joint program office, a program
    executive agent for JADC2 that can coordinate all of those
    efforts and enforce the architecture, network requirements, and
    protocols across all the services to ensure we actually are
    able to integrate in the future.
        Mr. Mahnken. Let me agree with Todd and just say that there
    are a whole series of areas, whether it is command and control,
    whether it is sensing, whether it is strike, whether it is
    logistics, that really are fundamental to modern warfare. And
    none of the services acting alone are going to be able to do
    what is needed. And so there really is some ownership needed in
    each of those areas.
        And on issues like base defense, for example, defense of
    overseas bases or even domestic bases, there are gaps there.
    And so there needs to be much more of a joint effort to solve
    those problems.
        Ms. Field. And if I could just----
        Mr. Carter. I agree with you, too, and that is one of my
    concerns, is that coordination has always been a concern, I
    think, with our military to some extent, going back as far as
    we can remember. And I thank you for the work you do.
        Ms. McCollum. Ms. Field, you wanted to add something?
        Mr. Carter, Ms. Field is going to add something to the mix,
    too, so we will give her a few seconds.
        Mr. Carter. Okay. Good.
        Ms. Field. I will just be very quick. And I agree with Mr.
    Harrison and Mr. Mahnken that part of the issue here is the
    ability to rise up above the specific service level and look
    across the board.
        And one of the things that GAO has been recommending to DOD
    is that it set readiness metrics for domains, not just
    individual services. That still hasn't happened, but that is a
    recommendation that is still on the books for us.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you. Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Oh, very good. And great question.

                                      A-10

        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair, for having this
    hearing.
        And thank you to Ranking Member Calvert.
        I really appreciate your interest in this.
        I have two questions, one for Mr. Harrison and one for Ms.
    Field.
        So I represent Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, which is home
    of the A-10 Warthog, which has been highlighted for divestment
    by the Air Force for many years as an offset for modernization
    efforts.
        However, the A-10 is one the least expensive fighters to
    operate. Meanwhile, the cost of other fighters, with smaller
    fleet sizes, has been increasing.
        I am concerned about the risk associated with divesting
    legacy systems that creates a capability gap while we wait for
    a new platform to become operational.
        With regards to the A-10, we have not seen evidence that
    other platforms can perform the close air support and combat
    search and rescue mission as effectively.
        So, Mr. Harrison, my question for you is, what
    recommendations do you have when it comes to balancing the need
    to modernize for a high-intensive conflict with the need for
    current or potential low-intensity conflicts?
        Mr. Harrison. Thank you, ma'am. That is great question. And
    it is one of those hard choices I talked about that we are
    going to have to make to prioritize the capabilities we need
    for the future force.
        The A-10 has absolutely been a star of the Air Force for
    many decades. But we also need to look at how we conduct close
    air support today.
        I think the burden here is actually on the Air Force to
    better demonstrate to Congress how that close air support
    mission that the A-10 is so adept at performing can and is
    being performed by other platforms.
        And a lot of this is enabled by capabilities in terms of
    precision attack that did not exist at the time the A-10 was
    developed, things like drones, like the MQ-9 Reaper, that are
    able to loiter for long times and conduct very surgical strikes
    close in to our troops.
        And even if you look at platforms like the B-1 Bomber have
    also been used for close air support because they now are
    equipped with GPS-guided weapons that are extremely accurate
    and so they can be used in this role.
        The other factor we need to consider is that we have to
    make hard choices, we have to prioritize in our strategy
    between the capabilities that we need for high-end conflict,
    the capabilities that we need for gray zone competition with
    Russia and China, and the capabilities that we need for lower-
    end conflicts, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency operations.
        And I think at the end of the day, you are right in your
    assessment that the A-10 on a per-plane basis is not that
    expensive compared to other crewed fighter aircraft. But when
    you compare it to the cost of operating drones, either a cost
    per tail per year or a cost per flying hour, it actually is
    still more expensive than the MQ-9 and the MQ-1s that can do
    many of the functions of the A-10.
        So I think that the Air Force needs to present that
    analysis better to Congress. And I think Congress has got to
    accept that and understand that this may be one of the hard
    choices we have to make, is retiring the A-10 platform, because
    we do have other multipurpose platforms that can take its
    place.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Well, I agree with you, it is going to be
    a really, really hard choice. We really depend on the A-10 in
    southern Arizona. So my district borders Mexico, and the A-10
    can make these low-flying flights over the border to monitor
    what is going on. I just don't think there is any replacement
    for that right now.
        I talked with the A-10 pilots, and they like the A-10. They
    feel like it is easy to fly, it is versatile, and it is going
    to be tough to convert to something else. I don't know if our
    pilots are ready to do that. But I think long-term that is
    something we have to do. So thank you very much.

                             DOD and Climate Change

        I would like to go to my second question, which is for Ms.
    Field.
        In Arizona we are already experiencing the effect of
    climate change. The Department of Defense has acknowledged that
    climate change is a national security priority, and the
    changing environment will impact defense installations and our
    ability to project power.
        So my question is, how do we incentivize a transition in
    the Department of Defense toward more sustainable environmental
    stewardship, to include energy consumption and requirements
    development?
        Ms. Field. That is a great question, and I will be very
    brief.
        A number of years ago we made a recommendation to the
    Department that each military service incorporate criteria in
    their process for racking and stacking new MilCon projects, to
    include criteria related to building resiliency to climate
    change.
        We heard when we went down to the military service level
    that individuals were reluctant to bring forth MilCon projects
    that were related to building climate resilience because they
    didn't think that they would win out in the overall sort of
    racking and stacking of potential MilCon projects.
        So that is one small way, but potentially meaningful way
    for the Department to incentivize the sort of behavior that you
    are talking about. We have a number of other related
    recommendations, but given the time, I will stop there.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you so much for your answer.
        Madam Chair, I want to thank you for having this hearing
    and thank Ranking Member Calvert. I have another hearing I am
    going to have to jump on to.
        Ms. McCollum. Okay.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. So I am going to excuse myself. Thank you
    very much. This has been very productive.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Madam Chairwoman, can you hear me?
        Ms. McCollum. Good morning.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Let me start by congratulating you, but
    also by thanking you. You have always been just amazingly
    accessible and easy to work with, and I just appreciate working
    with you.
        A few questions. Let me go back to China.

                         China Research and Development

        So my understanding is that China has basically tripled
    their R&D spending in the last decade while, basically, our R&D
    remained pretty constant.
        So how do we keep up with the Chinese threat, understanding
    where we have been going and where we may be going in R&D? I am
    not quite sure who wants to deal with that.
        Mr. Mahnken. I will take a first stab at that.
        Look, I think we do it by not trying to emulate the
    authoritarians and doing it in the way that China is doing it.
    We do it the way democracies do it.
        So I think we do it by trying to lower the barriers between
    the tremendous innovation that is going on within our broader
    economy and within our broader society, and figuring out better
    ways to bring that in, more effective ways to bring that in to
    the service of national defense.
        I think there is enormous innovation going on. There is a
    lot of very good. And government can play a role in terms of
    the demand signal for the particular areas that would most
    benefit defense. But I think there is a lot to be gained by
    lowering those, the barriers, to get things from outside of
    defense industry, outside of government in to serve our needs.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. You know, it is interesting, I think you
    make a valid point. But we also know that China steals a lot of
    our intellectual property, right? And that is one of the
    challenges when we have an open society that does go to the
    private sector for a lot of R&D. And so that is also a bit of a
    CHEOPS.
        Mr. Mahnken. Absolutely. And I think we need to play a
    strong defense on that front as well.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Let me go back very briefly--how much time
    do I have?--to Mr. Cuellar's point on Chinese involvement
    everywhere, including in this hemisphere.
        So what strategic areas does the Chinese military, where do
    they pose strategically the greatest challenge, the greatest
    threat to the U.S., our interests, and our allies' interests,
    like Taiwan? And where is your biggest vulnerability when you
    are dealing with China now and in the near future?

                                China and Space

        Mr. Harrison. If I could jump in here.
        I would actually say that one of our biggest
    vulnerabilities to China right now is in space, that we do have
    much better space capabilities than China, thanks in part to
    our robust commercial space industrial base.
        But what we see is China is making large strategic
    investments in counterspace weapons. And they are making
    advances in counterspace weapons faster than we are advancing
    our space defenses against those systems.
        And so we still have very large vulnerabilities in space I
    think are very concerning.
        And just quickly, back to your earlier point about R&D
    spending. The research and development part of our defense
    budget is actually at a historic high right now. So I wouldn't
    discount it too much.
        But our concerns are, what is the trajectory of the R&D
    budget in the future? And what are we doing to better leverage
    the commercial investments that are being made in R&D right
    now?
        And in particular the DOD has got to figure out different
    paradigms for working with commercial industry to leverage all
    of the great R&D and intellectual capital that is being
    developed there. And in a lot of cases, that means we need to
    look at buying things as a service rather than a product.
        And that is a big paradigm shift for DOD that is used to
    buying weapon systems and operating them itself. There are many
    cases where we can simply buy things as a service and leverage
    what the commercial marketplace is already doing.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Madam Chair, I have obviously a number of
    different further questions, but I see that my time is running
    short. And I will lead by example and actually give back a
    little bit of time. So I yield back. Thank you very much.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We might have an opportunity to do
    another round.
        Mrs. Bustos, welcome.

                             Defense Manufacturing

        Mrs. Bustos. Thank you, Madam Chair. And really appreciate
    you and Ranking Member Calvert for holding this hearing today.
    Very, very important.
        I think we can all agree that investment in the Nation's
    defense is absolutely critical to deterring future conflicts.
        With that said, many on the committee have heard me talk
    about the Rock Island Arsenal in the past, I usually have some
    question that revolves around that, located literally on an
    island in the middle of the Mississippi River. I have already
    invited our new chair to come and visit, and I hope that we
    will be able to make that happen.
        So the Rock Island Arsenal is home to the Army's Additive
    and Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence. We are very
    proud of that. They are on the cutting edge of 3D printing
    technology for future use, things like research and development
    work on the Next-Generation Combat Vehicle, while also building
    the vehicles and armament needed today.
        Like every day, every workday there they are converting
    Humvee chassis to ambulances. They are now converting those
    Humvee chassis to make shop equipment vehicles.
        And so I share this to say that the district that I
    represent is an example of the larger defense investment
    discussion, the fact that we need to smartly balance investment
    in future needs and technology with modernization of the
    existing force.
        So that leads into the question that I would like to ask,
    and I will direct this to any and/or all of the witnesses that
    we have today, whoever would like to take this.
        But I would like to get your thoughts on the importance of
    advanced and additive manufacturing to the future of defense
    spending.
        As you all already acknowledged, and as we know, the
    National Defense Strategy places tremendous emphasis on the use
    of disruptive technologies to counter threats from near-peer
    competitors.
        So just a little bit deeper here. So additive and advanced
    manufacturing is such a disruptive technology that it has the
    potential to significantly change how we address supply chain
    issues, completely rethinking how we develop certain weapon
    systems, while saving significant funding.
        So I am wondering if, similar to the creation of the Joint
    Artificial Intelligence Center, it would make sense to create
    an office to better coordinate advanced manufacturing
    activities across DOD. Your thoughts on that.
        Again, any and/or all of the panelists can answer that,
    please.
        Mr. Mahnken. I will take a first stab at it, which is,
    look, I think it is a great idea. I think if we look at future
    concepts, combat concepts, warfare concepts that the services
    are developing, Joint Staff is developing, they place that
    premium on mobility and agility, right? And having the ability
    to do additive manufacturing, advanced manufacturing forward,
    and to be able to serve the needs of forces, I think is going
    to be a critical capability.
        We are still in the 21st century. We are slowed down by the
    need to haul food, water, supplies, and power. Well, the water
    and food you are not going to get away from as human beings.
        But the ability to lighten the logistical load, and through
    things like advanced manufacturing, I think is a real promising
    area. It is one of the reasons why I think the logistical piece
    of warfare needs to get a greater attention and really does
    need to have high-level advocacy and sponsorship.
        Mrs. Bustos. I am glad to hear you say that.
        Please.
        Mr. Harrison. I would jump in and add to that. I think
    additive manufacturing has a lot of potential to help with
    military readiness.
        And being able to print specialized tools in the field that
    you may not want to have to carry with you because they are
    rarely needed, and in some cases being able to print
    specialized replacement parts, spare parts, that you would not
    want to have to carry with you, that can be very valuable going
    forward.
        And so that is something that is definitely worth exploring
    and looking at investments in.
        I also would not want to discount the role of the private
    sector here in leading the charge for additive manufacturing.
        I have looked at a lot of companies that are figuring out
    ways that they can build parts and components that go into
    everything from rocket engines to jet engines to you name it,
    things that they literally could not build without additive
    manufacturing, that are greatly improving the performance, the
    reliability of the systems they are building.
        So there is a lot of work going on here in the private
    sector we should not discount.
        Mrs. Bustos. Thank you.
        Ma'am, is there anything else you would like to add with 13
    seconds left?
        Ms. Field. No, thank you. I have nothing to add on this
    particular topic.
        Mrs. Bustos. Okay. Thanks very much.
        Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Crist, you are next.

                        Missile Defense and Hypersonics

        Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you so
    much for holding this hearing.
        And I appreciate you, Ranking Member Calvert, as well.
        I think I want to direct it to Mr. Harrison.
        You were talking about earlier the notion of getting less
    while paying more. And I think at the conclusion of your
    presentation you talked about the fact that this deals to some
    extent missile defense.
        And one of the concerns I have had, and I think several
    members of the subcommittee, obviously, as well, deals with the
    hypersonics.
        And so my concern about that is if we are paying more for
    getting a sufficient defense, if you could elaborate on that or
    give us some insight. It is of grave concern to me, just what I
    know about it from prior meetings that we have discussed this
    topic and it seems like a vulnerability to me, frankly.
        And if you can assuage that in my mind, that would be
    delightful. But I am just searching for the truth and what the
    facts may be. If you can be helpful that way, that would be
    wonderful. I appreciate it.
        Mr. Harrison. Sure. I will lead this off here.
        I think that I outlined in my testimony I think one of the
    crown jewels of the force in the future is actually air and
    missile defense systems.
        But you are right that the way that we have proceeded in
    this area to date has been very costly, it has been very
    expensive. The technology is expensive to develop.
        And particularly if you look at the cost-exchange ratio,
    how much it costs an adversary like China to build a ballistic
    missile or a cruise missile or even a hypersonic weapon versus
    how much it costs for us to defend against that capability,
    which may require multiple interceptors being fired to achieve
    a sufficient probability of intercept, it is prohibitive, and
    it does not scale in our favor.
        So I think that should be one of the focus areas in our
    integrated air and missile defense systems, is how do we change
    that cost-exchange ratio so that it is more affordable to field
    missile defense systems that are sufficiently scalable to
    counter the threats that we face from adversaries?
        So I think we should prioritize those investments, in
    particular looking at things like directed energy systems.
        There is still a long road ahead. The technology is not
    there today. Let's be honest. It is not quite there.
        We have got to continue investments in directed energy
    systems, particularly things like electric lasers, solid state
    lasers that can achieve higher power levels to intercept
    incoming warheads and missiles and munitions of various types
    in a more affordable and scalable manner.
        Mr. Crist. Thank you for that. But to follow up, I think
    that if we don't have the technologies and other countries
    apparently do, where is the deficiency? Where does it lie? Is
    it just a matter of additional funding in order to achieve the
    technological know-how in order to protect America? Or is there
    something else at work here that we should be aware of?
        Mr. Harrison. I think it is a combination of both time and
    funding. Our adversaries don't have missile defenses that are
    any better than ours. In fact, we are pretty far ahead when it
    comes to missile defense.
        Where they are making advances is in their missile
    technology that can threaten us. And that is our concern. You
    know, if they are building hypersonic weapons, it doesn't mean
    that we need hypersonic weapons. It means we need defenses
    against hypersonic weapons, right?
        So this is an asymmetric competition here.
        Mr. Crist. If I might, Mr. Harrison. Maybe it is both.
    Maybe as a deterrent we should have the hypersonics available
    to us, in addition to better defenses, of course. I couldn't
    agree with you more on that point.
        But I would like to be able to have the ability to strike,
    which in many instances gives the adversaries the reticence to
    strike us, because we can do what they can do and so they don't
    want to do it at all, and neither do we.
        Mr. Harrison. And where you can achieve symmetry and mutual
    vulnerability, if you will, then, yes, those can be a very
    effective deterrent.
        I am looking at more of the asymmetric situations where
    they can pose more of a threat to us with their missile forces
    than we could actually pose to them. And so that is where we
    need to be looking at better defenses.
        And to your earlier question, I think it takes both more
    funding and more time. We need both. This is not something
    where you can leap ahead in technology. You actually have to do
    the hard work of developing and maturing that technology over
    time.
        Mr. Crist. It sounds like we ought to do it.
        I yield back, Madam Chair. Thank you so much.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Calvert. Madam Chair, this is Ken Calvert.
        Ms. McCollum. Yes.
        Mr. Calvert. I have a hard stop at 11. I had a commitment I
    couldn't--it went a little longer than I thought. So I
    apologize. It won't happen in the future. But I have got to
    move on. So I will touch base with you later and see what
    happens.
        Ms. McCollum. Absolutely. So you are putting Judge Carter
    in charge?
        Mr. Calvert. Yeah. Is Judge Carter still on?
        Ms. McCollum. He is still on.
        Mr. Calvert. Good. Okay.
        We will talk, Judge.
        All right. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur.

                     Energy and the Defense Production Act

        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much for this, and
    for all of our guests and the members.
        My questions are two. The first relates to energy, the
    second the Defense Production Act.
        In terms of energy, I have had a career-long interest in
    this issue, initially because of our entire politics being
    impacted by our oil imports, but over the years as we have
    advanced in the energy field. Now, with climate change, we have
    new challenges ahead of us.
        I will just share with you that when I first got involved
    in this issue I was shocked at how unconscious the Department
    of Energy was about the energy that it consumed. It is the
    largest energy user in the country. And as a result of work
    over many years, we were able to get deputy assistant
    secretaries focused in the different departments on this issue,
    but it isn't really cohesive.
        And as we look at trimming spending in all accounts really,
    not just defense, I wanted to ask you, from what you know, how
    could we better organize across the Department DOD's progress
    in terms of their own energy expenditures, but then in terms of
    DARPA and other research that are ongoing, breakthroughs that
    could help us both on the defense as well civilian side?
        So that is question one.
        Question two really relates to the Defense Production Act,
    and I, along with many of my colleagues, obviously, on this
    call, am concerned about where we are falling behind.
        Many years ago, Thomas Johnson outlined many areas in which
    the United States was already losing edge. Those included lift
    capacity for a number of our systems, silicon wafers of late.
    Obviously, in cyber we are not doing as well as we would wish.
    Rare earth, strategic metals.
        And, of course, medicines, where we don't make penicillin
    anymore, we don't make a lot of antibiotics in this country.
        And I am worried about the ability to support military in
    theater.
        So we hear a lot from President Biden about the Defense
    Production Act. But my experience is it is one of the weakest
    parts of the Department. It has never been given the support
    that it needs. And I am very concerned about meeting these gaps
    where other countries are ahead of us.
        If we put too much burden on the Defense Production Act--
    which I support, I supported for 39 years. But I know how weak
    it is. And, therefore, I am concerned about staffing and
    capabilities there.
        So the first deals with energy. How can we strengthen the
    Department's own consciousness in reporting and advancements in
    that field to better help our country in the world?
        And then, secondly, Defense Production Act, in order to
    make things in this country again. How do we strengthen that
    particular arena of DOD, which has been underresourced for my
    entire career, four decades?
        Thank you.
        Ms. Field. I will take a stab at your first question
    related to energy.
        You know, a number of years ago, I believe it was in 2014,
    we examined what DOD was doing related to net zero and whether
    there was a strategy in place. And there really wasn't much of
    one at all, and I am sure that is not a surprise to you. And it
    does not appear that a lot has happened over the last 4 or 5
    years in that space.
        We have been, GAO has been mandated to take a look at what
    DOD is doing in the net zero space in the coming year. And so
    one of the things we will be looking at is, is there a renewed,
    reinvigorated effort at the Department to develop a sound
    strategy for net zero?
        So that is one area that I think should be examined.
        The second, your question about structure. I believe that a
    number of years ago there was a DASD(E) position at the
    Department focused on energy, energy use, it was trying to look
    sort of across the board. I do not believe that position exists
    now or has existed in recent years.
        But it would be interesting to see if the new
    administration reinstitutes a position like that and at what
    level. Some might argue that DASD(E) is not high enough.
        So I will stop there on the energy piece and defer to the
    other witnesses on your second question.
        Ms. Kaptur. I appreciate that insight. I did not realize it
    was still operational. Thank you.
        Ms. Field. I believe it is not still operational, I should
    say.
        Ms. Kaptur. Unbelievable. Unbelievable
        Mr. Mahnken. Just very briefly on your second question.
        I mean, I do think that the Defense Department in recent
    years has begun a serious effort to look at supply chain and
    supply chain vulnerabilities. I know the Office of Commercial
    and Economic Analysis, as part of the Air Force, has been doing
    some work there.
        And I think reducing that, that vulnerability, and whether
    it is bringing things--on-shoring jobs in the United States, or
    relying on our close allies who we know we can rely on, I think
    that is extremely important.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ruppersberger.

                                 Cybersecurity

        Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, Madam Chair, congratulations on
    the assumption of this very important committee.
        I appreciate you all being here today, the time that we are
    talking about critically difficult strategic choices.
        The recent SolarWinds attack demonstrated the
    sophistication of our adversaries' cyber capabilities, and more
    importantly, our inadequate defense against them. And it was
    really I think shocking to a lot of us who do a lot in the area
    of cyber about how inadequate our defenses were.
        The attack impacted nine Federal agencies, like Cisco and
    Belkin, two of the largest that we deal with, that we have in
    our country, and by some estimates over 18,000 customers.
        This was a really serious attack, and we really were
    unprepared. We need to do a lot better in our defense of our
    cybersecurity.
        The issue that we have, we know that we need to do more.
    And our adversaries, like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran,
    their capability is getting stronger. And by the way, we are,
    too, on the offense. But as SolarWinds demonstrates, we are not
    that way when it relates to our defense.
        And my question is--and, I guess, Mr. Harrison, I assume,
    or anybody else that wants to pick up--if the defense budget is
    reduced, what impacts do you see on our ability to keep pace
    with these countries in areas like cyberspace and hypersonics?
        Mr. Harrison. Well, I can begin there.
        I think that the impact is up to us. It is how we choose to
    implement a reduction in the defense budget will determine how
    much we are impacted in these critical areas that I believe are
    essential for the future force.
        I think that we should prioritize our investments in
    cybersecurity, cyber attack capabilities as well, and in space
    security and being able to better defend our space systems from
    attack.
        So a reduction in the defense budget does not mean that we
    have to reduce these areas.
        I think it is also important that these are areas that need
    to be addressed in a strategically focused roles and mission
    review. Because if you go back to the Key West Agreement of
    1948, space and cyber are not part of that. Those were not
    areas, domains in which we operated at the time.
        They are very important domains today, and I don't think we
    have clear allocation of roles and responsibilities in these
    areas to ensure we don't have gaps or redundancies across the
    services.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. Yeah, I agree with you, too.
        And I do want to get this in before my time or anybody else
    who wants to speak.
        We also have an issue with the authorities of NSA. We need
    to maintain our privacy issues, and it is very important for
    our country. But in this situation, NSA was not allowed to be
    involved, even though they have--they do have the best
    technology in the world, I think, and also in our country.
        And so I think we, as Members of Congress, and the private
    sector need to start working more together so that we can
    defend ourselves. Because what is happening now, a lot of the
    big companies aren't cooperating with each other. And teamwork
    would have made a big difference for our defense, and it just
    wasn't there now. And we need to look at the laws on what NSA
    can and cannot do without violating our privacy.
        Do you have any comments on that?
        Mr. Harrison. I think you are exactly right on the point
    that this needs to be--in some of these areas, like cyber and
    space, they are areas that extend outside of just DOD and needs
    to involve more interagency coordination across government.
        And that is one of the reasons that, as I have written in a
    recent paper on the need for a roles and missions review, that
    this, the allocation of these responsibilities, probably needs
    to happen at a level higher than a DOD instruction or a
    decision from the SecDef.
        This needs to come from the White House. This requires
    overall executive branch leadership to clearly allocate what is
    the NSA going to be responsible for, what is the NRO going to
    be responsible for, what are the roles of Commerce and
    Transportation and all the other areas of government that are
    affected in some of these mission areas.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. But I also would add, Congress needs to
    be involved as far as making laws and to maintain our national
    security, but also our privacy issues.
        Thank you. I yield back.

                      Energy Resiliency and Climate Change

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Ms. Field, you wanted to make sure that we understood
    something correctly?
        Ms. Field. Yes, just very quickly. In response to
    Representative Kaptur, I wanted to clarify. I said it was
    DASD(Energy) that has gone away. It was Assistant Secretary of
    Defense for Operational Energy. That is the position I think is
    not currently encumbered. And that would suggest a place
    potentially for the Department to look at this issue.
        Ms. McCollum. Very good. And we will be having talking
    about energy resiliency and climate change at a future hearing.
    So thank you.
        Mr. Carter, we could--it is you, myself, and Mr. Diaz-
    Balart. We could do another question for 3 minutes if that is
    okay with you?
        Mr. Carter. That is okay with me.
        Ms. McCollum. All right. So, Mr. Carter, I am going to let
    you go next.

                         Conventional Forces Reduction

        Mr. Carter. Well, thank you.
        First let me comment. And I don't know whether Mr. Cuellar
    is on, but Mr. Diaz-Balart is. I, too, have concerns about our
    neighbors to the south and what is going on with the Chinese
    down there. And I join them in saying that I have those
    concerns.
        The CSBA exercise concludes that the reduction in
    conventional forces in a 10 percent cut scenario would limit
    flexibility to manage a crisis and yield a force that could at
    best win one war at a time and increase reliance on nuclear
    deterrence as an alternative. The report states conflict may
    become even more likely because adversaries can question
    whether the U.S. posture is even credible.
        With that said, a reduction in conventional forces does not
    necessarily equate to a reduction in mission requirements.
    Consider the fact that despite less deployment rotations to the
    CENTCOM area of responsibility, approximately 15 percent of the
    soldiers stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, have been deployed
    during any month since 2011.
        What happens when the attrition rate of near-peer threats'
    conventional forces is slower than the U.S. and conflict arises
    that requires the quick regeneration of conventional forces?
    And for how long is the coinciding strain on existing
    conventional forces tenable?
        If anybody wants to answer that one.
        Mr. Mahnken. No, I will take a cut at it. Which is, look, I
    think, as unpleasant as it is to think about--and it is
    unpleasant--but we are in a period of great power competition
    and we face the prospect, however remote, of great power war.
    And everything--all the signs point to a very costly, very,
    very bloody conflict. And that unfortunate reality is something
    that we haven't had to face in a quarter century.
        And part of that is thinking about how to best array the
    force, how to best array our infrastructure, how to best array
    industry to prepare ourselves for such a conflict, if only to
    deter it. And that includes attrition. That includes all sorts
    of things.
        And so I think your point is good one. And I think we as a
    country need to realize that that is the world that we are
    living in, however unpleasant that may seem.

                         DOD and Technical Capabilities

        Mr. Carter. And I agree with that.
        Finally, just to add something I just read recently. It is
    kind of interesting. When Silicon Valley first arose a lot of
    the work they were doing was related to our national defense.
    Right now, the civilian side of technology has leaped leaps and
    bounds forward, and yet our Defense Department's technology is
    greatly lacking. And in fact, one of the comments was the
    average soldier is carrying around more ability in his back
    pocket than they have at the entire Defense Department.
        Would either of you like to comment on that?
        Mr. Harrison. Yeah, I think there is a lot of truth to
    that. I also wouldn't want to discount the exquisite technology
    that is being developed in the more traditional parts of the
    defense industrial base.
        But you are absolutely right, that in many areas where
    there are dual-use capabilities, where things can be used for
    commercial purposes or for military purposes, we do see
    tremendous investment and innovation in the private sector.
        I think that DOD needs to do a better job of figuring out
    how to work with those companies and how to leverage that
    innovation.
        And as I said before, I think part of that is working with
    commercial companies on their terms and buying things as a
    service rather than a product. That is what a lot of these
    commercial companies are looking to do, commercially oriented
    firms.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                         Chinese Military Modernization

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
        Again, I also want to continue to talk a little bit about
    China. The Chinese military has done some significant
    modernization efforts; one would argue rather successful ones.
        And so, I kind of talked about this in a different realm in
    my previous question, but can you talk a little about the
    current Chinese capabilities and what poses the greatest threat
    now to our men and women, to our servicemen and -women, who
    might be on the field one day confronting a Chinese military?
        The conversation right before was talking about what that
    might look like. It is not a pretty thought.
        So what are one of those capabilities that might threaten
    our men and women more greatly?
        Mr. Mahnken. Yeah. So I know Mr. Harrison talked being
    threats to space. I would say also China has been focused on
    denying our ability to project power in the Western Pacific.
        So whether it is our air bases, our Naval vessels, our
    soldiers, our marines, they have been focused squarely on us,
    where they have had us in the crosshairs. And it is development
    of ballistic and cruise missiles, development of hypersonics,
    increasingly capable air and missile defenses on their end,
    yeah, we are right in their crosshairs.
        So I think our infrastructure, our basing, our bases in the
    Western Pacific need defense. Our power projection forces need
    defense. And we need to develop concepts to be able to project
    power to defend our interests, defend our allies, and defend
    our territory in the face of those threats.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. I guess one of the most ambitious things
    that China has done recently is this Chinese, the Belt and Road
    Initiative. Again, going back to my friend and colleague Mr.
    Cuellar, he mentioned about there is a lot of Chinese presence
    in the Western Hemisphere. And so more than 60 countries have
    signed on to projects linked to this initiative.
        How can we do a better job countering them, particularly in
    this hemisphere and elsewhere? And is it just a function of
    money? How can we do a better job?
        Mr. Mahnken. I think working together with our friends and
    also providing an alternative to what the Chinese are offering.
    I know, look, the Trans-Pacific Partnership had its supporters,
    had its detractors on both sides of the aisle. I think that was
    a good effort to try to bring people together in a vision that
    is kind of in line with our values.
        I think we need to be doing that. We need to provide a
    democratic alternative to what China is offering and give the
    countries that want to make the better choice the ability to
    make the better choice.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. I am out of time. Thank you, Madam
    Chairwoman.

                               Focus on Diplomacy

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        So, Mr. Diaz-Balart, that is a perfect lead-in, how Mr.
    Mahnken finished his question, for where I wanted to go.
        I want to just kind of shift this a little bit, because we
    have heard former Defense Secretaries talk about our power, our
    soft power, the importance of having a strong State Department.
    And lots is often given about what the Chinese and the Russians
    are spending and what we are spending in an arms race. And so
    the focus has been on military.
        But you also know how important it is to our military to
    have good diplomacy, and that helps develop enhanced security.
        So my question is, what are some of the things that our
    military should be leaning towards for our State Department
    maybe to do to develop enhanced security and ideas on how we
    could work smarter with our allies to address these great
    powers concerns that we do have about China and Russia, and how
    that could maybe have a great influence in an approach to be
    more disciplined in the Department of Defense's top line
    spending and maybe even see it decrease?
        Mr. Mahnken. I will take a stab at it.
        I mean, look, I worked for Secretary of Defense Bob Gates,
    who I think believed in his bones about the importance of a
    strong State Department and really the symbiotic relationship
    between diplomacy and military force.
        Diplomacy is more credible when undergirded by the threat
    of military force. And, similarly, diplomacy can help avoid the
    use of military force. So I think the two go hand in hand.
        I do think when it comes to our allies, if I just focus on
    the military part of it, though, being able to work closely
    with our allies, interoperability with our allies, really is
    key going forward. I think they are looking for us to have skin
    in the game, and we are looking for them to have skin in the
    game.
        So I think the two really are inseparable, a strong
    military and a strong diplomatic corps and strong State
    Department.
        Mr. Harrison. If I could jump in.
        One specific area where I see there is a lot of potential
    to leverage our soft power to help improve our security is
    norms of behavior in space.
        And that is one area where it needs to be an all-of-
    government approach, not only to try to establish internally
    within the U.S. Government what we believe are positive,
    constructive norms of behavior that we are willing to follow
    ourselves, and then put those forward in the international
    community and start to build a consensus with our allies and
    partners.
        Norms of behavior in space help you identify what the
    abnormal behavior is so you can call it out and you can work
    against it. And we want to be at the forefront of setting those
    norms in space because we want them to reflect our values and
    our interests both in this domain and on Earth.
        I would commend NASA for something it did within the past
    year in setting up what they called the Artemis Accords, and
    that is a set of agreements that other countries have to sign
    onto with the United States in order to partner with us on our
    mission to go back to the moon and establish a permanent
    presence there.
        And so those Artemis Accords are a good first step in
    helping to establish norms of behavior and get international
    agreement and buy-in among like-minded countries.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        And I realize I kind of asked a political question there
    for Ms. Field from GAO. And I can read a report on State
    Department from GAO.
        I want to thank the three of you for your presentation. I
    wanted to take this opportunity of waiting for the Biden
    administration to prepare their first budget to present to
    Congress for us to also look at the way we talk about defense
    spending, to look at the programs, to ask some of the
    questions, rather than just have the military folks come in and
    we start doing line by line and this space and this program and
    you know.
        This gives us an opportunity to think about where we want
    to be 5, 10 years from now and how we are going to have to
    maybe make some really hard and tough choices to get to where
    we want to be there.
        So we are going to be moving forward, as I said to other
    committee members, talking about resilience and climate change,
    and look forward to a whole host of leaders from academia and
    from some of the other think tanks all across the spectrum that
    work and have opinions on defense spending and that.
        So thank you for being the first three out the gate for us
    to do that. And we might have a couple other questions we will
    submit to you. As a former teacher, I promise it won't be a
    deluge of homework, it just might be something here and there.
        But thank you for so much for setting a wonderful tone for
    this first hearing.
        And so with that, Mr. Carter, I am going to adjourn the
    meeting.
        This meeting is adjourned.

                                                Tuesday, March 2, 2021.

                    U.S. MILITARY SERVICE ACADEMIES OVERVIEW

                                   WITNESSES

     LIEUTENANT GENERAL DARRYL A. WILLIAMS, SUPERINTENDENT, UNITED STATES
        MILITARY ACADEMY WEST POINT
     VICE ADMIRAL SEAN BUCK, SUPERINTENDENT, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
     LIEUTENANT GENERAL RICHARD M. CLARK, SUPERINTENDENT, UNITED STATES AIR
        FORCE ACADEMY
        Ms. McCollum. So now we are officially to order here. This
    meeting is going to be fully virtual, and so I am going to go
    over a few housekeeping rules.
        For today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by
    the chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
    under recognition for the purpose of eliminating background.
    Everybody was really good last time, so I don't anticipate any
    problems this time.
        Members, though, you are responsible for unmuting yourself.
    If we notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I will ask you
    if you would like the staff to unmute you. If you can please
    indicate by nodding your head, and staff will unmute your
    microphone.
        I remind all members and witnesses--they should see it on
    the screen; if they don't, let us know--there is a 5-minute
    clock and the 5-minute clock will apply. If there is a
    technical issue, we will move to the next member until the
    issue is resolved, and you will keep the balance of your time.
        Once again, you will notice a clock on your screen, and it
    is going to show how much time is remaining. At 1 minute, the
    clock will turn yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently
    tap the gavel to remind members that their time has almost
    expired. When your time has expired, the clock will turn red,
    and I will, when it turns red, recognize the next member.
        In terms of speaking order, we are going to follow the
    order set forth in the House rules, beginning with the chair
    and the ranking member. Then members present at the time the
    hearing is called to order will be recognized in the order of
    seniority, and, finally, members not present at the time the
    hearing is called to order.
        Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
    set up an email address to which members can send anything they
    wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings or our
    markups. So this email address has been provided to your staff.
        One other piece of housekeeping. We are going to have votes
    during this. When the votes take place, I will give a list of
    order of members to speak, I will turn the gavel over to the
    most senior member present, I will go vote, and then I will
    come right back. So we will keep this meeting going forward so
    everyone can ask their questions.
        So, without further ado, I am going to make a few remarks
    here.

                      Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

        This morning, the subcommittee will receive testimony and
    an update on military service academies.
        And I welcome our three witnesses: Lieutenant Darryl
    Williams, superintendent of West Point, founded in 1802; Vice
    Admiral Sean Buck, superintendent of the Naval Academy, founded
    in 1845; and Lieutenant Richard Clark, superintendent of the
    Air Force Academy, founded in 1954. I do know the Air Force
    Academy is 66 years old, because that is the year I was born
    too, so we were established at the same time.
        Gentlemen, I want to thank you all for being here today,
    and I appreciate you being here to share the current state of
    military service academies.
        Each of the service academies house some of the best and
    brightest of our young generation. Many of these young men and
    women will hold leadership positions in their respective
    services for the next 30 years. Given this fact, it is
    imperative that they are all well-educated, not in only
    executing military missions of the future but also grounded in
    the ideals in which this Nation has been built and to the oath
    that they take to serve.
        Each of these topics we will discuss today will encompass
    how effectively each one of the academies is striving to
    achieve these goals. Some topics for today's hearing include
    the admission structure at each of the service academies and
    how our academies are reflecting the diversity of our country
    in preparing cadets, midshipmen, and, I will add, doolies at
    the Air Force Academy for the myriad challenges that they face
    ahead; some of the social issues each academy is dealing with,
    notably sexual assault, racism, diversity, character, and the
    way forward for that to continue to progress.
        Congress is here to support you in these efforts, but we
    also know that you have been dealing with something new, the
    impact of COVID-19 at each of the service academies. How has it
    impacted learning, operations, and the well-being of the
    student body, faculty, and campus workforce?
        And then I would like to have a robust discussion on
    maintenance, restoration, and resilience efforts for each of
    these campuses. West Point and the Naval Academy have buildings
    over 100 years old. And the Air Force Academy, its buildings
    are on average 60 years old. The military service campuses have
    not escaped the impacts of climate change, and we welcome each
    of the superintendents to share their concerns and their ideas
    to address these environmental calamities.
        We also look forward to hearing what more we can do as
    Members of Congress to help the service academies in their
    nomination process. It is an honor and a privilege that we have
    the ability to make these nominations.
        Once again, I want to thank you for appearing before the
    committee today to discuss these issues.
        And now I want to recognize our distinguished ranking
    member, Mr. Calvert, for any comments he might want to add.
        Mr. Calvert.

                        Opening Statement of Mr. Calvert

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Thank you, Chair McCollum.
        Today, I am very pleased to welcome the superintendents of
    our incredible service academies, Lieutenant General Clark,
    Lieutenant General Williams, and Vice Admiral Buck. Thank you
    all for taking time to testify to us today.
        This subcommittee is responsible for ensuring our military
    has the tools it needs to protect our Nation and carry out the
    National Defense Strategy. We hear from service chiefs and
    secretaries, combatant commanders, and other leaders in the
    Department of Defense about critical resourcing requirements
    and threats. We must never lose sight that these missions
    cannot be carried out without capable, intelligent, and
    prepared soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and now guardians.
        That is why today's hearing is so important. As our
    witnesses have noted in their respective testimonies, our
    academies continue to thrive and produce the world's finest
    leaders, but they also face a range of challenges that we must
    confront with a unified vision.
        COVID-19 has undoubtedly reshaped the way all education is
    done in this country, as the chairman noted. This is no
    different for our service academies. I am sure we will discuss
    these impacts in great detail today.
        I am aware how well the academies have adjusted their
    curriculums to educate students in a new learning environment.
    This was made possible by the incredible leaders before us
    today and their experienced and professional staff.
        So, first off, I would like to thank each of you.
        I would like to commend the future leaders currently
    studying at our academies. Your commitment to our Nation,
    especially during a time such as this, it does not go unnoticed
    or unappreciated.
        As we continue the fight against COVID-19, the academies
    are faced with challenges such as addressing aging
    infrastructure, increasing inclusion, diversity, and preparing
    our cadets and midshipmen for the wars of the future. I have
    great confidence in the leaders before us today and their
    students, as we work together to take on these challenges, and
    I look forward to hearing from them in more detail today.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much. Well-said.
        For everyone, your full written testimony that has been
    provided by our service academies' superintendents will be
    placed in the record, and members have copies at their seats.
    So, in the interest of time, I strongly encourage each of you
    to keep your summarized statement to 5 minutes or less, to be
    complete but succinct in answering questions, because we will
    have votes and we do want to get to your questions.
        So we are going to go in this order: Vice Admiral Buck, you
    will come after Lieutenant General Williams; and then, General
    Clark, you will close it out.
        So, thank you for your testimony. And I will defer my
    questions to the end so I can go vote and we can keep this
    moving.
        I would like, at this time, to ask Lieutenant General
    Williams to kick off the testimony, and then the rest of you
    fall in the order I mentioned. Thank you.

                   Summary Statement of Lt. General Williams

        General Williams. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
    distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
    opportunity to discuss the United States Military Academy, and
    thank you for your continued support to its programs.
        If you were at West Point today, you would see an academy
    thriving as it develops leaders of character, despite the
    constraints of the global pandemic. The Academy's mission is to
    educate, train, and inspire the corps of cadets so that each
    graduate is a commissioned leader of character, committed to
    both Army values and the ideals of duty, honor, country, and
    prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to
    the Nation as Army officers.
        Our vision is to be the Nation's premier leader development
    institution. We do this through a process where cadets develop
    the academic, military, physical, and character foundation
    necessary for continued professional growth and service while
    internalizing the values necessary to live honorably, lead
    honorably, and demonstrate excellence.
        Our faculty and staff model is deliberately focused on
    developing leaders of character, and we have an outstanding
    team of faculty, coaches, tactical officers, and
    noncommissioned officers, all hand-selected--a blend of soldier
    and civilian talent and expertise committed to our mission and
    to cadet excellence.
        We have operationalized our mission and strategy around
    five lines of effort that constitute my priorities: one,
    developing leaders of character who are prepared to fight and
    win in the crucible of ground combat; two, cultivating a
    culture of character growth necessary to build and sustain
    cohesive teams built on trust, dignity, and respect; three,
    building diverse and effective winning teams by leveraging the
    talent of every member of the organization; four, modernizing,
    sustaining, and securing our capabilities and infrastructure
    and strengthening partnerships with academe, our alumni, the
    American people, and our international partners while
    continuing to contribute to the Army profession.
        All five lines of effort ultimately support the Army's
    mission, enhance Army readiness, and are aligned with Army
    strategy and initiatives, including its ``people first''
    mentality and ``winning matters'' attitude.
        Over the past year, we successfully continued our mission
    while adapting to the realities and overcoming the challenges
    of the COVID-19 environment--challenges that have made our
    entire community stronger, more resilient, and cohesive. This
    was possible because of our deliberate, disciplined, and
    comprehensive approach throughout the pandemic that ensured the
    health and safety of the corps and the West Point community at
    large.
        We quickly regained the critical human interactions that
    are essential to the success of our leader development
    experience after our remote education last spring. Reluctantly,
    over the past year, we had to contract our engagement with our
    alumni, parents, and the local community on post to protect the
    corps and the community. We look forward to reestablishing
    connections as conditions allow.
        Over the past year, we sustained Army readiness by
    successfully graduating a thousand new officers into the Army;
    executed our academic, military, physical, and character
    programs; and competed in intercollegiate athletics.
        Our cadets have excelled across the board, notably in our
    Graduate Scholars Program. To date, West Point proudly boasts
    13 winners of prestigious graduate scholarships, to include two
    Rhodes scholars. Additionally, we have several semifinalists in
    ongoing competitions, including 18 semifinalists for the
    Fulbright scholarship. In fact, the Fulbright Commission has
    recognized us as the top-producing institution for the 2021
    academic year.
        These inspiring young men and women are motivated and
    demonstrating excellence every day. I am so proud to be their
    supe, and you can be proud of them as well.
        Character development is the most important thing we do at
    West Point, because, ultimately, character development is
    critical to building Army readiness. We meet cadets where they
    are and immerse them in a culture of character growth. This
    means that character development is ongoing throughout West
    Point--in the classroom, during military training, on the
    athletic fields, and in the locker rooms and barracks.
    Character development is deliberately woven into every aspect
    of the cadet experience to ensure we develop them into leaders
    our Army and our Nation require: trained, disciplined, and fit
    officers who lead by example, create cohesive teams built on
    trust, dignity, and respect, and who take care of our Army's
    greatest strength, its people.
        Over the last 2 years, we mobilized academy resources to
    better integrate our character development efforts throughout
    all aspects of cadet leader development. We created the
    Character Integration Advisory Group, which elevates character
    development resources to my level of command for additional
    emphasis and synchronization across all programs.
        Additionally, aligned with the Army, we continue our
    efforts toward eliminating the corrosive behaviors that
    undermine trust, such as sexual assault and harassment, racism,
    and extremism. We are making progress in this space but
    recognize we still have a long way to go.
        In closing, I remain confident we are preparing our cadets
    well to lead in the 21st-century Army while cultivating the
    culture that puts people first so that they are ready to build
    and lead cohesive teams--teams made up of the sons and
    daughters entrusted to our Army.
        I thank you again for the opportunity to discuss the state
    of our academy with you today. I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The information follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                     Summary Statement of Vice Admiral Buck

        Admiral Buck. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
    and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for
    the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the
    United States Naval Academy.
        Our mission is to develop midshipmen morally, mentally, and
    physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty,
    honor, and loyalty. I am pleased to report to you today that
    the Naval Academy is succeeding in its mission.
        The COVID-19 pandemic has presented incredible obstacles to
    achieving that mission over the last 12 months. We had to
    rapidly adapt our organization to meet the threat of COVID and
    continue to execute our mission safely and effectively.
    However, despite these challenges and obstacles, our faculty,
    staff, and coaches, and, most importantly, our brigade of
    midshipmen have endured, often creating their own success.
        This past year, we successfully graduated and commissioned
    1,002 members of the class of 2020 into the fleet, and they are
    now serving as ensigns and second lieutenants in our Navy and
    our Marine Corps. We also brought aboard the class of 2024 for
    an in-person Plebe Summer experience. We are proud of the
    resilience and dedication displayed by our newest Naval Academy
    class, who were inducted in the midst of a pandemic.
        It is our firm belief at the Naval Academy that you cannot
    develop leaders online. This is why we made it a priority and a
    mandate to return the entire brigade to Annapolis this past
    fall for the 2020-2021 academic year.
        In order to do this, the Naval Academy reimagined how our
    most basic operations are conducted in order to keep the entire
    brigade, as well as our faculty, staff, and coaches, safe on
    the Yard. This ran the gamut and included hybrid, socially
    distanced learning; instituting a robust COVID-19 surveillance
    and testing protocol; dedicating one of our eight dormitory
    wings for quarantine and isolation; and shifting our meals to a
    noncommunal grab-and-go format.
        Because of our adherence to public health guidelines across
    our entire Naval Academy community, our COVID-19 positivity
    rates have remained very low throughout the majority of the
    school year, well below those of our surrounding community.
    While we have seen an uptick in the number of cases within the
    brigade during this past week, we are confident that we will be
    able to reduce our numbers using the same strict mitigation
    protocols employed by our Navy's fleet units to contain the
    spread of COVID-19.
        We recently began the process of vaccinating volunteers
    from our faculty and staff and hope to start our midshipmen
    vaccination process soon--an imperative if we are to execute
    fleet training this coming summer.
        We are looking forward to when the COVID vaccine allows us
    to regain a greater sense of normalcy here in Annapolis. In the
    meantime, we will continue to prioritize our midshipmen's
    physical and mental well-being during this difficult period.
        In addition to the challenges posed by COVID-19, the Naval
    Academy has not lost focus on our long-term and ongoing
    priority of developing leaders of character. The racial justice
    movement in America that rose this past summer impacted many
    members of our Naval Academy community, and the associated
    events have provoked important conversations regarding
    diversity, equity, and inclusion on our campus.
        The Naval Academy must be a visible cornerstone of a value-
    based Naval culture of dignity and mutual respect. And that
    includes improving sexual assault prevention efforts and
    continuing to strengthen response support for victims.
        There is continued work to be done at the Naval Academy so
    that we can attract, retain, and develop a diverse cadre of
    future Navy and Marine Corps officers who are resilient,
    innovative, and equipped to lead in a highly diverse, socially
    complex, and multigenerational workforce.
        Lastly, we remain vigilant of the long-term existential
    threat that climate change and sea-level rise pose to our
    continued operations here in Annapolis. We have studied the
    science, we have implemented several resiliency projects, and
    we are in the process of formulating a military installation
    resiliency plan that is due to be complete at the end of this
    calendar year.
        For 175 years, the Naval Academy has met its mission for
    our Nation. However, we still face many challenges ahead. I
    believe that our top-notch team of senior leaders, faculty, and
    staff are prepared to meet these challenges using the same
    ingenuity, flexibility, and adaptability that has allowed us to
    continue our mission in the face of a global pandemic.
        Thank you for your time today, and thank you for your
    enduring support of all of our service academies. I am prepared
    to answer your questions as they are posed. Thank you very
    much.
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                     Summary Statement of Lt. General Clark

        General Clark. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
    and other distinguished members of the committee, good morning
    from the United States Air Force Academy. And thank you to my
    fellow superintendents for your statements. I am grateful for
    this opportunity to update you on some of our recent successes
    and to share some of the obstacles we face in the coming years.
        Thank you for all that you do to support our cadets and to
    enable the mission success of not only our academy but our air
    and space forces as well. The interest and support of this
    committee is greatly appreciated, and I look forward to our
    discussion today.
        About 5 months ago, it was my great honor to take command
    of the institution I am proud to call my alma mater. Nearly
    four decades ago, as a cadet at the United States Air Force
    Academy myself, I found my purpose and established a foundation
    of character and service that I could not have built anywhere
    else.
        I have returned as superintendent to an academy on an
    outstanding trajectory but also one facing great challenges,
    some unique to our mission and others that we share with other
    campuses, our fellow service academies, and communities across
    our country.
        In these initial months, I laid out priorities that seek to
    recognize and overcome not only the challenges we face at our
    academy but also those that our graduates will soon encounter
    as decision-makers in an era of great-power competition and
    rapid change.
        My first priority is one that is fundamental and
    unwavering, even as the world changes around us: We will
    continue to develop leaders of character. Character is the
    cornerstone of leadership and should be the hallmark of an
    academy graduate. Each element of our mission must remain
    aligned with the moral compass that character provides. Without
    a commitment to character, the leadership foundation we build
    here will not be strong enough to support the weight of our
    goals and ambitions.
        My second priority is our immediate tactical challenge and
    one of the toughest our academy has ever faced: We must defeat
    COVID-19. I am proud that our response to this crisis is
    utilizing the amazing brainpower we have within our faculty,
    our staff, and our cadets. Trusting the science, putting our
    math skills to work, and strict adherence to guidelines will be
    our continued approach. And the health and safety of our entire
    community will remain at the center of our decision-making
    process. Some of us may be done with COVID-19, but COVID-19 is
    not done with us.
        Third, we must prepare leaders who will fight and win in
    future conflicts. These conflicts will look different than any
    of those experienced by any of us today. We are in an era where
    our freedom to operate in the air and space cannot be taken for
    granted. As our Air Force chief of staff, General Charles
    Brown, stated, we must accelerate change or lose. Our academy
    will do just that, developing innovative, creative, and bold
    thinkers and leaders prepared to solve the unknown problems of
    tomorrow.
        Finally, we must foster a culture of dignity and respect.
    This will not only make our campus a better place to work,
    live, and learn, but it also is a strategic imperative for our
    Air Force and our Space Force.
        The cadets on our campus form the most diverse classes we
    have ever had at our academy, and they will lead increasingly
    diverse airmen and guardians. They must enable and empower the
    diversity of thought that can be derived from this uniquely
    American strength. They must also be able to relate to and
    thrive in partnerships with other cultures and allied nations
    in increasingly collaborative combat operations.
        If dignity and respect is not engrained in our culture, we
    will not only fail in these collective efforts, but we will
    also fail in the proper development of future leaders.
        In the longer statement submitted for the record, I have
    elaborated in greater detail on some of the programs,
    initiatives, and actions that we have taken or will take to
    implement these priorities. I am proud of our direction and am
    fully confident in the skills and abilities of our cadets,
    faculty, and staff, but there are areas where we still have
    work to do to uphold the high standards that our society
    rightfully expects of us.
        Our 4,221 cadets, 206 preparatory school cadet candidates,
    and the infrastructure that makes up our campus represent a
    critical investment in the future of our national security. I
    welcome the opportunity to discuss how we can ensure our
    mission success together.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
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        Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
        For the first question, as I said, I had the opportunity of
    speaking to the three of you over the past several days, so I
    am going to reserve my question for the end, and I am going to
    turn to Mr. Ruppersberger first for questions.

                                 Climate Change

        Mr. Ruppersberger. I want to thank all three for the job
    that you do in preparing, you know, our future leaders of the
    military. Excellent job.
        I want to thank you, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member
    Calvert, for your leadership.
        And my first question is going to be about climate change.
    You mentioned that in your remarks, Admiral Buck. And I am
    going to speak to the broader context of an infrastructure
    budget.
        Now, I am president of the Naval Academy Board of Visitors,
    and we speak often about many of the challenges that we have
    there, but I am particularly concerned with the issue of sea-
    level rise. And I know that both Air Force and West Point don't
    have that issue and have plenty of land there, while the Naval
    Academy is surrounded by water, and it is getting worse and
    worse.
        Now, Admiral Buck, can you explain to us the magnitude of
    this issue for the record and what steps that you are taking to
    address these concerns, what your needs are?
        And you might want to discuss also the new building, one of
    the first new buildings that was built in the Naval Academy in
    many years, the cybersecurity building, and how that was
    designed to protect the interior of the building and the
    equipment in the building, but how that can repel or save the
    building from the sea-level rise that occurs on a regular
    basis.
        Admiral Buck.
        Admiral Buck. Congressman Ruppersberger, thank you very
    much for the questions. Great to see you at least two-
    dimensionally and hopefully three-dimensionally sooner than
    later.
        With regards to the series of questions you asked, all
    related to climate change, you have identified our greatest
    vulnerability; it is our geographic location. We are built on a
    lot of reclaimed land. We are at the confluence of one of
    Maryland's major rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, large bodies of
    water. And we are also affected throughout the entire day, 365
    days of the year, by the prevailing winds that have existed for
    centuries, easterly and southeasterly winds, which, when you
    combine that weather with sea-level rise, with subsidence that
    is pretty significant in the Chesapeake Bay area here on the
    East Coast and in the mid-Atlantic, we are continually
    experiencing the negative effects of high-tide flooding, almost
    on a regular basis.
        To touch on the one question you asked about the magnitude
    of it, for an example, to kind of give a compelling statistic,
    in the entire decade of the 1990s, the Naval Academy was
    negatively affected by high-tide flooding 41 times in a decade.
    Now we are experiencing 41 instances of high-tide flooding per
    year.
        And as we look at all of the projections from all of the
    science and those that are looking at this, especially on the
    East Coast and looking at it for Naval infrastructure, it is
    projected by 2050 that we will see this high-tide flooding
    negative effect every single day of the year.
        What does that mean? It floods out some of our roads, some
    of the key networks that we bring our workforce on the campus
    day-in and day-out. It affects some of our parking lots where
    they try to park. And it affects the entrances and exits to
    some of our buildings.
        So it is a reality, and I am very proud to tell you that my
    predecessor formed the U.S. Naval Academy Sea-Level Rise
    Advisory Council in 2015, and I have the pleasure, the honor,
    and the imperative to carry on the work of that advisory
    council. It is made up of scientists from the Naval Academy,
    engineers, different stakeholders in my Naval Academy team, as
    well as stakeholders from the city of Annapolis and the State
    of Maryland.
        It is informed by the Army Corps of Engineers and other
    experts that we bring in to get after a study that they have
    embarked on now that we intend to see, or expect to see, at the
    end of this calendar year that will help us create a military
    installation resiliency plan.
        They are going to present to us different courses of
    action, engineering solutions, that we can take around the
    Yard. They might be building up cement seawalls higher and
    better. It might be creating earthen berms or levies and
    raising the level of roads to block different areas. And it may
    be in combination with correcting some of our stormwater
    drainage systems that maybe has not had a good look at a
    modernization in a number of years.
        We understand that, as we combine all of those recommended
    engineering solutions and understand and appreciate their
    associated costs that we can present to you, to Members of
    Congress, and to my Navy for help, that if we do that very
    deliberately over the next 30 years, very consistently,
    deliberately, and with conviction, we can ensure that we not
    only protect the infrastructure at the Naval Academy but also
    with our host city, the historic city of Annapolis.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. I have to yield back. My time is
    up. Thank you for those answers.
        Ms. McCollum. It is a great question, and we will be
    following up on it. And I think we need a different--in my
    opinion, a different timeframe that is a little quicker than 30
    years, because that is the best-case scenario, I think, that we
    heard from that.
        Mr. Calvert.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. I wanted to say that.

                         Preparation of Future Leaders

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        And I thank the superintendents for their testimony.
        It has been pointed out that we are currently in the age of
    rapidly evolving technology, unseen in human history, impacting
    warfare domains in almost every single way imaginable. Of
    course, Dutch has an installation that is in his district that
    is involved in that every single day. I mean, cyber is a huge
    issue that we have to face every single day--and, now, space
    domains.
        Can each of you give us examples of how your respective
    institutions are preparing our future leaders to adapt to this
    type of environment? Are you making curriculum changes that
    focus more heavily on that technology?
        I guess that is for all three or one of you, representing
    each other.
        General Williams. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. I
    will start off. General Williams here at West Point.
        Sir, we, as we talked yesterday--thank you for that
    question--we absolutely are, here at West Point, thinking about
    the future in very critical ways.
        I would start with--and thanks to Congress--our Cyber
    Engineering and Academic Center, which will transform how we
    think about the future in very real ways. And it will also
    allow us to continue to attract the best and brightest from our
    country.
        We just broke ground about 2 months ago, and thanks to
    Congress, we have the ability to do that. So we look forward to
    having the space to develop and provide a forum where, not only
    will our cadets be able to interact with the best and brightest
    around the world and invite folks to continue that discussion,
    but also their daily conversation will be influenced and shaped
    by this great facility.
        And, sir, in terms of how we do our curriculum, in terms of
    the Academy, we have new majors. We have a space science major
    and a space science minor, just recently, that is under the
    direction of our physics and nuclear engineering department.
    They have made a lot of great inroads with that. I have been
    there for some time. Currently, we have 70 cadets enrolled in
    the major, 20 cadets enrolled in the minor.
        We also have a geospatial information science major, where
    we have 85 cadets currently enrolled.
        So we are producing the young men and women who will be
    leaders in this space, if you will, in the future, and we feel
    very comfortable about that.
        We also enjoy the Army's Cyber Institute, which is co-
    located here. It is the Army's think tank to what we think
    about. And that really is a nexus where we bring the best and
    brightest. And they routinely provide to the literature about
    what we should be thinking about to compete and defeat our
    adversaries in the future and in the cyber domain.
        So those are some of the things internal to West Point, the
    brick-and-mortar projects which you all have helped fund, and
    then, more importantly, the adjunct Army Cyber Institute just
    outside the gate. And cadets are allowed to interface with the
    Army Cyber Institute, so folks come in and out of that in their
    classroom. And the instructors actually rotate on my staff as
    well.
        Thank you for your question, sir.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        Navy, Air Force, any addition to that?
        General Clark. Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity.
        And what I will start with is our National Defense Strategy
    that tells us as a country that we have to be prepared to
    compete in an environment of great-power competition. And our
    chief of staff, General Brown, has charged us in his order to
    ``accelerate change or lose'' to develop airmen that are
    prepared to compete in that environment.
        So, at the Academy, much like West Point and Annapolis, we
    are developing leaders that are looking to the future. And that
    is one of my top priorities. We have 50 percent of our majors
    are STEM majors; 50 percent of our core courses are STEM
    courses.
        But, beyond that, we are also developing leaders to think
    boldly, to be innovative and solve problems that we don't even
    know about. And we have recently stood up an Institute for
    Future Conflict to help us to meet the needs and to prepare our
    cadets so that they are not ready to meet challenges for 5
    years from now but challenges 25 years from now.
        And we are very excited about the direction that we are
    taking and that we are moving. In fact, we have just hired a
    new director of that institute.
        So I think we are in a great place to have our leaders
    ready to lead us into the future and compete well on the future
    stage of our global environment.
        Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Calvert. Well, thank you.
        It looks like my time is just about up, Madam Chair, so I
    will yield back the balance of my time.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, that is good. Maybe we will have an
    opportunity to catch up on the last service we didn't hear
    from.
        Ms. Kaptur.

                     Diversity and Culture at the Academies

        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. And thank you
    for hosting us this morning with these really outstanding
    leaders for our country, all the superintendents.
        My two questions involve diversity and culture at the
    academies.
        The first is, could each of our guests please summarize
    their progress in terms of diversity, which has been one of the
    most challenging aspects of my work as a Congresswoman relative
    to the academies? Despite the diverse district I respect,
    getting young people to apply who would be more representative
    of the district that I represent--and believe me, it isn't for
    lack of trying. It has been very, very hard. So just talk to us
    about, in each of the academies, your progress in terms of
    recruitment for admission.
        And then, secondly, in terms of culture, I was very
    interested in Superintendent Williams' use of the word
    ``character,'' developing character. I am interested in your
    views at the Academy of the types of students that are being
    admitted and some of your challenges there.
        I am familiar with some of the drug problems that have
    occurred at West Point, but it is not the only place where
    those have happened.
        And I am interested in your talking about the cheating that
    has occurred on many of the tests in each of the academies, and
    how, in fact, you can educate to character. Do your admissions
    not possess those traits? Do you have to teach to that? Has
    this changed in the last 40 years?
        I am very interested in your comments on diversity and on
    developing cadets with character.
        General Williams. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the opportunity
    to talk about that.
        Diversity, as I mentioned in my opening comments, is a line
    of effort, it is a priority. I think it is very important for
    young men and women that come here that we look like the United
    States Army, we represent the country.
        I actively am in this space. We have a very active outreach
    program. I would love to reach out and help you in that effort,
    ma'am, as we go forward. I actively--in this virtual space, it
    is a little difficult, but we hold a number of online webinars.
    I usually participate in them on Saturday, and I actually talk
    and recruit people of different diversity.
        Ma'am, we meet or exceed all of the officer percentages
    here at West Point. So for African Americans, for Asians and
    Hispanics, we are at or over the percentage that are actively
    represented in the Active Duty Army officer corps right now at
    West Point--24 percent women, 17 percent African American. And
    I can share with you more of those details later.
        So diversity is something that I think is critical to
    winning. And, especially as we look at complex problems in the
    future, you have to have folks that are of diverse backgrounds
    and ethnicities, I think.
        In terms of culture, I mentioned before how we have
    elevated culture. It is a very deliberate effort. We have a
    highly qualified individual who integrates across the
    enterprise, not only in the academic departments but in my
    physical department and in my military department, who answers
    to me about culture.
        And we have nine highly qualified--the Army allowed us to
    have these folks to come in here, and they are a part of our
    program. And it is a very deliberate way to take young men and
    women who--right now, there is a set of high school seniors who
    will be here in about 4 months. And we take them where they
    are, and, over the 47-month experience, we develop them into
    leaders of character. So it is a very deliberate effort. I can
    talk to you about that in more detail.
        And then, finally, ma'am, you asked about honor. Last
    spring, our young men and women were in a remote learning
    environment and were challenged--some were challenged in terms
    of home life at home and a variety of issues, which I can go
    into in more detail later if you would like. They were away
    from their coaches, their teachers, their TACs, their TAC NCOs,
    and the structures that provide the way ahead.
        And, from my perspective, these young men and women had
    only been here a semester, and there is no excuse for violating
    United States Military Academy Honor Code, and I have all the
    tools I need to hold them accountable for that, and we will.
    And the ones that remain here, we will develop them into
    leaders of character, and they will learn from this experience.
        Thank you, ma'am.
        Ms. Kaptur. General, what about drug use at West Point?
        General Williams. Ma'am, I haven't seen--that we have some
    small instance--it is not raging right now, to use that word.
    There are the normal kinds of challenges that any commander
    faces. This is not something that is a very high, currently,
    raging at West Point in terms of----
        Ms. Kaptur. Have you expelled anyone because of drug use?
        General Williams. I have. Not this year, but in my past 3
    years, yes, ma'am, I have.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        General Williams. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers.

                           Pandemics on the Academies

        Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        I thank the gentlemen for their appearance before our
    subcommittee and for the great job you are doing in your
    respective academies.
        Let me ask you about something that is unpleasant, one
    aspect, a big aspect, of the COVID-19 problem, and that is the
    mental well-being of our world in these times, but, especially,
    of course, at the academies, with your personnel, the mental
    health.
        In the spring of 2020, COVID-19 forced the academies to
    change how they operated--locking down campus, quarantining
    cadets and midshipmen, moving classes online, and ultimately
    sending the student body home early for the school year.
        While the cadets and midshipmen at West Point and the Naval
    Academy were sent home in March, the Air Force Academy kept
    senior cadets on campus. And, in March, two Air Force Academy
    seniors were found dead in suspected suicides while under
    strict lockdown because of COVID-19.
        That led, of course, to conversations about the impact of
    the pandemic on mental health. Both West Point and the Naval
    Academy reported seeing indicators of mental health decline in
    the cadets and midshipmen throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
        How are the academies dealing with this obvious problem,
    following COVID-19 safety protocols, as well as keeping your
    campuses safe and the well-being of cadets and midshipmen in
    good shape?
        Admiral Buck. Congressman Rogers, Admiral Buck here from
    Annapolis. I will take the lead on answering that from our
    perspective here at the Academy.
        Looking back chronologically, when we did shift very
    rapidly to an online environment back in the spring, the spring
    semester of 2020, I am very proud to tell you that our team
    here, our collective team of people that can help midshipmen
    develop their resiliency and respond to them in their times of
    need, quickly converted every single service that we have to an
    online environment. And I don't believe we missed a beat with
    regards to making ourselves available to each and every
    midshipman.
        And it is a large cohort of folks. It is their shipmates,
    their fellow midshipmen. It is their company leadership or the
    commissioned officers and the enlisted leaders in the brigade
    that usually see them on damn near an hour-by-hour basis each
    day. It is our Chaplain Corps. It is our Midshipmen Development
    Center, which is staffed by psychiatrists, psychologists,
    nutritionists, social workers, and sexual assault folks that
    can help. All of those people were able to immediately make
    themselves available to the midshipmen during that distanced
    environment in the spring and the summer.
        What we saw was a rise in a request for services, not a
    rise at all for specific appointments for therapists. And that
    should be noted. It was a significant difference in their
    request to try to learn to cope for themselves, to cope amongst
    their family environment or wherever they were operating from
    to take school online.
        But, as I said in my opening statement, it is an imperative
    to bring these young men and women back and develop them and
    care for them in person. And we began that right near the end
    of June with Plebe Summer, with some summer school, with a bit
    of our summer training, and then the fall semester. And that
    allowed all of those stakeholders to once again reach out and
    help midshipmen in person. It is a very robust network.
        And I also have differentiated to myself and to my senior
    leadership team, it is one thing to talk about mental health,
    it is another thing to talk about morale, and there is a very
    big difference there.
        We take their mental health of our midshipmen and even our
    faculty and our staff, our whole Naval Academy family, we take
    that very seriously and try to look out for one another and
    address it when we can.
        It is incumbent upon my commandant of midshipmen and myself
    and other senior leaders to also work to improve morale when we
    have to impose certain things like the lockdown to the campus
    when we have spikes of COVID to try to mitigate it and knock it
    down.
        And we have seen success in addressing both a morale issue
    as well as a mental health issue, sir.
        Mr. Rogers. There is a huge stigma--with human beings in
    general, but speaking now of military personnel--a huge stigma
    about asking for mental health help. How are you able to
    overcome that problem?
        Admiral Buck. Sir, in my past, as a flag officer in the
    Navy, I was given an assignment to lead the 21st Century Sailor
    Office, which looked at all of destructive behaviors of Navy
    sailors. And one of those was, I was the suicide prevention
    officer for the United States Navy.
        And I am proud to tell you that what we realized was we
    needed to work diligently to reduce that stigma and to,
    instead, advertise to Navy sailors, to all of us, that it is
    okay to ask for help. In fact, the way we branded that was, it
    is a sign of strength to ask for help. And what we are seeing
    is, over 50 percent of the battle is just to be able to have an
    ability to talk to somebody, to get some of your problems and
    your demons off your chest by talking to someone.
        So learning to be a good active listener, making yourself
    available, and ensuring that everyone realizes that, the minute
    you ask for help with a mental health issue, you are not going
    to be thrown out of the Naval Academy or you are not going to
    be tossed out of the Navy. We have made such a big investment
    in you, we see such great potential in you, that we would like
    to help you through your demons and help you through what is
    stressing you, and then get you back up on that horse that
    threw you off and make you a productive midshipman and then,
    hence, a productive Naval officer out in the fleet.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much for that thoughtful
    question, Mr. Rogers. And mental health is something in our
    military we know we want to cut down on people feeling that
    they can't ask. So thank you. And I am sure the committee
    members appreciated the fact that we took an extra minute to
    get that answer. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Cuellar.

                 Efforts Takens for Diversity in the Academies

        Mr. Cuellar. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
        I wanted to go back on the question of diversity that I
    believe Representative Marcy Kaptur brought up. Can you tell us
    a little bit about prep schools and how you all use prep
    schools to get diversity into your academies?
        I know there are some prep schools in different parts of
    the country, but there are areas that there are really no prep
    schools at all, and they have to travel a long way to get some
    of those students, to get the diversity.
        Could you all tell us what you all do and how you all set
    up some of those prep schools, or is it all private-sector-
    involved, or are there partnerships for the academies?
        General Clark. Sir, this is Lieutenant General Clark from
    the Air Force Academy, and I can address that.
        Our prep school is significant in helping us to shape the
    diversity and the makeup of our cadet population as they come
    in. And they are on campus; it is about 200 prep school cadet
    candidates that are there. But we also have opportunities at
    other prep schools, as you mentioned, throughout the country
    where we can garner cadet candidates from to bring into the
    Academy.
        And we have an organization called our Falcon Foundation,
    which is comprised of a lot of graduates and volunteers who
    help us to shepherd people into those other prep schools so
    that we can have the opportunity to reach from all districts of
    our country to bring them into the Academy, help them to
    achieve.
        If there are any shortfalls in their admissions or any
    issues that they need to deal with to make them more
    competitive for the Air Force Academy, we bring them into those
    schools, and they really do help us to shape not only from an
    ethnic and racial but gender perspective.
        And our Falcon Foundation is that organization that I
    talked about that helps us to do that. They really meet any
    needs that we have. So if we see shortfalls in the makeup of
    our cadet population, they are very responsive to us and help
    us to shape it to make our class everything we want it to be.
        And, frankly, it is working. Our current class of 2024, our
    freshmen, is the most diverse class we have ever had at the Air
    Force Academy. We continue to lean on external partners to help
    us to shape our class.
        Over.
        General Williams. Sir, I will take a shot at it as well.
    Much like Rich, we depend on the prep school, USMAPS. It is up
    the hill. My son went to the prep school before he came here.
    It is a vital part of how we build diversity here at the United
    States Military Academy.
        The purpose--like Rich, we have about 225 places up there
    every year. As you know, sir, you apply to West Point, and if
    you are lacking in some of the skills that you need to succeed
    down the hill, as we call it here, that is a perfect year for
    you to do better.
        And we do use it, as well, to get at diversity, not only as
    Rich mentioned but also from soldiers from the regular Army. We
    have about 40 of that 225 soldiers from the regular Army. And a
    lot of the things that were talked about earlier, they bring a
    maturity to some of the things that were talked about earlier--
    sexual assault, sexual harassment--because they have real-life
    experience. And they are mentors down in the corps in that next
    year.
        I would add another, sort of, layer to that.
        I don't know if my Navy shipmate has anything to add.
        Admiral Buck. Very similar to my sister academies, our
    magnitude, about 250 young men and women matriculate to the
    Academy through the Naval Academy Prep School. Ours is not co-
    located with Annapolis. It is up in Newport, Rhode Island. And
    we also affiliate with 17 private prep schools around the
    country. We call them foundation schools.
        On any given year, sir, 300 midshipmen will have furthered
    their academic skills and allow us to garner greater diversity
    in the brigade by coming through either our prep school or our
    foundation program. And the purpose of that is exactly as my
    two colleagues have described to you.
        Mr. Cuellar. All right.
        Let me, before my time is over--I have about 30 seconds.
    First of all, thank you. And I am really happy that we work
    well, just like the other members, with your academies. So I
    want to thank you for diversifying the academies.
        Could I ask each of you all to provide--I don't know if
    anybody else wants copies of this, but I would like to be
    provided by all three of you all your work with prep schools,
    the different schools you have, and the foundation, the Falcon
    Foundation, and all that.
        If you all can send that over to me, because there are
    areas--my time is over, but let me just say this: There are
    areas along the border, highly Hispanic areas--you know,
    Laredo, for example, is 96 percent Hispanic, and I am sure some
    other folks they have very high-minority areas. And I would
    love to see if we can partner up with you all on some of those
    prep schools on that.
        So if you all can send to that over, I really would
    appreciate it.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        [The information follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Ms. McCollum. Yeah, that would be fabulous. I think the
    whole committee would like that. And I also know there are some
    high school programs too. So that would be wonderful, if you
    would share that.
        Thank you for asking that question. It was a great
    question.
        Mr. Womack, who took me to West Point, you are up.

                             Preparatory Academies

        Mr. Womack. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for
    the hearing.
        Thanks to the supes for what you are doing and for being
    with us today.
        Henry, you would be pleased to know--and they have spoken
    to this. These prep schools are wonderful opportunities. I kind
    of call them red-shirt years, because they do some things that
    really prepare a lot of these young men and women for the
    opportunity, without just throwing them in as direct admits and
    putting them in a very difficult situation. I think, from a
    diversity standpoint, these prep schools are great.
        Also, General Williams, I don't know what we call it, but
    there is also the ability to send some of these kids out to
    other schools, like Marion Military Academy, those kinds of
    places, for a freshman year and then recompete for a direct
    admit the following year, kind of like prep school but in a
    different setting. So, they are wonderful.
        As a matter of disclosure, I chair the Board of Visitors at
    West Point, so I own that, and that forms the basis for some of
    my understanding of what goes on at these academies,
    particularly up there on the Hudson.
        And I want everybody on the call to know, on this Zoom
    today to know, that the current holder of the Commander-in-
    Chief's Trophy are the Black Knights of the United States
    Military Academy at West Point.
        Can I get a ``hooah'' on that, General Williams?
        General Williams. Hooah, Congressman. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Womack. All right.

                           Academy Cheating Scandals

        I am going to go back to the issue that was brought up
    earlier regarding the cheating scandals, and I am going to give
    each one of the supes about a minute to fashion an answer. And,
    Chair McCollum, we may go over just a little bit.
        It is one thing to have an attrition model, where you make
    a mistake, you are out of here. It is a whole another thing to
    have a developmental model, where we take young men and women
    from society, bring them in as freshmen, and then begin the
    grooming process. Man, if all these kids were ready to be
    lieutenants, we wouldn't spend 4 years trying to groom them. I
    am a big believer that, when they come in, if they, you know,
    skin their knee, they make some mistakes, that we work with
    them.
        And I am going to start with General Clark. Tell me what
    you have at your disposal, what you do, to help kids--because
    all the academies have had, you know, a bout with a cheating
    scandal, many thanks to COVID. But tell me what you do in terms
    of bringing these kids through an honor program and
    reacquainting them with the values that we espouse at the
    Academy.
        General Clark. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question.
        And I know that I can speak for my fellow superintendents
    that we are all approaching a developmental model of honor
    rather than a fear-based or a punitive model. Now, there are,
    obviously, punitive elements to our honor systems, but, like
    you said, we have to bring our cadets--when we bring them in,
    it is a matter of developing them to that honorable-living
    capacity or desire that we have.
        So we have a very robust honor education system that starts
    from the day that they walk into the Academy. And it consists
    of instructional opportunities, different mentorship
    opportunities. And it goes all the way throughout their time as
    cadets.
        Now, if they are found in violation of the Honor Code,
    especially in the early years, we have a strong probationary
    program, that we help them to develop, help them to recognize
    where their shortfalls were, and to bring them to a place where
    they understand how to continue to live honorably and abide by
    our code.
        We have had a 95-percent success rate, meaning cadets who
    get into that probationary status, they never have another
    incident or issue with the Honor Code. So we are very proud of
    it.
        The developmental aspects are key and critical, and we want
    our cadets to respect, not fear, the Honor Code.
        Over, sir.
        Mr. Womack. Admiral Buck.
        Admiral Buck. Likewise, sir, we have an honor concept at
    the Naval Academy.
        I will address that we sensed that we had a cheating issue
    on a final exam that was administered just this last December,
    a couple months ago. I am right near the end of concluding the
    investigation of that to better understand the magnitude and
    appreciate exactly what happened. It was with a younger cohort
    of midshipmen, the sophomores, with the physics exam.
        Like my colleagues, we completely embrace the developmental
    model. I would suggest that you probably get a little bit more
    understanding when you are a freshman or a sophomore, but as
    you spend more time in your 47-month journey at the Naval
    Academy immersed on a daily basis in a culture of character and
    a culture of honor, that our expectations of you, as you get
    closer to entering the fleet as a junior and a senior, that
    there may not be as much of a look for remediation and second
    chances.
        But we do want to look at each case individually. If you
    are found or alleged to have violated our honor concept, your
    case goes in front of a midshipmen-led honor committee. They,
    the midshipmen, your peers, make a determination of your guilt
    or your innocence. And if it comes out that you are guilty, you
    then go into consideration by the commissioned chain of
    command, whether you are chosen for remediation and retained or
    whether you are recommended to be separated from the Academy.
        We share almost the exact same statistic as Air Force. We
    have a 95-percent success rate of those that enter the honor
    system for a violation once in their time here, they don't ever
    enter it again. And they matriculate very well, and by the time
    we release them to the fleet, we are confident that we have
    some honorable young leaders and--you have heard us say--
    leaders of character.
        Mr. Womack. Yeah. Well, look, thank you, Admiral, and I am
    going to--I never want to speak for the superintendent at West
    Point, because he speaks well for himself, but I will save the
    time on this one.
        Let me just say this for the benefit of my colleagues: You
    will hear from time to time from graduates of these academies.
    We call them old grads, for the most part. And many times the
    opinions of the old grads are more based on attrition models
    than they are developmental models, because they have been
    through it.
        So I think we have to be very careful, Madam Chairwoman, to
    be terribly judgmental, particularly when these kids come to
    these academies as freshmen and particularly when they come
    from some less-than-ideal circumstances.
        And that is why I congratulate each of the superintendents
    for what they are doing regarding this developmental model.
        And I will yield back my time.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

                               Sexual Harassment

        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member
    Calvert.
        I have a question about sexual harassment. So, when I look
    through many of the programs built to combat sexual harassment
    and assault, a lot of them focus on service provided to victims
    after they suffer abuse. I agree it is absolutely critical that
    we provide every possible resource to survivors, but I do
    believe that we are overlooking opportunities in prevention.
        Lieutenant General Williams, you discussed the lack of
    relationship and interpersonal skills that have been in some
    young cadets, which can enable corrosive behaviors to take
    root.
        Can you share with us how the academies are prioritizing
    training focused on developing healthy relationships to prevent
    sexual assault and harassment; and if you are looking outside
    of these internal-created programs to civilian entities that
    specialize in developing these skills in today's young adults?
        And that is for everybody on the panel.
        General Williams. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for your question.
        I will tell you that leadership matters in this space. And
    my secretary, the chief of staff of the Army, the sergeant
    major of the Army have been very clear in terms of how do we
    get at this.
        When we brought our cadets back from winter leave in
    January, I took a look at the Fort Hood independent review,
    which I know many of the members are--all members probably are
    aware of. And we talked to every single cadet when they came
    back from the leave.
        I led off the session, and then I had my experts, my SHARP
    director and others, talk. And I said, this isn't about Fort
    Hood, this could be any fort, this could be Fort West Point.
    And we talked to them about personal courage and what it takes
    to hold each other accountable as peers here at the United
    States Military Academy.
        So I think leadership matters--I know it matters. And I
    know that all of the corrosives that the chief talks about and
    the Secretary and the SMA and that we also take on here, the
    only way to combat that, ma'am, is for peer leadership and for
    leadership at the very top.
        I will also tell you, we piloted last summer a relational
    character course. We are going to expand it this summer to talk
    exactly about what you mentioned in there, how do we relate
    with each other.
        When the cadets came back last summer, our cadets were
    brilliant in this space. We have trust and peer leaders in the
    cadet companies, and they are the ones that are at--they are
    resources for young men and women to talk to.
        So we allowed our cadets last summer--we will do the same
    thing with the new classes that come in--a time, the space, to
    talk about tough subjects. It really is about these young men
    and women looking each other in the eye--I know it is difficult
    during these COVID experiences here, but looking each other in
    the eye and saying, ``Look, I care about you, and I expect you
    to treat me with dignity and respect.''
        And so that is what we do here at West Point. We provide
    them the opportunity and the space to talk about it.
        But I am in this space and I am not leaving this space, as
    the superintendent of the United States Military Academy.
        Thank you, ma'am.
        Admiral Buck. Congresswoman Kirkpatrick, Sean Buck from
    Navy.
        Very like what General Williams just said, the number-one
    way for us to get after preventing sexual assault or sexual
    harassment is through peer leadership.
        What we have found over and over again in the formal
    surveys that are given at the Naval Academy and all of our
    academies are that our midshipmen and our cadets, they trust
    the commissioned leadership at the academies, they trust the
    senior enlisted leaders, but they are having a difficult time
    trusting their peer leadership. Most of the sexual assaults
    over time at my academy have been midshipman-on-midshipman. And
    that is very distressing, that it is blue-on-blue.
        So, in our prevention efforts, which is now the
    preponderance of the effort in the military across all the
    services and across all three of our academies, is getting
    after prevention and strengthening the confidence and the
    ability of our midshipmen leaders to lead themselves, with
    adult supervision. That is where we are going to nip it in the
    bud.
        You did ask one particular question, if any of us are
    leaning on external resources and innovation and creativity
    from maybe other university systems around the country or any
    other asset that might be helping organizations get after
    sexual assault. And, yes, ma'am, we are.
        There is a very robust investment by the Department of
    Defense and all of our services to allow us to do best
    practices, wherever they may be, to get after this scourge and
    make it go away from our academies, ma'am.
        General Clark. And, ma'am, I don't know if--this is General
    Clark. I don't know if--I know our time is up--if you would
    like me to make a short statement?
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Yes, if you could, please.
        Ms. McCollum. Yes, 30 seconds.
        Admiral Buck. Yes, ma'am. I will just say that we are in
    the same mode of thinking as both Navy and West Point.
        And we look at a sexual assault prevention framework, where
    we can actually address this issue with our cadets, both pre-
    admission through programs that we have them involved in--we
    work with parents on alcohol-related issues so that parents can
    work with their young high school graduates before they come.
        We work during their time here throughout. We have great
    programs that address healthy relationship training, that
    address personal skills, and that also address bystander
    intervention skills for our whole cadet wing so that nobody
    stands by just to let these horrible events happen.
        And we also have a series of pilot programs that allow us
    to assess each program that we implement so that we understand
    exactly the type of effect we could expect, but also to use our
    time wisely so that we can target exactly the problems that we
    have to address in this space.
        So I think all of us are committed to decreasing and, in
    fact, defeating this scourge and making our academies and our
    forces better.
        Over.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
        I am going to do a bit of housekeeping before we hear from
    Mr. Aderholt's question.
        Mr. Ryan, you are present. I am going to go and vote. The
    staff will send you the list of the next speakers. It is
    Aderholt, Aguilar, Carter, and then the rest are listed.
        I know we are in good hands, and, with that, I will be
    going to vote.
        Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Aderholt.

                         COVID-19 Vaccines for Students

        Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        And thanks, everyone, for being before the subcommittee
    today.
        I have been in contact with my colleague, Congressman
    DesJarlais of Tennessee. And one of the issues that has come up
    is, I was just wondering if you could provide a little bit of a
    timeline about the COVID-19 vaccines that will be available for
    the academy members.
        I know a couple of you may have mentioned that a little bit
    in your comments earlier on. But as far as a timeline as to
    when you foresee the members being able to actually receive the
    shots, or if they have started receiving the shots, could you
    please just give us a brief outline as far as what you are
    looking at right now at your particular academy?
        General Clark. Yes, sir. This is Lieutenant General Clark.
    I can start with that one.
        All of us, all three of us, General Buck, General Williams,
    we talk regularly about our issues with COVID-19, and I believe
    that we are all in very similar situations as far as the
    impacts of it on our mission, how we are testing, and then,
    now, vaccines which have come our way.
        We are all adhering to the DOD schema, the Department of
    Defense schema, that lays out the priorities of who should get
    the vaccines when. So, it starts off with first responders; it
    cascades down to mission-essential members and deployers; it
    gets into medical beneficiaries; and then our cadets actually
    fall into the lowest category because they are all healthy
    others. They are the most healthy of our population, and they
    fall into the lower level of that schema.
        So we all get vaccines that are filtered to us. We get them
    periodically, as is the rest of the installations in at least
    the Air Force and the Space Force, and I think the Army and
    Navy are the same. We fall into a system that, when they come,
    we execute the vaccines and get them into arms as quickly as
    possible but in accordance with the schema that the Department
    of Defense has given us.
        So, right now, for us at the Air Force Academy, it is
    primarily our first responders, our staff and faculty who we
    consider mission-essential who have been the folks that have
    gotten the vaccine so far. Eventually, though, as we get more
    vaccines into arms, our cadets will be recipients of that
    vaccine.
        And I will yield the floor to my other superintendent
    colleagues. Over.
        General Williams. Congressman, we are getting fantastic
    support from the Army and DOD in this space. To date, we have
    vaccinated just over 4,000 here at West Point. That is not the
    corps of cadets. That is, much as Rich laid out, the framework
    of first responders and such and folks that are in vulnerable
    populations. I have 4,400 cadets here, but in the community
    writ large at West Point, about 8,000 in the community and
    such.
        So we are on path. Rich laid it out in terms of, when it is
    available, we will do it. As you know, we are under emergency
    use, so we cannot mandate. But, sir, we have very high--the
    cadets want this vaccination. It is well over 90 percent that
    are going to--so when we get it and when it is available, I am
    confident that we will be vaccinated here at the United States
    Military Academy and contribute to Army readiness as we go
    forward.
        Mr. Aderholt. Thank you.
        Admiral Buck. And, Congressman Aderholt, what I have is
    done is--I have the same schema; it is a DOD schema. It is
    going well. I would suggest it is slow and steady. We went
    after the same prioritization as General Clark articulated to
    you.
        I have given my Navy a timeline for when I need to have the
    midshipmen vaccinated, because the way we do our summer
    training is I will send the vast majority of midshipmen out to
    the fleet to embark on operational ships, submarines,
    squadrons, Navy SEAL teams.
        And our Navy has prioritized the operational forces first.
    They are getting vaccinated. They have a very safe and healthy
    bubble. And for them to be willing to accept our midshipmen
    from the Academy as well as midshipmen from NROTC universities
    around the country, we need to vaccinate them prior to the
    summer training started.
        So we are anticipating our summer training--it first opens
    up around the 15th of May. I need to start vaccinating that
    small cohort of midshipmen around the last week of this month,
    March. And then I hope to be able to start vaccinating all the
    rest of them in the first 3 weeks of April.
        And that will allow them to get through the two-shot
    schema, 4 weeks between them, and then develop the immunity
    with 2 weeks after that second shot, and they will be an up-
    and-ready round for the fleet. And all the captains of the
    units out in the Navy fleet will be ready to accept them, and
    we can conduct summer training, which is such an important
    aspect of the development of a midshipman.
        Over.

                                 Academy Pledge

        Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Chair, I know my time is up, but if I
    could just ask for the--I wanted to ask about one other issue,
    and they can respond on the record.
        Of course, I believe in mutual respect. That is important
    for all our cadets, no matter what service they are in. But a
    little bit--this question about this pledge to respect the
    intersexual identities of servicemembers at the Naval Academy.
    Like I said, it is my understanding that mutual respect and
    leadership traits and leadership principles, that is already a
    part of the program and should already be well drilled in to
    these cadets.
        And I just want to just inquire about that. And since my
    time is up, you can reply for the record.
        Mr. Ryan [presiding]. I appreciate that, Mr. Aderholt.
    Thank you.
        Mr. Aguilar.

                             Composition of Faculty

        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
        And I appreciate the chairwoman putting this hearing
    forward and, superintendents, for your work.
        Gentlemen, I wanted to ask a little bit about the faculty.
    Could you describe the composition of your faculty at each
    academy? What is the mix of civilian and military professors,
    and how diverse is the population, and the types of
    qualifications, and if tenure applies?
        I just wanted to get a better understanding and hear that
    with my colleagues. If we could start with Superintendent
    Williams and then proceed, that would be appreciated.
        General Williams. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question.
        Yeah, so our staff and faculty here are diverse, about 70
    military/30 civilian. We have been on that path for some time.
        I will tell you that we have--at the core of it are our
    great department heads. We have 13 department heads. And these
    are men and women who are Army colonels who have devoted their
    life to their particular discipline and spent some time here.
    That is one part of the triumvirate here.
        And then our great Army civilians, our senior Army
    civilians, who have been recently tenured in the last few
    years, who also add to the academics. They partner with those
    department heads.
        And then there is this rotational part of the faculty that
    are young captains and majors who provide intellectual capital
    back to our great Army. So, this is Captain Major Williams. You
    know, they are midway through their career. They go back,
    receive a Ph.D., teach here for 3 years in a utilization tour,
    and then return intellectual capital back to our great Army.
    And that is usually about a 5- and sometimes it could be a 6-
    year tenure.
        And so those are the different elements. You have more
    senior tenured professors, civilian; you have senior tenured
    colonels who have devoted their life to this academic
    profession; and then our rotational faculty, who are younger
    officers who will return also to the Army and be the battalion
    brigade commanders for our cadets.
        So the relationship and the sense of ownership that our
    young faculty have with these cadets is a vital part of how we
    go forward.
        Thank you for your question, sir.
        General Clark. And, sir, Lieutenant General Clark from Air
    Force. I will add on.
        We are about 60 percent military and 40 percent civilian in
    our faculty. And, like General Williams stated, our military
    faculty really bring an operational flavor to the academic
    curriculum; and, of course, our civilians, many Ph.D's, many
    from other areas of academia, who help us to bring that
    perspective to our program.
        I want to also highlight, though, we have coaches, we have
    air officer commanding who are in charge of each cadet squadron
    with our academy military trainers, our enlisted members, who
    help to lead those squadrons, who also bring the perspectives
    that our cadets need in their development.
        I will say, one of the things that we are working very
    diligently on is to increase the diversity of our staff and
    faculty and to ensure that not only our cadets look like
    America but that our staff and faculty represent that as well.
    That will be a great benefit to our cadets' development, and we
    will continue to work that.
        Thank you, sir.
        Admiral Buck. Congressman Aguilar, we at Navy are a little
    bit different than my other two sister academies. We are
    traditionally 50/50. Today, as I speak to you, we are 53
    percent civilian/47 percent military professors. And it is a
    total of 600 faculty here.
        In that uniformed group of faculty, 19 percent of them are
    women, 19 percent of them are men or women of minority. We
    continue to look at our hiring practices across the whole
    faculty to try to develop a diverse faculty workforce there so
    that the young men and women that go to school here look and
    see men and women that may look like them.
        We have a tenure program here. So we have tenured
    professors, full professors, associate professors. And then
    each year, to fill the gaps, we hire a fluctuating number of
    adjunct professors to fill in where we may have holes on one
    particular year. And those professors come from a very diverse
    background, sir.
        Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate the answers, gentlemen, and would
    just, you know, continue--and I specifically appreciate
    Superintendent Clark talking a little bit about the continued
    need to review hiring practices and to better reflect the
    diverse population that we want the academies to serve.
        So thank you, gentlemen. I know this is an evolving issue,
    and I appreciate your openness to these questions on this
    topic.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate you asking
    those very important questions.
        Judge Carter.
        Mr. Calvert. Mr. Chairman, before that----
        Mr. Ryan. Yes.
        Mr. Calvert. Judge Carter is going to cover for me.
    Unfortunately, I have a conflict. So the judge has got it from
    here. Thank you.
        Mr. Ryan. Okay.
        Judge Carter, you are also up for your 5 minutes of
    questions.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you for recognizing me.
        And thank you to the superintendents for being able to be
    here and talk to us today. We are learning quite a bit.
        I am going to ask a couple of things that go back when we
    were back talking about cyber. With the concept of all joint
    command and control, how are you attracting and retaining
    qualified civilian faculty in the technical disciplines? And
    what type of funding do you need to ensure that the U.S.
    maintains a resilient cyber force within the Department of
    Defense and with our intelligence partners? What kind of help
    do you need?
        General Clark. Yes, sir. I can start off with that.
    Lieutenant General Clark.
        We have majors and many classes throughout our entire
    curriculum that address our cyber needs. And as both General
    Raymond, our Space Force commander, who says that every
    guardian has to speak digital as their language, they have to
    understand the cyber domain if we are going to be able to
    execute joint all-domain command and control, and General
    Brown, in his charge for accelerating change or lose, has
    emphasized that as well. So our majors in cyber, every course
    that we teach in cyber is critical for us.
        We are also breaking ground this month on our Cyber
    Innovation Center, which is an opportunity for us to bring in
    partners not only from the broader Air Force and Space Force
    but also from industry so that our cadets can have the
    opportunity not only to learn in academics but also to
    experience the real-world needs and address real problems.
        One of the areas that we could use help with, though, sir,
    is in our information technology. Our IT is woefully behind
    where we need to be to be, I think, a provider of cyber
    excellence.
        Right now, we have needs for immediate funding for this
    year, funding unfunded requirements. Plus, we need money into
    the POM, because our network is not the same network that the
    broader Air Force uses. We are on a dot-edu, whereas the Air
    Force is on a dot-mil. The dot-edu allows us to collaborate, it
    allows us to innovate, and it connects us with researchers and
    other universities that we need to be a world-class
    organization.
        So we don't fall under the normal IT funding that the rest
    of the Air Force comes under. So that funding that we need not
    only now but into the out-years is vital for us. In fact, it
    threatens our accreditation.
        During COVID, we have recognized our weaknesses as we have
    gone to more virtual classes. So we have great needs, I think,
    from a fiscal standpoint, to allow us to meet our aspirations
    to be that school of cyber excellence.
        So I will stop there, sir, but we appreciate any help that
    you can provide to move us forward with our IT so that we are
    the provider of cyber excellence.
        Over.
        Mr. Carter. Anyone else?
        Admiral Buck. Congressman Carter, the Naval Academy, we are
    proud to represent ourselves as a center of cyber excellence.
    We aggressively got after this about 12 years ago and committed
    ourselves to doing so.
        And, just this year, on my tenure, we opened up, I believe,
    one of the first cyber operations center buildings in the
    country, and we brought the capability here to be able to teach
    our midshipmen right from the ground floor at the Top Secret,
    Specially Compartmented level. And, as you know, the topic of
    cyber, it is very unremarkable to teach it at the unclass
    level.
        So, now, when these young men and women graduate from the
    Naval Academy, having been exposed to cyber across their entire
    journey here, they are much more capable, much more aware, much
    more cognizant of how to fight and work and live within the
    cyber domain.
        We take on an all/many/few concept here. Every single
    midshipman takes two courses in cyber. We present many
    opportunities for many to be exposed to cyber through lectures
    and conferences and research projects. And we now have a cyber
    operations major, in which 75 midshipmen matriculate to each
    time--each year entering class.
        If I were to tell you what we have trouble with in
    attracting the best faculty to teach in cyber, it is being able
    to pay a cyber professor on a Federal pay scale. That is very
    difficult to compete with what they can do out in private
    industry, sir.
        I am not so sure how to crack that nut other than to
    present them a really, really rewarding experience teaching
    fine young men and women at the Academy who are passionate to
    learn. We now present world-class facilities. But you do know
    that it would be very difficult to present a Federal pay scale
    to someone steeped in cyber who can do a lot better on the
    outside.
        Over.
        Mr. Carter. Anybody else?
        General Williams. Yes, sir.
        Sir, three components: the brick-and-mortar aspect, as I
    mentioned earlier, the Cyber Engineering Academic Center, which
    will transform the very face of West Point. I know when--we
    look forward to welcoming you back again, sir; you were here 2
    years ago. That will be transformational.
        But I will tell you, while we are waiting for that to
    mature, we enjoy efficiencies with the Army Cyber Institute,
    which is just outside West Point. And we attract right now the
    best and brightest from our civilian counterparts. So that
    becomes a skunkworks for our cadets to work on their projects
    that they are working on, but also to be informed by the best
    and brightest in the cyber energy that we are realizing every
    single day.
        And in terms of our actual pedagogy, sir, we have six
    academic majors--computer science, applied statistics and data
    science, electrical engineering, information technology, and
    system engineers--producing about 100 cadets each year who are
    motivated, inspired to winning and defeating our adversaries in
    cyberspace.
        Mr. Carter. Well, thank you. That is all good information.
        I know I have gone past my time. Just curious, and you
    might send me some information, about any endowments you have
    for graduate students in the area of STEM which would fit into
    our concept of future warfighting. I think that is important.
        Remember, we are the Appropriations Committee, and we are
    interested in how we can help, and that is why I ask these
    funding questions.
        I will yield back.
        Mr. Ryan. Appreciate it, Judge.
        Mr. Crist.

                              Racism and Extremism

        Mr. Crist. Thank you for being here, to the three of you.
        You know, in the military, I have been reading news
    accounts lately that the academies are grappling with White
    supremacy, racism, and extremism. And I am curious what actions
    the academies have taken to address any and all of these
    issues.
        Please. For any one of the three of you.
        General Williams. Sir, General Williams at West Point. I
    will start.
        So, sir, we have, as a part of--back to my earlier comment
    about what our chief refers to as our corrosives: sexual
    assault, sexual harassment, racism, and extremism. So the
    approach we have taken here, as I mentioned before, is how we
    have elevated character.
        What I don't want here at West Point is that we have sort
    of this whack-a-mole approach. We have to approach this
    comprehensively from an interdisciplinary standpoint. This is
    about treating each other with dignity and respect. We start
    there and we end there in our small squads, peer-to-peer
    relationships.
        And so, sir, what we do, to answer specifically your
    question, what we have been doing, we are on our fifth
    honorable living day. So, in 2 weeks, I will stand down the
    entire Academy--the cadets, the community. There will be no
    work, there will be no sports, no one will go to class. And we
    will focus on this very subject. The Secretary of Defense has
    given us some interim guidance on how these discussions will
    ensue, and I know my wingmen are working on it as well.
        But that, for us, is just a preliminary step. We will take
    it much further. The key to this, sir, is that these young men
    and women look each other in the eye and face this issue and
    talk to each other about this. So we will provide the space and
    the time for the Academy to come together and talk about
    extremism.
        Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Crist. General, if I could follow up--and thank you
    very much. I appreciate that.
        So when you stand down the entire Academy and you discuss
    this, what is, sort of, the forum, format? How do you do that?
    What do you talk about? Have you done one yet already?
        General Williams. Yes, sir. Not specifically in an
    extremism space, but in these other corrosives, we have done
    it.
        So the cadets actually demand them; they ask. They are a
    vital part of it. The cadets help us design what it is going to
    look like.
        So it usually starts in our stadium, sir, with myself and
    the other senior leaders. And I stand up and talk about our
    values and what is important and why it is important to be in
    this space. So I will start off the day.
        And then, normally, what we found in the last one--we did
    one on racism last fall--we will have a cadet panel. So the
    cadets will be up there, and they will share their experiences
    with their classmates.
        Mr. Crist. Right.
        General Williams. And there will be real, raw conversations
    which will pull at the emotive strings a little bit.
        And then, from there, we will bring in, sometimes, experts
    from the field, sort of referring back to the earlier question.
        But the most important, vital part, sir, is the small
    group, not at the macro level but at the micro level, at the
    squads and platoons, facilitated by our great TACs and TAC NCOs
    and our professors facilitating those questions. Because our
    young men and women are at different parts of their 47-month
    journey, and they are going to need a little assist.
        And so they will have these discussions, but then our folks
    who have--our majors and our colonels and our generals and
    sergeants and coaches will be part of this vital, active
    conversation, which will help them fill in the gaps if we need
    to, sir.
        Mr. Crist. That is excellent.
        It sounds like to me--I have these yellow wristbands that I
    wear every day, and it says, ``Practice the golden rule every
    day.'' And, of course, the golden rule is ``do unto others as
    you would have done unto you.'' And, to me, that is the
    ultimate in character, that you treat people with mutual
    respect, with decency, and that you comport yourself that way.
    I try to do it every day. I don't always succeed, but I try.
        And it sounds like, to me, that that is sort of the road
    you are going down when you stand down the Academy for a full
    day--no class, no sports, no nothing, except talking about
    character and decency and goodness.
        General Williams. Yes, sir. If I could follow up,
    absolutely, sir, that is exactly the heart of this. Nothing
    else matters except this.
        And then we have follow-on--we are not so naive to think
    that that one day is going to make a difference. It is going to
    send a clear and unambiguous signal to everybody on the post
    that the leaders care, but then there is the follow-up action.
    What is the action plan? What do we do after that day? And that
    is what we are finding.
        And we work with our cadets. And the cadets lead in this
    space. Our trust in peer cadets absolutely champion this space.
    And we look forward to talking to you more about that, sir, in
    the future. They do really well in facilitating these tough
    discussions.
        Mr. Crist. General, I appreciate your answer. I am out of
    time. I will yield back. But God bless you, and thank you.
        Ms. McCollum [presiding]. I am back. And I understand it is
    Mr. Diaz-Balart's turn to ask a question.

                             Character Development

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Madam Chairwoman, thank you so much.
        All of you have spent--and I think it has been very
    productive--talking a lot about sexual assault, which is so
    important, and also the instances of cheating, for the lack of
    a better term.
        And, obviously, a big part of what you all do--and you do
    it better than anyone in the Nation and, frankly, anyone in the
    world--is instill, you know, character and character
    development, but you do a lot of that through peer-to-peer
    leadership. There was some conversation about that.
        Right now, with COVID and everything else--and we have seen
    the increase of incidents, for example, you know, of cheating,
    et cetera--but how are you able to instruct, you know, get that
    character development, when, in fact, you know, we are limited
    on the peer-to-peer interaction?
        And anyone who wants to deal with it, or maybe all of you.
        General Clark. Sir, Lieutenant General Clark. I can start
    with that.
        The character development--and here at the Air Force
    Academy, we have a leader-of-character development framework
    that our whole program is focused on, because that is the core
    of what we do. And we are able to actually do things virtually
    that we haven't been able to do in a world where we weren't as
    virtual.
        For example, we just had a National Character and
    Leadership Symposium, where we had dozens of leaders of
    character from around our country, regardless of--some were
    military, some from the civilian sector. And what they do is,
    they are able to share with our cadets and other partners that
    we invite into this symposium to give them examples and to help
    them understand what it means to be a leader of character, what
    it means to live honorably. And the theme for this year's
    symposium was ``warrior ethos.''
        And we not only reached our whole cadet population, but we
    reached thousands of others outside of our population. But it
    is these kinds of examples and stories and opportunities for
    the cadets to see what that means.
        But, also, in our internal programs and processes, like you
    mentioned, peer-to-peer education is critical, but the virtual
    world allows us to reach people in different ways. And I
    believe that we are able to continue our program and still
    focus on our leader-of character framework to develop those
    leaders that are the core of our mission.
        Over.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Is there a way to kind of know if that is
    as effective, you know, the whole virtual world, as effective
    as one-on-one, you know, human interaction when it comes to
    character development?
        And, actually, the same thing on, you know, obviously, you
    know, sexual assault and sexual harassment, which is, you know,
    the worst possible infraction, right?
        So is there a way to know if--can we track how effective
    this is, this new reality of virtual, you know, contact versus,
    you know, human-to-human contact?
        General Clark. I think it is hard to know, sir, what, you
    know, the end results would be and is it as effective. My gut
    tells me that person-to-person, face-to-face contact, in many
    instances, is better. But when we are limited in the ways that
    we are, we are doing the absolute best that we can.
        And I think that at least the feedback from our cadets is
    that they still have those opportunities. And we can't miss a
    beat. We don't have time to rest just because COVID is here and
    is a part of our lives now. We still have to develop these
    leaders, because we still have to graduate these cadets when
    their time comes so that they can go out and serve.
        But I think your point is well-taken. Sometimes face-to-
    face is just better. That human interaction helps us. But we
    are working to overcome some of those challenges.
        Over, sir.

                                 Mental Health

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. And, lastly, really, on the same issue, I
    imagine that, also, you know, it is more difficult to kind of
    find out, track, frankly, discover issues of mental health when
    you don't have, again, the one-on-one interaction.
        So I am assuming that those are all challenges that you all
    are--I know that you are facing them, and I know that you are
    doing the best job--probably the best job in the country. But
    it would be interesting to kind of figure out what you are
    looking at, what is working, what isn't working on this new era
    that you all have kind of inherited of having to do this stuff
    virtually.
        General Williams. Sir, if I could comment, I will tell you
    that a lot of what Rich talked about in terms of setting these
    frameworks--my dean does a great job with our professors here
    to set a framework that they can operate in. So she goes
    through a very deliberate process of training up and
    calibrating our leaders.
        And I will give you an example. Last year, ``study of war
    and the human condition'' were the threads that linked all,
    whether you were on the STEM side or the humanities side. So
    she sets the framework out, and our great officers and
    civilians here move in that.
        Next year, the theme for next year is ``ethical leadership
    in a diverse world.'' So they now have the template, which they
    can then spend the spring and the summer preparing that way.
        And back to the metrics or measuring, I will tell you, one
    technique we use in the honor thing--and Congressman Womack
    mentioned it earlier--but our Special Leader Development
    Program, allowing cadets--you measure on the front end of their
    47-month experience, and then you measure on the aft end of
    their 47-month experience, and you can see the maturity in
    their writing in terms of how they think about what is
    happening to them, what is happening in the world around them.
        That is how you develop a lot of these metrics, which are
    very hard to tease out and are things that are a little more
    opaque.

                             Infrastructure Repairs

        Ms. McCollum. I would like to talk about facilities for a
    few minutes. So, when I reviewed the information from my staff
    regarding the needs and repairs on some of the items, they have
    been listed there for quite a few years. The committee had held
    a service academy hearing 2 years ago, and it really appears
    that items are still there from 2019. They haven't been
    addressed. They have either been not funded or underfunded.
        Let me give you an example. Support facility Camp Buckner,
    where I was 2 years ago, we saw serious issues with mold. Mr.
    Womack was there on that. Or the utility bridge at the Naval
    Academy, that urgently needs to be replaced, and if we lose
    that, that will be a catastrophe.
        So I am going to press the secretaries of your services on
    those questions, because these issues can't lay dormant. And,
    you know, 10-, 20-, 30-year plans for some of this stuff is
    putting a lot of hope and a lot of wishes that they are going
    to move forward.
        So I am going to ask you gentlemen to take a minute and,
    you know, tell me why you think these delays remain and why
    these projects haven't been addressed in a timely fashion.
        Because I am going to ask your leadership why they aren't a
    priority. I am not going to ask you why you don't think that
    they are a priority with your leadership; I am going to ask
    them. Because we think it is a priority.
        So we are going to have some questions that we are going to
    follow up on, but we just have a minute right now, and I have a
    page of questions on these projects that the committee staff is
    going to be sharing with you, and then I will share with the
    whole committee when we get the answers back.
        But what is the hold-up on these projects not getting done,
    in your opinion? Because I think Mr. Womack and I and others
    have made it very clear in our conversations with the service
    heads that we are looking to see that these projects be
    finished.
        And maybe I will start with you, Mr. Buck. Because letting
    that bridge wait too long is, in my opinion, a very
    unprofessional, dangerous, and foolish thing to do.
        Admiral Buck. Thank you, ma'am, for that question and the
    opportunity to give a response. And I don't know whether my
    response mirrors my colleagues, so this is just unique to the
    Naval Academy and to our Navy.
        Since 2010, my budgets for sustainment, renovation, and
    modernization have remained pretty constant, without
    recognizing the growth that we have had here of new
    construction. And then, when we hit sequestration in 2013 and a
    significant reduction in budgets, our Navy as a whole had to
    reprioritize what was most important to the infrastructure for
    the whole Navy. And we all were affected by that, no matter
    what installation or where we were located in the world. And
    the Naval Academy wasn't immune from that.
        So we put on hold--as to use your word, we put on hold some
    really important projects to either renovate, modernize, and we
    began to focus just on sustainment, and sometimes sustainment
    with Band-Aids, just to get us through with leaky roofs and
    things like that, but not a whole frame-up restoration where it
    might be needed.
        You have mentioned one of my top three priorities. The
    utility bridge is in need of replacement. MacDonough Hall,
    which is the center of my physical fitness mission at the Naval
    Academy, is on the chart right now to be renovated, and we hope
    that funding remains that has been given to us.
        Our Navy, in fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2021 that we
    are enjoying right now, revitalized our infrastructure budgets.
    And we have been healthy and been able to begin to plan back
    toward improving and addressing our infrastructure projects.
        What I want to leave you with and the committee with is, we
    need to be sure that we have a consistent budget in each of the
    out-years. That would be really important to our planning
    effort and our ability to know that we are going to get after
    our highest-priority infrastructure projects.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Clark, if you take a minute, you were
    impacted by the recent storms along with some other projects
    that you had. Some of the issues with your pipes, is that being
    considered a priority to be repaired now by the Air Force to
    help you out with that?
        Sir, you are on mute.
        General Clark. Can you hear me, ma'am?
        Ms. McCollum. I can hear you now, sir.
        General Clark. Okay. I am sorry.
        Yes, it is a priority for our Air Force. But I will say,
    overarching, our enterprise is constantly sustaining,
    restoring, modernizing across the entire Air Force. We do
    receive, I think, priority commensurate with the rest of the
    Air Force and Space Force mission, and we have been in a
    steady, I think, restoration and modernization mode for some
    time.
        As you stated earlier, all of our buildings were built at
    the same time, back, you know, in the sixties and the fifties.
    So we are seeing a lot of the issues that are arising; they all
    arise in about the same timeframe. And our Air Force is
    responsive to help us with this. It is just the problem is
    pretty significant and we have a constant drumbeat.
        But I would say that we are right in line with the rest of
    our Air Force as far as SRM goes. So we could always use more
    help from a budgetary standpoint, because there is a lot to do
    here, and we appreciate anything you can do for us.
        Thank you, ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Williams, I am going to let you have the
    last word, because I mentioned your facility first, and Mr.
    Womack and I have seen it firsthand.
        Is that a 10-year, did you say, repair for those buildings?
    Some of them have mold, they have water issues and that. Is
    that a 10-year spread-out that they are giving you to replace
    the buildings?
        General Williams. Chair McCollum, thank you. And I
    appreciate your continued focus, as you and Congressman Womack
    were out here 2 years. We actually were helped a lot by you
    coming out here to Camp Buckner.
        The Army has fully endorsed and integrated all aspects of
    our plan. We came up with a plan shortly after your visit, the
    USMA 2035 plan. Fiscal year 2021-2030 facility investment plan,
    which I worked very closely with AMC and senior Army leaders,
    is fully endorsed.
        And with respect to Buckner, we are working right now. In a
    few weeks, we get after the barracks and the mold. It is a two-
    phase project. The first part of the phase is focused on the
    barracks that we took you in and you saw that mold. The second
    phase is a 5-year MILCON plan that gets at both where the task
    force that comes and participates with the summer training,
    Camp Natural Bridge, and also Camp Buckner.
        We feel very comfortable with what the Army has currently
    given us with respect to funding associated with Camp Buckner,
    ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, we are going to follow up and make sure
    that, you know--there is a reason why we became appropriators.
    It is nice to have great ideas and want to do all the wonderful
    things the authorizers have, but without the resources to do
    it, they remain just great ideas.
        General Williams. Thanks, Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We will be following up on that.
        Mr. Ryan, thanks again for helping me out.

                              Health and Wellness

        Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Madam Chair. I almost kept that gavel,
    you know.
        Ms. McCollum. You have your own.
        Mr. Ryan. I appreciate it.
        I just have one question. And thank you for all the answers
    and thoroughness.
        I want to talk to General Clark for a second about the
    Academy, and you guys conducted a test of the new campus dining
    card, if you are familiar with this.
        And one of the issues that we have been working on a lot
    really is combining the idea around health and wellness,
    especially around diet, because we look at the cost of obesity,
    diabetes. It is more than a significant cost for us around
    healthcare for our Active Duty, and that makes its way into our
    VA budget as well.
        And, really, we want to try to get to the root issue there,
    and that is really teaching our men and women in the academies,
    you know, what to eat and how to eat and how to really function
    at a peak level. And they are, in so many ways, not different
    than many college kids, who--all of us who have been to college
    know that it is not necessarily the best diet in college.
        So I want to ask you about the Mitchell Dining Hall
    facility. The cadets were allowed to use their meal entitlement
    outside of the Mitchell Hall dining facility at venues offering
    healthier offerings instead of going out-of-pocket for other
    meals. It is generally known that, at the service academies,
    they do not eat all their meals at the campus dining facility.
        We have heard that your program, not surprisingly, was
    extremely popular with the cadets who were fortunate to be a
    part of this test, but we heard that the test was cut short.
    And so if you could just speak in the next couple of minutes,
    why was the program stopped, and what were the key findings
    from the program, and will you be implementing any of those
    changes into the program moving forward?
        Sorry, you are still muted. There you go, General.
        General Clark. Can you hear me, sir?
        Mr. Ryan. I can hear you now, yep.
        General Clark. Apologies. A little tech difficulty.
        Mr. Ryan. That is all right.
        General Clark. We need that IT funding. That is what is
    going on there, sir.
        But I will just say, sir, that your point is spot-on.
    Healthy nutrition is key for peak performance here. At all of
    our academies, the rigor of our programs demands that our
    cadets are healthy, that their nutrition is solid.
        And we have just hired a new dietician for Mitchell Hall,
    we also hired an executive chef, with a focus on providing
    nutritious and delicious meals to our cadets so that they do
    have the desire to go into Mitchell Hall, into the dining
    facility, to take part in that. And we are getting some good
    results so far.
        As far as the dining card project that we did, we started
    that, and we, unfortunately, did have to cut it short due to
    COVID. And COVID didn't allow our cadets to go to some of the
    other options that they had for dining.
        So we cut it short. We do want to reinvigorate that
    program, though, in fiscal year 2022 so that we can provide
    those other options for our cadets to take part in. But
    regardless of how we do this, we want to ensure that it is
    always, always about their nutrition and that it is healthy
    options.
        So we will monitor it. We will probably start off small
    when we begin in fiscal year 2022 with on-base opportunities,
    and then look to perhaps expand. But we are going to start with
    our on-base options and provide them with healthy
    opportunities.
        Over, sir.
        Mr. Ryan. Well, I appreciate that.
        And, Madam Chair, as we have talked, you know, I want to do
    what we can from this committee really across the academies and
    across the military. We invest so much money into our men and
    women, yet we seem to lack the kind of initiatives around diet
    and nutrition. And we see it; the end result is around the
    diabetes and obesity issues that we have with Active Duty.
        And I believe that we have an opportunity with the
    academies really to set these young people up to really
    function at a very, very high level. You know, I watched with
    great interest the pre-stories of the Super Bowl, with Tom
    Brady and his diet and how he functions at such a peak level.
    We are putting a lot of money into these academies, a lot of
    money into these kids. We should try to get at least some level
    of that to our academies and our military.
        So, with that, I yield back the balance of my time, Madam
    Chair. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And our last question--and it is
    12:30 eastern standard time--had to do with lunch and food. So
    perfect timing.
        Gentlemen, I want to thank you for your accessibility to
    the committee. I think you know that we are here to make sure
    that our young men and women who go to our military academies
    graduate with a great education, a great sense of
    responsibility, a great sense of our appreciation for them. And
    part of the way that we do that is by the faculty that we give
    them and the facilities that they are attending. Because you
    are competing, we are competing, America is competing with all
    the other colleges and universities that are out there for
    these, the brightest and the most talented that our country
    has.
        So I want to thank you so much for everything. And we will
    follow up, especially on the maintenance and some of the
    facility issues. I look forward to COVID ending so that some of
    us can come out and visit your facilities and get to spend time
    with the midshipmen as well as the cadets and those who are
    serving at the Air Force Academy.
        So that concludes today's hearing. And, with that, the
    subcommittee stands adjourned. Thank you again.

                                             Wednesday, March 17, 2021.

               CLIMATE CHANGE, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND THE ARCTIC

                                   WITNESSES

     SHERRI GOODMAN, SENIOR FELLOW, WILSON CENTER
     VICE ADMIRAL DENNIS V. MCGINN (RET.), ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER, CENTER
        FOR CLIMATE AND SECURITY
        Ms. McCollum. This meeting will come to order.
        This hearing is fully virtual. So I am going to address a
    few things that Kyle did not talk about with housekeeping
    matters.
        For today's meeting, the chair or staff designated by the
    chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
    under recognition for the purpose of eliminating background
    noise.
        Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves.
    If you notice or I notice that you haven't unmuted yourself, I
    will ask you if you would like staff to unmute you. If you
    would like, indicate by nodding your head, and staff will
    unmute your microphone.
        I remind all the members and witnesses that the 5-minute
    clock still applies, and you can see the clock up in the screen
    there.
        If there is a technology issue, we will move to the next
    member until the issue is resolved, and you will retain the
    balance of your time.
        You will notice, as I said, a clock on your screen. That
    will show how much time is remaining. At one minute remaining,
    the clock will turn yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will
    gently tap the gavel, my mouse, to remind members that their
    time is almost expired.
        When your time has expired, the clock will turn red, and I
    will begin to recognize the other member. I will just start
    recognizing the other member once it turns red.
        In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order set
    forth in the House rules, beginning with the chair and ranking
    member; and then members who are present at the time that the
    hearing was called to order, they will be recognized in order
    of seniority; and, finally, members not present at the time of
    the hearing is called to order.
        And I am going off script for a minute. We are going to try
    to put the order on deck for speaking on the chat, so look at
    your chat screen. And hopefully we will get some feedback, and
    maybe if that works for members, then they will know when they
    are up.
        Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
    set up an email address to which members can send anything they
    wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings or markups.
    That email address has been provided to your staff.
        So that takes care of the housekeeping.

                      Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

        Last month, the subcommittee held a hearing on budget
    trends and potential trajectories of defense spending in the
    next 10 to 20 years. As I mentioned, I want the subcommittee to
    use our time before we see the fiscal year 2022 budget request
    to think about larger themes, what priorities we want to direct
    funds towards in the upcoming budget cycle to address future
    challenges. This is another hearing in that series.
        This morning, the subcommittee will receive testimony from
    two of the foremost experts on the subject of climate change
    and national security. Sherri Goodman is a senior fellow with
    the Polar Institute and Environmental Change and Security
    Program at The Wilson Center, and retired Vice Admiral Dennis
    McGinn is an advisory board member at the Center for Climate
    and Security. We look forward to both of their testimonies.
        There can be no doubt--no doubt--that our climate is
    changing. The Department of Defense and the entire Federal
    Government must be prepared or suffer the consequences.
        In the last few years, we have seen historic hurricanes,
    catastrophic damage to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, Camp
    LeJeune in North Carolina. Those hurricanes seriously impacted
    the Air Force and Marine Corps' operations and cost taxpayers
    millions of dollars.
        In 2019, the historic Mississippi floodwaters overflowed
    onto Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, posing a threat to U.S.
    Strategic Command operations. These are not isolated climate
    incidences. Climate change is a national security threat to our
    Nation now, and the threat is growing.
        The largest Federal consumer of energy--the largest--is the
    Department of Defense. It has a responsibility, then, to play a
    leading role in making its systems more efficient and to curb
    emissions in order to reduce these catastrophic events. And
    that is why I am pleased, in his first week of office,
    President Biden signed an executive order which requires the
    following: the Director of National Intelligence to issue a
    report on the national and economic security impacts of climate
    change; the Secretary of Defense to develop a climate risk
    analysis that could incorporate into modelling, simulation,
    wargaming, and other analysis; and, finally, the Secretary of
    Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to
    consider security implications of climate change in developing
    the National Defense Strategy, defense planning guidance, the
    Chairman's risk assessment, and other relevant strategy
    planning and programming documents.
        These actions are long overdue, and I thank President Biden
    for leading on this critical issue.
        The change in climate will impact every corner of the
    Earth, but nowhere is it more pronounced than in the Arctic. As
    a former social studies teacher, I can say many Americans don't
    realize that the United States is an Arctic nation, and I have
    a map here, and you can look at it, and I handed out a map
    before. This is my moment to be a social studies teacher. You
    need to look at your map and look at Alaska, and look at how we
    are part of the Arctic Council, folks.
        We must ensure that the Arctic region plays an appropriate
    role in our national security planning. Our adversaries, they
    are active in the region, and we must be ready to respond from
    issues relating to thawing permafrost affecting installations
    or our ability to train and use equipment that can survive in
    extreme environments. We must ensure the freedom--the freedom
    of navigation through the Bering Strait, and these are just
    some of the important topics to discuss.
        With that, I want to thank everyone for participating at
    today's hearing, and I would like to recognize our
    distinguished ranking member, Mr. Calvert, for his comments.

                         Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

        Mr. Calvert. Well, thank you.
        Thank you, Chair McCollum. I appreciate that.
        And happy Saint Patrick's Day. And I apologize for some of
    our Republican colleagues who won't be on the conference this
    morning because we have our Republican Conference meeting this
    morning. Some of them won't make it or be on late.
        But let me extend a warm with welcome to our distinguished
    witnesses. As the United States continues to focus on our
    National Security Strategy on great power competition,
    specifically threats arising from a more assertive China and
    Russia, it is important that we be attentive to other
    nontraditional challenges.
        Over the years, Department of Defense has periodically
    assessed the effects of a changing climate on DOD missions,
    operational plans, and installations. A report to Congress in
    2019, for example, noted a range of severe related events
    impacting our military installations; discussed how a change in
    climate can create insecurity, increasing demands for
    humanitarian assistance; and how it can create unanticipated
    vulnerabilities through mission execution.
        Perhaps the most notable impact of changing climate to our
    strategic environment has been in the Arctic, as the chair
    mentioned. According to a new report by the Atlantic Council, a
    geopolitical friction over resources, territory, and
    transportation channels suggest the Arctic is likely to be one
    of the 21st century's most contested areas.
        With that in mind, I welcome Secretary Austin's
    announcement that the Department will take appropriate actions
    to incorporate climate change considerations in DOD's
    activities and risk assessments to mitigate this driver of
    insecurity. I look forward to hearing from our experts on these
    issues and begin our assessment of the Department of Defense
    budget for the fiscal year 2022.
        Again, thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us.
        And, with that, chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much, Mr. Calvert.
        To the witnesses, your full written testimony will be
    placed in the record, and members have copies at their desks.
        In the interest of time, I would strongly encourage each of
    you to keep your summarized statement to 5 minutes because we
    are going to have to leave time for questions. And I want you
    to be complete, as succinct as you can also, in responding to
    our questions so we can get more in.
        Ms. Goodman, we will start with you. Welcome, and thank you
    for being here.

                        Summary Statement of Ms. Goodman

        Ms. Goodman. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and
    distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
    opportunity to testify today.
        I have over 30 years of experience as a national security
    professional. I served as the first Deputy Under Secretary of
    Defense for Environmental Security in the 1990s and for 14
    years at the Center for Naval Analysis, now at The Wilson
    Center, and the Center for Climate and Security. The views I am
    presenting today are my own.
        As my Navy colleagues like to say, give me the BLUF, the
    bottom line upfront. Okay. Here is mine.
        First, climate change presents a direct threat to U.S.
    national security that must be integrated into defense
    strategy, planning, and programs at all levels.
        Second, the U.S. must prioritize climate change in its
    security engagements with allies and partners.
        And, third, the Department of Defense can lead by example
    on clean energy, resilience, and climate predictive
    capabilities in a way that both serves and supports our
    military mission and enhances American leadership at home and
    abroad.
        I will focus my opening remarks on the first point. My
    colleague, Vice Admiral McGinn, will address points two and
    three.
        Okay. A bipartisan Congress has already spoken to the
    unprecedented threat of climate change to national security. In
    the fiscal year 2018 NDAA, Congress stated that climate change
    is a direct threat to the national security of the United
    States and is impacting stability in areas of the world both
    where the U.S. Armed Forces are operating today and where
    strategic implications for a future conflict exists.
        As far back as the 2008 NDAA, Congress directed that the
    national security implications of climate change be included in
    the National Defense Strategy, the National Military Strategy,
    and the Quadrennial Defense Review.
        The CNA Military Advisory Board, which I founded in 2007,
    comprised of senior U.S. retired generals and admirals,
    including Vice Admiral McGinn, identified climate change as a
    threat multiplier, recognizing that climate change can
    exacerbate political instability where food, water, and
    resource shortages already exist, often in the world's most
    dangerous and fragile regions.
        But it is also here at home. Impacts from extreme weather
    and sea-level rise also pose threats to military installations
    and strain our military readiness in the U.S. and around the
    world. As you mentioned, Madam Chair, the losses at Camp
    LeJeune and Tyndall Air Force Base from Hurricanes Florence and
    Michael in 2018 are estimated by DOD to be approximately $3
    billion to $5 billion each for each base, so we are already
    paying for this.
        And, as the ranking member noted, in 2019, a DOD report
    identified 79 military installations facing climate-related
    risks, including flooding, drought, and wildfire. The National
    Guard now responds to humanitarian-type assistance, both at
    home and health-related and around the world, and is straining
    our military resources and readiness.
        These factors have implications for our ability to project
    power and influence around the world and can constrain our
    capacity to effectively advance our interests abroad.
        For example, China is exerting greater control over
    resources and supply chains, from PPE to energy, both
    domestically and to gain power and an influence over parts of
    the world, including the Arctic, Latin America, and Africa.
        In some cases, the U.S. will need to compete for influence
    where China is taking advantage of climate change to improve
    its military posture in the South China Sea or become the
    relief provider of first resort to vulnerable Pacific Island
    nations.
        In the Arctic, China and Russia are exerting greater
    influence in an open Arctic due to climate change, which is
    emboldening their actions. China has declared itself to be a
    near Arctic state with ambitions to build a Polar Silk Road
    across the region. Russia envisions a toll road for shipping
    and transit across its northern sea route and seeks to enforce
    this maritime route as an internal waterway. As we see an
    increase from commercial activity, the U.S. must increase its
    preparedness and its search-and-rescue capability.
        In sub-Saharan Africa, while not the sole factor, climate
    change has contributed to political instability there as well.
    Already, changes in precipitation patterns and droughts are
    exacerbating existing tensions among farmers and herders in the
    Sahel.
        In the past year, climate-change-related flooding
    contributed to instability in East Africa, a region already
    strained by the pandemic, rising food insecurity, and a locust
    plague. As the head of the World Food Program described the
    events of 2020 in the region, it is shock upon shock upon
    shock.
        The DOD can lead by example, and Vice Admiral McGinn will
    address those specific ways in which using resilience,
    technology, predictive capability, and clean energy can help
    address these challenges.
        In closing, Congress has strengthened and should continue
    to strengthen authorities, programs, and funding available to
    the Department to address these threats. Climate proofing our
    security is essential to protect America's 21st century near-
    and long-term national security interests.
        Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member Calvert. I look
    forward to your questions.
        [The information follows:]

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        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. It sounds like we are going
    to have testimony that really is going to build and complement
    one another, so thank you both for coordinating that.
        Vice Admiral McGinn, you are next.

                      Summary Statement of Admiral McGinn

        Admiral McGinn. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member
    Calvert, distinguished members of the subcommittee, first order
    of business, happy Saint Patrick's Day. What a wonderful and
    great day to have this important conversation.
        I have over 35 years of experience in the uniform of the
    United States Navy. I served for almost 4 years as the
    Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 2013 to 2017 for Energy,
    Installations, and Environment. And, importantly, I have over
    15 years' experience in the private sector working challenges
    and opportunities in energy and environmental issues, including
    climate change.
        Secretary Goodman very succinctly framed it with the three
    bottom lines upfront and very effectively summarized that first
    critical point that climate change indeed presents a direct
    threat to U.S. national security. So I will pick up on the
    second two that the U.S. must prioritize climate change in
    global security engagements, and that the Department must lead
    by example.
        As Secretary of Defense Austin has stated, quote, ``There
    is little about what the Department does to defend the American
    people that is not affected by climate change.'' He referenced
    specifically our national security strategies, operations, and
    infrastructure.
        When it comes to U.S. security engagements around the
    world, we have stated in our own Center for Climate and
    Security Plan for America that the Defense Department should
    develop a security forces climate engagement plan to promote
    regular military-to-military and civil-military international
    engagement in order to enhance the operational resilience of
    U.S. allies and partners and to enhance United States'
    influence vis-a-vis its primary competitors.
        Importantly, combatant commanders around the globe should
    engage allied and partner nations' militaries in adapting to
    climate change and working to mitigate the adverse effects to
    military operations, energy resilience, infrastructure, and
    readiness through a variety of pathways, everything from formal
    intergovernmental negotiations under NATO, or regional--
    regionally focused military and civil security planning forums.
        The third point of framing our bottom lines upfront,
    leading by example. As the Nation's largest user of energy, as
    you have pointed out, Chair McCollum, DOD can lead by example
    in key energy and climate technologies that align nicely with
    the military mission. Here are just a couple of examples.
        Electric vehicles. The Department of Defense leases 166,000
    vehicles from the General Services Administration every year
    according to the Fiscal Year 2020 Strategic Stability
    Performance Plan. The Department can help diversify its
    transportation energy sources, reduce operational costs and
    carbon footprint and also help to scale up and accelerate the
    transition to net-zero transportation through the use of
    electric vehicles of all types, nontactical, and rapid
    deployment of charging stations on DOD installations.
        Micro grids and resilient transmission infrastructures. The
    Department of Defense needs to be able to carry out its
    critical military missions on key installations, despite the
    growing threats of cyber-attack; severe weather, such as ice
    storms, wildfires, hurricanes, floods; or even deliberate
    terrorist attack. That is why military bases practice, quote,
    ``Black Start'' exercises to recover from a power outage and
    maintain operations for extended periods, even if the grid is
    down.
        The technologies and practices needed to ride out these
    threats, including micro grids, distributed energy systems, and
    advanced energy storage methods, will have the added benefit of
    promoting resilient infrastructure throughout our civilian
    communities.
        Climate predictive capabilities. From military operations
    planning to resilient base infrastructure, a new generation of
    Earth system observations and predictive capabilities that
    provide asset-level climate data analytics for shorter term--
    hours to weeks to months--planning is becoming increasingly
    available both in government technical centers and in the
    private sector. As DOD adapts these technologies for the
    military mission, that will further reduce risk to both
    operations and to our military infrastructure.
        In conclusion, our Nation's energy, economic, and
    environmental security are the critical foundations upon which
    our overall national security and quality of life rest. The
    essential leadership role of the Department of Defense in
    facing the challenges of climate change can effectively turn
    those challenges into great opportunities for America and for
    our partners.
        Thank you very much, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The information follows:]

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        Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
        The members on this committee, before I became chair, heard
    me ask all kinds of questions about the Arctic and talk about
    some of the challenges in Africa, so I am going to save my
    questions now for the end of this round and let Mr. Ryan go
    next.
        Mr. Ryan.
        Mr. Ryan. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you
    for prioritizing this hearing. I think this is a critically
    important issue. And, as our witnesses have testified, this has
    far-reaching implications for our military, our economy, our
    country. So I want to say thank you.
        Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everybody. Glad we are getting
    right to work here on Saint Patty's Day. We can celebrate
    later.
        I have got a couple of questions, and I would like Madam
    Secretary Goodman and Admiral McGinn both to kind of take a
    crack at this. You mentioned the electric vehicles,
    electrification, and how important that is. I want to kind of
    take a half a step back here, and I have had conversations with
    the chairwoman about this.
        The ability for the Defense Department to spend money, to
    procure things, is an awesome amount of buying power and I
    think can shift the market in significant ways, whether we are
    talking about electrification or anything else. If you could
    just talk to us about--we did a call a couple days ago with the
    Energy Subcommittee with Bill Gates and his new book about, you
    know, saving ourselves from climate disaster, and part of the
    conversation was about moving into kind of green steel and
    cement.
        And have we done anything within the Department of Defense,
    or have you looked at anything to say we are going to give
    preference to--as we are building things, we are going to give
    preference to those companies that are moving in that
    direction? And I know we are not there yet, but can you see
    that as a significant way to really begin to also be a part of
    shifting the market towards a greener economy?
        And the other one I would like you to touch upon, too, we
    buy a--you know, billions of dollars' worth of food to feed our
    military, and one of the more progressive ways of capturing
    carbon is through sustainable and regenerative agriculture. So
    is there a way that we can say we are going to give preference
    to General Mills, for example, just to pick a random company
    out of the country, but General Mills, who is buying farms to
    do regenerative agriculture to supply their own food
    production?
        I just think, if we are going to do this, there are kind of
    ways that maybe are one layer deep or two layers deep that
    could really begin shifting the market. I mean, if the
    Federal--if the Department of Defense said we are going to give
    preference for food contractors for those food production
    companies that participate 30 percent in regenerative
    agriculture in the next however many years or whatever we would
    do, we could significantly start capturing carbon and really
    moving the market.
        So, if you could just comment on that, steel, cement,
    regenerative agriculture, how do we really do this in a big way
    aside from the technology and the other things that you
    mentioned?
        Ms. Goodman. Okay. Thank you very much, Congressman Ryan,
    for that question.
        It was about a decade ago now that the Department of
    Defense established energy as a key performance parameter in
    its acquisition system, and that led to being able to
    prioritize energy for the purpose of ensuring that there was
    adequate energy in our weapons systems for performance. Prior
    to that, at least we had always assumed we had energy at the
    front.
        The next step--and there have been a variety of efforts to
    green the procurement chain--supply chain over the years. For
    example, I remember fighting hard to have recycled paper at The
    Pentagon back in the 1990s, and we were deploying the first
    generation of hybrid vehicles in the vehicles DOD leases from
    GSA. Now there are greater opportunities to advance that with
    electrification.
        As you note, in certain sectors--in certain sectors--DOD
    does have substantial buying power because of its own mission
    needs. So where those mission needs align--and I would say
    that, given the President's executive order and the Secretary
    of Defense's strong statement, and including the Climate
    Working Group that has been now established in the Department
    of Defense to look at various lines of effort, there will be an
    effort to look at how appropriately to green the supply chain
    across DOD.
        And that would include potentially, where cost-effective
    and meeting mission needs, the ability to, as you say, acquire
    either more agriculture that is based on more regenerative
    properties that conserves resources--as you say, conserves
    water, as--and leads us to a next generation, as well as in the
    energy supply chains.
        As you know, DOD has been an exporter of technology for
    many years, from the internet to GPS, and I see that that could
    potentially happen again in some of these areas.
        Mr. Ryan. Great. Admiral, any comment?
        Admiral McGinn. I think your question is right on the mark,
    Mr. Ryan, and I agree that the Department of Defense has
    tremendous buying power; indeed, the entire Federal Government.
        And using that buying power in a very careful way--we don't
    want to spend money on much more expensive goods and services
    for DOD or for--indeed, for the entire Federal Government. But
    there are so many ways that we can put our thumb on the scale
    towards more sustainable products, whether it is steel, cement,
    agricultural products.
        These are industries that, in many cases, are very, very
    close to very economic scales. And, by using that buying power
    to accelerate and extend the scale-up of these goods and
    services, I think it is right on the mark.
        We don't clearly want to waste any money. We want to make
    sure that we are getting good value for every dollar. But we
    can do that in a way that has the double goodness of providing
    necessary materials to the Department of Defense and also
    provides preferences for American industries and American
    agriculture that can really have a beneficial effect across the
    economy.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ryan. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Great question, Mr. Ryan.
        Mr. Calvert.

                 Military Installations and Climate Resilience

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        I think this question, probably both our witnesses may want
    to participate in an answer. As I mentioned in my opening
    testimony, there are about 200 bases in the United States, and
    the military maintains and operates hundreds of other
    facilities abroad.
        The need to climate-proof key military installations can be
    readily handled by seawalls, improved infrastructure reliance,
    and, as the worst case, relocation of bases to less vulnerable
    locations.
        What percent of our bases at home and abroad need to be
    climate-proofed today, and what will that cost? Can the
    military leverage the private sector to incorporate new
    technology in future military construction projects?
        So either Ms. Goodman or Admiral?
        Admiral McGinn. I would like to have Ms. Goodman go first
    because then I can say, ``I agree with everything that
    Secretary Goodman says.''
        Mr. Calvert. Okay. Fine.
        Ms. Goodman. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Admiral
    McGinn.
        Okay. Congressman Calvert, it is a great question. You
    know, almost all of our bases really need to be climate-proofed
    and made resilient. As was noted earlier, we are already paying
    billions of dollars to rebuild Tyndall Air Force Base, Camp
    LeJeune, and Offutt from the hurricanes that occurred in the
    last few years. So we need to flood proof, hurricane proof. We
    need to address permafrost at bases in the Arctic where it is
    collapsing.
        So, as we do this, if we do it smartly, we will invest for
    the future. We will also be working with our communities in a
    way that makes them more resilient, too. And, in programs that
    Congress has authorized and appropriated to, there is
    increasing collaboration among communities. And I would say
    that is very important to continue because bases are part of
    their communities, whether it is in Norfolk or Annapolis or all
    around the country. And there are opportunities to do this in a
    way that helps lift up and make our communities and our bases
    and their military families stronger.
        Admiral McGinn. I would add, Mr. Calvert, that we have to
    have a prioritization system. Every installation in the United
    States and around the world could use more climate-proofing, if
    you will, or the additional of resilient design. But there has
    to be, because of budgetary considerations, a keen sense of
    priority.
        It is not a question of if. It is a question of when.
    Climate-driven severe weather is coming to an installation near
    you. It can be any form. It can be wildfires out West. It can
    be flooding. It can be severe weather, hurricanes, et cetera.
        So the idea is to look at those installations that are most
    vulnerable to the various types of threats and to try to invest
    in resilience. In many cases, it is not a lot of money. It is
    mostly being thoughtful about how you design a base, where you
    put things.
        For example, if I have a building on an installation that
    is in a 100-year flood plain, probably be a good idea not to
    put the computers in the basement of that building. Just locate
    critical functions in areas that are going to be less
    vulnerable to the flooding or other effects of wind or heat or
    whatever.
        I think, also, thinking about how we actually use
    construction materials, cross-laminated timber is really,
    really seeing a resurgence. It is as strong as steel for very,
    very large buildings these days. So, using different materials
    can really have a double effect of good strength and also
    sourcing from very, very sustainable industries.
        Ms. Goodman. And let me just add I think the private sector
    will be doing most of this work because that is how DOD will
    see technologies, whether it is climate-predictive capabilities
    or new resilience infrastructure, and there are going to be
    great opportunities for Americans at all levels across the
    country through the private sector from firms big and small to
    do the work of making more resilient our military
    infrastructure.
        Mr. Calvert. I know--I was over at Camp LeJeune shortly
    after the hurricane damage, and a lot of those facilities,
    which were built some time ago in a hurry during World War II
    and other times, but they weren't built to the code that we
    have today. And a lot of those facilities--certainly Tyndall is
    the same, but that--so today's building techniques, I think,
    more engages what we need to do, I would hope.

                       Military Bases and Energy Sources

        One issue on energy are these new small nuclear reactors
    that we are using more and more of around the country that have
    exciting capabilities. I would hope we are looking at using
    those as a small energy sources at various military bases----
        Admiral McGinn. I would say, most emphatically, that
    nuclear power has to have a future in global energy portfolio.
    The development of small modular reactors of various sizes is
    in fairly early development stage. I would say that the--
    probably in the 10-year timeframe when we would actually have
    them in a form with the kind of function that we would want to
    have on various military bases.
        They are part of a portfolio of energy choices, and--but I
    think we should, as the United States, boldly look at, what is
    the future of nuclear, and how can we make it a part? It is not
    a silver bullet, but it is part of a whole array of energy
    technologies that are emerging that can really, really help to
    diversify our energy sources and provide a lot more resilience.
        Ms. Goodman. I would add nuclear has a central role in our
    energy future. And, also, Congressman, the Uniform Facility
    Code that DOD uses to--is being updated to account for the
    climate resilience it needs when it rebuilds its bases now.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Some of the same questions I had.
    Good questions.
        Mr. Ruppersberger.

                                Arctic Security

        Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. Well, first, thank you, Chairwoman
    McCollum, for putting together this important hearing today.
        As a Member who represents the Chesapeake Bay watershed in
    Maryland, I am glad to have these distinguished panelists
    before us today to help us and the Department of Defense be a
    leader, not a laggard, on the issue of climate change.
        Now, coastal communities like my district in Maryland are
    home to 42 percent of our country's population and millions of
    businesses that supply most of our country's populations and
    millions of businesses that supply most of our gross domestic
    product.
        We must better position the Department to tackle this
    problem. It is both a moral issue of protecting the planet for
    future generations and a very real national security threat
    that our panelists today have so eloquently highlighted.
        Now the question is to both of the panelists. The security
    posture balance in the Arctic region has me worried. As more of
    the ice caps melt, the easier it is for nations to ignore the
    norms of securing cooperation in the Arctic and employ a go-it-
    alone strategy in a region that has historically thrived from
    skilled political cooperation because of the operating
    environment is so unforgiving.
        Now, Ms. Goodman, in your testimony, you mentioned how
    important it is for the U.S. to lead on this issue to better
    enable our hand in geopolitical negotiations that concern the
    Arctic.
        In your opinion, how big of a role does access to the
    region play? Does purchasing platforms that enable our access
    to the Arctic show our commitment to enforcing norms, or does
    it create a zero-sum game, or both?
        Ms. Goodman. Congressman, thank you for that question.
        I do think we need to up our game in the Arctic. We have a
    plan now--the Coast Guard has got an approved plan by Congress
    to build six new icebreakers to replace our aging one-and-a-
    half fleet. We need to move forward expeditiously with that.
    Our Department of Defense also needs to increase its Arctic
    capability.
        And, in the last year, all the services--the Air Force, the
    Navy, and, just yesterday, the Army--have issued new Arctic
    strategies. These are important to tie together now at the
    overall Department of Defense level to have an integrated
    approach to the set of Arctic capabilities that we need.
        And I am hopeful that we will take a whole-of-government
    approach because deterrence really is the best defense. By
    increasing our ability to meet our potential adversaries in the
    Arctic, that way we can hopefully continue to keep the peace
    but, at the same time, reduce risk of miscalculation of an
    accident that could require a search-and-rescue or a
    misunderstanding.
        What sometimes keeps me up at night is increased ship
    traffic through the region. As you said, vast, still difficult
    to operate in. If communication among vessels--and increasing
    exercises have already led to tensions when U.S. fishermen were
    found in areas where the Russians were exercising in the Bering
    Strait last summer, and the U.S. and Russia are only 30 miles
    apart at their narrowest point.
        So it is important for us to increase our presence in the
    region in order to keep the peace and keep stability.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay.
        Admiral McGinn. I would add, Mr. Ruppersberger, that, in
    addition to the traditional security threats that Ms. Goodman
    just outlined, the Arctic is having other effects. We are--have
    become familiar over the past few years with so-called polar
    vortex and the tremendous harm that that can do, most recently
    in Texas and in Oklahoma.
        Another aspect that is, I guess, more scientific but
    nevertheless ominous is the warming tundra in the Arctic tundra
    is releasing a lot of methane hydrates from deep below. There
    have even been explosions as this methane builds up, leaving
    craters that are a 100 meters deep.
        So the Arctic is very, very important, and it is just a
    real indicator of the climate changing and the potential for
    very, very bad effects coming from that.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. And I was in Alaska with the
    commandant of the Coast Guard about a year ago, and literally
    right up to the--we could see the glaciers just melting away
    right before our eyes, and that has got to affect sea--the sea
    level issues that we are all dealing with right now in the
    coastal areas.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Cole, I believe, has stepped out for a minute, so that
    will lead us to you, Mr. Carter.

             Department of Defense Installations Energy Consumption

        Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you for
    this very important hearing we are having today, and I really
    appreciate our guests that have come to talk about this.
        A number of critical energy projects of the U.S. military
    almost tripled from 2011 to 2015. And the Army, which, as you
    all know, I represent Fort Hood--its goal is to get to 25
    percent energy consumed from renewables by 2025 and to be zero
    by 2030.
        Fort Hood, Texas, right now is getting 50 percent of its
    power from renewable energy. 63,000 solar panels that are
    onsite, and 21,000 offsite wind turbines are producing 65
    milliwatts for power.
        How could the Department of Defense further lower energy
    costs in installations and lower its operational energy
    consumption and costs?
        Admiral McGinn. I have been impressed, Mr. Carter, by the
    tremendous deployment of especially wind power and increasingly
    solar power in Texas. It is a good example of us diversifying
    our energy portfolio in what is effectively the energy capitol
    of the world by getting less expensive, more sustainable
    renewable power as part of that critical resilient energy
    portfolio. And I think that not only the DOD but the entire
    economy is benefiting from a combination of renewable energy--
    solar, wind, and the addition of storage capabilities--
    batteries, if you will--and pump hydro--that can really, really
    help us to have sustainable and very, very much less expensive
    sources of energy.

                                Battery Storage

        Mr. Carter. And, as a backup question to you, you mentioned
    storage. To developing countries, that has been the big
    stumbling block over renewable energy.
        Where are we on battery storage? Is DOD actively engaging
    in the research it takes for battery storage because I know the
    industry is trying and trying, but at least the last time I
    looked, they weren't successful.
        Admiral McGinn. Couple of things. Near term, yes, the DOD
    is always doing good research related to energy storage, in
    partnership sometimes with NASA, the space operations. But,
    increasingly, as we deploy unmanned systems--surface, air,
    subsurface--they are going to need better energy storage in
    batteries. So that will contribute to the overall knowledge
    base.
        However, the cost of batteries, the capability, the energy
    density of batteries is increasing significantly, and that is
    good news for many, many applications, military and civilian.
        A little bit further term--let's say 5 to 10 years, the
    deployment of what is called green hydrogen is going to really
    be making a difference to capture the energy from the sun, from
    the wind, other renewable sources, and use it to maintain a
    baseload effectively of energy power for our various major
    grids as well as micro grids.

                               Electric Vehicles

        Mr. Carter. And, if you had to convert to electric cars,
    the range of electric vehicles right now is--I guess the--
    probably the biggest range they have got is around 400 miles.
    And the average of the--is around 200 miles. So, in that
    situation, how does that fit the overall battle plan of
    American warriors with the limited resources, and how do you
    refuel on the battlefield?
        Admiral McGinn. I believe that the focus on electric
    vehicles initially for DOD will be primarily on nontactical--
    what I call nontactical vehicles. The good news is the industry
    is producing greater battery density and, therefore, greater
    range of electric vehicles of all sorts, whether it is a bus, a
    minivan, or a sedan, or even pickup trucks. I am personally
    waiting for a good F-150 electric. If they can do a Mustang
    that is electric, I think they can do a good pickup truck as
    well.
        But I think the news--the good news is that the
    electrification of our transportation system is going to be
    good for our economy, first of all, and it is really going to
    be good for local, regional, and, of course, global
    environmental quality.
        Mr. Carter. Well, being from Texas, pickup trucks are
    really important to me, too. And, when they said they were
    going to have an F-150 out and then they backed off of it, it
    was discouraging for me, too, but I hope they will be
    victorious soon.
        Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Admiral McGinn. Yes, sir.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, as a granddaughter of a Ford mechanic
    in Montana, all of this is very interesting from Mustangs to
    pickup trucks.
        Mr. Kilmer.

                        Shipyards Risk of Climate Change

        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for holding
    this hearing today.
        I have got a dozen questions, but I will try to keep it to
    two. My first is for Ms. Goodman.
        You know, we are seeing threats like rising sea levels and
    seismic shifts and shoreline erosion and erratic weather
    patterns that really have the capacity to compromise the
    security of military bases across the country, including naval
    installations. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in my district is
    undeniably vulnerable to climate change and represents a single
    point of failure for carrier maintenance in the Pacific.
        In response to the growing need to counter threats brought
    about by climate change and to shore up our public shipyards,
    the Navy created an investment strategy called the Shipyard
    Infrastructure Optimization Plan, or SIOP, which is a 20-year,
    $21 billion effort to modernize these shipyards to increase
    their climate resilience, to improve resistance to earthquakes
    and other natural disasters.
        That is one piece of a multifaceted solution necessary to
    address a problem the size and scope of climate change. Another
    that comes to mind, although maybe not directly created for
    this purpose, is the Defense Community Infrastructure Program,
    DCIP. That is a program created in 2019 that was designed to
    address infrastructure deficiencies in communities surrounding
    military installations.
        And those grant funds can help to preserve military
    readiness and security, and I am thinking of examples of, you
    know, off-base infrastructure that may be vulnerable to climate
    change. It strikes me that Congress needs to work in
    coordination with the DOD to keep these programs like SIOP and
    DCIP on track.
        I would love to just get your sense. Do you think that the
    effects of climate change will outpace these mitigation
    efforts, and how important do you think it is for Congress and
    the DOD to look for areas to accelerate programs like the SIOP
    and like DCIP?
        Ms. Goodman. Mr. Kilmer, thank you for that question. I
    think it is absolutely essential. Those are two good programs
    that you mentioned. They are critical. Only with that
    investment and ambition and commitment of the Department of
    Defense to these and other programs will we be able to ensure
    that both our military infrastructure, for example, in your key
    district and in many others, is--becomes resilient to these
    climate threats, rising sea levels, extreme weather events,
    ocean acidification in your region as well, as well as water
    scarcity, flooding, drought in other regions.
        And so those are two very important programs. And what is
    particularly important about the second one you mentioned is
    the opportunity to work with the community because I think that
    is also essential.
        And I am pleased that Congress has continued to broaden the
    authorities for DOD to invest in conjunction with communities
    because some of these investments are better done when there is
    a cost sharing. For example, that program you mentioned has
    cost sharing also. The REPI program, the Readiness
    Environmental Protection Initiative, enables cost sharing
    between communities and DOD. And that is also going to be
    continually important in those areas and others in order to
    maximize the benefit.
        So thank you for raising that. I think these are very
    important programs for our future.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.

                    Department of Defense Building Materials

        Admiral, I wanted to follow up on Ranking Member Calvert's
    question. It seems like another way in which the DOD can be
    part of the solution is through innovative building materials.
    You know, the Department is one of the largest builders on the
    planet.
        You mentioned cross-laminated timber. I think there is a
    real opportunity there because it has a smaller carbon
    footprint than steel and concrete. It comes from a renewable
    resource.
        CLT isn't alone. We have seen incredible uses of recycled
    composite material. In my district, we have something called
    the Composite Technology Recycling Center that incorporates
    recycled carbon fiber into products to reduce weight and
    increase strength and promote sustainability.
        I want to get your sense, Admiral. What steps would you
    recommend to ensure that the DOD is taking advantage of
    innovative and alternative building materials? You know, are
    there enough resources being invested into developing new
    technologies, and how can Congress help on this front?
        Admiral McGinn. I think promoting--it is a great question.
    Promoting interaction between the public and private sector--in
    this case, DOD--and the building--advanced building industry is
    really, really critical, so that we break free of the old model
    of stick building on site, that we can move towards modular
    construction, new materials like CLT, and really, really take a
    look at how we actually design buildings, how we design
    facilities so that they are, by design, very, very much more
    efficient and effective and resilient.
        So I think that what the Congress can do is, in guidance to
    the Department of Defense, indeed to the Federal Government in
    all procurement for our buildings, to look for opportunities
    for private--public-private coordination and to try to remove
    barriers that may exist from old legislation that prevents the
    type of partnership that really shares risk, shares reward in
    approaching our building industry in new ways.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Admiral.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

                               Lower Energy Cost

        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        I just have a couple of questions. My first question is for
    both of the witnesses.
        The Department of Defense is the single largest energy user
    in the United States, and energy consumption is a significant
    cost to the Department and the services. So this is just sort
    of a follow-up question to Representative Kilmer's question.
        Transitioning to green energy in the Department can
    introduce efficiencies and reduce logistical requirements. So I
    guess my question is, how can the Department further lower
    energy costs at installations and--as well as operational
    energy consumption and costs, and are there enough resources
    being invested in energy innovation within the Department?
        Admiral McGinn. Sherri.
        Ms. Goodman. Okay. Thank you very, very much, Ms.
    Kirkpatrick, for that question.
        I think DOD has already invested a lot in recent years in
    improving its energy posture, but it can do more today. And
    there are many good--particularly in research and development
    to meet the military mission, there are some good programs.
    Among them, the Strategic Environmental Research and
    Development Program, the Energy Services Technology
    Certification Program, and a number of others also in the
    services. They do the good basic RDT&E. They do the
    demonstration validation. The challenge is to get over the
    valley of death and now deploy many of these new technologies
    for use.
        In your district, of course, we have one of the largest
    solar arrays, you know, at Davis-Monthan, and that is
    important. We can do more of that now that the cost of wind and
    solar has come down. But, as has been noted, there is more we
    can do in batteries, in energy transmission infrastructure.
        By setting the right targets, such as the Black Start
    exercises, which set a goal of being able to go without power
    from the grid for approximately 14 days, those increase--those
    incentivize the right type of investment. And there will be
    other goals, I am sure, that the Department of Defense will
    work on to help incentivize investment, and I think we will
    begin to see that R&D pay off as we also get some spinout into
    the commercial sector and we allow technologies to come into
    our work.
        Admiral McGinn. I would add that an inherently efficient
    military force, whether it is Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard,
    Air Force, is a more effective force. You can go further, stay
    longer, and carry more of your--whatever the payload you have
    if you are inherently more efficient in an operational energy
    sense.
        Clearly, on the installation side, the same thing applies.
    There was a great study about, I would say, 7 years ago by MIT
    Lincoln Labs that took a look at the benefits of centralizing
    emergency backup power so that you eliminate individual diesel
    generator sets for--scattered across an installation for
    emergency backup. They tend to be dirty, they tend to be
    unreliable, and they tend to be expensive to own and operate
    them and to procure them.
        So centralizing backup power and improving installation
    distribution is going to be a great contributor to greater
    resilience.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Cuellar has stepped out. Mr. Cole has not returned, so
    we are going to go to Mr. Crist next.

                       Flood Resiliency at Installations

        Mr. Crist. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for holding
    this very important hearing.
        The Tampa Bay region in Florida, where my district is
    located, is one of the most at-risk areas for storm surge from
    hurricanes in the world, comparable, in fact, to Miami and New
    Orleans in that regard.
        It has been nothing short of a miracle that we have avoided
    a direct hit for a very long time now since back before most of
    the area was settled and before MacDill Air Force Base, home to
    CENTCOM and SOCOM, was founded on the waterfront of Tampa Bay,
    including in 2017 when Hurricane Irma struck Tampa Bay as a
    major hurricane, while MacDill largely avoided damage from that
    storm.
        Admiral McGinn, what is the Department doing to improve
    flood resiliency at installations like MacDill where they are
    failing--falling short, rather--excuse me--and what can be done
    to either help them or push to do even more? Please, sir?
        Admiral McGinn. I think, Mr. Crist, the first thing that
    they are doing is they are looking at where are their critical
    assets, the most vulnerable ones? What are the single-point
    failures for a mission? MacDill, of course, as you know, with
    all of those Special Forces, Central Command operations,
    absolutely critical that they can sustain any type of weather
    and continue to do the mission.
        I think that taking a look at where are their electrical
    system vulnerabilities, where are the necessary pumps to reduce
    or to mitigate flooding, where are critical buildings, can
    there be a relocation, not writ large but selectively, to put
    critical functions in better locations or raise them up on
    upper stories of buildings, have methods of taking flooding in
    lower floors but be able to remove it but still keep the lights
    on and the function?
        It is a very tough engineering challenge but one that we
    have the ability to do, and I think our Navy Seabees and our
    Corps of Engineers are very much up to the task, especially if
    they work with the private sector and the good ideas and
    innovations that are out there.
        Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you very much.
        There seems to be a misconception out there that the threat
    of climate change poses to our facilities is only from storm
    surge or hurricanes. And, while that may be the case in many
    situations, the fires in California and the record-breaking
    inland low pressure system that flooded Offutt Air Force Base
    in Nebraska show that climate change can have consequences that
    are beyond what first it was imagined.
        For either of you, what have we learned over the past 5 to
    10 years about the full effects of climate change on our
    installations and defense infrastructure, and what is the
    Department doing or not doing to respond thereto?
        Ms. Goodman. Well, thank you, Mr. Crist.
        Yes, the Department has learned that it needs to address
    all the threat multipliers of climate change, from fires to
    floods, as well as sea-level rise and extreme weather, and
    drought in certain parts of the region which affect water
    availability at bases and communities.
        At Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, that severe flood
    really showed what Vice Admiral McGinn just said, where the new
    command headquarters--that was the newest building on the base
    and was built on higher ground--rode out the storm fairly well.
    It was the older, lower-lying buildings that were much more
    subject to damage. We have learned that the hard way.
        Now, the wildfire is a particular challenge out in the
    West, and that is going to require both reducing, you know, the
    fuel load, so changing how we manage energy overall, the fuel
    load in the forests, and recognizing that conditions have
    gotten hotter and drier but also looking at new building
    materials, new energy systems, and being able to take further
    preventive action being able to address these fires early on
    and reduce the fuel load so they don't get as dangerous.
        Admiral McGinn. I would add that we are in a race against
    time. You know, the great author, Tom Friedman, said Mother
    Nature always bats last, and she always bats a thousand. And I
    think that we are seeing weather phenomena that are literally
    unprecedented, certainly in modern history.
        We really, really need to focus on resilience from all
    sorts of things. It is ironic that last--late last summer,
    California suffered widespread power outages due to a heat
    wave. Yet, just a few weeks ago, Texas and Oklahoma suffered
    terrible, terrible damage and suffering because of a polar
    vortex. Hot, cold, the manifestations of severe weather are
    quite varied, and we need to be prepared geographically for the
    most likely ones.

                       Damage From Extreme Weather Events

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I haven't asked a question yet. I
    want to kind of follow up on a little bit of the theme we heard
    here, especially from Mr. Crist.
        So I am going to talk about Tyndall Air Force Base and kind
    of what all happened there and paint a bigger picture.
        So, in your written testimony, Admiral McGinn, you talked
    about the Category 5 hurricane there in 2018. Could you expand
    a little more about the type of damage the base infrastructure
    went through and the F-22 squadron sustained there and then
    just about how we had to move resources all over, the aircraft,
    which has potential effect on our readiness? Can you kind of
    paint a bigger picture of what one of these catastrophes really
    looks like in the broad sense?
        Admiral McGinn. Yes. Basically Hurricane Michael coming as
    it did from due south of Tyndall in the Gulf of Mexico, very,
    very rapid escalation to a Category 5 when it came ashore, did
    not allow a lot of time for preparation, although given the
    severity of the storm, the wind and surge, even more
    preparation wouldn't have significantly altered the damage. The
    wind force damaging buildings unbelievably. F-22s that were
    stationed there at Tyndall, not all of them were in a
    maintenance condition that allowed them to fly away to
    hurricane evacuation, to inland bases. So those, because of the
    damage to, literally construction of some of the hangers, were
    also severely damaged.
        So I think the lesson is we need to know that our
    installations are in the path of various severe weather events.
    In this case, along the Gulf, Florida, the Atlantic Coast,
    hurricanes are clearly one of the most frequent and
    significantly damaging phenomena. So we need to be prepared for
    that.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        I am going to turn it over to Ms. Kaptur. We will have time
    for a second round.
        Ms. Kaptur.

              Department of Defense Posture Towards Climate Change

        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much.
        And I thank our guests, Secretary Goodman for sure and
    Admiral McGinn.
        I am very interested. I was one of the people who in the
    nineties that was fighting for an energy focus at the
    Department of Defense, and we finally got one to some extent. I
    have a few questions here. Do you think the Department has
    taken this newest challenge, climate change, and the
    initiatives it needed to seriously in the way the Department
    itself has structured its operations? Which military service do
    you believe has taken the lead?
        And if the answer is Navy, is that because, Admiral, with
    the warming oceans, you felt it first? I am just curious.
        And then I would like both of your recommendations on where
    to go in our country or world where you see real innovation
    occurring at the Department of Defense? Because this issue of
    climate change and energy gets lost in the mammoth nature of
    the Department. Where can I go to look at real leadership in
    innovation and application in overground transportation, number
    one; number two, hydrogen fuel cells, current generation and
    next generation, battery storage; and, finally, base energy
    independence? I represent the first Guard base that flew a
    biofueled plane almost 20 years ago and but it was an
    exception, not the rule. It was on the cover of Guard Magazine
    at the time. We were very proud of that as biofuels have come
    online in our country.
        I have found the Department laggard. I don't find the
    Department a leader, and in the clean energy mandate and in the
    area of innovation, it tends to get lost somehow. I am just
    curious. Do you think that, again, the Department has really
    taken this seriously? Are they structured to properly deal with
    it in the way that they have handled the assignment of duties
    inside the Department? Which department has taken the lead?
    And, finally, could you name me the three locations on
    overground transportation; hydrogen fuel cells, current and
    next generation, battery storage; and then base independence,
    where?
        Admiral McGinn. I would start by saying that the entire
    Department of Defense gets it. They see renewable energy and
    various other forms of energy, including hydrogen, hydrogen
    fuel cells, and other means as a key part of their mission.
        In many cases, however, over the past years, the Department
    has very wisely used commercial off-the-shelf energy
    technology. I am reminded of the wonderful United States
    Marines in Afghanistan deploying commercial solar panels to
    forward operating bases in order to reduce the reliance on oil
    convoys, which were very, very deadly to our young men and
    women in uniform over there.
        But I would start, of course, with the Department of the
    Navy. We did do a lot there and continue to do a lot, but so
    does the Air Force and the fuel research going on at Wright-
    Patt, at the Air Force research lab, is really, really helpful.
    It is done in many cases in coordination or certainly trading
    technology stories with civilian aviation.
        I think that the future for hydrogen is very, very bright
    as a storage medium and as well as a producer of electricity
    using fuel cells for both transportation as well as for onsite
    power.
        I would specifically point out that Secretary of Defense
    has named a senior climate advisor directly reporting to
    Secretary Austin, and his name is Joe Bryan. He is innovative.
    He is smart. He is experienced. I know this because Joe was the
    Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy when I was
    the Assistant Secretary. He is a great example of the
    recognition of the need for science and innovation and asking
    the questions about why can't we move further, why can't we
    move faster.
        Ms. Kaptur. DARPA, are they doing anything that you are
    aware of?
        Admiral McGinn. I am sorry. Who was that?
        Ms. Kaptur. DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Projects
    Agency? I am looking for--where do I go for overground
    transport? Do I go to the war and tank command? Where do I go
    to see the future within DOD?
        Admiral McGinn. Right. I would start with DARPA. That is a
    good spot. I would also check in the Department of Energy with
    the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, ARPA-E, and
    you would also want to take a look at some of the DOE
    laboratories and how they are coordinating in some cases with
    the Department of Defense laboratories and technology centers.
        Ms. Goodman. I would also add, Congresswoman, as I have
    stated in my testimony and I have said elsewhere, I think the
    Department of Defense, in addition to the very good efforts
    that are already being made under the current Secretary,
    Secretary Austin, and the new current climate advisor, Joe
    Bryan, could benefit from having a clean energy innovation
    office that pulled together a lot of the work that is--some of
    the work that is ongoing and that can be further magnified by
    clear lines of investment and also a clean energy transition
    fund to help us get over this valley of death. When there is
    good research and development coming out of our labs, private
    sector or government labs, sometimes there is a lag between
    getting it actually into use because the demand signal isn't
    always there at the buying level. And a transition office could
    help get us beyond that.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you so much.
        Ms. Goodman. Excuse me. A transition fund.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Secretary Goodman. And you think
    that should be within the Department of Defense somehow, in its
    contracting operations?
        Ms. Goodman. I think it should be, and it should be modeled
    on other things we have done when we wanted to spur innovation
    in other types of technologies.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        So, Ranking Member Calvert, we are going to go to a second
    round of questioning. I would like you to lead that off if you
    have another question.

                Climate Change Impact on Planning and Operations

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Yes, it is an issue, as suggested, that increased
    probability of droughts, floods, famine, disease, loss of
    habitable land, other large-scale natural and humanitarian
    disasters will create problems for communities and governments
    abroad.
        So to what extent do our geographic combat commanders need
    to factor in the potential impact of climate change across
    their spectrum of planning and operations? Secondly, if there
    should be a core requirement of the GCCs in how they undertake
    a cost-effective way without falling prey to institutional
    overreach in owning an issue that may more properly be the
    domain of the Department of State, USAID, and others in the
    inner agency, how do you approach that?
        Ms. Goodman. Well, thank you, Congressman.
        I think it is vitally important that climate security be
    integrated into our security engagements arrangements, security
    engagements which are principally conducted by our combatant
    commands.
        You know, in the 1990s when I served as the Deputy Under
    Secretary of Defense in a different era, we were conducting
    environmental security engagements with each of the combatant
    commands to address the environmental challenges of that era,
    which were largely cleanup of contaminated bases, complying
    with air, water, and waste laws, conserving endangered species.
    That, of course, all continues. Today we are in the climate
    era. Those combatant commanders can use these same kind of
    environmental security engagements addressing climate security
    threats.
        For example, Pacific island nations, many of them, you
    know, who depend very much on American security see increased
    approaches from China to being the provider of the first resort
    when they have an extreme weather event, facing food and water
    insecurities. The U.S. should be right there, working with them
    and in other regions of the world and can do so, can integrate
    climate security into its theater engagement plans. There are
    new improved Earth system observation capabilities that can be
    utilized to enable better planning and to be shared in some
    cases with our allies and partners as well.
        Admiral McGinn. I think the record of the U.S. military
    throughout the world but especially in the India and Pacific
    Ocean area is really remarkable, especially in terms of
    humanitarian assistance, disaster recovery operations. You just
    can't as a combatant commander or any of the subordinate
    service commanders avoid that responsibility.
        So I think, as Ms. Goodman pointed out, engagement with
    other militaries, other nations, civilian and military, about
    how can we do things together that will increase the resilience
    in a particular region, whether it is an island nation or
    coastal nation, that will help to mitigate the worst effects of
    some of these typhoons and other phenomena that are coming our
    way, increasingly in terms of intensity and frequency.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Oh, you are welcome.
        Great. These questions have all been fabulous, and the
    answers have been enlightening. Thank you.
        Mr. Ruppersberger.

                            Combating Climate Change

        Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, firstly, I am going to go from the
    Arctic now to more global and then district. My district is a
    coastal community with many DOD entities including Army,
    Aberdeen Proving Ground, and an Air National Guard base right
    on what we call Middle River of east Baltimore. I am also the
    chairman of the U.S. Naval Academy Board of Visitors in
    Annapolis, which fights for funding every year to protect
    itself against sea level rise. In our most recent hearing with
    the Naval Academy about 2 weeks ago, Admiral Buck mentioned the
    strategy to address sea level rise, but he said it could take
    to 2035 to complete base on funding levels and that is just
    totally unacceptable.
        With the sea level rising and the aging of the Naval
    Academy, they have real issues and problems with sea level. We
    just built, the Naval Academy just built their newest building,
    a cyber building, which was constructed with the sea level in
    mind, rising in mind. It is a pretty unique building. Other
    than that, there are a lot of other issues that are there.
        I know that Ms. Goodman mentioned things that we can do for
    sea level and one of those was to create, I think, at DOD a
    clean energy office and a transition fund, but basically my
    question, you know: How does the Department--do they have the
    tools to assess global warming, sea level rise? In all of these
    installations, I think, the last one I heard in your testimony,
    billions of dollars it will cost and aging. So we really have
    to deal with this, or it is going cost us a lot more money, and
    an example of that is the United States Naval Academy.
        So, if you could relay, again, what steps do you recommend,
    I know some of them Ms. Goodman had mentioned, to better
    address these issues on a defense-wide basis?
        Ms. Goodman. Well, thank you, Congressman.
        I mean, Congress has already directed DOD to integrate
    resilience into its military installation resilience plans, and
    Secretary Austin has said that work is already underway. I
    believe the Department now will begin to accelerate that work
    per the requirements both of the President's executive order
    and its own direction. And the question for--the issue is going
    to be first doing the planning but then, as you say, putting
    the money on the project, sort of invest--the investments that
    are needed.
        As we all know, it is often the infrastructure accounts
    that are underfunded in the Department of Defense
    historically--historically. So that is going to have to be re-
    prioritized within the way the Department does its investments.
    I am pleased to say that I believe, you know, the Department is
    looking at that right now, how to set those priorities, how to
    ensure that critical facilities like the Naval Academy don't
    have to wait until 2035 to become more resilient.
        This is going to require some new ways of doing business
    for the Department of Defense, to give greater priority to the
    investments needed based on those resilient plans that will be
    coming forward. As you say, at the Naval Academy, they already
    have a plan. Other bases are coming forward in the coming year
    or so. Then those investments will have to be prioritized. It
    is my hope--go ahead.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. The Naval Academy's plan is totally
    inadequate going out to the year 2035. It is not going to work.
        Ms. Goodman. Right. So there have to be some priorities set
    to occur within the next several years probably and certainly a
    substantial investment within what we call the FYDP, the 5-year
    defense plan, and so the Secretary and the services are going
    to have to make some choices about those important investments.
        Admiral McGinn. One of the positive aspects, Mr.
    Ruppersberger, is that you as the chair of the Board of
    Visitors and Admiral Buck as the superintendent, you get it. It
    isn't a question of, gee, I hope we don't have a hurricane here
    or tidal surge of the Severn River. And knowing that it is
    inevitable will motivate the kind of thinking and investment in
    protecting these critical assets right along the river.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. It seems the timing is right for global
    warming, for dealing with these issues. You have the Secretary
    of the Defense is making it a priority. Betty McCollum, our
    chair, has made this a priority. This is the first hearing we
    have had. I have been on this committee for a long period of
    time. I think the chairman and I have talked about maybe going
    to the Naval Academy so she can see some of these issues. We
    will probably do that in the next 2 or 3 months.
        So I think the timing might be right with all the players
    that we have here is going to focus on this issue so we can
    plan, including plan on what needs to be done from an
    infrastructure point of view to prepare ourselves because the
    Naval Academy is not going to move, but the water keeps rising.
        Admiral McGinn. I talked to Professor Flack, who is a
    professor at the mechanical engineering department at the Naval
    Academy, doing wonderful things over the years with educating
    midshipmen on energy and environment. That is Professor Flack.
        Ms. McCollum. Okay. I think Mr. Calvert was trying to be
    recognized.
        Mr. Calvert. Yes. I just wanted to point out, Madam Chair,
    the Naval Academy and other bases also, which is also a
    problem, is a lot of these bases were built on fill and
    certainly the Naval Academy a lot of it is on fill. You have
    the subsidence that is occurring on ton of it. So these areas
    are literally sinking.
        So, you know, so sometimes you can throw a lot of money at
    this problem in the seawalls and the rest, but if your
    underlying foundation is weak or failing, you may have to look
    at other considerations to fix it. I don't know. It is going to
    be expensive. I know that.
        Thank you. I just wanted to point that out.
        Ms. McCollum. I think that is a good point, and we have got
    a partner in Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz with MILCON. A lot of
    these are MILCON projects, but we know that they are going to
    affect our readiness and ability to move forward. So I look
    forward to our committee on not only working with the
    authorizers on this but working with MILCON. There are
    certainly things we can do. There are other things that MILCON
    does do, and I think this is a unique opportunity for the three
    committees to, you know, really sit down. And we can tell the
    story of what is happening. They can look at their budget for
    what is planning and then work with the authorizers on how to
    move forward, but we can't afford to waste any time.
        With that, Mr. Carter.

                     Icebreakers' Importance for the Arctic

        Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman.
        And being ranking member on MILCON myself, I can tell you
    that is a pretty small budget as it compares to DOD, and we
    have MILCON projects that are emergencies, and we have talked
    about a couple of them today, and we have to have the deep
    pockets of DOD involved in order for us to do this. I just have
    to point that out because the MILCON budget is a small budget
    as it compares even to the VA budget. So it is a challenge.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Carter, ranking member of MILCON, I
    couldn't agree with you more. I am just not going to go in
    somebody else's jurisdiction. So we will work together on that,
    sir.
        Mr. Carter. Absolutely. Absolutely.
        Ms. McCollum. Your question.
        Mr. Carter. The other thing I want to raise, going back in
    history to when I was the chairman of Homeland, the
    icebreakers. We don't have the money for those things in the
    Homeland Security budget either, and we were trying, and I
    think successfully, to partner with the Navy on that first one.
    I don't know if anybody knows whether that is still going on or
    not, but it is going to have to be a partnership with the big
    boys to get seven icebreakers in the Arctic. If we don't, we
    are going to literally lose jurisdiction in the Arctic.
        Ms. Goodman. Congressman, you raise an important point that
    adding six icebreakers into the Coast Guard's budget could be a
    budget-breaking effort for the small service that it is. The
    Navy has historically had a lot of other priorities in its
    budget, other big-ticket items. I think it is going to take a
    whole-of-government effort and a look from the top at overall
    what we need in Arctic capabilities and to be able to set the
    right overall level of investment and then decide how it is
    going to be made across the Federal Government because we have
    to be able to up our capability to have presence in the Arctic,
    both across the Department of Defense and across the Coast
    Guard and other agencies. Research in the Arctic continues to
    be very important so we can understand those changing
    conditions and plan and prepare our forces to be able to
    operate there.
        There are a variety of agencies across the Federal
    Government that are very important, and thank you for pointing
    that out. It is going to take an effort coordinated probably
    through the White House with the relevant Federal agencies.
        Mr. Carter. And with all the climate change issues we have
    got in the Arctic and with the shipping that is now going into
    the Arctic, the rescue mission of one icebreaker that can be
    effective in heavy ice and should there be a disaster from what
    we now calling the Northwest Passage, it could be a real Earth-
    shaking disaster if it was some kind of cruise ship full of
    people that got in big trouble. To reach them without an
    icebreaker could be a real disaster, in addition to the climate
    issues that are up there and the jurisdiction issues. I want to
    keep emphasizing everybody has got to be thinking about
    icebreakers. We need them.
        Now back to my question and I still got a little time left.
    The Biden administration has set national security objectives.
    In those, their last security guidance, they mention near-peer
    competition by non-state actors, infectious disease, cyber
    attacks, and disinformation campaigns.
        Where would you put a climate change initiative, which
    General Austin and the Secretary have put forward, where would
    you put that in the ranking of what the administration has
    given? It is not concluded now, but it is one of those national
    security guidances that probably should be. Where do you think
    it should be put?
        Ms. Goodman. I think it should be there with the others,
    and I believe it is included in the President's interim
    National Security Strategy, perhaps not quite in that sentence
    but elsewhere in the direction, to address climate threats and
    it should be included because it affects all those others.
    Changing climate, drought, and food insecurities are increasing
    the opportunities for extremists, violent extremists, across
    North Africa, the Middle East, and in South Asia. That brings
    our forces, your forces from Fort Hood and elsewhere are all
    called up to serve when our Nation is threatened.
        Mr. Carter. Right now. Right now.
        Ms. Goodman. Correct.
        Mr. Carter. They gave us a guidance, and there was a
    conversation about climate change in there. That is correct. I
    think we should prioritize it.
        Ms. Goodman. I heartily agree.
        Mr. Carter. Maybe it is being technical, but if you don't
    make noise, you don't get things done.
        Ms. Goodman. Exactly.
        Mr. Carter. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur.

                        Leadership on New Energy Systems

        Ms. Kaptur. There is a disadvantage to a few minutes.
        And I want to go back to my original questions from the
    last round because I didn't get clarity on where in the U.S.
    military you could look for a site visit to the place that is
    doing the most on advancing overground transportation in new
    energy systems. I heard what was said about ARPA and DARPA. I
    know them well. I am asking, who is taking leadership?
        In the same ways we have Blue Angels and they do shows, air
    shows across the country, I really don't see the Department of
    Defense being a leader publicly in some of these areas in which
    we so desperately need advancements.
        For example, the war and tank command, which is at the
    doorstep of every major U.S. producer in Michigan, they don't
    take a public lead in terms of new transportation systems. They
    don't have a Blue Angels type show or anything like that that
    would inspire the public. I don't really see any base energy
    independence pride in the way the military presents itself. So
    perhaps the gentleman you mentioned that has just been
    appointed by Secretary Austin, perhaps he will be helpful in
    this.
        I have found a real resistance or just lack of
    consciousness in the Department in general, despite your--both
    of your--stellar efforts to make a difference. So, again, I
    ask, are you aware of any place in the Department that is
    showing direct leadership in moving these critical sectors of
    overground transportation, new fueled flight, new energy flight
    systems, some of the storage arenas where we know that we have
    to make progress? Is there any base? Is there any person? Is
    there any division that you can point to?
        I know the Marine Corps has done an astounding job overall,
    but, again, the Department hasn't really coalesced its progress
    in any way that is understandable to most Members of Congress
    and the American people.
        Ms. Goodman. It is such a good question. Here is what I
    would like to see. You know, the Department of Defense has
    awards in many categories, and I am familiar with its
    environmental and installation awards because, for 8 years, I
    gave them out as the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
    Environmental Security. We gave the awards out at the
    installation and at individual level for cleaning up
    contaminated sites, complying with air laws, complying with
    water laws, complying with waste, conserving natural resources,
    conserving cultural resources.
        Vice Admiral McGinn may have more familiarity. I think we
    should look at creating new award categories along some of the
    lines you mentioned, and that will encourage the competition
    and incentivize the Department. It is not to the exclusion of
    certain funds that I mentioned earlier. By creating an award
    and recognizing leadership in certain new categories, such as
    the ones you have mentioned, I think we will give the
    Department an opportunity to bring its best forward.

                                 Culture Change

        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Secretary Goodman. I am so glad to
    hear you say that.
        Let me just point out in the air shows, if I go to the Air
    Force and look at them, the air shows come and always do a
    preshow field display. Usually they have this giant truck that
    shoots flames out the back. Okay? So, the military has figured
    out how to do that. Why don't they bring forward new
    technology, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles or new fuel advanced
    biofuel vehicles? Why don't they teach the public? They don't
    do that after all these years. So I am not yelling at you. I am
    just frustrated as one Member who is tried to make a difference
    in my little puddle, you know. I see this mammoth department,
    and I don't see a rollout that is impressive. Thank you for the
    suggestion.
        Admiral McGinn. I would say the culture of the Department
    is changing. I served in the Obama administration, second term,
    and there was a lot of emphasis on renewable energy, energy
    efficiency, sustainability, environmental care, and that
    eclipsed somewhat over the past administration that is
    unfortunate. Nevertheless, culturally, in the services, in the
    Department of Defense people are still doing their job.
        I would point to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar out in
    San Diego as an example of an installation that has worked
    very, very hard to try to get to net zero. The Marine Corps
    down in Logistics Base, Albany, Georgia, has done a tremendous
    amount of work in terms of sustainability and energy
    independence from the grid if it is needed. So there are many
    pockets. I mentioned two Marine Corps bases. There are many
    fine Navy bases: Naval Base San Diego; right down the
    Chesapeake Bay from Washington, Patuxent River Naval Air
    Station.
        I think this culture of really highlighting how important
    and essential sustainability and fighting climate change and
    turning the challenges into opportunities will bring out, if
    you will, the bragging rights of many of the services and many
    of the installations that are doing some really, really good
    stuff, including to your point about transportation.

                        Global Impact of Climate Change

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I am going to wrap kind of--take
    us back to the beginning of your testimony again and kind of
    wrap around it. We talked about, you know, the effects of
    climate change on our bases right here in the United States and
    some of our bases around the world.
        We talked about the effects of the climate change in the
    Arctic and China and Russia and, you know, the extreme weather
    and how there is so much more work to be done there.
        In your statements, you also mentioned about climate change
    just isn't happening here in the United States or in the
    Arctic; it is happening all over the world. I have had the
    opportunity to be in different parts of the world and
    experience what is going on with climate change, whether it is
    talking to political leaders or talking to people who live in
    those communities.
        Climate change can exacerbate environmental, social,
    economic, political drivers of instability and conflict.
    Climate change variability has intensified economic and
    resource insecurity across the continent of Africa, throughout
    the Middle East, leading to mass migration, the displacement of
    vulnerable populations. That is part of what is happening in
    our border is climate change with what we are witnessing with
    some of the people who are fleeing the effects of climate
    change in Central America.
        In turn, these populations, though, especially in Africa
    and the Middle East, are more susceptible to recruitment by
    extremist groups and exploitation by terrorist groups.
        I am going to give one example and then ask a question. So
    I have been in the area of Africa. I have been in Chad, and
    Lake Chad is a water source for more than 30 million people. It
    has shrunk to less than one-tenth of its size compared to just
    50 years ago. It has led to population displacement in a region
    that is very volatile, and we know that extremist groups are
    constantly trying to get a good foothold in there.
        What role can the Department play in preparing for regional
    and global instability to major climate change events? Maybe
    you could give us an example either in the Sahel or something
    that you have seen in Africa to round this off before I close
    the hearing.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Goodman. Thank you. Well, if you overlay in Africa our
    deployments in recent years to combat violent extremists, it
    coincides almost perfectly where--the regions where we see the
    severest climate threats, around the Lake Chad region, Mali,
    and Nigeria, and a few other locations across Africa.
        So, as part of our defense planning through Africa Command,
    for example, in particular, understanding the underlying causes
    of climate threats, the drought, the food insecurity, the
    shrinking of Lake Chad that has enabled Boko Haram and others
    on the Nigerian side to take advantage of vulnerable
    populations that has sent herders, farmers, fishermen fleeing
    the region because they can no longer support their livelihoods
    and their families in that area.
        The long-term solutions to the climate challenges are
    primarily not through military action. They are going to be
    through development and diplomacy, through local action. In
    those parts of Africa, you mentioned, our European partners are
    very deeply engaged. And climate insecurity activity in Europe
    very much means working with development and diplomatic
    agencies. I think we in the U.S. can be, should be doing more
    of that ourselves to round out the totality of our approaches.
    I think that is where this administration is headed in its
    climate security, foreign policy, and national security
    planning to integrate those approaches so we have an integrated
    approach to the diplomacy and development that is needed in
    these regions to enable sustainable livelihoods with military
    forces using their tools, their tools that are reasonable,
    whether it is security forces or combatant commander engagement
    as a backup capability to support further sustainable action.
        Admiral McGinn. Chair McCollum, I would also point to South
    Asia as a critical area that is being affected by climate
    change. With shrinking ice capping glaciers in the Himalayas
    that feed or don't feed, in some cases, the four sacred rivers
    that flow through India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, we have a
    recipe for regional strife as it is alternating floods in some
    years or drought in others, from those rivers that have been so
    essential to sustaining the people in that region. We really,
    really need to make sure we are engaging with those nations at
    the combatant commander level and really at the head-of-state
    level to make sure that there is some sense of unity to try to
    recognize the common enemy of climate change and to try to do
    some things that increase resilience and to reduce the adverse
    effects on populations in that very, very critical region of
    South Asia.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you both for your testimony.
        And that is a good note to land on because there is a role
    for the Department of Defense, as Judge Carter pointed out.
    There is a role for Homeland Security. There is a role for
    MILCON. But there is a role for the whole of the United States
    Government to be addressing climate change, and that is why I
    am so glad we are back in the Paris climate accord because if
    we are not looking at this through a whole of government and
    working internationally with allies and finding new partners in
    this, it is just going to increase the conflict, and that is
    not anything that I have heard from our Joint Chiefs of Staff
    that they want to see happen, that the Secretaries of Defense
    have all said that that is the best thing that we can do is to
    build towards more peace. That will help with their being able
    to provide security.
        Thank you both for your testimony.
        And, with that, I will conclude today's hearing. This
    subcommittee is adjourned. Thank you.
        [Answers to submitted questions for the record follow:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                               Tuesday, March 23, 2021.

                            FUTURE DEFENSE SPENDING

                                   WITNESSES

     DR. JAMES ACTON, CO-DIRECTOR OF NUCLEAR POLICY PROGRAM AND JESSICA T.
        MATHEWS CHAIR, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE
    NILOOFAR RAZI HOWE, SENIOR FELLOW, NEW AMERICA
    MANDY SMITHBERGER, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR DEFENSE INFORMATION,
        PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT
    ROGER ZAKHEIM, DIRECTOR, RONALD REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION AND
        INSTITUTE

                       Opening Statement of Ms. McCollum

        Ms. McCollum. This meeting will come to order.
        This meeting, as fully virtual, and I am going to go over a
    couple of the housekeeping matters again.
        For today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by
    the chair, and that is Kyle, may mute participants' microphones
    when they are not under recognition for purposes of eliminating
    background noise. Members are responsible for muting and
    unmuting themselves. If you notice that you have not unmuted
    yourself, I will ask you if you would like the staff to unmute.
    So if you are having problems I will ask you if the staff
    should unmute you, and you just shake your head, yes, and Kyle
    will do that.
        If there is a technology issue, we will move to the next
    member until that issue is resolved, but you will retain your
    balance of time.
        And I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute
    clock still applies, and you can see it displayed in the
    screen. At 1 minute remaining, the clock will turn yellow. At
    30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the gavel, aka, my
    mouse here working my computer to remind you that your time has
    almost expired. When your time has expired, the clock will turn
    red, and I will begin to recognize the next member.
        In terms of order of speaking, we will follow the order set
    forward by the House rules, beginning with the chair and the
    ranking member, then members present at the time the hearing is
    called to order, and they will be recognized in order of
    seniority, and, finally, members not present at the time that
    the hearing is called to order.
        Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
    set up an email list to address which members can send anything
    they wish to submit in writing to any of our hearings or
    markups. This email address has been provided in advance to
    your staff. I would just want to add one more item. The chat
    function on this Microsoft WebEx, that is the happy face that
    Kyle was talking about, I double-checked it out. So if you are
    having problems, just click on the happy face there and we will
    assist you.
        So good afternoon, everyone. This subcommittee is holding
    its third hearing in a series of emerging issue discussions
    that are going to affect future defense spending. While
    cybersecurity, nuclear modernization, and overseas contingency
    operations funding sound like they are three unrelated topics,
    the common thread that unites them is the significant impact
    they all have had on our bill the last several years and how
    they will continue to shape our work for the years to come.
        Today, we will hear from three witnesses. Niloofar Howe,
    senior fellow with a New America will discuss cybersecurity.
    James Acton, the codirector of the Nuclear Policy Program at
    the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will cover
    nuclear modernization. Mandy Smithberger, the director of the
    Center for Defense, Information, and the Project on Government
    Oversight will detail problems and challenges with the OCO
    spending. And Roger Zakheim, the Washington director of the
    Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute will
    address broad spending issues.
        In the last decade, we have transitioned from thinking of
    cybersecurity as primarily a function of protecting the
    Department of Defense information networks to creating a
    functional cyber integrating cyber effects into most of our
    missions.
        Our adversaries will continue to advance their techniques
    and capabilities which will force our subcommittee and the
    whole of government to evolve on the issue of cybersecurity.
        Few efforts will have more budgetary impacts than nuclear
    modernization. Aging systems, such as the Minutemen, Ohio-class
    submarines, the B-1, and B-2 bombers necessitate modernization
    of the nuclear triad.
        In its most recent report projecting the 10-year cost for
    nuclear forces, the CBO estimated the nuclear enterprise to
    cost DOD $326 billion from 2019 to 2028. When these costs are
    combined with the Department of Energy, the total was 23
    percent greater than CBO's previous estimate.
        And, finally, the budget control caps and discretionary
    spending allowed us to have a more conversation about what is
    going on with the overseas contingency fund. The last 10 years
    Democratic and Republican administrations in Congress used OCO
    as a budget gimmick. That is my opinion, but I think it bears
    out in a lot of the reading that you will see. It was a budget
    gimmick, and it was used to circumvent the budget control caps.
        It is time that we correct those past mistakes. I would
    like to remind my colleagues that on our fiscal year 2021 House
    report we stated, and I quote from it, ``The OCO experiment has
    been an abject failure. It has given the Department budgetary
    relief valve that has allowed it to avoid making difficult
    decisions.'' end of quote. And that is part of the--I totally
    agree with that sentiment.
        Our subcommittee will face a of serious difficult decisions
    in the coming months. And I know our witnesses will provide
    information that will help us in guiding, making some of those
    hard choices.
        I would now like to recognize our distinguished Ranking
    Member Mr. Calvert for his comments.

                         Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

        Mr. Calvert. Well thank you, Chairwoman McCollum. First, I
    would like to thank our esteemed witnesses for appearing before
    us today as we move closer to receiving the budget request for
    fiscal year 2022. I hope that is pretty soon. It is important
    that we take a strategic step back and consider the larger
    questions. Of course, facing the Department of Defense in both
    the long-term and short-term environments. As I said in the
    first hearing on this topic, these hearings happening at a
    critical time in our Nation's history.
        Adversaries like China and Russia continue to challenge the
    rules-based order that America and our allies have created over
    the past century. The era of great power competition requires
    smart, effective resourcing by the Department of Defense, our
    industry partners, and ultimately this subcommittee.
        In our hearing last month, we discussed some of the tough
    choices we will have to make to ensure that the military
    mission is aligned and properly funded to take on future
    threats. This includes divesting legacy systems, restoring
    critical infrastructure, and improving the way we develop and
    field new advanced technologies.
        We also discussed the adverse impacts that cutting the
    defense budget would have on our war fighters and our
    capabilities. I continue to be concerned by the efforts of some
    in this body to significantly cut the Department of Defense
    budget.
        With our adversaries, particularly China, continuing to
    close the gap on our capabilities advantage, now is not the
    time to halt the progress made in rebuilding our military. As
    just a little statistical fact, the Chinese have just passed us
    this in a number of ships that are deployed throughout the
    world.
        I look forward to hearing our witnesses to discuss these
    and other topics here today. I thank you again for the
    witnesses who are appearing before us today, and I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you.
        To our witnesses, your full testimony will be placed in the
    record. In the interest of time, I strongly encourage each and
    every one of you to keep your summarized statements to 5
    minutes or less. Be complete but be succinct when we are in a
    question and answer period.
        With that, Ms. Howe, I would like turn it over to you to
    lead us off.

                         Summary Statement of Ms. Howe

        Ms. Howe. Thank you so much, Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking
    Member Calvert, distinguished committee members, thank you for
    inviting me to testify on the important topic of cybersecurity.
    My name is Niloofar Howe, and I have spent close to three
    decades focused on innovation in the technology and national
    security in cybersecurity sectors.
        Malicious actors operating in cyberspace are fast,
    creative, persistent, and unconstrained by norms, laws, and
    regulation. They have proved themselves extraordinary opponents
    who study our weaknesses and are able to adjust, evolve, and
    move with the sophistication and speed that evades our best
    defenses and exploits our technical, human, legal and
    regulatory vulnerabilities.
        The SolarWinds supply chain operation by Russia and
    exploitation of Microsoft Exchange Servers by China are just
    the latest examples of how sophisticated these adversaries have
    become, purposefully using U.S. infrastructure to launch
    devastating attacks against thousands of organizations in a
    short period of time.
        No matter how sophisticated our defense is, no matter how
    vigilant we are in training and educating, human error, coupled
    with a complex entangled digital ecosystem will always leave a
    door open for committed adversaries; a door we need Congress'
    help to close.
        Underpinning all of our struggles is the fact that the
    internet was constructed in an environment of trust. And that
    assumption has turned out to be a damaging flaw. Everything we
    do is increasingly enabled by the internet. And the security of
    our systems is inversely proportional to the number of notes,
    the number of users, and the number of applications it
    supports.
        Over time, almost everything we have experienced in the
    physical world will happen digitally, but with a speed and
    severity that we are just starting to comprehend. At the same
    time, cyber capabilities that enable attacks are becoming
    commercialized offered as a service by groups that specialize
    in specific aspects of the chain. Creating a fundamentally
    asymmetric dynamic for defending against these attacks is
    increasingly difficult.
        Importantly, while there are no silver bullets, there are
    solutions we can embrace to both deter malicious actors and
    build resilience to their attacks. I propose 15 in my written
    testimony. Almost all of them will be familiar to experts in
    the industry because we have been advocating for them for
    years. Progress against these solutions requires Congress'
    support and action, and we need to move fast.
        We must turn to the issue of ransomware. Ransomware attacks
    are rising exponentially as are the accompanying extortion
    demands. Criminal gangs carry out their ransomware operations
    with impunity and little fear of retribution and prosecution.
    Reducing the plague of ransomware should be a national priority
    and requires us to impose costs on nations, like Russia, that
    are knowingly harboring and perhaps encouraging these
    activities.
        We must also build resilience by, for example, creating a
    voluntary cyber civilian corps that can respond to these
    incidents, especially when they impact resource constraint
    organizations and municipalities, much as our voluntary
    firefighters do.
        We must reduce supply chain risk. The security of our
    digital ecosystem is directly correlated to the least secure
    supplier. SolarWinds revealed that long-term campaigns focused
    on supply chain vulnerabilities can be very difficult to detect
    and by extension incredibly productive for the attacker.
        SolarWinds is not a unique campaign. We must assume that
    quiescence Malware resides throughout our infrastructure
    waiting to be stealthily called into action at the right time.
    To address this issue, we should subject software vendors
    relied upon by our most critical organizations to risk
    assessments and a certification process that creates a trusted
    list of acceptable vendors.
        Discovery of SolarWinds was voluntarily disclosed by one of
    its victim's cybersecurity firm FireEye. Without their
    voluntary disclosure, Russia would likely still be collecting
    information from this operation. To this day, we neither know
    the scope nor the scale of this intrusion as many victims have
    not come forward with details.
        Government agencies and especially the Department of
    Defense can make real-time breach notification a condition of
    contracts with penalties for noncompliance. Compelling
    information sharing is table stakes. Both the Russian and
    Chinese campaign leverage our intelligence blind spot and legal
    constraints using U.S. infrastructure for their campaigns. We
    must raise the bar for adversarial activity on U.S.
    infrastructure and eliminate that blind spot.
        Unless we change our approach, our adversaries will
    continue to identify vulnerabilities for maximum impact with
    little to no fear of retaliation. They will continue to advance
    intrusion tools and trade craft faster than gaps in our cyber
    defenses can be closed.
        As we embrace new waves of technology such as Cloud and its
    computing, autonomous vehicles, 5G microsensors, AI, low Earth
    orbit satellites, IoT drones, autonomous weapons, quantum
    computing, and synthetic Biology, we must reimagine how we
    organize and defend against the threats each new technology
    brings with it.
        The first few months of 2021 should serve as a wake-up call
    to take the actions we know we must take, to make the changes
    we know we must make no matter how difficult the path and do it
    with the agility, speed, and boldness of our adversaries.
        I thank the committee and look forward to your questions.
        [The statement of Ms. Howe follows:]

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        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. And you packed a lot into
    your time. Thank you so much.
        Dr. Acton, we are anxious to hear from you.

                         Summary Statement of Dr. Acton

        Mr. Acton. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I should
    say, it is both a professional honor but also a personal honor
    to testify before you today. As it happens, my wife was in
    Congress on the Lowey staff for many years, including when she
    chaired the Appropriations Committee. So, it has been well-
    drilled into me that in Congress there are Democrats,
    Republicans, and appropriators.
        As you flagged in your opening remarks, Madam Chairwoman,
    the United States currently stands at the beginning of a major
    modernization weight. Almost every American nuclear delivery
    system, missile, warhead, and command and control asset will
    require some kind of modernization over the next 10 to 20
    years. Through the momentous (ph) program, the Congressional
    Budget Office estimates that annual spending on U.S. nuclear
    forces will rise from about $34 billion in 2019 to about $63
    billion in 2028 before peaking in the mid-2030s.
        Now, some of this increase is inevitable and appropriate.
    But I believe that the spending growth could be curtailed
    without compromising U.S. or allied security, providing that
    funds are allocated effectively. To this end, today, I would
    like to highlight two programs that I believe are extraneous,
    and one that I believe is actually underfunded.
        First, the United States is set to spend approximately $95
    billion on procuring the ground-based strategic deterrent, a
    fleet of new intercontinental ballistic missiles. The
    Department of Defense argues that ICBMs are needed because of
    the quote, ``intractable targeting program'' unquote that they
    present to Russia. This problem would be the same, however,
    whether or not we acquire new ICBMs.
        The feasibility of extending existing Minutemen III ICBMs
    should be examined, therefore. DOD previously rejected this
    option in a 2015 study. As I discuss in my written testimony, I
    believe the assumptions behind this study were flawed. The fact
    that the cost of GBSD has risen by almost 50 percent in the
    last 6 years suggests that the study's conclusions may be
    flawed too.
        I suggest, therefore, that Congress pulls the GBSD program
    by reducing fiscal year 2022 funding to the lowest level
    consistent with preserving the program in its current state,
    pending a full assessment by an independent commission of the
    feasibility and cost of extending the service lives of
    Minutemen III ICBMs.
        Second, the United States should retain some low-yield
    nuclear warheads. Indeed, we are currently modernizing relevant
    capabilities. In addition, the Trump administration initiated
    the development of a new $9 billion sea-launched cruise missile
    with a lower-yield option. Given plans to modernize the nuclear
    armed cruise missile however I believe that this new sea-
    launched cruise missile is redundant. The air-launch cruise
    missile carried by stealthy B-21 bombers should be highly
    survivable before launch. And after launch, the two missiles
    would have essentially identical flight profiles. For this
    reason, I believe that Congress should refuse any further
    funding for the nuclear arms Sea Launch Cruise Missile.
        Third, the United States would be literally unable to
    conduct any kinds of nuclear operations without a functional
    nuclear command and control system. The development of a highly
    resilient nuclear command and control system should, therefore,
    be the single highest priority to nuclear modernization.
    Unfortunately, it is not. A major and unappreciated challenge
    is that most command and control assets support both nuclear
    and nonnuclear operations.
        In a conventional conflict, therefore, a U.S. adversary
    might attack these assets in order to undermine our known
    nonnuclear operations. So, to tax, however, would have the
    effect of degrading our nuclear command and control
    capabilities, producing potentially catastrophic escalation
    risks.
        I believe that the Department of Defense has not factored
    this kind of risk into planning for the future nuclear command
    and control architecture. And, indeed, the new generation of
    U.S. early wanting satellites will actually have fewer
    satellites in them than the current generation potentially
    reducing their redundancy.
        In response to this and other growing threats, I
    respectfully suggest that Congress should increase funding to
    nuclear command and control modernization and require the
    Department of Defense to study fundamentally different and more
    resilient architectures.
        I hope these suggestions are helpful, and I very much look
    forward to your questions. Thank you for the time.
        [The statement of Mr. Acton follows:]

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        Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much. Ms. Smithberger, please,
    we are anxious to hear your testimony.

                      Summary Statement of Ms. Smithberger

        Ms. Smithberger. Thank you so much, Chair McCollum, Ranking
    Member Calvert, and esteemed members of the subcommittee for
    inviting me to testify today on future defense spending plans
    and the overseas contingency operations account. As I
    mentioned, I am Mandy Smithberger, the director of the Center
    for Defense Information on the Project on Government Oversight.
        As you have noted in your opening statement, Chair
    McCollum, the subcommittee knows better than most the many ways
    the OCO account has been abused to circumvent spending limits
    put in place by the Budget Control Act. We think that the
    expiration of the Budget Control Act should be the end of using
    OCO.
        We agree with what the committee wrote last year about OCO
    being an abject failure. And I agree with what you said,
    Representative Calvert, that we have to be smart and strategic
    about how we use our resources. Our work has found that the
    misuse of OCO is bad for the Department, and it is bad for the
    budget overall. We recommend ending its use to avoid creating
    and to avoid creating or using supplemental funds for base
    budget needs in the future.
        The Department's reliance on supplemental and off-budget
    funds has become so commonplace in the past 20 years; it can be
    easy to forget just how usual the practice is. The usual
    practice in the United States has been to only use supplemental
    funding in the initial years of the conflict when the costs
    were unpredictable. What was previously about 2 percent of DOD
    spending has now become something closer to 10 percent in total
    discretionary funding for DOD.
        The reliance on OCO harms planning and management making it
    easier to fund expensive and lower priority programs that
    wouldn't normally make the cut. It also adds additional budget
    instability and uncertainty for personnel and multiyear
    programs, making it that much harder for the Pentagon to think
    ahead. Our future security should not continue to rely on OCO.
        Additionally, we would urge the committee to look at two
    other policies that fuel unsustainable top-line spending by
    reducing discipline and increasing the likelihood of wasting
    taxpayer dollars.
        The first are statutory requirements for unfunded
    priorities list. By telling the Department's components that
    they will have two bites at the apple, Congress is increasing
    pressure and incentives to increase the Department's budget.
    Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates discouraged the practice,
    and through his leadership significantly curved the size and
    cost of those lists. Eliminating those statutory requirements
    would enhance discipline without jeopardizing Congress' ability
    to conduct oversight and receive feedback from the executive
    branch.
        Second, we urge the committee to continue to examine
    whether new authorities given to the Nuclear Weapons Council
    will lead to wasteful spending. Allowing defense leaders to add
    their own spending priorities to other agencies' budgets
    without providing offsets is likely to crowd out other
    agencies' own priorities and lead to more spending.
        In conclusion, OCO reform has been one of the rarer issues
    in Washington, garnering and continue to maintain bipartisan
    support. Moving OCO to bases included in the recommendations of
    both the Sustainability Defense Task Force and the National
    Defense Strategy Commission. While the former saw this as part
    of the strategy for necessary defense budget cuts, and the
    latter argued the budget should increase, both agreed on the
    need to stop using OCO.
        Thanks to pressure from Congress and civil society, the
    Department has already begun planning to draw down its reliance
    on OCO. Both the Trump administration budget and the Future
    Years Defense Program would significantly decrease OCO starting
    this fiscal year.
        The budget process should create clear priorities for
    spending and program execution. To the maximum extent possible,
    we should have a process that encourages the President and
    Congress to set responsible fiscal goals and make tough choices
    about national security priorities. OCO has enabled both
    endless war and unsustainable top-line growth by discouraging
    prioritization. We urge you to work with the Department by
    ending the use of the OCO account. Thank you again for the
    opportunity to testify, and I am happy to answer any questions
    you may have.
        [The statement of Ms. Smithberger follows:]

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        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And last but not, least Mr.
    Zakheim, will you please share with us your thoughts on this
    issue.

                            Statement of Mr. Zakheim

        Mr. Zakheim. Thank you, Chair McCollum, Ranking Member
    Calvert, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am
    grateful for this invite--invitation to testify today on future
    defense spending.
        The White House has recently released national security
    guidance reaffirmed that the U.S. faces a growing rivalry with
    the quote, ``more assertive and authoritarian China,'' while
    they continue to face threats like Russia, Iran, cyber and
    nuclear proliferation to name only a few. Though these
    challenges have economic, diplomatic, and technological
    dimensions, an adequately resourced military is critical to
    successfully confront these challenges.
        To that end, I want to highlight three overarching points.
    Number 1, a 3 to 5 percent real growth per annum increase in
    defense spending is needed for the DOD to execute its current
    and likely future mission requirements.
        Number 2, defense cuts seriously threaten the United
    States' ability to win a high intensity war with a pure
    adversary, yet alone simultaneously deter opportunistic
    aggression in the second theater.
        And, No. 3, below the top line, the Pentagon faces
    critical, strategic choices regarding how to allocate its
    resources to sustain and modernize the force and compete with
    near peer competitors like China.
        Defense budgets must be strategy-driven, not budget-driven.
    Secretary Austin echoed this view during his Senate
    confirmation hearing, saying, quote, ``our resources need to
    match our strategy, and our strategy needs to match our
    policy.''
        The 2018 bipartisan National Defense Strategy Commission,
    which I was able to serve on, warned that even with its current
    defense budget, quote, ``U.S. military could lose the next
    state-versus-state war it fights.'' While the Trump
    administration deserves some credit for launching an effort to
    rebuild the military, this work is by no means complete. In
    fact, much of the increased funding this committee appropriated
    in the fiscal years 2018 through 2020 was allocated towards
    restoring readiness, and only a small percentage focused on
    modernization.
        The Biden administration national security guidance
    indicates that China will remain the pacing threat with Europe
    and Middle East continuing to demand attention.
        Even before the economic downtown triggered COVID-19, calls
    to reduce defense spending emerged from elements in both
    political parties. After examining the real consequences of
    cuts to the Pentagon's resources through the Reagan Institute
    and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments,
    Strategic Choices Exercises, it was clear that one, a 10
    percent cut can reduce the U.S. to a de facto hemispheric power
    by 2030.
        And, two, while flat budgets may appear to be sufficient to
    maintain the status quo, readiness and modernization accounts
    tend to shrink in a flat budget scenario. This would leave the
    United States less able to either deter adventurism them by
    adversaries or to secure allies that America will come to their
    Defense.
        Now, even with the top line that offers some budget growth,
    the DOD cannot avoid difficult strategic choices to balance the
    need to modernize the force for the future and the need to
    maintain a force structure capable of meeting the national
    challenges of today.
        While some progress has been made DOD needs to continue
    developing operational concepts that incorporate new
    technologies and systems that are often the focus of future
    force discussions, such as machine learning and artificial
    intelligence and some of the other technologies my colleague
    has offered in her testimony.
        Congress has done well to mandate such priorities in recent
    legislation. Yet, this will continue to be a challenge for the
    Pentagon and is an area that will benefit from congressional
    oversight. Calls to rapidly integrate new technologies need to
    be accompanied with a radical approach to the Pentagon's
    management practices, specifically, how the DOD acquires new
    technology.
        My testimony offered a number of specific recommendations
    for the Defense Department on those points. I will just mention
    one now. The DOD should measure progress in contracts awarded,
    total dollars awarded, and speed of procurement.
        Even amidst this shift to new technologies and procurement
    processes, the Pentagon should not trade reliable capability
    for systems that do not exist beyond a PowerPoint slide. The
    temptation to trade real capability today for something new in
    the future will require Congress to play a critical and careful
    role in ensuring such legacy systems are indeed unneeded.
        To that end, defense investments should be tightly linked
    to and measured against specific war-fighting objectives. The
    highest priority should be on investments that will make the
    greatest impact in a reasonable timeframe in the most pressing
    scenarios confronting our military, like the Taiwan scenario in
    the Baltic states.
        In 1984, President Reagan observed, quote, ``history
    teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of
    aggression is cheap. To keep the peace, we and our allies must
    be strong enough to convince any potential aggressor that war
    can bring no benefit, only disaster.'' The recently released
    Reagan National Defense Survey revealed that support for
    American leadership in the world, consistent with President
    Reagan's, ``peace through strength'' philosophy remains strong.
        Americans understand that what it will take to sustain the
    peace and our prosperity and are willing to make the
    investments necessary to support a strategy that will deliver
    just that.
        Thank you to committee for having me. I look forward to
    answering your questions.
        [The statement of Mr. Zakheim follows:]

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        Ms. McCollum. Will you please give us the first question
    for our panel?

                       Russia and China Cyber Activities

        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for having
    this hearing, and I appreciate the panelists' time and
    testimony.
        Ms. Howe, we have heard a lot about SolarWinds and
    Microsoft Exchange hacks a few months ago. Recently, we heard
    the first about this breach. And then earlier in March,
    Microsoft announced the vulnerabilities within its Exchange
    Server and whether the fallout is still being measured. But,
    can you give us a sense about how the amount of resources that
    Russia and China dedicate to cyber activities has changed over
    the past 10 years?
        Ms. Howe. Thank you, Congressman Aguilar, I will be the
    first to admit that I am not an expert on the resource
    spending. What I can tell you is from a strategic priority and
    a competitive strategic perspective, there is no question that
    cyberspace is critically important to the priority that both
    countries have.
        And these operations, SolarWinds and the Microsoft Exchange
    Servers are just one example of how quickly they move, how
    purposefully they move, how stealthily they move, and how they
    can stake advantage and understand what our weaknesses are and
    use them for all of their priorities, whether they are
    military, whether they are national security, whether they are
    economic, whether they are societal.
        There is no question that it is of competitive importance,
    it is of strategic importance to both of them. Their operations
    are very effective, and they have been able to carry them out
    with very little fear of retribution or consequence. And that
    is ultimately the problem. We are moving much slower.
        Harvard sociobiology Professor E.O. Wilson has this great
    quote which is, ``the problem with humanity is that we have
    paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and God-like
    technology.'' And today we haven't figured out how to organize
    to make sure that that God-like technology, that for the most
    part, we as a country has developed isn't used against us. And
    right now our adversaries are using it against us. It is a
    critical priority to both of them.

                         Responses to Cyber Activities

        Mr. Aguilar. How should we respond to these types of
    activities? You mentioned consequences. You know, what should
    we be thinking through, and what types of investments should
    the subcommittee be looking to make in the future moving
    forward?
        Ms. Howe. That is a great question. When we look at the
    SolarWinds intrusion, at its core, as of today, it remains
    fundamentally an espionage operation. And how we respond to an
    espionage operation is probably very different than how we
    would respond if the goal was something different.
        What I would tell you is that Russia is--Russians are
    behind most of their ransomware attacks that we suffer in this
    country. Those attacks are overwhelming our security
    professionals, and they are preventing us from focusing on more
    strategic issues and more critical vulnerabilities like the
    ones we have seen in SolarWinds and the Microsoft Exchange
    Servers.
        So, if we wanted to reduce the threat surface and enable
    and empower our security professionals, responding to Russia
    both harboring and potentially encouraging these criminal gangs
    would be fully appropriate. And using our full arsenal of
    national power, including economic tools such as sanctions,
    from my perspective would be an appropriate thing to do.
        As we think about funding, there has been a fair amount of
    funding going to DHS and CISA, which is very important. Our
    response, though, has to be a whole of government response. And
    we have to ensure that we do not lose our technology edge. So
    funding research and innovation, and, especially, how we
    securely develop new technologies is critically important. We
    have to learn from our 5G experience and make sure that we
    never lose our seat at the innovation table. And as we look at
    the sort of next generation of technology, but especially with
    respect to the subcommittee superfast computing and next
    generation encryption which is it cable stakes, we have to make
    sure that we maintain that leadership position.
        We need to make sure that cyber command and NSA which has
    significant capabilities today continue to receive the funding
    they need to support all the agencies as they go after cyber
    actors.
        CISA will require support as it operationalizes. And we
    need to remain clear-eyed about the timeline and leadership is
    going to take for CISA to fully be able to execute on its
    mission, and the support it is going to need from agencies like
    NSA to provide the technical depth that they need in order to
    carry out their mission.
        In the meantime, there has been other suggestions that have
    been put out there, for example, creating something like a
    cyber National Guard, or a cyber civilian corps. When we look
    at ransomware attacks against our municipalities, they are
    under resourced and unable to respond to them in a way that is
    efficient.
        I proposed 15 in my written testimony. I would be happy to
    explore more.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thanks, Ms. Howe. I appreciate it. I yield
    back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. Mr. Calvert.

                                Risk Mitigation

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to make a
    quick point. Both the Republican and Democratic administrations
    have found that a service life extension program for the
    ground-based system ends up costing us more and without
    enabling the system to be effective against current and future
    threats. So, I just wanted to point that out before I ask my
    question.
        The 2018 National Defense Strategy states that the
    department needs to focus its resources to counter China and
    Russia. However, our military, we are still carrying out low
    intensity missions throughout the world.
        While I agree that we should prioritize our research and
    development efforts on fielding capability, which is decisively
    win a war against threats like China, I believe we must also be
    realistic about the missions we are currently tasking the DOD
    with. Even the best resource strategy inevitably allows for
    some risk. Where should the United States be willing to absorb
    that risk?
        I guess for the whole panel, who is best prepared to answer
    that? Maybe Roger, your since I asked Roger on here.
        Mr. Zakheim. Thank you, Congressman. I am happy to take
    that on. And you are right to mention the National Defense
    Strategy had the focus on China and great power competition,
    which includes Russia as well. I would say if there was any
    area where we are supposed to absorb risk per the 2018 National
    Defense Strategy is in those areas like the Middle East, low-
    end conflict where the resources should be less intensive. The
    platforms that we use in those theatres should be revisited to
    make sure, for example, we are not using fifth-generation
    platforms, fighter aircraft to deal with a deterrent mission
    that doesn't require something like that.
        So, less use of high-end capability, reduction of force
    structure that can be applied against the threat posed by China
    were the areas that both the National Defense Strategy and the
    2018 National Defense Strategy Commission focused on.
        I would highlight, though, Mr. Calvert that that was the to
    say where we should absorb some risk, not that we should leave
    those areas entirely. So some level of deterrence is required
    to ensure that we don't find ourselves back in some form of
    conflict there because we have talked away from the deterrence
    that we have put in place there.

                          Department of Defense Budget

        Mr. Calvert. With that, you would probably agree that to
    sustain the objectives of the National Defense Strategy, if
    Congress doesn't provide real growth to the budget, it will be
    very difficult to do that.
        Mr. Zakheim. Mr. Calvert, I do agree with that. And I think
    really the point I am trying to convey which justifies the 3 to
    5 percent real growth that I outlined in my statement is that
    we still need to be present in multiple theaters around the
    world. While we don't want to emphasize the Middle East or
    central command theater like we had done a decade or so ago, we
    are not going to walk away from it either.
        And then to lead in Indo-Pacific, to lead in Asia with
    NATO--excuse me in Europe with NATO, and then to also deter in
    the Middle East, those three regions are animating our military
    and required significant resources.
        Mr. Calvert. All right. Let me question on----
        Ms. Smithberger. If I may just add, I think the other thing
    that the committee needs to look at is some of the weapons
    systems that we are acquiring where we are learning that they
    aren't serving the missions that they should be; that they are
    too expensive to maintain; and in some cases where we need to
    slow down production of those systems so that we can make sure
    that we get things right so that they can be maintained and
    effective, and we are not putting those costs on the force.
        Mr. Calvert. Which system are you talking about?

                                F-35 Challenges

        Ms. Smithberger. I think we are seeing increasingly
    challenges with the F-35. I know that won't be a very popular
    one to highlight, but that we already have increased
    development costs incurring. That when you look at the report
    of the National Commission on Aviation Safety that it is not as
    reliable as we expected it to be. So it is important that we
    get this program right so that it is going to be able to serve
    us in the future.
        Mr. Calvert. I hear that, and the problem is that we made a
    determination to move to the F-35, retire the F-18, the F-15,
    the F-16, and that we have gone to that platform. And,
    unfortunately, those other aircraft are not survivable in a war
    with a near peer competition such as China or Russia. They are
    out of the air almost immediately.
        And so really at this point, our only alternative is the F-
    35 until we get to another level of aircraft, a generation six
    aircraft, which we are not at yet.
        So even though we have had some difficulties with these
    platforms--we had problems with a C-17 when it first started.
    But, unfortunately, we are involved with the F-16 whether we
    like it or not at this point.
        By that way, that brings up a question on innovation. All
    of these systems have software problems. Your F-35 is no
    exception to that. And it is because we don't have new
    technologies capabilities that we should have to test and
    retest that software quickly and to make sure that it is
    capable. And so, the smaller companies, I think, have a better
    understanding of that type of technology, medium and small
    companies, which have a hard time working with the Department
    of Defense.
        And so, as we move forward, Madam Chairwoman, I hope we can
    find ways to get these innovators in the Department so they can
    help us with our national security.
        And with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, and that is a good thing to bring
    up. And I want to make sure that we do talk about how we help
    small and medium-sized businesses, and part of that is them
    having access to classified space in which to work in, which is
    sometimes not near where their production facilities and where
    they are doing their work.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

                           Supply Chain Vulnerability

        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for
    having this hearing. My question is for Ms. Howe. Many of the
    modernization efforts within the Department of Defense require
    increased network capability, such as 5G to connect sensors and
    process large amounts of data quickly. The Department of
    Defense has acknowledged the importance of 5G but has only
    fielded a few pilot projects. Additionally, we land--we lack an
    end-to-end organic U.S. supply chain, which requires us to rely
    on foreign suppliers, including China.
        Is it too late to get ahead of our adversaries when it
    comes to 5G and supply chains? And should the Department of
    Defense be leading the effort in 5G considering its inherent
    need? My other question is where should this subcommittee
    invest to secure our technology supply chain in 5G
    semiconductors and microchips to position us to compete better?
        Ms. Howe. Thank you so much, Congresswoman, for that
    important question. It is not too late, but we have to move
    fast. Time is not on our side. The clock is ticking. We lost a
    lot of time with 5G, but we can absolutely make up ground. And
    we can't lose your leadership position either with respect to
    5G or any future technology that comes up.
        The future of our military, the future of our weapon
    systems are all dependent on understanding the security risks
    that are inherent in not only the technologies, but the
    interdependence of these technologies. And that interdependence
    is what SolarWinds is fundamentally about.
        And so if we acknowledge that we live in a software-enabled
    world today, in an IP-enabled world today, in a technology-
    enabled world today, and understand that the best militaries
    will be defined by access to the best software in these best
    technologies, but a secure form of those software's, then it
    becomes important to organize around that.
        I do believe it needs to be important that we reward the
    Department of Defense and program managers not just with
    meeting time and costs but also meeting security requirements
    with respect to the systems that they deployed. So, all of
    that, I believe, can be done, and time is not--it is not too
    late.
        The question you raise around supply chain vulnerability is
    one of the biggest issues we have today. And, again, the
    SolarWinds intrusion by Russia was very indicative of how hard
    it is to find supply chain vulnerabilities. And this one was
    discussed almost by accident but by FireEye.
        It underscores the fact that without mandated information-
    sharing, which again the DOD can mandate information-sharing
    within its contractor base, much more easily than we can do
    that in the private sector, we would have never found out about
    what is happening with SolarWinds.
        There have been many recommendations from a number of
    commissions of creating an organization that is responsible the
    Europeans are doing this now for assessing supply chain risks
    both with respect to the most critical piece of software that
    we use, as well as with the most critical vendors that we use,
    and to create trusted lists of suppliers.
        This is hard. We should not be asking every organization to
    do it for itself, every agency to do it for itself. It requires
    for firmware level and code level inspection. And it is
    important to have a centralized function that can do that. And,
    again, I would just say if nothing else with respect to my
    testimony, pace matters. Moving fast really matters.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you.
        Mr. Zakheim. Can I just add?
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Okay.
        Mr. Zakheim. Just one more piece to that, Congresswoman. I
    think on-shoring manufacturing capability is critical here. I
    mentioned Taiwan in my opening statement. You are talking about
    technologies that rely on semiconductors that for the most part
    are manufactured in Asia; many in Taiwan. That is precisely the
    area that China is challenging. And so on-shoring that
    capability in the United States and investment and
    manufacturing will be a key area for this committee and the
    Congress to look at.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I have some more questions,
    but I don't know that we can get to them. My time is just about
    expired.
        But how does the United States government recruit, develop,
    and retain the best cyber professionals when most of the
    innovation and highest paying jobs in this area are in the
    commercial sector?
        Ms. Howe. The mission matters, and it matters in the
    industry. I do believe that there is a compelling mission that
    we can use to recruit the best. The authorities that exist,
    especially within the Department of Defense in terms carrying
    out cybersecurity mission is very compelling. If we have a
    commitment to training people and create a way for
    cybersecurity professionals to come and serve in the
    government, take that training back out to the private sector,
    and to be able to come in and out, we can do a lot to solve
    that problem.
        And I will say we have to recruit a much broader base of
    people to our industry, and this is where diversity and equity
    matters. There are some tremendous programs that are being run
    by NSA, FBI, CISA, to encourage STEM education and
    cybersecurity education with diversity and equity in mind. And
    we have highlighted those programs. We need to fund their
    rollout.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Madam Chair, do I have time for one more
    question.
        Ms. McCollum. We are going to have time to do another
    round. Are you able to stay with us, Mrs. Kirkpatrick?
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Yes. Thank you. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Oh, perfect. Mr. Womack.

                            Defense Spending Issues

        Mr. Womack. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to the
    participants on this committee. Count me as a ``peace through
    strength'' guy. Roger alluded to that, and as he should, with
    the Reagan Institute. I believe in it. And with any strength
    program, there comes a cost. And it is those costs that I think
    are center point in our discussion today. And there is a lot of
    things that we should be doing.
        But, Roger, you said something in your testimony, and that
    resonates with me, and that is that too often we are caught up
    in trying to fit defense funding, defense spending, if you
    will, in a budgetary box. It has got to fit some kind of a
    number.
        I have always believed that if you are going to have true
    peace through strength, it has got to be based on--you said in
    your testimony, the strategy. I am more referred to it as the
    threat--the things that we are going to try to do that the
    National Defense Strategy commands us to do to meet the threat,
    known and perceived, near-term, long-term. And if it is a 3 to
    5 percent real growth in defense spending that has to accompany
    that, then I accept that. If it is less, even better.
        But I would suspect that if we are going to continue to
    meet a peace through strength objective, we have got to get
    away from trying to fit it into some budgetary framework, even
    though it is important, and fit it toward meeting what the
    perceived--known and perceived threats are. Would you not
    agree?
        Mr. Zakheim. Congressman, I think that is elemental for any
    strategy. The Congress has mandated that the Department of
    Defense put forward a National Defense Strategy. And the
    Congress should know what the cost is for that strategy. Going
    ahead as the--as we have had before with the Budget Control Act
    with the artificial cap, for example, which, of course, will
    not apply going forward but do for a number of years, really
    then, did not make the strategy impactful, because the Congress
    has stated at the outset, here is as much we are going to pay,
    and then much of that strategy became hollow.
        So, yes, Congressman, I completely agree with your outlook
    that the budget really has to come after the strategy. And that
    does not mean we don't have to make important choices. Much of
    what we are discussing and others testifying are talking about
    are choices we are going to have to make. You can't do it all.
        We have prioritized China. We prioritized great power
    competition. That was a key element of National Defense
    Strategy. Other areas will get less focus. But at the end of
    the day, we have committed to strategy, and we ought to
    resource it. That is what we owe the men and women in uniform.

                               Mandatory Spending

        Mr. Womack. My colleague from California, Ken Calvert, said
    it best in that we are always going to have to achieve a
    certain amount of risk. We are going to have to balance the
    needs of our defense strategy against the acceptable risk that
    we need to take. And I think we need to narrow down our focus
    on what is that acceptable level of risk, and that is what we
    rely on our war fighters and our leaders to do.
        My last question is also about resourcing, and it is what I
    consider to be the biggest threat to our ability to do what we
    are all hopeful of doing, and that is protecting and achieving
    our constitutional objective of providing for the common
    defense.
        And it is mandatory spending. And we spend a whole lot of
    time having major food fights over what we spend on national
    defense and what we spend on Labor H and what we spend on all--
    but if you look at the last 10 years of our Federal budget, the
    Defense, and Labor, and Health and Human Services, and all of
    the things that we have in our discretionary budget, they
    haven't grown appreciably. I mean, they have grown but in small
    percentages.
        I mean, if you look at what we were spending on the
    discretionary budget, say, in 2009, the year before I was
    elected to Congress versus what we are spending today, I think
    it fits into any reasonable category of reasonable growth over
    time. It is the mandatory side it has.
        And we spend no time, zero time in Congress talking about
    what to do to wrestle mandatory spending to the ground. It is
    growing exponentially. Ten thousand people a day are going to
    age into these programs. And there is no end in sight to how
    much more pressure it is going to put on us appropriators in
    trying to meet the demands that are expressed in our
    discretionary budget.
        So to any of you, would you agree, or maybe to all of you,
    do you agree that Congress needs to get about the task of doing
    something about the mandatory side to spending to include net
    interest on the debt which is going to exceed $300 billion this
    year?
        Anybody?
        Mr. Zakheim. Congressman, I will jump at. I agree, and it
    probably won't surprise you, and the reality is that if you
    want to get after the debt and deficit, going after
    discretionary spending, whether it is defense or nondefense is
    not going to get you there.
        Mr. Womack. To any of you?
        Ms. McCollum. To the former chair of the Budget Committee,
    the other witnesses I don't think came prepared necessarily to
    do that.
        Mr. Womack. Well, look, here is the deal, and then I am
    going to yield back.
        If we are going to have a meaningful conversation about
    future years spending on defense or any other discretionary
    item, we have to be honest with ourselves that the real
    pressure on these programs is not the defense is spending too
    much money, it is that we are all being constrained by how much
    money is going out the door in the Federal budget versus our
    revenues that is having to pay for the mandatory programs that
    Congress has no appetite to solve, and we have to develop that
    appetite.
        I will get off my platform and yield back. And I do have
    other commitment I have got to make and can't stay. But
    Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and to our
    witnesses, thank you so much for your time today.
        I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. But we also don't want the
    Ways and Means Committee to do what they did to us in
    Interior--both Mr. Calvert and I had to deal with it--and that
    is a payment in lieu of taxes. They decided not to make it
    mandatory to our counties and governments for payment of lieu
    in taxes, and instead just put it over in the Department of the
    Interior. And then Mr. Calvert and I found ourselves having to
    take that out of hide. So that is not a good solution either
    sometimes.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart, I am going to ask you, if you would, to go
    next. So Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                       Threat Level From China and Russia

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Well, thank you. You are very kind. I want
    to first kind of really add, agree with what my colleague, Mr.
    Womack, just mentioned. And, you know, we always spend a lot of
    time because we are appropriators on discretionary--obviously,
    we spend so little time on, frankly, two-thirds of the spending
    and what is really creating all of the issues.
        I obviously hope that we don't add additional new issues to
    discretionary because I think that not only is it a problem for
    our fiscal future, but it is also potentially a national
    security threat kind of adding to what Mr. Womack said.
        To the panelists, does anybody believe that China is not a
    real, you know, threat and national security threat in the
    future of our--you know, for my child and for my kids' kids, is
    China going to be less of a threat, and anybody believe that is
    going to be less of a threat or potentially going to be a
    threat?
        Ms. Howe. Congressman, I am happy to start with that. I
    believe that China is a long-term strategic threat on a number
    of dimensions, and especially in my area of expertise which is
    cybersecurity.
        Russia is today's threats. But from a strategic perspective
    as we look forward, and as we look forward at the new waves of
    technology that are coming online, and how China is organizing
    globally, there is no question that they are a long-term
    strategic threat.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. And, you know, thank you for also
    mentioning Russia. Let me add that to my question. You already
    answered it very succinctly. Anybody else? Does anybody think
    that China is not a current or future threat? And that Russia,
    while, you know, obviously, doesn't have the economy of China
    is going to somehow stop being a threat in the near future?
        Mr. Zakheim. Congressman, I believe that China is the
    threat, our peer competitor. And I actually would put them even
    today ahead of Russia in terms of what we have to deal with
    both in terms of their capability and how they are challenging
    us across the political, economic, and, of course, security
    sphere.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Let me, since, you know, let me kind of
    take back my time. If anybody disagrees that China is a threat,
    does anybody believe--any of you believe that China is going to
    be less of a threat in the future looking at how they are
    investing, what they are doing, or are they going to be more of
    a threat in the future?
        Ms. Smithberger. Congressman, I think it is going to depend
    a lot on what investments we make as a Nation across our
    government to manage that competition----
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. I get that we do, but I am just asking
    about them. Does anybody think that China is going to be less
    of a threat, that they are going to change their posture, and
    they are going to become, you know, I don't know, Switzerland?
    Or do you believe--do any of you believe they are going
    potentially less of a threat, or are they going to continue to
    expand, increase their military's power, et cetera?
        Mr. Zakheim. I think there is a consensus, Congressman,
    that they are going to be more of a threat, and everything they
    are doing reflects that.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Well, let me, again, if anybody disagrees
    with that, please speak up. But if not, because I think that is
    the consensus, I think, amongst most of us also.
        Mr. Action. Congressman, can I----
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Yes, I am sorry. Go ahead.
        Mr. Acton. Sir, just, I mean, speaking kind of from my
    expertise of nuclear policy, I do worry enormously about
    China's conventional modernization and its cyber forces.
        I think nuclear policy is a bit of a different area there
    in which the United States is going to continue to enjoy very
    significant superiority in nuclear forces for what that is
    worth for the foreseeable future.
        And I don't think that China's steady slow nuclear buildup
    is going to challenge that significantly for the foreseeable
    future.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. But you do expect them to build up?
        Mr. Acton. Yeah, I mean the Department of Defense projects
    that China's nuclear forces will--sorry, China's nuclear
    warhead stockpile will roughly double over the next 10 years or
    so which would still make it round about 8 to 10 times smaller
    than the United States even at the end of buildup.

                       Research and Development Spending

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. No, and I get that. But I think that there
    is an agreement, right, I would say that there is a consensus
    that it is a threat, it is going to continue to be a threat, it
    is going to continue to be a greater threat. And we also know
    that China has tripled its research in R&D over the past decade
    while our spending has remained constant.
        And so, here is the question. Is there any way that we can
    keep up, compete with a China--an emerging military,
    potentially even nuclear superpower by keeping our R&D flat,
    and also potentially by keeping our defense spending plat? How
    do we do that?
        I just don't see how we can do both things. We can stay
    ahead of the curve while our adversaries, particularly China,
    is according to, I think, everybody's understanding is getting
    more dangerous and not less.
        How can we do that while reducing spending, whether it is
    in basic military spending or R&D? How do we do that? Can we do
    that, or is it frankly just increasing our risk exponentially?
        It is a rhetorical question, but I would like to hear it.
        Mr. Zakheim. Congressman, we have looked at that in our
    Project for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Dr. Macon
    testified before this committee before. The answer is no. A
    flat defense budget will make it very difficult to compete with
    China. And even if you felt that you could compete with China,
    you are inviting risk in other regions in the world. Russia,
    for example, would be the prime spoiler in that scenario which
    would further weaken our interest.
        So even at flat levels and in making really great choices,
    you are inviting significant risk.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Madam Chairwoman, yeah, if anybody else
    wants to respond to that, I just want to be conscious of our
    time and be respectful to the chairwoman.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
        So, you know, we need to be looking at a defense posture
    against, you know, near peers China and Russia. But we also
    have to realize that their governments work very different than
    ours do, and they don't have the citizen input that we have.
    And all of are us have traveled the world.
        So, when they are talking about what they are doing with
    their defense budgets and that, they are doing so at, you know,
    not taking care of their population and not having public input
    on it. So sometimes it is nice to just talk the dollars, but we
    also have to remember the type of governments that our near
    peers have, and if that is what they decide to do, the public
    has and the people that they are supposed to be representing
    have no side in it.
        A lot has been talked about defense, but I also just want
    to talk about the three Ds because whether it was Secretary
    Gates or Colin Powell, when he was Joint Chief of Staff and the
    Secretary of State always talked about development, diplomacy,
    and defense. And sometimes their best defense is winning the
    hearts and minds and building more allies around the world.
        I am going to take my first and second round and combine
    them. And then before I start asking my question, I just want
    to let people know the order they are up in. It would be Mr.
    Aguilar, Mr. Calvert, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, and then you again you
    again, sir, Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                             Cyber Attack Response

        Ms. Howe, my first question is for you. You mentioned in
    your testimony that our cybersecurity adversaries, they are
    fast, and they are creative, they are persistent, and they are
    unconstrained by law or regulation. Unlike us, right, when we
    compare governments to governments. The add deterrence in
    building resilience, what is the tipping point for the DOD
    should respond when our government and businesses are
    constantly attacked? And I am putting that out because you
    talked about a whole of government.
        Do we need to have a conversation in our democracy on how
    we respond as a whole of government on some of these attacks?
    And when is an attack on our economic system or our healthcare
    system or our public health--public service like water and
    electricity, should we be having those conversations on how to
    respond as a whole government?
        Ms. Howe. Congresswoman, Chairwoman, you are absolutely
    right, and this is a very important question. You highlight a
    critical issue, which is we have not developed the appropriate
    response deterrence policy, escalation policies with respect to
    cyber activity. And every time we come across another event
    that is where a nation state is behind it, we struggle with the
    question of what the appropriate response is. We need to
    develop those norms. We need to develop those policies. We
    can't do them in a vacuum. There needs to be, you know, a
    multilateral agreement with like-minded allies in terms of what
    that appropriate policy would look like.
        What I would tell you is that without restoring deterrence,
    without using all of our tools of national power to respond to
    these attacks in the right way, the private sector does not
    stand a chance. We will not be able to keep committed nation
    state adversaries at bay, out of our system, out of our
    networks. Our governments don't stand a chance. Our critical
    infrastructure does not stand a chance.
        You are absolutely right to say that we have to--we do not
    have the policies in place to--the deterrence policies in
    place, the escalation policies in place. That is the
    conversation that should be happening. And there is no question
    that it is complicated, but we are running out of time to do
    that, so it is--and this is where we need Congress' support.
    Again, this is only something you can do, so we would be
    grateful if that conversation would take place.

                       Ground Based Strategic Deterrents

        Ms. McCollum. So I noticed Mr. Cole came back. So, Mr.
    Cole, what I am doing is I combined my first and second round,
    so you will be right after me and then we will go to Mr.
    Aguilar.
        I would like to direct my next question to Dr. Acton. Your
    testimony calls for a pause in the ground based strategic
    deterrent program, and looking at further alternatives. But at
    the same time, you seem a little skeptical about the long-term
    viability of the intercontinental ballistic, the ICBMs, in
    general. Is there any scenario in which you would recommended
    moving forward with GBSD?
        Mr. Acton. Well, thank you for the question, Congresswoman.
    And I am concerned about the long-term viability of ICBMs,
    especially silo-based ICBMs, as all U.S. systems are. We have
    spoken a lot in this hearing about Russia and China. I think it
    is possible, indeed likely, that over the next 30 to 40, 50
    years, Russia and China would develop large numbers of long-
    range conventional weapons that could be used to attack U.S.
    silos.
        And the only concept we would have for then defending those
    nuclear weapons would be to launch large numbers of nuclear
    weapons in the event that Russia or China launch non-nuclear
    attacks against our silos. I don't think that threat is
    credible. I don't think we should want to put any President in
    that position.
        Now, look, let me be honest here. You know, I don't have
    access to classified information. I haven't read the 2015
    analysis of alternatives conducted by the Department of Defense
    about the new ICBM. But based on what has been reported, I
    think there is good reasons to want to see that analysis
    reviewed by an independent body.
        Just to give you one example, the 2015 analysis of
    alternatives assumed that the United--reportedly assumed that
    we should retain 450 ICBMs. That requirement has already
    dropped to 400 ICBMs, and that matters because the fewer ICBMs
    we keep the more we have that are available for testing and
    hence the longer you can sustain the Minuteman-III force form.
        So, you know, this is why I think this should be looked
    over, reviewed by an independent body to look at some of the
    options that weren't considered in the 2015 analysis of
    alternatives, you know, including slightly reducing the size of
    the Minutemen-III force as a way of keeping it viable for
    longer.
        Ms. McCollum. Okay. Thank you. My next--I am going to go--I
    need to be respectful to the other members, and so I have a
    question for both Ms. Smithberger and you, sir, Mr. Zakheim,
    and it goes to OCO. So, Congress and the executive branch, how
    do we use overseas contingency funds? Are they ever necessary?
        And with, Mr. Zakheim, when you were also talking about
    flat-line funding, cuts to funding, and inflationary and 3
    percent and all that, when you were talking about that, how did
    you calculate OCO into that? Because that becomes--that is
    something I am looking at very seriously because some of the
    OCO funding has actually now become baseline funding, and some
    of the OCO funding then has tails that goes into the next year,
    so how we account for all that is really important.
        So, what should Congress and the executive branch be
    looking at if we do anymore of these overseas contingency
    accounts in the future? What should they look for? Should we
    include tails, and how should they be strategically used? If
    both of you could answer that question, and then I am going to
    go to Mr. Cole.
        Ms. Smithberger. Absolutely. Thank you for the question. I
    think at the initial stages of a conflict when the costs are
    unclear, something like OCO can be appropriate. As much as
    possible though, Congress should be very clear about what they
    want that to be used for, that there should--to the degree
    there is a tail to that spending, they should be asking for
    more transparency and reporting about what that is.
        If we don't see a budget--or if we see a budget that
    continues to support OCO, I think you should work with the
    Department to let's make sure that that is only being
    supported--supporting things that are unexpected costs. But
    really the best way to improve planning and management is for
    the Department to not be using this fund.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Zakheim. Madam Chair, I agree with that. In terms of
    your specific question about OCO, the 3 to 5 percent growth is
    talking about the base budget primarily. It didn't include OCO.
        Ms. McCollum. It didn't include any of the tails of OCO
    or----
        Mr. Zakheim. So to the extent that OCO fixes in, right,
    into the base budget, then it would be inclusive, and that is
    part of my point I want to add on to OCO, which is as you
    migrate away from OCO, which I think we should for the reasons
    Ms. Smithberger outlined, we have to make sure that they are
    migrating into the base budget and we are not just simply
    cutting them off, because the Department has relied on it,
    right, and therefore what you are essentially doing is further
    shrinking the base budget if it wedges its way in without
    seeing some top-line relief.
        I also just want to add, Madam Chair, in terms of Mr.
    Acton's point before, just simply that the 2018 National
    Defense Strategy Commission did look at this issue with respect
    to the third leg of the triad ICBM and GBSD and felt that the
    Obama administration decision to move forward with the GBSD
    program was sound. So that was an outside review I referred to
    the committee.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you.
        So, Mr. Cole, I am glad you were able to come back.
    Welcome.
        Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I had been at
    the Rules Committee on War Powers Act, so this is back to back
    is the important set of----
        Ms. McCollum. We appreciate your work, sir.

                           Competing With Adversaries

        Mr. Cole. Well, thank you very much. I don't know what I
    did to anger my leader, but I paid for it. Anyway, let me ask
    the big picture question, if I may. I came in and I heard, of
    course, my good friend from Arkansas' comments, which I agree
    with very much, also with yours, Madam Chair, that we have a
    different set of inputs into our defense decisions and our
    potential adversaries do for sure. And we also maintain an all-
    volunteer force, which honestly, for soldiers a lot more
    expensive than either of our two adversaries, and that is
    something we do by choice.
        There is a third part of the equation we don't like to talk
    about very much, and that is, in the past, when we dealt with
    this sort of Chinese, Russian access aligned against us, we had
    overwhelming economic advantage over those two economies
    combined. That is not true anymore, and particularly, given the
    growth of the Chinese economy and given its projected growth
    going forward.
        I want to ask all of our witnesses really sort of a big
    picture question. Given the domestic demands we have, given the
    manner in which we have chosen to fund our force with much
    higher per-person cost, and given the fact that we don't have
    the economic advantage over our peer competitors that we once
    had, you know, how realistic is it for us to maintain
    substantial advantage going forward over our competitors?
        And I will just start, if I could, with Mr. Acton, Dr.
    Acton, excuse me, with you and kind of work through the panel.
        Mr. Acton. Well, thank you for the question, Congressman,
    and to some extent, that is kind of above my pay grade, as it
    were. But, you know, focusing on the nuclear aspect of this
    specifically, I believe that the United States can retain a
    very significant advantage over China and can continue to be in
    a situation of strategic parity with Russia while spending--
    while reducing the increase in expected spending on nuclear
    weapons.
        And, you know, as defense appropriators, you are one of the
    few organs within the entire U.S. Government that can really
    consider the tradeoffs between the nuclear and nonnuclear parts
    of the budget, I mean, indeed, the Appropriations Committee as
    a whole between the defense and non-defense parts of the
    budget. But what I would just point out is that I don't view
    reductions slowing the rate at increase in nuclear spending as
    in any way compromising the strategic security of the United
    States and its allies.
        Mr. Cole. Thank you.
        Ms. Howe.
        Ms. Howe. Thank you, sir, for the question. From the
    perspective of a cybersecurity person, we have to invest in
    order to maintain our advantage. There is no question about
    that. We have to invest in technology. We have to understand
    the future of technology. We have to own the standards in order
    to manage the supply chain risk.
        Next-generation encryption, investments in super-fast
    computing, those are table stakes, and nothing else matters if
    we lose that competitive edge. So I don't know what tradeoffs
    would need to happen in order to make the investments that are
    required, but for us to maintain our competitive strategic edge
    in cyberspace and to protect our Nation and to protect our
    democracy, we have to invest.
        Mr. Cole. Okay. Ms. Smithberger.
        Ms. Smithberger. I think that we can maintain our
    advantage. It is certainly going to be a challenge. The
    pandemic has created no shortage of concerns. And I think it is
    important to look back to comments that General Milley made
    about how a lot of our strength is our national economy. So I
    think as we look at how to fund each of our agencies in the
    government, it is making sure that we are making smart
    strategic investments.
        And I think, particularly with the many ways that the
    Department of Defense needs to reform, I think that it is going
    to be more advantageous to those reforms if we see reductions
    in spending. And I am concerned that if we see significant
    increases that we are going to continue to fund boondoggle
    programs that aren't going to make us safer.
        Mr. Cole. Okay. And Mr. Zakheim.
        Mr. Zakheim. Thank you, Congressman. I believe that our
    political and economic system will ultimately lead us to the
    prosperity we expect and desire, and that ultimately it is our
    comparative advantage vis--vis China. What we need to do is, in
    parallel with strengthening our economy and working with allies
    because that is another comparative advantage, make sure that
    we continue to invest in our national defense.
        Relative to everything else we spend in this country, the
    budget we are discussing here is a modest down payment to
    ensure that the Chinese or the Russians don't exploit an
    opportunity because they perceive us as weak or unwilling to
    make the investments to secure our peace and prosperity that
    ultimately our political system and economic system delivers.
        I am bullish on us vis--vis China. It is the economic and
    political system that will win the day. We just have to keep
    pace with our security investments.
        Mr. Cole. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Don't
    misunderstand, I am very much a hawk and very much agree with
    your sense of prioritization, all of you collectively, about
    the importance of defense.
        But I also was the chairman and ranking member of Labor-H,
    and I can tell you, we used to use the line, ``You are a lot
    more likely to die in a pandemic than a terrorist attack.'' It
    used to be a great line, now it is true, half a million plus in
    the last year.
        So there are other areas of government that are going to
    have to be invested in, and there are things like the National
    Institutes of Health and CDC, and honestly, they are a fraction
    of the cost of what we spend in defense.
        So, again, I have approached this as a hawk, but I also
    recognize that we have got some other challenges as well, and
    there are limits to the resources we have.
        I think that is where you are trying to take us, Madam
    Chair, in terms of having a serious discussion about priorities
    inside our overall budget.
        With that, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Cole, and that is what we need
    to do. We need to balance everything, and we haven't even
    talked--we have talked about China and Russia here, but there
    is other adversaries that we haven't talked about, the uprising
    of terrorism in Africa and other parts of the world and that,
    and cyber fits into a lot of what those individuals are doing.
        But how do we prepare for that if all of our focus is on
    China and Russia? And it needs to be. They are our near-peer
    adversaries. But we know after September 11 that people can do
    things that are very disruptive and very hurtful to our
    democracy, our Nation, and our people with a lot less expensive
    weapons that they figure out how to use to them, and think of
    all the money we have now spent on that.
        Mr. Aguilar, you have been very patient to ask your second
    question, and you are up.

                                  Space Force

        Mr. Aguilar. Thanks, Madam Chair. Appreciate it and
    appreciate the discussion.
        Ms. Smithberger, Space Force is going to play an important
    role in protecting our vital infrastructure that we have made
    investments in over the past few decades; however, there is a
    concern that it will become another, you know, bloated and slow
    part of our Defense Department.
        What recommendations, what best practices, what should we
    be looking at to avoid that type of outcome?
        Ms. Smithberger. Thank you for the question. And, you know,
    to be honest, we had had some concerns about the way that Space
    Force was established, that we aren't setting them up to
    succeed by creating a separate bureaucracy and just kind of
    what inherently tends to come along with that.
        But I think what we need to look at is making sure that we
    are learning the lessons of some of these past risky
    acquisition systems, so how are we making sure that we are not
    pursuing immature technology, how are we making sure that we
    are adequately funding cyber testing as well for these
    different kinds of systems, how are we making sure that we have
    just a healthy culture for the organization as well.
        So I really appreciate the question. I think it is going to
    take very vigorous congressional oversight to make sure that
    the Space Force is working well with the goals of the
    Department and being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.
        Mr. Aguilar. How can we do that, you know, better? How can
    we make sure that that connection is closer from the policy
    side to the implementation side with respect to budgeting and
    best practices?
        Ms. Smithberger. That is a good question. So I think as
    much as possible it is making sure that when we are getting--
    when you are getting briefings about our space capabilities
    that you have the various components of the Department that are
    focused on these areas.
        And this might be something where my colleague, Dr. Acton,
    can weigh in on as well, but looking at--making sure that there
    is coordination. Certainly, a slightly different issue, but we
    have seen just this week on hypersonic weapons that there are
    concerns about duplication that is going to occur.
        A lot of it is just having very clear transparency about
    what are we building, what are we doing, and having as much
    coordination as possible.
        Mr. Aguilar. Dr. Acton.
        Mr. Acton. Well, thank you for the question. I mean, very
    briefly, I think that everything Dr. Smithberger says about the
    risk of duplication in hypersonics is very true. That is not so
    much a Space Force issue as it is the Air Force has its
    systems, the Navy has its systems, the Army has its systems. I
    think there is cooperation between the services, but a number
    of systems being developed that I think is disproportionate to
    the potential military benefit.
        On Space Force specifically, you know, look, my own area
    here is on nuclear command and control. I don't know if there
    is anybody else in the nongovernmental community who considers
    themselves passionate about that subject, but I do. I would
    just make a couple of points.
        You know, firstly, I think that there are--we ought to be
    looking to enhance the resilience and redundancy of these
    systems. I think this is an area where we ought to be spending
    more as a country not less, especially because of the threats
    to these systems in a--the kind of conventional conflict that
    might precede a nuclear war.
        And, secondly, you know, both in terms of nuclear command
    and control and in terms of nuclear forces more generally, I
    want to emphasize that cooperation in the forms of reciprocal,
    verifiable arms control is one of the most effective ways we
    have to curtail spending without compromising security, not
    only because it avoids getting into arms race, we have to build
    fewer weapons, also in the savings on intelligence because we
    have on-the-ground verification could be very, very
    significant.
        I think it was one of the three Ds that Chairwoman McCollum
    mentioned, ``diplomacy.'' That has to be, in my view, part of
    an integrated strategy as well here.
        Mr. Zakheim. Congressman, could I just add two quick
    metrics that you ought to consider?
        First, the radical in management of the Department in terms
    of the growth of the workforce supporting the Space Force. It
    is supposed to be a lean and mean organization, and Congress
    can, through its legislation, ensure it stays that way.
        Second, rapid acquisition. We see what is going on in
    commercial space. There is no reason why the same investments
    on the government side can't see the speed and delivery that we
    are seeing on the commercial side. This is not decades. It is
    years at most. That is a second area to make sure you are
    getting the bang for your buck when it comes to the Space
    Force.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you. I appreciate it.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Calvert.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chairman. That was an
    interesting round of questions.
        I just want to make a point, that our nuclear weapons are
    old. We need to rework that arsenal. We have capped our number
    of nuclear weapons. We have talked about the arms agreements.
    You know, Russia never stopped in designing and building
    nuclear weapons and weren't honest about what they are up to.
    And their nuclear weapons arsenal is the largest in the world,
    exceeds both the United States and China combined. And I would
    point out that China is rapidly building a nuclear arsenal, so
    it is nothing to sneeze at.
        One other thing about what was brought up about Space
    Command, which I am concerned about, and what was brought up
    about the, you know, personnel within the Department of Defense
    and, Madam Chair, you know what I am going to say----
        The numbers of people in the Department of Defense civilian
    workforce has never been higher relative to those in uniform,
    and we need to get a hold of that bureaucracy. And as fear I
    had with space is that they were going to change--go down that
    same path, so we should not let that happen.

                   Department of Defense and the Space Domain

        Getting back to space, that is the high ground, and if any
    conflict happens, I think that that is something that we need
    to maintain superiority at. China is rapidly gaining access to
    space and, quite frankly, capability, and we are losing our
    quantitative edge.
        Last month, Todd Harrison from the Center of Strategic
    International Studies told our subcommittee that China is
    making advances in counter space weapons faster than we are,
    advancing our space defenses against those systems. I would
    ask, what is your assessment on DOD's progress in the space
    domain, and how do we budget properly to be prepared for this
    rapidly evolving threat? I would ask that for any of the
    panelists.
        Mr. Acton.
        Mr. Zakheim. Congressman, I am happy to field part of that.
    I think it is the acquisition speed, it is the redundancy that
    Dr. Acton spoke about. And, I mean, you have done this on the
    civilian workforce writ large, but it is also ensuring that it
    is happening within the Space Force.
        To me, those are the key areas that the Congress should be
    focused on, and that will challenge China. Particularly, if we
    are able to increase a number of satellites, smaller, cheaper,
    that puts great--that is a competitive cost-imposing strategy
    on the Chinese.
        If I can on the GBSD, Congressman, just briefly, I agree
    with you that you need to have nuclear weapons that work, and
    that the problem with the service life extension on the
    Minutemen is that we have heard from the commander that you
    can't extend the life of this, that it doesn't work, and that
    obviously creates great danger.
        Particularly in this environment, the National Defense
    Strategy, we lean on nuclear weapons more, as you know, in the
    strategy. And if we are going to have them, we have got to make
    sure they are going to work, and STRATCOM has told us it will
    not.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        Mr. Acton. Congressman, if I could weigh in on the issue on
    satellites. Our nuclear command-and-control satellites are in
    very high orbit, and right now the threats to those orbits are
    less than all of, you know, the low-Earth orbit satellites that
    are in dire jeopardy. The threat to those higher-altitude
    satellites is increasing, and our acquisition of antisatellite
    weapons won't in and of itself negate Russian and Chinese
    antisatellite weapons, that won't protect our satellites.
        I believe that DOD should be looking at fundamentally
    different, more resilient architectures to defend these most
    valuable satellites. Just to give you one example, one of the
    systems we used to have for nuclear communications, something
    called ASATCOM involved dispersing communication transponders
    on very large numbers of satellites being used for other
    purposes, 20, 30, exact numbers are classified. That was a much
    more resilient system than building a few absolutely exquisite
    but relatively vulnerable satellites.
        When I say we should be looking at new architectures, that
    is the kind of example of programs that I mean that I think DOD
    is very resistant to changing the way it has done nuclear
    command and control because that is actually quite difficult to
    make that change.
        And on GBSD, all I would say simply is that the assumptions
    on which previous studies into replacing the Minutemen--into
    Minutemen-III life extensions were an extremely restrictive set
    of assumptions. And I think everybody recognizes that the--you
    know, you can predetermine the outcome of a study by the
    assumptions you choose to put into it.
        Mr. Calvert. Yeah. Thank you for that.
        And the last point I want to make, Madam Chair, is that
    Mike Griffin, our former R&D guy at the Department, made a
    point that our turnaround time on new satellite development
    sometimes is 20 years.
        The Chinese are doing it in 2 years. We have to cut the
    time in which we start a program and launch the program
    enormously in order to make sure we keep up. And we are not
    doing that right now. We need to change the culture, and that
    is a difficult thing to do.
        Thank you. Yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Diaz-Balart and then Mr. Cole for a
    second question.

                            Semiconductor Production

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        A little while ago, I think, Roger--and, again, I apologize
    for using your first name--I think you talked about on-shoring,
    you know, semiconductors and that kind of thing.
        So I just recently read, and I may be wrong, if I read it
    wrong, that I think Ford automobiles is--they are building--I
    don't know if it is their F, you know, 150 pickup trucks
    without the semiconductors, because they don't have enough of
    them, and then they are going to put them on later.
        Now, that is bad enough, but when you are dealing with
    defense national security that is catastrophic. And so, you
    know, any ideas as to what we should be doing to on-shoring,
    you know, national security, defense-like semiconductors, which
    is obviously something I think you talked about, you know, the
    vulnerability of having a lot of them being built in places
    like Taiwan?
        If you care to kind of expand as to some ideas as to how do
    we do on-shore, incentivize companies to build those
    semiconductors, those national security semiconductors here in
    the United States.
        Mr. Zakheim. Thank you, Congressman. Happy to talk about
    that. You are right that cutting-edge semiconductors are not
    manufactured in the United States. They have one foundry. As
    you go from 14 animators and down, you really have to look into
    Asia.
        So the previous administration and this administration and
    this Congress has made significant investments--I am thinking
    of the CHIP Act here, at least it requires appropriations, so
    it is quite relevant to this committee, but at least the
    authorization to on-shore some of this capability.
        And we have seen this with some of the U.S. semiconductor
    companies, as well as the one that gets discussed the most is
    Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing company, which there is a
    move to invest in a foundry, I believe, in Arizona.
        But the other slice of it is that we are going to have to
    continue working with allies. We are going to have to continue
    working and getting semiconductors from Korea and Taiwan, and
    that gets back to this committee's jurisdiction, which is to
    demonstrate to the Chinese that the United States is committed
    to the defense of Taiwan, that that is not only necessary
    because we are both democracies and we should support
    democracies, but also it is vital to the supply chain for our
    security and our economy.
        And that is pretty much where we are at right now and why
    this is so critical. And we are seeing it, as you reference,
    outside the security context, just economically right now, Ford
    is having difficulty getting their semiconductors.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. And I agree with you, and I think, you
    know, about your--you know, the posture towards Taiwan and to
    others. But should we treat semiconductors--I mean, you know,
    obviously, we want to--I would like to on-shore everything,
    right.
        But there is, I believe, a difference between
    semiconductors, hugely important for pickup trucks, and
    semiconductors for our national defense.
        So should we treat those differently and have a different
    way to, you know, to more aggressively treat those differently
    than we do with, you know, other semiconductors, or for that
    matter anything that is not defense, directly defense related?
        Mr. Zakheim. Well, it is interesting when it comes to the
    fab support to smaller semiconductors, and I don't know what
    size the Ford F-150 uses, but generally this is viewed as
    something that is needed on the commercial side as well on the
    security side. So it is actually a twofer when you come to
    think of it.
        And given the capital-intensive requirements to support
    high-end manufacturing like a foundry for semiconductors, you
    are going to need a commercial market to support it. So vital
    to getting our security and defense needs met when it comes to
    semiconductors, we actually have to make it part of the supply
    chain for the commercial sector as well.
        And that is really reflective of the overall environment we
    are in right now where so much of what the military needs in
    terms of technology are things that the private sector, the
    commercial sector is leading on. Semiconductors is one that
    gets a lot of focus because we simply have to look to Asia to
    source it.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Appreciate that.
        Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Cole.

                      Nuclear Modernization and Hypersonic

        Mr. Cole. Thank you.
        Mr. Zakheim, I understand you are part of the 2018 National
    Defense Strategy Commission. Obviously, one of the things you
    looked at was nuclear modernization, so a couple questions.
        One, do you think there is any reason to think we need to
    do anything different than that commission outlined.
        Two, do you have any concerns--and this may be a very
    elemental question--about the fact that both Russia and China
    still continue to manufacture nuclear weapons? We seem to just
    simply rework the nuclear weapons that we have. And I know Mr.
    Calvert touched on this a little bit.
        I understand from a previous hearing, it would be very
    difficult for us to actually make from scratch, if not
    impossible right now in any short period of time, a nuclear
    weapon. Does that give you any pause for concern looking
    forward?
        Mr. Zakheim. Thank you, Congressman Cole. And, yes, I think
    the 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission language on
    nuclear weapons, in particular the triad and GBSD stands. The
    strategy demands it. Because we are simply focused so much on
    China, we have to rely even more than previously on the
    deterrent.
        We have our limitations. We have our reasons why we don't
    test, for example, nuclear weapons. The Commission didn't say
    we should revisit that. What it did say is that we should
    reinvest in the design, understanding, and modernizing.
        And it is simply dangerous to rely on something that was
    put out there in 1970. That people understand the designs,
    should they actually have them, are not alive.
        I think the rationale for the triad remains strong. We do
    need the GBSD, the ICBM because there are vulnerabilities that
    it addresses that the other legs of the triad do not.
        And we should go ahead and modernize for the safety of the
    American people and the cities in which these silos reside and
    for the deterrence it brings us and our allies in Europe and
    Asia.
        Mr. Cole. Okay. Thank you.
        Dr. Acton, I know you know a great deal about hypersonics.
    It is an area that I think we have allowed ourselves to get
    behind in. But I am particularly interested in not just the
    offensive capability, but, you know, you have raised the danger
    of hypersonic attack on land-based silos.
        What kind of defensive possibilities do we have in dealing
    with hypersonics? I know I have seen--Fort Sill is in my
    district, the air defense artillery station there. There has
    been some--at least beginning work on lasers. How close are we
    to having any kind of reasonable defense against a hypersonic
    attack?
        Mr. Acton. Thanks for the question, Congressman. I would
    distinguish here between point defenses and area defenses. So,
    area defenses are systems like the ground-based midcourse
    system deployed in California and Alaska. Those are--you know,
    those are intended to defend very wide areas. Conceptually,
    they are a bit like defensive linemen in football trying to
    knock down the ball just after it leaves the quarterback's
    hand.
        You know, those kind of area defenses against hypersonic
    weapons are extraordinarily difficult. I would point out, they
    are also extraordinarily difficult against normal ballistic
    missiles. You know, our defenses are not designed to intercept
    Russian or Chinese ICBMs. They wouldn't have the ability to
    intercept Russian or Chinese hypersonic weapons. Obviously, if
    those hypersonic weapons were conventionally armed, that would
    represent a qualitatively new threat facing us.
        The good news is, I am a lot more bullish about point
    defenses. This is like your cornerbacks at football trying to
    intercept the ball just before it lands in the wide receiver's
    hands. They can only intercept a small area. They are expensive
    as a result.
        But, you know, systems like that have been shown to have a
    pretty good effectiveness against ballistic missiles.
    Hypersonic weapons generally move slower than ballistic
    missiles of the same range.
        You know, you can't just point that at a hypersonic weapon
    and hope it would work. You have to modify the system. But the
    very, very intent heat signature of a hypersonic weapon is
    something that an infrared seeker interceptor can lock on to.
        So, yeah, I am moderately bullish about this. I think this
    is an area in which DOD is already spending quite a lot on
    hypersonic defense. I think for point defense is that
    investment is a worthwhile one.
        It is not going to be a silver bullet, but when you combine
    it with hardening, dispersal, you know, my net assessment is
    that Russian and Chinese conventional regional hypersonics
    don't really increase the threat we face relative to the
    ballistic missiles that they already have, especially if we
    make good investments in defenses, active and passive.
        Mr. Cole. Well, thank you, Dr. Acton, for speaking in
    football analogies. That is something those of us in Oklahoma
    actually grasp and understand much more quickly, so that was
    very helpful to me.
        Mr. Acton. Yeah, I have to thank my wife for that. You can
    probably tell by my accent, I didn't grow up with that.
        Mr. Cole. Well, I was going to compliment you. You clearly
    have mastered it.
        Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, we could always do hockey from my part
    of the world. I just want to thank the panelists. We had you
    here today to make us think about us and some of the tough
    decisions we are going to have to make, and you put a lot of
    homework on our plate.
        So here is some of the things that my takeaway from this
    is: One, we need to really work with the authorizers and with
    the Department of Defense and with this administration for this
    upcoming budget cycle to get a clear focus on the mission of
    the Space Force and make sure that there is transparency in it.
        When it comes to the overseas contingency accounts, and
    this is something we have all hungered for, I think, as
    appropriators, transparency, clean accounting, and
    understanding where the tails are that bind us up into the
    future.
        When it comes to workforce, working with maybe Mr. Cole's
    committee on how we get a workforce in cybersecurity and how we
    get the whole-of-government working on it and understanding
    when an attack on cybersecurity is an attack on us as a nation
    state.
        Coming up with this idea of like a new DARPA where we can
    have people from cybersecurity both come in and come out and
    use their talent and everything. It was just great. Now, some
    of this isn't necessarily in appropriations; it is working with
    authorizers and people in whole-of-government.
        The whole supply chain, I mean, the pandemic, again,
    brought this up. So, whether it is semiconductors or PPE,
    right, that puts a vulnerability here at home.
        And then the discussion on nuclear from everybody has been
    fascinating. It is how many, what kind, and what really
    resonates as a deterrent, and what do we do to defend ourselves
    against these issues. But for me, there is also tails on that,
    and maybe that is in the Department of Energy's account, but I
    think it also starts falling in the Department of Defense,
    storage, maintenance.
        These are not, you know, weapons that you can just put
    down, put in a locker, lock it up and guard it. There is a lot
    that goes into this that has a lot of expense for future
    generations. It is the tails that we live for future
    generations.
        I just want to thank you again, Ms. Howe, Mr. Acton, Ms.
    Smithberger, and Mr. Zakheim. It was a fascinating discussion,
    and I think it is one that we need to have because we are going
    to be making, as Mr. Cole and others pointed out, some really
    tough decisions. So I thank and each and every one of you for
    giving us a lot, a lot to think about.
        And with that, Mr. Calvert, I am going to conclude the
    hearing unless there is anything you want to add really quick
    at the end?
        Mr. Calvert. I just want to thank you for the hearing,
    Madam Chair. Obviously, we have near-term, long-term
    challenges, and this is a good hearing to try to understand
    that better. I can't think of anything more important. Thank
    you.
        Ms. McCollum. Yes. Thank you.
        So, with that, thank you again to each and every one of the
    panelists and for the committee members who were able to come
    in and out.
        And with that, this subcommittee stands adjourned.
        [Answers to submitted questions follow:]

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                                              Thursday, April 15, 2021.

                         UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND

                                    WITNESS

    ADMIRAL CRAIG S. FALLER, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND

                       Opening Statement of Ms. McCollum

        Ms. McCollum. Good morning. This subcommittee is going to
    be receiving testimony from the U.S. Southern Command. Our
    witness is SOUTHCOM Commander Admiral Craig Faller.
        Admiral Faller, welcome back to the subcommittee. We look
    forward to hearing your testimony.
        Today's hearing is the first of several this subcommittee
    will hold with geographic combatant commanders to discuss
    national security challenges we face around the world and to
    look to see how each command is postured and has the resources
    it needs to the meet these challenges.
        The President--and it is called the ``skinny'' budget,
    right? It describes the need to counter the pacing threat from
    China as the Department's top challenge. As we await the full
    budget, though, we are going to continue to move forward with
    these hearings.
        In the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility, influences of
    foreign actors and drug cartels has increased. Russia and
    China, with their meddling in Venezuela, have also created
    challenges. China has taken advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic
    to gain influence. I want to hear from our witness about the
    destabilizing activities in the region and SOUTHCOM's response.
        At the same time, we need to be mindful that many of the
    challenges we face may require diplomatic or economic responses
    rather than a military one. We need to be smart about using all
    the tools that are at our disposal--development, defense, as
    well as, I think most importantly, diplomatic.
        One of the things that makes the SOUTHCOM area of
    responsibility different than other combatant commands is the
    proximity to the United States. Events in the region can have a
    direct impact on the United States and our friends and allies.
        And there are numerous examples of this. Venezuela has
    completely broken down. That country's economic and political
    system has displaced millions and created instability in the
    region. Thousands of Venezuelans have fled to the United
    States. Last month, the Biden administration recognized this
    humanitarian situation and extended temporary protective status
    to thousands residing here.
        The turmoil in Venezuela has created a haven for
    transnational criminal organizations, who thrive in a lack of
    government and security. Criminal organizations continue to
    traffic record numbers of drugs into the United States while
    also engaging in human smuggling and trafficking.
        In Central America, economic and security conditions,
    combined with extreme weather events made worse by climate
    change, continue to cause thousands to migrate north. And, as
    we know, the region has been hit hard by COVID-19, straining
    healthcare systems and economies and creating instability,
    particularly in Brazil.
        We will be looking forward to hearing today how Southern
    Command is postured and resourced and is ready to play its part
    in addressing all these issues. We also look forward to hearing
    how SOUTHCOM is working with partner countries to address our
    common challenges.
        And, finally, we will discuss the detention facility at
    Guantanamo, Cuba. We know that the Biden administration has
    launched a formal review of the detention facility, with the
    aim of finally closing it before President Biden leaves office.
    And that is something I strongly, very strongly, support.
        So, with that, I want to thank everyone for participating
    in today's hearing, and I will now recognize the distinguished
    ranking member, Mr. Calvert, for his remarks.

                         Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

        Mr. Calvert. Well, thank you, Chair McCollum. I appreciate
    that introduction.
        Admiral Faller, welcome back to what we understand will be
    your last appearance before the subcommittee. We deeply
    appreciate your service and all the men and women who serve
    under your command.
        I appreciate the chair calling this hearing. As the Admiral
    knows, SOUTHCOM AOR is of keen interest to me and members of
    both sides of the aisle, especially since I am from a border
    State and understand some of your challenges.
        Many of us have felt that your command has been under-
    resourced relative to your needs, particularly my colleagues
    Mario Diaz-Balart and Henry Cuellar, which is an issue that we
    sought to address in last year's bill.
        More broadly, the chaos on our southern border reminds us
    of the perils of taking our eye off the ball and allowing our
    own hemisphere to become a victim of strategic neglect here in
    Washington. I hope your testimony will be a needed correction
    to that mindset.
        For example, I am struck by your stark assessment that the
    hemisphere is under assault from criminal organizations and
    that imminent action is needed if we are to effectively discuss
    China's corrosive but growing influence there. Much of this
    task will fall to others in the interagency, particularly the
    State Department and USAID, but SOUTHCOM has a critical role to
    play in countering threats to the homeland and helping to
    strengthen the security of our partners in the region.
        In your testimony, I hope you will identify SOUTHCOM's most
    serious resource constraints, including with respect to your
    longstanding requirement for persistent ISR.
        I look forward to the testimony and dialogue to follow.
        And, with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Well, today, we have the honor and the privilege of being
    joined by Ms. Granger, who is the full ranking member of the
    Appropriations Committee.
        And, Ms. Granger, I believe you were the first woman ever
    to lead this Subcommittee on Defense.
        Welcome.

                             Remarks of Ms. Granger

        Ms. Granger. Thank you very much. Thank you.
        And thank you, Admiral Faller, for being here. It is good
    to see you.
        SOUTHCOM is an extremely important area of operation that
    frequently doesn't get the priority it deserves because of
    conflicts in other areas of the world. It has been and will
    continue to be a priority of mine.
        The crisis on our southern border is just the most recent
    reminder of how critically important the region is to the
    security of our own country. I have seen for myself on many
    visits to the border and to the region that this is not a new
    problem we are trying to solve.
        We have tried many times to address the reasons why people
    decide to make the dangerous journey from Central America to
    the United States. Despite well-meaning efforts going back
    decades, we have not found the right formula for lasting
    success. And, unfortunately, some of the changes made by the
    previous administration to stem the flow of migration have now
    been reversed.
        I hope this administration will consult with our partners
    in the region, as well as this committee, to understand the
    lessons that have been learned in the past to ensure that our
    efforts produce better results.
        I look forward to your views on other pressing challenges,
    including China's growing influence in the region. I also hope
    you can speak to some of our successes in your area of
    responsibility, including expanding and deepening our key
    partnerships in the region, such as Costa Rica and Colombia.
        This hearing is typically classified so that we can gather
    the full picture of what is going on in the region. While this
    hearing today is open to the public, I hope it will not prevent
    you from giving us full answers. I encourage you to provide
    classified responses in writing if you can't respond to the
    questions members ask today.
        And I thank you again for your service, and I look forward
    to your testimony.
        And I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member Granger.
        I was going to mention the fact that this is an open
    hearing. If something is classified, Admiral, please let us
    know and we will arrange to have those answers done. Because we
    are living in the age of COVID, we needed to keep these
    combatant command hearings moving forward as we await the full
    budget. There is no time to waste. And a lot of what we can
    discuss can be done in open session.
        The staff, both Democratic and Republican staff, are
    working together to figure out how we can do classified
    briefings. I spoke with Chair Schiff yesterday. They had their
    first classified briefing in the Intel Committee, and it was a
    little bumpy, as they all can't be in the room together. We are
    working that out.
        And if somebody has something that is of a classified
    nature for an answer, sir, feel comfortable in saying so, and
    the staff will work to accommodate that those answers are not
    only provided to the member but to everyone on the full
    committee.
        So, with that, I am going to ask a question on climate
    change before we turn to the ranking member. The reason why I
    am going with climate change is that it affects not only what
    we need to be doing to secure our assets and build resiliency
    into them but also through the response that you have in facing
    issues with responding to disasters and the instability that
    climate change causes.
        We know in Key West, for example, it is particularly
    vulnerable to climate change, and you do have some plans moving
    forward down there. Guantanamo Bay is another area that is out
    there, very vulnerable, as well as some of the response that
    you have now had to focus things on and missions on because of
    climate change.
        Could you talk about climate change as a national security
    issue, not only for the immediate effects of your command but
    for the disruption it causes in the area?
        Admiral Faller. Well, thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking
    Member Calvert and distinguished members of the committee. And
    we will get right into questions. In the interest of time, I
    had an opening statement that I will just submit for the
    record. You wanted to proceed, I am ready to dive in. Whatever
    you want to do, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. We would like to hear your opening statement.
    We do have time. If you want to redact a little bit, that is
    fine. And that is on me. That is my apology--

                      Summary Statement of Admiral Faller

        Admiral Faller. It is quite all right.
        But thank you all. Madam Chair and Ranking Member Calvert
    and distinguished members, it is a real honor to testify today.
        Now more than ever, I feel a deep sense of urgency that our
    region is under assault from a vicious circle of threats. And
    these are global threats, and they are right here, right now,
    in our neighborhood.
        And the Western Hemisphere is our home. It is our shared
    neighborhood. And a number of you have talked about that
    proximity and how it matters. And in the Interim National
    Security Strategy, we saw that it was designated as a
    hemisphere of vital national interest to the United States.
        The INDOPACOM commander recently testified that China is
    the number-one strategic threat of the 2lst century, and we see
    that in this hemisphere every day.
        I would like to address a few myths that I hear and do some
    myth-busting at the start of this hearing.
        One myth that I often hear is that China's interests in the
    Western Hemisphere are primarily economic. The Chinese
    Communist Party, with its insidious, corrosive, and corrupt
    influence, seeks global dominance. And that runs from Taiwan
    right here into our neighborhood. And our strategic approach
    for China as a nation and as a whole of nations together must
    be global as well.
        They have over 40 port deals in work. They are dishing out
    significant loans for political and economic leverage. They are
    pushing IT infrastructure. And they are engaged in an array of
    predatory practices, such as illegal, unregulated, unreported
    fishing, all with little or no concern for human rights, the
    environment, or the rule of law.
        The second myth is that transnational criminal
    organizations are just drug traffickers and only a law
    enforcement problem. To be clear, it is our assessment that the
    transnational criminal organizations, or TCOs, pose a direct
    threat to our national security. They traffic in arms, humans,
    drugs, and they claim tens of thousands of lives each and every
    year here in the United States and in our partner nations. They
    undermine democracy. Their murderous tactics have resulted in
    43 of the 50 most violent cities being in our hemisphere. And
    they drive illegal immigration and allow bad actors like China
    to gain influence.
        Myth three is that the United States military or partner-
    nation militaries have no role to play with these threats. Our
    role is a supporting role for sure, but the professionalism of
    our United States military men and women is an example that our
    partners seek to model each and every day. And we do that
    through our education and training programs, our exercise
    programs, and our humanitarian assistance, to name just a few.
        We have established programs that help partner nations
    develop and implement respect for the rule of law and human
    rights. And our programs, as is our equipment, are corruption-
    free. And when you work with the United States, you work on a
    relationship, not a client relationship. We provide not only
    positive role models but the tools and strategies for them to
    implement them, enhancing their capacity and making us all
    stronger together.
        Underpinning these national security threats is growing
    fragility in the region. COVID-19 has hit the hemisphere hard.
    According to the IMF, the economies of Latin America and the
    Caribbean shrank by 7.4 percent in 2020. The impacts of the
    pandemic will alter the hemisphere for years to come. And in
    the midst of the pandemic, two back-to-back major hurricanes
    devastated Central America, creating even greater instability.
        The pandemic and these unprecedented storms struck on top
    of the vicious circles of threats that I have highlighted,
    creating strong push factors for the people of the region to
    head north in search of safety and basic needs for their
    families.
        In Venezuela, despite an economy in tailspin and more than
    5 million refugees that have fled the country, the illegitimate
    Maduro regime continues to cling to power, with support from
    Cuba, Russia, Iran, and China.
        We can't face these daunting challenges on our own. The
    only way to counter these threats is to strengthen our
    partnerships, and that is how we will win the strategic
    competition. No one nation is as strong as all of us working
    together.
        And I have been impressed by the nations who have worked
    shoulder-to-shoulder with us in countering threats to our
    neighborhood. For example, last year, Colombia brought together
    more than two dozen nations in Operation Orion VI to conduct a
    counter-transnational-criminal-organization operation. And
    earlier this year, Brazil became the first Latin American
    country to send forces to our high-end U.S. Army training in
    Fort Polk, Louisiana.
        Good neighbors are here to help when you need them most,
    especially during a crisis, and during this pandemic the United
    States Southern Command stepped up. We provided humanitarian
    assistance to our partners when COVID struck, and we did it
    with the speed of relevance, delivering field hospitals and
    critical PPE. To date, we have executed 498 projects in 28
    countries, with a total investment of more than $70 million.
    And this investment, thanks to your support, is making a
    difference.
        SOUTHCOM works every day to build the readiness and
    professionalism of our trusted military partners and security
    partners. Modest investments in intelligence, surveillance, and
    reconnaissance, security cooperation, and presence go a long
    way in the hemisphere and will help us and our partners counter
    these global threats.
        Finally, our successes would not be possible without our
    most important resource: our people, our SOUTHCOM team. And we
    are taking proactive steps to protect our people from
    unacceptable behaviors like sexual assault and harassment,
    racism, and extremism. We take these threats seriously because
    it is the key to readiness and it is the right thing to do.
        Madam Chair, Ranking Member Rogers, on behalf of the
    SOUTHCOM team, thank you for your trust. I look forward to the
    questions and discussion today.
        [The information follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                     Climate Change

        Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much. And your full testimony
    has been submitted for the record, and members have a copy of
    it. Thank you so much for that overview.
        You heard my questions on climate change. You touched a
    little bit about some of the challenges that you are facing in
    your opening statement. Would you please elaborate on that?
        Admiral Faller. Our main line of effort, our main
    engagement, is to work with our partners on their ability to
    respond rapidly.
        And the science is there; the climate is more violent. And
    I will give you an example, Madam Chair. In the fall of 2019, I
    went on an extensive tour to different base locations in
    Guatemala. And as we flew around the country and talked about
    how they could improve their security and how we could partner
    together, it struck me that the rivers were dry, the fields
    parched, and the crops that should have been ready for harvest
    were withering. And they had been in a drought condition for
    some number of years.
        One year later, those same fields were flooded and washed
    out by the two most violent storms to hit that region in rapid
    succession. Category 4 hurricanes right around the beginning of
    November rolled in on the same track 15 days apart. And, today,
    all three nations in the Northern Triangle have declared
    national food emergencies, and there is a significant portion
    of their populations that don't have the basic food to eat.
        So that is an example. And then where we come to play is to
    help our partners determine the best way to respond. Their
    response, their department of militaries is necessarily in
    support of their interagency, but just as we look inward in a
    disaster, they do. We work on rapid response.
        We are very fortunate--as was mentioned in some of your
    opening statements, posture is key. We are very fortunate to
    have a security cooperation location in Soto Cano, Honduras.
    And there we have Army helicopters, lift, around 14 of them. We
    immediately deployed those helicopters during that hurricane to
    save lives and help our partners. We deployed them in support
    of our embassies, our ambassadors, and the USAID, and we had
    them in constant operation for about a month's time last
    November.
        And I think it points to, when partners are in need and the
    United States steps forward and extends an outstretched hand,
    we build trust and we further strengthen that relationship for
    the long term, and it can be a force for good.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Calvert.

       Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, and Reconnaissance

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        And, Admiral, thank you for your service.
        Admiral, it is my understanding that SOUTHCOM uses less
    than 1 percent of the DOD's ISR resources. Is that correct?
        Admiral Faller. Yes, sir. It is about 1 percent of the
    resources for ISR.
        And as I mentioned in my opening statement, that is
    absolutely critical. Our intel drives everything we do. You
    know, we turn it into knowledge. We share it where we can,
    particularly with our own U.S. Government agencies. It helps us
    understand about what is on the field and how to best respond
    long term.
        Mr. Calvert. But if you had additional ISR to counter
    transnational organized crime, other critical objectives, that
    would be very, very helpful. You need additional platforms to
    make that mission succeed?
        Admiral Faller. Yes, sir. We really appreciate the support
    of this committee, in particular, in the past. We had an ISR
    transfer fund that was critical to meeting those needs, a very
    cost-effective fund that was not included in last year's
    budget. And while we have not seen the full budget for 2022, I
    would anticipate that at the top of my unfunded requirements
    list will be the need for additional ISR, to include what we
    call nontraditional ISR.
        It is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to
    look through the vast amount of commercially available foreign
    data, data on foreign adversaries. We have used that ISR
    transfer fund money to do work in that environment, and we have
    uncovered a considerable amount of useful information that we
    have been able to pass to host nations for their action, our
    law enforcement partners. And, in some cases, it has been used
    to be able to illuminate malign Chinese and Russian behavior.

                             Global Posture Review

        Mr. Calvert. Regarding the global posture review and the
    new National Defense Strategy--I guess they are reevaluating
    that at the Pentagon now, as you are aware--and our existing
    security relationships with key partners in the SOUTHCOM AOR,
    what focus do you think we need to change in regards to the
    great-power competition, especially China?
        Many have questioned the utility, by the way--and I will
    just bring that up because I only have a little bit of time--of
    putting more littoral combat ships in your AOR to give you some
    more flexibility in that operation. What is your comment on
    that?
        Admiral Faller. To start with, the global posture review,
    it is welcome, always welcome, to look at our global footprint.
        I think our approach needs to be truly global. The front
    line of competition with China is in our neighborhood, in this
    hemisphere. And in order for us to win that competition, which
    would be far more cost-effective than a confrontation, we have
    to compete with our strengths where we can get the best
    leverage. And, in this hemisphere, a small amount of time and
    presence and resources has a high rate of return on investment.
        We need Navy ships to be in that mix. Up until 2019, we
    would get an occasional United States Navy ship. We made the
    case during the combatant command review for additional assets.
    And we had, on average, about three United States Navy ships
    over the past year to augment our very robust Coast Guard
    presence.
        Those Navy ships participated in transnational criminal
    organization operations, worked with partners, worked with the
    Coast Guard, and made a difference--significantly put pressure
    on the transnational criminal organizations, sent a message to
    would-be competitors that the United States values the region
    and is here. We were able to conduct exercises with partners
    from Ecuador to Colombia, to Peru--partners with capable
    navies.
        And so, for me, it is about the capability. It is about
    having built-in-the-U.S. Navy ships working with Joint
    Interagency Task Force-South and our Navy South component from
    Florida. So whatever capability that the United States Navy can
    source to that I welcome.
        But I would note that our littoral combat ships,
    particularly the Freedom's recent deployment and the Gabby
    Giffords, perform quite well. And I know that the Navy is
    committed to overcoming the challenges associated with the
    maintenance on those ships.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Admiral.
        And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Next, we have Mr. Cuellar.

                       Latin and South America Influences

        Mr. Cuellar. Thank you very much, Madam Chair and Ranking
    Member, for holding this meeting.
        Admiral, I want to talk about your sense of urgency of what
    is happening in Latin America. As all of us on the committee
    have said, we are so used to looking at the Middle East and
    looking at other parts of the world that we keep forgetting our
    own backyard.
        And I think the maps that you have provided to us to show
    where the criminal organizations are coming from and how they
    are affecting us, whether they are bringing in drugs or people,
    they are there. And many times, as you have said and as we all
    know, sometimes those organizations are stronger than some of
    the state security forces that we have.
        And then, on top of that, it is not only those
    transnational organization groups that we have, but we have the
    influence of Iran in South America. Not only do we have the
    influence of them, but we also have the Russian influence in
    countries. But the one that we have been talking about is the
    one with the Chinese.
        The last time you provided these reports, Admiral, you
    know, we had X amount of countries in South America, 19--I
    mean, there were less than that, but now we have 19 out of the
    33 countries that have joined the One Belt One Road Initiative.
    There are now 25 out of the 33 countries that host Chinese
    infrastructure projects, including Mexico, Belize, or even,
    outside of that, the Bahamas, Panama, where the canal is at,
    and then so many other ones.
        Then we talk about, even now, eight countries that are
    producing and using and testing or interested in purchasing
    Chinese COVID-19 vaccines.
        Then we look at--and this is what is very interesting. We
    know the major Chinese IT footprints and space tracking
    stations in Argentina. You have some in Peru, Ecuador,
    Guatemala, Brazil, and, of course, Venezuela. And, you know,
    all of that worries me, because, from the last time you
    provided this, the numbers keep going up, the investments keep
    going, and they keep getting closer and closer to the U.S.-
    Mexico border, where I live at.
        I want you to talk to us about this sense of urgency and
    what this committee can fund. I know there is an assessment
    that you all are working on with the Department of State,
    USAID, and I think the RAND Corporation is going to be involved
    to do that study. And it should have been done by this last
    December, but COVID had something to do with that, but I think
    it should be ready by the 3lst of this year.
        Tell us what we need to invest. Because I agree with you,
    we should have a sense of urgency. I mean, we keep looking at
    everywhere, but it is our own backyard that worries me. Tell us
    about your sense of urgency and what we ought to be investing
    in and what this committee should be doing.
        Admiral Faller. Well, thank you for emphasizing that sense
    of urgency that we certainly feel at United States Southern
    Command. And the Department has been supportive, as has your
    committee. By last year, your committee, in particular, was
    supportive in establishing additional funds in our security
    cooperation.
        I mentioned the 1 percent of ISR. Intelligence drives
    everything, and the more we know and understand what the
    threats are up to, the better we can participate in a whole-of-
    government and a whole-of-nation response. The National Defense
    Strategy certainly nails it in talking about that global
    competition and the competition with China.
        We looked at ISR. We talked about ISR. Security cooperation
    is key. That is what builds partner capacity. That is how we
    become more interoperable with partners. The U.S. has the best
    equipment in the world, and partners want our equipment, and it
    is a long-term relationship.
        As the budget is unveiled, I believe that will be at the
    top of my unfunded priorities. There is more that could be
    invested in the capacity. We sit at about $120 million for 28
    countries to help them build. It is a good investment long term
    for both the United States and our partners. It keeps them
    close. It is a relationship.
        And then on the presence, posture matters. We were very
    supportive of Congress asking tough questions about some of the
    intended cuts to the defense attache. Those are our front lines
    in our embassy. We should look at the manning of our
    embassies--it is very, very lightly manned for today's
    competition--and then look at where we are postured as a
    military and where is the United States postured. In this
    hemisphere, it is the right thing to not have permanent bases;
    have light locations where we can come in and out and work with
    our partners on their training and readiness.
        Thank you for the question.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Rogers.

                          Trafficking in South America

        Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
        Admiral, welcome to the subcommittee. Welcome to the Hill
    again. At one point in your career, I understand you were on
    the staff of Senator Ted Kennedy. So welcome back to the Hill.
        Let me ask you and follow up on Mr. Cuellar's line of
    questioning about the role of the Chinese in the drug traffic
    in South America, Latin America.
        China adversely affects the region through drugs, human
    trafficking, guns, and illegal mining, all of which are
    underwritten through Chinese money laundering. And here is how
    I understand that works. Historically, drug cartels have
    struggled to get their illegal profits back within their
    borders. However, recently, Chinese--what do we call them--
    money brokers have emerged as vital partners for Latin American
    drug cartels. Those cartels will bring proceeds from U.S.
    illegal drug sales to these Chinese brokers, who then launder
    those proceeds back to the drug cartels here in Latin America.
        That has resulted in Chinese crime groups increasing their
    presence in places like Colombia. In fact, I spoke on the phone
    just yesterday with President Duque of Colombia--who, by the
    way, I think his administration is doing great work--and I
    welcome your comments--on eradicating coca, which is a main
    source of the opium in the U.S.
        Thank you, Admiral, for being here today.
        Let me ask you what you are doing about the drug problem--
    the drug cartels and the Chinese brokers. Tell us how that
    works and what we are doing about it and what we need to do on
    the up and up.
        Admiral Faller. Thank you for recognizing Colombia. They
    are a trusted partner. They exceeded all their goals in the
    counter-narcotics fight last year despite the pandemic. I would
    trust them to be alongside me and our team in any fight, as
    professionals that adhere to human rights and all the standards
    that we expect of our U.S. Armed Forces men and women. And
    thank you.
        With respect to transnational criminal organizations, in
    this hemisphere, we have 8 percent of the global population and
    more than 60 percent of cryptocurrency. It is clear that
    entities, threat entities, are working around ways to strangle
    their money supply.
        As I have met with key law enforcement partners, like NYPD
    Counter Narcotics Strike Force, FBI, DEA, and others,
    consistently they cite the significant and consequential role
    of Chinese banks in money laundering. And it is very hard to
    crack into that, with technology barriers, language barriers.
        And so, when you look at the corrosive and corrupt
    influence of transnational criminal organizations--because
    corruption really fuels them, their ability to undermine
    officials and use extortion--it is the same sort of principles
    that the Communist Party of China thrives on. They could shut
    this down if they wanted to, but it is not in their interest to
    do so. It is in their interest to undermine the democracies so
    that they can gain more influence for their version of a future
    world order.
        Mr. Rogers. Well, it is a huge item. I am told that
    transnational criminal organizations are generating around $90
    billion in profits just from cocaine. And a lot of that cocaine
    and the drugs out of South America lands in my district. And we
    have been fighting that fight with an organization called UNITE
    now for a dozen years, but it is being flooded by the drugs
    coming out of South America.
        Thank you for your service, your lifetime of service,
    Admiral. And thank you for your present duties. A tough chore.
    Somebody has to do it, and you are doing great. Thank you.
        I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        We are going to hear from Mr. Aguilar, and then we will go
    to full committee Ranking Member Granger.

                               Drug Interdictions

        Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Chairwoman.
        Admiral, good to see you again, and thank you for your
    service.
        We have talked a little bit about drug interdiction, and if
    I could just ask a follow-up question on that. You talked with
    Mr. Calvert about some of the ISR capabilities. And, you know,
    through the briefings we have had, we know that our ability to
    identify drug smuggling in the Pacific is far greater than our
    capacity to interdict.
        What more can we do to help you in these efforts? What
    resources are needed? And if you can touch on specifically some
    of the work that you have been doing with the Coast Guard in
    aiding those drug interdictions in SOUTHCOM AOR.
        Admiral Faller. Thank you.
        The area that we are looking at, where the principal routes
    run, is larger than the United States. And, on any given day,
    we are covering that area with about 10 U.S. ships, a mix of
    Coast Guard and U.S. Navy, an innovative vessel called the MMSV
    that you all have appropriated, which has been very successful.
        And then we do that with partners. When the Coast Guard and
    the United States Navy are there, partners step up. And we saw
    last year that partners increased their participation in the
    counter-transnational-criminal-organization operations, the
    pressure, by 10 percent in interdictions. And that is
    significant in 1 year, especially given the pandemic. It is an
    example of, when the Coast Guard and the Navy are there, others
    will come out.
        We cited the success of Colombia. Costa Rica is another
    partner that has done extremely well. Panama just stood up a
    fusion center. The key here, long term, is getting a network of
    partners together to keep pressure on the source, the supply
    lines, all aspects of the business model.
        Another key in the last year as part of our surge in this
    threat space has been the development of a targeting process
    with the interagency here in the U.S. So, learning from what we
    have done in the counterterror ops and then working as a part
    of a U.S. Government interagency process, we have been able to
    improve that targeting process by using machine learning,
    artificial intelligence, and really increase the speed of which
    we can build a target package and then hand off to a partner
    nation's law enforcement. So that is significant.
        We will never interdict our way out of this. We have to
    look at these organizations as an organization and determine
    where their key nodes are, centers of gravity, if you will, and
    then crush that. We talked about money laundering as part of
    that. There is a cyber piece of this; there is an information
    piece of this.
        Bringing all elements of power and all domains is the way
    forward for us to make a lasting difference on this threat.
        Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate the answer. Thanks so much,
    Admiral.

                             China in South America

        Mr. Aguilar. Can you talk a little bit more about China and
    what keeps you up at night, as far as their activities within
    the AOR and the relationships in some of these countries?
        Admiral Faller. When we sit down with our partners, it is
    part of the conversation that we talk about the Chinese economy
    and the U.S. economy. It is undeniable that China is the
    number-one trading partner with the United States, number-one
    trading partner with most of our partner nations. Now they are
    number-one trading partner with South America writ large and
    soon, I think, will be a larger trading partner with the
    hemisphere.
        We have to determine as a Nation how we win the competition
    without ever going to conflict. And when China is able to come
    in and gift militaries in our region significant quantities of
    money with very little or no strings attached, that concerns
    me.
        Some of our key partners have turned those gifts down, and
    I applaud that and thank them for turning it down. Others say
    to me, ``We are drowning, we feel like we are drowning,
    Admiral, in a lifeboat, and we are going to take that life ring
    because we need it.'' And I say, ``hey, watch where the cord is
    attached and what happens on that cord.''
        We recently hosted a security conference with our allies--
    U.K., Canada, French, the Dutch--that have interests here. And
    one of the Canadian members to that conference, from their
    foreign ministry, a citizen, a civilian, said to me, ``we see
    the region--the threats of the region as a whirlpool and the
    nations in a lifeboat that are getting sucked down by the
    various pressures.''
        It does add to that sense of urgency that has been a theme
    here, and that is really what keeps me up at night.
        Mr. Aguilar. Thanks, Admiral. Appreciate your service, and
    thanks so much for being here today with us.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        And with no disrespect mentioned, trying to do things from
    distance to distance here, we will now hear from Ms. Granger.
    Thank you.

                             Littoral Combat Ships

        Ms. Granger. Thank you very much.
        Admiral, President Biden indicated during the campaign that
    he intended to devote as much as $4 billion to address the root
    causes of Central American migration. And the budget framework
    released last week includes the first year of this funding,
    $850 million, to address the matter.
        We have talked so much about the issues in your area and
    the drug trade and particularly the drug trade and the help we
    need when they are going by water.
        Recently, I was in a meeting and was very, very concerned
    and disappointed to hear that there was an attempt to mothball
    all littoral combat ships. And I would ask you--you mentioned
    those ships. Have you found them helpful, particularly in the
    area you are in and in the drug control?
        Admiral Faller. The Navy's presence has been essential, and
    it has increased the capacity of our partners. And, frankly, I
    have been on board the ships, destroyers and littoral combat
    ships, and talked to the Navy crews. They have really improved
    their readiness. It is a win-win.
        On that program that you mentioned for the Northern
    Triangle, it is a welcome program. We need a long view for the
    region. And Plan Colombia was a good model because we stuck
    with it for 10 years and we didn't have fits and starts
    annually with the plan. This is a generational problem,
    developing the sustainable economies and the type of
    democracies that can take care of themselves so that we don't
    have this crisis in Central America that drives people to walk
    thousands of miles to save their kids and save their lives.
        And I think, ma'am, that the military does have a role
    here, a very focused supporting role. Because our track
    record--we have learned from our past. We know how to abide by
    the rule of law and human rights. And we have a human rights
    program at SOUTHCOM, and we have worked with our partner
    nations to professionalize them. And they are part of the
    solution. And, in order to help going forward, we have to be
    present to help influence good behavior to be part of the long-
    term, sustainable solution.
        We welcome a long-term plan. And so far, the discussions
    and the involvement of my command with Chairman Milley and the
    Secretary of Defense have been very transparent, very
    iterative, and they have been listening to us.
        Ms. Granger. Good. I hope you will speak out for the
    littoral combat ships, because part of that was going into
    shallow water, being quiet, almost silent, the speed. And all
    the other indications I have is they are still helpful, so I
    was surprised at that.
        I want to make sure that you have--are there other
    resources that--in this pandemic time, are there other
    resources you need to change or add to help you?

                              Assistance Programs

        Admiral Faller. Our humanitarian assistance program and the
    authorities we have there are the best tool I have. It is
    responsive. It is scalable. We can meet partners' needs, short
    and long term.
        With the support of Congress, we received additional
    money--and the Department of Defense--additional money at the
    beginning of the pandemic. We have applied that to good use.
        It is an authority that we are able to apply to partners'
    health agencies or civil agencies. I would like to see an
    expansion of that authority and the appropriation of the money
    to be able to work with partner militaries. And I think we
    could get enough oversight on it that we would ensure it did
    the right thing. That would be in the humanitarian assistance
    realm.
        Similarly, given the competition we are in and our need to
    be able to flex to a partner's needs, when I visited the region
    in October, I found that our partners were just exhausted and
    running out of fuel and basic necessities. Yet I lack a near-
    term relevant mechanism to provide some assistance in that
    manner.
        We have 2-year funding, which is greatly appreciated, a
    long view, which is what we need, but I think we need a
    military assistance program for small-dollar amounts--I am
    talking $15,000, $50,000--that would be real game-changers to
    build near-term trust and respond to partners' needs mil-to-
    mil.
        Ms. Granger. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
        I yield.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick and then Mr. Womack.

                      Transnational Criminal Organizations

        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for
    having this hearing.
        Admiral, I represent a border district in Arizona, and I am
    very focused on how we ensure our border communities are
    protected from illicit drug activity and violence from
    transnational criminal organizations.
        While the Department of Defense does not have the lead in
    many aspects of the counter-drug efforts, the Department is the
    lead agency for the detection and monitoring of aerial and
    maritime transit of illegal drugs into the United States.
        My question is this: Can you provide an update on efforts
    to counter transnational criminal organizations? And how does
    the U.S. measure success or failure in this area?
        Admiral Faller. We appreciate the work that Air Force South
    in Tucson has done in the aerial part of this detection and
    monitoring. And they work hand-in-hand with Joint Interagency
    Task Force-South in Key West, which is a team of teams that is
    led by a Coast Guard two-star, Rear Admiral Doug Fears, that
    each and every day focuses on this very problem set.
        In JIATF, we have every relevant agency in the U.S. that
    works in a counter-narcotics, counter-transnational-criminal-
    organization space, as well as partner nations from 24
    different partner nations. And that is the real key. And we
    have made progress.
        So, using the additional resources that the Department
    supplied in terms of Navy ships last year, we put more pressure
    on the networks. That kept our partners in the game. These
    security cooperation programs do have long-term payback for the
    United States. And, as I mentioned previously, our partners
    stepped up and increased their participation and their
    interdiction.
        We were able to increase our targeting, so we were able to
    get on more targets last year, disrupt more flow, put more
    pressure on the networks, which generates more opportunity for
    partner nations and law enforcement partners to capture,
    detain.
        And so we are on the good glide slope, but clearly not
    enough, when we still have tens of thousands dying in the
    United States and we still have organizations that have budgets
    larger and bigger than many of the security forces they face,
    and organizations that control territory, frankly.
        And so more pressure, sustained pressure; and more focus on
    the source; and more focus on, as was mentioned in some of your
    opening comments, diplomacy and development as a way for people
    to have other models.

                              Human Rights Office

        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I appreciate that.
        I have one other question here. You also have the only
    human rights office throughout the combatant commands. Do you
    see meaningful progress in these areas? And what support do you
    need from Congress to strengthen these programs?
        Admiral Faller. We could have the best equipment, and we
    do, in the United States; we could have the best women and men
    in our force, and we do; but we could still lose the
    competition that we are in or the next war that we fight
    because we don't have legitimacy with our people. We can never
    take that for granted.
        When I joined the military 42 years ago, it was not a
    foregone conclusion that we would have the trust of the United
    States population. And we do this by adhering to the rule of
    law, human rights, respect, those unacceptable behaviors that I
    talked of at the beginning--relentless pursuit of all of that.
        Our command recognized over 20 years ago that key to
    sustainable security in this hemisphere was improving the human
    rights record of all aspects of our engagement mil-to-mil. And
    we invested in a human rights team, and we have increased that
    investment. It is something we fund out of hide; it is not a
    program of record with the Department of Defense.
        We have been able to install human rights advisors in our
    partner-nations' security force, conduct workshops with our
    partner nations, ensure that it is embedded in their training
    programs, that it is embedded in their doctrine. And we have
    offered that into all the U.S. schoolhouses as a key element of
    building that professionalism and legitimacy.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you for the good work that you are
    doing. I, as representing a border district in Arizona, really
    appreciate your efforts.
        And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Womack.

                              Drugs and Migration

        Mr. Womack. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
        And, Admiral Faller, it is great to see you again.
        You know, of all the COCOMs that we are going to get
    posture briefings from, I consider this, as it concerns the
    direct impact on my constituents, to be one of the most
    important, if not the most important. To be clear, what is
    going on in INDOPACOM or in Eastern Europe and some of the
    other trouble spots around the globe pose existential threats
    to our country; there is no question about that. But as it
    concerns my constituents, there is not another combatant
    command AOR that has such an immediate impact on my people than
    yours. And we are going to beat this TCO issue again, because I
    think it is of critical importance.
        And I just recently came back from the border. Went down
    with Whip Scalise to McAllen, Texas. I know that is a little
    north of your AOR. But I am reading from a slide right now that
    was given to us by the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol folks.
        ``In the period of time between March 4 and April 1, there
    were 14-plus pounds of cocaine''--so this is less than a month,
    14 pounds of cocaine--``3,251 pounds of marijuana, $1 million
    in currency, 24 firearms, 8 gang member arrests, 622 criminal
    arrests.'' That is in less than a month. And I know that a lot
    of this stuff is coming up into my district.
        Thank you for your leadership in trying to bang the drum on
    the transnational criminal organizational piece.
        But there is one part about it that we have only kind of
    glossed over, and that is the tremendous migration that is
    happening in a lot of your AOR into our area. And I know you
    have some numbers on it, how many people have actually migrated
    out of those areas because of the safety concerns. Can you
    speak to that and how incredibly important these numbers are?
        Admiral Faller. The threats hitting your home of
    Bentonville, Arkansas, and my home of Fryburg, Pennsylvania, it
    is killing people and it is stressing economies and governments
    and it is undermining security.
        Just as an example, Congressman, when you look at this--
    yesterday, the intelligence agencies published an annual
    report. It is unclassified. And they looked at the scope of the
    migration over a 5-year period: 40 million. Forty million have
    migrated in this hemisphere. And they are looking at Haiti,
    Cuba, Venezuela, and Central America. Forty million people.
        And that is the insecurity, the lack of ability to get
    healthcare for your children, lack of ability to find something
    to eat. And it has to be a whole-of-government, whole-of-
    nation, regional kind of approach, sustained, to put these
    numbers and give folks some hope.
        Mr. Womack. Yes. Well, look, again, I appreciate your
    willingness to bring this to the attention of not only the
    Congress but other military leaders. And even though you are
    going to be retiring sometime this fall, I sure hope that you
    will continue to be outspoken on it.

                           State Partnership Program

        By the way, speaking of partnerships, as everybody on this
    committee knows, I am a big advocate of the State Partnership
    Program. And I would be remiss if I didn't give you an
    opportunity to talk about how incredibly important the SPP
    program is in your AOR.
        Admiral Faller. The State Partnership Program is the
    number-one assigned force that we have in order to help our
    partners build capacity in the United States Southern Command.
    And we are blessed to have the most robust partnership lineup,
    with 24 partners. Arkansas is aligned with Guatemala.
        It is a long-term relation, as our Guard gets to develop
    and build that. And we really appreciate Congress's support in
    that. And I am constantly in communication with the TAGs of the
    various States as we look to how to help the partners build
    capacity.
        And, frankly, training is good for the Guard too. I get the
    feedback. It is a two-way win as we move forward.
        I think, as we look forward, if the Guard had some
    flexibility on this for 2-year money, things that could meet
    the partners' speed--they often have difficulty budgeting
    inside of our cycle and being able to do things--that might be
    one thing to look at.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Womack. Yeah. Thank you.
        Madam Chairwoman, before I yield back, I just want to
    associate myself with the remarks of Ken Calvert and others
    that have talked about the ISR needs of SOUTHCOM and the ISR
    transfer fund that was lost. But critically important.
    Leveraging that kind of technology with the mission going on in
    SOUTHCOM I think is pretty important, and I sure hope that we
    can continue to make the arguments for it.
        And I will yield back. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        We are going to hear from Ms. Kaptur and then Mr. Diaz-
    Balart. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur.

                  Latin and South America Country Governments

        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        And, Admiral Faller, thank you for your service to our
    country.
        This has been a rather grim hearing in the way I view the
    world. I am reminded, 60 years ago John Kennedy launched the
    Alliance for Progress. And I am glad he did, but it doesn't
    seem like we have made a lot of progress over the decades. So
    maybe the architecture of what we are doing isn't integrated in
    the proper way.
        What percentage of the territory in your AOR would you say
    is ungovernable?
        Admiral Faller. Thanks for mentioning the success of past
    historical models. We have spent a lot of time looking at what
    has worked and what hasn't worked, and the key is often the
    consistency over time and then getting at all aspects of our
    partners' needs, not just a couple points here or there. And
    the places where we have been able to make that work, we have
    turned chaos into democracy.
        So, while there is a sense of urgency and some amount of
    grimness, as you suggest, Congresswoman, in the 1990s and the
    1980s many of our partners in Central America were in civil
    wars. And so, from that respect, their democracies are fragile
    and young, and we have to hang with them as we get this right.
    And I think there is hope. I have met the people. We have
    values in common to get this right.
        In terms of the threat and, as we discussed, the
    transnational criminal organizations that are in many cases
    better funded, their end strength is larger than the police, in
    some cases the police and the militaries combined in some
    countries, some 200 different organizations. And they do
    control territory. It ebbs and flows and----
        Ms. Kaptur. Take a stab, Admiral. What percent? What
    percent is not under normal civil----
        Admiral Faller. I would have to take that one for the
    record and come back with a more detailed analysis----
        Ms. Kaptur. Is it more than a third? Is it more than a
    third?
        Admiral Faller. I don't think it is more than a third,
    ma'am. But there are swaths that are very concerning.
        And we would have to look at this holistically with my
    shipmate from NORTHCOM to look at the impacts from Mexico.
    Mexican cartels have grown their market share and moved south,
    which is a concerning trend.
        Ms. Kaptur. Well, I was extremely troubled when Mexico's
    President released Caro Quintero, the number-one drug lord on
    the DEA's list. I thought, ``So Mexico is gone.'' And I won't
    go into all my experiences with Mexico. My experiences with
    people are very good; my experiences with the government are
    horrendous.
        And I think, my sense is, that we are talking about narco
    states. And I am interested in your assessment, if not publicly
    now, privately, as to what is happening in these different
    countries and which of them are absolutely ungovernable.
        And that is at the basis of so much what is causing
    disturbance in this country, certainly with the narcotics
    trade. And I would recommend a book--you have probably read
    it--by Sam Quinones, ``Dreamland.'' Because after the collapse
    of the white corn market in Mexico, displaced by corn grown in
    my region, yellow corn, the drug trade began to lock down the
    opium fields in the very places where the white corn market
    disappeared. We have never solved that problem. And all those
    people in those villages, from Oaxaca and everything, started
    to move north. They left their parents in those provinces, and
    then the kids came up north. A lot of them got involved in the
    drug trade.
        And I really--I sense it is out of control. You may not
    feel that way. You are closer to the ground than I am. But I
    know in my region up in northern Ohio, because of drugs and the
    routes that are coming from Mexico to Columbus, Ohio, and then
    like a spoke out around the entire State, it is frightening.
    And my own neighbor is involved in some of that drug trade.
        It is just--it is a continental scourge. And it doesn't
    seem to me that, the way we are structured, we are being
    maximally effective.
        And you have given a great share of your life to this, so I
    am very interested in the map of what is ungovernable. I am a
    city planner by training; I like to look at maps, and I like to
    understand.
        I also know that, after World War II, Britain created new
    towns, safe places.
        I think we need a different strategy that is more cosmic,
    less--because the current system isn't working. It is getting
    worse. And China is an added complexity. But if you really look
    at what is going on there, I don't think that our approach
    addresses the magnitude of what we are facing.
        My time has probably expired, but I am very interested, in
    another setting, to look at the map that you might have. You
    are a Navy man, but I think you like land. And very interested
    in what is ungovernable and other alternatives to create safe
    havens for people, how do we do that. And I mean villages.
        And what do we do about those places that are raising the
    plants that produce the cocaine, from an agricultural
    standpoint? I have never heard one person from the State
    Department, or any department talk about that massive
    transformation that occurred after 1993 that completely turned
    Mexico upside-down.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        We now have Mr. Diaz-Balart, then Mr. Ruppersberger, and
    then Mr. Carter.

                            Combating Illicit Drugs

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much.
        Admiral Faller, first and foremost, you know, words don't
    suffice to thank you for your decades of honorable service to
    our country. I have the privilege to have Southern Command in
    my district, and I will tell you, we have had over the years,
    over the decades, some outstanding leaders of SOUTHCOM, but,
    Admiral, no one has done a better job than you have. So, again,
    thank you so very much.
        In your testimony, you mentioned how many Americans die
    from illicit drugs. I think it is 87,000 in 2020 alone. And
    that is a result of the drug trade that originates in Latin
    America.
        And so, very specifically, what kind--and I know that, you
    know, SOUTHCOM interdicts more drugs than, I believe, all of
    the police departments in the entire country combined. But what
    specifically, what resources do you need to be able to do even
    more? Because you literally are saving American lives.
        Admiral Faller. We do interdict, in accordance with the
    statute provided, the bulk of the drugs for about 1 percent of
    the overall budget that is associated with that effort across
    all the U.S. agencies. And it is indicative of being able to
    try to push it to the source before it gets divided into so
    many little packets that can ease into south Florida or Ohio or
    all the other places.
        And the key, I think, to go back to the last question, the
    key is that there are good people. And our ability to leverage
    our values, which is our strength as Americans, and values that
    are common to some of these good people and create stronger
    institutions in our partner nations that are resilient to
    corruption.
        And that has to be a whole-of-government effort. We have to
    focus on a corruption-free, strong military and police and
    judicial systems. And when we leave off the pressure or don't
    incentivize our partners to do better in a certain area, it
    creates a gap or a hole.
        I hear from partner nations that, hey, look, we wish we had
    a stronger judicial system, because when the criminals get to
    the end in the judicial system, to quote a phrase from Costa
    Rica, they say, ``Pura vida,'' which is, ``Don't worry, be
    happy.'' They fear the U.S. judicial system. They respect the
    U.S. military, they respect our Customs and Border Protection,
    they respect our State Department INL. Staying consistent and
    investing in the institutions.
        A couple programs that are important that are under-
    resourced: Institutional Capacity Building. It is a program,
    and I have enough for about three advisors for the whole
    hemisphere. It is funded through Section 333 security
    cooperation money out of an institute in California, Monterey,
    California, where the ministries of our partners will agree to
    put an advisor in there--and these are experienced, savvy,
    usually retired military personnel--to help them develop
    transparent, accountable, corruption-free budget systems. That
    is a small investment for a good rate of return if we fund it
    and if we stay with it.
        There are more examples like that where we can get results.
    I will give you one more. A partner nation, Guatemala, their
    special naval forces, working with other U.S. Government
    agencies, we have developed a very capable, corruption-free,
    trustworthy special naval force that gets it done on the sea.
        There are areas of that that we can spread the trust and
    spread the accountability, but we have to stay with it over
    time. And that small, focused investment does have a rate of
    return for a safer U.S. in every one of our cities.

                               National Security

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Admiral, you also talked about--and this
    is not a classified briefing, so I don't expect--as a matter of
    fact, let me just ask a couple of specific questions about
    state actors and nonstate actors, as far as are they a threat
    to our national security interests in this hemisphere or are
    they not. Let me just--very briefly.
        China. Is it a threat to our national security interests in
    the region?
        Admiral Faller. As I stated in the opening, China is the
    pacing threat for----
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Yeah.
        Admiral Faller [continuing]. The 21st century and----
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. One more. How about Russia?
        Admiral Faller. Absolutely.
        And I would be remiss, on the transnational criminal
    organizations, one of the gaps, Congressman, is that it is not
    reflected in our higher-level documents. So, you know, that is
    a decision that will be made by policymakers, and I respect
    that----
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. All right.
        Admiral Faller [continuing]. But it is hard to compete if
    we don't respect something as a threat to our national
    security.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. How about Cuba?
        Admiral Faller. Cuba's malign influences are felt
    throughout the hemisphere. I wish it were different, but they
    undermine democracies. They are currently the--they are a de
    facto [inaudible] To keep the illegitimate Maduro in power.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. And, lastly--and I am running out of
    time--Iran. Are they also a player in this hemisphere?
        Admiral Faller. The long arm of Iranian malfeasance is felt
    around the globe. They are the number-one state sponsor of
    terrorism in the world.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Admiral, again.
        Madam Chairwoman, thank you. My time has run out, so I
    yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ruppersberger, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Ryan will be after
    Mr. Carter.

                                 China and Iran

        Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, thank you, Congresswoman McCollum
    and also Ranking Member Calvert.
        Admiral, you have served your country well. I have always
    felt, the amount of years that I have been in Congress--and I
    was on the Intelligence Committee for 12 years--that we, from a
    resource point of view, have not given the resources to South
    America, Central America, and I think we are paying for it in a
    lot of different ways.
        And I will say that, from your perspective and your
    leadership, you have been able to bring the team together. You
    mention in your statement that intel drives everything we do,
    and that gives you the ability to do the things you need to do.
    And part of what I like from your style is the teamwork. And I
    am going to call out the DEA as an example. A very small
    organization, and they are in a very dangerous situation, but
    they have done a good job. Now, with the support of the
    military, FBI, I think we are on the right road. Thank you for
    what you have done.
        China's influence in Latin America continues, outside of
    Mexico, to be really the reason and the involvement in South
    America, Central America. And I am very concerned about where
    we are with respect to China.
        And I want to give you some numbers here, that China's
    trade with the region overtook the United States in 2018 and
    extended that in 2019 to more than $22 billion, versus U.S.
    trade of $198 billion, according to analysis of the trade
    figures from the U.N. Comtrade database.
        Now, I know that throughout the pandemic in the United
    States, we have had a great partner with the different
    countries that we are working with. But, in the end, we are
    looking at a situation that is getting worse and worse as it
    relates to China.
        Now, from your perspective, what do you need to do to
    counter China in the region? Do you see any changes in the
    diplomatic front with the new administration?
        And, also, to what degree do you see insecure technology
    offerings from China, like Huawei, or bad loan terms driving
    relationships between your AOR, your area of responsibility,
    and China? And do countries truly want to work with the
    Chinese, or do they want them as a piggy bank?
        Now, outside of our near-peer, what type of Iranian
    activity are you also seeing in the region? I think you
    answered that question before. And I have always been concerned
    about their potential to stir up conflicts in our backyard.
        Admiral Faller. The focus of our National Defense Strategy
    on strengthening partnerships and of our SOUTHCOM strategy of
    strengthening partnerships is exactly the best approach to
    outcompeting China.
        So focus, first and foremost, by looking in the mirror
    every day and asking ourselves, are we the best, to use a
    sports analogy, athletes on the field, morally, physically,
    mentally, and ready to take that forward to engage with our
    partners? And I can say we are. Now, we are not the perfect
    people, but we work hard at all aspects of that to get it right
    in the United States military and in SOUTHCOM in particular.
    And partners want to partner with the world champions. And that
    is our standard to never lose. And we appreciate your support
    in that.
        So, when I sit with partners, they want to work with the
    U.S., absolutely. And we have so much in common--values in this
    hemisphere being at the top of that list, the great U.S.-built
    equipment. And we look for areas of commonality and how we move
    that forward.
        We have to be present to do that, physically and with some
    level of resources. As I say, you have to be on the field to
    compete, and you have to be seen and heard to compete.
        And I don't ask partners to choose, because that puts them
    often and publicly in a very cumbersome and tough situation.
    But I do point out, what system do you want, and do you have
    and do you want your children and grandchildren to grow up
    under, a democracy or an autocracy? And it is really an easy
    question to answer as we move forward.
        Our best way to compete is to be the best and folks will
    want to partner with us. But we have to be consistent and we
    have to stay with them in that respect.
        China, they are growing in their boldness. You mentioned a
    number of things, Congressman. We see it with the vaccines. The
    U.S. is the largest contributor to the COVID health response in
    this hemisphere, but you wouldn't know that by some of what you
    hear coming out of Chinese and Russian information and
    disinformation. We just have to stay the course and make sure
    the truth is told.
        Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay.
        I yield back. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Carter and then Mr. Ryan.
        Mr. Carter.

                      Migration Housing on Military Bases

        Mr. Carter. Thank you for being patient with me. I have
    another hearing I am trying to take care of too.
        Admiral, I had a great conversation with you yesterday.
    Sorry to have to cut it off to go vote, but we had a great talk
    and I enjoyed it.
        The transnational criminal organizations has been a subject
    that we have been talking about a lot. It is reported that over
    200 violent TCOs control territory in Central and South
    America, and they influence government and the governance of
    those countries. Additionally, China and Russia are involved in
    the region and spreading their influence out.
        As these TCOs traffic guns, drugs, money, and people into
    the United States, basically through Mexico, illegal aliens are
    being housed on military bases, such as Fort Bliss, Texas, and
    Joint Base San Antonio. Do you see any inherent risk to
    national security in housing those people on active military
    posts?
        Admiral Faller. Congressman, I will leave the policy of
    where we put them to Department of Defense and others that are
    looking at that.
        The underlying driver, though, here--the violence, the
    murderous violence, the ability of these groups to use
    corruption to undermine governance and capture territory--is
    critically at the center of gravity, the center of this perfect
    storm. And that is what we are really trying to get after,
    working with all the U.S. Government agencies.
        And, as we stated, the absolute criticality of intel to
    drive that as a way to better understand what levers need to be
    applied and pulled.
        Mr. Carter. Well, the way I look at it, I am concerned
    national security issues, but, in turn, I am also very
    concerned about placing children on live-fire military posts
    like Fort Hood, where live-fire ranges are within walking
    distance of where they would be housed. And most of these
    children are teenagers, and teenagers are very curious. And
    when tanks start shooting, they are going to want to go see.
    And I am worried about somebody getting killed. But I know that
    is not what your purpose is.
        What you are doing on the border, though, has an influence
    on what is pushing this massive migration, basically, into my
    State. And now we are moving them to other States as they
    require, but it is a gigantic problem for the State of Texas.

                       Countering Influence of Adversarys

        The One Belt One Road program that the Chinese are doing,
    we are doing some things to counter those things. Are the
    things that we are doing to counter them as effective or at
    least somewhat effective in changing the influence that they
    are imposing on our Central and South American friends?
        Admiral Faller. The security and all the insecurity that
    you cite, Congressman, has got to be part of the economic
    solution. And so, when One Belt One Road and its promise of
    Chinese investment and access to Chinese economies, the best
    way to outcompete that is to use U.S. companies, incentivize
    their business and incentivize supply chains for the Americas,
    secure supply chains, that take advantage of that proximity to
    our country and take advantage of the tremendous hardworking
    labor that comes with the migration.
        And so that has to be--and I think it was mentioned a
    number of times today: Getting development right, with the
    diplomacy and the security, has to be key.
        And we are focused on that. We routinely meet. And we have,
    in our headquarters, members of the interagency groups, and we
    look for ways to help enable them as a small piece of the
    security solution to get the work done. Development Finance
    Corp., which was part of Congress's BUILD Act, is one such
    lever that shows promise, I think. And I know that our
    ambassadors, as I interact with them, in the region are focused
    on these types of things.
        Mr. Carter. You mentioned in our conversation yesterday the
    idea of maybe a Central and South American country Marshall
    Plan. And with all the money we are throwing around these days,
    we would have to figure out how to fund all that. But would you
    like to talk about that concept?
        Ms. McCollum. Mr. Carter, we are going to have time for a
    second round, so that will give the Admiral time to think that
    over.
        Mr. Carter. Okay. Thank you very much. I yield back.
        Ms. McCollum. And I am interested to hear the answer.
        Mr. Ryan.
        Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate the
    opportunity.
        Thank you, Admiral.

                     United States Coast Guard Cutter Stone

        One of the questions I had--I read with great interest
    about what happened in March with the United States Coast Guard
    Cutter Stone, which was deployed to the South Atlantic to help
    curb illegal Chinese fishing. And this was the Coast Guard's
    first such deployment in over a decade. And the mission, we are
    told, was primarily a success, and the crew was able to conduct
    some training with several countries.
        And evidently the mission hit a snag when the Argentine
    Government refused to provide dock services for the Stone. And
    we know that that would normally be pretty routine. And we know
    that Argentina has been one of the largest recipients of funds
    from the Chinese Government for their Belt and Road Initiative.
        And I am just interested in your opinion, if you believe
    that that deepening relationship with China was the reason that
    we were refused to be able to dock the Stone there.
        Admiral Faller. Coast Guard Cutter Stone, a national
    security cutter--and those are awesome ships, well-built. I
    have been aboard them. They are built to do a range of
    missions--had a very successful patrol, as you point out,
    Congressman, and was aimed at getting after a significant
    source of insecurity, which is this idea of illegal,
    unregulated, unreported fishing. Admiral Schultz and our
    Homeland Security Department have put forward a strategy for
    that. We are participating with them; they are in the lead.
    This patrol was part of that.
        Last year, we saw off Ecuador a tremendously large fleet,
    primarily of a state-owned, Chinese, distant-water fleet, that
    would every day turn off their transponders and go into the
    ecological zone of the Galapagos. And we can only wonder what
    was happening when you turn those off. It is for two reasons
    only: You are trying to mask illegal behavior, or it is broken.
    And you don't have half a fleet broken at the same time.
        This was meant to get after that. Argentina has had their
    share of issues with illegal, unreported, unregulated fishing,
    and we worked with their coast guard successfully.
        I was in Argentina last week, had a very excellent series
    of meetings with the Minister of Defense and their Chief of
    Defense about a whole range of areas that we can cooperate on
    together. They want to partner with us. We talked about the
    Coast Guard ship Stone's work and exercise. It is a right
    level. And we got into the issue with the port. It was
    approved, and then we had to try to find another port at the
    last minute because of some port safety concerns that were
    raised by our Coast Guard.
        So, after speaking with Argentinian authorities, I actually
    think it was more of a misunderstanding than any slight. They
    clearly want to partner with us.
        They point out that China is their largest economic
    partner, as it is with the U.S. We have to figure out how to do
    that going forward and provide an incentive for U.S. business,
    industry, and our defense establishment to be able to sell in a
    competitive manner with Argentina.
        Mr. Ryan. It was a safety issue, that we determined it was
    a safety issue?
        Admiral Faller. We canceled the first port visit based on
    concerns raised by the cutter's skipper. I am confident, I
    trust in what I heard from the Minister of Defense, the Chief
    of Defense there, that it was the right decision. And I look
    forward to the next time we can come down and do a port visit
    in Argentina.
        Mr. Ryan. ``Safety'' as far as just safety of the ship or
    terrorism or some kind of attack?
        Admiral Faller. No. There are a number of factors. As a
    ship driver myself, you assess the water depth, the pier, the
    weather, all kind of things. And it was a decision made at the
    commanding officer level. I have done the same thing before a
    port visit, as you assess what is best for your ship.
        Certainly not terrorism or any physical-threat safety to
    that ship. Argentina has very capable security forces, and that
    would have been taken care of, I am assured.

                                Illegal Fishing

        Mr. Ryan. What are the international laws governing the
    illegal fishing? Is there a body of law, a regime that we are
    relying on to try to stop it?
        Admiral Faller. Absolutely. And within nations' exclusive
    economic zones, they have a right to that by international law.
    And we see that there are nations that have distant high seas
    fleets that routinely violate that international protocol.
        Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Ryan.
        We have an opportunity to do another round of questions, so
    I am going to ask--as you can see, the timer has been set to 3
    minutes. And we will start with Mr. Cuellar.

                               Funding Inventory

        Mr. Cuellar. Especially. Thank you.
        Admiral, just give me an inventory of what we can do to
    address the issues that I asked on the first round of
    questions. Just quickly give me an inventory of items that you
    think we ought to fund or put the language in there. Just a
    quick inventory.
        Admiral Faller. Thank you.
        First, I haven't seen the details of the next year's
    budget. Once we do, we will come forward, as you all have asked
    and as we have done in the past, with an unfunded requirements
    list. I am confident that our department has a prioritization
    system that is fair. We will make our case. But intel is one
    area and, in particular, support for ISR platforms and the ISR
    transfer fund.
        In security cooperation, we greatly appreciate the
    committee's support last year to restore which had been about a
    32-percent cut over the previous 3 years. And at that, at about
    a $120 million level, I think we need to all ask in the
    Department of Defense, with that being my main muscle mover,
    where the money is best spent to win the competition. And I
    think we will make the case in our unfunded requirements based
    on what we see in the level for additional funds there.
        And then in terms of security cooperation, locations, and
    presence, continued support to ensure that we have the right
    level of people and the right level of presence. That would
    include access to locations like Comalapa and Soto Cano.
        Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Good.
        And, again, thank you for what you do. I am going to yield
    back the balance of my time. But if you can follow up with the
    committee on my question, we want to be very helpful. Again, I
    think the committee shares--I don't want to speak for
    everybody, but I think we share the sense of urgency of what we
    are seeing with those actors in South and Central America.
        Admiral Faller. If I could just add, sir, the report that
    you asked for is very important, because it will provide, from
    a respected think tank, an analysis of the needs that we can
    compare to our own analysis and, I think, would really inform
    the work of your committee and Congress to help look at the
    global balance of resources that we have, recognizing we will
    never have enough for all the needs that we have, but where is
    it best applied to get the leverage we need to be competitive
    today and tomorrow. And I welcome that.
        And I also appreciated your initiative on the Western
    Hemisphere Initiative. It really is the seeds for what would be
    a Marshall Plan-like initiative as we move forward.
        Thank you.
        Mr. Cuellar. Thank you.
        Madam Chair and Ranking Member, members of the committee,
    yeah, I was hoping this would have been ready on December 31st
    of 2020, but COVID hit, so it will be ready on July 31st. And
    this will give us a comprehensive of what we need to do with
    the Department of Defense, State Department, USAID, a whole-of-
    the-government approach for Central America. So maybe we could
    put a placeholder there and work on it.
        But my time is up. Thank you so much, Admiral, and thank
    you, Madam Chair. Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. Absolutely. And I look forward to seeing the
    report. And this needs to be a whole-of-government approach. We
    need to be relying on diplomacy and development, and defense
    should always be our last resort.
        Would Mr. Calvert--and, Mr. Calvert, could you find out if
    Ms. Granger is going to be able to join us back and let our
    staff know? I know your staff is listening, so they could just
    email.
        Mr. Calvert.

                                   Guantanamo

        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Chair.
        You brought up Guantanamo, Chair, and I wanted to get into
    that a little bit with you, Admiral.
        I know that you recently closed Camp Seven. The chair and I
    were out there about, I guess--how long has that been? About a
    year ago, I guess. And you consolidated everything into the
    Camp Five, and we took a look at that when we were down there.
        Could you describe the reason for this change? I think I
    know that. It was obviously financial, along with the daily
    operations related to costs. Is that working?
        Admiral Faller. I certainly appreciated visiting there with
    you and the chair. It was very productive, and it actually
    helps us to see it through your eyes.
        It was principally a safety issue. That camp you referenced
    was never built to last, and it was in need of a number of
    safety upgrades. And my mission is the safe treatment of the
    detainees, and that is what we take very seriously. There will
    be manpower efficiencies associated with that, so it is good in
    that respect as well, but that is why we did it moving forward.
        I would note, too--and you saw this when you were there,
    sir--is the importance of that Naval station as the only base
    we have in the hemisphere. Earlier I mentioned some security
    cooperation locations, but that is the base that reports
    directly to the Department of the Navy. It is a strategic
    location. And the detention facility that is under my command
    is just a small tenant of that overall strategic location and
    Naval station.
        Mr. Calvert. I understand that, Admiral.
        One thing I wanted to bring up: As you know, the people
    that are left there are the worst of the worst, and that is why
    they are there. What, you have approximately 40 people there,
    including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the 9/
    11 attack on the United States. Is that about the right number,
    about 40 of them?
        Admiral Faller. Yes, Congressman.
        Mr. Calvert. Now, the President has indicated a desire, as
    the chair mentioned, to close the detention facility at some
    point. Have you received any tasking orders or otherwise have
    any information that a policy decision has been made to close
    that facility?
        Admiral Faller. That will be a policy decision, and we will
    flex to however it goes forward, and we are looking forward to
    being part of that process. But no decision has been made, to
    my knowledge.
        Mr. Calvert. Finally, obviously, you have the most, in my
    mind and in a lot of people's mind, one of the most evil men on
    the planet at Guantanamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
        We were supposed to set up trials for some of these folks,
    which never took place. Do you want to comment on what is going
    on with the legal process there on Guantanamo?
        Admiral Faller. The commission process is important. It is
    important, as a Nation of laws, that we get this right and see
    this to fruition. My role in this is to ensure that the
    commissions get the right support logistically and with
    security.
        The commissions themselves report directly to the Office of
    the Secretary of Defense. And I know everybody in the
    Department of Defense is committed to moving forward on this
    line. COVID, of course, set us back some as we have worked
    through the protocols associated with ensuring that we don't
    introduce any COVID-19 at all on the island.
        Mr. Calvert. Well, you can understand, it has been over 20
    years, or almost 20 years, since 9/11, and a lot of Americans
    are frustrated that the final justice has not been submitted to
    that individual. I appreciate your concern. Thank you.
        I yield back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur.

                            Risk to Latin and South

        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Admiral, how difficult would it be for me to get a briefing
    listing every one of the countries that you have responsibility
    for under your command and to get them ranked?
        So, for example, you mentioned Guatemala and the
    significant challenges of Guatemala. They would be underwater
    on such a chart, in terms of the way you look at the world. You
    said good things about Colombia, so they would be above the
    watermark. Could you do that for all the nations in Latin
    America to give me a better sense of which ones are deeply
    troubled?
        And then, in those countries, how much of the land is
    really ungovernable, where people's lives are at risk, they are
    leaving? You talked about the millions of people who have fled
    different countries. Where can I get that information so I can
    gain a more granular understanding?
        Admiral Faller. We would be happy to set up a classified
    briefing and go through all the factors.
        But I wouldn't characterize Guatemala as underwater, other
    than what we saw as the impacts of the hurricanes last year.
    There are good people and there are aspects of the Guatemala
    security team that I work with that are really good and working
    hard to make a difference. I cited one, their Special Naval
    Force. Their new Minister of Defense is committed to doing the
    right thing. He is a trusted partner. Their new Chief of
    Defense is the same.
        And there are many reasons to be concerned about the sense
    of urgency with which we have to get after the threats, but we
    also need to recognize and play to our strengths too, which is
    democracy and values. And I see real rays of light with respect
    to Guatemala in that case, ma'am.
        Ms. Kaptur. We have a lot of people who are escaping from
    Guatemala and don't want to go back there. And, you know, you
    could blame it on the hurricane, but I think there are other
    reasons as well.
        And in terms of the actual out-migration, does your office
    calculate that from these various countries, or is that some
    other--State Department or something?
        Admiral Faller. That is other agencies, State Department
    and the United Nations, that work on that data, ma'am.
        Ms. Kaptur. Do we have good maps of where opiates are being
    grown in the region under your command?
        Admiral Faller. Absolutely. The DIA and the CIA have the
    best data available and the best analysts in the world.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. If you help me gain a better
    understanding, you could access that data?
        Admiral Faller. Ma'am, we can set up a classified briefing,
    and we will do that as soon as your availability supports.
    Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate your
    service. God bless you. Thank you.
        Admiral Faller. Thank you, ma'am.
        Ms. McCollum. Ms. Kaptur, we will also work with the staff
    to get you the information that the CIA World Factbook has. And
    the World Bank has great statistics on everything from economic
    development to stunting, to land title and everything else to
    help you be prepared for when you have your classified
    briefing. I found those to be excellent resources.
        So, Mr. Rogers?

                                   Venezuela

        Mr. Rogers. Okay.
        In my conversation yesterday that I mentioned, on the
    telephone with President Duque of Colombia, one of the biggest
    topics that he brought up was the border problem they have with
    Venezuela--skirmishes that are taking place along the border of
    Venezuela, fueled in large degree, they say, by the drug
    traffic from Colombia through Venezuela and to the rest of the
    world.
        Maduro, President Maduro, in Venezuela has driven 1.7
    million Venezuelans to abscond to Colombia. They are dealing
    with 1.7 million refugees on top of all the other problems that
    Colombia is facing.
        Is there any indication, Admiral, that the reported
    skirmishes with Venezuela will escalate? And do we have any
    presence in that matter?
        Admiral Faller. It is a credit to the Colombians and their
    humanity and their heart that they have been able to accept
    this large influx of migrants in a way that has respected them
    and human rights in the midst of COVID. And it hasn't been
    easy, and I commend President Duque and his team and their
    leadership in this matter and their adherence to democracy in a
    really tough situation, tough times.
        Because right next-door, you have Maduro and his cronies,
    enabled by tens of thousands of Cubans, hundreds of Russians,
    Chinese and Iranians, including, you know, Iranian security
    assistance, including cyber assistance by Russia, Russian
    Spetsnaz, that have created a virtual narco-trafficking
    paradise.
        And so the significant influx of narco trafficking into
    Venezuela by the ELN, FARC dissidents, and other groups, the
    ease with which they can use that now as a base of operation to
    distribute into Europe, into the Caribbean islands, to the
    United States via Central America has complicated all of our
    efforts to get after the problem set.
        And you cite specifically the recent clashes, which, on the
    face of it, would look like Maduro has turned against the narco
    traffickers, but it is, as in all these things, much more
    complicated. And then they quickly pointed and tried to blame
    this on Colombia, when the facts of the matter are it is more
    of a drug war/turf war between the Maduro security forces,
    which are, for the most part, led by corrupt leaders, and the
    narco traffickers, which share a similar values systems.
        Colombia has held the line on the border.
        Our role, the DOD's role, and our interagency role, with
    this crisis, we have used it to strengthen our relationship
    with Colombia, particularly in sharing intel. It is a two-way--
    we get some of our best intel from their teams, and we share
    what we know. And we have developed great protocols and systems
    using our security cooperation authorities in this regard.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ryan, and then we have Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                      Support for Latin and South America

        Mr. Ryan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        I have a question. I know we were talking about some of the
    issues around human trafficking and stemming the flow of
    migrants north on that very dangerous journey that we keep
    hearing about.
        What are we doing to help train some of our partners that
    are involved, you know, along the way, along that journey? Are
    we doing anything to help them deal with it?
        And are you involved in those countries at all, helping
    with some of the security issues that are there? I know there
    is a lot of work going on with trying to, you know, build the
    economy, but nothing is going to happen with the economy in
    those countries until we get the security piece straight. If
    you can enlighten us on that, that would be great.
        Admiral Faller. You are absolutely right; we have to have
    sustainable security to support the democracies and the
    prosperity. The three of it goes together like the three legs
    of a well-balanced stool. And INL and State Department and
    others--DEA, CVP, and others--have the principal role, working
    with the police, which need to be at the front line. In many of
    these countries, though, the police are the most likely to be
    corrupted and the ones that need the most help.
        They are backstopped by their partner-nation militaries.
    And what we have seen is the growing credibility of partner-
    nation militaries that turned from the insurgencies of the
    1980s and 1990s to professional forces that still have a long
    way to go but that have made progress.
        Our role in this is that professional development. It
    starts with education programs. The IMET program, which is
    congressionally appropriated through the Foreign Ops, is our
    main game-changer there. We bring people to U.S. schools. We
    are funded at about the $11 million range. When you all ask for
    what more we could do, there is more that could be invested
    there to come to U.S. schools.
        Another great program that was mentioned is our human
    rights program, funded out of our own budget at five people for
    a whole hemisphere. More could be done there if resources were
    available.
        Women, Peace, and Security. You would say, how does that
    matter? But it matters a lot. And it is a nascent program that
    we have started, and it has proven to help our partners see how
    they can better leverage the 50 percent of their population to
    get involved in sustainable security. We have a small amount of
    funds, and what we have seen is it resonates with our partners
    as we go forward.
        Noncommissioned Officer Development. Here in the United
    States, we value our enlisted team. Our partners sometimes see
    that differently. Getting them to value officers and enlisted
    as one team working together inclusively is key. And we are
    really investing, along with our State partners, in that.
        So, going forward, DOD has a role to play, and we look
    forward to playing that role, as we work on a sustainable
    solution under the new $4 billion multiyear project that is
    being conceived.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Ryan. I yield back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And, Mr. Ryan, what you brought up
    on the fishing is something that we need to be addressing with
    the international community on that. I look forward to working
    with you more on that.
        Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                              Cartel Relationships

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
        Admiral, you have talked a lot and there have been
    questions about the TCOs, about these organizations. Talk to me
    about, is there any relationship between the cartels that, you
    know, import arms, that traffic in arms, the cartels that
    traffic in humans, the cartels that traffic in drugs? What
    relationship do they have? Is that all they do? Like, if there
    is a cartel that traffics in humans, is that all they do? Or
    are they also the same ones or related to, have any
    associations with ones that traffic in drugs and other things?
    And, also, do they have any association or potential contacts
    with cartels that not only are in this hemisphere?
        So, you know, talk to us a little bit about: are they a
    threat, who are they, why are they a threat. I understand this
    is not a classified briefing, but whatever you think you can
    share.
        Admiral Faller. When COVID struck with a vengeance and just
    tore at all of us, frankly--I am sure everyone here on this
    screen has been impacted in some way, a family member,
    personally--what we saw, the murderous nature of the cartels,
    is they expanded their business model to include PPE and COVID
    supplies and social services as they tried to gain influence
    with the population.
        So there are over 200 different narco-trafficking groups,
    and one of the key efforts going forward has got to be to map
    them in rank and rack-and-stack the most important and the
    strongest to the less and determine the sorts of things that
    each one thrives on.
        And it changes and changes over time. So illegal mining,
    business extortion, human trafficking, narco trafficking, the
    distribution of medical supplies, corruption and undermining of
    public business. Their business model revolves around basically
    whatever they can do to make money and keep themselves in
    power.
        That has got to be part of how we get after it going
    forward, and that has been a key part of our renewed efforts.

                           Intelligence Capabilities

        Mr. Diaz-Balart. All right.
        And you have had some questions about ISR. And I just want
    to make sure that we kind of understand not only the importance
    of it, but--you talked about it before, I think it was to Mr.
    Calvert's question, about, you know, what percentage of ISR you
    get.
        Are you getting enough? And I understand that nobody has
    enough, right? I mean, there is no command that will tell you,
    oh, we have too much of it. Right? But I am saying, how
    deficient is the level that you are getting? Is it, you know,
    very deficient, or are you kind of scraping by but you would
    like a little bit more? Where are you there?
        And, actually, Madam Chairwoman, I just realized that my
    time may have run out, so maybe if we have a second round.
        But, if not, Admiral, if you can maybe just, you know, get
    some information to me on that when you can.
        I apologize, Madam Chairwoman, for going over.
        Ms. McCollum. All right. Well, that is okay.
        If you can answer that quickly.
        So, if you can answer maybe in 30 seconds and then give the
    committee back a fuller response.
        Admiral Faller. Eight percent of our requirement was met
    last year, and that was before the cut of the transfer fund.
    And that transfer fund represented about 38 percent of our
    overall budget for ISR. We will be even less than that as we
    move through the execution here this year.
        Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
        Mr. Carter.
        Mr. Calvert. You know, Madam Chair, before the judge asks
    his question, I am going to apologize. I have to go chair my
    California delegation meeting, the few of us that are left. I
    appreciate the judge taking over for a while.
        Thank you.
        Ms. McCollum. He is most welcome to do that.
        Mr. Carter, for 3 minutes.

                                 Marshall Plan

        Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
        Admiral, you mentioned an idea that you had of a Marshall
    Plan for Central and South America. Do you want to talk a
    little bit about that?
        Admiral Faller. I am very encouraged, sir, by the efforts
    of the administration to apply resources to Central America and
    look at a longer-term plan, $4 billion over time, as I
    understand it, as it moves forward.
        I mean, I think as we look globally at the challenges and
    then where are the opportunities, there is so much opportunity
    here in this hemisphere, with the people--we share so much
    values, democracies--the proximity, the resources, the
    tremendous resource-rich hemisphere. It has a positive water
    ratio--water is so important in the global future--and so much
    arable land, access, important sea lines of communication, deep
    harbors.
        And so, if we look at the promise of the hemisphere and the
    resources, I think, as a Nation, is it time to look at a big
    idea for the hemisphere along the lines of some that we have
    seen in the past? And, you know, I certainly get very excited
    about the opportunity. The challenges and the sense of
    urgencies are real, but we can leverage these opportunities to
    make strength for the Americas, a hemisphere of promise and
    prosperity.
        Mr. Carter. Thank you. I like that challenge. With the
    spending we are doing, it is going to be interesting, how we
    would fund such a thing.
        But one of the things the Marshall Plan did was rebuild the
    existing industries of the countries that had been destroyed in
    the war. Our challenge would be more to strengthen their
    existing various factories and so forth, but, in turn, our
    industry going down and participating in that area. And that
    requires a safe harbor for them to be able to do it, including
    a legal system that gives them recourse to protection under the
    law, which is one of the real weaknesses I know about in
    Central America. You just can't get protection from the legal
    system.
        It is going to be a real challenge. And it will take a lot
    of people to go down there and straighten things out. But I
    like the idea that we are thinking about it. So thank you,
    Admiral, for doing that.
        Madam Chairwoman, thank you.

                             Climate Changes Impact

        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you, Mr. Carter.
        Sir, I have one follow-up on climate change. Due to time
    limitation, we talked a little bit about it yesterday, but we
    did touch on resilience and what we needed to do to be prepared
    for future storms for our assets, especially in Key West--
    housing back-up, emergency generators, all those kinds of
    things, because you are interconnected with everyone on the
    island as well.
        I know you have some of that available. Anything you want
    to add to that later, please provide to the committee.

                                     Brazil

        I have two questions. One is on Brazil. In 2019, President
    Trump designated Brazil as a major non-NATO ally after he
    visited the Brazilian President. Last month, Brazil's President
    fired the Defense Minister. And, more recently, the three
    branches of Brazil's Armed Forces all jointly resigned after
    meeting with the new Defense Minister of Brazil.
        Can you provide us a little bit of an update on the
    situation in Brazil and how this has affected your relationship
    with the new Defense Minister, who was a celebrated military
    dictator, part of a dictatorship? 1964 through 1985, they
    killed and tortured thousands of Brazilians. Could you maybe
    enlighten us as to, well, what we are doing about that now?
        Admiral Faller. The designation of Brazil as a major ally,
    a non-NATO partner, was exactly the right thing to do to
    recognize the progress that has been made and the
    professionalism of their force. We have a great history and a
    foundation to work forward from, with their participation with
    us in World War II.
        I have been to Brazil on multiple occasions, gone to their
    schools, met with their Armed Forces. And that is what we do;
    we work with their institutions. And the core of their
    institutions are professional and are doing the right thing and
    have responded in a professional manner.
        I am very confident in my conversations with their Chief of
    Defense and others that they are going to stay that
    professional course. And I think that is what militaries do as
    the ebb and flow of politics occurs, and I think we are seeing
    some of that now in Brazil.
        If I could just touch on that resilience question with
    JIATF too. So important----
        Ms. McCollum. I don't have enough time, because I have one
    more question, so if you----
        Admiral Faller. Okay.
        Ms. McCollum [continuing]. Could get back to us on that,
    because I want to be respectful of your time.
        I am going to, in my capacity as a Member of Congress, talk
    to State about what is going on with the Defense Minister. I
    understand you have a different role that you play with that.

                            Humanitarian Assistance

        Humanitarian assistance. Last year, Congress provided $90
    million--that is 15 more than requested--for humanitarian
    assistance. That was under the CARES Act for the COVID
    response.
        Before COVID, the USS Comfort and Mercy hospital ships were
    often deployed to do humanitarian assistance in the region. Has
    there been any discussion about bringing back a hospital ship
    to the region later this year?
        Admiral Faller. The Comfort deployments were extremely
    successful with the hearts and minds and helping our partner
    nations with their health services, which have been really
    stressed.
        We are actively planning in the right opportunity to do
    medical engagement. It may be via the Comfort or a scalable air
    mobile concept that we are working on called Heart. We are
    looking at the right time for that. Many of our forces for
    that, our Guard and our NGO partners, play heavily in that,
    and, as we know, the Guard and our military is very engaged
    right now supporting our domestic COVID response.
        So, as we plan forward, we are looking, along with the
    Department of Defense, of when the best window is. We certainly
    think there is more opportunity there for that really important
    program, the humanitarian assistance being coupled with that
    medical support. And it shows the best of who we are here in
    the United States with an outstretched hand of help.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, I want to thank you for your emphasis
    and for what you discussed with me with humanitarian assistance
    and the role that the Department of Defense can play in
    development and diplomacy in that engagement.
        I also, when going through with your bio--I am going to
    thank you for your years of service. You understand
    humanitarian assistance in a way that really brought it home to
    me: You worked on the USS Shiloh when the tsunami hit
    Indonesia. You know how important our military can be showing
    in professionalism, in the way that we can deliver aid, in the
    way that we can deliver service. And we do that in a way that
    our near-peer competitors can't.
        And so, anything you would like to say in closing about
    humanitarian assistance would be appreciated, if you want to
    give this chair a little more direction on how to use the
    Department of Defense for that.
        And, once again, thank you so very much for your years of
    service. We wish you good health and a wonderful retirement.
        Admiral Faller. Thank you, Chair.
        And thank you for representing that experience I had on
    Shiloh. It really made an impression to the whole crew and all
    of us that winning the competition is so important and so less
    costly, really, than the conflict that we never want to have.
        And we have to invest in winning this day-to-day
    competition globally, not just regionally but globally. And the
    modest investment in things like humanitarian assistance,
    hospital ships, engagement, training and education, are really
    key to doing that.
        And we have to have that capability to bring it, but we are
    best when we bring it with a handshake and, when we can in the
    future, a hug. And thank you for recognizing that.
        Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you again. We all, as you can
    tell from the accolades early on, you know, thank you for your
    service and wish you the best.
        I want to thank all the committee members for their time.
        So, Mr. Carter, we are going to adjourn at this time, you
    standing in for the ranking member.
        This concludes today's hearing, and the subcommittee stands
    adjourned. Thank you all.
        [Clerk's note.--Questions submitted by Mr. Cole and the
    answers thereto follow:]
                         Economic and Developmental Aid
        Question. Admiral, in your written testimony, one of the ways you
    highlighted the importance of this region to U.S. national security
    interests was by outlining the attention and presence paid to it by
    some competitive and/or adversarial states. The threats and
    opportunities on the continent are multidisciplinary. They encompass
    the interests, and require the attention of, a number of federal
    agencies and programs in a cooperative manner. Most of that we won't
    get into in this forum, but I will ask further about the cooperation
    with State and USAID in particular. For example, the U.S. role in
    helping to train foreign forces is about as much a diplomatic
    engagement as military. Can you speak to the value of that supplemental
    engagement and also to intersections of your mission with the role of
    U.S. economic and developmental aid in the region? Are we leveraging
    these interagency efforts with each other as effectively as some of the
    other nations challenging for influence in the region?
        Answer. The benefits of training with the U.S. military are far
    greater than just increased technical capability for the partner. Every
    engagement builds trust with our partners and reassures them that the
    United States wants to partner in meaningful ways, and at the speed of
    relevance. When the U.S. military is present, we bring with us our
    values and we model professional behavior--we show our partners what
    ``right'' looks like. We have programs in place to build the
    institutional capacity of our partner nation forces and make them
    resilient to all external influences and threats; programs to help
    partner nations develop diverse and inclusive militaries that respect
    the rule of law and human rights.
        The military institution does play an important role in stabilizing
    many countries. As we have seen throughout the COVID-19 response,
    several partner nation militaries have been a lead and responsible
    actor under complex conditions.
        I do believe that economic and developmental aid are more likely to
    have a positive and lasting impact if there is a basic level of
    security in place. All military engagements with partner nations are
    coordinated with the Chief of Mission and Country Team to ensure
    alignment across U.S. Government (USG) and public and private sector
    efforts. I do believe that interagency coordination is strong at
    various levels of the USG, to include at the Country Team, and this
    close coordination is key to leveraging all elements of U.S. national
    power in a partner nation. However, there is always room for
    improvement and, frankly, it is always going to be more difficult for a
    democratic country like the U.S. to fully coordinate its efforts
    compared to an authoritarian government that can fully control all
    elements of its government and other sectors.
                 Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance
        Question. Admiral Faller I certainly understand how important ISR
    is for many missions in your theater of operation, and I suspect we
    share a belief that ISR availability is not only critical, but probably
    a nearly universal problem for U.S. forces. SOUTHCOM has raised this
    issue with the Committee before. I also believe manned ISR platforms
    continue to have an important place, along with unmanned.
        So, I am also pleased this is a bicameral interest, as the Senate
    Armed Services Committee encouraged the Department of Defense in their
    FY21 report to explore enhancing ISR capabilities through modifications
    or increased maintenance of current ISR assets or through possible
    leasing of such systems. Do you anticipate support from the Department
    in this area? How are things progressing?
        Answer. SOUTHCOM is facing a critical shortfall of Intelligence,
    Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) this year due to the loss of the
    ISR Transfer Fund, which has made up 47% of our total ISR funding over
    the last five years. We have conveyed our concern about this ISR
    shortfall within the Department and look forward to seeing funding
    levels for ISR when the President's FY22 Budget Request is released.
                              National Guard Role
        Question. I was very pleased your testimony highlighted the
    significant role Guard and Reserve forces play in achieving your
    mission. These men and women are very highly trained and capable of
    stepping into critical roles seamlessly. I'm proud to note that
    components of our own Oklahoma NG/ANG have supported important SOUTHCOM
    missions in recent years. This may be less of a question than a
    shameless plug for the hard work and training put in by these men and
    women from my district--they are absolutely on par and professional in
    their occupation specialties, but I will ask if you've found in your
    experience that we are adequately resourcing them to be fully
    operational from an equipment standpoint with your active duty
    components?
        Answer. I, too, am very proud of the significant role the National
    Guard and Reserve plays. These forces are outstanding partners in
    assisting us in meeting U.S. strategic objectives in our region. While
    I would defer to the National Guard Bureau on specific resourcing
    information, I can tell you that when they participate in our
    partnership events, operations, or exercises, they always arrive ready
    to successfully execute as needed. Their equipment has been deployable,
    sustainable, and interoperable with our active duty forces, as well as
    with our partners in many cases.
        [Clerk's note.--End of questions submitted by Mr. Cole.
    Questions submitted by Mr. Womack and the answers thereto
    follow:]
                           State Partnership Program
        Question. The National Guard's State Partnership Program focuses on
    building partner military capacity and defense capability in 82
    countries, adding more partners each year. These partnerships support
    COCOM, embassy, and partner nation objectives by providing or
    facilitating things like cooperative training and exercises, disaster/
    emergency response, leadership development, aviation operations, cyber
    defense/communications security, military medical support, and counter
    terrorism activities to name a few. These partnerships build enduring
    relationships with an effective ``whole of society'' approach. One
    critical component of these partnerships is the Bilateral Affairs
    Officer (BAO), which are permanent National Guard billets located in
    the partner nations. Can you please explain the overall importance of
    the SPP in your AOR and specifically address the importance of having a
    present Bilateral Affairs Officer in each of your partner nations? What
    challenges have you experienced with having the BAO billets filled?
    Finally, if you are funding any of these billets out of pocket, how
    many are you funding and why are you doing so?
        Answer. The State Partnership Program (SPP) is an integral part of
    our engagement capability with our partners and a force multiplier in
    the SOUTHCOM region. The State Partnership Program enables the exchange
    of tremendous expertise resident in our citizen Soldiers and Airmen and
    fosters long-term relationships with partner nation military and
    security forces. SOUTHCOM fully leverages this value with 24 State
    Partnerships--the most of any region. Bilateral Affairs Officers (BAOs)
    are National Guard Bureau assigned personnel within our security
    cooperation offices in partner nations that assist the State and
    SOUTHCOM in managing and executing requirements associated with the SPP
    and facilitate regular contact with the partner nation. This frequent
    interface is a key component of building enduring relationships with
    our partners. They are absolutely critical to the outstanding working
    relationships between our partner nations, SOUTHCOM, and States
    coordinating program events. While I defer to the National Guard Bureau
    on specific issues with filling the various BAO positions around the
    globe, I can tell you that NGB has been very supportive in filling our
    BAO billets and they fund the majority of those billets as well.

        [Clerk's note.--End of questions submitted by Mr. Womack.]