[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 117-44]
HEARING
ON
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2022
AND
OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FULL COMMITTEE HEARING
ON
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY FISCAL YEAR 2022 BUDGET REQUEST
__________
HEARING HELD
JUNE 15, 2021
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-741 WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Seventeenth Congress
ADAM SMITH, Washington, Chairman
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JIM COOPER, Tennessee MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
JOHN GARAMENDI, California ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia
JACKIE SPEIER, California VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia
RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona MO BROOKS, Alabama
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts SAM GRAVES, Missouri
SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York
ANTHONY G. BROWN, Maryland, SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
RO KHANNA, California TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts MIKE GALLAGHER, Wisconsin
FILEMON VELA, Texas MATT GAETZ, Florida
ANDY KIM, New Jersey DON BACON, Nebraska
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania JIM BANKS, Indiana
JASON CROW, Colorado LIZ CHENEY, Wyoming
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan JACK BERGMAN, Michigan
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee
ELAINE G. LURIA, Virginia, Vice STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
Chair C. SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan
SARA JACOBS, California RONNY JACKSON, Texas
KAIALI'I KAHELE, Hawaii JERRY L. CARL, Alabama
MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington BLAKE D. MOORE, Utah
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas PAT FALLON, Texas
JIMMY PANETTA, California
STEPHANIE N. MURPHY, Florida
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada
Paul Arcangeli, Staff Director
Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
Dave Sienicki, Professional Staff Member
Emma Morrison, Clerk
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Ranking Member,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 3
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Berger, Gen David H., USMC, Commandant of the Marine Corps....... 8
Gilday, ADM Michael M., USN, Chief of Naval Operations........... 6
Harker, Hon. Thomas W., Acting Secretary of the Navy............. 5
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Berger, Gen David H.......................................... 112
Gilday, ADM Michael M........................................ 93
Harker, Hon. Thomas W........................................ 69
Documents Submitted for the Record:
Acting Navy Secretary's Call to Cancel Sea-Launched Cruise
Missile.................................................... 147
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
Mr. Bacon.................................................... 153
Mr. Brown.................................................... 153
Mr. Golden................................................... 153
Mr. Johnson.................................................. 154
Mr. Kahele................................................... 154
Mr. Lamborn.................................................. 155
Mr. Langevin................................................. 153
Mrs. Luria................................................... 154
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Carl..................................................... 174
Mr. Courtney................................................. 160
Mr. Gallagher................................................ 167
Mr. Horsford................................................. 175
Ms. Houlahan................................................. 169
Mr. Kelly.................................................... 164
Mr. Kim...................................................... 175
Mr. Langevin................................................. 159
Mr. Morelle.................................................. 176
Ms. Speier................................................... 160
Mr. Waltz.................................................... 171
DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY
FISCAL YEAR 2022 BUDGET REQUEST
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Tuesday, June 15, 2021.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:02 a.m., in
room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Adam Smith
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
WASHINGTON, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. I call the committee to order.
This is our first day under the new old rules, old new
rules. The Architect of the Capitol or whoever it is who's in
charge has told us that we can be back in the committee in
person in full, members without masks or social distancing.
That announcement just--yeah.
[Applause.]
The Chairman. I missed you, too. That announcement was just
made last night. So, you know, we're scrambling around this
morning to let people know that the new rules are here. So
members will be drifting in.
But from this point forward, you know, we will be in the
committee hearing, no social distancing, do not have to wear a
mask.
Now there--people are still going to be allowed to
participate remotely. There's a very long CDC [Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention] speech to explain that, which I
won't get into. It makes sense.
So, unfortunately, the one feature of the old rules that
applies is you still get to hear me read this statement. So
I'll try to do it as quickly as possible and we'll move on.
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Members may use the software platform's chat feature to
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Finally, I've designated a committee staff member if
necessary to mute unrecognized members' microphones to cancel
any inadvertent background noise that may disrupt the
proceedings.
So we will continue to do that for a while to allow members
to participate remotely if they so choose.
So our hearing this morning is a full committee hearing on
the Department of the Navy fiscal year 2022 budget request.
We have the Honorable Thomas Harker, Acting Secretary of
the Navy, with us this morning as well as Admiral Michael
Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations, and General--so I got to
slow down. I was in my--I was in my sort of, you know, get
through that thing mode. Now it's like I just get--and General
David Berger, Commandant of the Marine Corps.
And we thank you, gentlemen, for being here. We look
forward to your testimony.
These are very, very challenging times in our country for a
variety of different reasons. But within the military, there's
huge transformations going on and huge challenges going on at
the same time.
I've met and spoken with all three of you about your
approach to that and at the outset, I just want to say, you
know, thank you. I think you are doing an outstanding job of,
you know, confronting those challenges, and it's not easy. You
have to do so within a finite budget environment.
Number one, we still have the complex threat environment
that we have had for a while with Russia and China, with North
Korea and Iran, and transnational terrorist groups, and trying
to figure out how to manage our resources and meet all those
threats and meet the needs of our national security continues
to be a challenge.
We are still working our way through COVID. Obviously,
vaccination rates a little troublesome within the military. Got
to get those up higher. And then, of course, we have the global
challenges that come from the fact that much of the world does
not have access to the vaccine and there are many places where
it is spreading.
But the transformation that I think is really interesting
is what you've been working on in terms of building the force
to meet the challenges of today and to meet the information
warfare scene that we face.
And the simplest way to explain this is, you know, mostly
warfare is about massing as much firepower as possible and
being able to get it to where you need to get it as quickly as
possible, and that's still the case.
But now information has become so key. The ability to
access that information, the ability to find within the
information exactly what you need, and then the ability to get
it to the people who need it in real time so that, you know,
your front line Marine, your, you know, ship captain, they have
that information that they need about the adversary and about
the environment and then to protect that information.
As we have seen in recent days in many different ways, if
adversaries can cut off our information, cut off our flow,
attack us in a cyber way, that can really render all of that
firepower useless. So how do we protect it?
And then how do we make it survivable? The systems have to
be survivable wherever they go, and that is a big change from
the military that we built. So both--all three of you have
wrestle with that.
What systems do you continue to fund? What do we need to
add funds to? It's a huge set of challenges that I know all
three of you have confronted, and we're very anxious to hear
today, you know, how the President's budget reflects that and
what you think we need to do here on this committee to help
enhance your efforts to make those changes.
I guess the two big things that I would mention before I
turn it over to Mr. Rogers, you know, one, on the
infrastructure side, there's been a lot of focus on the Navy
side on the shipyards and our maintenance requirements.
As you well know, one of the big problems with having our
assets available is hitting the maintenance schedules. You
know, ships have to wait an extended period of time just to get
access to a shipyard to get the maintenance they need to
continue. What sort of upgrades do we need? What's the best way
to go about doing those upgrades?
And then on the Marine Corps side, I know, General Berger,
you have made some big strong statements about how to transform
the Marine Corps. The idea of massing and fighting on the
battlefield is different now.
You need different systems to support the mission that
Marine Corps is going to face, fundamentally different than
what you've been doing throughout most of your 200-plus year
history. I know you've done a lot of work on that. We're
anxious to hear about that.
I guess the last comment I'd make is I mentioned that 200-
plus year history. Our staff sort of, I guess, messed up on the
schedule because it's the Army's birthday today. But here we
are.
So we'll wish the Army birthday even though they're coming,
I think, next week. So but we appreciate all of your service
and all the hard work you're doing in these very difficult
times.
And with that, I will turn it over to Ranking Member Rogers
for his opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM ALABAMA,
RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
And it's not just the Army's birthday today. I think the
rest of the committee will join me in wishing the chairman a
happy birthday and I hope it's your best year ever.
The Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[Applause.]
The Chairman. We have to mention it is also Rick Larsen's
birthday today.
Mr. Rogers. All right.
The Chairman. That is the little----
Mr. Larsen. Applause.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. That is a little known fact. Yes, we got to--
we got to clap for you.
Mr. Rogers. All right.
[Applause.]
The Chairman. Rick and I were actually born on the exact
same day. We are the exact same age.
Mr. Rogers. Washington State has some activity going on.
The Chairman. I was born in DC but that's another story.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. The time is yours. I apologize. Go ahead.
Mr. Rogers. I do want to thank the witnesses for being here
and their time it took to prepare for this. I know it's a--it's
a pain, but we really appreciate it and I appreciate your
service to our Nation.
At his confirmation hearing, Secretary Austin said that
China presents the most significant threat, going forward, and
that China should be viewed as our national security, quote,
``pacing threat,'' closed quote.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. I was optimistic that
President--the President would hear that rhetoric from the
Secretary and turn it into action.
Unfortunately, I was being naive. Rather than keeping pace
with the threat from China, the President's budget
recommendation would let us lap them--let them lap us.
We need not look much further than the request for the
Department of the Navy. The President requests a paltry eight
battle force ships, two of which are tugboats. At the same
time, the President wants to retire 15 other battleships
including 7 cruisers. Those seven cruisers provide more afloat
missile capability than almost the entire British fleet.
But the cuts don't end there. The budget would break a
multi-year destroyer procurement, truncate key developmental
programs like railgun, and pass on critical munition
investments like Tomahawk missiles and heavyweight torpedoes.
This budget is throwing the shipbuilding industrial base
further into disarray. Shipbuilders are laying off workers
because of the lack of Navy vision and chronic underfunding.
Even strategies that save money beyond the ability of--or
beyond the ability of this administration to support. Despite
testimony that smart amphibious ship acquisition would lead to
over $700 million in cost savings, the administration has
elected to take a pass.
While this administration dithers, China is rapidly growing
and modernizing its navy. Our fleet of 296 ships has already
been eclipsed by the Chinese fleet of over 350 ships and
submarines.
China has more than 1,250 ground-launched ballistic
missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles with ranges
between 200 and 2,000 miles. The United States currently fields
just one type of conventional ground-launched ballistic missile
with a range of 30 to 120 miles.
I'm also concerned with the strike fighter gap. This budget
fails to fund additional Super Hornets, F-35s, for the Navy.
That leaves us with a critical capability gap in the near term
that Congress will have to fill. Setting back our critical
deterrent even further is Acting Secretary Harker's call to
eliminate the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile.
The DNI [Director of National Intelligence] recently
reported that China is fielding a full nuclear triad and is
expected to reach 1,000 warheads by 2030. In light of this
growing threat, the recommendation to end SLCM [Sea-Launched
Cruise Missile] is both short-sighted and dangerous. It's
almost as if the President developed this budget with little
understanding of what is required to deter conflict, if
necessary, to win a war.
Quite simply, this budget has little to do with pacing
China and I refuse to support it. We should be expanding and
modernizing our naval capabilities as called for by the last
administration. I am disappointed the Biden administration
doesn't see the threat from China the same way.
But I look forward to working with the majority to pass a
real defense budget that supports modernization and ensures
credible deterrence.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Harker.
STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS W. HARKER, ACTING SECRETARY OF THE
NAVY
Mr. Harker. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Rogers,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for your
bipartisan efforts on behalf of the sailors, Marines, and
civilians that make up our Department of the Navy.
I'm honored to be here with General Berger and Admiral
Gilday. I support their efforts to build a more integrated all-
domain naval force through the NAVPLAN [Navigation Plan] and
Force Design 2030.
The President's budget for fiscal year 2022 reflects a
balanced approach to ensure we have the capabilities, capacity,
and readiness needed to defend the nation and our interests.
It demonstrates our resolve to stay ahead of the pacing
threat of China and other global challenges, making hard
choices to divest of less capable assets to invest in a
superior future force.
The top priority for each of us will always be to ensure
our sailors, Marines, and civilians are prepared to execute the
mission and return home safely to their families.
We're prioritizing the mental health of our force, speaking
out at the senior level about the benefits of counseling and
the availability of counselors, chaplains, and other
professionals. We appreciate this committee's attention to that
vital issue and your support in providing additional mental
health support to our sailors and Marines in forward
operational units.
We're fighting the scourge of sexual harassment and sexual
assault through efforts like the Watch List, a tool that uses
Navy and Marine Corps data to alert commanders to conditions in
their units that may lead to these toxic behaviors.
We also look forward to the findings of Secretary Austin's
90-day Independent Review Commission and are committed to
making meaningful and lasting progress on this issue.
To ensure our resources reach the warfighters who need
them, we're demanding rigorous self-assessment and responsive
accountability through the Performance to Plan initiative.
We are also on the right path towards obtaining an opinion,
an audit opinion, for the Navy and Marine Corps general funds
and the DON's [Department of the Navy's] working capital fund.
We are the only military department that has fixed audit
material weaknesses and are leading the way on this critical
effort.
We are also increasing our investment in the Department's
oversight functions while maximizing our return on our
investment in the performance audit process.
Modernization of our information technology infrastructure
is a critical warfighting priority for the Department.
Effective use and management of data is key to our digital
transformation and will change how we fight and win at every
level.
I have visited all four of our Navy shipyards as well as
most of the private shipyards, and I'm fully committed to the
shipyard infrastructure optimization program and other vital
physical and IT [information technology] infrastructure
investments.
These will increase the capability and resiliency of these
century-old installations, increasing the size and capability
of our dry docks and equipping our 40,000-person workforce with
the tools they need to maintain our new and more lethal assets.
Around the world and around the clock, the sailors,
Marines, and civilians of our integrated naval force stand the
watch and execute the mission.
On behalf of each of them, I thank you for your time and
dedicated oversight and look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harker can be found in the
Appendix on page 69.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday.
STATEMENT OF ADM MICHAEL M. GILDAY, USN, CHIEF OF NAVAL
OPERATIONS
Admiral Gilday. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Rogers,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify this morning along with Secretary Harker
and General Berger. We all are thankful for the enduring
support that this committee provides the Navy and Marine Corps
team.
This hearing, I believe, comes at a critical time for our
Nation. Competition on, under, and above the seas is
intensifying. China and Russia are rapidly mobilizing their
militaries, attempting to undermine our alliances and degrading
the free and the open order.
The People's Liberation Army Navy battle force is the
largest in the world and it is growing. They command modern
surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, amphibious
assault ships, and next-generation fighters, and their maritime
ambition is backed by a robust industrial base and the largest
shipbuilding infrastructure in the world.
Put simply, China has designed a blue water fleet to rival
our own, and America's enduring advantage at sea is eroding.
Make no mistake, our fleet can control the seas in conflict and
project power ashore today. But we will be increasingly
challenged to do so in the future unless hard choices are made.
The Navy currently faces the task of recapitalizing our
strategic nuclear deterrent, which we haven't done in 40 years.
At the same time, we're making once in a century investment in
our critical public shipyards, as the chairman mentioned, and
at the same time we're trying to modernize our fleet for the
potential future fight.
At the same time, we have responsibility to our sailors and
our nation to maximize readiness so the fleet can confidently
operate forward and be relevant. Nearly 70 percent of the ships
that we have today we'll have a decade from now. We have to
take care of the ships that we have today, although the price
tag on readiness is rising.
Over the last 20 years, manpower, operations, and
maintenance costs--60 percent of our budget--have grown at 2.4
percent above the rate of inflation. Meanwhile, the buying
power of our Navy is less than it was in 2010. Back then, we
had 288 ships. Today, we have 296.
As you all know, the results of analysis done over the past
5 years, whether inside the Pentagon or outside, have been
consistent and clear. America needs a larger, more capable
fleet.
Our latest future force naval structure assessment provided
the headlights not only for the size of our future fleet but,
importantly, for the composition of that fleet and the
capabilities that it brings to the joint force.
If the Navy's top line remains flat or goes down further,
the size of our fleet will definitely shrink. Despite these
fiscal challenges, we're determined to field a more capable, a
more lethal, and a more ready Navy for the joint force.
To do this, we are improving our maintenance in our
shipyards and aviation depots. We are ensuring our ships are
properly manned, that our magazines are filled with ammunition,
and that we have our store rooms filled with spare parts, and
that our sailors are getting the steaming days and flying hours
that they need to hone their skills.
We are working hard on a more robust resilient network
infrastructure. We are investing in long-range precision fires
like hypersonics and Tactical Tomahawk, and we're developing
directed energy systems to improve fleet survivability.
Our eye is on the larger hybrid fleet. The investments in
our shipbuilding account reflect the rigorous analysis we
conducted last year as well as the high demand from combatant
commanders.
We are determined to deliver the Columbia SSBN [ballistic
missile submarine] on time as we build affordable capacity,
which includes a deliberate approach to unmanned, and we're
making sure that every sailor can outthink and outfight any
adversary by scaling our efforts for ready relevant learning
and live virtual constructive training.
Committee, the average age of the Chinese fleet is 11
years. Ours is 21. It's time to field the future Navy. We must
modernize now for the looming competition ahead of us and
maintain a forward posture that keeps America safe and
prosperous.
I am extremely proud of our sailors, our Navy civilians,
and our families who have sustained historic high optempo
[operations tempo] in the midst of a pandemic. They remain the
source of our strength, as are the patriots in our shipyards
and aircraft depots and our partners in industry, companies
large and small who keep the production lines moving.
Again, we are grateful for this committee's support to our
Navy and Marine Corps team. I look forward to answering your
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Admiral Gilday can be found in
the Appendix on page 93.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
General Berger.
STATEMENT OF GEN DAVID H. BERGER, USMC, COMMANDANT OF THE
MARINE CORPS
General Berger. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Rogers, and
members of the committee, over the past 2 years since becoming
Commandant, I've come to better understand and appreciate the
bipartisan support of this committee, which is really critical
to creating the force that we have today but also the force
that we're going to need for the future.
I realize there's competing national priorities you have to
wrestle with and that's going to put pressure on defense
budgets. But I'm also confident that you all appreciate the
severity of the security environment around the world.
As the global competition with China and Russia increases
and accelerates, I would argue your military will need to have
more advanced capabilities in order to effectively compete to
reassure our allies and partners and to deter war.
Force Design 2030 is the Marine Corps answer to creating
the cutting-edge capabilities and the ready forces that will
better enable the fleet and the joint force to deter, to
compete, and to respond with ready forces to any crisis
anywhere on the globe.
To be clear, Force Design is the centerpiece of a broader,
more systemic modernization effort across your Corps, one that
improves more than just our equipment and our warfighting
formations but also our personnel systems, our training, and
our family programs as well.
We're, roughly, 2 years into that modernization program and
I feel I owe this committee an update. And while we don't have
sufficient time this morning to go into all the details, I do
want to highlight three key areas of progress.
First, we have increased the operational reach and the
efficacy of our naval expeditionary forces to include our
Marine Expeditionary Units, our MEUs, which remain the crown
jewel of our force.
Beginning last year, we started our transition to a mixed
capability of long-range ship- and ground-based unmanned aerial
systems, UASes, including the MQ-9 Reaper.
This will significantly expand our ISR [intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance] capabilities and it will
enable us to better support the fleet and the joint operational
commander, including anti-submarine warfare.
We have also initiated a partnership with industry to
develop a future autonomous long-range unmanned surface vessel
that will extend the reach of our MEUs.
That vessel will give us a new tool for maritime gray zone
competition. It will help thicken what we call the C5 [command,
control, computers, communications, cyber] ISR network. It will
add to our conventional naval deterrent using loitering
munitions.
Lastly, we're aggressively pursuing organic precision fires
for our infantry. Those also have loitering munitions. And
we're on track to make a decision on the vendor--a final
decision this year.
Second, we have made significant advancements across our
training and our education enterprise. In the last 16 months,
we have released our first new doctrine in 20 years. Actually,
we released two, one on learning, one on competing.
We have also significantly advanced the intellectual
framework for some of our future operational concepts. Earlier
this year, we published a tentative manual for expeditionary
advanced base operations and we will use that to inform our
training, our wargaming and our exercises.
We substantially increased the resources we have dedicated
to wargaming and to experimentation. Last month, we broke
ground on a new state-of-the-art wargaming center here in
Quantico, Virginia.
And finally, we dramatically enhanced both the quality and
the duration of infantry training. Infantry training for us is
now 50 percent longer than it was before and we have added new
modules to increase lethality.
Third, we have taken some important steps to improve our
personnel systems and our policies. To continue attracting the
highest quality men and women for your Marine Corps, we raised
the AFQT [Armed Forces Qualification Test] standards to enlist
and we raised the ASVAB [Armed Services Vocational Aptitude
Battery] requirements for infantry.
Our enlisted performance evaluation system in the Marine
Corps was antiquated, it was subjective, and it was completely
manual. We just replaced that old system with a cloud-based
system where, for the first time, Marines are evaluated based
on clearly defined objective standards that they have control
over.
We revised our retention policies so that qualified Marines
can now reenlist a year earlier than they could before, and
I've delegated to commanders the authority to enlist Marines on
the spot.
Recognizing the strong connection between the health of our
force and the support of our families, we revised our parental
leave policies. They now include both adoptive and same-sex
parents, and I'll continue to push for expanded maternity leave
for our Marines.
And while it may seem like a modest accomplishment,
perhaps, to some, this year we updated our maternity uniforms
to improve both their utility and their professional
appearance.
So, overall, while I'm encouraged by our progress on Force
Design and the other modernization initiatives, I'm not
satisfied with the pace of change. We have to move faster.
To accelerate our program, we, as a service, will need to
do a better job of explaining the details of Force Design 2030
to members and to your staffs, and that's my responsibility as
your Commandant.
To that end, I'm prepared to testify before the full
committee and the Appropriations Committee if committee chairs
would find such a hearing useful.
I think it's critical that we develop a shared
understanding about where your Marine Corps is headed and why,
and how your support is absolutely essential to our success.
Equally important is explaining how we plan to pay for it
all. As Chairman Smith recently noted, we can and must make
better choices to be better stewards of taxpayer dollars and I
couldn't agree more.
This is part of the reason for the past 2 years we have
pursued a cost neutral approach to force design, from the
beginning self-funding our modernization, not asking for any
more funds.
To ensure the success of that approach, I will need to ask
for your support in reducing the total procurement of some
platforms commensurate with the recent reductions in our end
strength.
The fact is today's Marine Corps is significantly smaller
than it was 10 to 12 years ago, about 24,000 Marines smaller.
We simply won't need as many ground vehicles.
We won't need as many aircraft as we thought we did when we
made those procurement decisions 20 years ago. It's just simple
math.
With the reductions outlined in our force design report
this spring, I believe we will have sufficient resources to
create the modern capabilities required for competition, for
deterrence, and for crisis response without a further reduction
in our end strength.
So I welcome the opportunity to work with this committee
and I look forward to your questions, both in this hearing and
in the weeks to follow.
Thank you, sir.
[The prepared statement of General Berger can be found in
the Appendix on page 112.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Secretary, how is the vaccination issue going? What
percentage of the force has been vaccinated? How is that
affecting your ability to get everybody back up and running as
normal?
Mr. Harker. We have made progress on vaccinations. The Navy
and Marine Corps have both issued----
The Chairman. I'm sorry. We're having a hard time hearing.
I don't know if it's because you're too far back or----
Mr. Harker. Sorry, sir. We have made progress on
vaccinations. Both the Navy and Marine Corps have issued
policies that have increased the ability of sailors and Marines
to have liberty in foreign ports or to do different----
The Chairman. Do you have numbers on that progress aside?
Do you know what percentage of your--of the Navy and Marine
Corps have been vaccinated?
Mr. Harker. Do you have the----
Admiral Gilday. Seventy-five percent for the Navy right
now, sir.
The Chairman. That's great. Marine Corps now?
General Berger. We're at 50 percent for fully vaccinized--
fully immunized.
The Chairman. And would you support, once the FDA [Food and
Drug Administration] fully approves the vaccine, making it
mandatory for service members?
Mr. Harker. Sir, we're looking at that right now at the OSD
[Office of the Secretary of Defense] level. They're coming up
with guidance. I believe the Secretary is considering making
that decision to do so. But it's not something that he has
announced to us yet.
The Chairman. Okay. The only other question I have is on
the unmanned systems, and, General Berger, you alluded to it,
but I'd like both of you to respond.
You know, I know we're making a big investment, going
forward, in developing unmanned systems. It's not--it's still
not 100 percent clear to me what the Navy's vision of how
unmanned systems will help you in your mission.
Could you just quickly sort of give us what that vision is,
Admiral Gilday?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. We intend to use our fleet in a
distributed manner, and so these unmanned, obviously, give us--
give us volume, give us more ships that allow us to come at,
let's say, China or Russia, at many vectors across many
domains.
We'll be leveraging space and cyber as well. The two
biggest challenges that we're getting after on unmanned are,
one, reliability. So the engineering plants have to be reliable
so they can operate months at a time unattended.
The second is command and control, and we feel like we're
on a good path on both. But we have not--we don't have any
intentions of scaling any of these efforts until we get to a
place where we're comfortable with both of those aspects.
If I could just say briefly, sir, in the last month we have
had three big steps forward. One, we have had the largest
unmanned exercise in our history on the west coast with
unmanned under the surface, on the surface, and in the air with
the Zumwalt-class destroyer and LCS [littoral combat ship]
ships.
And so this conceptually is helping us understand how we're
going to use those unmanned platforms in conjunction with our--
the manned ships that we have today.
Separately, last Friday we had our first successful
refueling of an F/A-18 Super Hornet from an MQ-25 drone. That's
going to be a carrier-based capability that will be IOC
[initial operational capability] in 2025.
And lastly, we had a surface unmanned mega transit, a
4,000-plus-mile transit from the gulf coast through the Panama
Canal up to the Port Hueneme, the third ship--third ship that's
done so, 98 percent of it done autonomously.
And so we are making strides. I do think it's a big step,
though. I think it's going to be phased with respect to minimal
manning before we ever get to a point where we're using
unmanned completely unattended.
The Chairman. Thanks.
General Berger, do you have anything to add?
General Berger. I think you expect the Marine Corps to be
your forward force, your stand-in force, Chairman. I'd have to
say the role of UAS, the vision you're talking about, probably
four different parts.
One, intelligence collection and moving that information
back to the fleet and to joint force.
Second, I would say logistics. The ability to move, to
distribute itself, and sustain that we're going to need
unmanned platforms to do that.
Third, I would say lethality. And some of these are multi-
platform kind of aircraft. But third, certainly, is the
lethality, and fourth would be the command and control aspect,
the ability to fuse and move information laterally and back to
the joint force.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Rogers, you're recognized.
Mr. Rogers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, you painted a pretty ugly picture for the future
of the Navy. Given that fact, do you feel like this budget is
adequate to help you take on those challenges?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think it's important to understand
that the base and the top line that we have that we can afford
a Navy of about 300 ships. What we're trying to do with our
investment strategy is to--is to balance those investments
across the readiness of the fleet today, the modernization with
new technologies, and that's reflected, as an example, with a
12 percent increase in R&D [research and development] with an
emphasis on hypersonics in the offensive and laser technology
on the defensive to protect the fleet.
The third piece is capacity, and so we're growing the Navy
at an affordable rate, although that is really a key----
Mr. Rogers. You said you're growing the Navy? From what I'm
reading you're--the Navy is shrinking under this budget.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, for the 2022 budget itself, the Navy--
the Navy's numbers are declining. That's correct.
Mr. Rogers. So how do you take on your challenges with a
budget that's diminishing?
Admiral Gilday. So as I stated, sir, in my opening
comments, the last several studies that have been done going
back 5 years call for a larger, more capable fleet.
Mr. Rogers. And this budget doesn't get you there.
Admiral Gilday. No, sir. It does not.
Mr. Rogers. Let me ask this.
Admiral Davidson, the recent PACOM [U.S. Indo-Pacific
Command] commander, indicated that he expects a conflict with
China in the next 6 years. In your best professional military
judgment, do you agree with Admiral Davidson's assessment?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think the key word that he used
there was ``could,'' and I think that that potential always
exists and I think we have to be ready any given day for
anything.
Mr. Rogers. Well, you know, if you agree it could happen, I
just don't know why we would agree with anything that would
reduce the force structure and induce a near-term risk with
China.
Recently, we have heard from General Hyten at STRATCOM
[U.S. Strategic Command] that the SLCM is needed to increase
deterrence. Do you agree with Admiral Richard and General Hyten
that the SLCM fulfills a critical capability gap for the Navy
and would increase deterrence?
Admiral Gilday. I agree with that comment. I think it's
consistent with the new posture review that was done
previously.
Mr. Rogers. In recent years, the nonpartisan--the
bipartisan Commission on National Security Defense recommended
a 3 to 5 percent increase in defense spending each year over
inflation for the foreseeable future as we try to modernize our
services.
Do you agree with that recommendation by that commission?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. I think if you take a look at all
the services' unfunded requests together, they come up to about
3 to 5 percent.
Mr. Rogers. Great.
Secretary Harker, has the administration completed its
Nuclear Posture Review?
Mr. Harker. So the Nuclear Posture Review that is
forthcoming has not been done yet. The----
Mr. Rogers. Okay. Has the administration completed his
analysis of alternatives for the SLCM?
Mr. Harker. No, sir.
Mr. Rogers. So before the posture review and the analysis
of alternatives is complete, why are you canceling the program
that our best military minds on deterrence tell us that we need
to deter Russia and China?
Mr. Harker. Sir, I'm not canceling the program. That
program is in our fiscal year 2022 budget. As we're starting
the planning process for fiscal year 2023, we have a process
that we go through inside the Navy and Marine Corps where we go
in and determine which items to put in our budget.
My initial guidance was based on the fact that that posture
review, the overall posture review, and the National Defense
Strategy update have not been completed.
So I didn't want anyone to assume that that would be in
until we had further guidance from the Nuclear Posture Review.
Once that guidance comes, we will adjust accordingly, sir.
Mr. Rogers. General Berger, you submitted a list of Marine
Corps unfunded priorities that total over $3 billion. Without
funding these research and procurement priorities in fiscal
year 2022, will the Marine Corps be able to modernize in time
to counter the pacing threat of China in the near term?
General Berger. Sir, the items on the unfunded priority
list will allow us to move faster. The answer to your question
is really difficult because in a pacing environment like we're
in right now, it's tough to forecast whether or not China will
move faster or on the same scale or on the same glide slope
they're on.
We're self-funding our modernization, as I explained. Those
items on the unfunded priority list would reduce the risk. It
would allow us to move faster.
Mr. Rogers. So you need them?
General Berger. If we're going to stay in front of China
with a margin of advantage, then I think everything that we can
do in the Department of Defense to buy down that risk is in our
favor.
Mr. Rogers. I understand the pressure y'all are under to
support this President's budget recommendation. But we count on
your best military judgment, and the fact is these UFRs
[unfunded requirements] are necessary and we need to fund them.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Langevin is recognized.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses for their testimony today.
Let me start with this question. I'm really pleased that
both the Columbia- and Virginia-class submarine programs
received full funding.
Secretary Harker----
The Chairman. Hey, Jim, could you get closer to the
microphone? I don't know if that's possible or not. You're a
little light. We'll try to turn it up here as well.
Mr. Langevin. Okay. I hope that's a little better. That's
about as close as I can get, I think.
I just wanted to start off by saying that I'm pleased that
both the Columbia- and Virginia-class submarine programs
received full funding.
Secretary Harker, do you have any concerns with the
Columbia- or Virginia-class programs, given that there is no
room for a schedule to slip with the Columbia, given the fact
that the Ohios will be retiring and taking--be taken out of
service relatively soon?
Mr. Harker. No, sir. Funding the Columbia- and the
Virginia-class submarines was one of our number-one priorities
and we made sure that they were fully funded in this budget.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday, thank you for the phone call the other day.
I'm sorry it got cut short but, hopefully we'll be able to
circle back.
But, Admiral, I want to applaud you with how
enthusiastically the Navy has embraced directed energy
technology. Your navigation plan included directed energy
considerations for the next destroyer and I'm excited to get
the directed energy campaign plan in the near future.
How do directed energy weapons fit into the 2030 or 2040
ship fleet and does every ship in this future fleet have a
directed energy capability?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I can say with a high degree of
confidence that those ships that have excess power generation
capability--the Ford-class aircraft carriers, as an example--
generate three times the power of the Nimitz class.
Our new DDG(X) [Next-Generation Guided-Missile Destroyer]
destroyer should have excess power generation capacity. The
Zumwalt-class destroyers have excess power capacity. And so
those would be the first candidates for directed energy system
on a manned ship with high-powered systems, and the key here is
we want systems that can knock down missiles.
We need an anti-ballistic missile defense capability.
That's a lot cheaper than the missile defense capabilities that
we have today.
I do think that if we're optimistic about unmanned that we
could look at a medium- or large-sized unmanned vessel that
could also have laser technology, perhaps with--networked with
other ships, and that could also provide for fleet defense.
I think if we--if we're going to--if we're going to defend
the fleet in the future, a potentially larger fleet that's
dispersed, we're going to have to look at directed energy as a
potential--as a potential solution set.
And as I mentioned earlier, it remains, on the defensive
side, our top priority with respect to research and
development, and that is proceeding at pace with industry.
Mr. Langevin. Thank you, Admiral.
Let me turn to another emerging technology that I've been
following for quite some time. I'm concerned that the Navy is
trying to shelf the railgun. I view the weapon as an air
defense capability that will be vital in the area--in the era
of great power competition.
It has a cost per shot advantage and it will deepen a
ship's magazine and it helps alleviate Navy's vertical launch
cell shortage. Why is Navy giving up on the railgun and gun-
based air defense capabilities?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, we have been chasing railgun for
almost 30 years now and we just have not been able to develop
the system--develop a system that you can easily get aboard a
ship that would provide the kind of probability of kill that
you speak to that we aspired to when we started doing the
research years ago.
I do have more confidence in the high-velocity projectile
that was used with the railgun that we think we can use in
other guns that we have to provide us a layered defense along
with some of the other kinetic systems we have now plus laser
technology in the future.
I'd also say that the hypersonic missile technology and the
standoff ranges that both we and our potential adversaries face
begin to make the railgun a less attractive option, just with
respect to range.
Mr. Langevin. That's something else we're going to have to
continue to follow, Admiral.
Last question. The degree to which you have high confidence
on cybersecurity for the fleet and in our weapon systems?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. You know, I always say that I
never wake up in the morning completely confident that we don't
have somebody in one of our systems that we have to get after.
And so I will tell you that we are making a move at pace to
cloud--to the cloud for all--across all----
The Chairman. I do apologize. The gentleman's time has
expired. So the rest of that answer would have to be for the
record if he wants to follow up.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 153.]
And I will try to keep us at 5 minutes because there's a
lot of members to get in today.
Mr. Wilson is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the
witnesses being here today. It's so inspiring to see such
competent and capable people to represent our country and work
with our service members.
For Admiral Gilday, in a prior hearing on the Indo-Pacific
theater posture, Admiral Phil Davidson testified to the
appreciated American territory of Guam's significance as a
deepwater strategic port, fuel and munition logistical depot,
and it's home to 170,000 patriotic American citizens and
service members.
He recommended deploying the Aegis Ashore missile defense
facility to counter the Chinese missile threat, which would
free up three Navy destroyers.
In your assessment, how could we improve Guam's defense
strategy to limit its impact on strike power resources, which
are already severely impacted by decommissioning plans?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, there's a lot of work that's behind
Admiral Davidson's requirement for missile defense of Guam. I
think it's a valid requirement.
The only thing I'd add is, based on the last discussion I
had, I think that we also ought to look at laser technology. I
think it's even easier if it's shore based rather than ship
based. The real key is the power generation source. I think
you're talking about a much more affordable system.
I'm not saying that you would have that in lieu of missile
defense, but probably additive in some type of defense in-depth
construct. That's the only thing I'd add with respect to that
requirement.
Mr. Wilson. And, Admiral, as you look at that we need to
always remember that the people of Guam have the highest
percentage of participation in the American military of any
State or territory, and the people are so patriotic and so
grateful for the liberation by the Marines.
Previously, Admiral, I was fortunate to represent the
Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, which is home to four
Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet attack squadrons and two F-35B fleet
replacement squadrons.
The budget request for the Navy does not include any
funding for continued procurement of F/A-18E/F Super Hornet
aircraft.
How does the Navy plan to manage tactical aircraft
inventory risk and reduce the current strike fighter inventory
shortfall without increased procurement quantities of the F-35C
above plans and noting that the next-generation air dominance
program has just begun efforts to define aircraft requirements
and develop concepts?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, simply, we have procured as many F/A-
18 Super Hornets as we need. We have over 500 now. When our--
when our deliveries are complete, we'll have about 640 Super
Hornets. Many of those will be Block III Super Hornets, which
are the latest generation of Super Hornet capability.
Our goal is to combine the latest F/A-18 Super Hornets with
the F-35s to give us a mix of fourth- and fifth-generation
fighters in our carrier air wings. What we found from extensive
analysis, the conclusions that we have seen in wargames and in
exercises have demonstrated that we benefit from a mix of
fourth- and fifth-generation aircraft.
And so we are at the twilight of our fourth-generation
purchase. We are still picking up the pace with fifth gen
[generation], and by 2025 we will close the current strike
fighter shortfall that we have of 42 aircraft and if we remain
apace with respect to funding and get that fourth-/fifth-gen
mix that we think we need.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
And, Secretary Harker, the budget request proposes to cut
200 civilians from the Naval Audit Service and dramatically
reduce its mission and scope. What rationale is driving this
reduction and why should the Naval Audit Service be a quarter
of the size of other services' audit agencies?
Mr. Harker. Thank you, sir.
As a former certified public accountant, I believe in
strong oversight, and we have six different organizations that
provide oversight of the Navy and Marine Corps. Our overall
budget request for that--those six oversight organizations has
gone up by over $125 million from fiscal year 2021 to fiscal
year 2022.
So we strongly believe in oversight. The Naval Audit
Service is one element of that. We are not eliminating those
jobs or getting rid of those people. We're simply moving them
to other elements within our oversight organization, sir.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Larsen is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Larsen. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate everyone
coming out today. So this is for, I think, Secretary Harker.
We got a really nice shiny new building at Naval Air
Station Whidbey Island built for the Triton and it's got that
new car smell and no one's in it.
So the question is about the time line for the Triton and
getting that, not just getting it operational beyond the two
that are out there and the budget, again, delays that for a
year. So can you give us an update on when the timing is--what
the timing is for the Triton? And if you can't I'll have
Admiral Gilday.
Mr. Harker. Sir, I'd have to get back with you on that one.
Do you know?
Mr. Larsen. Admiral Gilday.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, just so that I understand you
correctly, you're talking about the new Columbia-class that
we're bringing online in 2027?
Mr. Larsen. No. The unmanned aircraft. At Naval Air Station
Whidbey Island----
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir.
Mr. Larsen [continuing]. There's a building built, MQ-4.
Admiral Gilday. Ah, the MQ-4.
Mr. Larsen. MQ-4.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, right now--yes, sir?
Mr. Larsen. By the way, thank you, Representative Courtney.
[Laughter.]
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. As you know, our MQ-4s right now
are deployed to Guam, and so we will be--we will be bringing
them back at some point and rotating them in and out.
Mr. Larsen. But that's just two of them. I'm talking about
the operators. You got a building built for the operators and
it's empty. So the VQ-1 squadron is moving in there before
their decommissioning, but that's just a matter of
happenstance.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I know----
Mr. Larsen. It's built, ready to go.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. We have our----
Mr. Larsen. And we're not going to be using it for 3 years?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I'll have to get back on the time line
for that transition with more details.
Mr. Larsen. Soon, please. When are we going to get these
strategic laydown documents, which were supposed to be here by
the end of June 11th?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, our documents are being informed by
the ongoing Global Posture Review. So the OSD just finished
their Task Force China. They're finishing up their Global
Posture Review next month, and that'll inform the laydown for
the services.
[The information referred to was not available at the time
of printing.]
Mr. Larsen. All right.
The Navy analysis plan to homeport 12 new frigates at
Naval--in Naval Station Everett in my district, the first 2, I
think, by 2025 or 2026, if I recall that right.
How are you--how is the Navy approaching the MILCON
[military construction] budget to support that? Because all
we--all we know now is the frigates, but we assume there'll be
something that's support for that.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. We're in the planning stages
right now for that. As you know, we just recently settled on
Washington as the homeport, and so that planning will begin to
get funded and begin to be underway within the next year. I'll
get you more specifics on that time line as well.
Mr. Larsen. Yeah. And then, Secretary, can you give us the
status of the Department of Navy's Arctic strategy? I'm trying
to put the pieces of this together between the services and so
far I don't really have a broad view of how the Pentagon sees
this. So I've got to pick at each of the services to piece it
together.
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. We have worked with the Coast Guard,
the Navy and the Marine Corps to come forward with an Arctic
Posture Review and that was completed over the winter, and
there's ongoing work to fine tune that and look at what other
elements will be included.
I know the Coast Guard's moving forward with our polar
security cutter and then we have all of our submarines up
there, and then we also do operations up in Alaska as well.
Mr. Larsen. All right. Well, I look forward to some more
detail on that.
Mr. Chairman, I want to just take the last bit of my time
to as well wish you a happy birthday, and I think I speak for
all of us right now when I say who the heck are all you people.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Larsen. I haven't seen you all for 15 months. It's good
to be back in the--back in the Armed Services room.
I yield back.
The Chairman. Yes, it'll be--will be good to get back to
normal here very, very soon. Looking forward to it.
Mr. Turner is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Harker, you've testified before Congress before,
correct?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. You're aware of your obligations in testifying
before Congress, that it's not a press conference, that you
have an obligation for truthfulness and completeness in your
answer?
Mr. Harker. Yes.
Mr. Turner. Great. Your background, as you testified, is
you're a CPA [certified public accountant].
Mr. Harker. I was a CPA. I let my license lapse recently
because of the other work that----
Mr. Turner. You achieved the level of a CPA. Your
background is accounting.
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. Okay. I have your June 4th memo, which I'd like
to enter into the record, where you direct defund sea-launched
cruise missile nuclear development effort.
The Chairman. Just one second. If I could enter that into
the record with--you know, I ask unanimous consent the form you
just said be entered into the record. Hearing no objection, so
ordered.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 148.]
Mr. Turner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
The line says, defund sea-launched cruise missile nuclear
development efforts. You said that's not canceling. Dictionary
says that defund is to prevent from continuing to receive
funds. Seems to be a conflict.
Mr. Harker, there are a lot of people on this committee who
are staunch advocates against unilateral disarmament,
unilateral meaning alone and disarmament mean where we
eliminate a weapons system. We're big fans of arms control
negotiations where we actually get something for what we're
doing.
Now, I'm very concerned about this memo because your
background is accounting. Now, Secretary of Defense Austin,
Chairman Milley, and Admiral Richard, and I'm going to guess
with a question here, Admiral Gilday, were you consulted on
this defunding of this missile?
Admiral Gilday. No, sir.
Mr. Turner. No, sir.
So Secretary Austin has that experience. Chairman Milley
has that experience. Admiral Richard has that experience.
Admiral Gilday has the experience, and you do not.
Congress and two administrations, including this budget,
funded it. Do you have the expertise to conduct the assessment
of--the analysis of alternatives to the sea-based launched
cruise missile other than financial?
Mr. Harker. No, sir, I do not.
Mr. Turner. Do you have the expertise to conduct the
Nuclear Posture Review?
Mr. Harker. No, sir. I do not.
Mr. Turner. So but yet you have the expertise, apparently,
to direct the defunding of a cruise missile. Now, you said it
was because you didn't want anybody to assume it was in because
the Nuclear Posture Review hadn't been conducted.
Why not all nukes, Mr. Harker? Why didn't you direct them
to defund all nukes? How did you choose--and remember your
obligations before Congress--how did you choose defund the sea-
launched cruise missile?
Mr. Harker. Sir, because of where we are in the budget
process. We have about 8 months before the President's budget
is finalized and----
Mr. Turner. So but, Mr. Harker, you had to specifically
choose something. This is not a number that's in this. This is
a weapons system.
Mr. Harker, I'm going to ask you who did you discuss this
with? Since you've already indicated you don't have the
expertise to being able to make strategic nuclear weapons
decisions, who in the Pentagon did you discuss this with before
you put in your memo signed by you defund the sea-launched
nuclear cruise missile? Who?
Mr. Harker. Nobody.
Mr. Turner. No one alone? So, again, you're under--you
know, you're under your obligations of testifying before
Congress. You spoke to no one in your decision to defund the
sea-launched cruise missile?
Mr. Harker. It was preliminary guidance and it was my
decision and I took it based on----
Mr. Turner. Mr. Harker, I'm going to ask you to deliver to
this committee all communications concerning the deliberations,
advice, review, directions, and analysis that were undertaken--
it's not classified, it's budget materials--that went into this
item. Do you agree to deliver those to me?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. Excellent. Are you aware as you were drafting
this memo that the President of the United States is sitting
down with Vladimir Putin this very month, and that as all the
headlines today, because our President just landed in Geneva,
indicate that arms control negotiations is one of those subject
matters?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. Do you realize the extent to which you have
undermined President Biden and the United States in indicating
that a weapons system that is nuclear is going to be
unilaterally defunded without any negotiations or without
receiving any concessions from Russia?
Mr. Harker. Sir, it was a preliminary internal document.
Mr. Turner. Are you aware of the extent to which your
actions--because I want this to be clear. It may be your own
undertaking and it may be just that you have uninformed to do
this--undertaken this.
But everyone at the Pentagon needs to understand the
severity of the actions that you've taken and its implications
on the United States for arms control negotiations, and the
impact on the President of the United States.
This is not an accounting decision, Mr. Harker. Do you know
the extent to which you have undermined the President of the
United States in his arms control negotiations by undertaking
what can only be described as a unilateral, you alone having
done it, disarmament recommendation?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Turner. I yield back.
The Chairman. Mr. Courtney is recognized.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all
the witnesses who--and the Seapower Subcommittee. We work
together a lot and I'm looking forward. I think we are going to
have more work to do.
You know, one just sort of comment I want to make and then
I want to ask Admiral Gilday a couple questions is that, you
know, unfortunately, when a budget comes over without a FYDP
[Future Years Defense Program] and without a 30-year
shipbuilding plan, it, frankly, makes your job a lot harder
because in terms of trying to explain decisions, particularly
on shipbuilding, which is a long game, I think, as you all
know, it's a 1-year window, or headlights. It's just not
sufficient to sort of see the direction where we're going.
So, hopefully, it's my understanding that some of those
documents and analysis may be on its way over here, and I,
frankly, think that's going to help everybody in terms of
trying to get the right balance this year.
Admiral, on page 13 of your testimony you state that our
future fleet places a premium on expanding our undersea
advantage. During conflict, sea control and sea denial from
beneath the waves are among the Navy's core advantages. We
cannot afford to yield any ground to our competitors.
Again, this budget, unlike last year's budget, fully funds
that undersea advantage with construction of two Virginia-class
submarines, payload modules that will go with that, as well as
R&D for the next version of our attack submarine fleet, as well
as our nuclear deterrence with full funding for the Columbia
program, which carries 70 percent of our nuclear warheads.
And could you just sort of talk about that priority in the
context of China's threat that you mentioned at the outset of
your testimony?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. I think that with respect to our
most survivable strike platform--and again, this goes right
back to why we have a Navy. This is about sea control and power
projection, the ability to project power ashore. The submarines
give us that greatest advantage.
That overmatch that we have right now against China we are
unwilling to budge on. And so as we take a look at our
investment strategy and where we put our next dollar with
respect to lethality, our mind always goes to the undersea,
including the unmanned undersea.
With respect to--with respect to Columbia, this year
Columbia is about--just over 20 percent of our shipbuilding
budget. And so in the future, it'll be over a third of our
shipbuilding budget. It's a huge commitment.
But it has to be fenced off and we have to deliver that in
2027.
Mr. Courtney. Great, and I would encourage my colleagues to
come up to Rhode Island and Connecticut to see the eye-watering
infrastructure that is being built right now.
Secretary Marty Walsh was up and, again, as the building
trades he, again, was speechless when he saw the magnitude of
the project that's going on up there. I mean, there was--this
is really happening. This isn't just sort of talk that's going
on.
This is about the fourth or fifth year since I've been--or
fourth or fifth time since I've been on Seapower that a pretty
aggressive decommissioning proposal has come in on the cruisers
and there's--as I think you all know, Congress has sort of
pushed back in past years in terms of trying to preserve that
air defense command capacity as well as the missile tube
capacity.
I guess if you could just sort of talk about the fact that
whether or not, you know, this plan is trying to sort of sift
out the platforms that are salvageable versus not, and also how
the decision to cut a DDG [guided missile destroyer], which is,
in my opinion, Flight III are going to be the replacement of
that air defense command.
I mean, that's where I think there's the biggest sort of
heartburn on this side of the room.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think the first thing I'd frame it
with kind of big picture is where are we headed. So if I take a
look at 2025, the questions came out earlier about Admiral
Davidson's testimony about 6 years of potential conflict with
China. So what do we plan to deliver in 2025 and 2026.
So if I take a look at the undersea we'll have delivered
all of our Block III Virginias. We'll have delivered all of our
Block IV Virginias. We'll be on the cusp of delivering Block
Vs, and we'll have a longer range, more lethal undersea weapon.
On the surface, we'll be delivering the Constellation-class
frigate. We'll be--we'll be building DDG(X). We'll be putting
more Flight III DDGs in the water. We have--by 2025 our plan is
to have hypersonics and the Zumwalt-class destroyers.
We're making continued investments in weapons with range
and speed. Think Tactical Tomahawk. If I look at aviation, I
talked about the fourth and fifth gen mix a few minutes ago
that bring--that we'll have that in half of our air wings, six
of our air wings--more than half our air wings--by 2025 with
longer range weapons, with speed.
And so that----
The Chairman. Thank you. I, again, apologize. The
gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Lamborn is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And General Berger, in a minute I'm going to ask you about
some armaments that are on the unfunded priority list.
But, Admiral Gilday, I have to ask you about something
first that I'm concerned about, many people are, and a lot of
people in the civilian world.
I sent you a letter with two dozen people on it concerned
that you had recently added several books to the Navy's
professional reading list promoting Critical Race Theory and
one of these books is Ibram X. Kendi's ``How to Be an Anti-
Racist,'' and it argues that the entire American system is
corrupted from top to bottom by racial prejudices, which
account for all differences and outcomes in our society.
And one sentence out of that book says ``the only remedy to
past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy
to present discrimination is future discrimination.''
Now, I understand that this is a voluntary reading list,
but how does exposing our sailors to the idea that they are
either oppressors or oppressed, and that we must actively
discriminate to make up for past discrimination improve our
Navy's readiness and lethality for great power competition?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, initially you mentioned Critical Race
Theory. I'm not a theorist. I'm the Chief of Naval Operations.
What I can tell you is factually based on a substantial
amount of time talking to sailors in the fleet there's racism
in the Navy just like there's racism in our country, and the
way we're going to get after it is to be honest about it, not
to sweep it under the rug, and to talk about it and that's what
we're doing.
And that's one of the reasons that book is on the list. It
doesn't mean I have any expectation that anybody believe or
support everything that Mr. Kendi states in his book. I don't
support everything that Kendi says.
But the key point here is the sailors in our Navy have to
be able to think critically. They have to be able to look
outwardly at China and Russia and they have to understand what
those societies--why those societies are a potential danger to
the United States.
Inwardly, we have to understand ourselves and we have to
understand critically that we value diversity. And I think----
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Admiral, I agree that we should have a
robust and great discussion, and any racism should be uprooted
and taken away. I absolutely agree and I endorse that.
But should we have future discrimination? You don't endorse
that particular statement, do you?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I have to look at the context of it.
I'm not trying to be evasive. But I don't--as I mentioned, I
don't support everything that Kendi asserts. I don't believe
everything I read. I think that----
Mr. Lamborn. I hope--thank you.
Admiral Gilday. I think that everybody has to be in a
position to weigh fact from fiction, even our sailors. They're
bombarded every day by misinformation. Much of it comes from
China and Russia on this issue that's getting at our national
psyche. I'm trying to get after it in the Navy.
Mr. Lamborn. Okay. Well, I hope that's one statement you
don't--you don't endorse and maybe we can follow up on that.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 155.]
Admiral--excuse me, General Berger, the number one and
number three items on your unfunded priority list are Naval
Strike Missiles and Tactical Tomahawks. If you don't have
those, what's that going to do to the buildup of your plan for
the Indo-Pacific?
General Berger. Sir, those two are in the top for a reason,
as you highlight. That's going to allow us to control straits,
to control pieces of littoral areas from either ship or from
shore in a--in an expeditionary and a light manner because it's
really a JLTV [Joint Light Tactical Vehicle] with a missile on
the back of it that can--that can hold at bay, can hold at risk
an adversary's naval vessels.
Without it, we just allow them to maneuver with some
freedom that we don't want them to have. So it's important for
distributed maritime operations. It's important for our future
role.
Mr. Lamborn. Well, I'll try to help you work on getting
that funded. I yield the rest of my time to the gentleman, Mr.
Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Lamborn.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Harker, I want to ask this. I
could ask you about the Navy's plan for negative seven ships. I
could ask you about them taking out a DDG. I could ask them
about absolutely blowing up the multi-ship procurement for
amphibious ships.
But what I want to focus on is where we are in the fork of
the road, I believe, with modernization versus generating
current readiness. And as Yogi Berra once said, when you get to
the fork in the road, take it.
I want to know, what's the Navy's future plan and how do
they make sure that we're pursuing the necessary modernization
elements, especially in light of a budget that seems to me to
be completely abandoning any sort of future modernization
efforts.
Mr. Harker. Sir, we try to focus on modernization and to
balance that with the need for current readiness and it made
very difficult decisions for us.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Moulton is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And first, I want to start by just thanking Admiral Gilday
for defending basic American values of free and critical
thought, which I think are one of the most important weapons we
hold against adversaries like China.
General Berger, to start with you, last year, I asked you
about the CH-53K requirement. I regret using the word
requirement as you responded that you need 200 aircraft per the
established program of record.
Less than 30 days after you testified, you released your
force design report and stated that you needed fewer heavy-lift
helicopters, that in March of this year you said that you do
not need at least two full squadrons of heavy-lift helicopters
compared to your previous plans.
Thirty-two fewer aircraft creates a potential savings for
the American taxpayer or for the Marine Corps of $4.4 billion.
So if you were allowed to change the acquisition plan and
recover those funds, can you please state how you would use
those savings and why?
General Berger. I think--I agree with the premise and I
tried to address it in my opening comments. I think you look at
us--you look to us to buy what we need, nothing more. So we
need to match the vertical lift capability to the size of the
Marine Corps and the tasks we're going to have in the future.
I think the program of record is--I know it's larger than
we're going to need. I think we're going to learn as we go
through experimentation through wargaming just how many we'll
need to reduce. But that initial program of record was based on
a much larger Marine Corps.
Where would I redirect those funds? On things like the
unfunded priority list that would help us accelerate force
design, get us a bigger margin of strategic advantage over the
PLA [People's Liberation Army] and faster.
Mr. Moulton. So I want to make sure the ranking member and
other members of this--other colleagues of mine on this
committee hear this, which is that we need to listen to you in
your requirements.
If we want to fund unfunded requirements, we should start
by saving money on things that you don't need. I think that's
really critical.
Admiral Gilday, how are you addressing this same question?
What is the Navy doing to make these important tradeoffs
between old and new capabilities? Because we simply don't have
the luxury of keeping all our older systems while also
investing in new ones.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. And so as I mentioned earlier, we
need--we need the Navy forward to be relevant, and as Admiral
Davidson testified, as Admiral Aquilino testified, China is
becoming increasingly a concern with respect to Taiwan. We need
to be out there.
And so I continue to fund the readiness of an aging fleet
that, as I mentioned, is 21 years old. It's expensive, but
that's the Navy that I believe the Nation needs out there on
point.
We're investing heavily in new technologies, hypersonics as
an example, directed energy in the defensive side as an
example. As opposed to years ago, we are actually doing the
maintenance on our ships.
We're getting better at doing that maintenance on time.
We're not deferring the maintenance. We're not kicking it down
the road because we know that 70 percent of the force we have
today we're going to have in the future.
Sir, it is a balance between being ready today and making
those investments for a force just around the corner that we
may need tomorrow. It's based--it's a risk issue and it also
takes into account the industrial base.
Mr. Moulton. One of the clear conclusions of our bipartisan
future defense task force report is that we have to make these
tradeoffs, but also that many of these new technologies and
capabilities are actually less expensive than some of the big
old heavy weapons systems that we are working so hard to
maintain right now.
Just look at China for an example, and we can see the kind
of tradeoffs we can make and that's why our bipartisan task
force was also able to recommend spending more money on
fundamental investments in our national security like basic
scientific research and STEM [science, technology, engineering,
and math] education of our youth.
Commandant, it sounds like this question of modernization
and tradeoffs is critical. Would you benefit from having a
separate hearing to discuss this before the committee?
General Berger. If it's useful to the members and your
staff, yes, I would agree with that, and I think the way that
the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] and you and others have
characterized it, I've heard Congressman Wittman and a couple
of other members the same. On the one hand, you have combatant
commanders who have a risk right now this----
Mr. Moulton. We're just short on time.
General Berger. Very well.
Mr. Moulton. General, Secretary Harker, Admiral Gilday,
would you agree to such a hearing?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir.
Mr. Moulton. General Berger, is it a problem that we lost
the USS Bonhomme Richard for your China strategy?
General Berger. It's a strategic problem.
Mr. Moulton. Admiral Gilday, we need to see the report on
this. We need to see the report and we need to have a clear
plan to replace this ship if it's critical for our China
strategy, all the more so if the rumors are true that one of
your sailors burned it down.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. I commit to providing the full
report to the Congress and make the report public.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Wittman is recognized.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our
witnesses again.
General Berger, thank you again for all the work that
you're doing with Force Design 2030 for the Marine Corps. Very
forward thinking, the exact direction I believe we need to go
to make sure the Marine Corps is, indeed, that lethal fighting
force or the tip of the spear that protects this nation at a
moment's notice and deters our adversaries around the world.
As we look at the things that are necessary in Force Design
2030, there's a lot there. There is a lot of modernization that
needs to take place. There is a lot of divestiture in existing
platforms.
There is a lot of transition to new platforms, to new
capability. All those things, I think, are incredibly
important.
The thing that I'm concerned about, though, is that
Congress, in looking at that, gets lulled into a sense that the
Marine Corps can do this by just in and of itself retiring
legacy systems and then taking those resources and putting them
forward to modernization.
But as we know, you have to do the transition properly. You
can't just get rid of everything and then have this giant gap
in capability and say, well, now, years from now things are
going to happen.
I always tell folks, I said, you know, the dreams of our
Nation's defense always happen outside the FYDP, and I want to
make sure that doesn't happen in this particular case. And what
I want to make sure, too, is that we understand that we're not
taking on unacceptable risk in that transition. In other words,
going through that bathtub.
Can you give me your perspective? Because it seems like to
me that the Marine Corps has always been noted for doing more
with less.
Seems like to me that as we modernize, we may be at a point
of doing less with less if we don't look at the funding
perspectives as you modernize, in addition to savings that you
accrue by retiring legacy systems.
General Berger. Sir, in my assessment, we have wrung just
about everything we can out of the Marine Corps internally.
We're at the limits of the risk that you address. We have
reduced end strength. We have divested of legacy systems.
We have taken every measure we can to include a 15 percent
cut in our headquarters. We have wrung it dry. We're driven by
a pacing threat, as several of you all have highlighted today,
that we don't control the pace at which they go.
And neither me nor the CNO want to transfer our risk onto
the backs of a combatant commander because we--as others have
pointed out, we have a perfect record of getting--guessing
where the next conflict is going to happen. We got it wrong
every time.
Mr. Wittman. Yeah.
General Berger. We have to be ready every day every week,
and the best insurance policy we have is a naval expeditionary
force that's forward. We're at the--we're at the limits of what
I can do internally right now.
Mr. Wittman. So would it be correct to say then that you--
in order to get where you need to be with Force Design 2030,
you would not only need the resources that you get from
retiring older systems but also some additional resources to
make sure we're on track so we don't take that unacceptable
risk with the Marine Corps as you modernize?
General Berger. I think that's accurate. My only other
option is to reduce the end strength of your Marine Corps even
further, and I think that's unacceptable risk.
Mr. Wittman. I agree.
Admiral Gilday, let me--let me ask about the tension
between the COCOMs [combatant commands] and what the chiefs are
asked to provide, specifically, the Navy-Marine Corps team, as
that demand signal continues to come in.
As you look at the plans that our combatant commanders have
and then the request for forces, so it's always what are we
doing for today's risk. And I understand the combatant
commanders' quandary there.
But it seems like to me, historically, we have seen
recently a significant increase in those RFFs [request for
forces]. So I think the question becomes is the system broken.
If all we're doing now is seeing this constant procession
of RFFs, is the system broken and should we maybe go back to
the beginning and say, what's the real scope of threats and how
do we do a better job to make sure that we're not consuming so
much resources today to generate readiness today that we can't
do the modernization we need for years to come?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think, in short, I think the process
needs more rigor, and so those 15 requests for forces that
extended 4 carriers in Central Command for almost a year came
at a cost of over a quarter of a billion dollars that we can't
invest in modernization.
If there's a reason to keep the carrier there, then keep it
there. But if there's not, use another element of the joint
force to do the job and move things dynamically around.
I think the current Secretary of Defense recognizes that.
He's bringing the Eisenhower home. He's swinging--he's swinging
the Reagan from the Western Pacific. That is not an easy
decision to make.
But on any given day, today, the Navy is putting a hundred
players on the field. The Secretary of Defense gets to decide
how those players are used, and I just try to advise the
judicious use of those forces so that we preserve precious
resources.
Thank you.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Courtney [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Wittman. Thank
you, Admiral.
Next up is Mr. Brown, who's joining us remotely.
Mr. Brown. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me?
Mr. Courtney. We can hear you now.
Mr. Brown. Great. Thank you.
And my question is for the secretary. I'd like to ask you
not about, you know, procurement and platforms but about, I
think, you know, our most important asset and that's, you know,
our people, our sailors and our Marines.
In last year's NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act],
Congress directed the Department of Defense, working with the
service--with the services to establish a mentoring and career
enhancing program with the aim to increase the diversity of the
officer corps to better reflect our Nation by fostering a more
diverse leadership pipeline.
I think mentoring is critical when you have 43 percent of
the men and women in the total joint force are black and brown
but there are zero four-star admirals, one four-star general in
the Air Force and one in the Army.
I think mentoring is really important. Can you update us,
Secretary Harker, on the Navy's effort to establish that
mentoring program?
Mr. Harker. Sorry, sir, I'm hard of hearing and I couldn't
hear the entire question. The CNO is going to help me with this
one.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think the first thing I'd say is
that I think this--I think that I'm speaking for the secretary
when I say that he agrees that a Navy that looks like its
citizens is a Navy that is truly representative of who we
strive to be as a nation.
And so coming out of Task Force Navy was about a 6-month
effort where we--where we went out to the fleet, we talked to
sailors, and we got a better understanding of issues related to
racism with respect to gender discrimination, with respect to
ethnic issues, and we came back with a number of
recommendations.
To your point, sir, one of the key things that we're doing
is we're trying to do a better job at talent management so that
we can put people in a position to be promoted so that we can
make them admirals or make them--make them generals.
And so in the Navy, we have 17 officer committees and they
have just now started to brief me individually on what they're
doing at the lieutenant and lieutenant commander level so that
we not--so that we develop leaders that are going to be
competitive with their peers and are going to promote at a rate
equal to their peers so that we can have that more diverse
leadership flag wardroom in the future.
Mr. Brown. Thank you. And I'd just--and I'd just like to
emphasize that that mentoring also needs to occur, and you and
I have had this conversation, at the precommissioning, training
schooling, ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps], and the
academies.
I'd like to ask the secretary another question. Last year
in the defense authorization we directed each service secretary
to establish a senior advisor for diversity and inclusion.
In fact, we worked across the aisle in the services to
ensure that we didn't call that person a chief diversity
officer, but a senior advisor and their qualifications are that
they have a background in management in diversity, equity, and
inclusion issues, and personnel.
What is the status of the appointment of the senior advisor
for diversity and inclusion in the Navy, this senior advisor
who reports directly to the service secretary?
Mr. Harker. Sir, we have hired a senior advisor to report
to us on diversity, equity, and inclusion and that person just
started recently.
He is looking at the existing policies that are department-
wide and then also what's in the Navy and the Marine Corps in
order to come forward and make sure that we are aligned with
the direction of the administration on this effort.
Mr. Brown. Well, I appreciate that and if you, you know,
take for the record--I don't know if that's the right language
we use or to request--but if we could get the background--the
publicly available information about the senior advisor I'd
appreciate it.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 153.]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Brown, for bringing that up.
Again, that was a very strong bipartisan priority last year
in the NDAA and I think we would definitely welcome that
followup.
Next up is Mr. Scott from Georgia.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Harker, before I move to the issue of readiness,
I want to mention something to you and ask for your support in
one thing.
Four graduates from service academies have been allowed to
forego their service commitment this year and play in the NFL
[National Football League]. The Navy has a gentleman who I've
never met named Cameron Kinley, who asked for the same
accommodation.
The others are from the different academies, Air Force and
Army. But Malcolm Perry from the--is a Naval Academy grad and
he was granted a request last year to forego his service
briefly to play in the NFL.
Cameron Kinley, to the best of what I've seen in my
reading, is the only person that has been denied that request.
He was president of his class. He signed with the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers, and then not only was he denied the request, he was
denied the right to appeal, and my question gets back to the
appeal.
I would appreciate it if you would allow him to appeal the
decision and listen to the merits of his case, and if he's able
to make his case then allow him to pursue both of his dreams to
be a naval officer and play in the NFL.
So that is my specific request is to--is to listen to his--
allow him to appeal and listen to it.
And the other statement I would make is that I'm not--I
don't know if it's right or wrong, but I do know that there
should be a uniform standard. And if it is an accommodation
that's granted to--that's going to be granted to West Point and
Air Force Academy grads then it needs to be accommodated to
Naval Academy grads as well, in my opinion, and there needs to
be consistency with the requests.
So that's a general statement. But I would appreciate if
you would hear his--allow him to appeal the decision and listen
to his appeal on the merits.
Mr. Harker. Sir, I understand there have been different
laws at different points in time as well as different policies,
some of them at the OSD level.
Mr. Scott. Yes, sir.
Mr. Harker. I looked at this case. I looked at the
significant investment that taxpayers make in every midshipman
and our expectation and their expectation is that midshipmen
will graduate and be commissioned with the Navy and Marine
Corps.
So talked with the CNO, talked with the Commandant and
looked for their military advice and we went forward. I made
the decision to deny his request.
Mr. Scott. The accommodation was made for Malcolm Perry.
The accommodation has been made for four additional people.
Why is--it seems to me that his is the only accommodation
that has not been made. Why is he different? Why should he be
given less of an accommodation than others have been?
Mr. Harker. I can't speak for what the Army and Air Force
secretaries decided. I did not have a conversation with them
about this. But, you know, looking at the two most famous Naval
Academy graduates that played in professional sports----
Mr. Scott. Roger Staubach.
Mr. Harker [continuing]. They both served first.
Mr. Scott. Roger Staubach served first?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Scott. I didn't know--that was a long time ago, though.
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. But, I mean, that's--the legislation
allows us to make exceptions when it's a significant benefit to
the service, and for us, David Robinson and Roger Staubach,
they both served first and they were recognized as graduates
who had served in the military, and that added value to us.
Mr. Scott. Well, I've spent more time on this than I
intended to, but I would suggest to you that if you have an
all-American athlete that comes into our offices and is trying
to decide which academy they want to go to, then it would be a
mistake for us to recommend that they go to the Naval Academy
if the Air Force and the Army are going to accommodate or be
more accommodating to them.
Either way, I think there should be a uniform standard
across the academies. And so obviously, you know, I'll tell you
I'll speak with Lloyd Austin about it as well. But I think
there needs to be a uniform standard.
Admiral, I'll move quickly on this. On the CNO's unfunded
priority list, you've got readiness shortfalls including
aviation depot maintenance, ship depot maintenance, and flying
hour programs.
Could you speak to the issue of the balance between growing
the Navy and sustaining the current Navy, and what it does for
readiness today?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. Current readiness has been and
will be my number one priority. We need a Navy that needs to be
forward and is ready to fight tonight, and so I'm not backing
off at all on our requirement, I believe, that serves our
sailors well.
And now, General Berger mentioned this a few minutes ago.
When we start--when we start cutting away at current readiness,
we begin to push that risk on the backs of commanders out there
at sea and the people that work for them.
When we begin to man ships with less people because it's
always easy to take away people--that's money in your pocket
right off the bat--or we put less ammunition in magazines or
less spare parts in supply storerooms or we cut back on
training, then you have a Navy that begins to become irrelevant
and that's not a place where we want to be.
The Chairman [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Garamendi is recognized.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Garamendi. Excuse me. I was stuck on Roger Staubach,
with whom I had the privilege of playing against him twice
during his career. So memories.
Mr. Secretary, you made the right decision.
Moving on. Admiral Gilday, where's the 5-year ship plan?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, the 30-year shipbuilding plan or----
Mr. Garamendi. The ship--the shipyard improvement plan.
Admiral Gilday. Oh, the shipyard improvement plan? Yes,
sir. We'll have that by the end of the month.
Mr. Garamendi. Good. Then we'll have a hearing shortly
thereafter. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
Commandant Berger, could you in 4 minutes explain the
Marine Corps of the future and what we need to know to prepare
for that in this year's NDAA?
General Berger. Sir, I offered in a separate hearing to lay
it out in detail in 4 minutes or less.
First, you need a Marine Corps today, and until that point
that's ready that can respond now. We can't take it off the
field, as a couple of you have said, come back on the field 3
or 4 years later with the force we're going to need.
We have to be ready every week. We will. We are ready
today. The force that you need in the future, I think the best
case you have for deterrence against somebody like the PLAN
[People's Liberation Army Navy] or Russia is to have a very
strong forward force that's expeditionary, that has the ability
to collect against, to deter, to compete every day, every week,
that have the ability to work with allies and partners to build
a network that will have the best chance of success of denying
the--to preventing the next conflict from ever happening.
But if it does, to be already forward so that they can
respond quickly and decisively. That means we have to be
lighter. That means we have to be less of a land force like we
have been for the past 20 years, supporting the operations in
the Middle East, and more of a naval force.
You need us--expeditionary you need us lighter, you need us
able to sustain that force in a really distributed fashion,
plugged into a naval and joint architecture that can move
information rapidly, make decisions quickly.
It's the best chance you have of deterring and, frankly, if
a crisis happens responding quickly.
Mr. Garamendi. Well, all that in 2 minutes. Well done.
I do agree with you we need to have a full hearing on it.
Of particular interest to my subcommittee is the sustainment
issues as well as locations from which you need to operate. So
thank you for that.
Also, I understand that--and this may have been asked
earlier during my absence. If so, my apologies. The AAV
[Amphibious Assault Vehicle] incident off the coast of
California, the loss of nine--of eight Marines, one sailor, I
understand that an additional action has been taken in the last
week with regard to the command structure.
Has that been--could you please sort of tell us where--what
actions have been taken with regard to the command?
General Berger. Once I reviewed the results of two
investigations, the one safety investigation and then the first
legal investigation--once it was clear to me what we knew about
the event itself and that day, there were still unanswered
questions.
So we directed a follow-on investigation to look back 6
months to find out how was this unit formed and who made what
decisions. When that investigation came to me, it was pretty
clear that the division commander at that time failed to uphold
what we expect of a commander to do and provide in a trained
ready force.
I pulled him out of his IG [inspector general] position,
and since that time, I've administratively counseled him--
formally counseled him. That's a permanent part of his record.
Mr. Garamendi. Which means what?
General Berger. Most likely--it's difficult for an officer
or general to move forward with that in their record as a
permanent basis.
Mr. Garamendi. Very good. I appreciate your ongoing effort
to deal with this tragedy and the necessary command. As I've
said and others have said in the hearings in which we conducted
on this, a culture of safety must be part of the Marine Corps
ethics.
Could you--well, you won't comment in the next 7 seconds
but I'll let that hang there, and appreciate your efforts.
Thank you.
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Dr. DesJarlais is recognized for 5 minutes.
Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Harker, last year the Department deployed the
W76-2 low-yield nuclear warhead on some American [inaudible]
submarines. I believe the utility [inaudible] something that
deserves more attention [inaudible]. First, can you provide
some context for what [inaudible] important [inaudible]
escalate-to-win strategy?
The Chairman. I'm sorry. We have lost Dr. DesJarlais. We
cannot hear you. It's getting cut off.
Dr. DesJarlais. You can't hear audio?
The Chairman. I'm hearing that. But you were, like,
breaking up in between. So give it--give it one more try.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay, let's--we're talking about low-yield
W76-2 missiles, Secretary Harker. As you know that they were
placed on submarines. Can you explain why that's important in
the Putin escalate-to-win strategy? So if you could give us
some context to why it's important that we have this.
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. The low-yield nuclear weapons was
something that was done previously, the--different from the
sea-launched cruise missile nuclear that was discussed a little
while ago.
From the warfighting value of that, I think the CNO is
probably the best capable person to discuss the value of the
low-yield nuclear weapons.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. Low-yield is based on the
findings of the Nuclear Posture Review, and the stated purpose
of the low-yield weapons was to close a deterrence gap against
the Russians and the Chinese.
And so there is a--there's a capability that the Russians
in particular have and the NPR's [Nuclear Posture Review's]
intent was to ensure that we could close that gap so that the
Russians didn't feel like they were in a position of advantage
with respect to weapons with that kind of yield.
Dr. DesJarlais. Do you feel that our current strategy is
adequate?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think as we come up on this new
Nuclear Posture Review, one of the things that I always find
reassuring about these reviews is from administration to
administration they've been squarely focused on national
security.
The recommendations track very consistently from
administration to administration. And so I think taking a
deeper look right now is a good opportunity and I think--I'm
not trying to be evasive with your question. I just think that
the NPR will shed some more light in terms of where we need to
go and why.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. Well, I think it's very possible that
the next nuclear blast we see is likely to be a low-yield and
we have to have an adequate response, and I don't think that
would be us making that first move.
But I think it is an important deterrent. Admiral Richards'
assessment certainly feels that it would make conflict less
likely. Do you agree with that?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. I do.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. And then the current system we have,
of course, we can do it air launched. We have submarine
launched from a missile, but this could also be something that
was used on the sea-launched cruise missile. That would be
another method that now may not be an option. Could that
possibly take away a strategic tool that's very important?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. I think--technically, I think
that would be feasible.
Dr. DesJarlais. Considering what Putin has with Skyfall and
other weapons, as Mr. Turner pointed out earlier in the
hearing, I think that that's something that needs another look
because, obviously, it's easier--for the Russians it's probably
easier to intercept a ballistic missile and, certainly, some
low yield that was delivered or attempted to be delivered by
plane may also be less effective than a cruise missile that's
launched from a submarine. Would you agree with that?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think--I think at a higher
classification, I think it would be worth a deeper discussion
on that particular issue.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay, and just for clarification, the yield
of these W76-2, how does it compare to, say, Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in terms of kilotons?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, again, I think that that particular--
those particular numbers exceed the classification of this
hearing.
Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. I mean, you can Google it and read it
on Wikipedia. So it may be for this hearing or not. I
understand that's different. But there's been some argument
made that our low-yield----
The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired. Apologize.
Ms. Houlahan is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you,
gentlemen, for joining us today. I am going to try and
accomplish something which is within 5 minutes to talk about
the future of defense and also childcare. So I'm hoping I'll be
able to have time.
I want to start by reading an abridged version--a version
of an article by Christian Brose, who's a former McCain
staffer, and he says, ``Many defense experts believe that the
U.S. military abetted and even encouraged by Congress continues
to be focused on too many resources preparing for yesterday's
battles rather than the conflicts most likely to be seen in the
future.
``While aircraft carriers, heavy tanks, fighter jets, and
nuclear weapons will continue to play a role in defending the
homeland, many believe that the United States must shift its
focus away from old wars and legacy weapons systems and focus
more on asymmetrical threats such as biosecurity,
cybersecurity, pandemics, and even disinformation.
``If a conflict occurred today, U.S. satellites would
likely immediately be disabled and American ships would be
rendered useless since they would be too vulnerable to precise
hypersonic missiles.
``So, consequently, the U.S. should follow the Chinese,
experts argue, pointing to cheap unmanned weapons and cheap
unmanned underwater drones.''
With that in mind, my question for Acting Secretary Harker
and Admiral Gilday is I wanted to follow up on Mr. Wittman and
Mr. Moulton's lines of question.
I was really grateful to be part of that bipartisan Future
of Defense Task Force and I'm grateful that you all are willing
to have another conversation about this.
But it doesn't appear that the Navy has conducted yet an
analysis that looks simultaneously at the political ambitions
of our two chief rivals, which are China and Russia, and at
emerging technologies for warfare above all--I'm sorry, above,
at, and below sea level and at the ability of the American and
our allied industrial base to develop and put into production
those affordable systems that are necessary for our allies and
we to prevail at sea, both in peace and at wartime.
So is it fair to say that there really hasn't been a study
or an analysis of the way that you all think about that path,
the fork to take? And if so, how, short of a hearing, can we
ask for an understanding and insight into how you think through
these really important decisions?
Mr. Harker. Thank you, ma'am. We have actually done a lot
of work around the unmanned systems and how to integrate those
in with our force.
As the CNO mentioned earlier, there was a significant
exercise off the coast of San Diego last month. There was also
then a lot of work with getting the F/A-18 in order to be able
to do that refueling with the MQ-25.
So we have done a lot to bring that technology into our
doctrine and warfighting capabilities. There's still room to
grow. I know both this committee and the Senate Armed Services
Committee have concerns with how fast we're going. Some people
think we're not moving fast enough.
Others think we're moving too fast, and we're trying to
balance that with, you know, the requirements that we have and
the budget we have.
Ms. Houlahan. And, Admiral Gilday, can I ask you as well
for your reflections on that?
Admiral Gilday. So, ma'am, our distributed maritime
operations concept, in conjunction with the Marine Corps and
how we believe we're going to fight, was the underpinning of
the two latest assessments that actually heavily considered
unmanned vehicles in the air, on the sea, under the sea.
Our investment strategy leads us to a hybrid fleet in the
2030s. As I mentioned earlier, we want to make sure that we get
the technology correct before we come to--we come to the
Secretary and ask him and make a proposal to scale.
But we believe that about a third of the fleet would be
unmanned by the mid-2030s if we stay on pace, and by the late
2030s, about 40 percent of our air wings at sea would be
unmanned. So we are moving in that direction. It's critical
that we do so.
Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, and I look forward to further
conversations on this. And with my minute left that I would
like very much to talk about childcare.
You have asked for a very modest increase in family
childcare homes. But the request for child development centers
remains, largely, unchanged from year to year and neither of
these requests have come close to the fiscal year 2020 funding
level.
Can you give me some insight and context into the decision
making of why childcare portions of the Navy and Marine Corps
budget requests are where they are when we have 7,000 children
who still are on wait lists?
Mr. Harker. Yes, ma'am. There was a significant increase in
funding for childcare last year. We had a MILCON project that's
going to increase and do repairs to the child facility in
Kitsap.
We also had five planning and design projects for $11
million, which we're executing this year as we look at how can
we go forward with the MILCON necessary to continue to expand
our childcare capability.
At the same time, we're also working to increase our
childcare in ways that don't require MILCON. So we have got a
public-private partnership. We're working with the Coronado
Unified School District in San Diego to try to use some of
their schools for after school care so that we can free up
space in our child development centers and be able to
accommodate additional students.
This is definitely something we take seriously and we're
trying to handle that.
Ms. Houlahan. I look forward to working with you on that.
And with that, gentlemen, I yield back and thank you, Mr.
Chair.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Kelly is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kelly. Mr. Secretary, what is the top line budget this
year as opposed to last year, just the dollar number?
Mr. Harker. This year's top line budget for the Department
of Defense is----
Mr. Kelly. Not for the Department of Defense. For the
Department of the Navy.
Mr. Harker. $211 million.
Mr. Kelly. What was that?
Mr. Harker. $211 million, sir.
Mr. Kelly. And what was it last year?
Mr. Harker. $206 million.
Mr. Kelly. Okay. And so my next question would be is----
The Chairman. I think you mean billion. Okay.
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. Billion.
The Chairman. Go ahead.
Mr. Kelly. All right. And my next question would be is of
that how much is allocated to things other than building ships
or doing personnel? How much of that is to climate change?
How much of that is to renewable fuels? How much of those
dollars of your budget are allocated to something other than
building ships or training sailors or Marines?
Mr. Harker. The majority of our budget is focused on
personnel----
Mr. Kelly. I know the majority, but how much of it is not
focused on that?
Mr. Harker. We have not previously tagged our budget for
those things, and so we're going through the process of
identifying what those specific dollars are right now, sir.
Mr. Kelly. Okay. And there's a $2 billion cut in
shipbuilding next year, right? Two billion cut in the
shipbuilding budget. Is that correct?
Mr. Harker. Versus what we had planned in fiscal year 2021,
yes, sir.
Mr. Kelly. Okay. And then so when do we expect the
shipbuilding plan?
Mr. Harker. Shipbuilding plan is going through the
clearance process right now--I hope to get it to you as soon as
possible. I'd wanted to get it to you before this hearing and
was unable to get the----
Mr. Kelly. That was one of the only questions I asked
Secretary Austin, would he commit to doing that since we did
not get one last year. You understand that we can't do our jobs
if we don't get that product from y'all?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. I understand. We have committed to
get it to you and we will get it to you. Could not get it done
by----
Mr. Kelly. It's a little late now, though. We're talking
about the budget now. And you understand that you're asking us
to trust your judgment into the future and your management of
risk throughout all departments while at the same time failing
to provide us any insight into what the future looks like. It's
one of those ``trust me.''
Mr. Harker. Sir, the shipbuilding plan is something that is
typically not delivered in the first year of a new
administration. This year it is required and we----
Mr. Kelly. But it's the requirement under law, correct?
Mr. Harker. Pardon me, sir?
Mr. Kelly. It's a requirement under law to provide that to
us, correct?
Mr. Harker. Yes [inaudible] does and we are going to
deliver that.
Mr. Kelly. And you do understand that in Mississippi, you
know, we build ships there, and you've visited there and I
thank you for that. That shows that you are on the spot doing
the things that you're supposed to do, and I really appreciate
that, Mr. Secretary.
But my question is, in this budget we're asking to cut out
one DDG.
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kelly. Yet, we had already committed in this plan to
build two. So we're asking to cut one of those. So what do we
tell those shipbuilders? What do we tell those employers?
What do we do with that labor force? And when we have to
build that DDG later, how much more will it cost the taxpayers
because we didn't do what we as a government agreed to do?
Mr. Harker. Sir, that's--that was our biggest regret in
this budget. I wish we could have fit that DDG into this
budget, and we are committed to building that next year. We're
also committed to doing a multi----
Mr. Kelly. And those laid-off workers--will it cost more
once we lay off workers that aren't able to do what they were
committed to do? You understand our industrial base.
When we have to lay off workers or they don't have
something to do, they have to be laid off, and you understand
then that costs us, the American taxpayers, much more dollars
to build the exact same thing because we have to regen a
workforce?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. I understand, and I was impressed
with what you're doing down in Mississippi with the partnership
with the local high schools and with your community colleges to
bring on a workforce and to maintain that workforce, and we
believe that we can continue forward with providing the support
for that industrial base.
Mr. Kelly. Here's all I'll tell you is we're getting a
defense cut. We're getting a haircut this year. You can call it
whatever you want, but it's a haircut and it's a significant
haircut across the board.
And I remember when we had ships crashing into each other,
commanders being relieved, captains of ships or commanders at
all levels, aircraft falling out of the air, vehicle turnovers
that were killing Marines and Army kids.
All these things happened because we had an inadequate
budget in order to do the things that are necessary today. And
I will argue if we're not really, really careful, guys, we're
going to start having sailors crashing ships, airplanes falling
out of the sky because of maintenance errors, untrained leaders
who are not enforcing standards that should be, and I will just
tell you, you guys need to really push back.
This budget is not capable of doing what we need to do to
protect the nation today or in 2030 or 2035. And I'd just
asked, guys, that's what we pay you big dollars for.
Please push back and let them know it's not enough. You're
great leaders. You owe that to this nation. Thank you, and I
yield back.
The Chairman. Ms. Slotkin.
Ms. Slotkin. Yes. Thank you for being here. I know we have
had a lot of discussion about the top-line budget, about
equipment, about hardware, about numbers of ships. But we have
also heard in pretty much every one of our hearings, especially
those of us on the bipartisan defense task force, that it's not
just about hardware.
It's about our ability to quickly and efficiently acquire
new technology, take the best from Silicon Valley, and
incorporate it into the Department of Defense. And I know, as
I'm sure you do, that it's a laborious process to go from great
idea to new weapons.
China has no such problem. They have no such problem, no
such 3-year string, and while we can have a debate about the
top-line budget and the hardware, I want to know what you all
are doing to change the culture and climate around acquisition
to make sure our smallest companies who have some of the best
ideas are actually able to get the attention of the Department
of Defense.
And as we have heard, this valley of death, that you can
get money for a prototype but you can't actually turn it into a
program of record.
So can I hear from both OSD as well as Admiral Gilday on
this, please? Briefly.
Mr. Harker. Yes, ma'am. This is something that we
definitely are working to improve. We stood up an organization
called NavalX [Naval Expeditions Agility Office], which is
focused on trying to identify those requirements and partner
with industry in order to come up with quick rapid ways of
meeting those requirements.
That's something that's been stood up in the last couple of
years that is a really powerful capability that we have
established both here in the DC area and then out at all the
various fleet concentration areas, and we're working within the
acquisition community as well as within the operational Navy
and Marine Corps to try to facilitate a quick dialogue so that
we can go from requirement to delivery as quickly as we can.
You're absolutely right that there is a long valley of
death in the current acquisition process, and this is something
that needs to change.
When you look at all of the different acquisition
requirements, we have put in requirements and controls in place
to prevent fraud, prevent waste, prevent abuse, but all of
those requirements come at a cost and they slow things down,
and we need to figure out how to maintain control over waste,
abuse, those types of things, while enabling our acquisition
community to work as quickly as they can.
Ms. Slotkin. Admiral.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, ma'am. I'd like to thank the Congress
for the--for the authorities that we have to accelerate buys in
the acquisition process.
I'll give you a couple of examples. We have a new deck
crawler kind of machine that cleans the hulls of submarines
when they go into dry dock. A year ago, that would take us 4
weeks to clean the outside of the hull. It takes us two--it
takes two shifts to complete that work.
We have headsets now that allow us to map a space on a ship
digitally so that a job that we give a shipyard worker to do is
much more accurate in terms of its measurements, in terms of
its 3D [three dimensional] capability. Those were turned very,
very quickly. Just a couple of examples.
But another one is laser technology, and so we're trying to
leverage small businesses as much as we can because of the
power and the innovation that out there. But I'm not at all
under the impression that we have completely solved this, and
there are companies that still can't get to us. And so----
Ms. Slotkin. Yeah. I would say we're pretty far from
solving it since, literally, every hearing we have heard from
these companies has talked about how difficult it is.
And I would note that we did give you guys the authority,
actually, even before I got here. This SBIR [Small Business
Innovation Research] authority allows you to do this rapid
acquisition, and it's less than 2.5 percent of your acquisition
budget was through that program in 2021.
So I would just flag it's also a cultural thing hearing
from you all that people can try things and fail, and
Department of Defense doesn't usually like that kind of thing.
My second question is myself and Representative Gallagher
have been running a supply chain task force here on HASC [House
Armed Services Committee]. It's been a very bipartisan process.
We all learned through the past year of COVID how difficult
it is to have transparency on our supply chains, but how
important it is so we don't get caught with our pants down if
we're sole source buying things from China.
Do you, Admiral Gilday, have transparency on supply chain
that is needed for the Navy? If not, what is your plan to get
that transparency?
Admiral Gilday. So I would say that one of the silver
linings to COVID has been the lifting of that opaque curtain on
395 between Crystal City and the Pentagon.
We have much more visibility into the fragility of those
supply chains, those single-source overseas suppliers, because
industry understands the risk both to them and to us if we
can't solve those problems quickly.
We're in a better place now and I--my hat's off to industry
and to our Under Secretary Geurts for making the effort to keep
those communications on a weekly basis during the pandemic.
Ms. Slotkin. Thank you, and I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Gallagher is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gallagher. Thank you.
Commandant Berger, do you share the concerns expressed by
Admiral Davidson about a potential PRC [People's Republic of
China] action against Taiwan within the next 6 years?
General Berger. I do, sir.
Mr. Gallagher. CNO, same question to you.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gallagher. I think this gets to the fundamental dilemma
that you're hearing expressed on both sides with regards to the
overall budget. We seem to be punting our--a larger Navy into
the future on a 2045 time line when really we need to be
planning around a 2025 time line, and we need to be resourcing
it accordingly.
And that's--to the extent you're hearing frustration, I
think that is the frustration or at least--I don't speak for
other members. That's the frustration and sense of urgency I
feel.
There may be small ways we can start to get at it as we
haggle over the bigger budgetary picture.
Commandant, for example, last year this committee supported
at least part of your requests for ground-based anti-ship
missiles and long-range fires. In a bipartisan manner, we
endorsed your overall force design initiatives.
Regrettably, the appropriators cut your funding for GBASM
[Ground Based Anti-Ship Missile] and zeroed out long-range
fires. Can you briefly describe the impact of that cut and the
importance of those programs.
General Berger. It reduced what we'll have in the field in
2023. It'll delay the fielding of the capability. It's a proven
technology. It set us back in time, which equals--for a
combatant commander it equals risk.
Mr. Gallagher. And then a bit more of the initial program,
you also identified artificial intelligence-enabled force
protection as a capability for prioritized investment in your
most recent force design guidance.
Yet, it's not resourced in the fiscal year 2022 budget
submission. This was funded and developed by the Small Business
Innovation Research program, which is highly competitive,
subject to multi-phase competition, very difficult to get to
phase three.
In light of that, the design budget, how does the Marine
Corps plan to leverage this SBIR investment and resource and
deploy this AI [artificial intelligence]-enabled force
protection capability?
General Berger. At our bases and stations, in my opinion,
and I'm very familiar with the technology, it can actually
reduce the number of military police, security--civilian
security that we hire right now.
It's also the kind of technology that will allow you to use
it into the future. It won't be obsolete 2 or 3 years from now.
Baked into it is the ability to update the software inside it.
For perimeter security, for monitoring the security of our
installations, I think it will be a helpful capability, and I
think this year we'll make a--we'll make a decision on
procurement and where to field it, because we have already used
it at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and it's proven its
effectiveness.
Mr. Gallagher. That's good to hear, and I hope members of
the committee will work to give you the resources you need
there.
Admiral Gilday, we--I think we all agree we want the
Constellation-class frigate to be a success. We want it on
time, on budget. Sort of the logic of that was it was a proven
design. I think that's what put Fincantieri in an advantageous
position.
I understand the need for combat systems changes on that
ship. But will you commit to--you know, with the with the
lessons of the LCS in mind commit to minimizing changes to
existing hull and machinery?
I mean, why make any changes in light of just the urgency
of fielding this platform on time and on budget?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I agree with you. When I went up to
the shipyard to visit that's one of the things I committed to,
that we would minimize any perturbations.
We got a lot done what we want to put in that ship and go
after it instead of, as you as you allude to, kind of drag it
out over time and add uncertainty and risk to the--to the
build.
Mr. Gallagher. And I get that the--just to sort of step
back here in what time I have remaining, I get that a lot of
the decisions that need to be made are, in some ways, even
above your paygrade.
In other words, any tradeoff between the services would
have to be reconciled by the Secretary of Defense and the
President for the budget. You know, their overall tradeoff
between nondefense discretionary spending verse defense
spending is, certainly, something that only the White House can
resolve.
But given that the commitment to a 355-ship Navy is a
statutory commitment, I mean, what top line would you need in
order to advance towards that objective more expeditiously?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. The shipbuilding plan that we
submitted last year that was predicated on 4.1 percent growth
to get us to 355 in 10 years. And so that was, to Mr.
Courtney's point, a clear set of headlights not only for the
Congress but for industry.
When EB [General Dynamics Electric Boat] puts millions of
dollars into infrastructure because they're counting on
building that Columbia for the next 15 years, that's the kind
of predictability and--predictability that we really need.
Mr. Gallagher. Well, I support the 10-year time horizon as
unrealistic, as some may suggest, and just in light of these
warnings about something happening within the next 5 or 6
years, I think we all need to act with a greater sense of
urgency.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Golden is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Golden. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday, during your recent visit to Bath Iron
Works, you said that, ``One of the most important reasons I'm
in Maine today is to ensure that every person here knows their
work is critically important to our Navy.
``DDGs are the workhorse of our fleet and, simply put, you
can't get to the fight if you don't have ships to sail there.
To the entire workforce here at Bath Iron Works, who are
responsible for helping us generate warfighting readiness, you
have my profound thanks.''
A few weeks later, the Navy delivered a budget request that
would cut a DDG that's already under contract. This proposed
cut would result in about 500 laid off DDG shipbuilders, and
those are likely to be the youngest shipbuilders.
It takes about 7 years to get fully proficient. So those
are your future shipbuilders. Those are your DDG(X)
shipbuilders.
You mentioned the DDG is critically important to the Navy.
It's the most versatile ship in the fleet. It's the principal
for ballistic missile defense. It provides anti-submarine,
anti-surface, and anti-air capabilities in a single platform.
Since I became a member of this committee, when asked not
one member of the Navy has failed to stress the importance of
getting the Flight III out to sea.
Now when we're prepared to deliver the Navy this new
capability it's proposed to reduce it. In front of the Senate
last week, Admiral Kilby said the Navy needs the Flight III
capability.
Same hearing, Mr. Stefany says that the Navy absolutely
wants to do another multi-year procurement from 2023 to 2027.
But we're looking at a cut in fiscal year 2022.
This just doesn't add up to me. The budget would take seven
cruisers offline, the tradeoff generally understood that we
replace them with a new DDG Flight III, which has less missiles
in the magazine but great new capabilities with the SPY-6
radar. But the proposal would reduce both at the same time.
So where does the Navy plan to get the capabilities that
the Flight III provides? You're decommissioning cruisers. The
new frigate can't deliver the full capability of the DDG Flight
II-A let alone the Flight III.
The DDG-51 is the most consistent and stable surface
combatant program in the Navy right now. Compared to many of
the Navy's recent surface combatant programs, it's a huge
success. We can deliver on budget, on time, and the Flight III
coming online now is the most superior destroyer ever built.
Last year, Congress expressed strong support for increased
procurement of Flight III by including $130 million in the
fiscal year 2021 defense bills to support the procurement of an
additional DDG in fiscal year 2022. In other words, we told you
to procure three DDG ships this year, and instead, the Navy has
come back and requested one.
Congress bears the responsibility to provide and maintain a
Navy and Congress gave the Navy direction last year that isn't
reflected at all in this budget proposal, essentially, a two-
ship reduction from the existing law, which Congress agreed to
this past December.
Admiral, you talked about fiscal year 2025 and 2026 and the
fleet that you envision having out there and ready for the
combatant commander. You won't be building DDG(X) in 2025. That
is slated for fiscal year 2028 at the earliest.
You know, essentially, I think what you're looking at is
you'll still be building DDG-51 Flight IIIs. I think that the
last contracted one will be delivered in fiscal year 2027 for a
total of only 14 ships, roughly speaking.
So in 2025, thinking about that potential threat from China
that everyone has been talking about, you're going to have the
Flight III, you're going to have the Zumwalt, and you're going
to have the frigate.
That's what you're going to have out there. I hope that by
that time we might have successfully equipped the Zumwalt with
a hypersonic missile capability, and I know that you have a
March 18th solicitation on how to reconfigure the Zumwalt-class
to host larger hypersonic missiles in the new vertical launch
system.
As you're looking at the DDG(X) out in the future, I've
seen Admiral Galinis talking about how it's probably going to
look maybe a little bit more like a Zumwalt than the Arleigh
Burke in a desire to get the DDG-51 Flight III capabilities
alongside the DDG 1000 integrated power system.
So given this concern about fiscal years 2025 and 2026, why
aren't we looking to focus on getting that Zumwalt equipped
with the hypersonic, learning the lessons about how to blend
the 51 with the 1000, pumping the brakes a little bit, like
Congress said in the last Congress quite clearly with the
budget that it delivered, essentially saying let's slow down
the DDG(X) and let's focus on the acquisition of the Flight III
capability?
With my remaining time, and I look forward to the Navy's
responses on, you know, on the record after the fact, Secretary
Harker, you have a June 4th memo where you talk about using
existing authority such as multi-year procurements in order to
be efficient with taxpayer dollars and provide stability to the
industrial tax base.
That's something that this committee and the Appropriations
Committee in the last Congress has already endorsed.
I look forward to working with you in that. And, you know,
as disappointed as I am with this budget request, you have a
friend in trying to work with the Navy to get you your top
priority for the UPL [unfunded priority list].
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 153.]
The Chairman. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Bacon is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. Thanks for your
leadership.
I agree with the ranking member, Mike Rogers, and Senator
Inhofe concerning the President's defense budget request. The
budget falls short of providing the resources, equipment, and
training that our service members require to confront threats
like China.
And we have heard today that China is our pacing threat. We
have heard that China has the largest navy in the world. We
have heard today that our Navy's buying power is less than it
was in 2010. These are compelling words.
Yet, while the nondefense budget from this administration
is increasing by 16 percent, the defense budget is being cut
when inflation is factored in. The Navy's shipbuilding budget
is being cut by 3 percent. The Navy's aviation budget is being
cut by 15 percent.
That's reality. Those are--those are the actions by the
administration and they don't match the words. That's my--
really, my main point here. The actions are not matching the
words from the administration. It's cognitive dissonance
personified.
And we're not fooled by some good-sounding words from the
administration that China is the pacing threat, yet the defense
budget is being cut at the same time. So I just want to make
those opening comments.
My first question is to Admiral Gilday and General Berger.
I've been a leading proponent of compelling the Department of
Defense to establish not only EMS [electromagnetic spectrum]
strategy but an implementation plan as well. It's a priority.
We have fallen behind in this area in electronic magnetic
spectrum.
Have the Navy and Marine Corps published electronic
magnetic spectrum warfare strategy, and if not, when could we
see it? Thank you.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I'll have to get back to you on that
specific strategy. I know that we have detailed concepts of
operation in terms of how we use the systems tactically,
particularly in the Growler, and how we combine those with
other joint assets in order--in order to increase our
effectiveness out there in the Western Pacific. But I'll get
back to you on the--on the strategy piece, sir.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 153.]
Mr. Bacon. I would just point out, after serving 30 years
and being an electronic warfare guy myself, the Navy has led
the way in this since the 1990s. So we appreciate it.
But we do need a good strategy. We need a Joint Staff
strategy that guides it.
General Berger.
General Berger. I understand the question and I agree with
the priority on it. It's an area of warfare, especially vis-a-
vis Russia/PLAN that we have got to maintain an advantage in.
I'll ask you if I can check--I don't know of a written
Marine Corps strategy that we published in the past 24 months.
It may exist, but not that I'm familiar with.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 153.]
Mr. Bacon. Thank you. I've just--I've been studying this
for a while. We fell behind in the 1990s. We didn't have the
right leadership at DOD [Department of Defense] and the Joint
Staff on electronic warfare--electromagnetic spectrum
operations, as it is called now.
We need to play catch-up and it starts with the DOD and
Joint Staff level, but we surely need the services to be a
strong part of that.
Secretary Harker, do you support the funding of the
Columbia-class submarine out of the National Sea-Based
Deterrence Fund?
Mr. Harker. Sir, that's one that you've given us the
authority to do that, and then the appropriators appropriated
into SCN [Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy]. So we go ahead
and we transfer the money from SCN into the National Sea-Based
Deterrence Fund. And so that's a process that we currently do
in order to comply with the law.
Mr. Bacon. Are you--are you confident that we're going to
be fielding the Columbia class on time with our current budget
and are things going as you would like?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. We are moving forward with Columbia.
It's our number one priority. We have put additional funds into
this year's budget for risk reduction on Columbia, and so that
was one of the areas where we invested funds and that is our
number one priority and it will remain that way.
Mr. Bacon. Question for Admiral Gilday. If the Navy didn't
request funding for continued procurement of the F/A-18 Super
Hornet and has not increased the buy for the F-35, are we
putting ourselves at risk here with our tactical fighter
inventory?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, right now we're short 42 fighters. We
believe the path that we're on gets this--resolves that by
2025.
So each year as we continue to upgrade our existing F/A-18
Super Hornet, so Block IIs to Block IIIs, and then procure F-
35s at pace from 15 to 20 a year, we'll get to where we need to
be with about 5 to 6 wings by 2025 that have that fourth/fifth
gen integration.
Mr. Bacon. Thank you, and just a closing request for Mr.
Harker. I sent you a letter last month. We had a World War II
hero, Petty Officer Charles French, an African-American sailor.
He was on a ship that was sunk off the Solomon Islands in 1942.
He rescued 15 sailors from capture and probable being
killed by the Japanese at the time, and he didn't get an award.
This would mean something for Omaha. He's a favorite son of
Omaha, and his family. If you would look at that, I would be
grateful.
Thank you.
Mr. Harker. Thank you, sir. Be glad to look at it.
Ms. Speier [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlelady from Virginia, Mrs. Luria, is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mrs. Luria. Thank you.
And, Admiral Gilday, in the interest of time, I'm going to
ask some yes, no, or short answer questions. And you've already
had the opportunity several times during today's hearing to
state that you agree with Admiral Davidson and Admiral
Aquilino's comments about the urgency of a potential attack by
the Chinese on Taiwan.
I wanted to point out, in your statement you write that the
Navy has studied, identified, and prioritized the future
capabilities we need to execute our evolving warfighting
concepts and maintain a credible deterrent with respect to the
PRC.
So what year do you expect to have the majority of those
capabilities available operating and deployed to counter that
threat?
Admiral Gilday. I think hypersonics offensively by--
initially by 2025. That program itself is----
Mrs. Luria. So hypersonics. You're talking about one thing.
So I mean, this future fleet that you're envisioning by
2025 you think that we're going to have all of those
capabilities?
Admiral Gilday. No. No. No. No, I don't, ma'am.
Mrs. Luria. Okay.
Admiral Gilday. So, specifically, I mean, there, are a
number of different capabilities we're talking about including
the networks we need to fight on.
Mrs. Luria. Further out, like, not within the next 5 to 6
years, in that time frame?
Admiral Gilday. Not by--not by--the majority of those
systems not by 2025.
Mrs. Luria. Okay. So and if the PACOM commanders are
correct, and I believe them to be--I think in your professional
opinion as a surface warfare officer, you also, you know,
believe that it's not prudent to decommission 15 ships in the
next year when China could invade Taiwan in the very near term.
So I understand you were given a pretty shitty top line by
the administration and, specifically, the Pentagon. So you
didn't have a lot of good choices. But you did have choices.
And so I was looking at the words you used, and you said
that this budget is going to divest to invest. So that's your
strategy you're using.
And I look back over the last 20 years of budgets and saw
that that was a very familiar term, especially in the 2004
budget where the Navy used that same divest to invest strategy
in its 21st Century Sea Power 21.
So that was defined by Sea Shield, Sea Strike, and Sea
Basing, all tied together by this network called FORCENet.
And so if we fast forward to today and we look at that
future strategy at the time, it was based on DDG-1000, LCS, and
FORCENet. So with the DDG-1000, just a quick question. How many
DDG-1000s at that point in time did we intend to build?
Admiral Gilday. Ma'am, I'd have to get back to you on the
exact number. I know it's fluctuated over time. But----
Mrs. Luria. Around 30?
Admiral Gilday. Many. Yes, about 30.
Mrs. Luria. Yes, and we have built three.
Admiral Gilday. Right.
Mrs. Luria. What was the plan procurement totals for the
LCS?
Admiral Gilday. I don't know off----
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 154.]
Mrs. Luria. Higher than what we have built, obviously, with
these modular capabilities that we haven't developed.
And what is the current status of FORCENet? Is that a
mature system that we're operating today?
Admiral Gilday. No.
Mrs. Luria. Okay. Because I'm thinking Project Overmatch as
I'm looking at ForceNet, going back.
Admiral Gilday. Right. Right. Right.
Mrs. Luria. So I think that we're, you know, in a similar
crossroads, the divest to invest strategy and, you know, as
I've said many times, as many of my colleagues have echoed
today, you know, we're looking at this Battle Force 2045, a
plan that's far off, a 355-ship goal that we're never going to
get to when we decommission more ships every year than we
actually build.
And it causes a great concern because I think there's an
urgency. I mean, what are we going to do in 2025 to counter
this threat? And, you know, you very correctly stated--you
know, spent a lot of time in your statement talking about how
the United States is a maritime nation and how that's been
important since the founding of this nation, and the Navy has
allowed us to maintain our role on the global stage as a global
power to maintain free trade, and some very good comments in
there.
But I don't see what the Navy is doing today to accomplish
that when we're continuing to shrink and we're continuing to
divest to invest with strategies and capabilities that are just
a hope for the future.
You know, and the obvious thing is that, you know, we're
looking to develop a large unmanned surface vessel, which
theoretically would have 16 VLS [vertical launching system]
cells.
We're going to decommission 7 cruisers that each have 2 VLS
launchers with 122 cells each. You know, when you're looking at
that problem writ large, you know, we are reducing our
capability to counter the threat that we have today.
And so, you know, I would just close by saying that, you
know, I feel this budget is, you know, focused on a future hope
for technology that we will have in order to counter a threat
that might happen way out in the future, and I think that many
of us in this room here and during this hearing have reflected
on the fact that we need that capability today.
The one thing we can build with reliability on schedule is
the DDG, and we cut one this year and we'd even planned to
potentially build three. And then, you know, I think that the--
what I would consider a modest current investment in
modernizing the cruisers to operate for several more years with
their sizable capability is something that we should maintain.
So, you know, I think that we're creating a gap and I am
really concerned that the Chinese will actually find a way to
exploit that gap.
And so I yield back my remaining time.
Ms. Speier. The gentlewoman yields back.
I recommend everyone read the Texas National Security
Review commentary that Ms. Luria presented yesterday. It was
very impressive.
We are now going to recognize the gentleman from Indiana,
Mr. Banks, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Banks. Thank you Madam Chair.
Admiral Gilday, I was glad to hear Congressman Lamborn
asked you about your decision to include Ibram X. Kendi's ``How
to Be an Anti-Racist'' in your recommended reading list.
I was also relieved to hear you say that you disagree with
Kendi and you do not support racial discrimination.
That being said, the Navy recently completed a one-day
stand down to remove extremism from the ranks. The Chief of
Naval Personnel explained, quote, ``We will not tolerate
extremist ideologies that go against our oath to the
Constitution.''
In my view, Kendi has espoused extremist beliefs that,
clearly, violate the oath to the Constitution that I took when
I served in the Navy.
Ibram Kendi, by the way, labeled Amy Coney Barrett a,
quote, ``white colonizer'' and criticized her for, quote,
``cutting the biological parents of these children out,'' end
quote, because she adopted two children from Haiti.
Yes or no, Admiral, do you personally consider opposition
to interracial adoption an extremist belief?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, what I said to correct the record
[inaudible] I said that I did not--I did not support everything
that Kendi says in his book.
Mr. Banks. I just asked you do you consider opposition to
interracial adoption an extremist belief? It's a simple
question.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I'm not going to answer that question.
I'll go back----
Mr. Banks. Okay. Kendi's book states that--Admiral, Kendi's
book states that capitalism is essentially racist.
Ms. Speier. Admiral, your microphone isn't on, I believe.
Thank you.
Admiral Gilday. Thank you.
Mr. Banks. Kendi's book states that capitalism is
essentially racist, and Kendi is clear that racism must be
eliminated. So yes or no, do you personally consider advocating
for the destruction of American capitalism to be extremist?
Admiral Gilday. Here's what I know, Congressman.
Mr. Banks. It's a yes or no question, Admiral.
Admiral Gilday. There is racism in the United States Navy.
I have an obligation----
Mr. Banks. Admiral, you recommended every sailor in the
United States Navy read this book. It's a yes or no question.
Admiral Gilday. I'm not forcing anybody to read the book.
It's on a recommended reading list.
Mr. Banks. Admiral, did you read the book?
Admiral Gilday. I did.
Mr. Banks. Okay. In college, Kendi stated that white people
are a different breed of humans and are responsible for the
AIDS [acquired immunodeficiency syndrome] virus. Yes or no, do
you personally consider the conspiracy that white people
started AIDS to be an extremist belief?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I'd have to understand the context the
statements were made----
Mr. Banks. That is a simple question.
Admiral Gilday. I'm not going to--I'm not going to sit
here--I'm not going to sit here, sir, and defend cherry-
picked----
Mr. Banks. Admiral, this is a book that you recommended
every sailor in the United States Navy read.
Admiral Gilday [continuing]. Quotes from somebody's book.
I'm not going to do that. This is a bigger issue than Kendi's
book.
What this is really about is trying to paint the United
States military--in this case, the United States Navy--as weak,
as woke, and we have had sailors that spent 341 days at sea
last year with minimal port visits, the longest deployments
we've ever----
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Banks. Admiral, I've met you. I respect you.
Admiral Gilday. We are not weak.
Mr. Banks. I remain astonished----
Admiral Gilday. We are strong and are----
[Simultaneous speaking.]
Mr. Banks. Admiral, I remain astonished that you put this
book on a reading list and recommended that every sailor in the
United States Navy read it.
I'm also surprised that you said you've read it. But I'm
glad you brought up those points.
Admiral Gilday. Why does it surprise you, sir?
Mr. Banks. The Department of Defense--Admiral, the
Department of Defense undertook the stand down because they
understand that extremism detracts from military readiness.
So if sailors accept Kendi's argument that America and the
United States Navy are fundamentally racist, as you've
encouraged them to do, do you expect that to increase or
decrease morale and cohesion or even recruiting into the United
States Navy?
Admiral Gilday. I do know this. Our strength is in our
diversity, and our sailors understand that. Race is a very--
racism in the United States is a very complex issue. What we
benefit from is an open discussion about those issues, that we
don't try to ignore it or rewrite it, but we actually have a
discussion about it.
And there will be various views and I trust sailors will
come and--to an understanding of hopefully separating fact from
fiction, agreeing or disagreeing with Kendi in this case and
come to, hopefully, very useful conclusions about how we ought
to treat each other in the United States.
Mr. Banks. Admiral, why did you put this book on the
reading list and recommended that every single United States
sailor read it?
Admiral Gilday. Because I think it's really important to
consider a variety of views particularly on a complex----
Mr. Banks. Admiral, you said you read this book. What part
of this book is redeeming and qualifies as something that every
sailor in the United States Navy should read it?
Admiral Gilday. I think Kendi is self-critical about his
own journey as an African American in this country, what he's
experienced----
Mr. Banks. Let me ask you again, Admiral. Do you expect
that after sailors read this book that says that the United
States Navy is racist that we will increase or decrease morale,
cohesion, and recruiting rates into the United States Navy?
Admiral Gilday. I think we'll be a better Navy from having
open honest conversations about racism.
Mr. Banks. My time has expired.
Ms. Speier. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Hawaii, Mr. Kahele, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Kahele. Aloha and mahalo, Madam Chair, and aloha to our
witnesses for your testimony today.
My question--I have two questions I hope to get in, one for
the Marines, one for the Navy. My first one is for the Marines.
General Berger, my question is related to your testimony on
page 8 regarding the F-35 and the current and future shortage
of Marine and Navy pilots and maintainers.
Specifically, you're concerned that if we do not remedy
these shortfalls that we're going to have a problem, that we're
going to have a superior fifth-generation aircraft that the
American people have purchased critical to our agility and
tactical supremacy of the MAGTF [Marine Air-Ground Task Force]
and the future expeditionary missions of the Marine Corps
without any pilots to fly them.
So my question is what has the Marines done since last
year's budget request and this year's budget request to conduct
a reassessment of its aviation plans, specifically, the F-35
capacity requirements of the future force in regards to
staffing, recruiting, training, and retention of that aviator
force based on the approximately 420 F-35s the service intends
to buy at full buildout?
General Berger. Sir, we conducted a--actually we contracted
an external study to look at what we thought our requirements
were capacity-wise, which is the heart of your question--is it
420 some or what is it?
The second part of that, which you highlighted, is our
ability to recruit, retain, train the people who can maintain
and fly those aircraft.
On the first, the capacity part, I think, clear for the
capacity part--first, the F-35 is a very capable aircraft and
meets what we need it to do. The number of aircraft has to
match what the Navy and Marine Corps team is going to need to
do in the future.
My expectation is, my belief is, it won't be the entire
program of record. I don't know how many less until we do more
wargaming, more experimenting, more learning. But it'll be less
than the program of record.
On the pilot and maintainer aspect, there were technical
problems with trainer aircraft and some other issues that
caused a backlog of training pilots at Pensacola. That's,
largely, been rectified. But there is, clearly, a backlog, a
gap now that we must make up.
What we can't do is accelerate and get somewhere fast in
the wrong way. We also have to retain the ones that we have
trained already.
Here, competition is fierce, as you're well aware, some
from the airline industry but some from other places that make
it a real challenge for the services to hold on to the captain
and major that has a couple of deployments under their belt, a
lot of time away from family, and we need them to stay in.
We have to work harder there. We have to--on retention side
we have to approach it in a different manner.
Mr. Kahele. All right. Thank you, sir.
Question for Admiral Gilday in regards to BARSTUR [Barking
Sands Tactical Underwater Range] and the critical undersea
training ranges, specifically, the one that exists in Hawaii at
the Pacific Missile Range Facility out at Barking Sands.
I'll cut right to the chase. The President's budget
provided only $33.56 million to commence fully restoring those
range capabilities. I don't believe that funding is sufficient
to restore full capability to our ranges.
The Barking Sands Tactical Underwater Range is past its
design life and needs to be replaced. Its sensors are
inoperable, aging infrastructure resulting in reduced tracking
coverage.
Would you support replacing BARSTUR sooner and maybe talk
about how an accelerated time line would actually save money
while allowing more efficient ordinal materials and potential
savings in level of effort costs.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I agree with you on the value of the
range. I owe you more details with respect to the phasing and
the money that we're putting against it, and if it's okay I'd
like to get back to you with those details, including what
acceleration might look like.
Mr. Kahele. Okay. You bet. Thank you. And I'll yield my
time. Mahalo.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 154.]
The Chairman [presiding]. Thank you. I will point out to
members we have a hard stop at 2:00 o'clock. I think we're
going to get there. We're making good progress.
So, Mr. Franklin, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral, early in the testimony today, you painted a pretty
stark picture of the threat we're facing from China, the things
we need to do to get there.
In your exchange with Ranking Member Rogers, it sounds
like, you know, your assessment of this current year budget
doesn't cut it, and if extrapolated over a number of years we'd
have a hard time meeting that threat that we're facing. Is that
a fair assessment?
Admiral Gilday. I think this is a critical decade for us to
close gaps against China, or in those areas where we have
overmatch to create distance against China, and so I think that
if we don't do it in this decade I think we're fooling
ourselves, based on the momentum, that it's going to happen in
the future.
That's why we need to get after it and that's why we need
to make these risk-informed decisions about modernization
versus keeping legacy platforms.
Mr. Franklin. Right. Thanks.
General, from the Marine Corps perspective, would you agree
with that? Is this current year budget what you'd need?
I know there are things on there that you want that we're
not getting, but if this is extrapolated over a number of years
is that going to impact your ability to get to the Corps that
you feel we need to face the China threat?
General Berger. If our budgets don't even match inflation,
then the risk is high, correct, that at some point in the
future we're overmatched, and that's not what you want us to--
that's not a place we want to be in.
Mr. Franklin. Very good.
Admiral, specifically on P-8s, the Neptunes, the risk-
informed warfighting requirement was for 138. With the 9
Congress added last year, we're at 128 if there's no funding
for this year. Has the assessment changed or is this an example
of we don't have enough money to do the things we think we need
to do?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I think the assessment has changed. We
don't think we need as many as we initially estimated.
So we have had some good runtime with the P-8. They're a
heavily sought after aircraft. We're using them--we're using
them in the Eastern Med [Mediterranean]. We're using them in
the high north. We're using them in the Pacific with a great
degree of effectiveness.
So we know how to use the platform better than we did
initially when we first procured it, and so it's led to a
decrease--slight decrease in overall numbers.
Mr. Franklin. Okay.
General Berger talked about the pilot shortage and some of
the things the Marines are looking at. But, Admiral, from your
perspective, what are the things we're going to need to do?
And as he alluded to, and I've seen in my own experience,
it's not just the pilot being produced right out of flight
school. It's that second tour of JO [junior officer] with a
couple of cruises under their belt that's strike lead
qualified.
That doesn't happen overnight. We ran into that deficiency
in the 1990s with the T-notch and by the late 1990s you just
can't--you can't produce them at the snap of a finger. What are
we doing to ensure we don't get there?
Admiral Gilday. I tell you we're monitoring it really
closely. And so in terms of incentives for those pilots, I'll
just mention a couple.
One of them is the career intermission break where they can
go off and study if they need to, or they can--they can take
the time off to begin a family if they need to.
We're trying to work with them on an individual basis so
that we can retain them, at the same time keep their skills
proficient. There are also, as you would--as you would imagine,
there are monetary considerations there. We do have--we do have
some incentives that we have offered pilots.
We have created a separate now track for a professional
flight instructor and so that avenue exists as well. And so
what we're trying to do is, in a very--in a competitive
environment with respect to the commercial aviation sector,
we're trying to remain competitive with ourselves--competitive
ourselves in terms of making naval aviation the best place to
work.
Mr. Franklin. I'm glad to hear that about the professional
instructor. That was an idea kicked around a long time ago and
I knew a lot of people that would have loved to have stayed in
the cockpit. Didn't have aspirations for stars like you all.
Admiral Gilday. Right. Right.
Mr. Franklin. That's great to hear.
And then finally, Mr. Harker, this is really more just
editorial for me. This is my first pass through on the budget
here. It's not what--from a bipartisan response you're hearing
here today it's not enough.
You've got professionals who we have entrusted to come to
you with the advice of what's needed to get the job done. But
they're also military, and at the end of the day they're going
to snap to and salute and get the job done with what you give
them, and it's not enough.
In peacetime, that's going to lead to low morale, lack of
readiness, and it's going to kill people. It's going to kill
soldiers, sailors, and airmen in a wartime footing.
In the future that we're headed towards it's our very
national security at risk. We have got to do better. This is
not going to be an acceptable posture, going forward.
And I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Panetta is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, gentlemen, thank
you very much for your time today as well as--and, of course,
your service.
I'm going to focus on Mr. Harker as well in talking about
the professional--naval professional development education and
the funding behind it.
Obviously, many of you know--well, I come from the Central
Coast of California. Very proud of the Naval Postgraduate
School, which has plenty of naval professional development
education, and so it's very important to me. It's very
important to my district and I do believe it's very important
to the United States Navy.
That's why I was pretty surprised and absolutely
disappointed to see that the Navy has requested a cut of nearly
$32 million in the fiscal year 2022 budget request when it
comes to naval professional development education.
I just think one of the most cost effective, highest
returns on investment you can get is the education of our
future leaders.
And so, Mr. Harker, can you describe the rationale behind
this top-line cut and the programs--specifically, the programs
that you feel will be impacted by this?
Mr. Harker. Thank you, sir.
The decisions we faced when going through this budget were
very challenging. We had a lot of competing demands for very
limited resources, as has been pointed out before, and looking
at making cuts to the naval education program is not something
we took lightly.
I've been out to the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.
I've met with Admiral Rondeau, the president there, and I
understand that what they're doing and I believe that they're
doing great work, and it was a big challenge for us to go ahead
and make those cuts. But we had to make everything balance at
the end.
Mr. Panetta. Well, I completely agree with you. They are
doing great work and, hopefully, you saw that and will use
that, going forward, and have that same attitude going forward
when it comes to the budget.
How do you plan to mitigate any long-term risk of cutting
these types of investments in education of our current and
future leaders?
Mr. Harker. We have other opportunities for education.
We're trying to make sure we meet the minimums with
professional military education as well as with, you know, all
of the various capabilities, both at NPS [Naval Postgraduate
School] as well as getting people out to the Naval War College.
But this was, unfortunately, a challenge where we had to draw
back on that area.
Mr. Panetta. And are there any particular areas that you're
looking to eliminate? Any specific educational programs you're
looking to eliminate right now?
Mr. Harker. No, sir. No specific programs we want to
eliminate.
Mr. Panetta. Okay. Well, just know that, obviously, we, out
in the Central Coast of California, especially at the Navy
Postgraduate School, and I can tell you, President Rondeau's
doing one hell of a job and will continue to fight for our fair
share because we know how important it is, not just to the U.S.
Navy but to our country to have the education that has been
provided and, hopefully, will be provided, going forward.
So I appreciate and look forward to working with you, and I
yield back my time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
The Chairman. Dr. Jackson is recognized for 5 minutes.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Rogers, for holding this hearing today. I do appreciate the
bipartisan leadership of this committee as we look forward to
the nonpartisan topic of our national security and passing this
year's NDAA.
Mr. Harker, Admiral Gilday, and General Berger, thank you
all for being here today as well. Appreciate your time. The
last year and a half have presented some unique set of
challenges for all organizations. But the Department of the
Navy is one team that had a mission that had to continue
regardless of the circumstances.
We faced uncertainty and unrest at home and abroad as we
dealt with the pandemic, but the Navy's mission had to remain--
had to remain undeterred.
When reviewing the budget request this year, I noticed that
we had decreased the number of V-22s the Department of Navy
would procure relative to what last year's Future Years Defense
Program had laid out.
Last year's budget request showed that we were planning to
procure 13 V-22s to support the Department of the Navy.
However, I'm only seeing eight requested this year.
Mr. Harker, is this a program that has seen a decrease
because of the proposed overall budget decrease that is not in
line with the National Defense Strategy, and can you tell us
what has changed regarding the new request or requirement and
what are the potential consequences of the reduced number of
aircraft?
Mr. Harker. Thank you, sir. That's a good question.
I think one of the things that we haven't really talked
about is the growth in operations and maintenance costs over
time. Our maintenance costs have increased by more than 2.5
percent above inflation.
Our personnel costs have also increased above inflation. So
that as we look at our overall budget, we had to squeeze
certain things out. The V-22 is a program that we believe in
strongly and it is not something we wanted to cut.
But that cut was forced upon us by the growth in the cost
of ship depot maintenance as well as the other costs that are
growing greater than inflation.
Dr. Jackson. Thank you, sir. I'll do my part to make sure
that we make up that gap because I think that's an important
program.
Next, I'd like to shift the remainder of my time to the
nuclear triad. The Navy is the most survivable leg of the
nuclear triad, which is why I'm so proud to have all of the
U.S. nuclear warheads that go out to the fleet assembled at the
Pantex plant in my home district of Texas 13.
For decades, we have underfunded the National Nuclear
Security Administration and there is too many single points of
failure in the NNSA infrastructure. I would like to hear a bit
about the importance of the NNSA budget to the United States
Navy.
Admiral Gilday, can you highlight the importance of the
NNSA budget to the Navy and can you explain the coordination
between the Navy and the NNSA on the F-22 budget request,
particularly with respect to the W-88 and the W-93 programs?
What steps are being taken to ensure that these vital
programs are staying on time and on budget, and what message
have you received from our U.K. [United Kingdom] counterparts
on the W-93 and the importance of them keeping the program on
time?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question.
We are in lockstep with NNSA and work with them very
closely, both our Office of Strategic Programs as well as
nuclear reactors, and what we're trying to do with respect to
the next--potentially, the next generation or the update to
the--to the D-5 weapon is to make sure that we have that weapon
on track and in place by about the ninth Columbia submarine.
Right now, that's our estimation.
As you mentioned, we're also in lockstep with the Brits.
That's a very special relationship that we share with respect
to some of those systems.
But I would say that we are--we are a heavy proponent of
NNSA's budget that it remain intact so that we can--we can
field the systems that we need to field to conduct--to sustain
that strategic deterrent that we need.
Dr. Jackson. Yes, sir. Thank you.
Well, thank you--thank you all for your responses. In my
opinion, we're losing to China in the Indo-Pacific and,
candidly, on the global stage.
I think we really have to ensure that we don't lose focus
on the threat posed by China, that we continue to invest
heavily in our military so that America can remain the greatest
global force for good.
I look forward to working with each of you and with my
colleagues here on the committee to address these concerns so
that we can provide our young men and women the training and
the resources they need to accomplish their mission.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, I yield back my time.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Horsford is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the ranking
member, as well as to our witnesses for testifying today.
General Berger, I've been very encouraged by many of your
statements [inaudible] teams down the squad and platoon level
are more lethal, effective, and survivable. And while I'm
confident that you share that understanding, I do remain
concerned about the lack of diversity both in race and gender
in the upper ranks of the Marine Corps.
In your written testimony today, you highlighted the long-
term impacts of a lack of diversity in service academy
nominations. As [inaudible]----
Mr. Rogers. Mr. Horsford, you're breaking up. Can you hear
us? Mr. Horsford, can you hear us?
We have completely lost you. I don't think he can hear us
either.
Mr. Horsford, can you hear us?
We have lost all audio with Mr. Horsford. We'll come back
to him. Oh, there you are.
The Chairman. Yeah, sorry. My bad. Mr. Horsford, I
apologize, but your audio thing is not working. We cannot hear
you. Doesn't look like you can hear us, either.
Mr. Horsford. Just----
The Chairman. Yeah. Mr. Horsford, we don't have you. So if
we could suspend that, and in lieu of we'll recognize Mr. Carl
for 5 minutes, and we'll try to get Horsford back.
Mr. Carl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ranking Member Rogers,
thank you, sir. I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here.
Thank you for your service to this country, where we're first
in all categories. We're there for a reason and I appreciate
that.
Mr. Harker, you talked about our schools down in
Mississippi. I would add those schools are in Alabama also. I
know you know that. But we take great pride in that.
I've spent the last 10 years helping to recruit those young
folks to get in those skills. It is so important we keep these
shipyards moving and keep them busy. It's easy to recruit when
jobs are needed. It's hard to keep their attention when the
jobs aren't needed.
So I would appreciate your attention towards that. But I
appreciate you pointing that out because it made 10 years of my
life worthwhile all of a sudden when I heard you say it. So
thank you.
Like many of the members on the committee here, I'm deeply
concerned about the Navy's shipbuilding budget for the fiscal
year 2022, and I know I'm going to repeat a lot of this,
Admiral.
Specifically, I would like to highlight something from the
Navy's report to Congress on the annual long-range plan for
construction of Navy vessels that was published in December.
The report stated shipbuilding and supporting a vendor's
base constitutes a national security and we must steadily
support and grow to maintain these--this skillful workforce--
basically, what we were talking about with the schools.
This budget doesn't request--does not come close to
supporting our industry base. I'm sorry I'm stumbling here. I
just ran back over from the other building.
This is of particular concern to me on the gulf coast and
its playing a role for the Navy. Also in the December report it
emphasizes the threat posed by the ever-growing Chinese navy.
So my question to you, Admiral, is very simple. The
December report called for 12 ships in 2022. However, this
budget requires--request calls for only eight ships of which
four are warships.
This is--only serves harm to the institutional base, but
also falls--fails to maintain the growth and the need for the
10 ships per year to reach the 355.
What are the changes? Why did we go from one number to the
other here within just a few months?
Admiral Gilday. So they were developing a budget
[inaudible]----
The Chairman. You're drifting a little way away from the
microphone there, Admiral. Sorry, we're losing you a little
bit. Go ahead. Actually, I don't think your microphone is on.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, did you get my first comment of----
Mr. Carl. I did.
Admiral Gilday. Okay. The current direction we have is
eight ships in this--in this plan, and so four of them are
combatants and four are support ships.
But those support ships are ships that we can't wait on any
longer, and so the two salvage ships, as an example, which some
referred to as tugboats, those are desperately needed in
combat.
I was on a combat-damaged ship in the Gulf War that
actually was towed by one of those ships out of a minefield. So
if we're not using a salvage ship to do that job, we're going
to use another destroyer or we're going to use a littoral
combat ship.
So there is a valid requirement. As you can imagine, the
oiler that's on the--that's in the shipbuilding plan, we're
short on those in order to fight as a distributed force. We
need that sustainability to put--to put gas in the ships out at
sea.
And, lastly, the T-AGOS ship is actually a ship with a very
unique capability to do wide area search for submarines. If I
look at Russia these days--well, not so long ago, Russia only
operated their submarines during a certain period of the year.
Now they're a pretty persistent threat against the east coast
of the United States.
And so those kinds of capabilities become more and more
important, and as I said a few minutes ago, this is the decade
that we have to move on capabilities like this and we can't
wait.
So there are tradeoffs in that--among those eight ships
that we're--that we're requesting from the Congress to fund in
this particular budget. But I think that every single one of
them serves a valid purpose.
Mr. Carl. Okay. One more quick question for you. The Navy
is making strides to meet the demands on maintenance of the
fleet.
Given the large institution basis that we have based
decisions that we're having--I'm messing this all up and I do
apologize--has the Navy explored using more private companies
versus using their own forces to repair and keep these ships
maintained?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. We absolutely are. We do all of
our work on nuclear vessels in a public----
The Chairman. I'm sorry. The gentleman's time has expired.
And I have a couple questions. I will turn it back over. I
think we have Mr. Horsford back, but we'll get that in a
second.
A lot of talk about the top line, and I know there's a lot
of pressure on you. I will say that this is my, I think, 25th
budget.
The entire time I've been here there has never been a
budget, there has never been a time, when there was a single
solitary person over at the Pentagon who didn't want more
money. Okay.
I cannot recall a time whenever they came in, we're good.
In fact, we can give you back $10 billion. It's okay.
There is, literally, no number that any President can put
out there that the Pentagon wouldn't all hustle around and say,
gosh, they're killing us. Okay.
So we need to have that as a backdrop. It's also worth
noting that last year's budget under President Trump was
flatlined. It was less of an increase than this was and, you
know, we didn't hear much of a hue and cry about that.
So there are a number of factors in there. But the part
that I think is important in terms of how we approach this
comes from the gentleman's comment about the NNSA and how
critically underfunded the NNSA is.
I'm a little bitter about that because I've been fighting
with them. A, they still have $8 billion in uncosted balances.
I want to live in a life where I have a personal budget that
has something called uncosted balances. It's pretty good life.
The Pentagon has a ton of that. Okay.
B, there's a little thing called the MOX [mixed-oxide]
facility down in South Carolina that over the course of a dozen
years, maybe a little more, they wasted $7 billion on a project
that everyone knew wasn't going anywhere.
Now, part of that, I will grant you, was congressional
pressure from certain people trying to make sure they
maintained that program. We also have, as was alluded to, the
DDG-1000, the Zumwalt.
That didn't work out particularly well. We have three of
them. They wound up way over budget. They don't fit the mission
for a variety of different reasons.
We have the littoral combat ship in this--in this
breathless desire to get to this artificial number like having
300--we could have 355 rowboats. Okay. It wouldn't help us.
Capability is the issue.
So there is concern, and part of the reason I know that
President Biden gave such a tight number is we're tired of
wasting money. I talked about the F-35 quite a bit and its per
unit cost and all that goes into that.
So rant aside, the question is--and I want to thank General
Berger, by the way, when your comment about how you want to
fund the future by--out of your own budget. Basically, find the
savings to fund the future. Okay.
And that's not some sort of profound personal sacrifice.
That's smart, okay, because no matter what you're doing,
there's no doubt that there's money in there that's being
wasted, that isn't being used properly.
So yes, we could just give you another $30 billion, another
40, another 50, another 100. Okay. The question is, what are
you doing right now that you don't need to be doing. It is
absolutely certain that there is stuff in there, and some of
that, I know, is driven by us. The 355-ship number didn't come
from you. It came from us. Not from me, but it came from the
broader committee.
So as you're looking at this budget and as we're, you know,
bashing away at you for everything that you're not funding,
what are you doing in your department right now that you look
at and you go, we don't need to do that--we could save money on
that?
Open to all three of you.
Admiral Gilday. I'll start off with Aegis Ashore in places
like Poland, Romania, and soon to be Guam. We have got sailors
protecting dirt. That's not what we do. And so that's a
mission. So those--that's an expenditure for the Navy that I
believe ought to be owned by another service, as an example.
We're trying to decommission those 15 ships, sir, akin to
what--to what General Berger is doing. We are trying to find
modernization from the inside.
The Chairman. And let me drill down on one point on that.
One of those cruisers that we're trying to decommission it's
incredibly expensive just to keep those things afloat, right.
So we--you know, we sent a cruiser out just recently. As I
understand it, it got a little ways out and said, yeah, it's
not seaworthy. We got to send it back.
So we're--it's costing us money to keep trying to use these
things that are past their useful life.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, the cruisers right now in the
modernization are running 175 to 200 percent above estimated
cost. Hundreds of days' delay. These ships were intended to
have a 30-year service life. We're out to 35.
We are trying to--they're not easy decisions to make and I
accept the counterargument that we should keep these ships
based on Admiral Davidson's comments.
But at some point, we need to--we need to turn and----
The Chairman. Thank you. I've taken more time than I
should. I apologize. But you get the point. I want to get back
to other members. But we can find savings in here and we're not
doing our job if we just come in here and say, gosh, we need
more money.
We all need more money. You can go to HHS [Department of
Health and Human Services]. You can go to the Department of
Education. I doubt you'd find a single person in any one of
those buildings who didn't say they need more money. We got to
do better than that.
Mr. Johnson is recognized for 5 minutes.
[Pause.]
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sorry, I couldn't
find the unmute.
Secretary Harker, my colleague, Steve Scalise, and I remain
very interested in the Navy's plans for the Joint Reserve Base
in New Orleans, specifically, with respect to VFA-204, and I
understand the Navy is in the process of divesting legacy
Hornets currently being flown by the VFA-204 and replacing them
with the F-5 aircraft.
Although the Navy has been recapitalizing the Reserve
fleet, concerns remain that the continued use of legacy
aircraft will jeopardize this mission in the long term.
So the first question is, how will the Navy ensure that our
Reserve squadrons continue to fly and are resourced with the
most capable aircraft to fulfill its mission for the long term?
That's for Mr. Harker.
Mr. Harker. Sir, sorry, I'm trying to understand the
question.
So the F/A-18s we have been doing a lot to increase our
readiness on those, and I'm not familiar with divestment of any
of those. Is that----
Admiral Gilday. I think he's talking about the single--the
older Hornets is what he's talking about, divesting of the
older Hornets, particularly, due to cost to own.
And so there is a plan, sir, to begin to have our Reserve
squadrons transition to the Super Hornets.
Mr. Johnson. We're--obviously, our parochial concern is
what the Navy is going to do to preserve the VFA-204's mission
at Belle Chasse in the long term after the F-5s are no longer
able to fly. Do you have any comment on that?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, I'd have to get back to you with more
specifics on that--on that transition plan. I want to do that.
I don't have those details at this time.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 154.]
Mr. Johnson. I'd appreciate that, the quick followup.
Obviously, the folks in that area are very concerned about
that. I'm also interested in the Navy's successful
implementation of key force structure changes in the coming
years and it's my understanding the Navy intends to change the
fleet architecture to reflect a more distributed fleet mix.
So we're talking about a smaller proportion of larger ships
and a larger proportion of smaller ships, and that seems to
make sense.
It seems the Coast Guard is going to be integral to the
effort, and as you know, the Coast Guard's role as part of the
naval service has expanded over the years to support a more
global presence, notably, operating the 5th Fleet AOR [area of
responsibility].
So do you believe the successes of the Coast Guard in the
CENTCOM [United States Central Command] AOR can be carried over
into the INDOPACOM [United States Indo-Pacific Command] AOR?
Mr. Harker. Yes, sir. That's something where we have had a
large degree of integration between the Coast Guard and the
Navy, especially in the INDOPACOM AOR.
There were a couple of their new Legend-class national
security cutters out there working with INDOPACOM over the last
several years. They've done freedom of navigation operations,
and we believe that working together with them is a great value
add.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, could I add something on that?
We just finished an exercise this week with two cutters out
in the Pacific and three DDGs. They're the newest cutters that
the Coast Guard have, as the secretary mentioned, our home port
in Hawaii working very closely with the Coast Guard, sir.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you for that. In transitioning to a
force structure of a greater number of smaller sized vessels,
has the Navy considered the capabilities of the Coast Guard's
Sentinel-class fast response cutter that could provide--it
could provide to the fleet and the concept of operations and
associated requirements that would support acquisition of those
vessels?
Mr. Harker. We work closely with the Coast Guard in
integrating that into our joint maritime force. Both the CNO,
the Commandant--my predecessor and the Commandant of the Coast
Guard worked together to come up the tri-maritime agreement
last winter, and CNO?
Mr. Johnson. I got about a minute left. Just upon that
subject again--go ahead.
Admiral Gilday. Sir, on that particular hull we ended up--
we ended up settling with a different hull form for the next
frigate. But we did consider the Coast Guard--the Coast Guard
cutter.
Mr. Johnson. What smaller manned ships are being considered
for potential inclusion in the fleet mix? I mean, when you say
a different hull, could you give me a little more detail on
that?
Admiral Gilday. So the frigate that I've referred to that
we're just starting to build now it'll deliver in fiscal year
2026. It's a Constellation-class frigate, sir. It's an Italian
design.
So what we're doing with this particular vessel is we're
taking a U.S. weapons systems and putting them on a known hull.
We have done this before with our transition from Spruance-
class destroyers to Ticonderoga-class cruisers, and we have
actually taken the weapons system on our cruisers and moved it
to DDGs.
And so this is a technique that we used in the past pretty
successfully, and we have high hopes that the FFG-62 is going
to be a great ship.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you. I'm out of time. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I am told that we have Mr. Horsford.
Mr. Horsford, are you with us?
Mr. Horsford. I am. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
patience.
The Chairman. You're recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the ranking
member and to our witnesses.
General Berger, I've been very encouraged by many of your
past statements and actions regarding the importance of
diversity in the Marine Corps. We know that integrated diverse
teams down the squad and platoon level are more lethal,
effective, and survivable.
And while I'm confident that you share that understanding,
I do remain concerned about the lack of diversity both in race
and gender in the upper ranks of the Marine Corps.
In your written testimony, you highlighted the long-term
impacts of a lack of diversity in service academy nominations.
As this is, largely, a congressional issue, I'm committed
to working with my colleagues and the Department to address it
so we don't continue to face the same lack of diverse talent 20
or 30 years from now.
Last September, you spoke about your concerns related to
women and people of color officers opting out of consideration
for command positions and the impact that has on diversity in
command and senior leadership positions.
So, General Berger, what have you learned since last year
about the underlying causes of this issue and what steps has
the Corps taken to address it?
General Berger. One of the reasons would be intuitive, that
from 2004 to a decade and 12, 14 years later and that--the
speed, the tempo of deployments was so high that family
pressures caused people to leave.
But that's, largely, behind us. Some of the members of this
committee know the gentlemen who we're hiring we have hired for
the past 2 months to look at the question that you raise.
What is it about everything from recruiting to retention to
assignments that--within the military, and specifically within
the Marine Corps, that we should look at differently.
And this is Charlie Bolden, and I asked Charlie because a
couple years ago in a discussion and then last year in a deeper
discussion, he highlighted a couple things for me in a
perspective I didn't have.
So for 3 months he's going to look at us from beginning
from very--from the very beginning of recruiting all the way
through general officer level to tell us maybe how we might do
it differently.
And I would agree with the CNO. Some of this is on the
front end, but some of it has to do with the career paths, the
management of their careers, the mentoring along the way, the
key decision points where they're at a fork in the road, and we
have to manage that actively. It can't be passively.
But I think in another 2, 3 weeks, Mr. Bolden, from what he
learned as a Marine and what he learned at NASA [National
Aeronautics and Space Administration], I think he's going to
help the Marine Corps see this in a different light.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday, on a related note, the Department of the
Navy's Task Force One Navy released a report in January
highlighting 57 recommendations to improve diversity in the
force.
Can you describe your progress in implementing Task Force
One Navy's recommendations? Are there any recommendations that
the Navy does not intend to implement that we should be aware
of?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, to your last question, there are no
recommendations that I intend--I intend to implement every
single one of those 57 recommendations, and we're moving out on
that.
We do have a--we do have a framework, which we call the
culture of excellence, and one of the lines of operation in
that culture of excellence is diversity, equity, and inclusion.
So the intent in the Navy is not to just leave off--you
know, put the--put the results of the task force on the shelf,
but to actually hold ourselves accountable with measurable
metrics against all of those recommendations.
We are moving out, sir, at pace. I'm happy to have a deeper
conversation with you maybe to update you in a couple of months
on where we stand.
Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Admiral. And I'll take this
question offline, but I did want to talk about the issue of the
manpower requirements and identifying the personnel cost
implications.
So I'll submit that question and take your response
offline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you. This is all the people we have
lined up. I have said my pieces as a closing thing.
Mr. Rogers, do you have anything for the good of the order?
Mr. Rogers. I do not. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I want to thank all three of you. Three hours. Appreciate
your stamina is the word I'm looking for, and your work. It's--
you know, a lot to do within a limited budget and I appreciate
that effort and we'll definitely continue to work with you as
we go through the rest of the process this year.
You know, just close by saying we have to pass some
appropriations bill. We do not want a continuing resolution. We
want to get you an appropriations bill as close to October 1 as
possible and get you an authorizing bill within that time frame
as well, and we will do our best to get there.
With that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 1:56 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
June 15, 2021
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 15, 2021
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
June 15, 2021
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[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
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WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING
THE HEARING
June 15, 2021
=======================================================================
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Admiral Gilday. The technology that makes up the cyber domain
changes daily, and we can never have 100% confidence that we don't have
somebody in one of our systems that we have to get after. I am
confident that we're taking the necessary steps to harden our systems
against cyber attacks and train our workforce to fight through any
resulting system degradations. Navy is moving at pace to cloud--
starting with enterprise services used by our entire workforce. Our new
unclassified Microsoft 365 cloud implements key aspects of Zero Trust
security to better protect our data and infrastructure. The purpose-
built integrated cybersecurity capabilities we're using deliver tighter
access control to and better insight into the activity on our network
than we've ever had before.
While the Navy acquisition process includes cybersecurity during
design and development of our weapons systems, nearly 70% of the fleet
we will have in 2030 is in service today. Defense in depth protection
for systems that will not transition to the cloud, including weapons
systems, remains a requirement. Navy developed the Defense-in-Depth
(DiD) Functional Implementation Architecture (DFIA) to provide a tiered
security architecture to detect, protect, react, and restore
information systems in the event of cyber attacks. We leverage Joint
and Navy solutions to deliver a secure architecture that is dynamic and
adaptable. [See page 15.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. BROWN
Mr. Harker. In accordance with SECNAV INSTRUCTION 5354.2,
``Department of the Navy Equal Opportunity, Equal Employment
Opportunity, and Diversity Oversight'' the Assistant Secretary of the
Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs (ASN (M&RA)) is designated as the
DON official authorized and responsible for policy and oversight
relating to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I). While our current
policy addresses the overall intent of the legislation, we plan to
update policy to meet new legislation and DOD policy to include
specific designation of ASN (M&RA) as the Senior Advisor. Additionally,
ASN (M&RA) hired a Highly Qualified Expert to lead a team to develop
the DON strategic vision, governance, implementation strategy, measures
of effectiveness and organizational structure for the DE&I Program. The
focus is to create an enduring program linked to our naval culture.
[See page 29.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. GOLDEN
Mr. Harker. The Navy has been using multi-year procurement (MYP)
authority with the support of Congress to efficiently procure DDG-51
destroyers in quantities that support stable production and a healthy
industrial base. Over the course of the FY 2018-2022 MYP, the Navy will
procure a total of 11 Flight III DDGs, more than the original ten ship
procurement. The Navy continues to support the use of MYP contracts for
procuring DDG-51 class ships. [See page 43.]
______
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BACON
Admiral Gilday. In October 2020, DOD released its Electromagnetic
Spectrum (EMS) Superiority Strategy. We are awaiting release of the DOD
EMS Superiority Strategy Implementation Plan, which includes 123
specified tasks for the Services and components of the Joint Staff.
Upon release of the Implementation Plan, the Navy will prepare an
impact estimate for DOD that will serve as the basis for follow-on
tasks to develop a supporting Naval EMS strategy and governance
structure. I intend to then develop and implement a tri-service EMS
strategy with the Marine Corps and Coast Guard along with a governance
structure for Navy use of the EMS. [See page 44.]
General Berger. The Marine Corps is drafting its Electromagnetic
Spectrum Operations (EMSO) Service Strategy. The strategy will focus on
the vision to ensure the Marine Corps is prepared to operate in the EMS
throughout all domains in a contested, congested, and constrained
environment against adversaries ranging from the pacing threat to non
state actors and across the competition continuum. We anticipate the
strategy will be completed and signed in fall 2021.
The Marine Corps EMSO strategy identifies the need to compete
within the EMS across all domains. Additionally, the strategy describes
the critical enablers that will be required in order to achieve EMS
superiority: EMS Battlespace Awareness, Assured Command and Control,
Dynamic EMS Management, and EMS Maneuver. These enablers affect each of
the warfighting functions and Marine Forces' ability to successfully
execute operations. The Marine Corps must be capable of using the EMS
as a maneuver space, just like the land, air, maritime, cyberspace, and
space domains, seizing and maintain the initiative, and placing the
enemy in a position of disadvantage. The strategy will identify clear
lines of effort in order to achieve this objective.
Additionally, the Marine Corps is supporting the DOD EMS
Superiority Strategy's implementation plan, which is informing our EMSO
strategy and the development of future requirements. Since the Marine
Corps does not fight alone, we must be interoperable with Joint and
other Services' electromagnetic battle management systems and tools
that enable spectrum maneuver, agile operational functionality, and are
capable of sharing EMS data supporting EMS awareness and understanding.
[See page 44.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MRS. LURIA
Admiral Gilday. The Concept acquisition program baseline (APB) in
1998 was for a quantity of 32 ships. The Development APB in 2005 was
for a quantity of ten ships. [See page 46.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. KAHELE
Admiral Gilday. The Navy has prioritized the recapitalization of
the Barking Sands Tactical Underwater Range (BARSTUR) and Barking Sands
Underwater Range Expansion (BSURE). A full replacement of BARSTUR/
BSURE, at Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) was programmed into the
PB18 OPN budget as part of the Undersea Warfare Training Range (USWTR)
Program of Record (POR). Recapitalizing BARSTUR and BSURE concurrently,
vice as two separate and distinct projects, is estimated to provide an
overall program cost avoidance of approximately $20M. The $33.56M
provided in the PB 22 budget represents the first year of funding of a
multi-year effort. The Navy has reported the PB21 programmed budget in
the Barking Sands Tactical Underwater Range (BARSTUR) and Barking Sands
Undersea Range Expansion (BSURE) response to House Report 133 dated 4
June 2021. The budget includes all planned funding through IOC.
BARSTUR is past its design life, however 30 of 42 nodes remain
operational. Three of the nonoperational nodes are located in close
proximity to each other, which has created a gap in tracking coverage
on the southwest corner of the range. This loss of coverage has not had
a detrimental effect on fleet training operations or participant
safety. Engineering analysis conducted by Naval Undersea Warfare
Center, Newport indicates that the range will remain viable until 2025.
Based on the program schedule, there is a narrow window of opportunity
to accelerate the recapitalization of the BARSTUR/BSURE range. Should
additional funding be provided, it may allow for the earlier
procurement of long lead materials, possible acceleration of early
program activities allowing compression of the schedule, and could
support an earlier IOC, which would generate a savings in government
labor and engineering support towards the end of the project.
Acceleration opportunities would be dependent upon the amount and
timing of additional funding appropriated. The Navy has an executable
and resourced plan that will ensure the long-term viability of the
BARSTUR/BSURE range, while limiting disruptions to USW training. The
contract award is on track to award in early 4QFY21 with Initial
Operating Capability (IOC) in FY25. [See page 51.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. JOHNSON
Admiral Gilday. As the Navy Divests from Legacy F/A-18s within the
Reserve Component, VFA-204's aircraft will be replaced with F-5N/F
Tiger IIs as its mission is focused on providing Adversary support for
Active Component Counter Air Training while providing the Navy with
Strategic Depth in the form of a pool of highly trained and experienced
aircrew. The Navy's current F-5 Fleet will have sufficient service life
to last through the 2030s. Currently, the Navy is in the initial stages
of market research into developing an Adversary variant of an advanced
jet trainer, which may also consider similar USAF efforts. This jet
trainer Adversary variant could begin to replace F-5N/F aircraft within
the Navy's Adversary force in the early 2030s. [See page 60.]
______
RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN
Admiral Gilday. As the Navy Divests from Legacy F/A-18s within the
Reserve Component, VFA204's aircraft will be replaced with F-5N/F Tiger
IIs as its mission is focused on providing Adversary support for Active
Component Counter Air Training while providing the Navy with Strategic
Depth in the form of a pool of highly trained and experienced aircrew.
The Navy's current F-5 Fleet will have sufficient service life to last
through the 2030s. Currently, the Navy is in the initial stages of
market research into developing an Adversary variant of an advanced jet
trainer, which may also consider similar USAF efforts. This jet trainer
Adversary variant could begin to replace F-5N/F aircraft within the
Navy's Adversary force in the early 2030s. [See page 23.]
?
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
June 15, 2021
=======================================================================
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN
Mr. Langevin. Vice Admiral Gilday, you mentioned that you had high
confidence in hypervelocity projectiles, a railgun technology, as part
of layered defense, but the Navy cut that program in this year's budget
request. Why did you cut the program if you have a high confidence in
it?
Admiral Gilday. We have confidence in the capabilities of the HVP,
which can be launched from both conventional and railguns, as a result
of multiple successful demonstrations conducted by the Navy and the
Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO). Those demonstrations include: 40+
successful flight tests of HVP in counter air and surface threat
scenarios. (Feb 2018--Jun 2021) First round of a three-round salvo of
HVPs intercepted a BQM-167A cruise missile target during US Air Force's
Joint All-Domain Command and Control Advanced Battle Management System
On-Ramp 2. (Sep 2020) Unguided HVP rounds were successfully integrated
with the 5-inch Mk45 Mod 4 gun and fired at-sea from USS DEWEY (DDG
105). (Jul 2018) Through these demonstrations, and a large body of
other work, we have achieved the technology-development objectives of
the original HVP project. We aren't cutting the project; we are
bringing the technical-development activity to a successful close
consistent with the approved project baseline.
The Navy continues to assess multiple Terminal Defense and Ship
Self Defense options, including HVP, to determine the best mix of
capabilities that will optimize mission effectiveness, cost, speed to
Fleet, and other criteria. Acquisition for Gun Launch Guided
Projectiles (GLGP), of which HVP is a part, remains in consideration.
In addition, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is continuing to
advance HVP-related technology by considering options for fire-control
architectures that are more cost effective for Navy Combat System
integration and are extensible to multiple weapons including existing
5-inch Mk45 Mod 4 gun.
Mr. Langevin. General Berger, how do you envision the Marine Corps
using directed energy?
General Berger. Directed energy has potential for use in the
future, especially as large numbers of low-cost adversary weapons
proliferate the battlefield. The Marine Corps currently employs
directed energy through a program known as the Compact Laser Weapons
System (CLaWS), which is a high energy laser system.
The Marine Corps uses CLaWS for air defense to counter small
unmanned aircraft systems as part of our fixed-site base defenses.
Since 2018, the Marine Corps has deployed four systems that have had
multiple successful engagements in theater. These systems have helped
the Marine Corps draft policy challenges, learn how to best employ
directed energy, and refine our tactics, techniques and procedures.
CLaWS is the Marine Corps first step in this realm, and we are seeking
to improve our capability and increase the variety of systems for use
against the multitude of threats.
Specifically, our first focus area is on countering the emergence
of autonomous drone swarm threats. Significant challenges--and areas of
research and development--involve reducing the size of these systems so
that the systems can be employed by Marines in an expeditionary
environment, and developing energy storage and power density needed to
make such systems more viable for the Marine Corps. Directed energy
involves not only high energy lasers, but also high power microwave and
high power radio frequency systems.
The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory and Marine Corps Systems
Command, in partnership with the DOD's research and development
enterprise, are prototyping and evaluating other directed energy
modalities that can provide capabilities that answer challenges across
the range of military operations: from abilities to counter missiles
and aircraft in an asymmetric manner that reduces the ``magazine
depth'' challenge faced by traditional integrated air defense systems,
to non-lethal effects applicable during non-combatant evacuation
operations or installation defense where the Marine Corps desires to
minimize collateral damage and avoid the use of lethal force.
The Marine Corps efforts in the directed energy space are largely
focused on giving commanders a greater number of options to choose
from, building a capable and resilient force that reduces the costs
curve, and providing asymmetric answers to the full spectrum of threats
facing our Marines today and in the future.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. COURTNEY
Mr. Courtney. General Berger, would you agree that even if changes
are made to the CH-53K program of record due to Force Design 2030, it
remains critical that these aircraft remain affordable? Would you agree
that it's important to keep the CH-53K production ramp moving upwards
to reduce costs today for the Marine Corps, regardless of what the
final program of record is?
General Berger. Yes, I believe the CH-53K should remain an
affordable aircraft. The Navy and Marine Corps are working closely with
industry partners to reduce the cost of each aircraft, and the cost
``trend line'' is moving in the right direction. In regards to the CH-
53K production ramp, the Marine Corps budgets for the capabilities it
can afford. The Marine Corps evaluates its entire budget as a whole,
seeking to build the best possible force that our Nation can afford. In
terms of overall quantity, we have not yet determined what the final
number of each aircraft will be. Regardless, we will continue to work
with our industry partners to ensure costs remain affordable.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. SPEIER
Ms. Speier. I am very concerned about the findings in GAO Report
21-366 on Navy surface ship manning and fatigue management. GAO found
that, as of September 2020, Navy surface ships were undermanned by
about 15% below the number of sailors required for safe operation, and
that the situation has worsened since 2016, when ships were 8%
undermanned. Additionally, GAO found that the Navy is not enforcing its
fatigue management policies, with sailors routinely working more than
12 hours a day and receiving less than 5 hours of sleep. I have several
questions about GAO's findings and what action the Navy is taking in
response.
The data in the GAO report on undermanning of the surface fleet
shows no clear trend of improvement and that, in fact, things are
getting worse. Why has the Navy failed to improve ship manning, as a
percentage of required crew for safe operation, since 2017?
Who is responsible for ensuring that Navy ships are crewed with the
required number of sailors for safe operation?
Why has the Navy failed to enforce its fatigue-management policies
that were adopted after the McCain and Fitzgerald collisions in 2017?
Who is responsible for implementing fatigue-management policies?
Given these failures, how has the risk of a repeat of the McCain
and Fitzgerald collisions changed?
What are you doing now to ensure that ships have required manning
and fatigue policies are enforced?
Why has the Navy failed to request sufficient funds and end-
strength to fully crew surface ships at the required level for safe
operation?
Mr. Harker. Navy continues to increase the number of available
personnel through aggressive personnel force management actions that
increase recruiting, improve retention, and increase sailor sea duty
readiness. Our continuous review and revision of manpower requirements,
increased resourcing against these requirements, and a renewed
commitment to robustly fund total ownership costs will result in
increased manning at sea. For instance, the Arleigh Burke Class
Destroyer (DDG) will average 285 enlisted requirements per ship in
2023, up from an average of 268 enlisted requirements per ship in 2020.
As the system responds to the increased demand signal, Navy expects a
steady increase in sailors at sea. Overall, the number of sailors at
sea is increasing from a low point in fiscal year 2016 and is expected
to continue in a positive direction.
The Chief of Naval Personnel, with input from Commander, United
States Fleet Forces Command and Commander, United States Pacific Fleet,
is responsible for ensuring Navy ships are crewed with the required
number of sailors for safe operation.
Navy continues to increase the number of available personnel
through aggressive personnel force management actions that increase
recruiting, improve retention, and increase sailor sea duty readiness.
Our continuous review and revision of manpower requirements, increased
resourcing against these requirements, and a renewed commitment to
robustly fund total ownership costs will result in increased manning at
sea.
For instance, the Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer (DDG) will average
285 enlisted requirements per ship in 2023, up from an average of 268
enlisted requirements per ship in 2020. As the system responds to the
increased demand signal, Navy expects a steady increase in sailors at
sea. Overall, the number of sailors at sea is increasing from a low
point in fiscal year 2016 and is expected to continue in a positive
direction.
Commander, Naval Surface Forces (CNSF) published the Comprehensive
Fatigue and Endurance Management Policy in 2017 and updated it in 2020.
Individual unit Commanding Officers (CO) are required to implement and
enforce the Crew Endurance and Fatigue Management Program. The Surface
Type Commanders ensure adherence by COs through regular Defense
Organizational Climate Surveys, Force Afloat Safety Climate Assessment
Surveys, Afloat Training Group assessments during the Basic Phase,
self-assessments by ships during the other phases of the Optimized
Fleet Response Plan, focus group discussions during Afloat Culture
Workshops pierside, and direct observations by our post-major command
CO Mentors during Afloat Bridge Resource Management Culture Workshops
at sea.
Additionally, CNSF is working with the Naval Health Research Center
(NHRC), Naval War Command, industry, and academic partners to directly
monitor crew fatigue in near real-time and enable development of
appropriate interventions to ensure process improvement, consistency in
application, and full policy implementation of fatigue management.
Navy has requested and received sufficient funds and end-strength
to man surface ships for safe operations. As background, from 2001-
2010, the Navy implemented a number of optimal manning initiatives.
When the optimal manning era ended in 2010, DDGs had an average of 274
total officer and enlisted billets. Manpower reviews of workload and
watchstanding requirements were conducted in 2011, 2018 and 2019. Based
on the results of those reviews, Navy has steadily increased the number
of funded billets on DDGs.
In FY21 Navy funded 314 DDG billets and the destroyer billet base
is programmed to increase to 339 funded billets by FY24. Navy
continually assesses all aspects of ship operations and sustainment--
manpower, maintenance, modernization, training and new construction
funding--to optimize Surface Force lethality.
Ms. Speier. The Navy's FY22 budget request cuts the Naval Audit
Service budget in half and reduces the number of auditors by 200. The
Navy has said that duplication of duties justify the cuts, but a recent
information paper stated that the Naval Audit Service conducted
performance audits that are not conducted by other entities. There is
also a pending DOD commissioned study on service audit agencies
providing independent assessment about potential duplication and
performance improvement.
Why is the Navy not waiting for the results of the DOD study of
audit services before making such a large cut to the NAS?
What other entity will assume responsibility for conducting
performance audits for the Navy?
To what positions is the Navy re-assigning the 200 personnel that
are being cut from the NAS?
Mr. Harker. The President's Budget request for fiscal year 2022
proposes reshaping the Naval Audit Service (NAS) workforce while
balancing resources across a multitude of work and functions across the
Department of the Navy (DON). The DON determined that NAS right-sizing
was appropriate, based on its planned audits, historical workloads of
completed audits, and the assessing and realigning of resources to meet
DON oversight requirements. However, in my July 9, 2021, letter to you,
I have since confirmed that the DON will not undertake any involuntary
placements of NAS employees or redirect funding from the NAS.
In the Department of the Navy, performance audits will be conducted
by a combination of NAS, DOD Office of Inspector General, and
Government Accountability Office auditors.
To date, no involuntary management directed reassignments of NAS
personnel have taken place with respect to the proposed NAS budget
reductions. As stated previously, the DON will not undertake any
involuntary placements of NAS employees.
Ms. Speier. Admiral Gilday, I am very concerned about the findings
in GAO Report 21-366 on Navy surface ship manning and fatigue
management. GAO found that, as of September 2020, Navy surface ships
were undermanned by about 15% below the number of sailors required for
safe operation, and that the situation has worsened since 2016, when
ships were 8% undermanned. Additionally, GAO found that the Navy is not
enforcing its fatigue management policies, with sailors routinely
working more than 12 hours a day and receiving less than 5 hours of
sleep. I have several questions about GAO's findings and what action
the Navy is taking in response.
The data in the GAO report on undermanning of the surface fleet
shows no clear trend of improvement and that, in fact, things are
getting worse. Why has the Navy failed to improve ship manning, as a
percentage of required crew for safe operation, since 2017?
Who is responsible for ensuring that Navy ships are crewed with the
required number of sailors for safe operation?
Why has the Navy failed to enforce its fatigue-management policies
that were adopted after the McCain and Fitzgerald collisions in 2017?
Who is responsible for implementing fatigue-management policies?
Given these failures, how has the risk of a repeat of the McCain
and Fitzgerald collisions changed?
What are you doing now to ensure that ships have required manning
and fatigue policies are enforced?
Why has the Navy failed to request sufficient funds and end-
strength to fully crew surface ships at the required level for safe
operation?
Admiral Gilday. Navy continues to increase the number of available
personnel through aggressive personnel force management actions that
increase recruiting, improve retention, and increase sailor sea duty
readiness. Our continuous review and revision of manpower requirements,
increased resourcing against these requirements, and a renewed
commitment to robustly fund total ownership costs will result in
increased manning at sea. For instance, the Arleigh Burke Class
Destroyer (DDG) will average 285 enlisted requirements per ship in
2023, up from an average of 268 enlisted requirements per ship in 2020.
As the system responds to the increased demand signal, Navy expects a
steady increase in sailors at sea. Overall, the number of sailors at
sea is increasing from a low point in fiscal year 2016 and is expected
to continue in a positive direction.
Who is responsible for ensuring that Navy ships are crewed with the
required number of sailors for safe operation?
The Chief of Naval Personnel, with input from Commander, United
States Fleet Forces Command and Commander, United States Pacific Fleet,
is responsible for ensuring Navy ships are crewed with the required
number of sailors for safe operation.
What are you doing now to ensure that ships have required manning
and fatigue policies are enforced?
Navy continues to increase the number of available personnel
through aggressive personnel force management actions that increase
recruiting, improve retention, and increase sailor sea duty readiness.
Our continuous review and revision of manpower requirements, increased
resourcing against these requirements, and a renewed commitment to
robustly fund total ownership costs will result in increased manning at
sea. For instance, the Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer (DDG) will average
285 enlisted requirements per ship in 2023, up from an average of 268
enlisted requirements per ship in 2020. As the system responds to the
increased demand signal, Navy expects a steady increase in sailors at
sea.
Overall, the number of sailors at sea is increasing from a low
point in fiscal year 2016 and is expected to continue in a positive
direction. Commander, Naval Surface Forces (CNSF) published the
Comprehensive Fatigue and Endurance Management Policy in 2017 and
updated it in 2020. Individual unit Commanding Officers (CO) are
required to implement and enforce the Crew Endurance and Fatigue
Management Program. The Surface Type Commanders ensure adherence by COs
through regular Defense Organizational Climate Surveys, Force Afloat
Safety Climate Assessment Surveys, Afloat Training Group assessments
during the Basic Phase, self-assessments by ships during the other
phases of the Optimized Fleet Response Plan, focus group discussions
during Afloat Culture Workshops pierside, and direct observations by
our post-major command CO Mentors during Afloat Bridge Resource
Management Culture Workshops at sea.
Additionally, CNSF is working with the Naval Health Research Center
(NHRC), Naval War Command, industry, and academic partners to directly
monitor crew fatigue in near real-time and enable development of
appropriate interventions to ensure process improvement, consistency in
application, and full policy implementation of fatigue management.
Ms. Speier. Admiral Gilday, the Navy has said that each littoral
combat ship (LCS) costs $50 million per year to operate and support, on
average, and isn't performing many of the missions it was intended for.
This strikes me as a disproportionately high cost, given that a much
larger and more capable Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer costs about $80
million per year to operate, and it has three times the crew. I have
several questions about the high operational costs of the LCS.
When the LCS program was approved, what was Navy's goal or target
annual O&S cost for each LCS variant? What is the actual average O&S
cost for each LCS variant?
What accounts for the difference between the Navy's actual cost for
LCS O&S and the original target O&S cost, for each LCS variant?
What actions are you taking to decrease the O&S cost and increase
the reliability of each LCS variant? What actions are you considering
to decrease the O&S cost and increase the reliability of each LCS
variant?
How feasible would it be to move some LCS maintenance
responsibilities from contractors to sailors, and what impact might
this have on LCS O&S costs?
How will the eventual full implementation of the mission packages
affect O&S costs for each LCS variant?
Admiral Gilday. When the LCS program was approved, what was Navy's
goal or target annual O&S cost for each LCS variant? What is the actual
average O&S cost for each LCS variant?
The Navy did not develop an O&S estimate or O&S target cost when
establishing the program in the 2004 Acquisition Program Baseline
(APB), published 27 May 2004, as the initial program strategy used
RDT&E prototype ships. The Navy provided the first O&S estimate in
December 2010 within the Navy Service Cost Position and OSD Independent
Cost Estimate, which was developed and approved in support of the
February 2011 LCS Seaframe Milestone B decision. The current APB (April
2011) includes O&S cost estimation from that source. O&S cost
estimations did not differentiate between variant and did not include
O&S costs associated with Mission Module and Mission Package
embarkation. The LCS Seaframe O&S cost estimate in the Acquisition
Program Baseline (approved April 2011) was $36.7 million per ship/per
year in FY 2010 dollars and reported in the 2011 Selected Acquisition
Record (SAR). The current LCS Seaframe O&S actuals are approximately
$50 million per year in current year funds (adjusted to approximately
$41.5 million per year in FY 2010 dollars, compared to the $36.7
million per ship/per year APB estimate).
What accounts for the difference between the Navy's actual cost for
LCS O&S and the original target O&S cost, for each LCS variant?
Multiple factors account for the difference between the current
actual LCS Seaframe O&S cost and the original estimated LCS Seaframe
O&S cost in the 2011 APB. These include changes to operational
deployment cycles, increases to crew manning requirements to improve
operational impacts and organic repair capabilities, maturation of
maintenance requirements, unanticipated materiel design and fabrication
issues, evolving operational employment concepts, and related ship
mission profiles. These factors apply to both LCS variants.
What actions are you taking to decrease the O&S cost and increase
the reliability of each LCS variant? What actions are you considering
to decrease the O&S cost and increase the reliability of each LCS
variant?
The Navy has begun to implement LCS reliability fixes through
component upgrades, increasing organic maintenance self-sufficiency
(decreasing reliance on fly-away contractor support), and improved
provisioning on key systems such as water jets, main propulsion diesel
engines, launch and recovery equipment, and electrical plant
components. The Navy will base future actions on data analysis to
prioritize fixes that continue to increase reliability. The Navy
expects that reliability improvements will reduce costly, unplanned,
and emergent repairs affecting O&S costs.
How feasible would it be to move some LCS maintenance
responsibilities from contractors to sailors, and what impact might
this have on LCS O&S costs?
The Navy has begun to establish Maintenance Execution Teams (METs)
consisting of sailors to complete significant portions of required
preventative maintenance tasks for LCS and execute proof-of-concept
maintenance availabilities on deployed LCS. These sailor-led teams
conduct maintenance previously completed by contractors. The Navy is
evaluating the O&S costs impact from this initiative.
How will the eventual full implementation of the mission packages
affect O&S costs for each LCS variant?
Full implementation of the mission packages should not affect LCS
Seaframe O&S costs.
Ms. Speier. Admiral Gilday, I am concerned that the Navy and Marine
Corps only provides secondary caregivers--mostly new fathers--with 2
weeks of caregiver leave, whereas the Army and the Air Force provide 3
weeks, and Federal employees get 12 weeks. It's just as important for
fathers and other secondary caregivers to bond with their newborns.
Research shows that when fathers take paternity leave, new mothers have
better health outcomes and higher labor force participation and wages;
marriages are more stable; and children's educational attainment and
emotional stability are improved.
Why doesn't the Navy provide the full amount of secondary caregiver
leave authorized by law--3 weeks--to sailors?
Admiral Gilday. While the Department of the Navy recognizes the
value of secondary caregiver leave, the expeditionary nature of our
service requires us to balance any additional nonchargeable leave with
maintaining operational readiness. With more than 17,000 sailors
becoming a non-birth parent every year, expanding secondary caregiver
leave from two weeks to three weeks would result in more than 325 work
years of additional time off. Many of those lost work years would
affect operational ships, submarines, and squadrons whose broad mission
portfolios already stretch the capacity of their assigned crews.
Similarly, approximately 10,000 Marines become a non-birth parent each
year, equating to over 190 lost work years, primarily from operational
units.
Ms. Speier. General Berger, I understand that you testified that
you want to expand maternity leave for Marines. Under current law,
Marines and sailors who are primary caregivers get 6 weeks of caregiver
leave, compared with 12 weeks for Federal employees. Birth mothers can
get an additional 6 weeks of convalescent leave, but adoptive parents
get no more than the 6 weeks of caregiver leave. I have introduced
legislation (the Servicemember Parental Leave Equity Act, H.R. 3122) to
expand caregiver leave for servicemembers to 12 weeks for both new
mothers and fathers.
Also, the Navy and Marine Corps only provide secondary caregivers
with 2 weeks of caregiver leave, whereas the Army and the Air Force
provide 3 weeks, and Federal employees get 12 weeks. It's just as
important for fathers and other secondary caregivers to bond with their
newborns. Research shows that when fathers take paternity leave, new
mothers have better health outcomes and higher labor force
participation and wages; marriages are more stable; and children's
educational attainment and emotional stability are improved.
How many weeks of caregiver leave would you propose that Congress
authorize for primary caregivers?
Why doesn't the Marine Corps provide the full amount of secondary
caregiver leave authorized by law--3 weeks--to Marines?
General Berger. We know for a Marine to be successful on the job
and to remain on the job, they must feel secure, supported, and
satisfied at home. Retaining Marines is critical to the combat
effectiveness of the Marine Corps; many new parents are at a point in
their career where they are highly trained and qualified. It is in the
Marine Corps best interest to have the right policy to enable Marines
to be the best parent and best Marine possible. Strong support to
parents can have a positive influence on retention as we seek to retain
the best talent.
We are proactively focused on improving our support for families,
although this must always be balanced with overall military readiness.
As it stands today, a Marine, through use of multiple convalescence and
other paid leave authorities, can take as much as 4\1/2\ months of paid
leave and can do so in flexible increments. We continue to explore more
avenues to provide support to all our Marines and look forward to
soliciting insight from Congressional Members and staffers and work in
close coordination with the Department of Defense to find the best ways
to support our Marines. We are comfortable with the 14 days of
secondary caregiver leave and believe the balance between providing
support to Marine parents and maintain readiness is well struck.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KELLY
Mr. Kelly. Peering into the future, if NGAD does continue to be
delayed and the Super Hornet line has been forced to close--the F-35C
will be the only game in town for nearly a decade. It costs over $100
million to buy one of those aircraft and, today, the Navy's own data
suggest that it costs $55,000 per hour to fly one. Additionally--GAO
has recently concluded that the current 2027 goal for finalizing the
$14 billion F-35 Block IV modernization is ``not achievable.'' Is the
Navy's tactical aviation fleet on a sustainable path? Will you be able
to maintain the operational tempo demanded by this security
environment--by the Chinese threat in particular--if procurement and
O&S costs rapidly escalate?
Mr. Harker. In order to meet the operational tempo demanded by the
current security environment--specifically regarding the challenges
posed by peer competitors such as China--the Navy requires a mixture of
4th/5th generation aircraft (details available at a higher
classification) to meet both the capacity AND capability required to
win in highly contested environments in the 2020s.
Beginning in the 2030s, the Navy must transition to the Next
Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Family of Systems (FoS) in order to
compete with advanced threats in support of the objectives of the
National Defense Strategy (NDS). Continued investments in 4th
generation aircraft (F/A-18E/F), in lieu of 5th generation platforms
(F-35C) and the development of future technologies (NGAD FoS), would
have a detrimental impact on the Navy's ability to support the
objectives as outlined in the NDS--especially in the most stressing
scenarios against advanced adversaries, such as China.
The Navy remains on a sustainable path to meet 4th and 5th
generation capacity and capability requirements in the 2020s while
making critical investments in future technologies, such as the NGAD
FoS, that will be required to win in the 2030s and beyond. With the
impending delivery of 78 new production Block III F/A-18E/Fs and the
ongoing Service Life Management (SLM) to extend airframe life at
roughly 1/3 the cost of new procurement, the Navy has sufficient
capacity of 4th generation aircraft to meet the needs of the security
environment.
Additional procurement of new F/A-18E/F Block III aircraft beyond
FY21 is not required to mitigate near- or long-term strike-fighter
shortfall (SFSF) risk, as these aircraft would not deliver until after
the SFSF has been eliminated in FY25. The DoN assesses that new F/A-
18E/F procurement beyond FY21 would arrive late-to-need to address
near-term SFSF challenges--which are actively being managed--and
excess-to-need for 4th generation aircraft capacity to meet the demands
of the NDS.
The active F-35C production line and the F/A-18E/F SLM efforts are
the risk mitigations for the Navy to manage strike-fighter inventory
into the 2030s, ensuring the service maintains the capacity required to
meet Global Force Management (GFM) demand while investing in the new
technologies required to compete with peer adversaries.
In order to deliver the 5th generation capabilities required to
compete in the 2020s, the Navy remains committed to reducing the cost
to procure and operate these platforms. Between FY16 (Lot 10) and FY20
(Lot 14), the F-35C has realized a 22.2% reduction in per-unit
recurring flyaway cost, driving the procurement of 5th generation
capabilities to well below $100M per tail with expected further
reductions in future contracts.
Current predictions for FY21-23 sustainment contracts show a
continued reduction in cost per flight hour (CPFH) across all three F-
35 variants. The F-35 Joint Program Office continues to prioritize and
identify efficiencies to accelerate critical Block IV capabilities.
These combined efforts demonstrate the Navy's path to deliver the right
mix of 4th and 5th generation capabilities it requires to win in the
2020s on a budget that is sustainable and affordable.
The NGAD program is on schedule (concept refinement) and the Navy
remains committed to accelerating the development of the NGAD FoS
(details available at higher classification) to ensure it can continue
to support the objectives of the NDS and compete with peer adversaries
in the 2030s and beyond. Consistent, stable resourcing today will
ensure the program remains on budget and on schedule, delivering
critical warfighting capabilities that are required to win in future
high intensity conflict in support of national security objectives.
Mr. Kelly. The Navy says it needs two Block III Super Hornet
squadrons per carrier air wing by 2027 (i.e., 20 squadrons) to meet
operational requirements. Is this still on track, given the
unanticipated challenges to SLM? What's the risk associated with that
delay?
Mr. Harker. [The information referred to was not available at the
time of printing.]
Mr. Kelly. The Super Hornet is being considered for purchase by a
number of close U.S. allies as they replace aging fighter fleets. Can
you talk about the benefits to the U.S. Navy and combat synergy when
our allies operate the same systems?
Mr. Harker. There are strategic, operational, financial, and
logistical benefits and combat synergies associated with operating the
same or similar major weapons system as our allies. Coalition forces
operating common weapon systems allow joint interoperability,
additional contingency support, and the ability to cost-share
capability upgrades. Additionally, continued production of parts allows
increased quantity in the supply system and the ability to combat
obsolescence.
Financial and Logistical Benefits--Reduction of cost to
US for system sustainment and capability upgrades if shared by
international partner
Software development
Engineering Change Proposals (ECPs)
Obsolescence--USN benefits from a partner nation
purchasing desired but unfunded capabilities
AIM-9X Sidewinder on EA-18G Growler stations 2 and 10
Non-recurring Engineering (NRE) of the Large Area Display
(LAD) in the Advanced Cockpit in Super Hornet Block III and Growler--
Active FMS Production line reduces risk from Diminishing Manufacturing
Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS)
Increases quantity and demand of parts in supply system
from manufacturer--Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements (ACSA)
and other Third-Party agreements provide re-supply and repair
opportunities increasing US logistics resilience worldwide
Strategic and Operational Benefits and Combat Synergies--
Security Cooperation develops military capabilities for our partner
nations for their self-defense and multinational operations providing
US Forces with peacetime and contingency access to host nations--FMS
partners support Coalition forces. Operating common systems
significantly contributes to ``integration'' of partner nations into
operations, increases chances of ``interoperability'', and is initial
step toward being ``interchangeable''--Strategically, the threat actor
must consider the partner nation has the same capability as the US
platform so they can be used as a deterrent or ``threat-in-being''.
Mr. Kelly. Over the last two years, we've seen the Air Force go
all-in procuring new F-15EX jets, as they have clearly recognized the
value of having more than one tactical fighter in production and
reaping the benefits of a significantly lower cost-to-operate jet.
We've seen F-35A unit cost come down in response. Do you have any
concerns about what happens to F-35C pricing with no competitive
pressure from the Super Hornet?
Admiral Gilday. F-35C per unit costs have been coming down year
over year for the past 5 years. The per unit cost for a Lot 10 (FY16)
aircraft was $121M per aircraft compared to $94.4M per aircraft for Lot
14 (FY20). The Navy has been reaping the benefits of per unit cost
reduction initiatives such as the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) used to
purchase the Lot 12-14 aircraft. The Lot 15-17 (FY21-23) procurement,
still in negotiations, continue to point towards a reduction in URF
cost. There are no indications that closure of the F/A-18 line will
correlate to an increase in F-35C cost. The reduction in Cost per Tail
(CPT) was driven, internal to the F-35 program, by EOQ, larger
procurement numbers, and reductions in span time. In the future we can
expect the program will hit a steady state but indicators continue to
point at a reduction in CPT into Lot 17.
Mr. Kelly. The Navy says it needs two Block III Super Hornet
squadrons per carrier air wing by 2027 (i.e., 20 squadrons) to meet
operational requirements. Is this still on track, given the
unanticipated challenges to SLM? What's the risk associated with that
delay?
Admiral Gilday. [The information referred to was not available at
the time of printing.]
Mr. Kelly. The Super Hornet is being considered for purchase by a
number of close U.S. allies as they replace aging fighter fleets. Can
you talk about the benefits to the U.S. Navy and combat synergy when
our allies operate the same systems?
Admiral Gilday. There are strategic, operational, financial, and
logistical benefits and combat synergies associated with operating the
same or similar major weapons system as our allies. Coalition forces
operating common weapon systems allow joint interoperability,
additional contingency support, and the ability to cost-share
capability upgrades. Additionally, continued production of parts allows
increased quantity in the supply system and the ability to combat
obsolescence.
Financial and Logistical Benefits--Reduction of cost to
US for system sustainment and capability upgrades if shared by
international partner.
Software development.
Engineering Change Proposals (ECPs).
Obsolescence--USN benefits from a partner nation
purchasing desired but unfunded capabilities.
AIM-9X Sidewinder on EA-18G Growler stations 2 and 10.
Non-recurring Engineering (NRE) of the Large Area Display
(LAD) in the Advanced Cockpit in Super Hornet Block III and Growler--
Active FMS Production line reduces risk from Diminishing Manufacturing
Sources and Material Shortages (DMSMS)
Increases quantity and demand of parts in supply system
from manufacturer--Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreements (ACSA)
and other Third-Party agreements provide re-supply and repair
opportunities increasing US logistics resilience worldwide
Strategic and Operational Benefits and Combat Synergies--
Security Cooperation develops military capabilities for our partner
nations for their self-defense and multinational operations providing
US Forces with peacetime and contingency access to host nations--FMS
partners support Coalition forces. Operating common systems
significantly contributes to ``integration'' of partner nations into
operations, increases chances of ``interoperability'', and is initial
step toward being ``interchangeable''--Strategically, the threat actor
must consider the partner nation has the same capability as the US
platform so they can be used as a deterrent or ``threat-in-being''
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GALLAGHER
Mr. Gallagher. On 5 February 2021, you signed a letter and
submitted it to the Armed Service Committees on shipboard manning . . .
that indicated ``there were 95 ships identified in the enclosed report
that fell below the 87 percent fit/90 percent fill levels for Quarter
1. This represents 35.1 percent of the covered ships in the Naval
Vessel Register. Of those 95 ships, 52 ships are in the maintenance
period and 30 ships are in the training and certification period. There
are 13 operationally tasked ships below the 87/90 percent threshold,
which is a slight decrease from 18 on the Quarter 4 report.'' When you
consider this report with the Navy's FY22 budget request that seeks to
decrease overall end-strength it seems we have a manning issue in the
Navy. I'd like to understand how much risk the Navy is accepting by not
fully manning its Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) at the same time
its planning to take a cut in end-strength?
Mr. Harker. Until the Navy attains personnel inventory equal to
100% of the manpower requirement plus friction, manning levels will
always be less than 100% when measured against the validated
requirement. The cut in end strength is pursuant to cuts in force
structure and the use of unmanned platforms in the deterrence of
Strategic Competition. Risk associated with reduced manning levels is
difficult to measure and comes in various forms.
Predominantly, risk can be categorized into: efficiency of
maintenance and operations over the lifecycle of a platform; increased
workload and workhours per sailor; unit cohesion; quality of life; and
job satisfaction. To best prioritize manning for operational units, the
Fleets, in coordination with the Chief of Naval Personnel (CNP) and
Office of The Chief of Naval Operations OPNAV N1 as Manning Control
Authority, allocate personnel resources to those units deployed,
forward deployed, and preparing to deploy as the priority.
Per the Joint Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command and Commander,
U.S. Pacific Fleet notice from 12 February 2021, Navy prioritizes
manning its FDNF and deployed units just below strategic nuclear forces
and special operations forces. The manning target per this notice
varies by platform and in most cases is 92 percent Fit and 95 percent
Fill. Currently, FDNF units are manned at an average of 90.2% Fit and
97.1% Fill, and operational sea duty units are manned at an average of
89.1% Fit and 94.5% Fill.
On efficiency of maintenance and operations over the lifecycle of a
platform: In 2020, Navy began tracking crew-manning levels to both
Billets Authorized (BA) and the full Ship Manpower Document (SMD)
requirement in various senior level Navy forums. Tracking crew-manning
levels to the full SMD requirement allows for a more comprehensive
assessment of personnel readiness levels. As recommended by the recent
U.S. Government Accountability Office report, Navy is developing crew
manning thresholds based on analysis and assessment of risk. Current
manning targets ensure safe operations and readiness, while increased
manning to the full SMD ensures optimal performance over the lifecycle
of the platform and multiple Optimized Fleet Response Plan cycles.
Personnel manning actions sourced from units earlier in their force
generation cycle as well as prioritizing fills for units closer to
deployment to meet training and deployment goals results in units in
depot maintenance and while operating, at sea, in the basic training
phase in the 75-85% manning range.
Analysis by the Surface Force show a corresponding effect of
limited manpower during maintenance to on time completion performance.
As of 10 June 2021, there are 7,829 operational gaps, and 15,154 all-
sea gaps (includes units in precommissioning and long-term maintenance)
at sea.
On increased workload and workhours per sailor: Not having the
personnel requirements fully funded with the associated personnel
onboard also results in increased workload for sailors aboard
operational units. Using the DDG-51 class as an example, in FY-21 there
are 287 BA for 318 SMD. Manning to the Fleet Commander directed floor
of 95% fill target for deployment results in 272 current onboard.
Since the Navy at sea work week is 67 hours or 7 days a week, this
equates to an 18% increase in workload per sailor per week (an
additional 11.7 hours per sailor per week) to meet watch standing,
operational, maintenance, sanitation and training requirements. For our
DDG example inport, manning in the maintenance phase is averaging 86%
fill. At this level, the workload per sailor per week is an additional
12.0 hours per sailor per week. This is based on an inport week of 40
hour or 5 days a week, equating to a 30% increase in workload per
sailor per week against 100% of the manpower requirement.
On unit cohesion: Low distributable inventory results in missing
manning date (M-date) targets which are designed to have the core crew
onboard for the entire training cycle and deployment, typically one
year before deployment. On average, M-Date is missed by 8 months.
Missing M-Date results in increased personnel manning actions to fill
gaps for operations and deployment occurring just before the final
advanced training exercise just prior to deployment. The entire crew
experiences challenges and some stress when incorporating sailors added
at the end of the training cycle.
On quality of life and job satisfaction: The Navy no longer has an
exit survey (formerly, the Argus Survey captured quality of life and
job satisfaction information). Absent hard data, common observations
from the workforce and operational commanders reinforce that reduced
manning levels detract from quality of life (longer hours) and job
satisfaction (less predictability due to the potential for reassignment
to deploying units). As the Navy continues to address fatigue and sleep
concerns via implementation of circadian rhythm watchbills, this effort
will continue to be hampered when funded billets are less than the
full/validated manpower requirement.
Progress is being made, but full personnel inventory plus friction
cannot come fast enough. Overall, more sailors are on our ships today
than just several years ago. The Navy is addressing the BA to SMD
operating deficit through the Perform-to-Plan and Program Objective
Memorandum processes. Using the DDG-51 class as an example: in 2020,
the DDG-51 class average BA was funded to 90.1% of requirement and
grows to 93.4% in FY-22, and up to 98% in FY-24; average DDG-51 manning
has grown from 240 sailors onboard in FY-12, to 265 in FY-20 and is
projected to be 285 by FY-23.
Adding manpower will not happen overnight, and those new apprentice
level sailors will take years to mature to the journeymen and
supervisors we require at sea. Throughout, the Fleets, with the
coordination with CNP and OPNAV N1 as Manning Control Authority will
continue to manage scarcity and align manpower resources with those
units deployed, forward deployed, and preparing to deploy as the
priority. POC: My point of contact for this matter is CAPT Donald R.
Wilkinson, N1 Deputy Director, COMM: (757)-836-5254, DSN: 836-5254, or
e-mail: [email protected].
Mr. Gallagher. President Biden's FY22 Defense Department budget
indicates a decrease of 2,529 Navy servicemembers across the Active and
Reserve Components from FY21 to FY22. This seems like a significant
reduction in Navy personnel in a short period of time. What is Navy's
plan for end strength across the FYDP (Future Year's Defense Program)?
Admiral Gilday. Navy's end strength is driven by force structure
and fluctuates year to year in response to overall force structure
changes, such as decommissioning ships, the introduction of new
platforms and capabilities, and an increase in billets authorized on
our operational platforms. Navy will continue to fund operational
readiness to ensure the Fleet is properly manned, with the right
sailors, in the right place, at the right time, with the right
training. Details on the Navy's end strength across the FYDP will be
provided with the President's Budget for FY2023.
Mr. Gallagher. Commandant Berger, the FY22 PB request includes the
divestment of the Navy's Mark VI patrol boats. I think that those boats
could provide the Marine Corps with an excellent opportunity to
experiment in support of your force design efforts and further
reinforce your role as the stand-in force within contested littorals,
particularly if they were integrated with a loitering munition or anti-
ship missile capability. Would those platforms help with your force
design efforts within the first island chain and other maritime spaces
and would you support a transfer of those boats to the Marine Corps?
General Berger. The Marine Corps is examining surface mobility and
loitering munition capabilities for the contested littorals, and the
Marine Corps current effort is the Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel.
The Marine Corps III Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) examined the MK
VI and determined the platform is capable but expensive to own and
operate. Moving forward, the Marine Corps seeks a balance between
capability and affordability.
Mr. Gallagher. CMC, I'm very supportive of your desire to develop
an inventory of Light Amphibious Warships. While it is clear to me that
the LAW is a critical requirement to your overall force design, I'm
afraid not everyone understands the LAW or its function within your
vision. Can you explain to us why the LAW is so important and what the
consequences will be if we don't develop the LAW with a sense of
urgency and in concert with forward-deployed Marine Littoral Regiments
(MLRs)?
General Berger. The Light Amphibious Warship (LAW) will provide the
Marine Corps new Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) with a beachable ship
to transport Marines within the Indo-Pacific region. As the Marine
Corps undertakes a significant transformation to focus on countering
peer adversaries, a vital element will be the establishment of three
Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs). These new units will be task-
organized and dispersed across key maritime terrain in the Indo-Pacific
region. The MLR capabilities will augment and reinforce a host nation's
ability to monitor, expose, and challenge malign behavior, but the MLRs
will also be fully capable of operating without host-nation support if
required.
Additionally, the MLRs will be highly mobile, constantly changing
their positioning and posture to increase ambiguity and increase the
adversary's challenge of monitoring and targeting MLR units, thus
reducing an adversary's confidence and encouraging off-ramps from
conflict.
Critical to the MLR is the development and fielding of the LAW,
which offers low-signature maneuverability, sustainment capacity, and
the ability to provide tactical and intra-theater lift. The LAW will be
complementary to traditional amphibious ships. Without the LAW, the
Marine Corps will lack in its ability to maneuver and sustain itself
within the global littorals.
The Navy is conducting an Analysis of Alternatives and will then
commence with Concept Studies and Preliminary Design. Studies will
primarily focus on commercial designs tailored for military application
to enable maneuver and mobility for our integrated naval forces
conducting Distributed Maritime Operations. The Department is driving
towards a lead ship contract award in FY 2023 that will support the
Marine Corps future Marine Littoral Regiments in the Indo-Pacific
region. The Light Amphibious Warship is complementary to traditional
large amphibious ships; both types of ships are required to deliver
Marine Corps forces to expeditionary locations.
The current requirement, after a deliberate analysis process, is 35
LAWs and would support three future Marine Littoral Regiments. Within
the constraints of the current fiscal reality, we will work together
with the Navy to prioritize the acquisition strategy to provide the
Naval Expeditionary Force with the best value in platform capability
and capacity.
Mr. Gallagher. My understanding is that the Marine Corps overall
pilot inventory is at 81% of your target inventory. By my calculations
. . . that makes you short 730 pilots relative to the target
inventory. How is the Marine Corps getting after this issue of pilot
throughput and how are you mitigating this risk to your existing
missions?
General Berger. The Corps is focused on overcoming the current
aviator inventory challenges. We seek to increase retention of high
quality Marine aviators through the use of monetary and non-monetary
incentives in order to fill personnel shortages. Aviation retention
must be viewed holistically, and cannot be solved by bonuses alone.
Monetary incentives influence an individual's decision to depart or
remain in the service, but are not the only factor in such a decision.
Pilot retention is also impacted by availability of flight hours,
the opportunity to train and execute the mission, and other non-
monetary factors. We, as a service, are looking at monetary and non-
monetary incentives, improving aircraft readiness rates and flying
hours, and increasing the production pipeline throughput, all of which
will support increased operational readiness.
For the FY21 Aviation Bonus, the Marine Corps is pursuing increased
inventory stability across its entire aviation officer population. A
stable inventory is critical while materiel readiness improvements
positively influence the flight hours and readiness rates of both
operational and training squadrons. The Marine Corps tailored the FY21
Aviation Bonus through targeted obligation periods and monetary
incentives compared to the FY20 Aviation Bonus due to each community's
current and forecasted inventory health. FY21 Aviation bonuses:
[F-35, F/A-18, AV-8B, KC-130] $35,000 per year in return
for 5 or 6 years of obligated service, $25,000 per year for 4 years of
obligated service, and $15,000 per year for 3 years of obligated
service.
[Osprey] $25,000 per year in return for 5 years of
obligated service, $20,000 per year for 4 years of obligated service.
[Rotary Wing] $15,000 per year in return for 5 years of
obligated service; $10,000 per year for 4 years of obligated service.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. HOULAHAN
Ms. Houlahan. Year after year, we see that demand for child care
services in the military exceeds availability, seriously threatening
readiness and retention. I appreciate that the Navy has made efforts to
reduce the child care waitlist in recent years, yet your budget
acknowledges that 7,000 children will still be forced to wait. I
recognize you have asked for a modest increase for Family Child Care
Homes, but the request for child development centers remains unchanged
from last year, and neither of these requests come close to the FY 2020
funding level.
Can you provide some insights and context into the decision making
behind the child care portions of the Navy and Marine Corps budget
requests?
Why do the Child Development Centers remain stagnant while a modest
bump is requested for Family Child Care Homes? What will these
proposals mean for military families?
What more can Congress do to help you meet demand for child care
services in the military?
Mr. Harker. While Military Construction projects are necessary for
expanding child care capacity, it is only one solution in meeting
current and future childcare capacity demands. Navy continues to lean
forward to better meet the high demand for child care through a
multipronged approach and is working on several initiatives to expand
capacity outside of traditional MILCON projects.
In addition to the expansion efforts for Family Child Care, Navy is
also pursuing expansion efforts through initiatives such as community
partnerships (e.g., Armed Services YMCA), commercial leasing,
repurposing of underutilized facilities, adding Mobile Learning Centers
and increasing fee assistance spaces. Military Construction projects
are being developed for consideration in future President's Budget
requests. FY 2021 funded enacted for a Child Development Center in
Bangor, Washington will provide 300 spaces to replace current
inadequate facilities and add an additional 150 spaces to the
inventory.
Ms. Houlahan. I appreciate that the Navy's Budget request includes
a modest increase for family housing, indicating it is the ``funding
level necessary to provide safe and adequate housing either through the
community or in government quarters.'' I serve on the Military
Personnel Subcommittee where we have been closely examining the
troubling allegations surrounding substandard conditions in privatized
housing, from infestations to rodents and exposure to mold, and their
impact to morale and readiness.
Can you provide some specific details on how the Navy's proposed
budget increase will improve living conditions for families living in
privatized housing?
Do you have any recommendations for Congressional consideration on
how we can continue to help you make progress to ensure all our
military families have access to livable housing?
Mr. Harker. Can you provide some specific details on how the Navy's
proposed budget increase will improve living conditions for families
living in privatized housing?
The proposed budget increase will allow the DON to maintain the
increased housing personnel providing the necessary oversight for our
privatized housing. The DON is also initiating the third party housing
inspections required by Section 3051 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (FY 2020 NDAA) and continuing to
conduct the annual Tenant Satisfaction Survey measuring the
satisfaction of our residents residing in privatized housing.
Do you have any recommendations for Congressional consideration on
how we can continue to help you make progress to ensure all our
military families have access to livable housing?
The DON continues implementing the requirements provided in the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021. The
DON has increased active leadership by installation, regional, and unit
Commanders; improved oversight of project owner compliance with
Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI) agreements, and
improved communications to regain resident trust. The DON is committed
to providing safe, high-quality, well-maintained homes to its Service
Members and their families.
Ms. Houlahan. The Navy's FY2022 shipbuilding budget request appears
relatively flat but with expected cost increases in shipbuilding
programs, like in carrier construction and carrier re-fueling and
overhauls--how have you accounted for the workforce needs in
shipbuilding and repairs industry?
Mr. Harker. ``The Department carefully balanced resources and
requirements, weighing the effects of FY 2022 program decisions on the
industrial base to ensure our nation maintains the skills,
capabilities, and capacities critical to our national defense. In FY
2022, the DON requested funding for eight battle force ships, keeping
the shipbuilding industrial base loaded at an executable level that
encourages industry investment in capital improvements, capital
expansion, and a properly sized world-class workforce.''
Ms. Houlahan. Year after year, we see that demand for child care
services in the military exceeds availability, seriously threatening
readiness and retention. I appreciate that the Navy has made efforts to
reduce the child care waitlist in recent years, yet your budget
acknowledges that 7,000 children will still be forced to wait. I
recognize you have asked for a modest increase for Family Child Care
Homes, but the request for child development centers remains unchanged
from last year, and neither of these requests come close to the FY 2020
funding level.
Can you provide some insights and context into the decision making
behind the child care portions of the Navy and Marine Corps budget
requests?
Why do the Child Development Centers remain stagnant while a modest
bump is requested for Family Child Care Homes? What will these
proposals mean for military families?
What more can Congress do to help you meet demand for child care
services in the military?
General Berger. The adage ``we recruit Marines, we retain
families'' remains as true today as ever. CDCs and other quality of
life programs are a very important way to influence retention and
readiness of our Marines and families. High-quality child care is a
family-readiness priority for the Marine Corps. We appreciate the
additional $20M provided in FY20 to update and repair our child care
facilities, as well as the additional $26M provided this fiscal year to
hire additional employees and increase hourly wages to maintain a
professional workforce.
In FY20, our child development programs served 42,000 children at
14 installations. COVID-19 and the resulting protocols have
significantly impacted our child care capacity. We understand the
impact waitlists have on our families and have assessed that they are
due to a shortage of qualified workers, high turnover/low pay, and
lengthy hiring processes. Certainly, ongoing challenges with COVID-19
have played a significant role in our ability to staff CDCs just like
countless industries across America who face workforce shortfalls.
There is a 47% annual employee turnover. We are addressing these issues
through increased hiring and a non-competitive child care employee
transfer program. We added additional funding in FY21 to hire more
employees and will increase wages to help retain a professional
workforce. We also added funding starting in FY22 to sustain these
hiring efforts.
Our fee assistance program helps provide child care and reduce
child care waitlists. In FY20, the Marine Corps served 853 children in
the Off-base Fee Assistance Program with a total of 436 providers. The
usage rate is down in FY20 due to COVID-19; numerous community-based
programs closed their doors reducing off-base child care spaces. Per
ChildCare Aware of America, it is estimated that 30-50 percent of child
care providers closed due to the pandemic. However, enrollment numbers
have steadily risen since February 2021 signaling increased community
based opportunities. We will also participate in an OSD-led pilot
program in FY22 to provide in-home child career opportunities.
Ms. Houlahan. I was pleased to see you highlight the importance of
talent retention in STEM fields in the commandant's planning guide.
While I agree its not solely a Marine Corps problem, but rather a
joint force problem, I am curious about the ``precision options'' you
noted in the guide to ensure you retain talented forces? I only see
``critical skills retention bonuses'' listed in your budget documents,
so can you also share what this looks like and what types of
investments you have planned to retain these forces?
What--if anything--can we in Congress do to help ensure you have
sufficient tools to retain talent in STEM fields?
General Berger. We are currently assessing our manpower model to
maximize our ability to retain the right Marines for modern and future
challenges, including members in STEM fields. The incentives-based
model we are shaping will offer us the ability to target incentives to
specific individuals the Service wants to retain to meet the manpower
requirements associated with our Force Design concept. This includes
increasing our skillset and capabilities to develop a ``new-collar''
workforce at our depots. Ensuring we have the right incentives to grow,
develop, and retain modern skillsets in our industrial base is
critical. We appreciate consistency in Congressional funding and
avoiding continuing resolutions to allow us to appropriately forecast
how we meet these requirements.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WALTZ
Mr. Waltz. In the 2020 China Military Power Report, DOD stated that
``China is the top ship-producing nation in the world by tonnage,''
adding that the country is currently striving to increase ``its
shipbuilding capacity and capability for all naval classes.'' China is
building are cruisers, destroyers, and corvettes, which the Department
of Defense says ``will significantly upgrade the PLAN's air defense,
anti-ship, and antisubmarine capabilities.'' It worries me that many of
our drydocks currently serving our Los Angeles-class attack submarines
are wholly inadequate for their replacement. According to an analysis
of the Navy's Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan (SIOP) by the
Heritage Foundation, even if everything went according to plan, the
SIOP would still not sufficiently expand shipyard capacity to service
the fleet we have now, let alone the fleet we plan to grow in the
future. Furthermore, despite being only 3 years old, the 20 year SIOP
is already behind schedule. Acting Secretary Harker, what do you
attribute these delays to? Would installing a senior project leader,
with full decision authority, help bring the SIOP back on schedule and
prevent it from going further over budget?
Mr. Harker. The Navy will submit a five-year plan to Congress
regarding the feasibility of accelerating the Shipyard Infrastructure
Optimization Program (SIOP) by September 2021. SIOP currently has a
program manager who has all the authorities needed to properly execute
the program's mission to optimize our public shipyards to sustain the
fleet of the future.
Mr. Waltz. The US Navy has continued to invest in anti-submarine
warfare through a number of high-visibility and highly successful
programs, among them the P-8A which uses deployable sonobuoys as the
critical element of its combat system.
I appreciate the large numbers of sonobuoys required to keep pace
with the ever-evolving threat of our near-peers and adversaries. It's
not lost on anyone that adversary submarines even operate right off our
coast in the western Atlantic. Sonobuoys help the P-8A as well as ships
and helicopters track these adversary submarines.
The US Navy continues to request additional funds via the CNO's
Unfunded Priority List for sonobuoys. This year's request is for an
additional 54.4M, and I support that. In prior years the Unfunded
Priority List has also included funding of roughly 50M additional
dollars for sonobuoys, and I've supported those as well.
Can you speak to the importance of sonobuoys and how you can work
to include what is clearly a persistent need into the base budget going
forward?
Mr. Harker. Sonobuoys are a critical munition/sensor used by
airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) platforms to locate, track and
hold at risk near-peer competitor submarines. A surge in foreign
submarine Out of Area Deployments (OoAD) by the most technologically
advanced attack (SSN) and guided missile (SSGN) submarines has
significantly increased the Navy's reliance on sonobuoys and of the P-8
mission to counter emerging threats. Most recently, sonobuoys have been
successfully used to collect critical intelligence on the most
advanced, new construction submarines.
The Navy is especially grateful for the continued Congressional
support and flexibility with the Unfunded Priority List (UPL) requests
for additional sonobuoy procurement in the past. The additional funding
was imperative in increasing the industrial base's production of
sonobuoys needed to replenish stock recently expended against our
nearpeer competitors. The FY22 UPL request is forwarded to replenish
stock expended during recent Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) and
to help build inventory associated with the anticipated manufacturing
slowdown before the joint-venture dissolution of the current sonobuoy
manufacturer, ERAPSCO. The Navy has added funding to the base budget
for sonobuoy procurement in the future to ensure we can continue to
procure these critical munitions/sensors at the most economical rate.
Mr. Waltz. It's my understanding that research and development
efforts for sonobuoys has traditionally been borne by industry IRAD
funding. Can you describe the US Navy's efforts to more appropriately
share the costs of R&D for our more pressing operational needs such as
encrypted communications, non-electrical automatic scuttling, and
passive range, depth and bearing accuracy? I don't see US Navy R&D
funding being applied to these fleet needs.
Mr. Harker. Sonobuoy research and development efforts for improved
sonobuoy capabilities have been furthered by both Navy and Industry
investments. Industry has used some low level IRAD funding to
contribute to these efforts, but historically less than 5% percent of
the total development cost. The Navy budgeted to support sonobuoy
improvements such as: GPS, drop vector technology, and encrypted
communication linkage.
Recently, the Navy spent R&D funding to develop a new Directional
Frequency Analysis and Recording--Extended Range (ER-DIFAR) sonobuoy.
This new sonobuoy will enable enhanced tactically relevant ranges
through passive detection of very-quiet targets.
Further, the Navy invested heavily in a new sonobuoy architecture,
Volumetric Air Deployable Active Receiver (VADAR), a PB21 new start
project that will exponentially enhance wide-area sonobuoy
capabilities. Due to the dissolution of the production sonobuoy
manufacturer ERAPSCO Industry is currently using IRAD funding for the
development of sonobuoy designs. The Navy will then procure OPN funded
test articles for qualification. These sonobuoy designs directly
support future sonobuoy production contracts.
Mr. Waltz. The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP)
is intended to modernize our aging shipyards, completely refurbishing
our shipbuilding and maintenance infrastructure to service our fleet.
Our current facilities are obsolete, struggling to meet the needs of
our technologically advanced Navy of today and of the future. This
results in higher maintenance costs, schedule risks and reliability
issues. In addition to being critical infrastructure, the viability of
our shipyards are a national security issue, especially if we want to
expand the size of our Navy, not only to build ships, but maintain them
as well.
However, I note that there is no mention of ``shipyards'' nor
``shipbuilding'' in President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure
proposal. Did the interagency working group developing the President's
infrastructure proposal consult with the Navy regarding shipyard
infrastructure, and if not, why?
Mr. Harker. [No answer was available at the time of printing.]
Mr. Waltz. The U.S. Navy has continued to invest in anti-submarine
warfare through a number of high-visibility and highly successful
programs, among them the P-8A which uses deployable sonobuoys as the
critical element of its combat system.
I appreciate the large numbers of sonobuoys required to keep pace
with the ever-evolving threat of our near-peers and adversaries. It's
not lost on anyone that adversary submarines even operate right off our
coast in the western Atlantic. Sonobuoys help the P-8A as well as ships
and helicopters track these adversary submarines.
The U.S. Navy continues to request additional funds via the CNO's
Unfunded Priority List for sonobuoys. This year's request is for an
additional 54.4M, and I support that. In prior years the Unfunded
Priority List has also included funding of roughly 50M additional
dollars for sonobuoys, and I've supported those as well.
Can you speak to the importance of sonobuoys and how you can work
to include what is clearly a persistent need into the base budget going
forward?
Admiral Gilday. Sonobuoys are a critical munition/sensor used by
airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) platforms to locate, track and
hold at risk near-peer competitor submarines. A surge in foreign
submarine Out of Area Deployments (OoAD) by the most technologically
advanced attack (SSN) and guided missile (SSGN) submarines has
significantly increased the Navy's reliance on sonobuoys and of the P-8
mission to counter emerging threats. Most recently, sonobuoys have been
successfully used to collect critical intelligence on the most
advanced, new construction submarines.
The Navy is especially grateful for the continued Congressional
support and flexibility with the Unfunded Priority List (UPL) requests
for additional sonobuoy procurement in the past. The additional funding
was imperative in increasing the industrial base's production of
sonobuoys needed to replenish stock recently expended against our near-
peer competitors. The FY22 UPL request is forwarded to replenish stock
expended during recent Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) and to
help build inventory associated with the anticipated manufacturing
slowdown before the joint-venture dissolution of the current sonobuoy
manufacturer, ERAPSCO. The Navy has added funding to the base budget
for sonobuoy procurement in the future to ensure we can continue to
procure these critical munitions/sensors at the most economical rate.
Mr. Waltz. It's my understanding that research and development
efforts for sonobuoys has traditionally been borne by industry IRAD
funding. Can you describe the US Navy's efforts to more appropriately
share the costs of R&D for our more pressing operational needs such as
encrypted communications, non-electrical automatic scuttling, and
passive range, depth and bearing accuracy? I don't see US Navy R&D
funding being applied to these fleet needs.
Admiral Gilday. Sonobuoy research and development efforts for
improved sonobuoy capabilities have been furthered by both Navy and
Industry investments. Industry has used some low level IRAD funding to
contribute to these efforts, but historically less than 5% percent of
the total development cost. The Navy budgeted to support sonobuoy
improvements such as: GPS, drop vector technology, and encrypted
communication linkage.
Recently, the Navy spent R&D funding to develop a new Directional
Frequency Analysis and Recording--Extended Range (ER-DIFAR) sonobuoy.
This new sonobuoy will enable enhanced tactically relevant ranges
through passive detection of very-quiet targets. Further, the Navy
invested heavily in a new sonobuoy architecture, Volumetric Air
Deployable Active Receiver (VADAR), a PB21 new start project that will
exponentially enhance wide-area sonobuoy capabilities. Due to the
dissolution of the production sonobuoy manufacturer ERAPSCO Industry is
currently using IRAD funding for the development of sonobuoy designs.
The Navy will then procure OPN funded test articles for qualification.
These sonobuoy designs directly support future sonobuoy production
contracts.
Mr. Waltz. I'm pleased to see the US Navy embracing the concept of
digital twins across platforms. Again, focusing on the importance of
ASW in the larger sense, can you discuss the value of digital twin
technology within the Columbia- and Virginia-class programs?
Admiral Gilday. PEO Submarines (PEO SUBS) and PEO Columbia (PEO
CLB) both conduct numerous digital twin efforts to support design,
construction, and sustainment efforts. These tools help improve
efficiencies and program execution. Some key examples include the
following. PEO SUBS is using of digital twins to revamp the Submarine
Warfare Federated Tactical Systems (SWFTS) test program as part of the
SWFTS Transformation initiative to deliver capability to the Fleet at
the speed of relevance.
Specifically, digital twins are currently being used to accomplish
select test requirements in a virtualized environment, freeing up
tactical resources for fault tolerance and hardware specific testing,
while facilitating workflow automation and parallelization of test
efforts.
PEO CLB invests in academic partnerships for the development of
digital twin technology to reduce the risk of sustainment challenges
resulting from the complex nature of nuclear submarines. PEO CLB is
implementing advanced equipment Health Management System (HMS)
technologies that enable a Condition Based Maintenance+ (CBM+)
capability to reduce sustainment costs. CLB has demonstrated embedded
on-platform Machine Learning (ML) and digital twin technologies that
allow CBM+ and autonomic logistics for the submarine fleet.
Two example systems include the Advanced Carbon dioxide Removal
Unit (ACRU) and High Pressure Air Compressor (HPAC) systems. PEO CLB
has also funded the development of Trident Refit Facilities (TRF)
digital twins that enable dynamic simulations that capture variables
such as workload, workforce and facility constraints to determine how
work is accomplished to assess and forecast delivered performance. The
simulations provide a quantitative capability to assess the CLB
lifecycle, explicitly accounting for the ability of the TRFs and Naval
Shipyards to execute the CLB maintenance requirements in the time
frames required. Overall, PEO SUBS and PEO CLB expect to continue to
expand the usage of digital twins to help improve efficiencies and
execution.
Mr. Waltz. The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP)
is intended to modernize our aging shipyards, completely refurbishing
our shipbuilding and maintenance infrastructure to service our fleet.
Our current facilities are obsolete, struggling to meet the needs of
our technologically advanced Navy of today and of the future. This
results in higher maintenance costs, schedule risks and reliability
issues. In addition to being critical infrastructure, the viability of
our shipyards are a national security issue, especially if we want to
expand the size of our Navy, not only to build ships, but maintain them
as well.
However, I note that there is no mention of ``shipyards'' nor
``shipbuilding'' in President Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure
proposal. Did the interagency working group developing the President's
infrastructure proposal consult with the Navy regarding shipyard
infrastructure, and if not, why?
Admiral Gilday. The interagency working group did not consult with
the Navy regarding shipyard infrastructure, however, the Department of
the Navy (DON) Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP)
aligns with the American Jobs Plan in building world-class
infrastructure; revitalizing manufacturing and small businesses; and
training Americans for the jobs of the future.
Investments improving America's shipyards by modernizing and
upgrading their outdated facilities will provide immediate business
opportunities, while transforming shipbuilding trades that will impact
the local community for generations to come. SIOP meets the President's
infrastructure priorities; projects are scoped and ``shovel ready'' to
provide a clear return on investment to the tax payer through immediate
job creation and opportunities for economic dividends for the next
generation of skilled trades maintaining the Nation's Fleet. The SIOP
projects are essential for expanding the Navy's capacity and
capabilities to perform critical maintenance availabilities on our
submarines and aircraft carriers, and are necessary due to the age and
condition of existing shipyard infrastructure.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. CARL
Mr. Carl. The Navy is making strides to meet the demands of
maintenance for the fleet. Given the larger industrial base discussions
we are having, isn't this also an opportunity to explore how the Navy
can do more with the private sector shipyards where there is clearly
the capacity and desire to do this much needed maintenance and repair
work?
Admiral Gilday. The Navy is leveraging opportunities to work with
private shipyards on our shared goal of meeting the maintenance demands
of the fleet. Focus areas include engagement, collaboration, expansion,
and modernization of the repair industrial base. With a focus on
consistent and targeted discussions on both tactical and strategic
priorities, the Navy and industry are improving the quality and
frequency of engagements. Sharing ownership for the efforts, the Navy
and industry are collaborating on workload & capacity reporting,
``bestvalue'' proposal requirements, and contract change cycle time.
Finally, the Navy is focused on responsible expansion of the
industrial base, specifically promoting competition and increasing
capacity while ensuring continued viability of the existing industrial
base.
Mr. Carl. The Navy is making strides to meet the demands of
maintenance for the fleet. Given the larger industrial base discussions
we are having, isn't this also an opportunity to explore how the Navy
can do more with the private sector shipyards where there is clearly
the capacity and desire to do this much needed maintenance and repair
work?
Mr. Harker. The Navy is leveraging opportunities to work with
private shipyards on our shared goal of meeting the maintenance demands
of the fleet. Focus areas include engagement, collaboration, and
expansion of the repair industrial base. With a focus on consistent and
targeted discussions on both tactical and strategic priorities, the
Navy and industry are improving the quality and frequency of
engagements. Sharing ownership for the efforts, the Navy and industry
are collaborating on workload & capacity reporting, ``best-value''
proposal requirements, and contract change cycle time.
Finally, the Navy is focused on responsible expansion of the
industrial base, specifically promoting competition and increasing
capacity while ensuring continued viability of the existing industrial
base.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. HORSFORD
Mr. Horsford. In 2017, the Navy lost 17 sailors in two preventable
collisions. The investigations into these accidents highlighted a lack
of manning as a contributing factor. As the fleet continues to grow, I
want to ensure that the Navy is appropriately updating its manpower
requirements and identifying the personnel cost implications.
A 2017 GAO report found that since the implementation of optimal
manning, the Navy reduced crew sizes, which decreased the associated
personnel costs for most ship classes. However, these reduced crew
sizes had deadly results and still resulted in increased maintenance
costs.
At what point does the Navy intend to man ships to required levels
as opposed to just funded levels? What specific steps has the Navy
taken to make those two numbers match?
Admiral Gilday. Navy mans funded billets according to the
priorities presented by Fleet Commanders (U.S. Fleet Forces and
Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet). As more billets are funded, Fleet
readiness and operational needs are prioritized. From 2001-2010, the
Navy implemented a number of optimal manning initiatives. When the
optimal manning era ended in 2010, DDGs had an average of 274 total
officer and enlisted billets. Manpower reviews of workload and
watchstanding requirements were conducted in 2011, 2018 and 2019.
Based on the results of those reviews, Navy has steadily increased
the number of funded billets on DDGs. In FY21 Navy funded 314 DDG
billets and the destroyer billet base is programmed to increase to 339
funded billets by FY24. Navy continually assesses all aspects of ship
operations and sustainment--manpower, maintenance, modernization,
training and new construction funding--to optimize Surface Force
lethality.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. KIM
Mr. Kim. The Navy's Aegis ships are considered by many to be the
work horse of the Navy fleet, being called upon for more and more
missions around the globe. I am inspired by the strong partnership
between the Navy and the Missile Defense Agency in the sea based IAMD
mission and the role our current Aegis fleet, equipped with SPY-1
arrays, play in this most important mission. I understand the SPY-1
radar will be the foundation of the Aegis fleet for decades to come so
I was pleased in seeing that the MDA has requested additional funding
for SPY-1 upgrades on their unfunded priority list. Admiral, are you
familiar with this request? What affordable initiatives and how much
funding is the U.S. Navy investing in to refurbish and modernize your
In-Service SPY-1 radars to ensure we keep pace with the ever critical
missile defense threat?
Admiral Gilday. The Navy recognizes the criticality of maintaining
the SPY-1 radar systems to support essential missions. Since FY 2011,
the Navy has invested $143M in SPY-1 Reliability, Maintainability and
Availability (RM&A) improvements to reduce cascading failures, mitigate
obsolescence issues, and improve reliability in support of Anti-Air
Warfare (AAW) and Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) missions.
SPY-1 RM&A ORDALTs and Microwave Tube (MWT) Product Improvement
Plan (PIP) initiatives were developed to address concerns called out in
SPY Task Force. The MWT PIPs were developed to increase Mean Time
Between Failures (MTBF) and are being fielded through attrition. Since
2010 the Navy has invested $1.8 billion in modernizing the DDG-51
Class's Aegis Weapon System. Since then, 15 DDG-51 Class ships have
been upgraded to Aegis Baseline 9 capability, which enables a DDG to
conduct Air Defense and Ballistic Missile Defense systems
simultaneously to counter new threats during that period.
In the PB22 Budget the Navy has invested $265M with plans to
upgrade an additional 3 DDG-51 Class ships to the latest Aegis Weapon
System. The SPY-1 Multi-Mission Signal Processor (MMSP) was fielded as
an element of the Aegis modernization program. MMSP supports AAW and
BMD mission areas, provides the capability to generate and process AN/
SPY-1D(V) waveforms to improve AN/SPY-1D radar performance in clutter,
provides ballistic missile tracking and RF discrimination capability to
defeat advanced ballistic missile threats.
The next generation MMSP referred to as MMSP-R will start fielding
in FY22 and it incorporates modern computing hardware updates for
improved reliability and internal test functionality. The Navy is in
close coordination with MDA and is familiar with the SPY-1 projects
listed on their Unfunded Priority List. The Navy has teamed with MDA to
execute the SPY-1 Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) program and provided a
spare SPY-1 array for risk reduction assess the feasibility of the SPY-
1 Digital Low Noise Amplifier (dLNA) project.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. MORELLE
Mr. Morelle. Secretary Harker, how does this budget request seek to
provide greater economic stability and predictability for the defense
industrial base and its suppliers? Are there further steps the Navy can
take to tailor its strategy to maintain this network of critical
infrastructure?
Ms. Harker. The Department carefully balanced resources and
requirements, weighing the effects of FY 2022 program decisions on the
industrial base to ensure our nation maintains the skills,
capabilities, and capacities critical to our national defense. In FY
2022, the DON requested funding for eight battle force ships, keeping
the shipbuilding industrial base loaded at an executable level that
encourages industry investment in capital improvements, capital
expansion, and a properly sized world-class workforce.
For future budgets, the Navy is evaluating the use of acquisition
authorities, such as Multi-Year Procurement, to drive workload
stability and predictability for the shipbuilding industrial base. The
FY 2022 budget also takes an approach to maintenance and modernization
that provides stability to the industrial base, including contracting
strategies that align workload with industrial base capacity.
Navy has implemented a variety of contracting strategies that award
multiple availabilities under a single solicitation, known as
``grouping.'' Horizontal grouping extends the period of awarded work
for a shipyard by grouping two serial availabilities into a single
solicitation. Vertical grouping allows for a single solicitation to
award multiple concurrent availabilities, allowing for streamlined
contracting and the ability to effectively manage work within a port.
Vertical grouping promotes competition, and enables full employment of
dry dock capacity, which improves return on industry investment and
reduces cost to the government.
In total, 16 of 26 FY2021 availabilities will be grouped
solicitations. The Navy is also seeing positive early results from the
pilot program established by Congress in FY 2020 to fund private sector
Pacific Fleet CNO Availabilities with multi-year Other Procurement,
Navy (OPN) funding. The OPN Pilot allows the Navy to implement
commercial best practices for ship maintenance and more efficiently use
surface ship maintenance funding. Early indicators are showing benefits
to efficiency, execution, and buying power, and the FY 2022 budget
requests expansion of the OPN pilot to include U.S. Fleet Forces
private sector CNO Availabilities.
Mr. Morelle. General Berger, how does this budget request seek to
provide greater economic stability and predictability for the defense
industrial base and its suppliers? Are there further steps the Marine
Corps can take to tailor its strategy to maintain this network of
critical infrastructure?
General Berger. The Marine Corps FY22 budget request provides
consistent funding necessary to support readiness and to maintain our
Organic Industrial Base infrastructure as well as ensuring stable
workload for our defense industry partners. The Marine Corps will
continue execution of the Organic Industrial Base facilities plan
submitted to the Senate in September of 2019.
For example, five facilities projects identified within the plan
are complete or in construction, with others pending UPL or
infrastructure bill outcomes. As indicated in the Senate report, we
will balance OIB modernization within the overall Service portfolio and
in consonance with the DOD/DoN fiscal environment. Our budget request
also provides funding for critical capabilities that are produced and
maintained by our industry partners. Consistency in budgets and
resourcing enables our industry partners at all levels of the supply
chain to plan, resource, and invest in their own facilities to maintain
our current systems and develop essential new capabilities.
Mr. Morelle. General Berger, how are right to repair restrictions
inhibiting your Marines' combat readiness?
General Berger. Right to repair restrictions inhibit Marines'
combat readiness by creating an environment in which Marines cannot
efficiently conduct equipment repair. This may be because Marines do
not possess the appropriate technical repair manuals, special tools,
diagnostic systems, or data to conduct the repair; the technical
manuals they do possess do not provide the detail required to conduct
the repair; or conducting the repairs may void the equipment's
warranty. The purchase of technical manuals, special tools, and data
rights must be balanced against other program requirements at the
earliest stages of the lifecycle. If not addressed early, right to
repair issues can be exacerbated in the later stages of equipment
lifecycles and by the increased acquisition of more technologically
advanced equipment.