[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2023
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota, Chair
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
DEREK KILMER, Washington
PETE AGUILAR, California
CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
KEN CALVERT, California
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
NOTE: Under committee rules, Ms. DeLauro, as chair of the full
committee, and Ms. Granger, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Chris Bigelow, Walter Hearne, Ariana Sarar, Jackie Ripke,
David Bortnick, Matthew Bower, William Adkins, Jennifer Chartrand,
Hayden Milberg, Paul Kilbride, Shannon Richter, and Kyle McFarland
Subcommittee Staff
__________
PART 1
Page
Impact of Continuing Resolutions on
the Department of Defense and Services..
1
U.S. European Command.................
105
U.S. Central Command..................
129
U.S. Southern Command.................
163
U.S. Strategic Command................
193
U.S. Africa Command...................
227
National Security Agency and U.S.
Cyber Command...........................
243
U.S. Special Operations...............
245
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-790 WASHINGTON : 2022
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2023
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
___________________________________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota, Chair
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
DEREK KILMER, Washington
PETE AGUILAR, California
CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
KEN CALVERT, California
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
NOTE: Under committee rules, Ms. DeLauro, as chair of the full
committee, and Ms. Granger, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Chris Bigelow, Walter Hearne, Ariana Sarar, Jackie Ripke,
David Bortnick, Matthew Bower, William Adkins, Jennifer Chartrand,
Hayden Milberg, Paul Kilbride, Shannon Richter, and Kyle McFarland
Subcommittee Staff
____________
PART 1
Page
Impact of Continuing Resolutions on
the Department of Defense and Services..
1
U.S. European Command.................
105
U.S. Central Command..................
129
U.S. Southern Command.................
163
U.S. Strategic Command................
193
U.S. Africa Command...................
227
National Security Agency and U.S.
Cyber Command...........................
243
U.S. Special Operations...............
245
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
48-790 WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut, Chair
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BARBARA LEE, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
DEREK KILMER, Washington
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
GRACE MENG, New York
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
PETE AGUILAR, California
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
NORMA J. TORRES, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
ED CASE, Hawaii
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
JOSH HARDER, California
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
SUSIE LEE, Nevada
KAY GRANGER, Texas
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
BEN CLINE, Virginia
GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
MIKE GARCIA, California
ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
TONY GONZALES, Texas
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
Robin Juliano, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2023
----------
Wednesday, January 12, 2022.
IMPACT OF CONTINUING RESOLUTIONS ON THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND
SERVICES
WITNESSES
MIKE McCORD, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE (COMPTROLLER)
GENERAL DAVID H. BERGER, COMMANDANT, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS
ADMIRAL MICHAEL GILDAY, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES NAVY
GENERAL JOHN W. RAYMOND, CHIEF OF SPACE OPERATIONS, UNITED STATES SPACE
FORCE
GENERAL CHARLES Q. BROWN, JR., CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
GENERAL JOSEPH M. MARTIN, VICE CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES ARMY
Opening Statement of Chair McCollum
Ms. McCollum. This hearing is virtual, and as usual, we
will go over a couple of housekeeping matters.
For today's meeting the chair or the staff designated by
the chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not
under recognition for purpose of eliminating background noise.
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves.
If I notice you have not unmuted yourself, I will ask you if
you would like the staff to unmute you. If you indicate by
nodding for approval, the staff will unmute you.
I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to
the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will
retain the balance of your time.
You will notice a clock on your screen, and that is showing
how much time is remaining. At one minute the clock will turn
yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the gavel to
remind members that their time has almost expired. And when
your time has expired, the clock will turn red, and I will
begin to recognize the next member.
In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order set
forward in the House rules, beginning with the chair and the
ranking member. Members present at the time when the hearing is
called to order will be recognized in their order of seniority,
and, finally, members not present at the time the hearing is
called to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have
set up an email address to which members can send anything they
wish to submit in writing at any of our hearing markups. The
email address has been provided in advance to your staff.
Members, the subcommittee will fully come to order, now
that we took care of the housekeeping. First and foremost, I
wish you all a good new year, and hope that your families are
doing well, and that they are safe from COVID.
What we are going to do this morning is we are going to
receive testimony on the impact of the continuing resolution of
the Department of Defense and services. And we are joined by
Mike McCord, Under Secretary of Defense; General David H.
Berger, commander of the United States Marine Corps; Admiral
Michael Gilday of--chief of naval operations of the United
States Navy; General Raymond--excuse me, General John W.
Raymond, chief of space operations for the United States Space
Force; and General Charles Q. Brown, chief of staff for the
United States Air Force; and General Joseph M. Martin, vice
chief of staff for the United States Army.
I want to thank you all for attending, and I would like to
mention that Chief Army Staff General McConville is not with us
today because he is attending General Odierno's internment
today. General Odierno was a remarkable leader.
And General Martin, I want to thank you for appearing on
behalf of the Army today.
It has been the case far too often in recent years that the
government once again is operating under a continuing
resolution. Today's hearing will explore the impacts of CRs on
our national security, particularly the problem that would be
created by a year-long CR for fiscal year 2022.
When our subcommittee writes a full-year bill, even the
year-over-year total remains the same, we increase and decrease
funding for hundreds of specific activities that are essential
to our national security. Under a CR, none of this occurs. We
do not cut spending in areas where it is no longer needed, like
sunsetting legacy platforms or inefficient programs that are no
longer survivable in a high-end fight.
Simply put, CRs are bad for our national security, they
increase inefficiency, they waste taxpayers' money. They also
signal to our troops and the millions of workers in the defense
industry that their needs are just not a priority. At a time
when Putin is threatening to invade Ukraine, China continues to
be a pacing threat, we do not have time to waste. Our national
security cannot afford more CRs.
Now, among the members of this committee I want to be
perfectly clear. I know each and every one of you all wants a
new fiscal year 2022 defense bill. But I have to tell you, it
is frustrating to read quotes from one House Republican
published in December, and I am going to quote directly:
``Republicans should be in favor of a CR until Biden is out of
office. It would be the proper Republican thing to do, and
everybody saying otherwise is foolish.'' Well, that type of
thinking, that is what is foolish, and I believe it is
dangerous.
I have heard similar comments from other Republicans in
recent months. The least we can do is to get funding bills
done. And I thank Chair DeLauro for trying to do just that for
months now.
I urge my Republican colleagues to continue to come with us
to the negotiating table, so we can fund the entire government.
But because America's national security is more than just about
dollars that we provide the Pentagon--it is part of the reason
why we are having this hearing--we also need to make the
necessary investments in diplomacy, development abroad, and,
most importantly, education, health, and America's economy here
at home. They all impact our national security.
So today I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about
how a full-year CR could affect modernization, slow our ability
to retire ineffective programs, and how it would be an
inefficient use of taxpayers' dollars by directing billions of
dollars to purposes that are out of date, such as a war in
Afghanistan, which we are no longer fighting.
We have a lot to cover. And so now I will turn to the
gentleman from California, the ranking member, Mr. Calvert, for
his opening remarks.
Mr. Calvert.
Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert
Mr. Calvert. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman, and happy new
year.
And I also want to recognize General Odierno. Not only was
he a great patriot, a good friend of this committee, and we
certainly thank him and his family for his lifetime of service.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today.
While I look forward to hearing from the senior leaders here
today, I am disappointed there is a need to have this hearing.
Since I have joined this subcommittee, I have been very vocal
about the damage done by our inability to pass defense
appropriation bills on time.
When we are able to carry out the most--when we are able--
unable to carry out the most fundamental constitutional
responsibility to--we create self-inflicted wounds that are
difficult to recover from.
Typically, as appropriators, we are able to negotiate in
good faith, reach a bipartisan deal. Unfortunately, my friends
on the other side of the aisle have decided they are more
committed to the progressive wing of their party than to the
responsible governance in this country.
We have offered to start negotiations, as long as we work
under the same terms, negotiations that we have worked for in
the past two years. They are simply no poison pills, and retain
all legacy riders.
We have also made clear that, in order for us to support
these bills, domestic spending must come down and defense
spending must go up.
It should be noted that the HAS, the SAS, and the Senate
Appropriations all have agreed to a higher defense number. This
committee is the lone holdout. It is disappointing to watch the
majority try to blame Republicans, who are the minority party
in both chambers, for being at this unfortunate place,
especially when it is their leadership that has failed them.
May I remind people that Democrats were unable to pass their
version of the fiscal year 2022 defense appropriation bills on
the House floor?
And today, under the guise of caring for our men and women
in uniform, they are attempting to use the Department of
Defense as a means to an end, with the hopes of passing
radical, irresponsible policies that will harm the American
people. It is disingenuous at best, and it breaks a
longstanding tradition of bipartisan cooperation that has made
this committee, and especially this subcommittee, specifically
so effective.
Excessive spending on the domestic bills is irresponsible,
and will dangerously add to our national debt, which former
chairman of the joint chiefs, Admiral Mullen, called the top
threat to our national security.
These increases are also in addition to the massive
spending spree that the Biden Administration and this Congress
have been on, which has directly led to massive inflation. As a
matter of fact, the number came out this morning: 7 percent
inflation this year, the highest number in almost 40 years,
which is harming American families, and certainly harming the
Department of Defense.
I will remind everyone that inflation is drastically
harming DoD's own buying power. When your account for COVID
spending--when you account for COVID spending on national
security, and national--on our national security, our entire
spending on national security is 10 percent of all federal
outlays, 10 percent. The overwhelming majority of our spending
goes towards domestic programs.
As the ranking member of this subcommittee, I have remained
firm in my resolve that we will fight to ensure proper funding
for the Department of Defense. It is encouraging to hear
reports that the majority is now considering supporting
additional funds above the President's misguided request for
fiscal year 2022.
It is my hope we can avoid the devastating impacts of a CR.
We will hear about this today. Committees--this committee's
storied reputation of bipartisan, common-sense governing, I
hope, will continue.
Thank you for your service, and I look forward to your
testimony.
And with that, I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Calvert. And I certainly know
that the words that you said were heartfelt, but I don't think
you meant to imply that any of us on this committee from the
other side of the aisle are disingenuous.
I would now recognize Chair DeLauro.
Opening Remarks of Chair DeLauro
The Chair. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to
thank you and the ranking member for holding this important
hearing on the impact of continuing resolutions, and what they
have--the kind of impact they have on the Department of
Defense.
I first want to just say a thank you. And Secretary of
Defense Austin is not here this morning. But on December 6th he
issued a statement about the contents of what we are speaking
about today, and what the--how--what he described--fiscally
unsound way of funding the Department of Defense, and
government as a whole. So please convey my thanks to him.
I want to say a thank you to all of our witnesses today. It
was amazing to me, reading through the testimony of--the
consistency of message here about what, in fact, occurs when we
engage in continuing resolutions.
If I might--and I don't mean to slight the others, but
General Brown, thank you for your authorship of the book,
``Accelerate Change or Lose,'' that we must change so that we
do not go backward. The time for us has come. We need to go
faster, and the time is now for us to be able to do that.
And I appreciate the witnesses and their distinguished
leaders of the military coming to explain the consequences of
what are, quite frankly, Congress's failures.
Madam Chair, you and I have worked closely for months to
enact a defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2022. But
while--and I too would agree with you that the members of this
subcommittee are committed to a--moving forward on a defense
appropriations bill.
But while the Democrats are ready to negotiate and complete
our work, a number of our Republican colleagues have--they have
not even--leadership hasn't even offered a proposal of their
own. And just--I have to say this, I wasn't going to, but just
to clarify the record--the fact of the matter is, in the
history of appropriations bills, the issues on--whether you
call them policy riders, or poison pills, or legacy riders,
whatever you want to call them, that has been debated at the
end of the process, that there has been the willingness on the
part of Democrats and Republicans to come together and say,
``Let us talk about the top line, let us move
programmatically,'' because, in order to achieve a bicameral,
bipartisan piece of legislation, those issues will be--will
have to be resolved.
So the fact that who is--it is not a question of pointing
fingers, but the Democratic proposals are out there. To date
there has not been one single document that outlines where our
Republican colleagues want to go.
President Kennedy once said there are risks and costs to
action, but they are far less than the long-range risks of
comfortable inaction. We need action on full-year funding bills
now. The longer our colleagues get comfortable in their
inaction, the greater the long-range risks will be for our
nation.
And as you are, Madam Chair, I am particularly alarmed by
the suggestion of some that they would prefer to fund the
government under a full-year continuing resolution. This would
harm our military, stalling modernization efforts, readiness,
capacity, recruitment, operation, and maintenance, impacting
pay for our troops, and wasting billions in taxpayers' dollars
on capabilities we no longer need.
After 20 years of war in Afghanistan have ended, we need to
prepare for the security challenges of the future by
modernizing weapons systems such as strengthening our
hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence capabilities. A
continuing resolution would severely curtail the transition to
these modern, high-quality tools.
Readiness is essential to the strength of our military. But
as the testimony from our witnesses affirm, extended CRs, full-
year CR, would greatly impact our troops, their quality of
life, their health care. Under a continuing resolution,
services would have to significantly curtail other personnel
expenses, including potentially slashing the number of new
recruits to provide a statutorily authorized pay raise.
The witnesses, in their testimony, they lay out, as I
mentioned earlier, a consistent message that asserts that
already there are serious consequences to the four-month delay
of a budget agreement.
A full-year continuing resolution would keep platforms and
systems that are no longer necessary in service, while blocking
the start of new projects. It would reduce the buying power of
the Defense Department, lock the Pentagon into last year's
spending, such as for a war in Afghanistan we are no longer
fighting. There are few dollars--more egregious ways to waste
the Americans--people's hard-earned tax dollars.
Finally, I am deeply concerned about the impact of a full-
year CR on the millions of jobs the defense industry sustains
across the United States, and I ask unanimous consent to insert
into the record a letter from 11 defense trade associations
which puts the harmful consequences of a full-year CR in stark
terms, and I quote: ``Defense industry workforces are subject
to seemingly endless stop-and-start contract cycles, creating
inefficiency and disruption that ripples through the defense
supply chain with disproportionate effects on smaller
companies.'' The consequences of a full-year CR are simply
unthinkable.
To protect our national security, sustain American strength
vis-a-vis China and Russia, and further American leadership
around the world, we need a government funding agreement. We
need it now. And it is time for our Republican colleagues to
join us, negotiate a bipartisan, bicameral funding agreement.
I thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this hearing, and I
thank our witnesses once again, and I won't deal with the quote
now, because I have already gone over my time. But I am hopeful
that Assistant Defense Secretary McCord will speak about this
issue. He has a great quote in his testimony about our
competition with Russia and China, and what they do in terms of
being competitive, and what we do not do. I say thank you,
thank you to my colleagues for being here this morning, and I
yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Chair DeLauro. You had, you said,
11 letters to enter for the record?
The Chair. No, one letter that has been signed by 11 heads
of the--trades association: Aerospace, Air Force----
Ms. McCollum. I just wanted to make sure I said the amount
of letters correctly.
The Chair. That is correct.
Ms. McCollum. So without objection, we will be entering
that letter into the record.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Opening Remarks of Ms. Granger
The Chair. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Now I turn to Ranking Member Granger from
Texas for her opening remarks.
Ms. Granger.
Ms. Granger. Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum. As a longtime
member and a former chair of this subcommittee, I have been
proud of its history of bipartisanship. The members of this
subcommittee care deeply about our national security, and have
been able to put partisan politics aside in order to ensure we
provide the funding needed to protect our great nation.
Unfortunately, the defense appropriation bill has fallen
victim to partisan politics. I think we would all agree that no
one here wants a continuing resolution, no one. That is not our
goal. However, Republicans will not allow the majority to ram
through irresponsible spending and harmful policies in other
parts of the government by using the Department of Defense as a
political weapon.
My position should not come as a surprise to anyone. During
full committee and subcommittee markups, I made it clear that
House Republicans would not support any bills unless the
majority removed poison pills, reinstated longstanding riders,
and addressed the disparity between defense and non-defense
spending. Those two--three issues have been, for the past two
years, a part of this.
But instead of working across the aisle to get our work
done, the majority drafted unrealistic, irresponsible
appropriations bills, many of which contain the most partisan
policies I have seen since I have been in Congress. For
example, the fiscal year 2022 labor, health, and human services
bill includes a staggering 36 percent increase over current
levels. The majority also removed longstanding, bipartisan pro-
life protections that have been included for decades. The list
goes on and on.
As appropriators, we know it takes bipartisan cooperation
to craft spending bills that will be signed into law. Counter
to what the majority has said, Republicans are ready and
willing to negotiate. We simply ask that the majority agree to
the same terms that have allowed us to complete our work
quickly in the past, drop controversial language, and restore
longstanding provisions. If the majority would agree to these
terms, I will clear my schedule, and I am happy to begin
negotiations immediately following this hearing.
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. The bottom line is people need to
get to the table and talk to each other, and that is leadership
in both the House and the Senate.
So I am going to turn to our witnesses now, and I--we don't
pick favorites. I don't pick favorites, especially--on my side
of the family, when my father was Army Air Corps, I never
picked a favorite between the two of them. So we are going to
start with the service chiefs. We are going to go in
alphabetical order, then followed by the vice chief Martin and
McCord.
Your full statements are going to be entered into the
record. So I ask you to limit your remarks to no more than five
minutes.
Under Secretary McCord, you are first.
Summary Statement of Mr. McCord
Mr. McCord. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and
also Chair DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger, thank you, and
members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to speak
with you today, along with our leaders from the services, on
the importance of getting full-year appropriations, rather than
seeing continued extensions of the current continuing
resolution, or CR.
In particular, I want to express our concerns about the
potential for a full-year CR, which is something the Department
has never been forced to operate under.
Our military leaders are going to speak in more detail
about specific impacts on their services and their people, but
let me begin with some points that are of concern across the
Department, to amplify the point Secretary Austin made in his
statement of December 6, 2021, which I would ask the chair that
you allow to be inserted in the record of this hearing, also.
Ms. McCollum. Without objection.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. McCord. Thank you.
A full-year CR, Chair and members, would move us in the
wrong direction, and leave us stuck in the wrong place.
First, if you want us to be more competitive with our
adversaries, it is going to make us less so. If you want us to
be more agile, a CR has the opposite effect. It would undermine
our--your support of our men and women in uniform and their
families.
Finally, Congress, in passing the recently-enacted fiscal
year 2022 defense authorization bill, was voting, in part, to
increase DoD funding. If that is what Congress wants, enacting
a full-year CR would send our top line down, not up.
Let me now briefly expand on a few of these concerns.
First, as I believe you are all aware, a full-year CR would
reduce our funding level below what we requested to what we
believe we need. On the surface, at the Department level as a
whole, the reduction to our accounts would appear to be about
$8 billion below our request, which would be significant, even
if that was the only impact. The actual reduction in practice
will be much greater, because we would have significant funding
that is misaligned, trapped, or frozen in the wrong places, and
unusable because we don't have the tools or flexibility to
realign funds on anything like the scale we would need to fix
all the problems that the chiefs are going to describe.
To cite one major example, although it is a different
subcommittee, I know all of you are very familiar with the fact
that virtually all military construction projects in each
year's budget, including the fiscal year 2022 budget, are new
starts that cannot be executed under a CR. In this specific
case, that is over 100 projects and over $5 billion in funding
that would be unusable. So that is one example of--on top of
the eight billion that it looks like at the gross level when
you get down in the details.
If you add the impacts of this unusable funding to the
straight loss of purchasing power under a CR, the real impacts
on our operations both double or triple the impact of the cuts
as we go into the procurement and the research and development
accounts to calculate all the funding tied to individual
program rate increases or new starts that we would not be able
to execute, leaving those funds stranded.
Not every acquisition program would be restricted, and
impacts would be very uneven. Some programs, such as the Ground
Based Strategic Deterrent, would be delayed significantly by
the cuts imposed by a CR, while others, such as the procurement
of two Virginia-class submarines, might be relatively
unaffected.
The most damaging impacts would be on those who deserve it
least: our service members and their families. The biggest
tolls would be in our military personnel accounts and our
training and readiness accounts. Our military personnel
accounts will be funded $5 billion below our requested level
under a CR.
Yet inside those flat funding levels, as several members
have noted, we would have to absorb the cost of a well-deserved
pay raise, and other statutory housing and subsistence
increases for the troops. This means that, within a flat number
absorbing a pay raise, we will be forced to take action such as
delaying and suspending permanent change-of-station moves for
our people, and delaying accessions of new troops, which would
disrupt our training pipeline.
In the operating accounts, where a CR would leave us
another $5.3 billion below our requested levels, we would
almost certainly have to defer training and readiness, and take
greater risk in our facilities maintenance, especially if we
endeavor to avoid any furloughs of our civilian workforce,
because civilian pay is a very large part of the operating
accounts.
We also have an issue with military health care. This
account would be short by over $1 billion, compared to our
request, yet we have no ability to control the demand for
health care by our beneficiaries, nor would we wish to,
especially during a pandemic. So people show up to the doctor,
we have to pay that bill.
Some might ask, ``Well, can't we address these issues by
reprogramming funds to solve our biggest problems?''
First, the committees have never approved a reprogramming
during a continuing resolution. If we get past that issue, as
we would need to under a year-long CR, just to fix one high-
impact problem, such as the billion-dollar shortfall in the
Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, would consume 25
percent of the $4 billion in transfer authority available to me
for the entire Department for the entire year. And yet I would
still have dozens of other CR-imposed problems to address.
The idea that being under a continuing resolution into
January or February is not unusual, and that a full-year CR is
now considered a serious possibility did not come from nowhere.
And I believe it is important just to take a moment to step
back from this current situation and look at the broader
context. We have been slowly boiling this frog for a number of
years, and we may not fully appreciate what has been happening.
For the 20 years that followed the end of the Cold War,
from fiscal years 1991 through 2010, the date of enactment of
the defense appropriations bill averaged 24 days into the
fiscal year, or less than a month late. But since the enactment
of the Budget Control Act in fiscal year 2011, the 10 years of
the BCA that then followed that enactment, and now this first
year after the BCA, that average has ballooned to 118 days late
over the last 12 years, assuming that we can land this plane on
February 18th this year.
The 6 longest CRs in the history of the Defense Department
have all occurred in this last 12-year period. We have turned a
12-month fiscal year into an 8-month fiscal year, in terms of
our ability to initiate new starts and enter contracts. This
should be unacceptable, and not the new normal.
It is hard to see this full impact because--or the
inefficiency from looking from outside, because the
organization has, of course, adapted to its circumstances, just
as organisms do. Nobody plans to enter into contracts in the
first quarter of a fiscal year now, because the odds that we
would actually be able to do so are so low. Therefore, we, in
turn, have no significant contract delays to report to you when
we are under a CR.
In addition to the direct consequences of a CR, including
the inefficiency of disruption to our people and our
operations, and reduction in the resources that I have
described, we should not forget that inflation is also eating
into our funding, while our funding remains on hold, as Mr.
Calvert noted. For example, I have had to improve--approve two
increases in our fuel prices this year already, first on
October 1st, and a second one on January 1st, in order to keep
our working capital fund solvent. So this has created a bill of
a billion-and-a-half dollars to the services for fiscal year
2022, in addition to the reductions that we already have
described.
And finally, to be clear, the Department is not alone in
this regard. We recognize that. In fact, we have been treated
better over the years than some other agencies. The Department
of Health and Human Services is on the front lines against the
COVID-19 pandemic. We have a tax on our critical
infrastructure, and natural disasters that we expect the
Department of Homeland Security to respond to. We have to
ensure our children get the quality education they need to
become the trained and capable workforce of tomorrow. So we
can't afford to run the Federal Government, any agency, on a
long-year--on a year-long CR.
Our competitors, China and Russia in particular, use all
the pieces on the chessboard to compete with us, not just their
military assets. We are competing on the diplomatic front, the
economic front, the military front, innovation and technology.
If we take this competition seriously, as we should and as our
adversaries do, then we cannot afford to continue acting this
way. Time is money, and year after year we are giving away time
in these lengthy CRs. We do not have such an insurmountable
edge on our competitors that we can afford to keep doing this.
Let me close, Chair, and turn it over to our military
leaders for more specifics, by quoting what Secretary Austin
said last month: ``I strongly urge Congress to seize this
opportunity to sustain American competitiveness, advance
American leadership, and enable our forces by immediately
reaching a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on a full-year
fiscal year 2022 appropriations. It is not only the right thing
to do, but it is the best thing that they can do for our
nation's defense.''
With that, I look forward to your questions, once all the
witnesses have concluded their statements. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Summary Statement of General Berger
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much, and thank you for the
accessibility our office and, I know, other offices that serve
on this committee have had for questions, especially during the
seriousness of the Afghan refugees. Thank you very much for
your work and your professionalism.
General Berger, you are next.
General Berger. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
Chair DeLauro, and Ranking Member Granger, and the other
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thanks for the
opportunity to appear before you today.
Last spring, at the fiscal year 2022 posture hearing, I
updated this committee on the force design effort the Marine
Corps began at 2019. We are now two-and-a-half years into that
major effort. Force design 2030 is how your Marine Corps is
adjusting for the future in order to match the operating
environment and to stay in front of our adversaries.
With that in mind, I would offer three ways that a year-
long continuing resolution, which, as noted, we have never had
before, would have a much greater adverse impact than previous
year continuing resolutions.
And I will start with people, your Marines and their
families. Now, if we were a conscript force, we wouldn't worry
much about an impact of an extended CR. An all-volunteer force,
on the other hand, relies on volunteers: volunteers to enlist;
volunteers to stay in service. CRs eat away at the trust those
Marines and their families have in their government.
With no appropriations, I will have to delay and cancel
some transfer orders, incentive pays and bonuses reduced.
Families won't know whether to renew their housing leases,
spouses won't know whether to accept the job offer they got
last week, all due to uncertainty. The impacts on recruiting
and retention will last, I am confident, well beyond 2022,
because you cannot rebuild trust in a week, or a month, or a
year, not in an all-volunteer force.
Second, for the Marine Corps, impacts on modernization and
the industrial base were especially acute, as a result of force
design decisions I have taken over the past years. We have
already divested of old, and begun to reinvest in new, which
was a prudent plan that this committee recommended, and each of
you has fully supported to date. Continuing resolutions,
however, look in one direction: backward. They execute last
year's budget against this year's priorities.
CRs effectively prevent modernization at speed, the speed
required for us to keep up the pace that our adversaries have
set and sustained. And here is the thing about that. We
actually stand to be outpaced by China, not because of their
speed, but because of our failure to comply with our own
budgetary processes.
Time is the one critical resource, as the Under Secretary
pointed out. We need to affect real change, and no amount of
resources in the future can buy back lost time. Under a full-
year CR we will delay acquisition of critical Marine Corps
force design programs. MQ-9 A procurement won't happen.
Production increases for F-35Bs, KC-130Js, CH-CH-53K aircraft,
the amphibious combat vehicle won't happen. Workers in Southern
California; New York; Pennsylvania; Dallas-Fort Worth, Camden,
Arkansas; Tucson, Arizona; Stratford, Connecticut; and a dozen
other locations will be affected. Those workers need
predictability.
Actually, there is one predictable outcome of a year-long
CR, and that is that those workers will go elsewhere, because
they have families to support.
Third, we face the prospect of losing the trust and
confidence of our allies and partners, because commanders will
have to scale back the scheduled exercises they have for this
year. And in some cases they will need to cancel. Well, that is
only relevant if your national security strategy depends on
allies and partners. Ours does. Trust is a big part of what
keeps the door open with our partners. Once that door closes,
it is really hard to recover from the damage done to the
military relationships. We should anticipate that some of them
will begin to look elsewhere for a more reliable, dependable
partner.
One final point. Sadly, as pointed out, as a military, we
have become accustomed to a process that fails to deliver a
budget on time. And over the past decade of CRs we have learned
how to adjust our operating and contracting practices for the
continuing resolution that we just assume is going to happen.
General Berger. If the past 10 cycles are prolonged, we
will be meeting here again next year to talk about the same
things. During that time the Chinese will launch more than a
dozen new surface combatants, they will launch patrol craft
carriers, capable of carrying long-range, anti-ship cruise
missiles. They will field additional squadrons of fifth-
generation aircraft. We can't afford to have that meeting here
next year.
Service chiefs need sufficient, stable, predictable funding
to stay in front of our facing threat, to deter our
adversaries, and, if need be, to fight and win. We haven't
taken any of these extreme actions, not yet. This train wreck
in front of us is entirely preventable.
Again, thanks for the opportunity to appear here this
morning. I look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Summary Statement of Admiral Gilday
Ms. McCollum. Thank you, sir.
Admiral Gilday, you are up next, please.
Admiral Gilday. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
Chair DeLauro, Ranking Member Granger, and other distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify with my fellow service chiefs this morning. And Mr.
McCord, as well.
The peace dividend has long passed. We are now in a
relentless race with a peer competitor. Every day matters in
this critical decade. In the face of a rising China, Navy's top
line--in other words, our buying power--has been relatively
flat for more than a decade. A year-long CR will cost us time
that can't be recovered, and have irreversible impact to some
of our most important programs. This is exacerbated during a
time when we are still fighting the pandemic, as well as--as
Ranking Member Calvert mentioned--a 7 percent inflation rate on
a budget 60 percent of which already rises above the rate of
inflation.
I would like to briefly summarize what I see as the major
impacts in three areas.
The first is strategically. The impacts of a year-long CR
will further erode our ability to credibly deter our adversary.
A year-long CR will yield a smaller, less ready, less capable,
and less lethal United States Navy. It will have significant
impacts to readiness, modernization, and shipbuilding. The work
that we are pursuing, the once-in-a-century work on our public
shipyards will come to a stop. The work that we are doing to
invest in a new SSBN, the most survivable leg of our strategic
triad, will be put at risk. The submarines and the water
conducting that mission----
Ms. McCollum. Sir, you have lost your audio, if you can
hear me.
Admiral Gilday. Can you hear me now?
Ms. McCollum. I can hear you now. Thank you.
Admiral Gilday. Yes, I mentioned the impacts on the
Columbia program, our SSBN, the most survivable leg of the
triad, and the fact that that program has no margin, as it
replaces submarines that have been in the water for four
decades.
And lastly, importantly, game-changing investments that we
are making in hypersonics and laser weapons will also be
impacted.
The second area the commandant covered, and I will briefly
cover it as well, and that is people. We will reduce the
sections by almost 75 percent, and we will delay or cancel
change-of-station moves by more than 50 percent. As the
commandant mentioned, families have already been planning for
that. Spouses have already been accepting jobs, or planning to
relocate.
We will withhold reenlistment bonuses and special incentive
bonuses that keep our best sailors and their families in the
United States Navy.
And importantly, we will exacerbate a say-do gap that risks
breaking trust, that further risks breaking trust with sailors
and their families.
And the last area that I think it is important to
highlight, at least for the Navy, is the impact on the defense
industrial base. The impact of COVID and inflation, as I have
already mentioned, will be magnified by a year-long CR. It will
hurt shipbuilders. It will hurt aircraft manufacturers and
small, innovative, high-tech companies in all of your districts
that have made significant investments on their own in both
infrastructure and their workforce to make us a stronger, more
capable military.
As others have stated, we are well accustomed to adjusting
to short-term CRs, as much as they are inefficient and costly.
But we have become good at it. A year-long CR is completely new
territory that we have not dealt with before that will have
significant impacts across our military.
Our Navy is grateful for the subcommittee's support, and I
look forward to fielding your questions. Thank you.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Summary Statement of General Raymond
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much for your testimony.
General Raymond, please.
General Raymond. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
Chair DeLauro, Ranking Member Granger, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify virtually with Mr. McCord and my fellow service chiefs.
I also want to thank this committee for your continued
leadership and support of the guardians who I am privileged to
serve alongside with.
The primary focus of the Space Force is to deliver
capabilities that give our forces the freedom to maneuver in
the time, place, and domain of our choosing. That includes
land, sea, air, cyber, and space. We were working to do this at
speed, focusing on our core missions, and working closely with
this committee as we stand up this force.
As you know, space is a contested domain. Threats are
increasing, and adversaries are challenging our dominance.
China recently launched a hypersonic glide vehicle and a
fractional--in a fractional orbit, likely capable of delivering
weapons. If we can't track it, we can't defeat it. Russia's
recent anti-satellite test, which shattered a defunct Russian
satellite into thousands of pieces of debris, also threatened
the freedom of our forces to operate in the time and place of
our choosing.
Our adversaries are accelerating. This is not the time to
be slowing the development and fielding of modernized
capabilities for our forces. Please allow me to detail how a
long-term CR will hurt our ability to address these and other
threats.
A year-long, CR would reduce the Space Force's top line
budget by $2 billion, slowing modernization, decreasing
readiness, and impacting our ability to compete and deter with
China and Russia.
It would decrease research and development for resilient
missile warning and missile tracking. It would--and for space
domain awareness, protected satellite communications, and
precision navigation and timing, all of which are critical
capabilities that the Joint Force needs to operate effectively.
It would slow our ability to manage risk and inform future
force designs, delaying our ability to modernize to resilient
and more mission-capable architectures in the face of growing
threats.
It would cut the procurement of two of five planned
national security space launch missions, delaying our ability
to place previously acquired capability on orbit, and putting
at risk the cost savings of the National Space Launch Program.
It would cut--excuse me--it would cut 800 million intended
for development of classified operational systems designed to
deter China and Russia and respond if deterrence fails. And I
can fully describe these capabilities in a closed session.
And lastly, most important, it would break trust with our
guardians and their families. Because we were established as a
lean, mission-focused force, we continue to rely on the Air
Force's airmen and family programs to support our guardians.
General Brown will describe negative impacts to pay,
recruiting, retention, airman programs, all of which would have
long-term, lasting effects on our guardians, as--and their
families, as well.
A continuing resolution would undoubtedly have negative
impacts across the entirety of the Joint Force, but the effects
of the Space Force are particularly acute as we stand up. It
would seriously compromise our ability to enhance unity of
effort and efficiency, generate mission-ready forces, and
deliver the new capabilities that Joint Force needs to deter
and prevail.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Summary Statement of General Brown
Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much. We will now turn to
General Brown.
General Brown, please.
General Brown. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
Chair DeLauro, Ranking Member Granger, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify with Mr. McCord and my fellow service chiefs, and to
testify on behalf of the 689,000 total force airmen of your
United States Air Force.
As the Nation's 22nd Air Force chief of staff, I am humbled
to uphold my responsibility to ensure our airmen and our Air
Force remain the greatest in the world, both today and
tomorrow.
As I assumed my position, I wrote ``Accelerate Change or
Lose.'' Over the last 17 months I have made collaboration a
priority to enable acceleration. Back since August 2020, I have
engaged with Congress, Members and staffers, nearly 200 times,
because I believe we must work together on our Air Force's
future and our nation's security.
I am pleased that the fiscal year 2022 National Defense
Authorization Act made significant progress. But, as you
understand, the goals of this important policy would be
unrealized absent the dedicated service of this committee and
their counterparts to pass an appropriation bill.
Unfortunately, a year-long continuing resolution would
stall progress towards today's readiness and tomorrow's
modernization. The bottom line: it would have devastating
impacts on the Air Force's ability to retain quality airmen,
maintain our readiness, and modernize for tomorrow.
Specifically, we would lose $3.5 billion in purchasing
power if held to fiscal year 2021 budget levels. As much as
this affects the Air Force fiscally, the impact it has on our
way to change is more shattering. Time is irrecoverable, and
when you are working to keep pace against well-resourced and
focused competitors, time matters.
A year-long continuing resolution would hinder our airmen's
readiness, resilience, and retention. If held to fiscal year
2021 funding, the Air Force's military personnel account could
lose up to $1 billion.
Critical annual and professional military training will be
curtailed or cancelled.
Vital funding for airmen and guardian programs, programs
addressing sexual assault and harassment, suicide prevention,
diversity inclusion could also be eliminated at a time when
they are most needed.
Additionally, you could eliminate central incentive and
retention bonuses, eroding airmen's trust across current and
future eligible year groups.
The year-long CR could force reductions in our flying
program; weapon system sustainment; and facility sustainment,
restoration, and modernization accounts.
It can also slow down and/or freeze hiring of civilians,
all impacting Air Force capability, capacity, and readiness.
A year-long CR could impact billions of dollars in
worldwide military construction, 78 new start programs for
active guard and reserve components for programs such as the
Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, B-21, KC-46, F-35, F-16, and
the C-130.
Further, it will affect vital mission growth at the Air
Force bases in four states and international guard locations
across nine states.
Four areas of modernization I want to highlight are the
nuclear enterprise, advanced weapons, aerodynamics platforms
enterprise, information technology and structure. A year-long
CR could irreversibly delay Ground Based Strategic Deterrent
initial operating capability past 2029; long-range standoff
weapon by over a year; and the conventional initial operational
capability and nuclear certification of the B-21 up to a year.
Additionally, the advancement of our two conventional
hypersonic weapons could be prevented.
I would like to point out that our pacing challenges have
either modernized our nuclear enterprise and/or our fielding
hypersonic systems. Meanwhile, we are still in the beginning
phases of both. Funding for next generation air dominance, our
sixth generation aircraft system enabling future air
superiority, could be reduced.
Finally, vital funding to enterprise information technology
modernization could be eliminated, increasing network
vulnerability and impacting our contribution to joint all-
domain command and control infrastructure.
Although a year-long CR would decrease our funding, the
greater loss would be time, time that we could have spent
exploring today's readiness and tomorrow's modernization.
Meanwhile, our competitors' rate of change is enabling them to
approach parity with many of our warfighting capabilities and
concepts.
A year-long CR would further erode our advantage, and
impede the Air Force's acceleration towards the force of
tomorrow.
Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today, and I
look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Summary Statement of General Martin
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much, General Brown. And now we
will hear from General Martin.
Please, sir, the time is yours.
General Martin. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert,
Chair DeLauro, and Ranking Member Granger, and distinguished
members of the subcommittee, on the behalf of the Secretary of
the Army, the Honorable Christine Wormuth, and the chief of
staff of the Army, General James McConville, thank you for
inviting me here today to testify and discuss the impact of
continuing resolutions under Department of the Army.
And I also want to especially thank you for recognizing the
service of General Odierno. It is a huge loss.
The Army, by doctrine, is the Nation's initial response
force to emergent threats. Last year the Army contributed over
50 percent of the Joint Forces provided to combatant
commanders, and 66 percent of the composite directed readiness
table supporting operational planning requirements. This
included responding to and providing continued support through
the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, natural disasters,
supported our southern border, and security of the national
capital.
Total joint emergent costs to the fiscal year 2021 Global
Forest Management Allocation Plan were $2.8 billion, of which
the Army contributed $1.6 billion, or 56 percent of the total
emergent costs. The Army responded to these unforeseen
requirements, all while continuing to deter aggression abroad,
strengthen relationships with allies and partners, conduct
counterterrorism operations around the world, and maintain the
readiness of our soldiers and our DAC civilians in preparation
for the next mission, whatever that may be.
Simultaneously, to keep pace with any potential
adversaries, we are currently undergoing the most significant
transformation effort in the past 40 years to provide the Joint
Force with the most capable and lethal land army in the world.
The ability of the Army to accomplish these diverse tasks
wouldn't be possible without the support from Congress. And we
sincerely thank you for that. However, readiness is fragile,
and I can't emphasize enough how important, timely, adequate,
predictable, and sustained funding is to keeping the Army at
the highest state of readiness possible--because who knows what
tomorrow will bring?
Over the past 10 years, the Department of Defense has
started all but one fiscal year under a CR. Although we have
adapted our business practices to maneuver through this fiscal
uncertainty and the effects of the short-duration CRs, a full-
year CR would adversely affect our soldiers, our readiness, our
modernization program, and our infrastructure improvement
efforts.
Monetarily, we assess the total impact of the Army under a
year-long CR could be as high as $12.9 billion. The impact is
even larger when considering the effects of inflation. Included
in this number are misaligned funds, as well as a funding
spread across military pay, research and acquisition programs,
military construction projects, and family housing initiatives.
A few impacts to readiness include pilot readiness, due to
reduced aviation flying hours, also to base operations support,
and a decreased ability to send soldiers to professional
military education, and properly maintain proficiency in our
formations, and maintain the readiness of the equipment that
they use.
A full-year CR would severely impact our ability to
modernize to meet tomorrow's challenges. The combined effect of
delays in procurement and prototype advancement on top of a
disruption in timelines for development and construction of
critical Army and joint technologies may very well create a
cumulative impact to our modernization initiatives that would
be difficult to overcome. This includes potential impacts to
modernization of our organic industrial base.
In summary, a year-long CR would cause severe impacts to
the Army's ability to care for our soldiers and our families,
to our readiness and capability to respond to emerging
operational requirements, and to our ability to make the
necessary funding decisions required to modernize our force.
The Army strongly urges Congress to pass all fiscal 2022
appropriation bills to avoid the complex and undesirable
effects of a year-long CR.
Again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify
before you today, and I look forward to answering your
questions.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much, General Martin, and thank
you for stepping in.
Once again, I just want to reiterate, I truly believe it is
the wish, the desire, the commitment from our entire committee,
both sides of the aisle, not to have a year-long CR, and to get
our job done.
Before we turn to other member questions, I want to enter
into the record Secretary Austin's statement from December; as
well as a letter from several defense trade groups; a statement
from the Aerospace Industry Association; a letter from the
National Defense Industrial Association on the harmful impacts
a full-year CR would have on our national security.
So, without objection, those letters will be entered.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
LOSS OF FUNDING UNDER A CR
Ms. McCollum. Now I am going to turn to questions. And, as
has been the custom and usage, the ranking member and I
sometimes go a little over five minutes, so we haven't had a
timer on, but I do have the timer running on my iPhone, so I
don't abuse the opportunity that our other committee members
have given Mr. Calvert and I. And I am going to extend that
same courtesy to the full committee chair and to the full
committee ranking member when we start with questions.
I am going to start first.
And the top line of a full CR would technically stay the
same, as has been pointed out. But things like pay raises, and
inflation, along with funds that simply could not be spent in
2022, such as $3 billion for Afghan security forces, mean that
DoD and the services would actually face substantial cuts from
2021 to 2022. And you have had that in your testimony, but I
just want to reiterate it. A full, year-long CR is a cut, and
none of us on this subcommittee want that to happen in such a
callous way.
Additionally, the Department would lose out on the
substantial increase that would be negotiated by a full-year
omnibus bill.
I believe we would have a bill that we would all be proud
of, and would serve the service, as well.
Under Secretary McCord, I would like to ask you, does the
Department have an estimate as to how much funding would
essentially be lost under a full-year CR, due to cost increases
and funds that would not be spent?
Mr. McCord. We would estimate that the lost purchasing
power is more on the order of triple the $8 billion account
level only, for the reasons that you cite: the military
construction, the Afghanistan, other funds that some of the
witnesses have included in their testimony that are estimated
to be misaligned. It is very difficult to get a precise number
because you have to go down to a program level all across the
Department. But at the more general level, about triple the $8
billion.
IMPACT ON MODERNIZATION
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Generals and Admiral, in some of your testimony you
mentioned how this would really affect modernization and our
capabilities, vis a vis Russia and China, as well as our
inability to reduce funding for weapon systems that you would
prefer to ramp down spending on in 2022. Would any of you like
to take another minute to either re-emphasize or add to your
testimony on that?
General Martin. This is General Martin, vice chief of staff
of the Army. I will be happy to.
Ms. McCollum. Please, sir.
General Martin. Specifically as it pertains to
modernization, a year-long CR would delay modernization to
counter Russia, China, persistent threats, and impact our
industry partners and delay modernizing our industrial
facilities. There is second-, third-order effects when you talk
about supply chains and everything else.
But for new starts, we have 71 programs that will be
affected by a year-long CR. For procurement delays, we have 29.
And in developmental-based, procurement delays--those are
equipment that we planned on procuring--and then developmental
delays, research and development activities associated with
programs, there is 32 of them.
Additionally, there is an impact to the Army-owned
industrial facilities where we had planned on modernizing our
organic industrial base as part of a 15-year plan. And those
activities for this year would not be able to happen and would
subsequently be delayed, and so that would be deferred work.
But I tell you, it is a compounding effect because, Chair,
we also would have to next year reprioritize those projects,
which means that they could potentially bump another project.
So it is almost a double effect on the industrial base, and for
that matter, all those programs that I described.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Is there anyone else who briefly
would like to add something? We do have your full testimony, or
you can submit something for the record later.
General Brown. Chair McCollum, General Brown. We have so
many new starts for the Air Force, but I would highlight
particularly in our nuclear portfolio each of the key aspects,
GBSD, LRSO, B-21, will be delayed anywhere from a year up to 24
months. I would also add our next generation endowments were
delayed by about 2 years. It also impacted F-35 by a year.
And so it has a compounding impact just as General Martin
described, not just to us but also when you think about what
our adversary is doing and how they are pacing out, it is
important that we stay on track.
PAY INCREASE FOR MILITARY PERSONNEL
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And as Mr. McCord pointed out, all
of these delays will end up making things cost more, and it is
an inefficient use of taxpayer's dollars.
I am going to move on to the President's Pay Proposal, the
2.7 percent for all military personnel that went into effect on
January 1. The cost of the pay increase across the services is
more than $2 billion in 2022, and the military pay raise is
an--automatically went into effect at the start of the calendar
year.
Under a full continuing resolution, it is not budgeted for.
But for the record, both Democrats and Republicans on this
subcommittee fully support, and we have in my bill the cost
covered for the bill for the pay raise.
Could you speak briefly to what the military pay raise--by
doing that, how that is going to really impact you under a full
year? Because not only--some of you mentioned that they are
going to get the raise, but the other things that go along with
the job that they are looking forward to are going to be
delayed because of the CR, and how that would affect
recruitment and retention, which as was pointed out by General
Berger is very important to an all-voluntary Army.
Mr. McCord. Chair, let me just make a brief comment that
because this problem is pretty consistent across the services,
before I ask them to comment any other detail, exactly as you
state, by definition under a CR the amount in the personnel
accounts is flat, and so the pay raise costs have to be
absorbed.
The accounts themselves are flexible, but that doesn't mean
that we have good choices within that flexibility. We are going
to have to look at accessions, as have been mentioned, and PCS
moves for our troops is probably the first and least disruptive
things we could do.
And then, as some of the chiefs have mentioned, there is
other things that might be the next things that we would have
to do that are more distasteful--the bonuses. But, again,
within a flat account, we have to do something within the
personnel accounts to absorb costs and find some other way to
save money, and that is going to have to be impacting our
troops in another way.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. If any of you other gentlemen
would like to add something, that is fine, on that. Yes? Does
somebody wish to be recognized?
General Raymond. Chair McCollum, this is General Raymond.
Ms. McCollum. General Raymond, you are recognized.
General Raymond. One of the biggest benefits that we have
realized after establishing the Space Force is our ability to
attract incredible talent. This talent is highly technical, it
is highly educated, and it is sought after. And they have other
options.
And if we enter into this delay and have to do reduced
accessions and put hiring freezes in place to help pay for the
much-needed and deserved pay raise, they are going to go to
other places, and those are people that we will not be able to
get back.
So to do that, we are going to have to come up with ways,
as discussed, putting hiring freezes in place potentially,
reducing accessions, cutting PCS travel. It is going to impact
not just guardians but also their families.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. And I think you all did a great
job of mentioning that.
With that, I am going to turn it over to Ranking Member
Calvert with the notion that I had--I was 6 minutes and--well,
I am going to round up. I was about 7 minutes, so that is going
to be the max for the next three questioners. Mr. Calvert.
CHINA AND TAIWAN
Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair. And for the record, I
would like to simply say that BCA was certainly a disaster for
the Department of Defense. And, two, no one wants to see--and I
know you don't, I don't, most responsible people don't--and we
all want to get this done by February 18. I think that is--I
think that is the very latest we need to get this done.
So I am going to emphasize again lets strip these poison
pills. Lets put the legacy riders back in, and lets just talk
about numbers, higher defense number, lower non-defense
discretionary account.
Let me define ``pay raise'' as we talk about that.
Obviously, the pay raise that we are anticipating is really a
down payment on inflation, because let's face it, we are not
keeping pace with inflation with a 7 percent inflation rate and
rising. We may end up with 8 to 10 percent inflation in the
next--in the next year according to some economists.
So let me get to what is happening to Department of Defense
spending. It is no secret this hearing is, obviously, on an
unclassified level. It is broadcast on the internet. There is
no doubt that our enemies are watching at the present time.
While we are frozen, unable to properly provide for our
Nation's defense, our adversaries are planning to react
accordingly.
Admiral Gilday, please give this committee your assessment
of probable Chinese activity regarding Taiwan over the next
year, and what an invasion of the island would mean for America
and its allies.
Admiral Gilday. Ranking Member Calvert, thank you. I
mentioned up front in my comments that what the CR does--what
the CR yields for the Nation is a smaller, less ready, less
capable, less lethal Navy. We need to be forward to matter. We
need to be in the way to matter. That means we need to be in
the Western Pacific, and we need to be there in numbers.
And so, being able to sustain the numbers that the
INDOPACOM commander needs on a day-to-day basis, both Navy and
Marine forces, as well as the other services, is going to be
challenged by cuts to our operation--operations and maintenance
accounts.
I would also say that there is some risk there when we talk
about--for example, one of the chiefs talked about cuts to
flying hours. With that usually comes an increase in mishap
rate. So, the less you train, the more likely you are to make
mistakes. And so, there is compounding problems here that we
are going to have to deal with.
But I think--you know, I also talked about the fact that
this makes us a less credible--or presents the less credible
deterrent to any type of opportunistic behavior by Russia and
China. And it is not just China in the South China Sea and the
Taiwan Strait, but we just have to look east right now to what
is going on on the Russia-Ukrainian border and the potential
for significant activity there as well.
READINESS OF THE U.S. ARMY
Mr. Calvert. Yes. I was--I am glad you brought that up,
Admiral. I was going to ask General Martin to give the
committee his assessment on probable Russian activity regarding
Ukraine over the next few months and what further invasion into
the country would mean, again, for America and its allies,
especially the first ground war since the end of World War II.
General Martin. Congressman, thank you. What I will tell
you is we are in the business of making sure that never
happens. And so, to do that, we need predictable, adequate,
timely, and sustained funding over time. And in order to do
that, we have got to have soldiers who are ready today for
tomorrows challenges.
Who knew that we would be conducting the NEO operation out
of Afghanistan last year? Who knew that we would be in Ethiopia
this year? Who knew that we would be doing Operation Allies
Welcome? Those are all expressions of the Army's ability to
provide ready forces to respond to things that happened in the
world. As it pertains to securing this Nation's interests, we
need a ready Army. And so, we need that consistent, predictable
funding in order to be able to do that.
For our readiness accounts, we have asked for more money in
2022 in many of the sub-activity groups that we did in 2021. We
won't be able to use that money to do that, and so our units as
we speak, in month 4 of a 12-year budget, are executing their
training, but it is not at the level that we planned on doing
because we don't have all of the funding that we should have
gotten with the 2022 budget. Even right now, if we stop the CR
today, there has been a 4-month impact in the United States
Army.
There is also the supply chain that provides parts to our
forces that is impacted by this, because they expected to
execute so many--so much operational activity this year. And
with that decrease, there is an impact on our ability to
forecast sales within the working capital fund and make
contracts between that entity and contractors and suppliers
across this country.
And so it is a huge impact when we can't predict accurately
exactly how much money we are going to have and we change what
we are planning to do, because we are all about building
readiness of the United States Army, Congressman.
ADAPTING TO CURRENT THREAT ENVIRONMENT
Mr. Calvert. Thank you. Lastly, General Brown, as Patton
famous referred to Rommel, I read the book, and I read, in the
process of reading your book, ``Accelerate Change or Lose.'' We
are clearly not accelerating, so what is stake? And how our
adversaries are taking advantage of our inability to adapt to
the current threat environment, especially in space?
General Brown. Well, I will actually probably have to defer
to General Raymond on space. But I will just tell you from an
Air Force perspective, the thing I do think about, Ranking
Member Calvert, is the aspect of how our adversaries are
increasing their capability puts us at a disadvantage. And by
slowing down our pace of acquiring capability, maintaining our
readiness, taking care of our airmen and families, has an
impact to be able to--be able to deter, so we don't get in the
situation that General Martin just described vis-a-vis Russia
and Ukraine.
I will just--if you don't mind, I will turn to General
Raymond on space.
General Raymond. On the space capability, so we remain the
best in the world in space. We have got incredible, exquisite
capabilities, but they were built for a different domain. They
are built for a benign domain without a threat. The domain that
we see today is threatened, from a full spectrum of threats,
everything from reversible jamming to kinetic destruction, as
demonstrated by Russia. We have to modernize. We have to make
that shift, and we are losing time.
That is why this--not having a CR is so critical to us. We
have to move out and modernize, a more resilient, defendable
architecture that can meet the demands of a contested domain.
Mr. McCord. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Mr. Calvert. I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. And, Mr. Calvert, you and I were right in the
sweet spot with the same amount of time.
Now I will turn to full chair of the Appropriations
Committee, Ms. DeLauro.
RECRUITMENT AND RETAINMENT
The Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I wanted to make a comment first before my questions. The
debate over riders is going to occur. And as far as I know
about negotiating, an ultimatum is not--is not negotiating. As
has happened in the past, there will be a very robust debate
around policy issues and riders.
And, you know, the fact is, I may not get everything that I
want, and you might not get everything that you want. But that
is about a negotiation, and that means that you need to come to
the table to have that conversation.
And as I said, to date, there has not been a single piece
of paper outlining what it is that our colleagues on the other
side of the aisle would like. There has to be a discussion,
especially--and looking at why would we jeopardize our national
security. There has already been a 4-month delay, and as has
been described, causing serious consequences and our
adversaries gaining an advantage.
And with that, let me ask those who have not really
addressed the issue of the importance of recruiting and
retraining, and in order to recruit and to retain the best
fighting force, when we talk about military readiness--and each
of the services faces a unique challenge on the military
personnel side, whether you have got a pilot shortage or
appropriately manning shifts.
So how would--and I want to ask those who have not answered
this year--how would a full year CR impact the services, your
services ability to recruit and to retain the force you need to
meet the challenges that our Nation is facing?
Ms. McCollum. I am glad you are being respectful of one
another. So whoever would like to go first.
Ms. McCollum. That is right. Don't be shy.
General Berger. Ma'am, this is General Berger.
Ms. McCollum. Yes.
General Berger. I think probably for us it is no different
than the other services. If you have a fixed bank account and
you have the force that you have, and inflation has gone up and
you have a pay raise, then you are going to slow down
recruiting. And what does that mean? That means that the
recruiter in Iowa or Colorado or Pennsylvania is going to have
to tell the people that they are working with, ``I can't bring
you onto--I can't bring you onto active duty. I can't recruit
you now. Can you please wait 8, 10, 12 months, and then we can
bring you on.''
And as my peers mentioned, of course they can't wait. They
are going to--if they need jobs, they are going to go look for
work elsewhere. So they are very--the war for talent, that is
the world today. They are not going to wait, just as General
Raymond said.
So I think the recruiter--at the recruiter level, at the
bottom level, they are going to try to hold on to their pool
and tell them to wait, wait, wait, and those--the high school
graduates, the college graduates, are not going to be able to
wait.
So a year from now, in other words, when we do have
appropriations and we can afford to start recruiting in the
numbers we need, the quality won't be there. So the recruiters
will have to look in a different direction to fill the ranks,
the holes that we have.
Retention I think will be the same way. If we have to go
the route of bonuses, if we start to affect retention, then the
same war for talent exists for those who have 6, 7, 10 years of
experience. They will leave. They will leave because they have
to support their families, and they need some confidence that
their employer has their back and is going to compete in that
market. If that is not the case, they will leave.
And I will turn it over to my other peers.
Admiral Gilday. Ma'am, this is Admiral Gilday. If I can
just also tie together accessions and retention real quick. As
Secretary McCord mentioned, the way we are going to pay for
that 2.7 percent pay raise is through cutting accessions,
cutting reenlistment bonuses, incentive bonuses, and also by
reducing permanent change of station moves.
So for the Navy, we have got about 145,000 sailors at sea.
Over the past year--a year ago, we had 10,000 of those billets
that were gap. We have been able to cut that down by more than
half, so about 3 percent of our billets at sea right now are
gap and we adjusted to make up for that.
If we cut our accessions by 75 percent--that is 23,000
sailors--we are again going to exacerbate that gap at sea in a
place where we need it least. At the same time, we are trying
to entice sailors--our best sailors--to stay in the Navy, but
we are cutting those--and their families. We are not just
retaining sailors; we are retaining families. We are going to
have to cut reenlistment bonuses, incentive bonuses, to keep
the best in. That is also going to exacerbate those gaps at
sea, again, where we need those people the most at the tip of
the spear.
And then, with respect to PCS moves, so we are going to
reduce those by we think around 37,000, which is about half of
our moves the next year. Those are families--as the Commandant
so eloquently articulated earlier in his comments, there are
people that have already taken jobs, spouses that have already
planned on taking jobs, school plans that have been made that
are going to have to be--that are going to have to be
curtailed, and then we, again, risk breaking faith with our
sailors and their families.
Thanks for the opportunity, ma'am.
ROTC AND TRAINING
General Martin. Chair, may I say a couple things, too?
The Chair. Please, yes. Thank you, General.
General Martin. So I agree with everything that General
Berger and Admiral Gilday said. These are measures that we may
have to do in the United States Army, but I can tell you that
there is a couple of things I know for sure that are going to
happen as a result of this. And, once again, we have got 8
months left in the year. We have got to watch things very
closely, prioritize, but God forbid if we have to do it.
But we are going to bring in a full cohort of our second
lieutenants out of ROTC and West Point. But as it pertains to
ROTC, about 25 percent of them are not going to start their
initial entry training as officers until the beginning of the
fiscal year because we won't have enough MTSA funding--this is
funding used to travel to professional military education--
available.
Additionally, one of those sub-activity groups I talked
about with the misaligned OMA resources is one that pertains to
funding basic training. And so we have got a $10.2 million
reduction that is going to lead to a degradation of the quality
of our basic training, and we see that as significant because
of how important initial entry training is.
But those are the two additions I wanted to make to the
previous statements from my other fellow colleagues.
The Chair. Thank you.
LONG TERM IMPACT ON AIR FORCE
General Brown. And, Chair DeLauro, I will just make one
additional comment. I think the thing that--we talked about
some of the near-term impacts. But when we--for the Air Force,
it will be about 50 percent of our accessions, but you will see
that it is not just the near term, it is the long term, because
you will have a bathtub of airmen who will not be here who had
a 20-year career. And that is something we have got to pay
attention to as well anytime we have these types of delays and
accessions.
Thank you.
The Chair. Is there anyone that we missed in terms of
asking that--answering that question?
If not, thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. I am looking at the layout here to see if
maybe she is just muted here. Ms. Granger, it is your time for
questions. We cannot hear you, however.
CHINA AND A LONG-TERM CR
Ms. Granger. Okay. We are fixing that.
Ms. McCollum. It is good now. You magically fixed it.
Ms. Granger. One thing that I want to start out with is I
think there is a misunderstanding about where have been. We are
not saying we want a continuing resolution. We are saying, how
do we get this done?
But it concerns me we gave you an offer. Just because you
didn't like the offer it doesn't mean that we didn't give an
offer. We did. And then it has just stopped. And so a way
forward is to get back together and say, ``All right. How do we
work this out?'' But I am concerned that there is a
misunderstanding about the offer that we had and a way forward.
The Chair. Madam Chair, in fact there has not been an
offer, so I have to correct the record.
Ms. McCollum. There has not been an offer of money on the
table. That is correct.
Ms. Granger, do you have a question?
Ms. Granger. My first question--every member of this
subcommittee is greatly concerned about China's rapid military
modernization. Could each of the services share how a long-term
CR would inhibit our ability to compete with adversaries like
China? Are they still available?
Ms. McCollum. They are still available. I haven't been
calling on them. They have been kind of volunteering on their
own. Does someone--I am a former substitute high school
teacher. I can start calling on you, gentlemen, if--or Ms.----
General Martin. I will go first, Chair, if you would like.
Ms. McCollum. Certainly. Good to see you, Mr. Martin.
General Martin. Okay. As it pertains to China, it is the
same as Russia. It is the same for any adversary that is
threatening the security of this Nation. A long-term CR will
impact our ability to provide ready forces today, make sure
that we can take care of our soldiers and their family members,
and our civilians, and the infrastructure and the ecosystem
that surrounds them.
It will impact our ability to modernize. For the Army, it
is 71 new start programs, 29 procurement delays, 32
developmental delays, and several items in the organic
industrial base that we will not be able to modernize.
It impacts our ability to compete today and compete
tomorrow. And so a long-term CR has a significant impact on the
United States Army.
Thank you.
Ms. Granger. Thank you.
General Brown. Ranking Member Granger, General Brown from
the Air Force. I would highlight that, you know, when I think
about particularly the PRC and what we have seen them do over
the course of the past several months in relation to their
nuclear portfolio, this has an impact on--a year-long CR
impacts our nuclear portfolio by delaying GBSD by a year, LRSO
by 18 to 24 months, B-21 by about a year, and the modernization
of the B-52 by a year as well.
I would also add to that the--it will slow down the F-35 by
about a year, which will be very important to any type of
deterrence and/or capability. I would say the same thing within
GAT. It would delay it for at least 2 years.
And so, what you see is a series of capabilities that would
actually provide us the advantage, ensure we maintain at least,
you know, advantage, if not parity, in certain key warfighting
capabilities and concepts, and a year-long CR actually allows
our adversary just to continue their acceleration while we are,
I would say, stuck in neutral.
Thank you.
General Raymond. I would--this is General Raymond from the
Space Force. I would add, as it relates to China, China has
gone from 0 to 60 in space. They are moving at incredible
speeds, and doing two things: one, building space capabilities
for their own use, to have that same advantage that we
currently enjoy; and, two, developing capabilities to deny us
our access.
As I mentioned in my opening comment, we view our ability
to provide space capabilities and the advantage that they
provide to our joint forces a sacred duty. And you can't take
that for granted anymore. A continuing resolution is going to
impact our ability to modernize our forces to be--to be there.
And the face of a growing threat will reduce our readiness and
will hinder long-term impacts to our guardians and their
families.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Anyone else wishing to comment?
General Berger. Just perhaps one or two things building on
what my peers have stated. We are going to treat--we are going
to treat it like probably a surgeon would treat a patient--in
other words, triage. You have to put the forces forward to
handle a crisis of the moment. You are going to take risk in
areas that this budget--the increase of research and
development, things like that--your peers are going to--your
peers are going to go ahead--the competition is going to make
that investment; you are not.
So in terms of relative pace, they are going to move
forward quickly because they are stealing our technology, plus
they are investing fully in research and development. We will
be at--we will be flat, and we cannot make that up. That
research and development time lost, you can't make that up with
money a year from now. That is time lost, cannot catch up,
because the laboratories, research and development, you just
can't accelerate it but so much.
I think we approached it like you would a patient. We will
have the least ready when the Nation--the most ready when the
Nation is least ready. We will put that forward. We will hold
the door best we can, and we will fall farther behind in areas
where we should be at least at parity and should be--and
actually should be in front. That is where we will pay a price.
We can't--we will not be able to catch up.
Admiral Gilday. Ma'am, this is Admiral Gilday. Adding on to
the--to what the other chiefs have said, they are accelerating;
we are decelerating, right? So in areas where we want to--we
want to close on known gaps with China--as an example,
hypersonics would be a really good example of that, right? The
Army wants to field a system in 2023. The Navy wants to follow
along with that same system, shipboard-based, in 2025. We are
going to slow that program down if we can't move money around
to keep it alive.
Another area--another area where we want to--where we have
overmatch right now and we want to maintain that overmatch
would be in the undersea, right? And so, we want to keep on
building submarines, and the submarines that we have we want to
be able to continue to maintain them, to sustain them.
Based on the year-long CR, we will delay doing maintenance
on 10 percent of our submarine force. That is five submarines.
We are not going to do maintenance on them. We are going to
move it. We are going to push that down the road. We know what
the cost has been to that in the past, and we are going to do
it again.
We are going to do the same thing with two aircraft
carriers. We need those carriers in the water, and we need them
forward, and we need them fully maintained. But we are going to
stop that.
In areas where we have gaps we are trying to catch up,
another good example would be weapons with range and speed.
That is where we are putting money, but we are going to slow
that down, in important areas where those gaps are going to be
exacerbated as the Chinese continue, as General Berger said, to
do their R&D and increase their production lines.
And I will pause there.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Thank you all very much.
Next we have up Mr. Ryan, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Cuellar, and Mr.
Cole. Mr. Ryan?
M1 ABRAMS PRODUCTION
Mr. Ryan. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. And the 5-minute clock will start.
Mr. Ryan. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate
the opportunity.
Just a quick comment. You know, all of the discussions
around the budget and the appropriations in the context of us
trying to compete and outcompete China, to me it is very, very
clear that these conversations we are having around defense
technology are critically important, but there is no way you
outcompete China when our kids are going to McDonald's to
download their homework because they don't have access to
quality internet. There is no way we are going to be able to
outcompete them if they are producing 600,000 STEM graduates
per year, and we are producing 60, and that is why the
investments that we are trying to make here are critical for us
to be able to out-compete them.
We are just not going to out-compete China by cutting taxes
for the top one percent and hoping that somehow some way we are
going to have 330 million people healthy, educated, skilled,
and innovative to take them on. It is just not going to happen.
We tried it for 30 or 40 years.
So to me there has got to be a whole-of-government
approach, and I think it is important for us to keep that in
mind.
I have got a couple questions that are local to Ohio that I
would love to get answers to. One of them is the procurement of
additional M1A2 SEPV 3 systems. The M1 Abrams tank provides the
lethality and sophistication necessary to counter Russia and
the Chinese Communist Party. Their third-generation platforms
enhance readiness to our military, while providing economic
stability to the State of Ohio.
And the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio,
provides nearly 1,000 jobs within the local community,
generates millions of dollars in economic growth, and involves
over 700 different Ohio-based suppliers in the manufacturing
process.
And the provisions of the FY 2022 Defense bill would
procure 70 additional tanks and variants and strengthen our
ability to counter near peer adversaries. So this is a critical
thing that I am really worried about with the CR.
I would like to ask General Martin what role does this
funding instability and unpredictability play in your
resourcing decisions on programs like the Abrams upgrade.
What are the strategic implications of delaying
manufacturing as the result of the CR?
And additionally, I know Poland announced plans for FMS
procurement of 250 tanks to counter Russia aggression within
the region. Can you provide an update for the status of that
request?
General Martin. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
What I can tell you comparing 2021 and 2022, there will be
no significant impact to our plan to produce the Abrams SEPV 3
vehicles, A2 SEPV 3 vehicles at JSMC.
I can also tell you that we are not anticipating any CR
related impact to the workforce.
There is an impact that I would like to discuss that I
think is worthy of your awareness, and that is we had two
organic industry-based improvement projects planned for 2022
that would start in 2022. They are new starts, and so they will
have to be delayed by a year and then compete against other
demands across the board.
But it was to modernize some of the infrastructure, to
support not only tank but also Stryker production, but also to
improve the heating and cooling system, the HVAC system. So
those will have to be delayed.
As it pertains to Poland, we are in the process of talking
to Poland, and we are looking how we can best meet their needs.
Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. Ryan. I am sorry. You are breaking up there, General.
What was that you said at the end about Poland?
General Martin. We are in the process, and we are
discussing this with them. We are considering the best way to
meet their needs. That is where we are at right now,
Congressman.
YOUNGSTOWN AIR RESERVE STATION
Mr. Ryan. Okay. Thank you.
A couple of question that are very local in nature at the
Youngstown Air Reserve Station for our friends in the Air
Force. We had $8.7 million to expand the Air Reserve Station
assault strip, which provides infrastructure to support C-17
and C-130 aircraft, which is critical to maintaining readiness,
as you know.
How would the CR impact the viability of the Air Station
and its operational capabilities should the infrastructure
project be delayed further?
And then also, the issue with the C-130J platform
integration. We have been talking about this for years, and as
you know, the C-130J platform provides additive capabilities,
enhancing the system's aerial capabilities in support of its
global mission.
The 2021 Defense bill provided two C-130J platforms and
secure four additional platforms. How does any further delay in
that procurement of C-130J aircraft affect the specialized
mission of the 910th Airlift Wing and their aerial spray
mission and the longevity of YARS as a combat multiplier?
Ms. McCollum. Sir, you have about a minute to answer that
great question from Mr. Ryan.
General Brown. Sure. The assault runway project, it does
impact the training not just for Youngstown but really for a
number of training units around the Northeast. The challenged
area is we will not gain net savings as far as fuel and time
distance for training.
At the same time it would increase construction cost that
will be an issue. It will just be more expensive in the long
run.
On the second question here, with the continuing
resolution, what happens if you do not have enough C-130s to
actually start another basing action, whether it is there at
Youngstown with the great mission they do or anyplace else just
based on the CR not having enough C-130s to actually start a
basing action going forward.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Ryan. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Certainly. Mr. Rogers, you are now
recognized, and after Mr. Rogers it will be Mr. Cuellar, Mr.
Cole, and then Mrs. Bustos.
Mr. Rogers, you are recognized as the former chair of this
subcommittee.
Remarks of Mr. Rogers
Mr. Rogers. Well, I thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for
holding the hearing.
Let me apologize to the witnesses who this hearing required
them to spend valuable hours doing research. We all know what
the answer is. I mean, as appropriators, especially members of
this Defense Subcommittee, we know that the CR is not good for
the military, Exhibit A.
It comes as no surprise that their testimony will say that
CRs are not good for the country, bad for our service members.
They are bad for our readiness, for research, development, for
the procurement of new systems, for our industrial base, and
everything in between.
CRs hurt our national security. We all know that. So why
have a hearing on something that we all know should be
admitted.
So this hearing was called to score political points, try
to bring pressure on the Republican side of the aisle that this
would harm the military.
Well, surely it does, but it is the Democrats who are in
charge and causing it, including taking all of this valuable
time from very important people to tell us what we already
know.
It is surprising and, honestly, it is disappointing. So I
apologize to all of you in the Pentagon who are being used as
pawns in these budget negotiations, and I can certainly think
of better uses of your time and ours.
So thank you for all your lifetimes of service. Rest
assured that we share the same goal, preventing another CR.
Let's be clear, Madam Chair, that the framework for success
in this business we are in has always been no poison pills in
these bills and restore legacy riders.
I have been at this a long time. So let's not have any
revisionist history. This is what we have always done. You are
not doing so far on this bill. This is about decreasing
domestic spending and increasing defense spending.
So, Madam Chair, that is all I have, and I yield back.
Remarks of Chair McCollum
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
And you know how much I do respect you, but this was not my
effort to take political shots. This was my effort to quash
those who are talking about yearlong CRs. No one, no one on the
Appropriations Committee is. Yet you see things in the news,
and unfortunately, sir, it is usually from your side of the
aisle.
And I will quote again, and it is a December 1st quote, and
I can get you the person who said it. ``Republicans should be
in favor of a CR until Biden is out of office.'' So they are
not even talking about a one-year CR. ``That would be the
proper Republican thing to do, and anybody saying otherwise is
deeply foolish.''
I know, you and I, sir, do not agree with that sentiment,
and my goal here is to educate other members who do not
understand the appropriations process as well as you and I and
many other of our colleagues that we serve alongside with.
So I understand your frustration, but I want to be clear
what my intent was, and I wanted that on the record.
Mr. Cuellar.
SERVICES STRATEGIES TO MINIMIZE EFFECTS OF A CR
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And to all our witnesses, thank you for being here with us.
You know, we do not like CRs. We do not want to see a CR.
We want to make sure that we, as appropriators, I think both
sides want to make sure that we do our work and ask the money.
But the military has operated under CRs in the past, short-
term CRs, but it is operated under CRs. Are there any
strategies that any of the services plan to implement to
minimize the effects of the CRs on our ability to maintain the
readiness of our troops?
You know, we learned some lessons. We do not want to see
another CR. I think none of us here want to see another CR,
definitely not a yearlong CR, but are there any lessons learned
that we have taken from past CRs?
Mr. McCord. Congressman, let me just open with saying we
have, as a number of members have stated, we have a lot of
experience sadly now with CRs. So we certainly have some
lessons learned.
But in general, there is no strategy to combat math, right?
If you do not have enough money, you cannot operate the way you
need to. You cannot pay the troops more pay rates with the same
amount of money and not have an impact come out some other way.
So, yes, we have adapted on the contracting side, and we
are thinking about prioritization. You have heard some of the
Chiefs mention, ``I would probably have to do A and do B and do
C,'' but again, this is fundamentally a math problem.
IMPACT ON ENLISTED PERSONNEL
Mr. Cuellar. Okay. Let me ask this question. So we are
looking at the CR from our perspective, high level perspective.
Tell me from your experience--and this applies to General
Martin or anybody--tell me how that affects an enlisted person
on a day-to-day basis under a CR.
General Martin. Congressman, thank you.
So let's talk about someone that is at Fort Bliss, Texas,
and they had planned to execute multi-echelon training and were
unable to execute multi-echelon training because the resources
were not there. We had to take the training, and we had to take
it a level or two down from where it was.
So where they were going to gain a certain amount of
proficiency doing their military occupational specialty under
the conditions of a multi-echelon training environment, they
are not going to have that opportunity to do that.
In the Army, we are not going to turn off the Combat
Training Center rotation because of the CR, but we are going to
have to take a hard look at what multi-echelon training we are
doing at home station, places where we build readiness each and
every day.
And of course, as it pertains to that soldier, take that
soldier 18 months from now. Because of the impact of the
metered funding and the less than anticipated funding going
into our supply chain, there is going to be an impact on our
ability to provide that soldier a part on his vehicle 18 months
from now that we would have been able to today if we had
predictable funding because of the lagged effect it will have
on the industry base and its ability to produce those parts for
our soldiers of the future.
REPROGRAMMING AFGHANISTAN FUNDS
Mr. Cuellar. General, thank you so much. I appreciate that
impact on the enlisted soldier down there, whether it is Fort
Bliss or Joint Base San Antonio, wherever it might be, or
somewhere close to Carter, John Carter's areas, Fort Hood also.
Let me before I close because I have got a little over a
minute, you know, I lost one of my constituents, Lance Corporal
David Lee Espinosa in Afghanistan in a part of the 13 soldiers
who got killed at the very end.
The fiscal year appropriations had certain funds toward
Afghanistan operations, and maybe you all have answered this,
but if you do not mind repeating this again. What are those
funds going to be used for now?
What is the reprogramming of those funds?
What are the priorities that we are looking at if there is
a yearlong CR?
Mr. McCord. Congressman, the funding to support the Afghan
military, the so-called ASFF training, those funds are
basically not usable now because there are no, you know, Afghan
forces that meet the legal standards. So that money would
basically be something that if your committee writes a full
year bill, I would anticipate you would take all of that money
and redistribute it to other needs. But we are unable to do
that for you or with you under a CR.
Of course, there are reductions in other areas because we
have less presence ourselves within the Army's account in
particular, but those things focused specifically on
Afghanistan are just that money is sort of sitting there frozen
and not useful because we do not have enough transfer authority
to move all of that to other needs.
Mr. Cuellar. All right. Thank you.
Madam Chair, thank you so very much. Thank you to the
witnesses.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
We are going to have Mr. Cole go next. After him, Mrs.
Bustos, Mr. Womack, and then Mrs. Kirkpatrick.
I recognize my friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr.
Cole.
Remarks of Mr. Cole
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
And I want to begin by associating myself with the comments
of Ranking Member Granger and Ranking Member Calvert in terms
of their concerns. I think Representative Calvert put it pretty
well when he said, look, the outline of the deal here is pretty
obvious. The defense number has got to go up. The domestic
number has got to come down to some degree. The poison bill has
got to go out. Hyde has to go back in. And I think we all know
that.
And I want to commend the Chairwoman of the full committee
because nobody has worked harder to try and get everybody
around the table with our chairwoman, and nobody has been more
aggressive about trying to be tough on date lines than our
chairwoman, you know, trying to restrict the time, trying to
make sure that we got this done in a timely fashion so that the
folks at the Pentagon and every other agency of government
could plan and use the resources we give them wisely.
So I have got very little criticism for this subcommittee,
none for the subcommittee, frankly, very little for our full
committee.
I will say this as a suggestion before I get to my
questions. This well may be beyond us, Madam Chair. We may
need, number one, the leadership of both parties to sit down
and engage with both the House and the Senate.
I know they have got a lot of different responsibilities,
but I think their big one is funding the government, and I
would say the same thing, with all due respect, and I mean this
respectfully, for the President and the administration.
The President has been a pretty busy guy. He got some
things done, the COVID relief bill, the infrastructure bill. He
is working on things now he is not having as much success on,
you know, changing the filibuster, voting legislation, Build
Back Better bill.
Maybe he needs to focus on funding the government that he
has, and maybe we need a White House convention here because
some of these decisions transcend this committee. This
subcommittee has very little to do with Hyde, you know, but
Hyde certainly is going to impact our ability to get our job
done.
So we are going to have to get some people above our level
engaged in the process, and the President at the end of the day
is the Commander in Chief, is responsible for the military, and
we need some focus here, not on some of these other agendas
that, frankly, are stalling out right now.
MAINTENANCE OF AGING AIR FLEET
Now, in terms of this specific hearing, let me ask a couple
of questions. I want to go first to General Brown, if I may.
I am fortunate enough to have Tinker Air Force Base in my
district, and I know how important logistics are and just the
maintenance of what you have. So I would like to ask you what a
CR would do.
Number 1, we are expanding capabilities down there for the
KC-46 and for other potential missions looking ahead we might
pick up.
And then, No. 2, just the day-to-day maintenance of what is
frankly an aging air fleet, you know, what will a CR do in
terms of your ability to take care of those kinds of problems?
General Brown. Thank you, Representative Cole.
And specifically, very broadly, the CR will have a number
of challenges for a number of our depots and really reference
system sustainment accounts which will also be impacted.
When you think really about Tinker, one of the things when
I had a chance to visit there was the site for the KC-46
aspects for the depot. That will be one of those that will not
get done if we had a yearlong CR, and that will get delayed,
which would impact our being able to sustain that particular
platform.
I think the other aspect when you look at WSS and our
depots, you have this aging fleet that we do have. It does also
impact the workforce. If you do not have the funding there to
balance that workforce to actually go against the platforms we
are trying to work through, in addition to the parts and the
spares and supply chain.
All of those things kind of come together to have an
impact, and then the other part of a CR also offers the
investment not only with the Air Force, but also with the
industry partners and the small businesses and vendors that
help support us.
They do not have a predictable funding flow, and so you do
not bring on the workforce. You do not bring on the parts, and
it just slows everything down for us. It will have a huge
impact on our readiness across the Air Force.
And then a lot of that will end up going on the backs of
our airmen, and we do not want that because then it becomes a
retention issue. So there are compounding impacts with the
yearlong CR.
Thank you.
IMPACT ON MODERNIZATION OF TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES
Mr. Cole. I appreciate that very much.
Madam Chair, I may be out of time. If not, I have got a
quick question for General Martin, which he partly covered
earlier.
Ms. McCollum. Thirty seconds. Go for it.
Mr. Cole. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I also am privileged to have Fort Sill in my district and a
couple of the modernization missions that have been laid out by
the Army are based there.
General Martin, from a modernization standpoint, and I know
we are in a very serious contest with near peer adversaries,
what would a CR do in terms of setting back your efforts to
have the force ready to deal with, God forbid, you know, the
kinds of adversaries that we have not fought in a long time,
that have armor, that have air forces, that have comparable
technical capabilities to what the United States military has?
General Martin. Congressman, it is good seeing you again
and thank you for the question.
I will try to put this as simply as I could. You know, our
Chief of Staff of the Army, General McConville, stated
previously that we have got 24 of our 31 plus for-signature
programs that are going to be in some form or fashion in the
hands of soldiers, whether it is in an operational testing
environment, a soldier touch point, or actually fielding it.
Twenty-four of those programs will be out there by 2023.
Well, without the funding that would be associated with the
restraint to the CR, 19 of those 24 programs will be impacted.
The timing of those programs will be impacted.
So, that is a huge impact, and once again, as my colleagues
have all said so aptly, you cannot get back time, but it is
also the resources that we could have spent this year we are
going to have to spend next year, which means it is twice the
cost.
And so it is a huge impact on our modernization and
maintaining our ability to compete in the future.
Thank you.
Mr. Cole. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. Mrs. Bustos, Mr. Womack, then Mrs.
Kirkpatrick, and Mr. Carter.
And I have to step out for a minute. So Mr. Cuellar has the
gavel.
Mrs. Bustos.
[Mr. Cuellar presiding.]
ARMY ACQUISITIONS AND RESEARCH PROGRAMS
Mrs. Bustos. Yes, thank you very much, Madam Chair.
And I also want to thank you and the ranking member for
having this hearing today.
I want to thank our witnesses as well for your service and
your leadership and certainly during these uncertain times.
Obviously, whether we are Democrats or Republicans, we can
all agree that national security is critical to all of us, and
funding the Department of Defense reliably and on time is
something that I think we all know is desirable.
Let me start if I could please with General Martin.
I would like to ask you a question about modernization
efforts at the Army.
In the congressional district that I serve in Illinois, we
are home to the Rock Island Arsenal, and as you know, that sits
on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River between the
States of Iowa and Illinois.
And the arsenal is home to the Army's Center of Excellence
for additives and advanced manufacturing. And right now the
Center of Excellence is working on really just some amazing new
research into the next generation combat vehicle, and it will
soon be home to the world's largest metal 3D printer that is
actually being manufactured in the northern part of our
congressional district out of Rockford.
So that will go from Rockford being manufactured and then
come down to the Quad Cities.
But this program is critical to the future of the arsenal
and we believe also to the future of the Army.
So, General Martin, if you could, share your thoughts about
how a yearlong continuing resolution would impact major
acquisitions and research programs within the Army and any
thoughts that you have specific to the Rock Island Arsenal as
well.
General Martin. Congresswoman, I am not tracking any direct
impact to Rock Island Arsenal, but what I will tell you is it
is a great example of the need and our executing a long-term
organic industrial-based modernization program so that we can
meet the needs of the future.
That being said, there are other organic industrial-based
modernization efforts that we are planning on doing this year,
but will not be able to do it because we will not be able to
use the 2022 funds for a new start.
But across the modernization program for the Army, new
starts, 71 programs affected. Where Rock Island Arsenal
indirectly supports those programs I do not know, but I will
bet there is an impact. I do not want to speculate though.
Procurement delays, 29, and developmental delays, research
and development activity, 32 programs delayed. So there is a
huge impact across the Army there and arsenals like the Rock
Island Arsenal are a key component to our holistic organic
industrial base not only for today's needs but also for the
future.
So it is very important that we continue to modernize them,
and we do not want to wait till next year to do what we planned
to do this year.
Thank you.
C-130 MODERNIZATION
Mrs. Bustos. Thank you, General Martin. I appreciate that.
Just one more question and I will be brief here. But,
General Brown, it is great to see you, even though it is
virtual. We so appreciate it out of Peoria, Illinois that you
came to the 182nd Airlift Wing this past summer, and we always
welcome you back.
And I know that Congressman Ryan already talked with you a
little bit about the C-130s. You know, if you could drill maybe
a little bit deeper on that.
Obviously, as we have this discussion about a yearlong CR
and how that would affect Air Force acquisition and
modernization efforts, you know, for the Air National Guard,
you know, we have talked about providing upgraded technologies
for the C-130Hs like the ones that are flown in Peoria.
But any additional thoughts, General Brown, especially
specific to Peoria, Illinois?
General Brown. Well, what I tell you is not just for Peoria
and the work that they do, and I appreciate the opportunity to
go visit, but when you look across the Guard, because of the
funding and the way that we will have to dip into some of other
accounts, then it will curtail some of their training.
So, you know, just for their day-to-day readiness as a C-
130 unit, that will be impacted.
And then there is also the individual training. So the
professional component for those particular airmen that will
continue to build up on their skill sets, that will also be
impacted.
I would also tell you it has ripple effects. So if you do
not get the full training when you deserve it and you are
supposed to be training someone behind you, then it just kind
of, you know, slides downhill and it becomes a little bit of a
slippery slope that we have to dig ourselves out of.
And so I have a concern not just for Peoria, but I really
look across, you know, the Guard as a whole, the impact of
curtailing or canceling training. We may miss those
opportunities for those airmen. It is tough to make up because
you do not get that time back.
And so it is important that we want quality airmen. We want
to make sure they have quality equipment to work with, and that
is why it is important not to have a yearlong CR.
Thank you.
Mrs. Bustos. Very good. Thank you so much, General Brown.
And, Chairwoman McCollum, I will yield back. Thank you.
Ms. McCollum [presiding]. Thank you.
And Mr. Cuellar, thank you for being there.
Mr. Womack, then Mrs. Kirkpatrick and Mr. Cartner.
FUNDING LEVELS
Mr. Womack. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
And my thanks to the witnesses that are here today. I am
going to be very brief.
And first of all, I would apologize to all of the witnesses
today that we are now two hours into this hearing, and I think
we could have saved a lot of time on the part of these very
busy gentlemen and ourselves for that matter by just being
honest with ourselves and recognizing that a yearlong CR is
bad.
And you can define bad a lot of ways, and we have seen and
heard a lot of those definitions of what bad looks like. It is
just bad.
But not only is it bad. It is embarrassing. It is
embarrassing that we, the adults in the room here on the
Appropriations Committee, cannot get out of our own way.
A couple of data points. One, we did not get the
President's budget until May 28th. Now, that is not a dig on
President Biden. It is a new administration. I realize it takes
some time.
But we got the budget on May 28th, and the budget was for
$753 billion, thereabouts, which figured in about a 1.6 percent
increase over the CR of about 740 billion, woefully short and
unacceptable, and it was known to be unacceptable when it was
printed.
So here we are looking at the prospect of having to deal
with a full year CR in the 740 range, but we have a bipartisan
bicameral agreement on the NDAA of $768 billion. So a lot of
good bipartisan bicameral work has already been done, and the
number is pretty acceptable, I would say.
I am not going to ask all the service chiefs to comment on
it, but 740, 768, I do not think there would be any doubt where
everybody would fall on that particular number, which kind of
leaves us, I think, to the legacy riders, legacy riders that
have been in these bills for decades that have always had
bipartisan bicameral support.
So, frankly, I am embarrassed as a Defense appropriator and
as an appropriator in general that we have allowed that
discussion to keep us from doing what our constitutional duty
is, and that is provide for the common defense.
So it is a bad, bad situation that we are in right now, and
we have got to overcome it and the sooner the better.
I think we could get to work on it tomorrow if we could
just get some agreement that things that have been in these
bills for decades deserve to be back in those bills, and that
is the only way we are going to get a passage on something
other than a full year CR.
BIENNIAL BUDGET
My only question I am going to direct to the Under
Secretary. Back in 2018, another member of this subcommittee,
Derek Kilmer on the other side, and myself participated in the
Joint Select Committee on Budget Process Reform, and we spent
the better part of the entire year of 2018 looking at the
budget process, which is, in fact, part of the problem right
now.
And we came up with a few ideas, and we got to the finish
line, and even though our threshold for passing anything was
pretty high, five members on each side of the aisle to come to
agreement, and we did not get there, but that does not mean
that the work was for naught.
So my question for the Under Secretary is simply this. One
of the reforms that we advocated in that process reform and
never got a chance to take to the floors of the House and the
Senate was a biennial budget. So my question for you is this.
Would changing the process and at least getting us to a
point where we could do a two-year budget with, say, annual
appropriations, even annual reconciliation, but a biennial
budget, how would that help us get past what we are doing here
today?
Mr. McCord. Thank you, Congressman.
I do remember your service on that committee, and I recall
Defense per se was not a big player because it was more focused
on some of the bigger movers on the entitlements side, but I do
recall your work on that, and I thank you for it.
Biennial budgeting was looked at, I know, early in my
career on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate. In the
1980s, we tried doing biennial authorizations once or twice,
had limited sort of consensus with the Appropriations
Committees at that time between the appropriators and
authorizers, and it kind of petered out, honestly.
It does offer potential. I would love to see us master the
art of annual budgeting first because biennial budgeting is a
little harder, you know, but I recognize that many States do it
and it can be done.
We would certainly be open to looking at that. I know that
there is a commission that is being created by the new
authorization bill, newly enacted authorization bill on PPB
reform, which is a subset sort of focused on the internal
Pentagon part of the process, a little different than what you
are saying but related.
I think, ironically, we will not be able to support the
stand-up of that commission under CR until this issue is
resolved, but there is some movement afoot, I think, on that
front, and that commission may well want to expand its purview
a little bit beyond the internal Pentagon part of the budget
process to take on the very idea that you are mentioning. It
might be good work for that commission to take a fresh look at
also.
Mr. Womack. Well, we would like to continue to elevate that
discussion because anything is better than where we are today,
and hopefully, we will eventually get there.
Anyway, my thanks to the panelists today.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity. I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. You are so welcome.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Carter, and then Mr. Kilner.
HYPERSONICS
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair and ranking
member, for having this hearing.
And thank you to all the witnesses who have taken the time
to appear before the committee. I appreciate your testimony. I
appreciate the time that you have spent with us.
As you know, this is a really important hearing in terms of
my district. Admiral Gilday touched on hypersonics, and I
understand that the Army expects its hypersonic weapons to be
ready by fiscal year 2023 and is investing significant
resources to make that a reality.
Important research and development activities for
hypersonic weapons are conducted in my district, and our
committee appreciates how critical these programs are for our
national security.
General McConville or General Martin, either one of you,
the entire department has focused on increasing resources on
hypersonic weapons in recent years. I know you are on an
aggressive track to field the first system by fiscal year 2023.
So can you please describe to us what a delay in
appropriations does to your schedule?
General Martin. Congresswoman, thank you.
As it pertains to the first battery, the first battery
field in 2023, no impact. However, $111 million shortfall in
2022 resulting from the CR will delay the initial operating
capability of our second battery from 2025 to 2026.
In addition, the Army will not have the necessary funds to
produce this year as we planned the training rounds so that the
units can use those rounds to train on in preparation for
executing their jobs in a live environment. And so there would
be a delay on that as well.
But those are the two significant delays to the hypersonic
program, in addition to what Admiral Gilday described
previously in his testimony pertaining to the technical delays.
NEXT GENERATION INTERCEPTOR PROGRAM
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Now I just want to shift gears just a
little bit to the next generation interceptor. The Next
Generation Interceptor Program is required to provide the
United States homeland coverage from incoming intercontinental
ballistic missile attacks in the 2030 time frame. These are
ground based.
So, Under Secretary McCord, in the case of a yearlong CR,
how would programs like NGI have to pivot and adjust?
And then my second question for you is give us an
understanding of how contracts might need to be modified to
reflect less funding and what impact that would have on the
bottom line of these programs.
Mr. McCord. Thank you. Thank you.
On the next generation interceptor, since that program is
in a somewhat earlier stage, it has got the flexibility that
R&D has if there is not a new start involved, and I will get a
response to you for the record as to whether there is a new
start issue specific to that program.
With respect to the contracting, probably the most common
thing that people do is either delay a contract award until if
there is a new start issue they have no choice but to delay a
contract award or to shorten a period of performance.
There are ways that basically it's part of the hidden
inefficiency of the CR process. It is the work-around, you
know. The job will get done in a less efficient way and
possibly more costly way, but there are contracting
modifications.
Contracting and budgeting, of course, are in our process a
little bit two separate things, and there are multiple ways
that one can contract for something depending on, you know, the
circumstance. But the lack of funding is something that no
contracting mechanism can by itself overcome.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Okay. Thank you.
And can you address a little bit how this is going to
affect the bottom line of these programs?
Mr. McCord. Well, both with respect to hypersonics and, I
think, General Raymond also made some great points in his
opening statement about the Space Force generally, is the areas
where you are trying to go the fastest, where you have the most
change is what is impacted the most by the requirement that you
do what you did last year at the rate that you did it last
year, at the funding level that you did it last year.
Hypersonics is a great example across several of the
services, and I think several of the chiefs could probably
respond to this with respect to their own program where the
fact that we are trying to make more progress, that is where we
are hurt the most.
Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much.
And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Next, we go to Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter and then Mr. Kilmer
and then to close up, it will be Mr. Diaz-Balart and Mr.
Aderholt.
Mr. Carter.
IMPACT ON THE ARMY PROGRAMS
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
You know, we have got some members of Congress who do not
know comeback from Sikkim about the appropriations process.
They make stupid comments about what would be good for this
country.
That may be the purpose of educating them this particular
year. Everyone on the Appropriations Committee does not like
CRs. We do not want long or short-term CRs. We like to finish
our work on time and put together our product for the benefit
of the country.
I think what somebody said that this place should not be
driving at all.
But I want to thank all of you for being here. General
Martin, I want to thank you for telling everybody about the
importance of training. Training keeps those alive. The
inability to train makes a soldier not as prepared, and that is
very important.
You know, we are trying to read the modernization of the
United States Army. The things we are looking into, the Big Six
Power, these are long-range projects, next generation combat
vehicles, future vertical lift, network air and missile
defense.
Tell me. Realizing that nobody wants a CR, what would a CR
do for that? General Martin.
General Martin. Thank you, Congressman. It is good to see
you as always.
There are 24 programs that we are supposed to have in the
hands in one form, fashion, or another in 2023. Nineteen of
those 24 programs, the timeline for those activities to land
those in formations would be affected. So it is a huge effect
to our modernization effort.
You know, you are from the State of Texas, and you know all
about Army Futures Command, and you understand what they have
done with project convergence. In 2021, we have got a lot of
momentum going with that, with the Joint Force, and next year
we are to focus on multinational partners.
Our effort would be severely impacted with a CR because
there is funding that we have asked for in 2022 that will help
us set conditions to execute project convergence 2022 that we
will not be able to put our hands on.
And so, all of the progress we have made over time for the
past two years will be slowed, at best, and could be
potentially stopped.
And as my colleagues have said multiple times, our
adversaries are not having the same problem with consistent,
predictable, timely funding for these various programs.
And so, project convergence is huge for the United States
Army, and we have got to have the funding to be able to do
that. And without any anomaly and the ability to reprogram, it
will be virtually impossible to do that.
And so, I sincerely urge Congress to move forward with
appropriating the fiscal year 2022 budget.
Thank you.
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
Mr. Kilmer----
Mr. Carter. Can you hear me?
Ms. McCollum. You have got a minute left. I thought you
said you----
Mr. Carter. Okay. I accidentally hit the wrong button.
Ms. McCollum. Oh, okay. I can hear you now.
Mr. Carter Remarks
Mr. Carter. I just wanted to say to the Odierno family you
are in our thoughts and prayers. The family has given an awful
lot to the United States and an awful lot to the United States
Army, and we all ought to be thinking about the sacrifices that
the entire Odierno family has given for our Nation. I am proud
to call them my friends.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Ms. McCollum. I reflect those words. Well said, Mr. Carter,
and thank you so much for saying them. I appreciate it.
Mr. Kilmer.
SHIPYARD INFRASTRUCTURE OPTIMIZATION PROGRAM
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thanks to all the witnesses for being with us.
I had two questions, and they are both for Admiral Gilday.
First of all, I know I do not need to emphasize to you the
importance of the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program,
or SIOP, the Navy's 20-year $21 billion effort to upgrade and
modernize our public shipyards. I very much appreciate your
past statements in support of this program.
I applaud the Navy for appointing Rear Admiral McClelland
as the head of the SIOP Program Office. I was lucky enough to
meet with him earlier this week. He provided some valuable
insights into the program, and I am glad to see the Navy
showing its commitment to the SIOP with his appointment.
I think it is a big deal as we look to restore and reinvest
in our public shipyards, including Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
in my neck of the woods.
And knowing the importance of the SIOP and also reading all
of your testimony about the impact and the potential impact of
a CR not just on operations, but on military construction as
well, I worry that any CR related impacts to the program could
lead to a situation in which maintenance drives operations
instead of maintenance supporting operations.
So, with that in mind, can you just share what impact a
full year CR would have on the SIOP?
Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. There are a few areas we are
going to see impact.
The first would be in the ongoing project at Portsmouth
Naval Shipyard up in New Hampshire and Maine. And so in my own
funding request I requested $225 million for a base project up
there for a drydock that needs to be revitalized because there
are actually single digit days a year we can bring a ship in
and out of drydock there.
Our drydocks, the 18 of them across our four shipyards, the
average age is 97 years old. We have not touched them in a
century. This is once in a century work.
The new Virginia-class submarines that we are building,
they are longer. They have a payload section in them that
brings considerable lethality to the fight, and so because they
are bigger, they are too large for the drydocks.
For that particular drydock up there in Portsmouth, we need
to finish that project in time for 2028 to get the first
Virginia class on the East Coast in maintenance, and that will
be delayed. And we are not sure how specifically we would be
able to mitigate that delay.
Secondly, we are in the process of identifying and hiring
42 subject matter experts who are coming from industry, real
patriots to join this effort, and the hiring of those
individuals will be delayed. We will do the best we can to try
to encourage them to stay with us, but I think it is going to
be difficult.
As you are aware, besides the drydock work, we are also
trying to accelerate infrastructure work. So, these shipyards,
because they are over 100 years old, are like Frankenstein in a
way that we just added buildings, and so they are very
inefficient with respect to workflow of pump work, valve work
that flows through these yards.
And so, we are taking a look at through modeling how we can
best recapitalize this infrastructure in a way that accelerates
and gives the best efficiencies, the best optimization.
And it will delay that work that we are trying to do for
infrastructure. So this is MILCON and also projects that fall
below the MILCON level that would allow us to reinvest in
critical infrastructure. It will delay that as well, probably
one to two years.
And I will pause there.
SHIPYARD MAINTENANCE AVAILABILITIES
Mr. Kilmer. Let me if I could. Admiral, in your written
testimony, you also mention the impacts of the CR on the
operations of our public and private shipyards, and
specifically reference some of the potential delays or
cancellations of maintenance availabilities for five attack
subs, two carriers, and just the cascading impact that will
have on our shipyard maintenance availabilities well into the
future.
I hope you can just expand on some of those written
comments and provide the committee some additional insight into
those future delays to maintenance availabilities under a
potential yearlong CR.
How will these maintenance availability delays and
cancellations impact our capability to compete with China and
other near peer competitors?
Admiral Gilday. Sir, you said it very accurately when you
said it would increase the situation where you have maintenance
leading operations, which is not where you want to be.
And so, our availabilities or maintenance availabilities
for those nuclear-powered vessels are really planned toe to
heel. As soon as we are done with one, we are bringing in the
next. That is the way the production line works. That is how we
are most efficient.
And this is going to cause a perturbation, and we saw this
during sequestration, and we are still catching up a decade
later. We cannot afford to do that based on where we are now
with China for all of the reasons my contemporaries and
Secretary McCord stated earlier.
And so, this going to cause a perturbation that we are
still unraveling in terms of operational schedules. It keeps
carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups on point in
the Western Pacific and beyond.
I will pause there.
Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Chair McCollum Remarks
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
I was looking on the screen to see Mr. Diaz-Balart. Mr.
Diaz-Balart, are you present to ask a question?
Sometimes people turn their cameras off. I will give him
another minute.
Now, Mr. Aderholt, if you are there, you can certainly go.
Ms. McCollum. It appears, Mr. Calvert, that those members
are not there. Do you concur with that?
Mr. Calvert. Apparently not. So Madam Chair.
Ms. McCollum. So, if you would like to make a closing
summary statement, I will make mine, sir.
Mr. Calvert Closing Remarks
Mr. Calvert. Sure. Thank you.
I appreciate the witnesses being here today.
We have had a lot of difficulties of late in trying to get
these appropriation bills complete, and that is unfortunate.
And while we are doing that, we have seen our adversaries
become bolder because weakness is provocative.
Certainly our hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan was a
signal to the world that this administration will abandon our
allies, risk the lives of U.S. service members, and even leave
U.S. citizens behind. That was a very unfortunate situation.
And now we are facing an unfortunate situation both in
Europe and in Taiwan. As I think our friend Mr. Churchill said
many years ago, the worst two words in the English language are
too late. So we have a responsibility to get this bill done.
I know we all want to get it done, and the people say there
are not any offers on the table. Well, let me reiterate what
the former chairman of this committee said about revisionist
history.
We all know that the framework has always been that these
legacy riders remain and these poison pills go out. That is
what happened last year, the year before that, and the year
before that.
And so, I would hope that with that understanding we can
get to the table and negotiate this bill, bring the defense
numbers up, the non-defense discretionary down, and let's get
this done by at least February 18th for the men and women who
are serving in the United States military.
With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
Chair McCollum Closing Remarks
Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
And I am not in the position to disagree with everything
that has happened and every appropriation committee in the
history of humankind here in the United States Capitol, but on
the conference committees I have been involved in, the riders
were left to the end.
We had our budget agreement for what our new target was
between the House and the Senate that we had to spend up to,
and so you know, everybody has had different experiences up
here, and I just have to say that those have been my
experiences.
Another point I would like to bring out, and, yes,
President Biden's budget came out on May 28th. That was his
first budget, first year as President. President Trump's budget
came out on May 23rd. That is a five-day difference, but
President Biden was dealing with an assault on our Capitol on
January 6th, as well as COVID in preparing his budget.
I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that
all Presidents' first year budgets come out a little late.
Today was an opportunity not only to recommit ourselves as
appropriators on this subcommittee but on the full committee
which we all serve to get our job done on time, and now to
really push leadership to make sure that we finish this
appropriations process by the February date that we have agreed
to.
I want to also say that this was an opportunity, I believe,
to educate our colleagues, those who do not understand the work
that we do, the impacts that CRs have, and as many of my
colleagues on the other side said, CRs are just not a good
idea. We are all in agreement with that.
Gentlemen, I want to thank you all for being here today. I
want to thank you for your testimony.
I also would like you to pass on our thanks to those who
serve in uniform and the civilians who serve alongside of you.
Your work is very much appreciated, and we know that the work
you do keeps us safe here at home and keeps democracy's beacon
abroad lit well.
This concludes today's proceeding, and as I said, once
again, from all of us, thank you to all of our witnesses and
members for an enlightening discussion, and let's get the bills
for appropriations passed this February.
Thank you very much, and with that the hearing is
adjourned. Thank you.
[Answers to submitted questions for the record follow:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Wednesday, March 9, 2022.
U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND
WITNESS
GENERAL TOD D. WOLTERS, COMMANDER, U.S. EUROPEAN COMMAND, AND NATO
SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER EUROPE (SACEUR)
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to the classification of the material
discussed.]
Wednesday, March 16, 2022.
UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND
WITNESS
GENERAL KENNETH McKENZIE, COMMANDER, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND
Opening Statement of Chair McCollum
Ms. McCollum. We welcome back our witness, General Kenneth
McKenzie, Commander of U.S. Central Command.
General, while this is not your first time before the
subcommittee, we understand that it will be your last as you
plan to retire next month.
The subcommittee thanks you for your four decades of
service to our country and congratulates you on a well-deserved
retirement.
We look forward to your testimony today.
The purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the challenges
in the CENTCOM area of responsibility ahead of the fiscal year
2023 budget request.
Much has changed since our last CENTCOM hearing nearly a
year ago and I'd like to briefly cover some of the
developments.
For the first time in two decades, we are no longer at war
in Afghanistan.
We thank our service members for their selfless
contributions while serving in Afghanistan for 20 years.
But we also know that the United States and the
international community have much more work ahead of us as we
try to mitigate the humanitarian crisis now unfolding in
Afghanistan.
In Syria, we saw the largest ISIS attack in years with the
attempted Hasakah prison break.
China's investments in the Middle East have grown
dramatically, and we've seen press reports of a possible
Chinese base being constructed in the U.A.E.
Russia's recent deployment of troops to Kazakhstan, and
their invasion of Ukraine have brought into focus Russia's
aspirations in the region.
Iranian malign influence has continued, though I want to
note that we've also seen progress from the Biden
administration on a possible nuclear deal.
Israel strengthened military ties with Arab countries,
joining the U.S.-led, International Maritime Exercise for the
first time.
Qatar was designated as a major non-NATO ally, which
formalizes our strong security partnership, as they continue to
be an important energy partner for our allies.
Unfortunately, the war in Yemen and the dire humanitarian
situation continues to cause suffering for civilian
populations.
We look forward to hearing how CENTCOM is postured and
resourced to address these and other challenges, and to support
the 50,000 U.S. personnel serving in your area of
responsibility. With that, I want to thank everyone for
participating in today's hearing and recognize our
distinguished ranking member, Mr. Calvert for his opening
remarks.
[Clerk's note.--Mr. Calvert's statement could not be
printed due to the classification of the material discussed.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to the classification of the material
discussed.]
Thursday, March 17, 2022.
UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND
WITNESS
GENERAL LAURA J. RICHARDSON, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND
Opening Statement of Chair McCollum
Ms. McCollum. The Subcommittee on Defense will come to
order.
This morning, we will receive testimony from U.S. Southern
Command.
I would like to remind members to leave behind any
classified materials for the staff to collect at the end of the
hearing. We welcome our witness, General Laura Richardson,
Commander of SOUTHCOM, to her first appearance before the
Subcommittee. We look forward to your testimony today. The
purpose of today's hearing is to discuss the challenges in the
SOUTHCOM area of responsibility ahead of the fiscal year 2023
budget request. There are many issues that I hope we can
address today, and I will mention a handful that are shaping
the region. First, there is the influence of China. China is
now the largest investor and creditor in the SOUTHCOM region,
which China also leverages in the political and security space.
Second, there is the influence of Russia. While Russia's
economic influence doesn't compare to China's, Russia's
disinformation campaigns are widespread, and Russia's security
cooperation with Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua is concerning.
Third, there is the ongoing turmoil in Venezuela. The collapse
of the Venezuelan economy has created an ongoing refugee
crisis, and the lack of governed areas has become a haven for
criminal organizations. Fourth, there is the economic and
security situation in Central America. These conditions,
particularly in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, continue
to push migration towards the United States. And finally, there
is the impact of climate change.
SOUTHCOM sees hundreds of natural disasters every year and
these are made worse by climate change. Honduras in particular
was hit by two hurricanes at the end of 2020 and is still yet
to recover. Climate change will continue to impact the economic
and security situation in these nations and will continue to
drive migrants to our southern border.
We look forward to hearing how SOUTHCOM is postured and
resourced to address these and other challenges, and to support
the 5,000 U.S. personnel serving in this area of
responsibility.
With that, I want to thank everyone for participating in
today's hearing and I now recognize our distinguished ranking
member, Mr. Calvert, for his opening remarks.
[Clerk's note.--Mr. Calvert's statement could not be
printed due to the classification of the material discussed.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to the classification of the material
discussed.]
Tuesday, April 5, 2022.
U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND
WITNESS
ADMIRAL CHARLES RICHARD, COMMANDER, U.S. STRATEGIC COMMAND
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to the classification of the material
discussed.]
Wednesday, April 6, 2022.
U.S. AFRICA COMMAND
WITNESS
GENERAL STEPHEN J. TOWNSEND, COMMANDER, U.S. AFRICA COMMAND
Opening Statement of Chair McCollum
Ms. McCollum. This morning, the Subcommittee will hold a
hearing on the posture of U.S. Africa Command.
I would like to remind members any material placed in front
of you marked classified should be left at your chair at the
conclusion of the hearing. Today, we will receive testimony
today from our witness, AFRICOM Commander Stephen Townsend.
General, welcome back to the Subcommittee and we look
forward to your testimony. The Biden administration has
released their new National Defense Strategy which continues to
emphasize competition between great powers, with a particular
emphasis on China. But we also know that Chinese diplomatic,
economic, and military activities are not contained to the
Pacific theater. Over the past two decades, China has
significantly deepened its reach in Africa. They have fostered
extensive diplomatic engagement through 52 embassies, more than
the United States has on the continent. They have financed
large infrastructure projects in Africa, made significant
investments in African rare earth material extraction, and they
have opened a military base in Djibouti.
In the midst of war returning to Europe after so many
decades, we must also be wary of Russia's increased presence
elsewhere in the world. And Africa is no stranger to Russian
activities. Russia is heavily invested in the African oil and
gas industry, and they are ramping up trade with African
nations as U.S. and European sanctions impact their economy.
Russia is also the top arms dealer in Africa, and Russia funds
thousands of private security or mercenary soldiers throughout
the region. Russian mercenaries have deployed to Mali, Libya,
Sudan, Mozambique and Madagascar in recent years, and have been
a profoundly destabilizing presence.
The United States cannot view China and Russia as though
their activities are contained to Europe and Asia. They will
continue to expand their influence in Africa, and we must make
sure that the United States is there with a whole of government
approach to meet this growing challenge.
We must continue to work with partner agencies like the
Department of State and USAID to ensure that our diplomatic,
development and economic bridges on the continent are
strengthened. This is particularly true when it comes to our
efforts with the African Union to resolve the conflict in
Ethiopia, which has led to thousands of deaths and
approximately two million refugees. I have said this before,
but I will say it again, we must provide more resources to
whole of government activities in Africa, and we must be more
engaged on the continent, not less.
General, I know you are prepared to discuss the threats
China and Russia pose on the African continent, as well as how
we must continue to be mindful of the threats the United States
and faces from terrorism and violent extremism. I hope we can
have a robust discussion on these important topics, and we look
forward to hearing your testimony.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to the classification of the material
discussed.]
Wednesday, April 27, 2022.
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY AND U.S. CYBER COMMAND
WITNESS
GENERAL PAUL M. NAKASONE, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY AND
COMMANDER U.S. CYBER COMMAND
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to classification of the material discussed.]
Thursday, April 7, 2022.
UNITED STATES SPECIAL OPERATIONS
WITNESSES
GENERAL RICHARD D. CLARKE, COMMANDER, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND
HON. CHRISTOPHER MAIER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR SPECIAL
OPERATIONS AND LOW-INTENSITY CONFLICT
Opening Statement of Chair McCollum
Ms. McCollum. This morning the Subcommittee will receive
testimony on the posture and budget request for U.S. Special
Operations Command.
Our witnesses today are: The Honorable Christopher Maier,
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-
Intensity Conflict; and General Richard Clarke, Commanding
General, U.S. Special Operations Command.
I would like to remind members any material placed in front
of you marked classified should be left at your chair at the
conclusion of the hearing. This is Secretary Maier's first
appearance before the Defense Subcommittee. We welcome you to
the Subcommittee and look forward to future engagements.
General Clarke, I understand you are due to retire later
this year, and this will likely be your last hearing before the
Subcommittee. Let me say congratulations and thank you for your
service to the nation. SOCOM and the Army have been extremely
well served by you and the Subcommittee very much appreciates
your partnership with Congress over the past three years. It's
more than a cliche to say that the Department and SOCOM are at
an inflection point.
After 20 years of direct-action missions largely countering
violent extremist organizations, the Russian invasion of
Ukraine and China's ongoing military modernization highlights
how the joint force, and special operations forces, will need
to operate in non-traditional and highly contested
environments. Russia's use of information warfare to set the
stage for their invasion should be a wakeup call to the
Department and the interagency of the importance of gray zone
activities.
Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict and SOCOM are
uniquely positioned to lead and help set the terms of any
future engagement. You both must also ensure that requirements
for future programs match the challenges special operations
forces will face on the battlefield. Equally important is the
need to care for your operators and oversee a culture that is
professional and accountable.
We look forward hearing from you both how SOCOM and the
special forces community is building and shaping the force of
the future that upholds your ideals and reflects the diversity
of the rest of the armed forces.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not
be printed due to classification of the material discussed.]
W I T N E S S E S
----------
Page
Berger, General David H., Commandant, United States Marine Corps. 20
Brown, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., Chief of Staff, United
States Air Force............................................... 49
Clarke, Richard D., Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command... 227
Gilday, Admiral Michael, Chief of Naval Operations, United States
Navy........................................................... 29
Maier, Hon. Christopher P., Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict.................. 259
Martin, General Joseph, Vice Chief of Staff, United States Army.. 60
McCord, Mike, Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller)........... 10
McKenzie, General Kenneth, Commander, U.S. Central Command....... 131
Nakasone, General Paul M., Director, National Security Agency and
Commander, U.S. Cyber Command.................................. 243
Raymond, General John W., Chief of Space Operations, United
States Space Force............................................. 39
Richard, Admiral Charles, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command...... 194
Richardson, Laura J., Commander, United States Southern Command.. 163
Townsend, General Stephen J., Commander, U.S. Africa Command..... 229
Wolters, General Todd D., Commander, U.S. European Command, and
NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).................. 106