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





 
                      U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S

                        FISCAL YEAR 2023 BUDGET

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

                                HEARING

                               before the

                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

            HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 27, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-10

                               __________

           Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
           
           
           
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                       Available on the Internet:
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                       ______

             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
 49-421             WASHINGTON : 2022 
                            
                            
                            
                            
                        COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

                  JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky, Chairman
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         JASON SMITH, Missouri,
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York                Ranking Member
BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania,      TRENT KELLY, Mississippi
  Vice Chairman                      TOM McCLINTOCK, California
LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas                 GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina       LLOYD SMUCKER, Pennsylvania
JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois       CHRIS JACOBS, New York
DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan           MICHAEL BURGESS, Texas
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York          BUDDY CARTER, Georgia
STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada              BEN CLINE, Virginia
BARBARA LEE, California              LAUREN BOEBERT, Colorado
JUDY CHU, California                 BYRON DONALDS, Florida
STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands   RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia            BOB GOOD, Virginia
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia  ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            JAY OBERNOLTE, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee                MIKE CAREY, Ohio
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington

                           Professional Staff

                     Diana Meredith, Staff Director
                  Mark Roman, Minority Staff Director
                                CONTENTS

                                                                   Page
Hearing held in Washington, D.C., April 27, 2022.................     1

    Hon. John A. Yarmuth, Chairman, Committee on the Budget......     1
        Prepared statement of....................................     4
    Hon. Jason Smith, Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget....     6
        Prepared statement of....................................     8
        Letter submitted for the record..........................    29
    Michael McCord, Under Secretary of Defense, U.S. Department 
      of Defense.................................................    11
        Prepared statement of....................................    14
    Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, Member, Committee on the Budget, 
      article submitted for the record...........................    37
    Hon. Lauren Boebert, Member, Committee on the Budget, report 
      submitted for the record...................................    57
        Letter submitted for the record..........................    68
    Questions and Responses for the record.......................    92


                      U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S
                        FISCAL YEAR 2023 BUDGET

                              ----------                              


                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2022

                           House of Representatives
                                    Committee on the Budget
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in 
Room 210, Cannon Building, Hon. John A. Yarmuth [Chairman of 
the Committee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Yarmuth, Jeffries, Higgins, Boyle, 
Doggett, Schakowsky, Horsford, Wexton, Scott, Jackson Lee, 
Cooper, Sires, Moulton, Jayapal; Smith, Kelly, McClintock, 
Grothman, Smucker, Jacobs, Burgess, Carter, Cline, Boebert, 
Donalds, Feenstra, Good, and Obernolte.
    Chairman Yarmuth. This hearing will come to order. Good 
morning, and welcome to the Budget Committee's hearing on the 
Department of Defense's Fiscal Year 2023 Budget. At the outset, 
I ask unanimous consent that the Chair be authorized to declare 
a recess at a time. Without objection, so ordered.
    I will start by going over a few housekeeping matters. The 
Committee is holding a hybrid hearing. Members may participate 
remotely or in person. For individuals participating remotely, 
the Chair or staff designated by the Chair may mute a 
participant's microphone when the participant is not under 
recognition for the purpose of eliminating inadvertent 
background noise. If you are participating remotely and are 
experiencing connectivity issues, please contact staff 
immediately so those issues can be resolved.
    Members participating in the hearing room or on the remote 
platform are responsible for unmuting themselves when they seek 
recognition. We are not permitted to unmute Members unless they 
explicitly request assistance. If you are participating 
remotely and I notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I 
will ask if you would like staff to unmute you. If you indicate 
approval by nodding, staff will unmute your microphone. They 
will not unmute your microphone under any other conditions.
    I would like to remind Members participating remotely in 
this proceeding to keep your camera on at all times, even if 
you are not under recognition by the Chair. Members may not 
participate in more than one Committee proceeding 
simultaneously. If you are on the remote platform and choose to 
participate in a different proceeding, please turn your camera 
off. Finally, we have established an email inbox for submitting 
documents before and during Committee proceedings and we have 
distributed that email address to everyone's staff.
    Now, I will introduce our witness. This morning, we will be 
hearing from the Honorable Michael J. McCord, Under Secretary 
of Defense Comptroller and Chief Financial Officer at the U.S. 
Department of Defense. Welcome, Under Secretary. I now yield 
myself five minutes for an opening statement.
    Good morning, everyone. I want to welcome back Under 
Secretary Michael McCord to our Committee. Thank you for 
joining us today for this hearing on the Department of Defense 
Fiscal Year 2023 budget. As the first person to be comptroller 
at DoD twice, and with your decades-long career of service 
including time on the staff of the House Budget Committee, your 
insights are particularly helpful to the work of the Committee.
    I would like to begin this hearing by acknowledging our 
deep and enduring gratitude to those who serve our nation in 
uniform. We understand that Congress has a constitutional and 
moral responsibility to ensure that our servicemembers are 
supported, on and off the battlefield and that their families 
are cared for every step of the way.
    That is why the Biden budget provides members of our 
military with the largest pay increase in a generation. It 
funds a newly authorized basic needs allowance. It invests 
$12.2 billion to build more housing and medical facilities for 
military families, and it prioritizes programs that directly 
support military spouses, children, and other dependents. And 
it dedicates nearly $500 million to fully fund and implement 
vital programs to prevent and respond to sexual assault in the 
military.
    The Biden budget also ensures that the Department of 
Defense has the resources necessary to uphold our national 
security and protect our people at home and abroad. It does not 
aimlessly increase spending for its own sake without 
accountability or strategic rationale. It provides the smart 
investments that will make our country safer and meet the 
requests of the experts in charge.
    This budget is also forward-looking. It provides more than 
$130 billion for research and development to harness next-
generation defense capabilities, the largest request on record. 
It invests in new technologies and includes $3.1 billion in 
funding to combat the destabilizing effects of the climate 
crisis and ensure our military installations are resilient 
against climate disasters. This is critical to our national 
defense. In a 2019 report, the Pentagon found that 46 of our 
nation's 79 high-priority military installations are vulnerable 
to climate change-related flooding, drought, desertification, 
and wildfires.
    President Biden also recognizes that ensuring America's 
national security extends far beyond our efforts to build 
weapons and military might. It is also about leveraging our 
power through diplomacy and deterrence. While these investments 
are not directly part of DoD's budget, they are a crucial part 
of the President's overall National Defense Strategy, and 
rightly so.
    As General James Mattis said in response to former 
President Trump's budget that slashed funding for the State 
Department, ``If you don't fund the State Department fully, 
then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately.'' He was 
President Trump's Secretary of Defense when he said that. And I 
would add that we don't just save money by investing in 
diplomacy, we save lives by keeping members of our armed forces 
out of harm's way.
    This is a whole-of-government approach to national 
security. It is a budget that increases funding for the State 
Department and includes vital investments to strengthen NATO 
and support our European allies in the face of Russian 
aggression, to advance cybersecurity, and to maintain strong 
and credible deterrents.
    On all counts, President Biden's budget reflects the much-
needed return of U.S. global leadership, a commitment not only 
to our democratic allies, but the democratic values our nation 
was founded upon, and the assurance that no dictator will have 
a foothold in this White House.
    Finally, let me stress again that this budget meets the 
needs articulated by the experts in charge of our national 
defense. If your argument is that we should fund the military 
at a level higher than Pentagon leaders say they need, then you 
have the burden of making the case that the world's most 
renowned defense experts are inept or intentionally 
undercutting our military. I don't think anyone here today can 
come close to making that point.
    To close, I will quote Defense Secretary Austin. He said, 
``We need resources matched to strategy, strategy matched to 
policy, and policy matched to the will of the American people. 
This budget gives us the resources we need to deliver on that 
promise.''
    Under Secretary McCord, I look forward to hearing how the 
budget accomplishes this. I thank you again for your testimony 
and for appearing before our Committee today.
    Now, I recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Smith, for five 
minutes, for his opening statement.
    [The prepared statement of Chairman Yarmuth follows:]
    
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    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome Under Secretary 
McCord. Thank you for being here today. The last time you were 
here, America was facing a number of crises at the border, at 
the checkout line, at the gas pump, and Republicans warned that 
the agenda President Biden was pursuing would only make these 
crises worse. Sadly, it turns out that we were right.
    Prices have spiked to the highest level in 40 years, 10.4 
percent of an increase since Joe Biden took the oath of office. 
The cost of gas is through the roof--increase of 88.9 percent 
since Joe Biden took the oath of office. We have seen 2.9 
million encounters at the southern border since Biden took 
office.
    These crises did not happen overnight or when Putin invaded 
Ukraine, as the White House is fond of arguing. They are the 
direct result of the policies being pursued by this 
Administration. This year's budget from President Biden 
promotes the same failed policies and the defense budget is not 
immune from the Administration's misplaced priorities. At a 
time when inflation is 8.5 percent, 10.4 percent since Joe 
Biden took the oath of office, robbing the wallets of American 
families and eroding the purchasing power of federal agencies.
    It is critical that tax dollars go to their best possible 
use. But the President's defense budget does not do that. For 
example, the defense budget dedicates $3.1 billion to climate 
projects. Europe is experiencing the largest land invasion 
since World War II. President Biden executed a horrific 
withdrawal from Afghanistan that cost Americans' lives, 
including a Missourian, and emboldened our enemies.
    China has an aggressive eye focused on Taiwan. Iran 
continues its march toward a nuclear weapon--but the President 
wants to spend finite taxpayer resources for butterflies and 
snakes. The request for Iron Dome funding is the bare minimum 
and 92 percent lower than what Congress just agreed to spend to 
support our ally--Israel. The only mention of Iron Dome in the 
budget is buried in an appendix. Meanwhile, the President wants 
to spend $34 million to address ``extremism'' in the military. 
If we are going to talk about extremism, let's talk about the 
42 individuals on the terror watch list that have been 
apprehended at our southern border since President Biden took 
office.
    With the President set to end Title 42 border policy and 
likely it will double to 18,000 the number of illegal 
immigrants trying to cross the border every day, I hope our 
military leaders are talking to the President about how this is 
not just an immigration problem--it is a national security 
crisis.
    We know DHS will need to continue calling DoD for help. 
That is going to impact the military's bottom line while at the 
same time the President in his budget, is telling our military 
to be sure it funds implementation of a DoD report on 
``equity.'' These are funds that will not be used to arm and 
protect our men and women in uniform. Given these 
circumstances, we must have as much transparency on the part of 
DoD and the Administration about where funds are going and how 
they are being spent. We need accounting of resources like 
those left behind in Afghanistan that are now arming the 
Taliban. We need the Biden Administration to maintain the 
commitment we saw under President Trump to have the Defense 
Department conduct an audit so that Congress and the American 
people know how and where tax dollars are being spent so we can 
ensure resources are getting to the places they are needed the 
most.
    The national security threats at our border and around the 
world, the highest spike in prices in 40 years, skyrocketing 
energy costs--President Biden may see these as an inconvenient 
political problem, but American families, they see them as a 
crisis. I fear our enemies will see them as weakness. We need a 
budget that takes these problems seriously. I yield back.
    [The prepared statement of Jason Smith follows:]
    
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      Chairman Yarmuth. I thank the Ranking Member for his 
opening remarks. In the interest of time, I ask that any other 
Members who wish to make a statement submit their written 
statements for the record to the email inbox we established for 
receiving documents before and during committee proceedings. 
Once again, we have distributed that email address to the 
staffs. I will hold the record open until the end of the day to 
accommodate those Members who may not yet have prepared written 
statements.
    Once again, I want to thank Under Secretary McCord for 
being here this morning. The Committee has received your 
written statement and it will be made part of the formal 
hearing record. You will have five minutes to give your oral 
remarks and you may begin when you are ready.

 STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MCCORD, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, U.S. 
                     DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

    Mr. McCord. Thank you, Chairman Yarmuth, Ranking Member 
Smith, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you 
for this opportunity to testify on the President's Fiscal Year 
2023 budget request for the Department of Defense. First, Mr. 
Chairman, I want to thank you for your service to the people of 
Kentucky, and the House, and to our country, and wish you all 
the best as you prepare to retire at the end of this Congress.
    It is a pleasure to be here nearly 20 years since I served 
on the staff of this Committee in a very luxurious cubicle in 
the basement of this building, alongside your staff director 
and the three others who remain on the Committee staff today 
from that time. I appreciate the key role this Committee plays 
in addressing our nation's priorities.
    Last month, President Biden released his Fiscal Year 2023 
budget request, as you know, which includes $773 billion in 
discretionary funding for the Department of Defense, which is a 
4 percent increase over the Fiscal Year 2022 enacted amount and 
an 8 percent increase over what we requested last year. The 
represents the largest budget request ever in nominal terms in 
the history of the Department. Our request for the entire 
national defense function for Fiscal Year 2023 totals $813.4 
billion in discretionary funding and $827 billion for the 
function when mandatory spending is included.
    Given the size and scope of our department with 3 million 
employees, $3 trillion in assets, and worldwide missions, it is 
hard to summarize our goals and programs and operations 
briefly, but I want to highlight a few key items from our 
budget. Our budget was submitted to Congress alongside our new 
National Defense Strategy, which was designed to fill Secretary 
Austin's direction to match resources to strategy and strategy 
to policy. In both the strategy and the budget, we prioritize 
China as our long-term pacing challenge, but we recognize 
Russia as an acute and dangerous threat to our interests as 
well.
    The budget advances our goal through three primary 
channels, which you may have heard the Secretary describe, 
integrated deterrence, campaigning, and actions to build 
enduring advantages. These three approaches are the heart of 
the strategy and the organizing framework for our budget.
    First, integrated deterrence entails developing and 
combining the strengths that we have for maximum effect by 
working across different war fighting domains, different 
geographic regions, different spectrums of conflict, with our 
other agencies, other instruments of national power, and our 
network of allies and partners.
    Campaigning is something that is more done by combatant 
commanders. It means well-planned, well-sequenced activities 
and initiatives around the world that are meant to advance our 
priorities and gain us advantage over our competitors. For 
example, most notably, there is a Pacific deterrence initiative 
and a European deterrence initiative that I think are well-
known to members. Those are probably the two best examples of 
that.
    The third axis of our strategy is to build enduring 
advantages. And this is investments in policies that make our 
institutions stronger and capable for the long haul. So, this 
is both our own people, primarily our own people, but also our 
industrial base partners to make them more agile and resilient. 
Chairman, you mentioned some of the things. It is focused on 
our own people, the basic needs allowance, which we are rolling 
out on based on the NDAA, and also, the 4.6 percent pay raise 
for military and civilians, and implementation of the $15 
minimum wage for our federal employees and federal contractors 
contained in the President's executive order.
    In the budget in our programs, our focus wasn't on 
enhancing our capabilities in ways that would make the most 
difference, first and foremost, against China, but also against 
Russia. While China's our largest challenger across the 
military, diplomatic, and economic dimensions, I want to be 
clear that many of the high priority investments in this budget 
do not fall neatly into a China-only box or a Russia-only box. 
Virtually all of our most important investments help us on both 
fronts, starting with the modernization of our nuclear triad 
and also our investments in more distributed and resilient 
space architecture that recognizes this space is no longer a 
sanctuary to operate in.
    Likewise, our investments in cyber capability and the 
quality of our service members, in submarines, in our 
industrial base, are all examples of capabilities we need to 
build to keep strong for all the challenges we face. And that 
is the logic of the idea of building and maintaining enduring 
advantages. Let me give one particular example that we have $3 
billion in this budget for microelectronics both in terms of 
lifetime buy procurement of chips that exist today and in 
research. This funding is meant to be complementary to the 
CHIPS Act, which we hope this Congress will pass soon.
    I also want to highlight in this budget, some of which you 
touched on, Chairman, to implement both the recommendations of 
our own independent review, Commission on Countering Sexual 
Assault, and the landmark changes in military justice in this 
area enacted in last year's Defense Authorization bill. Due to 
the lengthy CR, we were not able to move out as quickly as we 
wanted to last year because it was a new start activity. But we 
are moving to accelerate and catch up in Fiscal Year 2023 in 
this budget on this issue.
    Finally, I just want to highlight, there is $1 billion in 
this budget to respond to the fuel spill at our Red Hill 
facility in Hawaii. And that is a strong sign of this 
Administration's commitment to do the right thing both by our 
own people in Hawaii and our neighbors in Honolulu. As 
Secretary Austin announced last month, we plan to shut this 
facility down and disburse our fuel operations in the region 
going forward.
    Let me also say a word about inflation. When we saw prices 
changing last year, we took all the information that we could 
gather up to the time we finished the budget late in the 
calendar year and built that into our Fiscal Year 2023 pricing. 
We worked with OMB to add about $20 billion a year to this 
program from 2023 through 2027, to reflect higher inflation for 
goods and services and the compensation--increased compensation 
cost for our own service members.
    In terms of a general inflation rate, I know a lot of 
people focus on this consumer price index. That is not what we 
use at DoD. We use the chain-weighted price index for the GDP 
deflater, which is required by law, first of all, but also more 
reflective of what we buy. We also use a number of specific 
price indices for fuel, for housing costs, for our healthcare. 
As you know, prices have continued to evolve since we finalized 
our budget. We recognize the impact of global economic 
conditions on our ability to deliver the capabilities in this 
budget. And we are prepared to work with Congress to find the 
best solutions to address these challenges as we move forward 
toward the congressional oversight of this budget.
    To conclude, Mr. Chairman, the people of our department are 
working hard every day to protect and advance our security and 
advance the security of our allies and partners. We are doing 
everything we can to assist the people of Ukraine in their 
struggle against Russian aggression, which we could not do 
without your strong support in Congress. I am ready to discuss 
that issue further during our session today.
    Along the lines of the whole-of-government approach that 
you mentioned, our department is serving as--is ready to serve 
as an important instrument of national power whenever called 
on, and sometimes in ways that are not particularly visible to 
the American people. For example, we played an important 
support role in the effort to control the COVID-19 pandemic 
using our contracting and logistics capabilities to award over 
$30 billion of contracts for vaccines and delivered 297 million 
syringes to put shots in arms on behalf of HHS. Likewise, 
working with HHS and AID, we have awarded $7 billion in 
contracts to procure a billion doses of vaccine for global 
distribution. So, this is not something we are doing with our 
defense budget but doing with our capabilities to help out our 
interagency partners.
    Our budget is grounded in our strategy and our primary 
focus is on making--increasing our capability to make our force 
better, not to make it a larger force. Given the security 
challenges we face, I urge the Committee to fully support the 
President's budget request for national defense. Thank you. And 
I look forward to your questions about this budget.
    [The prepared statement of Michael McCord follows:]
    
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    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you very much for your statement. I 
figured I would give you the liberty of a few--a couple more 
minutes since we are talking about an awful lot of money.
    We will now begin our question-and-answer session. As a 
reminder, Members can submit written questions to be answered 
later in writing. Those questions and responses will be made 
part of the formal hearing record. Any Members who wish to 
submit questions for the record, may do so by sending them 
electronically to the email inbox we have established within 
seven days of the hearing.
    As is my habit, I will defer my questioning to the end. So, 
I now recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Higgins, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Higgins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you 
Secretary McCord for being here today. I just want to focus on 
the issue of America and the rest of the world's addiction to 
Russian oil and refined petroleum products. The world gives 
Vladimir Putin $1 billion every single day for the gas and oil 
that Russia provides to European Union countries, to the United 
States, and to Germany. Our addiction to oil has weaponized the 
war in Ukraine and to take advantage of the fact that the 
United States is not energy independent. In fact, according to 
the Energy Information Agency last year, the United States 
imported 672,000 barrels every single day or 22 million barrels 
a month of Russian crude oil and refined petroleum products.
    You know, we just spent $6 trillion in three Middle East 
wars primarily because of our addiction to their oil. Despite 
what we say, we are not energy independent. Today in the world, 
there are 211 lithium-ion battery factories. Batteries make up 
30 to 40 percent of the entire cost of an electric vehicle. Two 
hundred 11 lithium-ion batteries worldwide, 156 are in China, 
22 are in Europe, and 12 are in the United States. Americans, 
75 percent say they want an electric vehicle, 50 percent are 
reluctant to pursue purchase of an electric vehicle because of 
lack of confidence about charging infrastructure. So, how does 
the Department of Defense assess the importance of developing 
electric vehicles to become energy independent and to combat 
climate change and to our national defense strategy?
    Mr. McCord. Excuse me, thank you. Probably the primary area 
we feel like we can make a difference more quickly is on 
vehicles and aircraft I should say. Aircraft are what consume 
most of our energy in the Defense Department. And we do have 
some programs that are going to take longer to deliver. 
Something called a blended wing body, which is something that 
will benefit both our longer-range aircraft like a tanker, but 
also of interest on the commercial side. So, hopefully a win-
win for the Department and the private sector.
    On the climate side, in the Department, one of the key 
factors that we thought about here in this past year building 
this budget was trying to, as you say, look at where the market 
is moving so that we are not wedding ourselves to technology 
that industry is not going to be producing in a few years. So, 
that we are not in the situation we are in with something like 
a submarine where we are buying some--we are the only one who 
buys something. So, we are looking for wins that will keep us 
in sync with the market, that will reduce our logistic tail. It 
is something you look at today in Russia-Ukraine. The Russians 
are suffering greatly by their poor logistics. This is 
something--not to say that their capabilities are anywhere near 
ours, but this is a situation you don't want to be in where you 
are tied down by your logistics frame.
    Mr. Higgins. Well, let me say this.
    Mr. McCord. So, we are looking to making ourselves more 
agile as well as market friendly with these investments.
    Mr. Higgins. Without Russian oil and gas exports, the Putin 
regime would collapse. It is estimated that 300,000 young 
people under the age of 40 that are tech savvy, Russia produces 
more software engineers than any country in the world and twice 
that of the United States. The problem for Russia is it is an 
economy that is shrinking. Its population is shrinking. And all 
the people that are leaving are the young people that are 
looking for a better way of life somewhere else.
    So, when you look at, you know, 35 to 40 percent of the 
entire economy is gas and oil, and we, and in Western Europe, 
are addicted to that gas and oil, that empowers Putin. Then he 
steals the money from the Russian people, gives it to oligarchs 
that puts that money in rule of law nations. So, it is harder 
to sanction those moneys because in rule of law nations, people 
that have money have rights.
    So, it just seems to me that this all comes down to the 
very same conclusion. We are stuck in a bad situation, not 
entirely, but primarily because we and the rest of the world 
are addicted to oil and gas that Vladmir Putin drills into the 
ground, doesn't diversify his economy. People don't have 
rights. The Russian economy is tanking. And, you know, that 
economy and that country is getting older and poorer because 
all the young people are leaving. Now, maybe the silver lining 
here is that they will come to the United States and use their 
skills that they can't, you know, realize their full potential 
in a country like Russia. So, thank you for being here.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
yield 10 minutes to the Ranking Member, Mr. Smith.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCord, President 
Biden's defense budget spends $3.1 billion on climate programs. 
It is five times more than the Administration requested last 
year. How does the Administration justify funneling billions of 
dollars to the Green New Deal agenda rather than protecting our 
men and women in uniform?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Smith, we feel that these investments are 
things primarily that we need to happen anyway. We are always 
going to invest in our facilities. We are always going to 
invest in some kind of vehicle, some kind of aircraft. So, we 
are trying to have them be ones that are going to move us in 
the right direction to reduce our dependence on logistic trains 
when we are moving, on the tactical side--on the non-tactical 
side, normal vehicles that are moved around for other things.
    Again, we are trying to be where the market is so that we 
are investing in vehicles and batteries that industry is going 
to be producing. So, we don't feel that it is an either/or that 
it is taking away from things that we would be otherwise 
needed. We are always going to invest in vehicles and always 
going to invest in our facilities.
    Mr. Smith. You have a funding stream in here that implement 
a DoD equity report. You also include $34 million for DoD to 
address extremism within the ranks. DoD has identified fewer 
than 100 instances of confirmed extremist activity in 2021. And 
investigators have turned up no more than a handful of so-
called extremists within a military of 2.1 million people. Why 
does the Administration believe our military is full of 
extremists? Or is this just furthering a narrative of political 
convenience?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Smith, I think the Secretary does not 
believe, and I am sure he is convinced, that our military is 
not full of extremists. He is concerned that, you know, one is 
too many. And, therefore, that he feels strongly about the need 
for both to address extremism and prevent it from being an 
issue in our force, but also on the broader issue of diversity. 
As he well knows, our military, as you know, is very diverse. 
But when you get to the top, the leadership looks less diverse 
and looks less like the force that it leads. And so, he is 
concerned about both of these things as making the team as 
strong as possible that it be a diverse team from the bottom to 
the top. And that extremism, while rare, is very divisive and, 
you know, corrosive of good order and discipline.
    Mr. Smith. For $34 million, the military could purchase 
over 100 tactical vehicles. It could purchase a couple of 
additional Abrams Tanks, items far more beneficial to our 
troops in the field, and to the success of their missions. What 
exactly are you planning to spend this $34 million on?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Smith, I would have to get you the details 
for the record down below line, at line level.
    Mr. Smith. I definitely would love the details and so would 
the American people. Well, it seems this idea that the military 
has somehow been infiltrated by extremists, white nationalists, 
and neo-Nazi sympathizers won't go away because just this week, 
the Democrats, they had planned to move a bill calling for 
investigations into the military and law enforcement for 
terrorist activity, something I find deeply offensive.
    When you testified last year, I asked you about the cost of 
the President's decision to cancel the border wall. We have 
estimates that the government is spending $6 million per day to 
DoD contractors to essentially babysit $350 million in unused 
border wall material. We sent you a letter as well to which we 
have yet to hear back. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to 
submit the letter for the record.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
    [Letter submitted for the record follows:]
    
    
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    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How much funding has 
DoD spent on litigation and settling disputes related to 
contracts for the border wall?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Smith, we can get you that for the record. 
I don't believe that the total was very high because, of 
course, on litigation we don't----
    Mr. Smith. If you can get me that. We have been asking for 
a year, I would appreciate that. And I love that you said that 
here in Committee. How many border wall contracts has DoD 
canceled since the start of the Biden Administration?
    Mr. McCord. I don't have that number at my fingertips. I 
don't believe the number of contracts was large. The dollar 
amount may have been larger. But I don't think there were that 
many different contracts.
    Mr. Smith. Can you give us that information?
    Mr. McCord. The number of contracts?
    Mr. Smith. Hopefully, in a timely fashion too. And how much 
more of DoD funds does the Administration intend to spend on 
settling these contracts?
    Mr. McCord. I am not aware that we have spent anything to 
settle yet, but.
    Mr. Smith. How much are you intending to set aside to 
settle?
    Mr. McCord. We don't have funds set aside for border wall 
litigation in the Department budget.
    Mr. Smith. So, you won't be able to settle any contracts if 
you have no money set aside.
    Mr. McCord. Well, we at the Department of Defense would 
work in consort with the Department of Justice who is always 
the lead for litigation for the Executive, so.
    Mr. Smith. As soon as you have any settlements, I would 
love to have that information and I think the Budget Committee 
Members would love that as well.
    We know DHS has had to request assistance from DoD to aide 
in dealing with the border crisis. Does DoD support the 
President's plan to lift the Title 42 border policy and double 
the number of illegal immigrants, roughly 18,000 folks 
attempting to enter the U.S. each day?
    Mr. McCord. I don't know that the Department of Defense was 
asked or has provided a view on that policy matter. I will say 
on support to the border, that is something that has occurred 
every year that I have been associated with the Department. So, 
for at least a dozen years in a row, the Department of Homeland 
Security asked us to provide security. I think many members are 
familiar with, we are not directly in contact with illegal 
immigrants. But we are on the intelligence side and the support 
side that would be continuing this year. The Secretary has 
already responded to Secretary Mayorkas' request that we be 
prepared to provide support again this year.
    Mr. Smith. Is DoD planning for the contingency that it will 
have to fund some sort of effort to assist DHS with the border 
crisis? And how much of its budget does DoD believe will need 
to be allocated to assist DHS?
    Mr. McCord. In recent years, the average has been about 1/
10 of a percent, about $5 or $600 million a year is the bill 
that we have tended to run up each year in providing support to 
the border wall.
    Mr. Smith. OK.
    Mr. McCord. I am sorry, support on the border, not the 
border wall, excuse me.
    Mr. Smith. Last year, I asked you about what areas of the 
defense budget are impacted the most by increases in inflation. 
You said, ``Probably the thing that we noticed the most rapidly 
in the Defense Department is when fuel prices change because we 
are such a large consumer of fuel.'' We have seen a dramatic 
rise in fuel prices since President Biden took office, in fact, 
88.9 percent increase. How have these higher fuel prices 
affected DoD?
    Mr. McCord. What we discussed last year is still the case 
today, that fuel is our most volatile and easily recognizable 
price increase when prices change. This year, in Fiscal Year 
2022, we have already seen a fuel price increase in the first 
couple months of $1.5 billion. That cost increase was made 
known to the Appropriations Committees who provided funding for 
that in the omnibus appropriations bill that was signed six 
weeks ago.
    Mr. Smith. Wow.
    Mr. McCord. Since that time, largely due to the price spike 
after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we estimated a bill of 
$1.8 billion for the rest of this fiscal year. So, over $3 
billion across the course of this Fiscal Year in increased fuel 
prices if the situation remains as we see it today.
    Mr. Smith. Wow, $3 billion is a lot. And, you know, in 
fact, in an exchange between Chairman Yarmuth and the OMB 
Director Shalanda Young last month, they suggested that since 
DoD can lock in prices in advance with contracts, DoD's budget 
is not particularly impacted by inflationary increases or fuel 
cost. Do you agree with the Chairman and Director Young? Or do 
you disagree and see that as a real concern? Three billion 
dollars seems like a real concern.
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Smith, we do have contracts, but we are--
although we are a very large consumer of fuel, we are still at 
the 1 percent level in terms of the fuel market.
    Mr. Smith. But it is a concern.
    Mr. McCord. We cannot move the markets ourselves. We don't 
have an ability to buy long-term contracts that completely 
insulate us from--we do buy by contract, but they only go so 
far out.
    Mr. Smith. So, the President's budget proposes the bare 
minimum of funding for the Iron Dome defense system for our 
ally Israel. The funding level is 92 percent less than what was 
recently adopted in the bipartisan fashion by Congress. The 
Administration also buries any mention of Iron Dome in an 
appendix to the budget. Does DoD believe the bare minimum of 
funding is enough to support Israel? And what sort of signal 
does that send to our ally Israel and to Israel's enemies about 
U.S.'s commitments when it is obvious Iran is charging full 
speed ahead to a nuclear weapon?
    Mr. McCord. I would say the Department has a pretty long 
history of cooperative programs with Israel, including Arrow 
and David's Sling. The Iron Dome funding last year, of course, 
was a spike because of the rocket attacks and the request from 
the Government of Israel for $1 billion was over and above the 
normal support. So, we are continuing the normal support, but 
we don't have anything. You know, that was a one-time $1 
billion last year request from Israel based on this specific 
incident.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Doggett, for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Doggett. Thank you so much. And thank you for your 
service and your testimony. This budget request unifies the 
Army's modernization strategy under the Army Futures Command, 
which is based in Austin, Texas, with almost an additional $1 
billion over the current budget and after a year that Army 
Futures has described as a standout year. So, I am pleased to 
see that provision though I remain concerned that a commanding 
general, a permanent commanding general has not yet been 
submitted to the Senate.
    Particularly important in the cooperation with Army Futures 
Command, which is so unique, is the involvement and engagement 
with the private sector, with the University of Texas on trauma 
care, which promises great benefits to the civilian sector, as 
well, and the work with Austin Community College in opening the 
doors on an Army software factory. So, I am very pleased to see 
that that is happening.
    I am a little amazed but perhaps those who view the events 
that occurred here that culminated with the attempt to 
overthrow the government on January the 6, dismissed the need 
to focus on domestic extremism. I think all those who don't 
believe in the fantasy that this was a legitimate political 
discourse would have to applaud the portion of this budget that 
is allocated to concerns about domestic extremism.
    Likewise, I find the Ranking Member's criticism of the 
portion of this budget allocated to addressing the existential 
challenge of the climate crisis, I think they would be shocking 
were they not repeated so frequently. The climate crisis is one 
of our most serious national security challenges, as not only 
this budget, but one former national security leader after 
another, people like Admiral Dennis Blair have recognized that 
we need to be dealing with this and that we are already facing 
the dangers to our families of not addressing the climate 
crisis. So, I think the real danger to our families, security 
wise, is not from this budget, but from those who continue to 
be climate deniers.
    Finally, Mr. McCord, as far as Ukraine is concerned, our 
most immediate issue right now, it is very encouraging to see 
what happened with the Secretaries going to Kyiv this week. And 
with the developments yesterday, the fact that this 
Administration doesn't take a go it alone approach but is 
uniting both NATO and countries outside of NATO to help, can 
you outline for us basically what this budget is doing 
concerning our ongoing commitment to give the Ukrainians 
everything that they need to defend their freedom and prevent 
advances beyond Ukraine by Russian atrocities in Moldova or 
elsewhere.
    Mr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. Doggett. Our budget, per se, for 
2023 was built before--it was finalized before the invasion 
occurred. So, there is not a direct straight line from 
invasion, therefore, the budget does X, Y, Z. What I will say 
is that for 2022, we had a supplemental attached to the omnibus 
appropriation bill with strong support for both the state and 
the DoD sides of support to Ukraine.
    We have, as of the end of this week, we will have pretty 
much used all of that, the draw down and Ukraine Security 
Initiative funding. We anticipate sending an additional 
supplemental to Congress this week to continue to message that 
we are in this with the Ukrainians, we, and our partners, to 
make sure that they have what they need to continue their fight 
against Russian aggression.
    So, for 2023, we are going to be reviewing this summer to 
what extent our posture in Europe should change. And then there 
are a lot of variables there. It may seem obvious that the 
answer would be we are going to have more troops stationed in 
Europe. But given that Russia may emerge weaker, there needs to 
be some analysis before we jump to that conclusion. We will be 
doing that analysis this summer. I think that we will be able 
to, after the NATO Summit this summer, and after that analysis, 
be able to come back to Congress and say what we think needs to 
happen in Europe over for our own posture as the U.S. anchor of 
NATO, in addition then to what is the nature of the conflict? 
Is it over? Is it turning into a frozen conflict? Is it still 
an active conflict? But I anticipate that we will be continuing 
to stand with the Ukrainians. And if we need to ask for 
additional funding in 2023, specifically to assist the 
Ukrainians, I would anticipate that we will--the Secretary will 
be back before Congress to talk about that.
    But the budget itself continues. The underlying framework 
of European Deterrence Initiative and we look forward to seeing 
how we can strengthen that in consort with our allies at the 
NATO Summit this summer.
    Mr. Doggett. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 
yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back. I now yield 
five minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Kelly.
    Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 
McCord, for being here today. The Biden budget includes several 
misplaced priorities, while it fails to fund programs critical 
to national security. The budget does not fund American air 
power. The Air Force would be forced to cut 150 aircraft, 
including 21 A-10's, 33 F-22 Raptors, 50 T-1 Jayhawks, and 13 
KC-135 refuelers. The Air Force would also cut 15 F-35 jets 
compared to last year's budget request. The Army troop levels, 
if enacted this budget, would result in the smallest army we 
have had since World War II. Navy ships, the Navy ships we 
would reduce our total fleet by 24 to 280. China, meanwhile, is 
continuing to have more ships and we say we need 350 ships. Not 
to mention, we have sent numerous supplies to Ukraine whether 
that be Javelin missiles or launchers, whether that be Stingers 
or Stinger armaments, S-300 artillery, small arms. Is anything 
in this budget replacing or replenishing our ammunition that we 
would need to fight tomorrow should the need arise? We cannot 
fight with weapon systems or ammunition that is produced in the 
future. We have to fight with what we have in stock on deck.
    So, all that being said, my first question is there are a 
lot of different numbers and percentages being thrown around 
regarding the defense budget. The Administration is claiming 
this request is an increase, a 9.8 percent increase for DoD, to 
be exact. But just to be clear, this is compared to Fiscal Year 
2021, not Fiscal Year 2022. Is that correct? Which is only a 
2.2 percent increase.
    Mr. McCord. You are correct. The 2-year increase was 10 
percent. And the reason that we had mentioned that was that up 
until the time we were finishing, it wasn't clear what was 
going to happen with Fiscal Year 2022. So, it was a good way to 
sort of anchor from 2021 to 2023 before we knew where 2022 was 
going to come out.
    Mr. Kelly. Now, refresh my memory. This is also based on a 
2 percent inflation rate, which we know is greater than 8 
percent. Is that correct, this budget?
    Mr. McCord. Our budget is a real increase with the 
inflation rate that is in our budget. Obviously, inflation 
continues to evolve and the numbers will be known for good a 
year and a half from now, when Fiscal Year 2023 inflation is a 
fact as opposed to a projection.
    Mr. Kelly. But it is an 8 percent inflation rate now over 
last, not a 2 percent inflation rate.
    Mr. McCord. Not in terms of the deflaters that we use.
    Mr. Kelly. OK.
    Mr. McCord. In terms of the CPI going higher.
    Mr. Kelly. Let me get to the next point. But even at a 2.2 
percent increase over last year's budget, even the 2 percent 
number you gave last year means defense spending is flat this 
year under the Biden budget.
    Mr. McCord. Again, our budget is a real increase over both 
the enacted and the requested last year. But the exact numbers 
will be fluctuating if inflation continues to be dynamic as it 
is right now.
    Mr. Kelly. And it continues to have $3.1 billion on climate 
programs. Is that correct?
    Mr. McCord. That is the figure that we have in the budget. 
That is correct.
    Mr. Kelly. And I haven't seen any electric tanks or 
electric vehicles operating in the Ukraine theatre, have you?
    Mr. McCord. No. And tanks are not a primary level, you 
know, lever that we are trying to electrify.
    Mr. Kelly. Are the cuts to the Air Force, fighter 
procurement, total Navy ships, Army troop levels, due to the 
Administration's insistence that we can spend more money on 
green policies? If not, can you tell me why we are cutting 
ships, airplanes, and troops?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, thank you for that question. And I realize 
this is an issue that the committees are going to grapple with 
as they go through their markups on the Arms Services Committee 
where you sit and elsewhere in the appropriations process. The 
primary rationale for some of these reductions is that we are 
trying to divest ourselves of older, less capable systems that 
we don't think are going to cut it in a high-end fight with 
China if it comes to that. So, the ships, in particular, the 
older LCS are just not that capable. The A-10's are good 
airplanes----
    Mr. Kelly. OK. Let me----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. but they are not survivable----
    Mr. Kelly [continuing]. let me be real quick because I only 
have time for one more question.
    Mr. McCord. That is the rationale.
    Mr. Kelly. And I am sorry. I want the rest of your answer, 
but I need to ask this one more question. Of the unfunded 
requirements list, the UFRs, that every year we want to fill, 
those are things that we need that we don't have funds for. How 
many of those could be funded with the $3.1 billion--or 
trillion--billion in green climate stuff?
    Mr. McCord. I believe the total of all the combatant, 
commander, chief unfunded lists are much higher than $3 
billion. So, yes, you could fund--you could use the $3 billion 
in another way if the committee's----
    Mr. Kelly. With that I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back and now I yield 
five minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. 
McCord, as the Chief Financial Officer, I am sure that you are 
aware of the recent report with that was--including findings 
from the Department of Defense Inspector General that 
highlighted what I would say is the broken and wasteful sole 
source contracting and spare parts equipment system, 
acquisition system. The Pentagon and the American taxpayers, I 
think, are really getting ripped off by many of these 
contracts. Some of those contractors have raised prices on 
essential items to the tune of more than 3,000 percent.
    In 2021, officials said that the U.S. Air Force paid a 
price of $10,000 to replace toilet seat covers. Now, I go way 
back to a time when we talked about $1,000 toilet seats and for 
a military cargo plane. And I ask unanimous consent to put into 
the record this article, The Air Force's $10,000 toilet cover.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
    [Article submitted for the record follows:]
    
    
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    Ms. Schakowsky. And it seems to me that many of these small 
but vital parts and components are necessary, but because they 
can often be labeled commercial items, that contractors can 
refuse to provide the information and the cost information and 
prevents us from actually getting the best price.
    So, I know that the Department itself at one point in 2012, 
said that there ought to be legislation that would reform the 
contracting process and lower the prices. So, I wanted to know 
what you would say about these excessive prices that the 
contractors are charging.
    Mr. McCord. Thank you for that question. I would say I am 
not familiar with the Air Force particular contract that you 
are citing, but I would say, in general, you are correct that 
we have a different standard for commercial items than we do 
for non-commercial items. And that is a judgment that the 
Department and the committees have made.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Well, does that mean that we have a harder 
time doing negotiations for a lower price?
    Mr. McCord. Well, for a commercial item, yes, you are not 
supposed to be spending the same amount of time negotiating or 
doing contract auditing on the backend. And that is a tradeoff 
that everybody has to make a judgment on as to whether if every 
commercial item went through the same scrutiny as a submarine, 
then you would have, you know, you would need a lot more 
contract auditors. You would have additional costs and time 
spent. So, that is, again, a tradeoff that people, we have 
collectively have made that commercial items should live by a 
different standard. Because we often hear it is too hard to do 
business with the Department for smaller firms to compete and 
have a balance.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Well, let me just say though, the 
Department of Defense apparently found that if you just use--
that there is a way to produce the same thing for $300 instead 
of $10,000, it seems it might be worth checking out, whether 
some of these commercial things are worth it.
    Mr. McCord. Agree.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Well, so tell me, how are we going to do 
something about addressing this problem of contractors who may 
be gouging----
    Mr. McCord. Well, that----
    Ms. Schakowsky [continuing]. taxpayers and the Department 
of Defense?
    Mr. McCord. Well, in terms of entering into the contract 
itself, of course, that would be the responsibility of 
contracting officers on the acquisitions side of the 
Department. I am not an acquisition official myself. But there 
is another line of defense, if you will, in the contracting 
officers themselves deciding what to purchase and how they go 
about entering into those contracts. But for the contract audit 
piece that does report to me, again, we do have a different 
standard for commercial items.
    Ms. Schakowsky. Aside from the issue of commercial items, 
the report that was made said that we are paying up to 3,000 
times more for items from contractors. As the chief financial 
officer, don't you think this is something that we have to 
really look into?
    Mr. McCord. I would agree that their pricing should be 
looked at. And as you know, of course, there have been pricing 
increases due to the supply chain problems in the last year or 
two, and I don't know if the data time period that your report 
is focusing on if it is during that supply chain issue or 
before. But, yes, I agree that contract pricing is important.
    Ms. Schakowsky. OK. This was done by the DoD Inspector 
General. So, this is not my report. This is the DoD Inspector 
General. And I hope you will look into it because we shouldn't 
be paying these exorbitant prices. And I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman's time has expired. I now 
yield five minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. 
McClintock.
    Mr. McClintock. First of all, I couldn't agree more with 
Ms. Schakowsky's line of questioning. I am not as interested in 
whether we are spending more or less on the military this year 
as I am concerned about whether we are getting more or less for 
what we are spending. I happen to agree with Ronald Reagan that 
defense is not a budget issue. You spend what you need to spend 
in order to protect the country. But, you know, as was pointed 
out in a recent article on The Hill by Ben Freeman and William 
Hartung, they noted that the budget would give the Pentagon 
more money by far than at any time during the heights of the 
Korean War, Vietnam War, or cold war, even when accounting for 
inflation.
    Despite this historically high-level of Pentagon spending, 
the military has been shrinking. They point out that since 
1985, our Navy fleet shrunk from 571 to 298 ships. Our Air 
Force has declined from 10,458 planes to 5,217. And our 
military force has shrunk from 2.1 million active-duty 
personnel to just under 1.4 million. They go on to write, while 
some might argue that while quantities of military equipment 
are down, quality has gone up. But it is precisely the most 
advanced weapons programs that have proven to be the biggest 
budget blunders.
    China is spending, according to independent analyses, about 
$250 billion a year on its military. That is less than 1/3 of 
what the Administration proposes. And yet, China seems to be 
massively outbuilding us in terms of ships, weapons systems, 
their armed force is twice the size of ours. What are you doing 
about this? As the millennials would say, WTF?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. McClintock, this is the same subject I 
think Mr. Kelly was touching on quality versus quantity. We do 
judge the, for example, the Army, the Army decided that the 
numbers were telling them that they could not recruit to a 
bigger number right now given the historically low unemployment 
and other factors out there. So, rather than chase, you know, a 
bigger army----
    Mr. McClintock. Well, I am asking why are we spending so 
much more and getting so much less?
    Mr. McCord. I don't believe we are getting less. We have 
very capable systems that----
    Mr. McClintock. Well, again, we----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. are better than----
    Mr. McClintock [continuing]. we come, we----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. the Chinese systems.
    Mr. McClintock. We are spending more and yet we got half 
the ships and half the planes we had in 1985. This is 
unacceptable.
    Mr. McCord. But, again, the number--just counting people or 
counting ships,----
    Mr. McClintock. What would you say are the----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. I mean, we all are able----
    Mr. McClintock [continuing]. biggest sources----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. to count them but----
    Mr. McClintock. Let me just ask you this. What would you 
say are the biggest sources of waste in the defense budget?
    Mr. McCord. I think probably one of the biggest sources of 
high cost in the defense budget are the things that we buy that 
are so, you know, unique to the military that there is no 
commercial----
    Mr. McClintock. No, no.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. market for.
    Mr. McClintock. What are we--where are the biggest sources 
of waste in the Defense Department or have we even turned your 
attention to that?
    Mr. McCord. I think----
    Mr. McClintock. Let me go. On Earth Day this year, 
President Biden said--I love this quote--``One of the things I 
found out as President of the United States, I get to spend a 
lot of that money. We are going to start the process where 
every vehicle in the United States military, every vehicle is 
going to be climate friendly. Every vehicle, I mean it. We are 
spending billions of dollars to do it.''
    A few years ago, the GAO reported that green energy 
mandates under Obama cost the Navy as much as $150 per gallon 
for jet fuel. That is high even for California standards. In 
2012, the Navy was forced to purchase 450,000 gallons of 
biofuel for its so-called green fleet at the cost of $26.60 per 
gallon, when conventional petroleum cost just $2.50 per gallon. 
These mandates forced the Air Force to pay $59 per gallon for 
11,000 gallons of biofuel in 2012, 10 times more than regular 
jet fuel costs. Is this a wise use of our defense dollars?
    Mr. McCord. Well, I would say, as I said to Mr. Smith a few 
minutes ago, we have a big price increase for conventional fuel 
right now. So, I think there is wisdom in us to----
    Mr. McClintock. Paying more for non-conventional petroleum.
    Mr. McCord. There is wisdom in us diversifying----
    Mr. McClintock. That is not----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. our sources of fuel.
    Mr. McClintock. With all due respect, Mr. McCord, that is 
nuts
    Mr. McCord. Diversifying our sources of fuel and energy.
    Mr. McClintock. And that is zapping our ability to 
adequately field a defense force. One more thing, in 2010, 
Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that in 
his professional military judgment, our greatest national 
security threat was the national debt. That year, that debt was 
$13 trillion. Today, it is over $30 trillion. Does the 
Administration agree that is still our biggest national 
security threat?
    Mr. McCord. If you say the Administration, I can't speak to 
what the President----
    Mr. McClintock. The military establishment.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. how the President would rank these 
threats. But the debt is a threat. Climate is a threat. China 
is. We have a number of issues. We don't get to focus on just 
one.
    Mr. McClintock. So, you would place the climate in the same 
category as China or the national debt. You know, countries 
that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long. And before 
you can provide for the common defense, you have to be able to 
pay for it. And don't tell me, oh, well, they have cut the 
deficit in half this year. That is compared to the blowout 
spending of the last two years. You go back to the last pre-
pandemic year, the deficit this year under this budget balloons 
50 percent. And it wasn't the Republican tax cuts. Revenues 
went up after those cuts, not down. The only reason the deficit 
continued was because we couldn't say no to spending. I yield 
back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I am 
going to give the Under Secretary the opportunity to finish 
answering the question that Mr. McClintock asked if you want 
to.
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Chairman, let me just come back one more 
time on the subject of quantity versus quality, which I think 
is the part that you are referring to. We do have a reduction 
the Navy proposed and we at OSD agreed with that some older, 
less capable ships, those four combat ships, in particular. 
Same on the aircraft side. The KC-135s that Mr. Kelly referred 
to are being replaced by the new KC-46s. Just counting the 
numbers, the things that we are divesting, are not equal, in 
any sense, capable to the ones that we are buying. But they 
cost you money to maintain them, speaking of what is perceived 
to be wasteful.
    So, ships that are not going to be effective in a high-end 
contest with China that cost us money to maintain divert money 
from the things that we think we do need to buy. And this is 
something that any executive would look at, right? Is divesting 
from older less capable things to move to newer technology. But 
these are difficult tradeoffs for people. And it does lead to 
quantity reductions, having fewer ships or fewer aircraft. But, 
again, we think these are wise investments but there are things 
that we need to persuade Congress of or not. I mean, that is a 
big part of every annual defense authorization debate is 
whether or not we will be allowed to retire older systems that 
we propose to retire.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for that answer. I now yield 
five minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Sires.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under Secretary McCord, 
thank you very much for your service to this country. Mr. 
McCord, I am the Chairman of the Western Hemisphere 
Subcommittee and I am committed to ensuring our relationships 
with countries in Central, South, and in the Caribbean are 
always progressing. How does the Pentagon's requested budget 
impact U.S. national security in the Western Hemisphere?
    Mr. McCord. Thank you. As you know, the Western Hemisphere 
particularly in Central and South America, our so-called 
Southern Command area of responsibility continues to be an area 
where we have minimal military force, minimal military 
presence. And the whole-of-government center of gravity is more 
diplomatic, economic, which is why we have our Southern Command 
in Miami, which is sort of the financial and diplomatic capital 
of the region.
    We do continue to have a minimal economic force level there 
because the military threats don't justify more. The primary 
thing that we are continuing to look at here is the inroads 
that China is attempting to make using all of their levers, 
economic, loan, information. So, that is probably the number 
one thing that we are looking at in addition to--and then 
secondarily, the counter-narcotics issues are our big line of 
effort in that region.
    In the Western Hemisphere, writ large, in the Northern 
Hemisphere, of course, we have the northern command and we are 
looking at a wide range of issues from, you know, assisting our 
homeland security with cyber protection of the United States in 
our critical infrastructure. So, in that meaning of Western 
Hemisphere, we have a lot going on.
    Mr. Sires. What resources are being made available to 
ensure our regional partners and allies, have support in 
countering malign influences in the Western Hemisphere? I know 
that we have different facts, let's say, with the Dominican 
Republic or we have Costa Rica. Are we increasing our efforts 
and our money to work with these countries to improve the 
security of our country?
    Mr. McCord. I would have to get you for the record whether 
the--what specific budget levels that there are. We have 
exercised budgets that are not always line item because we want 
to let them unfold and we don't lock them in in advance in our 
budget. But we are continuing the efforts that we have had in 
Southern Command area of responsibility with exercises with all 
of our partners.
    Mr. Sires. You know, one rumor that is floating around in 
my community is that Cuba is working with Russia in terms of 
having another boatlift, you know, happen. I am just wondering 
if we are defensively prepared for such an exodus, again, from 
Cuba. Have you heard anything like that in your?
    Mr. McCord. I have not. I would have to consult with 
General Richardson, our commander at Southern Command as to 
what operations and contingency plans are most prominent in 
South Com's efforts and planning right now.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you. And my last question it has to do 
with the countries based in the Pacific. I am talking about 
Argentina. I am talking about Chile. I am talking about Peru. 
How are we working with these people to offset the China 
influence?
    Mr. McCord. Again, this gets back to, I know the Chairman 
mentioned the whole-of-government approach, and as I did as 
well. This is something that we cannot do by ourselves at the 
Department of Defense. We are certainly keeping an eye on 
Chinese and Russian attempts to buy influence, to buy friends, 
to access resources in the region. But Southern Command by 
themselves does not have the authority, does not have the 
responsibility, really, of being the only way that we counter 
Russian and Chinese inroads in Central and South America. We do 
play a role and that is why, again, Southern Command is 
collocated with so many other agencies in Miami because we have 
connections to state and to Drug Enforcement Administration, 
all the other levels of government, the Coast Guard. Again, I 
would have to consult with General Richardson to get you a 
better answer on exactly what all of her plans are for her 
region.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you, Chairman.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back. I now yield 
five minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Smucker.
    Mr. Smucker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCord, good to 
see you. You know, I listened very carefully to Mr. Higgins' 
questions and I thought he hit the nail on the head in regards 
to the impact of energy policies on what is happening in 
Ukraine. And I just wondered if you agree with that? Do you 
agree that energy policies were in many ways are linked to what 
is happening in Ukraine?
    Mr. McCord. I would say it is undeniable that the politics 
and the policies of energy are very important from, I think, if 
you look at Putin's history, he tends to make a move in winter 
when he can--when he knows that his European, Western European 
neighbors are probably most sensitive to his ability to cutoff 
their natural gas or to threaten to do so. And that the revenue 
that he gets from oil is hugely important to his economy.
    Mr. Smucker. Yes, thank you. The fact of the matter is, and 
I support. I think eventually we will be moving to cleaner 
sources of energy. But the fact of the matter is today, the 
world uses about 100, close to 100 million barrels of oil per 
day and disrupting that supply would have devastating 
consequences in many ways across the world. Do you believe that 
whether or not our nation is energy independent is important 
for our future security?
    Mr. McCord. It is.
    Mr. Smucker. And under the previous Administration, it was 
widely seen that the--that we were as a country, energy 
independent. Do you agree with that?
    Mr. McCord. I am not an expert in this field. I don't know 
that we have ever been energy independent in the industrial 
era.
    Mr. Smucker. But do you agree that some of the first 
actions that President Biden has taken reduced our energy 
production and our energy independence?
    Mr. McCord. A little bit outside my area of expertise. I 
couldn't comment on that.
    Mr. Smucker. Well, I mean, clearly he did. In the first 
week of his presidency, he stopped--he reduced production. He 
has slowed up the permitting for new production of oil and gas 
and, you know, just it makes no sense. Does that make any sense 
to you if a president is making those kind of decisions?
    Mr. McCord. Well, I know that, for example, the Keystone 
Pipeline was a controversial decision under every 
administration over several years. So, I think there was 
arguments on both sides.
    Mr. Smucker. But don't you think a president should be at 
this point particularly as we are seeing and you already said 
you agree that energy is linked to what is happening in 
Ukraine, don't you think it would make sense for a president to 
do everything that he can to produce our--to boost our 
production right now?
    Mr. McCord. Well, there would be boosting production and 
boosting our climate resilience and boosting our electric 
vehicle and other. I mean, there are multiple ways you would 
want to attack this problem, I think.
    Mr. Smucker. You know, I think it is very difficult to look 
at the policies of this Administration and not see how they are 
linked to what is happening in Ukraine. Even Zelenskyy and his 
advisors have said that our energy policies and policies of 
energy production in Europe have given Putin the opening to do. 
He thought he had the leverage. We gave him leverage to do 
that. And then as Mr. Higgins said, we helped to fund that war, 
fund what he is doing by continuing to buy oil from them.
    And then the other part of the energy policy is it has 
resulted in the inflation that we have seen today. And earlier 
this month, the House Armed Service--before the House Armed 
Services Committee, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark 
Milley said this budget assumes an inflation rate of 2.2 
percent, which is obviously now incorrect when we have seen 
inflation of 8.5 percent, far outpacing what was predicted in 
this budget. Why do you think the budget has missed the mark in 
so many ways in regards to rising prices?
    Mr. McCord. Well, I want to distinguish, the inflation rate 
in the 2023 budget is for Fiscal Year 2023, which hasn't 
started yet and won't end for a year and a half from now. So, 
no one can conclude that we know that it is right or wrong. I 
would concede that inflation today is higher than what it was 
when we were locking the budget.
    Mr. Smucker. Yes. So, you agree that they were wrong in the 
prediction in the budget in regards to inflation.
    Mr. McCord. I would, yes, I would agree that anyone who 
predicts inflation in advance is going to be wrong. And I know 
that we are going to get more data.
    Mr. Smucker. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
Admiral Michael Mullen said back in 2010 that the most 
significant threat to our national security is our debt. At 
that point, our debt was $13.5 trillion and now, as you know, 
it is over $30 trillion. One of the consequences of rising 
inflation that it is now forcing the Federal Reserve to raise 
interest rates, which also raises the cost for the U.S. to pay 
the interest on our debt. How do you think additional spending 
on interest, which will absolutely be required as a result of 
policies that have led to inflation, how will that additional 
spending affect our--and perhaps undermine our national 
defense?
    Mr. McCord. Well, that would be a question that is, you 
know, obviously, primarily in your wheelhouse here in the 
Budget Committee as to whether--how you would assess whether 
mandatory spending on debt is going to change your decisions on 
discretionary spending or discretionary spending caps, should 
caps exist. But it is an issue for all of us and especially for 
those of you on the Budget Committee as to whether the 
mandatory side, mandatory spending such as interest on the debt 
is going to change what we think we can afford on the 
discretionary side.
    Mr. Smucker. Thank you.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Moulton, for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Moulton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCord, I would 
just like to start by expressing my agreement with my colleague 
here and my shared concerned for the impact of the deficit on 
our ability to provide for our national defense. And that is 
one of the many reasons why I voted against the Trump tax cut 
that provided millions for millionaires at the expense of our 
national security and ballooned the deficit to epic 
proportions. I think that your budget here strikes the balance 
right. I agree with your topline. I think that the 
Administration is finding a way to balance the needs of the 
military with also the importance of diplomacy.
    As a marine veteran myself, I saw every single day in Iraq 
the impact that diplomacy had on saving the lives of our 
troops. I align myself strongly with Secretary Mattis, who as 
Mr. Trump's Secretary of Defense, emphasized how important it 
is to fund our diplomatic establishment, our State Department, 
or else, he said, you will have to buy me more ammunition. Can 
you talk for a minute about how your budget supports our allies 
in Europe, meets the pacing threat with China, and balances all 
of these things with the needs of the national security 
establishment today.
    Mr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. Moulton. Let me start with 
China. As you know, we don't have the alliance framework of 
multilateralism in Asia that we do in Europe. So, we continue 
to do a lot of bilateral work there. But in both theatres we 
lead by example. And the investments that we are making in this 
budget are designed to show, designed to keep us in an 
overmatched position versus China on the high end. I think a 
number of Members have commented that what is happening in 
Ukraine obviously has lessons, depending how this comes out for 
calculations that President Xi may make. We are very cognizant 
of that as well.
    In Europe, we have talked a number--a little bit this 
morning about energy. I think that is a great example. 
Sanctions and whether sanctions should extend to Russian energy 
and how much they should extend there are something that you 
have to go together with your allies on. It doesn't work very 
well, obviously, sanctions that are unilateral. So, I think 
that is something that it is a good example of the steps that 
Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin have taken to move 
together has been enormously helpful in Europe.
    I think many of us, you may have better foresight than I, 
many of us were surprised and heartened how responsive the 
Germans, for example, have been on Nord Stream and on their 
defense spending increase. Things that I think would not have 
happened had we not taken the time to try and bring everybody 
together. So, it think that, as you say, these--how we do this 
is very important and we have tried to move together with and 
lead the pack.
    Mr. Moulton. Well, the fact that the Administration has 
been able to coalesce our allies around this mission is 
actually quite extraordinary. And, of course, Trump was working 
at cross purposes to that every single day that he undermined 
NATO.
    Thinking about the future, when I co-led the Bipartisan 
Future Defense Task Force, we spent a lot of time thinking 
about how the Department can get the best equipment and newest 
technologies into the hands of the war fighter at the speed of 
relevance. That means they need to get the stuff today. We 
can't wait until it becomes outdated. Do you think the DoD 
acquisition system is efficient enough to address these 
challenges and compete with China?
    Mr. McCord. I think that all of us are looking for a way 
that we can more agile, but still be accountable and 
transparent----
    Mr. Moulton. Well,----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. enough. And your Committee in the 
NDA created a PPB Commission, so a planning, programming, 
budgeting execution, which is that DoD centric part of the 
larger federal budget process that commission is now underway 
co-chaired by a former comptroller and by a former AT&L or ANS 
executive.
    Mr. Moulton. That was my amendment and I certainly hope it 
will be successful. And one of our conclusions on the task 
force is that the system that we have today is not sufficient. 
That we have to reform it. But one of the other things we 
determined is that in the meantime, we can empower and 
reinforce the programs that are working. Deputy Secretary Hicks 
has openly discussed concerns with the shrinking defense 
industrial base. And the Department has taken funding away from 
programs that are delivering critical capabilities such as the 
Defense Innovation Unit. Now, DIU, in particular, has leveraged 
$25 billion in private R&D, introduced 100 new suppliers to DoD 
from 37 states in the face of a shrinking industrial base. And 
yet, shockingly, the Department has cut its funding.
    So, I agree with your topline. I agree with your strategy. 
I am very proud of what the Administration is doing in Ukraine. 
And yet, I cannot understand why on earth you would cut the 
budget for DIU.
    Mr. McCord. I will have to get you a good answer for that 
one, Mr. Moulton.
    Mr. Moulton. OK. Well, I hope the answer----
    Mr. McCord. We have----
    Mr. Moulton [continuing]. is that you will restore the 
funding.
    Mr. McCord. I would just say also that we have, as you 
know, built a plan just onboard for a little more than a week. 
So, we now have a full house in terms of our leadership in the 
acquisition sustainment world to go along with Under Secretary 
Shyu on the R&D side to help move us forward.
    Mr. Moulton. Well, I certainly hope it was just an 
oversight. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you. The gentleman's time has 
expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. 
Cline, for five minutes.
    Mr. Cline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to go back 
to China and your assertion that this budget provides us with 
an overmatched position, vis-`-vis China. According to China's 
Ministry of Finance, they have increased their defense spending 
by 7.1 percent his year, its highest level since 2019. While we 
truly don't know what China spends on its military, it could be 
even higher, I think folks in the national security community 
are concerned about China's military ambitions. As you said, 
you consider China to be a threat on par with climate. Is that 
an accurate assessment of your judgment?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, I would say and I would echo what 
Secretary Austin has said, we have threats that are very 
important that are not identical in nature. So, COVID, for 
example, was a near-term threat to the health of our force and 
to the country. China is a longer-term threat, a more of a 
military-centered threat. Climate is a more existential threat 
to our whole society. So, there are important threats that are 
not identical threats.
    Mr. Cline. So, you are considering China a long-term 
threat. Let me quote the former Commander of the Indo-Pacific 
Command Admiral Philip Davidson who stressed that China might 
try to forcibly annex Taiwan before 2027. That timeline 
reflects China's massive investments in naval power and its 
recent expansion of nuclear weapons. Are you aware of a report 
to Congress in 2020, titled Military and Security Developments 
Involving People's Republic of China?
    Mr. McCord. Is this a Department of Defense report you are 
referring to? I believe there is an annual report that has been 
instituted in the last couple years that----
    Mr. Cline. Yes.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. I don't know if that is the title 
of it. It sounds like it is the same one.
    Mr. Cline. This is a regular report submitted for the last 
20 years. The 2020 report states that China has already 
achieved parity with or even exceeded the United States in 
several military modernization areas, correct?
    Mr. McCord. I don't have the report in front of me. But I 
don't dispute that it might----
    Mr. Cline. OK.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. might have said that.
    Mr. Cline. So, you don't know which areas the report stated 
were of most concern?
    Mr. McCord. I wasn't in the Department in 2020, so I am not 
familiar with the 2020 report.
    Mr. Cline. OK. The report states that China's ahead in the 
areas of shipbuilding, land-based conventional ballistic, and 
cruise missiles, and integrated air defense systems. So, do you 
think that a budget that would decommission 24 ships just this 
year while building nine and projected that in the next five 
years, our naval fleet would shrink further to only 280 ships, 
not meeting the legal requirement to field a fleet of 355 
battleships. You think that would meet the needs of our 
position versus China?
    Mr. McCord. That is exactly the intent that the ships that 
the Navy proposes to decommission are ones that would not be 
capable in a high-end contest with China. Whereas, the ones 
that we are investing in would be.
    Mr. Cline. All right. And at the same time, we are 
proposing to spend $3.1 billion on climate programs while 
cutting funding for ships, troops, and aircraft, $2 billion for 
resiliency and military installations, $247 million for 
operational energy and buying power, and $28 million for 
contingency preparedness. I would argue that this budget 
prioritizes Green New Deal initiatives over our military 
readiness vis-`-vis China, which, as I stated, is a near-
threat, not a long-term threat as you earlier stated. Would you 
care to comment on that?
    Mr. McCord. Sure. First of all, just on the climate side, 
the \1/2\ percent that is in our budget for this does not 
detract from our military capabilities. These are investments 
that we need to make anyway. We are always going to be 
investing in our facilities. We are always going to be 
investing in our vehicles, especially our non-combat vehicles. 
So, we want to be investing in ones that are in the same 
direction the market is moving.
    With respect to China, again, China is a long-term threat 
or a now and future threat. So, when I say long-term, I don't 
mean to the exclusion of they are not of concern today. Just 
that they are going to be with us. They are going to be an 
influential economic power, influential military power for 
decades to come. So, it is not a short-term issue. It is a 
longer-term issue but that doesn't mean it doesn't--it hasn't 
already--it is not already in the window of being a concern of 
ours. And I am sorry if I didn't make that clear.
    Mr. Cline. OK. I appreciate that. And as you said, Chairman 
Xi is watching and watching how we conduct ourselves in the 
Ukraine and is prepared to act if we are not showing strength. 
So, I believe a stronger military budget focused on ships would 
be appropriate and send the right message to the Chinese. So, 
with that I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize the gentlewoman from Washington, Ms. Jayapal, for 
five minutes.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Under 
Secretary McCord for your service to our country, it is deeply 
appreciated. To my colleagues, I wish we were spending more 
within this budget on addressing climate change as a national 
security threat. I am glad there is at least a little piece in 
here that recognizes that because, certainly, it is extremely 
important.
    Mr. McCord, you probably know, I am not a fan of the 
ballooning Department of Defense budget. You probably know that 
I think there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse. And if the 
Pentagon were to undergo a comprehensive audit as every other 
agency has done, that would make an enormous difference. And it 
might get me more interested in putting more money into the 
defense budget. But at this point, the Department of Defense 
budget has ballooned to $740 billion in 2022, more than double 
the defense spending in 2000.
    Our defense spending makes up about half of all federal 
discretionary spending, even as we question our ability to pay 
for critical investments like childcare or housing or things 
that families across the country need. But I want to dive into 
one of the factors driving that spending. And that is the 
statutory requirement that DoD provide an unfunded priorities 
list. A wish list of items that would be nice for DoD to have 
but are not required to carry out its duties. This is on top of 
the $773 billion requested by the White House for fiscal 2023.
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said last year that the 
President's budget request for fiscal 2022 met DoD 
requirements. And yet, the law still requires DoD to provide 
this unfunded priorities list. And that is why I have 
persistently offered an amendment to the National Defense 
Authorization Act to eliminate this wasteful practice. Mr. 
McCord, how does DoD determine what goes into the White House 
budget request versus the unfunded priorities list?
    Mr. McCord. Thank you. The budget process is something that 
is led from the top down, with input from the services up. And 
especially this year when we had a new strategy under 
development we were looking at it all through the lens of what 
supports our strategy. So, what goes in the budget are our 
highest priorities. I want to be clear about that. Nothing in 
an unfunded priority list is a higher priority than anything in 
our budget. So, I know that they sometimes get misunderstood as 
somehow a service chief or a combatant commander saying this is 
more important than what is in the budget. That is not the 
case.
    The law, as you said, I think for--they have been a 
practice for about 25 years and they have been codified in law 
more recently than that. They are the opinions of senior 
military people. They are not vetted by civilians, including 
the Secretary or myself, or the service chief. So, they are the 
best professional military advice. If of a particular officer, 
if in my area there were more funds, what would I choose to 
spend them on. But they should not be confused with saying that 
the budget is not adequate or that there are--that things in 
the budget are less important than the things on those lists. 
But I think that they are easily misunderstood to be saying 
that they are must-haves that somehow trump the budget, which 
is not the case.
    Ms. Jayapal. That is such an important explanation. These 
are just basically, wish I had this, nobody's really look at 
it, we haven't looked at it in the context of the entire 
department. They are completely separate from the process that 
you go through as a department approved by the Secretary to say 
these are the most important things that we need and must have. 
So, in a June 2021 hearing before the Armed Services Committee, 
House Armed Services Committee, General Milley said, of 
unfunded priorities, if they were critical, then they need to 
be higher on the priority list and in the base budget. Do you 
agree with that statement, Mr. McCord?
    Mr. McCord. I do.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. And these unfunded priorities, 
again, are just a wish list that don't reflect the true needs 
of the United States. I understand that we are living in 
uncertain times with increasing global tensions because of the 
war in Ukraine. I think the President and his team have done a 
phenomenal job of really building a diplomatic coalition across 
the world. In response, Congress has authorized $1.35 billion 
in military assistance to Ukraine, and $3.5 billion to the 
Defense Department to replenish its equipment stock. Is an 
unfunded priorities list even necessary to provide flexibility 
in military spending?
    Mr. McCord. I would say the purpose of unfunded priority 
list is not generally about flexibility. It is about in the 
opinion of a senior military person, the Congress presumably by 
virtue of the legislation,----
    Ms. Jayapal. So, the answer is no.
    Mr. McCord. No. The----
    Ms. Jayapal. The answer is no.
    Mr. McCord. Flexibility is a process that we have to go 
through with the Congress and Ukraine's a perfect example of 
how flexible the process can be when there is an emergent need 
that everybody agrees is important to address. The evacuation 
of Afghan interpreters was another one just in my time back in 
office. Our own process is sadly far less flexible and we get 
our appropriation bills months late, you know, every year.
    Ms. Jayapal. Something I know the Chairman has been making 
sure our side is not part of the problem here. But I thank you 
for that Under Secretary. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.

    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman yields back. I now yield 
five minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado, Mrs. Boebert.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks again, 
Under Secretary McCord, for taking the time today to talk about 
Mr. Biden's defense budget proposal. Sadly, this budget is a 
continuation of the wokening and weakening of our military. And 
I wish I could say that I am surprised, but I am really not. 
Somehow, we are spending more on defense than we ever have, but 
we are ignoring real national security threats like China, 
Iran, the complete invasion at our southern border, with 2 
million people coming into our country illegally, more than 2 
million.
    So, let's take a look at what Mr. Biden would like to spend 
this money on. Under Secretary McCord, would you say that this 
budget makes investments into making our military more green, 
meaning does this budget allocate funds to reduce greenhouse 
gas emissions?
    Mr. McCord. The investments that we have in our budget on 
climate resilience are not, the primary metric is not 
greenhouse gas emissions, it is making us more climate 
resilient to the----
    Mrs. Boebert. More green.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. extreme weather events.
    Mrs. Boebert. More green, electric vehicles and what not.
    Mr. McCord. The electric vehicles----
    Mrs. Boebert. OK.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. part, yes.
    Mrs. Boebert. OK.
    Mr. McCord. But the installation----
    Mrs. Boebert. So,----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. part is not an emissions-based 
metric.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Under Secretary. Mr. Biden has 
said that all federal agencies should be at net-zero greenhouse 
gas emissions by 2050. Does this budget make investments toward 
getting there?
    Mr. McCord. This budget makes investments in all of the 
President's priorities.
    Mrs. Boebert. OK. Thank you.
    Mr. McCord. There is a long time between now and 2050, so 
the direct----
    Mrs. Boebert. But this certainly----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. line is not----
    Mrs. Boebert [continuing]. there was a mission put in place 
by your commander-in-chief and this budget certainly gets the 
ball rolling on that goal to be at net-zero greenhouse 
emissions by 2050. This puts that plan by your commander-in-
chief into action, correct?
    Mr. McCord. We would want to be moving in that direction. 
But again,----
    Mrs. Boebert. OK. Thank you, Mr. Under Secretary.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. this budget doesn't extend 
anywhere near----
    Mrs. Boebert. Well, frankly,----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. 2050.
    Mrs. Boebert [continuing]. Mr. Under Secretary, it sounds 
to me like you are burning the tax dollars at the altar of 
environmental extremists because in this report that I have 
here that I would like to seek unanimous consent to enter into 
the record.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Without objection.
    [Report submitted for the record follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
        
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you. This report issued by your agency 
is not, ``technically feasible for the DoD to achieve net-zero 
greenhouse gas emissions.'' This is your report and it provides 
an example of the impacts woke Green New Deal policies would 
have in action saying, ``The DoD cannot for instance, risk an 
armored brigade in combat running out of fuel because it is 
only allowed to acquire net-zero fuel and none is readily 
available.''
    So, Mr. Under Secretary, why are we proposing to spend 
billions and some estimates from this report say trillions of 
tax dollars toward reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions 
when the DoD has already said that this is not feasible?
    Mr. McCord. Well, again, net-zero is a policy for a country 
or an agency is one thing. Our budget is not a budget to 2050. 
We could not possibly predict what kind of vehicles or aircraft 
we are going to be using in 2050.
    Mrs. Boebert. Well, you are certainly----
    Mr. McCord. There is probably nothing----
    Mrs. Boebert [continuing]. setting forward those goals to 
reach that in 2050, when we know that it is not feasible. And I 
am sorry to cut you off. My time is short here. According to 
this report, I mean, it says trillions of dollars.
    But instead of wasting our time and tax dollars on turning 
our military green, let's talk about what really should be 
focused on. Earlier this year, I joined my colleagues in 
sending a letter to Secretary Austin asking for the 
congressionally required report on U.S. equipment left in, 
destroyed, or removed from Afghanistan during the disastrous 
withdrawal. We sent this letter two weeks after it was already 
due to Congress and we still have not received the complete 
report or virtually any accountability for the surrender and 
the total failure that was Afghanistan. Mr. Under Secretary, is 
the DoD aware of this congressional request for the way overdue 
report on the Afghanistan debacle?
    Mr. McCord. On the issue of equipment that was left behind, 
I--my understanding is I know I have seen draft reports. I 
believe that those reports have been submitted. But there may 
have been different requests----
    Mrs. Boebert. Can you tell me----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. from different committees.
    Mrs. Boebert [continuing]. how many tanks are currently in 
Afghanistan?
    Mr. McCord. No.
    Mrs. Boebert. With all due respect, Mr. Under Secretary, I 
have asked for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I am kind 
of getting bread here. We don't have the full and complete 
answers that we need. This is a congressional mandate that we 
get this report. Can you tell me how many rifles are in 
Afghanistan? If there has been reports that have been made, can 
you tell me how many rifles are left behind?
    Mr. McCord. I would have to get for the record for you the 
reports that I have seen.
    Mrs. Boebert. Do you know how much U.S. military ammunition 
is left in Afghanistan at the hands of the Taliban?
    Mr. McCord. I am sorry, ammunition?
    Mrs. Boebert. Yes.
    Mr. McCord. Again, I would have to refer you to the 
reports. I don't prepare those reports myself.
    Mrs. Boebert. Do you know how many night vision gear? How 
much of our night vision equipment is left there? So, Mr. Under 
Secretary, the point that I am getting at here is we can't tell 
the American taxpayers how we have spent their money, how we 
have funded and equipped the Taliban. And now we are asking for 
more money. Mr. Under Secretary, do you think that Congress 
deserves this report?
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman's time has expired. And 
but you are entitled to submit questions for the record.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you very much. And may I also ask 
unanimous consent to enter this letter into the record?
    Chairman Yarmuth. Yes.
    Mrs. Boebert. I apologize, I thought I had 39 seconds.
    Chairman Yarmuth. No. Now, your over 30.
    Mrs. Boebert. I see that.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Now, without objection, you may submit 
that for the record.
    Mrs. Boebert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    [Letter submitted for the record follows:]
    
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]    
    
    Chairman Yarmuth. I now yield five minutes to the gentleman 
from Nevada, Mr. Horsford.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 
hearing. I want to thank Under Secretary McCord and all of the 
leadership with the Department of Defense, and particularly, 
our service members and their family members for their service 
every single day in protecting our national security. Too often 
in these hearings, we tend to get wound up in partisan talking 
points and for some reason, we don't focus on the very people 
that we are here to pass a budget to serve, and that is the 
American people. And in this case, our service members who need 
the resources to be successful when they need it.
    So, I am sure I don't have to remind Under Secretary 
McCord, Department of Defense acquisition and modernization 
programs take years of planning and development. They require 
consistent and reliable funding in follow-on years to meet the 
needs of war fighters. Funding for our national defense is not 
some political prop that can be held up to score cheap 
political points. And, yet, for all the bluster that we are 
hearing from some of my colleagues about the DoD's topline, it 
was their side of the aisle that held up the omnibus spending 
package for Fiscal Year 2022 for nearly six months. They 
delayed putting critical, important major acquisition programs 
at risk, prevented new programs from starting, and delayed pay 
raises for service members.
    Additionally, they degraded readiness at an extremely 
dangerous moment. And for the record, Joe Biden is the 
Commander-in-Chief. And when our allies needed this most, he is 
the one who helped to bring them together to make sure that we 
are holding Russia accountable. Inconsistent funding emboldens 
our adversaries and undermines the trust of our allies. A trust 
that we have had to fight harder to restore after the previous 
Administration.
    So, I want to be clear that the tactics are not just 
partisan ploys. They have real life effects for my district, 
for my constituents, and for service members around the world. 
Now, last year, I supported an increased topline for DoD 
spending. And this year, like every year, I will work hard in a 
non-partisan way to ensure that the capabilities and systems 
included in the Pentagon's budget request are reviewed. Only 
after a careful assessment of the threat environment and our 
capabilities can we decide if an increase is again necessary to 
meet the complex challenges of our ever-evolving strategic 
environment.
    Under Secretary, McCord, in my previous discussion with 
Department of Defense leaders, they have stressed to me that 
continuing resolutions do far more damage to readiness and the 
wellbeing of our service members than any of the hollow 
complaints we have heard here today. Could you please speak to 
the impacts that CRs have on military readiness and the 
importance of consistent funding for our most critical 
modernization programs?
    Mr. McCord. Thank you for that question. Yes, this is 
something I think that is not well understood and it has been 
hard to translate to the public because the organism that is 
the Department of Defense has adapted to perpetual CRs in a way 
that, therefore, you don't see contracts expiring because 
nobody tries to write a contract in the first quarter of a 
Fiscal Year anymore because they know that you are going to be 
under a CR and not going to be able to enter into new 
contracts.
    So, there is the issue, first of all, of delayed resources, 
especially when there is inflation, but even when there is not. 
You know, time is money and we lose--when we lose time, we lose 
ability to be agile. We lose resources. This year was 
particularly bad. As you say, sort of the threat to have a full 
year CR, which has never happened to the Department of Defense 
in history, was particularly troublesome to us. And we had a 
hearing. I had a hearing with the service chiefs before the 
House Appropriations Committee that spoke to this issue in some 
detail in January to lay out the problems.
    As you may know, we had a history beginning with sort of 
the fall of the Berlin Wall for about 20 years where the 
Department of Defense Appropriations bill got enacted on 
average about 25 days into the fiscal year, which is 
reasonable. But beginning with the threat of default in 2011, 
that led to the Budget Control Act and continuing since that 
day, that average has ballooned to 120 days into the Fiscal 
Year on average over the last dozen years compared to 25 days 
for the 20 years before that.
    So, we have definitely gotten into a bad pattern that needs 
to be broken. It does cost money. It does make us less agile 
when a number of members have pointed out that China does move 
fast and we need to be able--we can't afford to give away, 
three, four, five months of a Fiscal Year every year to our 
adversaries by hamstringing ourselves.
    Mr. Horsford. Thank you. I know my time has expired. I just 
hope that all of us can come together and make sure that 
America succeeds by helping our service members and their 
families in this budget. I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Good, for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. 
Secretary, for being here. Mr. Secretary, your former boss, 
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, said a few years ago that 
President Biden, ``has been wrong on nearly every major foreign 
policy and national security issue over the past four 
decades.'' Even former President Obama tried to warn people 
during the 2020 campaign and he said, don't underestimate Joe's 
ability to screw things up. Americans seemed to agree as a 
Gallup Poll in February showed that only 40 percent of 
Americans approved of the way President Biden is handling 
foreign policy affairs. And only 36 percent approve of the way 
he is handling specifically, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
    I think this budget is further proof of this 
Administration's misguided priorities. Would you say that 
Americans are safer today than they were in January 2021?
    Mr. McCord. I would.
    Mr. Good. On what basis?
    Mr. McCord. I think we have strengthened our alliances and 
I think the unified response that we have seen in Europe to 
Russian aggression has shown kind of a revitalized Western 
response of democracies.
    Mr. Good. If I may----
    Mr. McCord. You would not have seen----
    Mr. Good. Let me----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. the Germans----
    Mr. Good. Thank you----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. Germans walk away from Nord 
Stream----
    Mr. Good [continuing]. Mr. Secretary.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. without----
    Mr. Good. Thank you.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. this.
    Mr. Good. Thank you. Reclaim my time. Can you explain why 
the Department of Defense wants to spend $3.1 billion on 
climate programs were four times what the $682 million 
allocated for Ukraine? So, $3.1 billion on climate programs in 
this budget, which is more than four times the $682 million 
allocated for Ukraine.
    Mr. McCord. First, I would say that we are in this fiscal 
year, spending more on--spending more than that on Ukraine. And 
we are about to ask for another supplemental to increase to 
make sure that the Ukrainians have what they need to continue 
the fight, so.
    Mr. Good. From a military standpoint, what is the $3.1 
billion for on climate programs?
    Mr. McCord. That is both on--that has two basic parts. It 
is the installation side, our facilities, our buildings, you 
know, our bases. And then there is----
    Mr. Good. How does----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. the vehicle side.
    Mr. Good. Hoes does investing in climate programs help 
military preparedness, military readiness, military 
effectiveness?
    Mr. McCord. Well, on the facilities side and the 
resilience, it is to be better prepared for extreme weather 
events, which are increasing in frequency. On the vehicle side, 
the idea is to reduce our logistics footprints to have more 
capability to be not tethered to a logistic train of fuel in 
all cases.
    Mr. Good. This President----
    Mr. McCord. And to move where the market is going.
    Mr. Good. Excuse me, thank you. This President told our 
troops, of all people, our troops back in June that the 
greatest threat to America is climate change. He even added his 
typical, this is not a joke. I guess he needed to add the, hey, 
this is not a joke because the soldiers were probably, I have 
to presume, surprised to hear from the Commander-in-Chief that 
the greatest threat to the country and telling them as military 
personnel that the greatest threat is climate change. And then 
just last week, and you have kind of alluded to it already, the 
President stated that we are going to spend billions making 
every military vehicle climate friendly.
    I think that makes us the amusement of our adversaries 
around the world that that is what we are focused on. You know, 
it is as embarrassing as it was to send John Kerry to, you 
know, to essentially beg the Russians to consider the climate 
impact of the invasion if they were going to do that just 
before the invasion took place, even days before.
    But the President said, ``Every vehicle is going to be 
climate friendly. Every vehicle, I mean it. We are spending 
billions of dollars to do it.'' Do you think that climate 
concerns should be the main priority for our military vehicles?
    Mr. McCord. It is not the primary concern, their 
effectiveness is, but----
    Mr. Good. Well, the President said that we are going to 
spend billions to do that. This budget--switching gears to 
another topic--contains $34 million to address ``concerning 
behaviors in extremism.'' What does this mean? What is the 
purpose of that funding?
    Mr. McCord. As Secretary Austin has stated the incidents of 
extremism in the military is low but any amount is not 
acceptable. And so, these efforts are----
    Mr. Good. Well, I want to interject there on Secretary 
Austin. I am glad you brought him up because he said, when we 
were asked to give an exception to approve him in the House 
because he didn't meet the 7-years of required retirement 
between military and civilian service, he said that his self-
proclaimed mission, essentially, was to root out racism in the 
military. Is that truly a significant problem? I mean, for him 
to say that is one of the reasons why was there to root out 
racism in the military. It seems to me the military has been an 
example of integration, of merit-based performance, and 
advancement, as evidenced by Secretary Austin and Secretary 
Powell before him on the Secretary of State side. Is this truly 
a significant problem for our heroes in the military?
    Mr. McCord. Well, I would say first of all, racism exists 
in society. It exists in every institution.
    Mr. Good. Yes, but to spend $34 million to address it in 
the military.
    Mr. McCord. But racism and extremism are two different 
topics. And you were--I think you were citing a figure about 
addressing extremism. Racism is a different issue and I would 
certainly say Secretary Austin probably has more experience 
with this issue than I do. And so, I certainly would not 
question his judgment.
    Mr. Good. All right. My time has expired. Thank you, Mr. 
Secretary.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize another gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCord, in the 
Reagan Administration we were talking about a 600 ship Navy. 
Without getting into classified information, can you tell us 
what size Navy we could expect if this budget is approved and 
how that compares to the size of other nations' navies?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Scott, I would say that our Navy, and a 30-
year ship building report was just sent to Congress. So, you 
can look at different periods of years out to, you know, to 
several decades out in the future, but we are in the 300-ship 
range right now. We were not in the 600-ship range before. 
There was talk of a 600 ship Navy, not the reality of a 600 
ship Navy before. We are looking to have a very capable force, 
the most capable Navy in the world by far, at about 300 ships.
    Mr. Scott. And how does that compare to the size of navies 
of other countries?
    Mr. McCord. I don't have the figures of all the navies 
around the world at my fingertips. We can get you----
    Mr. Scott. What are the top----
    Mr. McCord. We can get that information for the record.
    Mr. Scott. The top of the others----
    Mr. McCord. It is the most capable navy in the world.
    Mr. Scott. If you are going to build ships, you have to 
maintain them. What are we doing to upgrade the ship repair 
facilities at public yards? How is that coming?
    Mr. McCord. Well, we have some major investments in our 
shipyard capability, primarily on the submarine side. You are 
probably familiar with the so-called SYOP, S-Y-O-P, a navy 
acronym for a shipyard investment plan that's a basically a 20-
year plan, $20 billion, 20-year plan for the four public 
shipyards that have not been--seen the kind of maintenance they 
need for a century. So, these are addressing our ability 
primarily to take care of our nuclear force.
    In addition, we have investments in the submarine work 
force and those are probably the primary ship investments we 
have is to keep our submarine industrial base in our 
submarine--in our shipyards capable of moving through this 
period where we are buying both the Columbia and the Virginia 
class at the same time, which puts some additional stress on 
that part of our industrial base.
    Mr. Scott. And what kind of priority is made to make sure 
that the private repair yards get enough work to stay in 
business?
    Mr. McCord. Well, in the private----
    Mr. Scott. In----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. repair yards, which will----
    Mr. Scott [continuing]. in minority-owned shipyards?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, sir. The private yards, as you know, focus 
much more on the surface side and they are, I think, one of the 
best things we can do is have stable, predictable funding. 
Getting to the point of the previous question about perpetual, 
continuing resolutions, stable predicable funding will be of 
great benefit to the private sector yards because they have 
always, as you know, have always had to be more flexible than 
the public yards because they flex up and down when funding is 
unpredictable. So, that I think is probably the best thing we 
can do.
    In addition, we need to get our private sector yards 
producing the ships on time. So, we have been putting more 
money into say buying destroyers at two a year but they are not 
able to produce two a year. That leads to all kinds of problems 
in terms of maintenance cycles. If you can't get the ships out 
of the yard, and we all know that the ship industrial base, 
shipyard workers are one of the areas that has been, you know, 
a supply/demand issue right now in terms of getting the skilled 
workers you need is a big challenge----
    Mr. Scott. Is----
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. for the Navy.
    Mr. Scott. Is the Army Corps of Engineers' budget in your 
portfolio?
    Mr. McCord. It is not. The Army Corps of Engineers is part 
of the Department, but the----
    Mr. Scott. OK. OK.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. their budget is on the civil side 
and does not come through, does not come through me.
    Mr. Scott. If you fail to do--we have had disparaging 
remarks made about climate change. If you fail to invest in 
resilience to protect against sea level rise, what will happen 
to military assets like the naval station at Norfolk?
    Mr. McCord. Well, that is one of the things that concerns 
us is the Navy and the Marine Corps particularly are vulnerable 
to the impacts of extreme weather and sea change. We alone, as 
the Department of Defense, to be clear, cannot prevent, you 
know, climate change. And we are not attempting to prevent it 
by ourselves. We are trying to be responsive to it and look 
ahead and get out ahead of changes so that our installations 
are more capable of dealing with these events and doing what we 
can to be part of the solution. But we are not going to solve 
the problem by ourself.
    Mr. Scott. And I introduced legislation that was signed 
into law as part of the recent NDAA to allow mitigation of 
storm water flooding around military bases. How is that going 
to be implemented?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Scott, I would have to get you that for the 
record from our installations community. I can't speak to that 
from my own expertise.
    Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back. I now yield 
five minutes to the gentleman from California, Mr. Obernolte.
    Mr. Obernolte. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Secretary McCord, I 
would like to continue a line of questioning regarding 
inflation. Obviously, that has been front of mind for many 
Members of Congress and I imagine in the Department of Defense 
as well. In your testimony, you mentioned that in preparing the 
budget, you used a chain-weighted inflation index as a 
benchmark, rather than consumer price index. Can you talk a 
little bit more about the assumptions that were made in 
preparing the budget and what rate of inflation for the chain-
weighted price index that you are assuming?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, sir. The reason that we use the rate that 
we use is that it is, first of all, in the U.S. code that that 
is what we are supposed to be using. But also, because the 
biggest single category of what we do is purchases of goods and 
services from the private sector. And that is a pretty good 
metric for GDP deflater to measure.
    Mr. Obernolte. Sure.
    Mr. McCord. If it is----
    Mr. Obernolte. So, what number did you use in preparing the 
budget?
    Mr. McCord. For the budget for--what we did was the fiscal 
year--if I can walk one step back. The Fiscal Year 2022 budget 
was prepared assuming about 2.2 percent inflation for the year 
that we are in now. What we did was we looked at the data. It 
had doubled to 4.0 by the time we were wrapping our assumptions 
in December. So, we built that price increase into our budget 
for 2023. So, based on what was happening in the calendar year, 
at the just end of calendar of 2021.
    For the budget for Fiscal Year 2023, we used like as with 
every administration, OMB produces one set of economic 
assumptions that every agency uses. That inflation rate is 2.2 
percent. And so that--the question that has been discussed this 
morning and in other venues is whether that is the right 
assumption for the Fiscal Year that is going to start this 
September, you know, based on the fact that it is higher than 
that right now.
    But we don't get to decide what to use for 2023. We use 
consistent assumptions across an administration as every 
administration does. For 2022, we did our best working with OMB 
and working with the President to up our price basing across 
this five years so that we were not falling behind on what was 
happening last year. But the situation has continued to change 
most primarily, again, the spike in energy prices since the 
Russian invasion of Ukraine was something that is not in our 
budget, could not have been in our budget. We were already done 
with our budget by then. So, this remains something we need to 
work with the----
    Mr. Obernolte. Sure.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. Congress on.
    Mr. Obernolte. Yes, and I appreciate that you said that you 
were prepared to work with Congress to address those impacts. 
On a historical basis, if you look at our investment in the 
Department of Defense in real dollars, how do we compare 
historically right now to where we have been in the past?
    Mr. McCord. We are at a relatively high level, especially 
when you consider that the number of people in our force is 
smaller. So, we have a smaller highly compensated force, which 
has been true for a number of years and is true today. So, we 
are somewhat at the higher end. And, of course, you could 
always have debates with people about do you take the costs of 
something like an Iraq or Afghanistan, do you include those or 
do you exclude those as unique events. But our budget is on the 
high side in real terms right now.
    Mr. Obernolte. OK. So, I have seen measures, other measures 
that disagree with that assessment. And I don't think it is 
fair to measure it in terms of the number of people in our 
armed forces because as you have described, the number of 
people is declining, but our need for a robust Department of 
Defense is certainly still very high. And I am concerned that 
we can't fall behind the curve there on a real dollar basis.
    With the time I have left, I wanted to ask about something 
on a different topic. So, I understand that there has been a 
debate in the Department of Defense about a change in 
philosophy from a counter insurgency point of view toward more 
of a response to near peers like Russia and China as 
geopolitical events have shifted in the last few years. I 
represent some of the largest training bases in the country. I 
am honored to represent Fort Irwin, the Marine Air to Ground 
Training Center in Twentynine Palms. Does this budget make the 
necessary investments to shift our training philosophy in 
response to the shift in DoD philosophy from counter insurgency 
to near peer?
    Mr. McCord. I would say that is the intent, but certainly 
our Army and Marine Corps leadership could probably give you 
better, and you probably already have better specific 
information about the combat training centers and how they are 
adapting. But, yes, we are trying to move our focus of both our 
modernization and our training to the near peer or high-end 
competitions, exactly as you said.
    Mr. Obernolte. All right. Well, thank you. I see my time 
has expired. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman yields back. I now 
recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, for five 
minutes. He is not. Is he in virtual? Is he not? OK. I am 
sorry. I skipped my friend, Mr. Grothman. I now yield five 
minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much. Looking through some 
articles about your department, I notice here is an article 
that was written last week and the plan is to decommission two 
littoral combat ships. They were kind of big ships. I know 
those ships are about 100 yards long. Big stuff, I have seen 
them. One was built in, I believe, 2015 and one was built in 
2016. So, these are rather large ships and I am sure very 
expensive to build an over 100-yard ship. And we plan on 
declassifying them less than 10 years in. I am glad you are 
doing it if it is a waste of money. Do you have any comments on 
how that could happen? How we could build a big ship and 10 
years later we want to scrap it?
    Mr. McCord. Thank you. Yes, the issue with those particular 
ships is that the--first of all that as the strategies have 
focused more as was just discussed toward the high-end peer 
competitors, both the Mattis strategy and Secretary Austin's 
strategy, these ships are not as consistent with these new 
strategies that focus on a high-end fight against a very 
capable military like China. Secondarily, on the littoral 
combat ships, several of them, the mission packages for these 
ships never delivered in a correct and usable form. So, the 
ships basically do not have the capability that they were 
supposed to have, even on top of the question of whether that 
is the right capability for the future.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Would you say it is accurate if I say we 
wasted money building the USS Jackson and the USS Montgomery?
    Mr. McCord. The littoral combat ships that we are 
decommissioning I would say were not our best use of funds.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. So, I think a goal we should have is to 
make sure we don't make anymore mistakes like these two big 
100-yard ships that we are decommissioning almost right after 
they were built. Do you think they were built, well, I don't 
know at the time, were they things that were built because of 
pressure from Congress when the Navy didn't want them that much 
in their own right?
    Mr. McCord. I think at the time, they was a desire to have 
ships that would be more agile for a wider range of missions 
that maybe wouldn't be so much on the high-end. But, again, as 
the strategies have shifted to we do want to focus on the high-
end, they have a bit of a strategic mismatch and then there is 
a particular problem of these ships' mission packages did not 
deliver.
    Mr. Grothman. Yes. I am afraid we don't have enough missile 
defense, enough cyber defense. There are things that we aren't 
looking at because to a degree, we may be fighting the last war 
or maybe going about six wars, five wars. I remember reading 
about, you know, the Battle of the Midway in World War II and 
at the time, some people felt it showed that aircraft carriers 
were overrated and that was proven in 1941 or was it 1942, 
1942. Yes, it was 1942.
    OK. Now, I have had people tell me that aircraft carriers 
while there is nothing more beautiful and impressive looking 
than an aircraft carrier, against a country like China or North 
Korea in war games, they may last a day or two days. Are there 
smart people who believe that against a country like Russia or 
China or North Korea an aircraft carrier may only last one or 
two days?
    Mr. McCord. I would say that they are absolutely--there 
absolutely are analysts who believe that carriers are--have 
questionable survivability in a high-end fight and the Navy 
would strongly dispute that. So, that is something you could 
have an entire good classified debate on. There are definitely 
people who believe as you state.
    Mr. Grothman. Yes, I run into them and it kind of bothers 
me because I think we are short of missile defense and short of 
cyber defense and we keep these big aircraft carrier groups out 
here. And like I said, it was a very different time, but we 
were able to sink some Japanese aircraft carriers very quickly 
in 1942 and they do----
    Mr. McCord. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Grothman [continuing]. compared to missiles are very 
slow. And just----
    Mr. McCord. I would also say that the Navy would say that 
compared to a base on land that can't move at all, carriers are 
much more agile than any other way to project power. So, again, 
there are some different----
    Mr. Grothman. I have heard that argument that by that 
standard, nothing is worthwhile, right? Not only would they 
sink an aircraft carrier right away, they would destroy an Air 
Force base right away. But do you feel in your heart that if we 
went to 10 aircraft carriers or nine aircraft carriers and used 
that money for missile defense or cyber defense we would be 
more in tune with the times if our real goal is to protect the 
United States of America?
    Mr. McCord. What we try to do in this budget, and it gets 
exactly the point to do is try and address our challenges on a 
number of fronts and not say we can only do a maritime threat 
or only do missile defense or only do cyber. We try to put 
chips on a number of places we want to put bets.
    I think it is a continuing question what the future of 
surface warfare is. Certainly, the movement in the maritime 
world is more toward moving eventually toward unmanned, moving 
toward more distributed sets of naval architecture. But we 
are--it is not at the expense of missile defense. Missile 
defense tends to be, if anything, technologically limited of 
what is technologically capable to be done as quickly as you 
would like it to be done, rather than funding constraint.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Well, I would like to thank the Chairman 
for indulging me. I will point out if one of those aircraft 
carriers gets sunk in addition to the huge waste of money, 
there are 5,000 people on each of them who would die. So, 
whether you want to take that into account, I don't know. But 
thank you for giving me----
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, for five 
minutes.
    Dr. Burgess. I thank the Chair. Thanks to the Under 
Secretary for being here today. Mr. Under Secretary, you are 
familiar with the position of the comptroller at the Pentagon. 
Is that correct?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, sir. This is my second time I have been 
back since the first of June, and I served in the position 
previously.
    Dr. Burgess. So, for several years, I have tried to get the 
Pentagon to audit, as it is every agency was required to do 
about 20 years ago. And to get the audit undertaken at the 
Pentagon I think Fiscal Year 2018, the first audit was finally 
undertaken. No great surprise, it wasn't passed. And what we 
have been told is that by 2027, the clean audit will in fact be 
done. Is that still, that is four years from now, is that still 
the glide path that you are envisioning for the clean audit for 
the Pentagon?
    Mr. McCord. I think that is still the best estimate that we 
have, yes.
    Dr. Burgess. Are you able to implement any improvements of 
problems that you find along the way? Like in a business there 
would be continuous quality improvement in any lean 
manufacturing process. Are you able to incorporate any of those 
things as you are encountering them?
    Mr. McCord. Yes. The main things that we are trying to 
focus on are the systems controls. And probably the hardest 
thing that we have to do is trying to get rid of older systems 
that we still rely on every day to do our many business 
processes. But, yes, we are implementing as we go. We are 
finding that some of the notices we get from our auditors are 
now more complex than the first round or two. So, they are 
not--they are more difficult to get through. But we are making 
progress but it is not fast enough.
    Dr. Burgess. Sure. Well, I want you to continue to keep a 
focus on that. Let me just ask you also in the process of 
working on the NDAA, several years ago in 2020, severe problems 
with base housing were uncovered. The privatization of base 
housing that occurred back in the 1990's, trying to offload 
that appropriation from the Department of Defense and farming 
it out. Twenty years later, 30 years later, some of those 
properties now are suffering and the maintenance has been 
deferred. So, NBC News is reporting on the Senate report from 
the Senate Homeland Security Committee of the problems that 
still exist in base housing. So, can you do anything to assure 
us that that is still a high priority for the Pentagon to bring 
that base housing up to standard?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, sir, I am familiar. I read a report of the 
hearing that you describe on the Senate side this week. And I 
would say that while not directly under my purview, we do have 
a nominee pending for--that would really own that 
responsibility.
    The Tenant Bill of Rights, which I am sure you are familiar 
with in the NDAA I would say if it is not proving--if there is 
enough time to determine that it still needs further 
improvement, then that is something the Department should work 
with the Congress on. I know that it had, I believe, over 30 
different aspects to it, some of which may not have been 
completely rolled in yet.
    But as you describe, I remember when housing privatization 
started. It was always a bit of--it was, by Pentagon standards, 
it was a bold move into privatization. And the rubber was 
always going to meet the road not upfront when the houses are 
being built, but later on into the middle of the deal, which is 
where we are now. And I think it is important that we work with 
the Congress to make sure that we stay on top of this within 
the realm of things that are privatized and, you know, having 
DoD have its appropriate share of responsibility and the 
contractor having theirs.
    Dr. Burgess. I am just going to have to reclaim my time 
because I am going to run out. Let me just ask you, we are 
going to be asked to provide a good deal more in the way of 
military assistance to Ukraine. They have got a terrible 
problem and it is horrifying what is going on over there. But 
can you share with us, does the Administration kind of have an 
overarching strategy about where they are going with this? We 
keep hearing about Stinger missiles going over. We keep hearing 
about Javelin missiles going over. Are these coming from our 
existing stock? Are we replacing those? How is that all working 
together right now?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, thank you for that question. What we have 
done is worked in consort with our allies. There are about 30 
countries that are helping Ukraine. So, it is not all on us to 
help them although we are, as is often the case, leading the 
coalition and leading the effort. Yes, we are donating from our 
own stocks.
    We are also looking to find from any place that we can. 
Secretary Austin and General Milley spend basically part of 
every day on the phone with people from other countries trying 
to get them to contribute as well. Especially Russian type 
equipment that Ukrainians are more familiar with. So, there is 
both the U.S. side of equipment, U.S. NATO standard equipment 
that is being delivered to them, and especially from Eastern 
Europe, European countries that have more familiarity with it, 
Russian style ammunition and equipment. So, we are doing both. 
We have done eight drawdown packages. Eight packages where we 
have drawn down our own supplies and given to Ukraine.
    Congress gave us funding to replenish those and we have 
sent out two notices so far. So, we have sent about $3.2 
billion out the door. We have started the clock on $2 billion 
of that to start replenishing our own and to get our industrial 
basement up to start replenishing those missiles for ourselves.
    But we are now to the point of expending all of the 
authority Congress gave us in the Ukraine supplemental attached 
to the omnibus appropriations bill from six weeks ago. And we 
anticipate sending another supplemental to Congress probably 
this week to ask to continue to show that we are in this with 
the Ukrainians to get them what they need to fight, to continue 
the fight to defend themselves.
    So, I think the overall message is we are not letting up on 
the gas. The Ukrainians are fighting hard for their own country 
and we want to continue to do what we can to support them.
    Dr. Burgess. Yes. We would love to see the strategy though 
that the Administration is pursuing. Right now, it just seems, 
as a need comes up we fill it. As a need a comes up we fill it. 
But where are we going? Where is this going to end up?
    Chairman Yarmuth. All right.
    Dr. Burgess. Because remember it was these folks that----
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has long expired.
    Dr. Burgess [continuing]. underestimated the resiliency of 
the resolve the Ukrainian have. Everyone just said it would be 
over in three days. Well, it wasn't. And I can't believe that 
the geniuses in charge couldn't anticipate that. Thank you, Mr. 
Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
yield five minutes to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Jacobs.
    Mr. Jacobs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Under 
Secretary for being here. As Congress is currently debating how 
to provide additional military resources to the Ukraine, and it 
seems quite possible the U.S. military on financial support for 
Ukraine will continue to be a topic of discussion over an 
extended period of time, is it your assessment and that of the 
DoD that the Ukraine needs additional assistance and needs it 
as soon as possible?
    Mr. McCord. It is. The fight's ongoing and so, whatever we 
can get them in the very near future could be hugely important 
to them.
    Mr. Jacobs. I agree wholeheartedly. Additionally, there are 
concerns that the proposed--that proposing a defense budget 
that is effectively a cut to our defense budget sends a signal 
to our adversaries, especially Russia during the current 
invasion of the Ukraine that we plan to be less robust on 
national security. This also sends a signal to our allies that 
we may not be able to support them in times of need. What are 
the DoD plans to replenish our European partners' defense 
systems since they have sent a bulk of theirs to the Ukraine? 
How is the United States prepared to bolster, this is another 
element of the question, the same question, bolster Sweden and 
Finland's defenses if those countries decide to enter NATO or 
be accepted into NATO? Thank you.
    Mr. McCord. Thank you. Let me address the second part 
first. I think we would be, we at the Defense Department and I 
believe the Administration, would be very supportive of Sweden 
and Finland's accession to NATO. And I personally would expect 
that this may well be on the agenda for the late June summit 
that it could be ready by then. I think that would be a welcome 
development.
    And one of the reasons it would be welcome is that they are 
very capable already and shouldn't need a lot of help from us 
to be contributing to the team immediately should they desire 
to join the team. I believe they would be welcomed as very 
capable partners without requiring a lot of assistance from us. 
It probably would lead to discussions about interoperability 
and maybe shared industrial base use, but not needing a lot of 
direct help from us.
    On your first question about other countries that have also 
contributed equipment to Ukraine, I think that is going to have 
to be a case-by-case basis. So, I mean, just to take--I don't 
mean this to be an extreme sounding example, but if one person 
is, or one country is sort of cleaning out their attic of 
things that they never used and aren't going to miss, and 
aren't going to really ask them to, you know, they are not 
digging very deep and another country is maybe feeling is more 
threatened by Russia and is digging deeply into things that 
they really need replenished, I think you can imagine those are 
pretty different cases as to whether or not it should be on us 
and the American taxpayer to refill everybody's coffers or I 
think more of a case-by-case basis would be more appropriate.
    Mr. Jacobs. So, I hope it is not the case or is it that 
some are just emptying out their attics and their weaponry that 
is not worthwhile to the Ukraine. Is that the case?
    Mr. McCord. I only posit that as an example that some 
people are giving things that are less important to them than 
others and are maybe less on the front lines than others.
    Mr. Jacobs. Great.
    Mr. McCord. Every contribution is important to the 
Ukrainians, of course.
    Mr. Jacobs. Thank you very much, and I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. I am sorry. The gentleman yields back. I 
now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Donalds, for five 
minutes.
    Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCord, thanks 
for being here and taking the time. I kind of want to delve a 
little bit into defense contracting a little bit. Obviously, we 
know how important defense contracting is to DoD. Our entire 
military apparatus, especially when it comes to building and 
maintaining ships and equipment for our men and women. But we 
also do have to acknowledge it appears that there have been 
real issues associated with prolonged timelines for maintenance 
and/or new equipment to actually be put into service.
    You know, when you guys are going through your cost 
projections and the budget, does DoD take into account the 
additional costs associated with potentially prolonged projects 
because in any contract that ever exists, the longer it takes 
to execute, typically the more expensive it becomes. So, does 
DoD take in account for that in its budget?
    Mr. McCord. That is a great question. I would say probably 
not enough in that we--when we know that a contract is going to 
take X amount of time to execute and for the service or the 
good to be performed and delivered, that amount of time is 
built into the cost estimate. So, if you know something is 
going to take two years, you are going to have a different 
inflation assumption, a different cost assumption than 
something that is going to deliver much more quickly.
    What I think we probably don't do well, even though I said 
that we were used to continuing resolutions in a pattern of 
delayed budgeting, in terms of knowing that we are not going to 
be able to enter into contracts in the first quarter of a 
fiscal year, I don't know that we have changed our cost 
estimating to account for this pattern of delays as well we 
could have.
    Mr. Donalds. A real quick followup to that. I mean, is 
there something that you believe, obviously outside of, you 
know, consistent budgeting on Capitol Hill, which by the way, I 
would agree with you on as something that Capitol Hill should 
be doing is consistent budgeting. But is there anything outside 
of that that the Administration is starting to look at with 
respect to making sure that our contracts actually, that they 
are actually executed on time? And that we actually are doing 
everything we can with respect to a lot of equipment, a lot of 
ships that are just sitting in drydock waiting for maintenance 
to be completed?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, those are probably the hardest examples 
because when you get into something as complicated as a ship 
and you maybe find different corrosion you inspected and/or you 
have issues with your work force, has been a real big issue on 
the ship side, is getting the skilled workers in those 
particular trades when you need them, given the, you know, the 
tight labor market.
    I don't know that we have a systematic report for you. But 
the issues that we are aware of and particularly on the ship 
side, we do have attempts to address either the infrastructure 
or the work force or both. But if you are asking about 
contracting writ large, I would have to probably get you an 
answer for the record from our acquisition and contracting 
community----
    Mr. Donalds. Yes, I would appreciate that.
    Mr. McCord [continuing]. to get you a broader sense.
    Mr. Donalds. Only reason why I am--and I don't mean to shut 
you down. I know what you are saying is important but I am also 
running out of time. I want to get somewhere else. But I would 
appreciate, you know, a more detailed answer with respect to 
that.
    One thing I do want to highlight in our discussion right 
now is really how important inflation and labor is to the 
functioning, not just of DoD but our economy overall. I was 
having a conversation with members of my--one of my city 
councils and they were trying to address so many issues 
affecting their city, but so many of those are impacted by 
fiscal policy and monetary policy out of Washington, 
specifically with inflation and how that does impact labor 
markets.
    So, obviously, you guys are feeling that at DoD as well. I 
think it is important that the Administration takes a lot of 
their future fiscal and monetary decisions into account of how 
broad and widespread those impacts are when you are trying to 
do simple things like, you know, finish a ship on time, get 
equipment out where it needs to be, build an affordable housing 
project, or even private contractors building single family 
homes. It is universal the destructive impacts of inflation and 
bad fiscal policy.
    I do want to switch gears real quick and we are running out 
of time. The President made a statement the other day that he 
wants the military to essentially be all electric and to go 
green. Let's just be perfectly honest. Is it even possible for 
the miliary to do that, one? And then number two, can the 
United States military completely survive on when solar and a 
``green'' renewable energy matrix?
    Mr. McCord. I appreciate your--on inflation, I will say 
that, yes, that is something that we are very sensitive to as 
well. Of course, we are subject to all the same pressures and 
all the same factors in terms of labor prices and getting 
skilled workers that you describe.
    On vehicles and airplanes, again, airplanes are what 
consume the vast majority of the energy that DoD consumes. I 
don't think that there is any immediate prospect of us having a 
fundamentally different type of airplanes that we are using, 
whether they are manned or unmanned. They going to still rely 
on the same type of fuels for the foreseeable future.
    So, I don't think that we really should be focusing on 
whether, you know, the non-tactical side is much easier to work 
with in terms of getting that to be more electrified. The 
combat vehicles, the combat side is going to be a much longer-
term prospect if it is possible.
    Mr. Donalds. Mr. Chairman, if you give me leeway? A real 
brief followup to that, Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Yarmuth. Go ahead.
    Mr. Donalds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. McCord, is it 
possible to fly an F-16 or an F-35 on biofuels?
    Mr. McCord. I am not aware that we have had biofuels 
experiments on aircraft the way that we have on ships. So, I 
don't know the answer to that.
    Mr. Donalds. OK. And, thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. I now 
recognize the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, for five 
minutes.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I was 
chairing in committee in judiciary. And thank you for your 
courtesies. Secretary McCord, thank you for the time that you 
have given us. Let me quickly go to personnel matters and I 
have a boatload of questions and so, your typical defense 
pithiness would be greatly appreciated. Again, thank you for 
your service and the service of so many men and women in the 
United States military.
    Just coming back from Ukraine, I was with the 82d Airborne 
all ready and serving and then previously was with the United 
States Army as well on the Belarus-Lithuania border. So, thank 
you so very much and I know our men and women are around the 
world.
    Let me focus on the question of the quality of life. Wars 
have been somewhat behind us. What kind of investment are you 
making in PTSD, the issues dealing with women's health? I have 
been an advocate for fighting against triple negative breast 
cancer. I would like to see that program expanded. And then 
personnel dollars--I am sorry--in terms of increased salary and 
housing. If I could just take that package because I want to go 
on to something else. But I am interested in quality-of-life 
issues that you deal with the men and women in the United 
States military.
    Mr. McCord. Yes, in the interest of time, we will get you 
an answer for the record on the PTSD and some of the particular 
issues in the health budget that you mentioned, rather than me 
trying to guess at them without all the facts at my fingertips.
    I am sorry, Congresswoman, I can't hear you right now.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Ms. Jackson Lee are you?
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Yes. Can you generally, Secretary McCord, 
give a general commitment to these quality of life issues and 
making sure funding in your budget is there?
    Mr. McCord. Absolutely. Secretary Austin has a huge focus 
on taking care of our people. He talks about it with us all the 
time as it is a very high priority of his.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Great. Let me ask you about the outcomes 
of a study assessment program dealing with an officer's fitness 
for command. Any future steps that the DoD and the Army might 
be taking to implement a qualitative interview process in the 
BCAP?
    Mr. McCord. I will say that that is outside my area of 
expertise. I have heard the Army describe what they are trying 
to do to make that they make the best possible selections in 
terms of fitness for command. But I would have to refer--I 
would have to get you an answer from the Army on the status of 
that program in more detail. I am familiar with it and I have 
heard Army leadership discuss it.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. All right. I will focus on that DoD has 
requested $479 million to implement the 80-plus recommendation 
from the review dealing with the sexual assault. In requesting 
those dollars, what will be the oversight to make sure that 
these dollars are implemented properly across the gamut of the 
jurisdiction of the Pentagon and the various military branches?
    Mr. McCord. Thank you. The primary oversight that I believe 
we will see in that area is Deputy Secretary Hicks has 
something called the Defense Workforce Council, which is meant 
to sort of provide the same kind of oversight that we often see 
on weapons programs and investments to have the same oversight 
of our personnel-related programs. That is the venue that would 
be vetting our efforts on sexual assault prevention, in 
addition to the action officers, of course, at lower levels 
that are actually running the programs. But the Deputy 
Secretary would probably be the primary oversight of that.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, let me, overall defense budget comes 
in many different forms. I want to make sure that there is 
going to be strong focus on the infrastructure that the United 
States military bases, housing, and that the Secretary and the 
Defense Department will have a focus on that.
    Let me just give you two questions so that you can answer. 
That is number one. And secondarily, as I indicated, many of us 
have been to the border dealing with the despotic violence that 
President Putin is exhibiting against innocent human beings. 
The question is we have given unanimous consent. The President 
has offered some additional huge dollars coming from the 
Defense Department for Ukraine in terms of weaponry. Do you 
have a projected schedule of continuing that of those 
particular ones that have just been issued in the last say, 48 
hours, 72 hours, when their time would be reaching into the 
region?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, thank you for that question. In recent, in 
the last week or two, the drawdown, as they are so-called, the 
Presidential drawdown authority packages, once approved by the 
Secretary and the President and announced, have been on 
airplanes on their way to Europe within about 49421.hours. So, 
from the time these decisions are made, the equipment is moving 
very rapidly. There is no higher priority, I think, of General 
Milley and Secretary Austin than keeping an eye on exactly what 
is flowing and not only is it on an airplane, is it on a ship, 
has it arrived in Europe, but is it across the border into the 
hands of Ukrainians. So, that is being tracked on a daily basis 
at very senior levels.
    We have used, as of this week, we probably have used all 
the authority that Congress gave us for additional drawdown. 
And we anticipate coming back to Congress in the coming days to 
get more authority to continue to help the Ukrainians.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. I hope in the course of that you all will 
have a classified briefing for Members of Congress so that 
would add to their understanding. Our constituents have been 
very supportive, but I know our overall perspective is that we 
want peace so we know where we are in this raging, vicious war 
against Ukraine. And so, we have got to provide defense as we 
discuss ways of solution.
    Mr. Secretary McCord, you have been--I know it is ended, 
but very quickly the infrastructure bill was prepared----
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentlewoman's time has expired. You 
can submit a question for the record.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. All right. The gentlewoman's time has 
expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. 
Carter, for five minutes.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Mr. 
Under Secretary, thank you for being here. As you are aware, 
Mr. Secretary, there is--there are four combat readiness 
training centers in the United States. I have the honor and 
privilege of representing one of those in Savannah, Georgia. 
And it is proposed under this budget to be closed. Now, aside 
from the lunacy, and I will refer to it as lunacy, of 
considering closing any combat training center, combat 
readiness training center at this point in world history where 
we could potentially be on the brink of World War III, is just 
insane to me. Especially when you take into consideration that 
the Savannah facility is the most utilized and the most 
efficient of any of the four combat readiness training centers 
here in America.
    Now only that, but, you know, the most frustrating thing--
it is all frustrating. But another frustrating part of this is 
the fact that two years ago in 2019, I should say, in 2019, 
there was $24 million allocated to build a new hangar for that 
facility. Now, that hangar is under construction right now. The 
ribbing cutting on it is slated to happen in September. I have 
been invited and I look forward to being there. Twenty-four 
million dollars, it should be completed by then and we will 
have the ribbon cutting on it. And then it is slated to be 
closed in April 2023.
    Not only that, but the facility also about three weeks ago, 
had $1.2 million worth of computer equipment installed there. 
Computer equipment that is not available anywhere else in the 
country at any of the other combat readiness training 
facilities. That $1.2 million worth of computer equipment that 
was installed, again, in April 2023, is going to be gone to 
waste. No wonder taxpayers get so upset about wasteful spending 
in the federal government.
    Now, how important is that training center? Every F-22 
pilot over the last two years has been trained at that 
facility. I just have to ask you, Mr. Secretary, what is more 
important to our readiness and ability to counter threats 
across the world like Russia and China, climate and social 
spending or an actual military asset like the Savannah combat 
readiness training center?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Carter, it is clear that you know much more 
about this particular training center than I do. So, I am not 
going to offer you an explanation that is not as well informed 
as your question is. I am going to have to get with my 
colleagues for the record of what was the rationale on capacity 
or other grounds for this particular proposal.
    Mr. Carter. But you can understand particularly in the 
environment, the world environment that we are in, we all know 
what is going on. We see it every day on TV, on social media. 
We have got a front row seat to a war that is going on here 
that could potentially lead us into World War III.
    You know, I just finished reading a book about World War 
II, The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson. And, you know, 
that when Germany invaded Great Britain, they never intended to 
bomb London. It was actually a mistake made by one of the 
generals, one of the Nazi generals. Can you imagine what a 
mistake an errant missile would do it if were to hit a NATO 
country right now? We would be in World War III.
    And yet, we are talking about a budget that recommends 
closing a combat readiness training center? The most efficient, 
the most utilized that we have here, when we are just about to 
complete a $24 million hangar, when we just installed $1.2 
million in computer equipment. And yet, this budget includes 
billions of dollars to go toward climate change. Why isn't that 
money being used to keep these facilities open?
    Mr. McCord. Mr. Carter, I agree that we owe you an 
explanation of the proposal on the CRTC that you are 
describing. I am not familiar with the details enough myself.
    Mr. Carter. Obviously, this is very upsetting. It is 
upsetting for me. It is upsetting for my constituents. It is 
upsetting for Americans to even think that we would even 
consider this. I look forward to your response, Mr. Secretary. 
And I hope that you will be able to provide me with that and 
provide some kind of explanation and consider doing away with 
some of these climate change initiatives and keeping this much 
needed facility open. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will yield 
back.
    Chairman Yarmuth. The gentleman's time has expired. And I 
now yield myself 10 minutes so, you only have to deal with me 
now, Under Secretary.
    I have kind of a rhetorical question, but I am going to ask 
it. Are you aware of any time when the Department of Defense 
has requested a budget that was less money than they thought 
they needed?
    Mr. McCord. I am not.
    Chairman Yarmuth. And I think it is interesting to have 
this discussion because we are hearing from a lot of people 
that seem to be questioning whether we are providing enough 
money for defense and that is always certainly a valid 
question. We always have to ask that. Armed Services has to ask 
that as well. But the experts are at the Pentagon. The people 
who actually have the responsibility for defending the country. 
And I assume that they are not going to be derelict in their 
duties since they have given their life for the defense of--
their careers for the defense of this country and they are not 
going to ask for less money than they think will be adequate to 
defend the country.
    And the question I have is we can argue about percentages. 
We can argue about inflation. We can argue about declassifying 
some equipment, reducing the number of service members. But can 
you tell us today that with this budget, we have not in any way 
diminished our capacity to defend the United States?
    Mr. McCord. Chairman, I would say that far from it. We feel 
like we have made--we are making progress, would make progress 
in this budget across the board on any number of fronts to 
keeping the triad strong, and modern, and capable to space 
resilience, to the quality of our people. What I would say that 
our budget does not do, no budget can do, is reduce all risk, 
eliminate all risk. That is not the realistic standard by which 
this, the Department leadership, or any department leadership 
can present a budget to you that we have now eliminated all 
security risk to the United States.
    So, there will always be someone who could say I could use 
more here for X, I think, you know, it would be helpful. But in 
terms of balancing and addressing our risk across not only the 
national security space, but in the whole-of-government 
framework, as well as the defense specific framework, we feel 
like we have a very strong budget that does everything that 
Secretary Austin told the President we needed to accomplish, 
and the President gave the Secretary what he asked for.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Thank you for that answer. Now, I know 
you don't want to answer the $3.1 billion climate change 
question again, since it has been asked by virtually every 
member of the Republican side. But can you give us some 
examples of how climate change has already impacted the 
military?
    Mr. McCord. Yes, sir. The primary things that we look are 
our own installations, especially those on the coast have 
suffered significant financial impact of storm damage in recent 
years and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have gone to 
repair extreme weather damage at places like Tindal Air Force 
Base in Florida.
    More importantly, perhaps, as we look out into the future, 
is climate change is going to instigate societal change, 
societal conflict, population migration, scarce resources, you 
know, food problems. And those generate conflict. Those are, at 
least, are a potential to generate conflict. And that is going 
to change where we might be called on to intervene, what we 
might be called on to do. So, that is the other aspect, I 
think, in terms of what it does to the world security situation 
when you inject that kind of new instability into the world is 
to climate change that people, not everybody in the world can 
move, right, to accommodate climate change. So, it is going to 
create conflict.
    Mr. Carter. You anticipated another part of the question 
but I am going to ask a third part. Is there anybody you know 
of in DoD going back through the Trump Administration, the 
Obama Administration, go back pretty far, at least 10, 15 
years, who doesn't think that climate change is a significant--
poses a significant risk to the U.S. military?
    Mr. McCord. I have not heard any senior civilian or 
military leader say that the issue is not there.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you. I want to move on to the question of 
the audit and, you know, I think everybody would like to see 
the Pentagon have a comprehensive clean audit every year. But 
it seems to me having been involved in the private sector with 
some audits over the years, that auditing $700-plus billion is 
not something that is easily done, no matter how well 
intentioned the leadership of the Pentagon and the auditors 
would be.
    So, this is kind of one of those, let us help you, help us 
help you questions. And that is are we expecting too much out 
of the--when we talk about an audit of the Pentagon? Or is 
there a way we can require it to be done that is helpful but 
not as difficult to do? Because it seems to me that if you are 
using normal standards for an audit where you have to take 
inventory of every bullet and every piece of equipment that you 
have and do appraisals of real estate values and all of the 
things that you would normally do, I don't know how in the 
world you could get it done on a timely basis.
    Mr. McCord. Chairman, thank you for that question. I would 
say that I understand why it is expected of us. It is the law 
in the CFO Act. Other agencies do it and it is a reasonable 
expectation of we should be able to do it too despite our size 
and complexity. As you know, if we were our own country, our 
budget would put us in about the 30th country biggest in the 
world in terms of GDP. So, we are an enormous operation and we 
not only have to audit a $700 billion annual budget, we have $3 
trillion dollars in assets. And it is really on the balance 
sheet side. If there is one thing that I think would be that we 
could get there much faster with the least damage to public 
interest would be if we didn't have to do the balance sheet 
part of the audit but we are doing the other parts of an audit. 
Because valuing all our property has been an enormous challenge 
for us.
    Whereas, for example, 40 percent of our budget, 
approximately, is on the people side, is pay and benefits of 
our troops. We have clean opinions on all the processes that 
pay our military, pay our civilians, pay our retirees, which is 
exactly what my boss, the Secretary, would want, you know, 
taking care of people. We are not messing that up.
    But on the trillions of dollars of assets that we have 
accounting for it and valuing it is where we are struggling, as 
well as on the IT systems. But we should not be getting a pass 
on the IT system side because as we see every day with the 
increasing degree of cyber threats, that if you don't have 
secure systems, you have other problems besides not passing the 
audit, right? So, that is something where I think we definitely 
have a lot of work to do that we need to do.
    But on what I would call the balance sheet side, I am not 
sure that the payoff for the taxpayers is really there because 
if I can take one more minute on this, I know you know this, 
but it is easy to maybe for not everyone to understand it that 
passing a financial audit means your obligations on the 
financial side are being matched with all your contracting 
decisions. It doesn't mean that the airplane that you bought 
was the right airplane, that it performs well, that you paid a 
fair price for it. There are any number of things that people 
are rightly concerned about in terms of that might be called 
waste or fraud or a poor use of money that passing an audit 
does not prevent and is not designed to prevent.
    It is, you know, it is matching up your numbers, but it 
still doesn't, it doesn't guarantee that you made wise 
decisions. And I know you know that, but that is just the other 
caveat I make. It is still worth doing, and it is the law, but 
I think, again, on the balance sheet side, I am not sure that 
people at the end of the day will find the payoff is really 
there.
    Chairman Yarmuth. I appreciate that answer. One quick 
question before I go. I may have asked you this before, but I 
am not--I remember meeting with a group from the War College 
and one of the things I asked them was do you all think a lot 
about--this was probably three years ago--it was pre-pandemic 
because they were in the office. And I said do you all think a 
lot about how artificial intelligence is affecting military and 
will? And their eyes all opened up and one of them said we talk 
about it all the time. I don't think there will ever be a 
strategic decision or tactical decision on a battlefield made 
again without artificial intelligence. And I ask the question 
because I am curious as to what--how much money is being spent 
on researching how artificial intelligence can enhance our 
military operations and whether that is a high priority.
    Mr. McCord. It is a high priority. In terms of how much is 
in the budget, it is a hard question to answer because like 
software, it is in--it is not in everything yet, but it is in 
many things and it is getting in more programs. It is part of 
more programs every day. I would say it is something that we 
could kind put our arms around to think about the $2 billion 
range right now. But the importance is growing rapidly.
    I would say along with quantum computing, it is one of two 
sort of foundational technological changes that we are looking 
in the national security world, not just the defense world, but 
the national security world. I think you are correct that man-
machine teaming is already here and is going to grow. I know 
people, some of these folks on something that is entirely 
autonomous we are not going to be quick to take the person out 
of the loop.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Right.
    Mr. McCord. I think in terms of especially in terms of the 
use of lethal force. But the man-machine teaming and the speed 
of decisionmaking it is already here and it is growing. It is a 
huge interest item of our Deputy Secretary who serves as our 
COO, basically. And there are a number of efforts that we have 
had to increase the use of AI out in the combatant commands, 
you know, where sort of processing in real time current 
operations, but also on the back end in the Pentagon in terms 
of decisionmaking processes. So, we are looking at sort of both 
the business side and the operational side of AI. And she has 
created a new office, the Chief Digital and AI Office to bring 
together some of these areas that we were sort of in different 
places in terms of a focus on AI and how it affects our 
abilities.
    Again, the Secretary, you know, obviously is focused on 
this too, but the Deputy Secretary particularly has this sort 
of for an action item under the Secretary as to how we can 
really be much more agile than we are today in terms of 
information flows. I think there are areas where we have 
incredible situational awareness and real time awareness. But 
AI is just increasing the need to this future decisionmaking 
and that is something that we are very focused on how to get 
better at that because it is clearly foundational for the 
future.
    Chairman Yarmuth. Great. Well, I appreciate that answer. My 
time has expired. So, I thank you again for coming before the 
Committee today to present the President's DoD budget and 
appreciate your responses. And if there is no further business, 
this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 1:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
    
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