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


                   DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS 
                                FOR 2023
 =====================================================================
                                 HEARINGS

                                 BEFORE A

                           SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                         HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                     ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                              SECOND SESSION

                               _____________

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEFENSE

                     BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota, Chair

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

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

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

                               _____________

                                  PART 3

                                                                   Page
  U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request.......  1            
            
  Members' Day.....................................................115
                                        
  Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Central Intelligence 
   Agency, and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 
   Intelligence and Security.......................................121
                                        
  National Guard and Reserve Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Request.......123
                                        
  Defense Health and Medical Readiness.............................253
                                        
  Defense Environmental Restoration................................359
                                        
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                              _____________


                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
49-546                     WASHINGTON : 2022                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                     
                         
                         COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

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


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

                 Robin Juliano, Clerk and Staff Director
                                   (ii)

 
             DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2023

                              ----------                              

                                           Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

                  UNITED STATES NAVY AND MARINE CORPS

                               WITNESSES

HON. CARLOS DEL TORO, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY
ADMIRAL MICHAEL M. GILDAY, CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS
GENERAL DAVID H. BERGER, COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS

                  Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

    Ms. McCollum. The subcommittee will come to order.
    This morning, the subcommittee will receive testimony on 
the fiscal year 2023 budget request for the United States Navy 
and the Marine Corps.
    This is a hybrid hearing, so we need to go over a few 
housekeeping matters for members joining us virtually.
    Once you start speaking, there is a slight delay before you 
are displayed on the main screen. Speaking into the microphone 
activates the camera, displaying the speaker on the main 
screen. Now, don't stop your remarks if you do not immediately 
see the screen switch. If the screen does not switch after 
several seconds, please make sure you are unmuted.
    To minimize background noise and ensure that the correct 
speaker is being displayed, we ask all of you remain on mute 
unless you have sought recognition. Myself or the staff may 
unmute participants--I actually don't; the staff unmutes them 
through microphones--when they are not under recognition to 
eliminate any inadvertent background noise.
    So, members who are virtual, you are responsible for muting 
and unmuting yourself. Now, if I notice when you are recognized 
that you have not unmuted yourself, I might say something, but 
the staff will be sending you a request to unmute yourself. 
Please accept that request so you are no longer muted.
    And, finally, House rules require me to remind you that we 
have set up an email address to which members can send anything 
they wish to submit in writing at any of our hearings, and that 
email address has been provided to your staff.
    So let me begin. We will start our subcommittee hearing, 
and we will receive testimony for the fiscal year 2023 budget 
request from the Department of the Navy and the Marine Corps.
    Our witnesses today are the Honorable Carlos Del Toro, 
Secretary of the Navy; Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval 
Operations; and General David Berger, Commandant of the Marine 
Corps.
    The three witnesses, you all have a long and distinguished 
career of serving your country. We thank you for that.
    Secretary Del Toro, this is your first time testifying 
before us, So welcome to the subcommittee. We thank you for 
your service.
    And, Admiral and General, welcome back. Thank you for being 
here.
    Now, while the hearing will cover a wide range of topics, I 
just want to take a moment to cover a few.
    The Navy has no greater investment than in the life, 
health, and well-being of our sailors, Marines, and their loved 
ones. Following the tragic suicides that took place on the USS 
George Washington, the subcommittee wants to emphasize the 
urgent need to prioritize the mental health care throughout the 
Navy.
    Mr. Secretary, I thank you for going out there.
    We must work together to better understand what the Navy is 
doing to ensure that sailors, Marines, and their families have 
the support that they need to do the extraordinary job that we 
ask them to do.
    Operational demand remains high for our servicemembers, and 
that burden is magnified for their loved ones. The subcommittee 
wants to hear how the Navy is investing in programs that 
prioritize the well-being of our sailors and our Marines and 
their families.
    The men and women who serve are the most precious resource 
that we have, and it is incumbent that we make sure that they 
have access to prompt medical care, childcare, and family 
programs no matter where they are. This is important for 
recruitment, and it is essential for retainment.
    I am going to turn to shipbuilding for a few seconds here. 
For the last several years, the Department of Defense has 
maintained a requirement of a 355-ship force. This year, the 
Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan breaks tradition of presenting 
a single plan and instead provides three--not one, but three--
different scenarios, two of which never meet the Navy's goal of 
355 ships.
    Further, the three alternatives presented in the Navy's 
shipbuilding plan leave open the question of which of the 
different mixes of ships the Navy thinks is necessary for the 
future fight.
    So we need to better understand the thought process of the 
Navy regarding the shipbuilding plan and understand what you 
think needs to be the right size Navy with the right number of 
ships.
    I also want to hear an update on ship and submarine 
maintenance issues. Shipyard backlogs remain high, and the 
shipbuilding industrial base continues to face production 
delays and capacity challenges. And, yes, COVID was part of the 
mix, but it doesn't explain all of the issues facing 
shipbuilding. We need to know what steps are being taken to 
improve the situation and what we can do as a committee to 
assist you.
    And, finally, as the Marine Corps continues down the road 
with its modernization effort, Force Design 2030, we hope to 
learn more about the implementation of this new concept and how 
it is going. We want to know what challenges you are facing and 
what assumptions you are reworking in the face of real-world 
events.
    This continues to be a challenging time for the Navy and 
Marine Corps, and we want to work together with you to ensure 
you are receiving the required resources to maintain readiness, 
support personnel, and modernize for the future fight. At the 
same time, I must emphasize that we expect every tax dollar to 
be spent wisely.
    With that, I thank you again for appearing before the 
subcommittee today to discuss these important issues. And I 
will be asking you to present your summarized statement in a 
moment, but, first, I would like to recognize our ranking 
member, Mr. Calvert, for any opening statement he would like to 
make.

                     Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you. And thank you, Chair McCollum, 
Secretary Del Toro, Admiral Gilday, General Berger. We are 
pleased to have you here with us today.
    Following World War II, the United States and our allies 
established a rules-based order that has led to global 
prosperity. This order is being increasingly threatened by 
adversaries like China and Russia. To ensure that the U.S. 
remains the security partner of choice, we must have a strong, 
capable, and present Navy and Marine Corps team.
    Unfortunately, the President's budget request for fiscal 
year 2023 fails to provide the resources needed to carry out 
the Navy's important mission. As I have noted in other 
hearings, inflation is rapidly eating into the Department's 
buying power. Additionally, the small increases for the Navy 
and Marine Corps in this budget are, in effect, cuts when 
adjusted for inflation. At a time when we need a bigger, more 
lethal fleet, the Biden administration is yet again 
shortchanging defense.
    Though there are many areas of the budget request that 
concern me, I am most troubled by the Navy's request to 
decommission 24 ships and build only 8. The Navy is also 
requesting fewer aircraft than previously planned. This sends a 
signal to our adversaries that we are not prioritizing sea 
power, and weakness invites aggression.
    Admiral Gilday, you have often spoken about the 
capabilities--our capabilities matter more than the number of 
ships, but this assessment mischaracterizes the full picture. 
In times of war, numbers matter a great deal, especially if we 
are fighting on enemy turf.
    This subcommittee needs to have a better understanding of 
how you envision the needs of the current and future fleet, how 
you plan to utilize a mix of manned and unmanned systems, and 
what the true priorities of the Navy are in future warfare.
    Today, I am looking forward to hearing from you all about 
the range of issues facing the Navy and the Marine Corps. These 
include preventing suicide, taking care of our sailors and 
Marines, creating shipbuilding plans that are reliable and 
affordable, improving our defense industrial base, and 
supporting rapid innovation.
    Secretary Del Toro, you and I have discussed at length how 
the Navy needs to welcome the innovation that exists in the 
private sector and integrate that into our systems. I am 
interested in hearing what progress we are making and what can 
be improved.
    Finally, General Berger, I am aware of the criticism you 
are taking for Force Design 2030. Change is hard. Disruptions 
are hard, often attacked for upsetting the status quo. I want 
to tell you that I fully support your plan. I want to work with 
you to ensure that it is fully implemented.
    On the modern battlefield today, combined arms is more than 
tanks and artillery, as we are finding out. It includes 
information, cyber, space. It is about being inside the 
adversary's threat ring with autonomous systems and long-range 
precision fire.
    The Marine Corps must transform to impose costs on the 
adversary and, if required, win battles decisively. I believe 
that Force Design 2023 is fully in line with the National 
Defense Strategy and will provide the Nation a Marine Corps 
that can seize and defend the advanced naval bases and conduct 
land operations against modern threats.
    In closing, I would like to thank all the sailors and 
Marines that serve under your command. I am intimately aware of 
the risks and sacrifices they make for our country.
    Over the last few years, my constituents Corporal Cesar 
Villanueva and Private First Class Bryan Baltierra were killed 
in a tragic Amphibious Assault Vehicle mishap. And, of course, 
Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, along with 11 other Marines and a 
U.S. Army soldier, were killed in a terrorist attack during the 
evacuation in Afghanistan. The Nation is forever grateful to 
these brave Marines and their families.
    Thank you again for your service. I look forward to your 
testimony.
    And, with that, I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
    Ms. Granger, would you like to make an opening statement? 
You are most welcome to do so.

                     Opening Remarks of Ms. Granger

    Ms. Granger. Thank you, Chair McCollum, for yielding.
    I would like to thank the witnesses for appearing before us 
today.
    America's sailors and Marines play a leading role in 
projecting power around the world. Not only do they ensure 
freedom of navigation, our Navy and Marine Corps will provide a 
forward enduring presence that sends a clear signal to the 
world. As Russia and China continue their aggression, it is 
important that we have a modern, capable, and lethal ship and 
fleet.
    The administration's budget request fails to meet that 
need. As Mr. Calvert said, instead of keeping pace with the 
threats, the Navy is proposing to decommission 24 ships while 
only building 8. Let me be clear about my view on this 
proposal: I do not support it.
    Some of these ships, especially the littoral combat ships, 
are among the newest in the fleet. The Navy claims they don't 
have sufficient funding to maintain and operate these ships, 
but that is not the case. Instead, they have mismanaged 
billions of dollars in maintenance funding.
    One glaring example of this is the USS Vicksburg, a cruiser 
up for decommissioning this year. Since 2020, the Navy has 
awarded nearly $500 million in contracts to upgrade the 
cruiser. At a time when the ship is still in its maintenance 
period, the Navy is proposing to scrap it.
    If the Navy experts expect Congress to support its vision 
for this fleet, it must do a much better job of managing the 
inventory it has. We will not stand idly by as valuable 
taxpayer funds are wasted.
    In addition to hearing about our Navy force, I hope you 
will discuss future investments in quality-of-life issues 
impacting our servicemen and their families. I am very 
concerned about the health of those who keep us safe in your 
care.
    To close, I thank each of you for your service, and I look 
forward to hearing from you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back for now.
    Ms. McCollum. So, gentlemen, your statements have been 
fully entered into the record. Members have copies of them. So 
I would ask you to please keep your opening statement to 5 
minutes so that we can have a robust discussion.
    Mr. Secretary, we will start with you.

                Summary Statement of Secretary Del Toro

    Secretary Del Toro. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, 
distinguished members of this committee, it is an honor to be 
here alongside General Berger and Admiral Gilday to discuss the 
posture of the Department of the Navy.
    I look forward to working with you to ensure that our 
sailors and Marines are indeed equipped, trained, and prepared 
to the best of our ability so that they can fulfill our vital 
role to provide combat-ready forces in support of the joint 
force.
    The United States requires a strong Navy and a strong 
Marine Corps. Our global economy and the self-determination of 
free nations everywhere depends on sea power. Our national 
security depends on sea power. That is particularly true in the 
Indo-Pacific, where Beijing's aggression threatens the rules-
based international order that protects us all, as was 
previously stated.
    To answer that challenge, your Navy and Marine Corps must 
have the power to maintain credible integrated deterrence by 
campaigning forward--forward from the sea, on the shore, and in 
the air.
    Thanks to the leadership of President Biden and Secretary 
Austin, this budget does provide the right balance of capacity, 
lethality, modernization, and readiness that we need to execute 
the National Defense Strategy.
    We will invest these resources through the execution of a 
concise, clear, and transparent strategy rooted in three 
guiding principles: first, maintain and strengthen our maritime 
dominance so that we can deter potential adversaries and fight 
and win decisively; second, empower our sailors and our Marines 
by fostering a culture of warfighting excellence, founded on 
strong leadership and dignity and respect for each other; and, 
third, strengthen our strategic partnerships across the joint 
force, industry, and our international partners around the 
globe.
    We are executing this strategy through the integrated 
visions of the Marine Corps Force Design 2030 and the Navy 
Navigation Plan. I strongly support these visions and am 
committed to fielding the ready, capable, and modernized force 
required to ensure their success.
    To maintain and strengthen maritime dominance, we have to 
be serious about fielding and maintaining the right 
capabilities to win future wars. That is why our budget 
strongly invests in a nimble network and survivable Navy, with 
platforms like Columbia, DDG Flight III, and enhanced cyber and 
autonomous capabilities that enable our fleet to campaign 
forward in a distributed manner.
    And this budget invests in a truly expeditionary and 
persistent Marine Corps with the mobility and the readiness to 
respond in force wherever and whenever needed. We are advancing 
cybersecurity and resilience efforts across the Department, 
with investments to expand Cyber Mission Force teams, harden 
networks, and leverage artificial intelligence and machine 
learning to defend information infrastructure.
    To ensure the combat readiness of our platforms, we are 
more than doubling SIOP investments over the previous budget. 
This budget invests in the climate resiliency of our force and 
our facilities while continuing efforts to substantially reduce 
our impact on climate change.
    We are investing in facilities that promote the quality of 
life of our personnel and our families. As I discussed in my 
visit to the USS George Washington yesterday, we are 
prioritizing access to mental health care and eliminating 
barriers to seeking help. We owe it to our military families to 
ensure their safety and their well-being, and when we fall 
short, we look our problems square in the eye and we take 
action.
    We are investing in our efforts to recruit, retain, and 
promote the best from all America. And we are increasing 
funding for naval and cyber education and enhanced shipboard 
training so our sailors and Marines can build their careers 
wherever service takes them.
    We appreciate the committee's interest in ensuring our 
forces have the right facilities to train, fight, and win, 
including the potential expansion of the Fallon Training Range 
Complex.
    We also appreciate the committee's efforts to include new 
tools within the NDAA to deter destructive behavior and 
prosecute sexual assault, domestic violence, and other offenses 
as well. At every level of leadership, we are determined to 
prevent sexual assault and sexual harassment, hold offenders 
accountable, and create a safer, stronger, and more inclusive 
Navy and Marine Corps team.
    I want to close by noting the importance of strategic 
partnerships, from the joint force and our industrial base to 
our allies and partners around the world. I have personally 
seen our partnerships and alliances in action, from F-35B 
operations in the Indo-Pacific to NATO exercises in Norway and 
the Mediterranean.
    But our most important partnership is indeed with you all, 
the American people. That is why I am grateful for the 
oversight and interest of this committee, and I look forward to 
continuing to work with you in the years ahead.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
    
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                  Summary Statement of Admiral Gilday

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Admiral Gilday, please.
    Admiral Gilday. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, 
distinguished members of the committee, good morning. And thank 
you for the opportunity to appear today with Secretary Del Toro 
and General Berger.
    As it has been mentioned in your opening statements, for 
nearly eight decades, America's maritime superiority has 
guaranteed security and prosperity across the world's oceans, 
and it has played a unique and a prominent role in protecting 
our Nation's most vital national interests. Maintaining 
maritime superiority is fundamental to implementing the 
National Defense Strategy.
    Global competition is heating up, the pace of innovation is 
accelerating, and the environment our naval forces are 
operating in every day is growing more transparent, more 
lethal, and more contested. Every one in this room is familiar 
with these trends, particularly China's massive investment in 
highly capable forces designed to deny our access to the 
world's oceans.
    Our Navy's role has never been more consequential or more 
expansive. America needs a combat-credible naval force that can 
protect our interests in peace and can prevail in combat, not 
just today but tomorrow and for the long-term competition that 
lies ahead.
    Our budget submission reflects that imperative. It fully 
funds a Columbia-class submarine to ensure continuity for our 
Nation's most survivable strategic deterrent. It keeps our 
fleet ready to fight tonight. It funds maintenance accounts, 
filling magazines with weapons, putting spare parts in 
storerooms, and giving our sailors the steaming days and the 
flying hours that they need to hone their skills.
    It modernizes our fleet by investing in weapons with 
increased range and speed, integrated systems to improve fleet 
survivability, and a resilient cybersecure network 
infrastructure.
    And it invests in affordable, capable capacity, building 
towards a goal of a larger distributed hybrid fleet and taking 
into account the insights we are gaining from fleet battle 
problems on a monthly basis and exercises like our Large-Scale 
Exercise 2021 and the International Maritime Exercise, the 
largest in the world with unmanned platforms, we just finished 
in the Middle East.
    These exercises and many others are helping us refine our 
warfighting concepts, experiment with unmanned systems at the 
speed of innovation, and grow the fighting power of our Navy 
and Marine Corps team across all domains.
    We need to field a ready fleet today as we simultaneously 
modernize the fleet for the future. And this has forced to us 
make some difficult decisions, including the decommissioning of 
platforms that do not bring the needed lethality to a high-end 
fight in contested seas.
    While building capacity at the expense of readiness or 
modernization can sound like an attractive option, it is not 
one that I endorse. We have been there before and have seen 
tragic results. I refuse to repeat it again.
    We cannot field a fleet larger than one that we can 
sustain. And, at today's fiscal levels, quantity simply cannot 
substitute for quality, especially as our adversaries are 
building advanced warfighting systems.
    Failing to modernize to meet those threats would erode 
America's naval superiority at a time when command of the seas 
will decide the strategic balance of power for the rest of this 
century. The stakes in this competition are extremely high, 
which is why your sailors and Marines--Active, Reserve, 
uniformed, and civilian--are committed to strengthening our 
naval power every single day.
    Thank you again for inviting me to testify, and I am 
grateful for the committee's support for our Navy and Marine 
Corps team. I look forward to answering your questions.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
    
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                  Summary Statement of General Berger

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Please continue, General Berger.
    General Berger. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and 
distinguished members of this subcommittee, as we sit here this 
morning with a backdrop of a war raging in Ukraine and malign 
activities in the Indo-Pacific, I think it is a good reminder 
that we don't have the luxury of building a joint force for 
just one region, just one threat, or just one form of warfare. 
That is why your Marine Corps's ability to respond to crisis in 
any time and place is essential to our national security.
    Three years ago, as the ranking and chair mentioned, we 
embarked on an ambitious program of modernization to ensure 
that your Marine Corps could continue to meet its statutory 
role as America's force in readiness.
    With the bipartisan support of this committee, our 
modernization, I can tell you, is on track, building momentum. 
And while some outside of Congress were skeptical of our 
proposed divest-to-reinvestment approach, over the past 3 
years, with this committee's support, we have reinvested $17 
billion worth of modernization, all self-funded.
    And I will tell you that this approach has not been easy. 
We have made hard, enterprise-sweeping decisions to get rid of 
things that we won't need in the future and to reduce the 
number of things that we will need less of. And we have 
refined, we have economized, we have optimized across the 
Marine Corps.
    And, today, I would like to offer you an update on three 
areas where we have seen significant progress over the past 
year.
    First, over the past 18 months out at our live-fire 
combined-arms training center in Twentynine Palms, California, 
we have run nine force-on-force exercises. And what we have 
learned during those exercises has validated our initial 
assumptions: basically, that smaller, more mobile distributed 
units, employing 21st-century combined arms--not yesterday's 
but the future's--with organic ISR and with loitering 
munitions, are more lethal than the larger formations' 
traditional force structure's old concepts. And those findings 
are entirely consistent with what you and I are seeing in 
Ukraine.
    In less than 2 years, we have formalized a concept for 
stand-in operations, stand-in forces. And we have built a 
capability that has dramatically expanded what we can achieve 
in support of both land and maritime operations.
    Our forces that are forward deployed to Europe, right now, 
as we sit here, are exercising those concepts. They are sensing 
networking and distributed ops in support of EUCOM as I speak. 
And as the EUCOM commander testified just a couple weeks ago, 
those marine forces are precious for effective deterrence.
    Second, we have achieved some important milestones 
operationally this past year. We have retired the aging AAV, 
our Amphibious Assault Vehicle, ahead of schedule. And we will 
deploy its replacement, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, ahead of 
schedule for the first time this year.
    This year also marked the first deployment of an F-35C 
squadron aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. And, working 
hand-in-hand with our British allies, at their request, we 
marked the first deployment of an entire F-35B squadron on the 
Royal Navy carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.
    The marine expeditionary unit, the MEU, enabled by 
amphibious ships, remains the crown jewel of our naval 
expeditionary forces. No naval vessel in our inventory is 
capable of supporting a more diverse set of missions than the 
amphibious warship. The CNO and I agree that the minimum number 
of L-class amphibious ships that the Nation needs is 31, and 
your support for sustaining that minimum capacity is essential 
to national security.
    Finally, this past year we published our plan to create a 
modern personnel system that will allow us to better recruit, 
develop, retain, and align the talents of individual Marines 
with what the Marine Corps needs.
    All said, what the Marine Corps does for this Nation will 
not change. We are America's force in readiness, capable of 
diverse missions across the operational spectrum. But how we 
accomplish those missions is changing.
    With this committee's support, we have programmed our 
divested dollars that you allow us to keep into new 
capabilities for the future, and we are putting them in the 
hands of combatant commanders this year and next, not 2030.
    Despite self-resourcing our modernization, the majority of 
our programs, with your oversight, remain on track, on time, on 
budget. And in those handful of cases where they are not, we 
will continue to work with this subcommittee to make 
adjustments swiftly.
    There has been mention earlier of the consequences of 
inflationary environment. I would tell you that is limiting 
what we can accomplish on our own, so, therefore, I think your 
support remains critical to our collective success.
    And, to that end, I welcome the opportunity to continue 
working closely with this subcommittee. I look forward to your 
questions.
    Thank you, ma'am.
    [The prepared statement follows:]
    
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                 SHIPS, SHIPYARDS AND WORKFORCE ISSUES

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you all for your testimony.
    We will start with questions. For those on Webex, it will 
be in the chat, the order of where you will be in the 
questions, as well as I will do as I have before, kind of let 
the next one or two people know that they are up.
    I am going to set the table here a little bit and start. I 
am going to start with the industrial base workforce and our 
shipyards.
    Both private and public shipyards have experienced 
significant decline due to both gaps in experienced personnel, 
training, rising costs of materials, and the inconsistent 
acquisition policy of the Navy.
    Mr. Secretary, with considerable delays in both, the Navy's 
repairs and shipbuilding programs, in large part due to 
workforce issues--but we also have to recognize it has to do 
with the available open space at the shipyards, plus workforce 
issues--we are running behind in what we need to be doing.
    So, the Navy, I would be interested in knowing what you are 
doing to provide both short-term and long-term solutions for 
hiring and retention issues for workforce, but also what the 
long-term plan is to be able to get our ships in for 
maintenance and build them at the same time to reach our shared 
objectives and goals.
    So I do have a second question, and normally I do them one 
at a time, but I think these are pretty interconnected.
    Your budget request includes $27.9 billion for buying eight 
new ships. You are planning, as has been pointed out by my 
colleagues up here, to decommission 24 ships in 2023, including 
16 that have not reached their end of life service.
    And so, you know, how is Congress supposed to evaluate the 
Navy's proposed funding requests for things like next-
generation ships and platforms, future warfighting 
requirements, when the Navy is proposing to divest relatively 
young ships, like the littoral combat ship, some of which are 
only 2 years old?
    It was a 30-year plan to get us here with the littorals. 
Now they are being retired. Now we are being asked to look at 
another 30-year plan.
    So, you know, we want to find your request credible, but 
there are a lot of questions about it. So one of the questions 
I have and I have discussed with you gentlemen previously and 
with the Secretary of Defense, as well as the Joint Chiefs, is: 
The Navy I have asked, this committee has asked, to conduct 
studies and options for modifying some of these ships, the 
littoral ships, so that they could perform missions of interest 
in the Navy or for combat commands.
    Because, after all, yes, we do need to project power in the 
Indo-Pacific. We heard that clearly yesterday from the Indo-
Pacific commander. But we also need to have a presence and 
project power in the Atlantic and around Africa, where other 
missions maybe could be--these ships could be refitted for.
    So could you explain how--I really think these two 
questions interconnect for us getting to where we want to be, 
with having your budget request honored, but at the same time 
the taxpayers protected, and for us to be able to do our 
oversight.
    Admiral? Or Mr. Secretary? Whoever would like to go first. 
I am sorry.
    Maybe you would like to go first, Mr. Secretary.
    Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Without question, the challenges that we face, both in 
public and private shipyards, are considerable. In the time 
since I became Secretary, I have visited all the public 
shipyards, and I have visited most of the private shipyards, as 
well, too.
    Particularly challenging is the challenge brought on by the 
workforce and hiring of the proper workforce. With regards to 
hiring in the public shipyards, we have added significant 
amounts of individuals to that workforce, channeling it to the 
needs as we see them today.
    Without question, the age of the shipyards themselves--over 
100 years old, and they have been neglected for a long, long 
time--it just strengthens the importance of the SIOP program, 
the $2.8 billion that are in the President's budget 2023 
recommendations for SIOP, for example. And we need to continue 
that effort for a long, long time----
    Ms. McCollum. I am going to stop you for a minute, because 
this is a public hearing. Do you want to explain what ``SIOP'' 
is? And I won't interrupt again.
    Secretary Del Toro. Oh, forgive me. SIOP is the plan that 
the Navy has in place to refurbish and upgrade all of the 
public shipyards that are government-owned that have been in 
the possession of the Navy for close to 100 years now.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Secretary Del Toro. Yes, ma'am.
    So those investments are significant. And, of course, the 
program has slowed down a bit, obviously, because the budget 
hasn't been able to be passed on time, and some of those 
investments haven't been made yet. But we are picking up speed 
on that now. And hopefully the Congress will be able to pass a 
budget on time this year so that we can really take off with 
those investments that have become critical for the repair and 
maintenance issues.
    With regard to the LCS--out of those 24, 11 would have been 
decommissioned on a regular basis regardless.
    With regards to the LCS, the particular problem that we are 
facing on the nine that we--particularly eight that we plan on 
commissioning is the problem with the ASW modules on those 
ships.
    Regretfully, these ships also were designed and planned 
over 15 years ago to meet a different threat. And so, when we 
look at the threat that we face today in the Indo-Pacific, it 
becomes particularly challenging for those ships to be able to 
contribute significantly to that high-end fight.
    In the same breath, though, I will say that there are 21 
other LCSes that we are going to employ very aggressively 
moving forward in the Navy, as well, too.
    Ms. McCollum. Admiral.
    Admiral Gilday. Ma'am, I would like to pick it up with 
maintenance for just a moment.
    So we have embarked on an effort now, for the last 2\1/2\ 
years, to drive down delay days out of shipyards. As we 
generate force power, as we generate forces for combatant 
commanders, the biggest challenge that we have is getting ships 
out of maintenance on time. So, since 2019, we have driven 
delay days out of shipyards, public and private, from over 
7,700 down to about 3,000. We are not satisfied with that. Our 
goal is to drive that number to zero.
    It is not just a workforce issue, whether it is out in the 
private sector or whether it is in the public shipyards, but it 
also to do with planning and forecasting. As an example, based 
on the substantial amount of data that we took a look at, the 
Navy concluded that at least 30 percent of the delays of ships 
coming out of private and public yards was directly 
attributable to poor planning and forecasting up front, which 
led to growth work and new work on ships once they are in the 
shipyards.
    So we are trying to get after this in terms of driving 
those delay days down, which will also keep costs in check.
    With respect to private yards, we are leveraging our 
contracts to hold vendors accountable when they run late, 
whether it is missing milestones or whether they are missing 
delivery dates. This not only includes our ships but also our 
aircraft and depot maintenance.
    With respect to the decommissioning, we took a look at our 
top line, and we took a look at a Navy that we can sustain, a 
Navy that we can afford, but to make it the most lethal, 
capable, ready Navy that we can. In other words, we are trying 
to field the most lethal, capable, ready Navy we can based on 
the budget that we have, rather than a larger Navy that is less 
capable, less lethal, and less ready.
    So we stratified our warfighting platforms, and LCS fell at 
the bottom of that stratification, along with the older 
cruisers that have an older radar, that have leaks below the 
waterline, radars that can't detect these new Chinese threats, 
as an example.
    The Secretary spoke about the anti-submarine warfare 
modules. Much of the testing on that module is done in LCS-3, 
the Fort Worth, that helped us make the determination that we 
should not put another dollar against that system because it 
wouldn't pan out against high-end Chinese and Russian threats.
    So, regrettably, we made tough decisions in this budget 
proposal to decommission and propose to decommission ships that 
just wouldn't have added value to the fight. At the same time, 
we are taking that money and investing it in our priorities, 
which are readiness, modernization, and then capacity at an 
affordable rate.
    So my unfunded list, as an example, tells a story, as we 
are asking for additional money to maximize domestic production 
lines for weapons with range and speed--LRASM, JASSM-ER would 
be examples; Maritime Strike Tomahawk--ship availabilities, 
maintenance availabilities for aircraft, spare parts, programs 
for people.
    So we are trying to invest in readiness first and foremost 
and also modernizing a fleet, 70 percent of which we are going 
have in the early 2030s.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Admiral Gilday. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. McCollum. I think you are hearing us and you are trying 
to explain, but I think there is more work to be done.
    Mr. Calvert.

                            SBIR INITIATIVES

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Secretary Del Toro, the Navy has struggled to effectively 
incorporate and scale successful SBIR initiatives. It is not 
just the Navy; it is the whole DOD complex. In some instances, 
they let a promising technology just fade away in the so-called 
``valley of death'' that we all hear about. In others, the Navy 
co-opts the innovation, effectively boxing out the original 
innovator.
    One example of this is the Automated Test and Retest 
Program. I know I sometimes sound like a broken record, but I 
am using that as an example. Not only do these actions 
reinforce the existing bureaucracy, but it also stifles 
innovation from people we need it from the most. It sends out a 
reputation that DOD is not a good partner.
    Can you share with the subcommittee how the Navy is looking 
to leverage small-business innovators rather than keeping them 
out of the defense industrial base?
    Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, I am very passionate about 
this issue. I was a small-business owner doing work in the 
government space for 17 years, and I like to think that our 
company was quite innovative. And I actually have a lot of 
experience with regards to the SBIR program, as well, too.
    And you are absolutely right. The real challenge--it is 
important to make R&D investments, no doubt, in 6.1 and 6.2, 
basic research, but it is really important to be able to take 
that technology that is being developed in these small 
companies--and small companies are the engine of our innovation 
in this country--and transition them beyond Phase III so that 
we put them in the hands of the warfighters.
    And so, in the short time I have been Secretary of the 
Navy, I have actually been having lots of roundtables with 
small-business owners to get to the challenges that they are 
having, particularly in the SBIR program, as well, too.
    I have challenged our PEOs across the Department of the 
Navy to meet with small-business owners to understand their 
challenges in trying to get to--actually, early adoption and 
sponsorship of those companies and those technologies early in 
the process, in Phase I and Phase II, is critical to actually 
transitioning them into the hands of the warfighters.
    So we have to get our Navy acquisition departments engaged 
much earlier in the process, as these things are coming 
together, so that we can put them in the hands of warfighters. 
I think that is part of the essential key to success there.
    Mr. Calvert. And, also, I think it is sometimes the culture 
in the Department. The senior managers, whoever, in the 
Department--if someone comes along with an innovative idea, an 
invention, even that is protected, sometimes that innovation is 
basically just taken. And then requirements are made that the 
innovator himself cannot market that program to anyone else 
because then, all of a sudden, it becomes a national security 
issue. And so, not only is he screwed by not being able to 
participate in the innovation that he created, but he also 
can't profit from that in the private sector.
    So the mindset, quite frankly, in the innovative community, 
which I am familiar with and you are familiar with, is, ``Don't 
do work with the government. Don't do work with the United 
States Government.''
    And, as you know, most innovations, quite frankly, come 
from small-business enterprises, not from the--you know, we all 
love the big contractors out there. They are great. But we 
can't forget that innovation typically comes from small 
startups, sometimes that become larger companies. But I would 
hope that we can work to change that culture in the Pentagon to 
make sure that we change that.
    Secretary Del Toro. I look forward to continuing to work 
with you on this incredibly important issue. You are absolutely 
right, Congressman.
    Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer and then Ms. Granger.

                      IMPACT OF BILLIT REDUCTIONS

    Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    And thank you for being with us. Appreciate your service.
    And thank you, Secretary, for coming out to our neck of the 
woods last month.
    I appreciate the Navy's goal of increasing readiness to 
counter threats from our adversaries like Russia and China. I 
recognize that shifting medical billets has been part of that 
balancing act. Unfortunately, those billet reductions have 
unintended consequences for our military families.
    In my neck of the woods, civilian shortages and billet 
reductions have led to the closure of the labor and delivery 
department at Naval Hospital Bremerton. The hospital now 
functions as an ambulatory care center with dramatically 
reduced hours. It is clear that billet reductions have already 
reduced access to care for the folks that I represent.
    Considering that, I am concerned to hear that the Navy 
still plans to divest over 5,100 healthcare billets, despite 
this committee's concerns. Members of the SASC and the HASC 
have also expressed their opposition to billet reductions, 
inserting a pause on reductions in the NDAA the past several 
years.
    So, with all this in mind, here is my question: Does the 
Navy still have a plan to divest over 5,100 healthcare billets? 
If so, have the Navy's underlying assumptions for these planned 
healthcare billet reductions accounted for the COVID-19 
pandemic? And, finally, how will these billet reductions impact 
the Navy's ability to have medical personnel available and 
trained for a future conflict?
    Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman. It was a 
pleasure to visit your district, where I actually did learn of 
the challenges that our servicemembers have, particularly with 
the long distances that are involved in getting to the medical 
center at Bremerton and then facing the shortages that they 
have, with the lack of medical billets, as well, too.
    Just 2 days ago, I met with my entire medical leadership in 
the Department of the Navy, and we discussed just this concern. 
And I share your concerns deeply. I think we probably need to 
slow down the transference of billets over to the Defense 
Health Agency to ensure that the Navy has the Navy core medical 
billets that are necessary to take care of our servicemembers 
and particularly as it applies to combat readiness.
    And perhaps I could ask the CNO to comment briefly on this 
as well.
    Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir. We are reversing many of the 
5,100. I will confirm that number and get back to you. We are 
working very closely with DHA as we come to closure on that 
final proposal.
    Mr. Kilmer. I would just add, you know, I think there is an 
assumption that there is capacity somewhere else to provide 
these services. I met with the local hospital in my community, 
and they said, we don't really have that capacity.
    So I don't know what analysis is happening that is driving 
some of these decisions, but I am just concerned about the 
military families who actually need to make sure they are 
getting the services that they require.
    Secretary Del Toro. You are absolutely right, especially 
when it comes to mental health resources. They aren't out there 
in the private sector. And so I think we need to do a better 
job of actually growing our own mental health professionals in 
the Navy and across the Department of Defense.

              SHIPYARD INFRASTRUCTURE OPTIMIZATION PROGRAM

    Mr. Kilmer. The other topic I wanted to raise has already 
come up, and that is the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization 
Program, the SIOP.
    Again, thanks for coming out to PSNS, Puget Sound Naval 
Shipyard. It is the home of the only dry dock on the West Coast 
that is capable of repairing an aircraft carrier--very 
important to the Navy's mission.
    You also saw firsthand the amazing work done by our 
uniformed personnel, by our civilian employees, that are trying 
to turn around--you know, do these repairs for our subs and our 
carriers, get them back to active mission.
    I was pleased to see the Navy's commitment to the SIOP, 
doubling the investment from last year's budget. This year, it 
is a 20-year, $21 billion effort to upgrade our shipyards.
    I appreciated the chair and Ranking Member Calvert coming 
out to our neck of the woods and just putting eyes on these, 
you know, more-than-100-year-old facilities.
    So I guess my question is: Beyond just supporting your 
budget, is there anything that this committee can do, that this 
Congress can do, to just help keep this critical program on 
schedule?
    Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, I would argue, you know, 
this is the Navy's largest capitalization program, and we have 
assigned really significant program leadership to it, as well.
    I would suggest that perhaps Congress, in its legislative 
efforts, would consider additional funding through a national 
infrastructure bill, for example, where we can include the 
upgrades of these four critical public shipyards.
    Because there is a lot more that needs to be done. And, as 
you well know--for example, the one in your district--we need 
to ensure that that is ready by the time Ford has to go into 
that first availability downstream.
    Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
    Thanks, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    We are going to be having a hearing on healthcare with all 
the significant people at the Pentagon that deal with this.
    And, Mr. Kilmer, thank you for bringing up obstetrics and 
gynecology. We can't forget the healthcare needs of the women 
who wear the uniform for us.
    Ms. Granger and then Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

                   SHIP BUILDING AND AVIATION REQUEST

    Ms. Granger. As I mentioned in my opening statement, I am 
concerned about the Navy's shipbuilding request. And it is 
inadequate, and many of the programs are poorly managed.
    For example, $4.9 billion was spent on the littoral combat 
ships you are now asking to decommission. Each one of these 
ships has significant useful service life left. One of them, as 
was mentioned before, was just commissioned in August of 2020.
    I don't know how we can have confidence in your request 
when, just a few years ago at this same hearing, the Navy 
advocated for LCS funding with the same passion you are now 
expressing to get rid of them.
    But I will move on to a question.
    Secretary Del Toro, both the Navy and the Marine Corps have 
reduced their request for F-35 aircraft in fiscal year 2023. In 
addition, the Navy is not requesting additional Super Hornets.
    Can you explain how the Navy intends to make up its strike 
fighter shortfall?
    Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I am particularly concerned with the pace at which industry 
has been able to deliver F-35s. And so, for me, it is a 
significant concern, and I just don't think that we should be 
making those investments if, in fact, we can't keep pace with 
the delivery of those aircraft to the Navy itself. There is 
probably better uses for that in the near term until they can 
recover from their supply-chain issues and start delivering 
them at a faster pace.
    And I know that the Chief of Naval Operations and myself 
have been discussing this issue very closely, as far as the 
service-life extensions on the F/A-18E and F, for example, that 
is also critical to maintaining the right strike fighter mix.
    But perhaps I could have the CNO go further in depth.
    Admiral Gilday. Ma'am, we have a strike fighter shortfall 
that we are trying to close, and our initial goal was to close 
it in 2025. That is now running behind, and the projection, at 
least today, is that we will close that shortfall in 2031.
    There are two reasons for this. One lever to pull is new F-
35s. And so, while our aim was 100 in this particular FYDP, we 
are only funding 69. I have asked for an additional 6 in my 
unfunded list, to bring us up to 75.
    The second piece of this, as the Secretary mentioned, is 
the service-life extensions and modernization on existing Super 
Hornets. It makes more sense to do that on existing airframes, 
to give them 10,000 hours with a more capable combat system, 
than it does investing in a brand-new fourth-generation 
aircraft.
    The challenge that we are having with those service-life 
extensions is that right now the turnaround time is about 18 
months. We want to drive that down to 12 months on each 
fuselage. And so we project that by next year we will drive 
down from 18 to 15 and then, into 2024, drive down to 12-month 
turnaround times, which should bring that strike fighter 
shortfall inside of this decade. And we are working very hard 
with industry to do that.
    Much of this does fall on industry with respect to that 
effort, but they have been working very closely with us to try. 
And we do a lot of work now on those aircraft with the Navy 
channels so that, by the time they get to the depot-level 
facility, that much of the corrosion that we initially saw in 
some of our first aircraft, we are getting after that problem 
to try and reduce the turnaround time and to have ready jets 
and integrated fourth- and fifth-generation air wings out into 
the fleet by mid-decade.
    Ms. Granger. And how many--do you speak and meet regularly 
on this particular issue, or have you made up your mind on this 
one?
    Admiral Gilday. I have visited the vendor personally. I get 
emails from the CEO himself on a monthly basis. I just traded 
emails with him this week, as an example, on that modernization 
effort. I have a direct line of communication to him. He is 
very responsive.
    Ms. Granger. And when you say a direct line, you are 
talking about the emails or meetings?
    Admiral Gilday. Emails. I have had face-to-face meetings 
with him, just the two of us in the room. Phone calls. Every 
time I go visit the plant, he is present for those tours.
    Ms. Granger. Thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick and then Mr. Rogers.

                     MILITARY AIRSPACE FOR TRAINING

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so 
much. Thanks for having this hearing.
    I have two questions, which I am going to ask together.
    General Berger, as you know, Arizona is home to some of the 
best, if not the best, military airspace and test ranges in the 
United States.
    As the Marine Corps on-boards some advanced weapons systems 
created to operate from larger standoff distances, what issues 
are you facing with test range requirements and surrounding 
airspace? Also, what help do you need from this committee to 
ensure that you have the space you need to properly train?
    General Berger. Ma'am, as one who has been stationed in 
Yuma, Arizona, for 3 years at MAWTS-1, I understand exactly the 
topic that you are bringing up. I would agree 100 percent, the 
airspace and the training areas surrounding Yuma, up into the 
Chocolates and the 2301, are the best we have access to.
    To your point, what are the issues? A couple of them. One 
is certainly encroachment, which the State and the members of 
this subcommittee and yourself have helped work with the local 
communities to make sure that, both in airspace and on Earth, 
that that doesn't impinge on the training that is required. And 
you highlighted it. The aircraft that we fly, the weapons that 
we shoot have longer ranges than they did 20, 30 years ago. So 
what was a big enough, you know, training and test space is no 
longer.
    I think in terms of, you know, how can the subcommittee 
help, one, I think facilitate the discussion between States. 
And the CNO knows better than I do the issues with Fallon. But 
we need to be able to link airspaces between training range and 
test airspaces so that we can fly aircraft like the F-35 
between, because one is not going to be large enough to 
accomplish what we need to.
    I think second is the coordination. The really great 
support and coaching, frankly, in us working with the FAA in 
terms of handing off airspace back and forth dynamically when 
we are not using it so that we can limit the restricted-use 
airspace to just what we need. But the coordination between us 
and the FAA, I think the gear in between, is the members of 
this subcommittee that help us deal with the FAA and reach good 
compromises.
    And, lastly, I would just say advocacy. I mean, you opened 
up with it. We have to have this airspace to train 
realistically. It is not a nice-to-have, it is a must-have for 
our readiness, for our combat readiness.
    And I will ask the CNO if you have anything to add.
    Admiral Gilday. So many of our ranges, we have not expanded 
them since the 1980s. And so, obviously, we are now two 
generations of aircraft down the line, weapons with longer 
range. And so the first time that we train with these full 
capabilities should not be in combat.
    And so that is why we are trying to work closely with the 
FAA, as the Commandant mentioned, but also with local 
jurisdictions to see if we can satisfy encroachment concerns 
and, at the same time, meet our national security commitments.

                      UNMANNED CAMPAIGN FRAMEWORK

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. Thank you.
    I have one more question. This is for the Admiral.
    In 2021, the Navy released the Unmanned Campaign Framework 
drones. And you have discussed the need for a hybrid fleet 
above, on, or below the surface.
    My district is home to many small innovative companies who 
develop unmanned underwater systems and their components.
    Can you expand on the Navy's Unmanned Campaign Framework 
and describe the Navy's requirements for your efforts in 
developing future unmanned systems?
    Admiral Gilday. Yes, ma'am.
    Besides the campaign plan, we have actually stood up a task 
force. And we actually have a task force in the Middle East 
right now that is based out of Bahrain that just conducted the 
largest unmanned exercise in the world--100 platforms, dozens 
of small companies were involved, and 10 different nations.
    What we are trying to do, in a DevOps kind of environment, 
is to deliver capability, put it in the hands of sailors and 
Marines within this FYDP, and at the same time get after 
bigger, more challenging problems with respect to command and 
control, with respect to engineering configurations and larger 
unmanned platforms that we hope to field in the FYDP after 
next, so the 2027 to 2030 timeframe. And so we are working very 
closely with industry.
    This week, we have another big unmanned exercise going on 
in Australia with the same task force. So we are bringing 
together acquisition specialists, we are bringing together 
warfighters, we are bringing together small companies, and we 
are doing this in an international fashion, in order to 
experiment and to field capabilities much more quickly than we 
ever have in the past and in a much different profile than we 
have with, let's say, large surface ships.
    It is going very well, ma'am. And I look forward to the 
opportunity to come in and brief you in more detail.
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much.
    I have some more questions, but I will submit them for the 
record, and I will yield back.

                  DEFENSIVE ABILITIES TO COUNTER CHINA

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mrs. Kirkpatrick.
    Mr. Rogers, then Mr. Ruppersberger, and then Mr. Cole.
    Mr. Rogers. China has been rapidly advancing its ballistic 
missile technology. There have been reports of China having the 
capability to shoot a moving car with a hypersonic weapon, 
reports of them having a nuclear-capable submarine, and 
developing cruise missiles which could take out an American 
aircraft carrier. And the range of Chinese missiles is also 
projected to vastly increase, with their range projected to 
reach as far as Guam by 2025.
    This expanded range of anti-access/area-denial poses great 
challenges for our posture in the Indo-Pacific theater. Should 
the Navy not be able to defend against such potential attacks, 
they would have to withdraw troops from the region, weakening 
our posture again.
    Admiral Gilday, what can you tell us about the Navy's 
ability to defends itself against potential missile strikes 
from China?
    Admiral Gilday. Sir, firstly, with respect to an offensive 
capability, due to the great help of this committee, where we 
doubled our investment over the past year with the 2022 budget, 
together with the Army--the Army is fielding a hypersonic 
capability in 2023 and the naval follow-on in 2025.
    With respect to a defensive capability, our R&D budget in 
the Navy has increased by 12 percent to $21 billion. Our three 
biggest efforts--four biggest efforts--one of them is 
hypersonics, in terms of an offensive capability. The other is 
directed energy and high-power microwave. And so that is the 
future with respect to fleet survivability, not missile-on-
missile, but a capability that can actually fry an incoming 
ballistic missile or a hypersonic missile to make them 
ineffective.
    We are working very closely with industry, large and small, 
in order to bring these capabilities to the fleet. We deployed 
a ship this year to the Middle East and also to the Pacific 
that actually has a laser directed-energy capability that we 
have used against ballistic missiles. We have had successful 
tests at China Lake from shore-based prototypes that we are 
also trying to use to field into the fleet quickly.
    We are not satisfied where we are right now, sir. I think 
we are on the right track in terms of the focus and the 
investments that we are making in the systems to make our ships 
more survivable.

                      MISSILE DEFENSE CAPABILITIES

    Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
    Secretary Del Toro, how does the Navy plan to bolster its 
missile defense capabilities in the coming years? Is there 
anything we, as the committee, can do to help in that regard?
    Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. I think you said bolster our 
missile defense capability, sir?
    Mr. Rogers. Yes.
    Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. So one of the great 
advantages that we bring, actually, in this modernization 
effort that we are taking on in the Navy by divesting some of 
these older capabilities is to be able to invest those 
resources in DDG Flight IIIs, for example, that have the 
ability to simultaneously do ballistic missile defense while 
they are also doing air defense for the carrier battle group, 
and it is the Block 10, basically, platform on those ships. 
Which is why continued investments in DDG Flight IIIs as we 
move later on to DDG(X) is so critical to our Nation's defense.
    Mr. Rogers. How accurate is the situation that we have 
talked about, missile defense? Are we capable of surviving a 
confrontation like that?
    Secretary Del Toro. I think we are. We are also making 
major investments in space and cyber, which is critical to the 
defense of our battle groups and our ships and our aircraft and 
our submarines, as well, too.
    And the collective efforts that are being made in quantum 
computing and hypersonics, as the Admiral said, you know, 
placing hypersonics on the Zumwalt-class ship in 2025, provide 
significant defense measures for our Navy and our joint force 
in general. And those investments in space and cybersecurity 
are deeply critical to that national defense as well.
    Mr. Rogers. Thank you.
    And General.
    General Berger. Sir, in 10 quick seconds, I would say, the 
1-yard defense, you know, last element of self-defense is 
clearly there. But what you want is the Navy and Marine Corps, 
from submarines to the Marine Corps forward, taking them out 
before they ever get to the ship. In other words, we need to 
hold their shooters, their archers, at risk all the time.
    Mr. Rogers. Amen.
    I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    We are trying to figure out--there is some background noise 
that is drifting in. We are trying to figure out what it is. It 
doesn't appear to be anything with our audio or anything like 
that. So I apologize.
    Mr. Calvert. It could be China.
    Ms. McCollum. It could be China. I don't think so. Let's 
hope not.
    Mr. Ruppersberger, then Mr. Cole, then Mr. Aguilar.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. The first thing I want to acknowledge is 
you have really good leadership of the force----
    Ms. McCollum. You want to turn your mike on so they hear 
you?

                         MODERNIZATION EFFORTS

    Mr. Ruppersberger. I want to acknowledge the fact that you 
have a good leadership team representing the Navy and Marines. 
So we appreciate your service.
    General Berger, I know that you have been intently focused 
on your Force Design 2030 modernization effort. As you detail 
in your annual update, released, I believe, just last week, 
this modernization effort seeks to ensure the Marine Corps can 
remain an expeditionary crisis response force well into the 
future. Your benchmark is the pacing threat that both the 
current and previous administration have both told you that you 
should use: the armed forces of the People's Republic of China.
    What guarantees can you provide this subcommittee that the 
modernization combat power you are investing in will not only 
tackle the tough requirements of any engagement in the Pacific 
but will allow the Marine Corps to rapidly respond to any 
crisis around the globe at a moment's notice?
    Now, you explicitly state that your intent with Force 
Design 2030 is to achieve most of your modernization goals 
without asking for a top-line increase for the Marine Corps if 
you are able to divest of the unneeded capability. Can you 
explain to the subcommittee your decision-making process on 
divestiture?
    General Berger. Sir, I can.
    You articulated the dual roles of the Marine Corps: be 
ready to respond to a crisis that perhaps we didn't anticipate, 
didn't see coming. You have to have that capability in the 
Department of Defense, and that is our mandated job by Congress 
and, frankly, by culture. That is on the one hand. And the 
other one, as you articulated, is: be ready to fight a war if 
one comes our way.
    How are we going to make sure that we are prepared to do 
that with this modernization effort that we are undergoing 
right now? I would say, the best answer for that you would 
probably get from somebody like Admiral Aquilino or General 
Wolters. You know, go to EUCOM; you could go to any of the 
combatant commanders.
    Although Force Design for us has an aim point a decade out, 
the capabilities that we are fielding, from the 53K to the F-35 
to the G/ATOR radar, all those are being fielded now. The 
capabilities that they need to deter and be in a position to 
respond quickly to is not a decade out. It is now.
    I am confident, if they are confident in the path we are 
on, then we are putting the capabilities in their hands that 
they need to accomplish the NDS.
    We are taking risk. We knew that 3 years ago. But you have 
to do that to get where you need to be in the future, or else 
the bigger risk is you are outpaced. We are not going to do 
that.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Let me ask you this. Can you walk the 
subcommittee through the level of analysis that was done to 
support your modernization efforts, both with the combatant 
commands and the other services?
    And do you feel that you are progressing well? And how 
important is predictable and on-time funding to you, given that 
you are trying to modernize without large increases in funding?
    General Berger. I am very confident in where we are.
    We made initial assumptions 3 years ago based on the best 
forecast that we had of the operating environment we were going 
to face in the future. There are some unknowns in there, of 
course, because we are pacing--means both of us are moving--and 
technology is moving.
    We had a good aim point out 10 years. And the assumptions 
upfront were, we were going to be more maritime if we were 
going to do what the Nation needs us to do. And the pacing 
challenge, pacing threat, as you highlighted, is the PRC.
    Over the past 3 years, couple of war games, the experiments 
that all three of our three-star-level commands are doing to 
test the ideas, the warfighting concepts, and the equipment 
together, is what is feeding back into our learning process. 
And we are making adjustments along the way, where we see that, 
based on what divisions or wings are telling us about either a 
concept or a capability, we are making adjustments along the 
way. But that is what accelerated learning is all based on.
    General Berger. As far----
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Is there anything----
    General Berger. Go ahead, sir.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. No, you go ahead.
    General Berger. I think the funding, which you asked 
about--the reason that we are able to go as fast as we have 
been for 3 years is because, both inside the Pentagon and here 
on the Hill, you have allowed us to keep the resources that we 
have divested of. That has enabled us to go at speed.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. You know, there have been some 
complaints from your predecessors, and I want to make sure you 
get the opportunity to put forward your plan and why you think 
it is so important for the defense of our country that we move 
forward with that.
    General Berger. Sir, those were the people who trained me 
and taught me. I have incredible respect for their views.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. I yield back.
    General Berger. Yes, sir.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Cole, then Mr. Aguilar, and then Mr. 
Diaz-Balart.

                    MARINE CORPS' PLAN OF INVESTMENT

    Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
    Gentlemen, thank you for being here, and thank you for your 
service.
    I want to begin with a couple of quick remarks. I want to 
associate myself with and maybe echo the concerns of the 
ranking member of the full committee and the ranking member of 
the subcommittee simply over the balance inside the President's 
budget.
    I mean, you know, as a guy that is the ranking member of 
the largest domestic spending, I think I can tell you, if we 
are getting proposed increases in double digits, just as we did 
in last year's budget, that isn't happening in defense. And in 
an inflationary environment and in a, I think, much more 
dangerous world than we thought it was only 2 or 3 years ago, 
that strikes me as the wrong overall balance.
    And I think it is putting the leaders of our services in 
the position of having to make really difficult choices. And, 
you know, count me--this whole divest-to-invest strategy has, 
certainly, some appeal, and I think it is uneven as to how 
successful it has been across the services.
    I will give you an example in the Air Force, so as not to 
pick on anybody here. You know, when you are proposing to get 
rid of 15 of your 32 AWACS and your replacement is 4 years out, 
that is pretty dangerous. It doesn't mean those planes are 
where you want them to be. They are old airplanes; they need to 
be replaced. That tells me we need to be investing more and 
faster, you know, and not force you into making those kinds of 
choices.
    I think, Admiral Gilday, that is probably the concern, at 
least some on the committee, of the idea of retiring 25 ships 
but bringing on 8. We are not saying you are wrong, 
necessarily, to be retiring those ships, although we may need 
to stretch it out, but maybe we need to, you know, give you 
more resources for those replacements to come on line faster.
    I just think we are putting you in a very difficult 
position. And I think this is in part because the overall 
budget is out of balance. We are in a dangerous world now; we 
need to be spending more on defense than the administration, I 
think, wants to.
    And, I mean, your job is to do the best with what you have, 
and I appreciate you what you guys do, and all our services. 
But I think we have a bigger responsibility here than we are 
assuming.
    Second point. General Berger, the Marines seem to have done 
this, honestly--and, again, I am not being critical, but--
better, in terms of invest to reinvest. While there is 
certainly some risk that we have picked up as you do that 
process, you seem to have been able to bring stuff on line a 
lot faster.
    Are there any particular general operating principles that 
you have that have kept you maybe a little bit more capability 
in that strategy than maybe other services have been?
    General Berger. Before we started down this path, sir, 
great advice from probably three or four Members who I knew a 
little bit, not very well but good enough, and I went and asked 
them for, you know, their advice on how to go down this path. 
They gave me advice that has paid off, which is, you need to do 
a couple things.
    First of all, the eight, meaning the chair and ranking 
members of the four committees, you need to explain to them 
what your logic is, what your plan is. You need to lay out for 
them what your assumptions are, and then keep them informed 
along the way so that they can advise you, they can coach you, 
and they are not surprised.
    You have to do the same with the Secretary of the Navy and 
the Secretary of Defense and the combatant commanders. They 
need to understand the path that you are on. They can't be 
surprised either.
    All that was great advice, which does take extra time, a 
lot of extra time. But if the chair and ranking and the 
committee members don't understand where a service is going, it 
is really hard to support it, as you point out, because there 
is clearly risk while you are moving that at speed. But it has 
paid off.
    Other than that, I mean, just keeping everybody informed, 
and the feedback loop from the operating forces, from the 
Marines, back into the system, ``this works,'' ``this doesn't 
work,'' that is the iterative process that works for us.
    Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, if you would allow me just 
to make one quick statement as well?

                          ACQUISITION STRATEGY

    Mr. Cole. Certainly, Mr. Secretary.
    Secretary Del Toro. And I think the General is absolutely 
correct; communication is key to success in everything we do 
here. But I think getting the concept of operations to address 
the threat of the future is extremely important. And, too 
often, we rush to decisions, in terms of the acquisition 
decisions that we make.
    Regretfully, on the Navy side, the investments are so 
capital-
intensive that they take so long, a ship that we decide to 
commit to today won't come on line for another 15 years, for 
example.
    It does really take--it is important to get the concept of 
operations and understanding the threat correctly so that you 
can design that ship to address the threat that you may face 10 
years from now.
    Mr. Cole. I think that is a very fair comment.
    And I suspect, Admiral--I don't have any time left, but we 
will maybe have a second round--that is the challenge you have, 
with maybe decisions that were made 15 years ago in terms of 
capabilities, the platforms, and what we face today. That is a 
different level of challenge.
    Admiral Gilday. Yes, I would say that, sir, along with that 
fact that we haven't really invested in the recapitalization of 
the Navy in 20 years because we have been focused elsewhere. 
And so, now, putting that rudder over doesn't happen very 
quickly, as the Secretary said and as you confirmed. So what we 
are trying to do is we are trying to take a deliberate 
approach.
    I think submarine programs right now, you can look out to 
2040 with a high degree of confidence, as we are looking at two 
attack boats and an SSB in a year.
    We are getting that way with surface programs, destroyers 
that matter at two a year through the FYDP.
    The one-two-one-two-one saw-tooth pattern of frigates, in 
my opinion, my prediction would be that will feather out into 
at least two a year once we get that program right. But we want 
to get it right and then come back to you and say we are ready 
to accelerate it.
    Mr. Cole. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Cole.
    Mr. Aguilar and then Mr. Diaz-Balart and then Ms. Kaptur 
and then Mr. Crist.

                                 ARCTIC

    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thank you all for your years of service as well.
    I wanted to shift briefly to the Arctic. As you know, 
Russia has been increasing its presence in the region. And 
China has previously declared itself as a near-Arctic state, 
despite not touching the Arctic Circle.
    Mr. Secretary, it has been a year since the Navy released 
its Arctic strategy called ``A Blue Arctic.'' What updates can 
you provide to us on the implementation of the strategy?
    Secretary Del Toro. Thank you for the question, 
Congressman. You are obviously right; the Arctic is changing. 
It is incredibly important to our National Defense Strategy. 
And we have actually convened several meetings since I have 
been Secretary to discuss what future plans need to be to 
further update the Arctic strategy, as well, too.
    I am pleased that, in the interim, we have actually been 
very active in the Arctic and the High North operating our 
forces, both Navy forces and Marine forces. I had the privilege 
of going up there and seeing about 500 logisticians that were 
in advance of Operation Cold Response, over 30,000 troops, 27 
nations.
    And perhaps I could have the Commandant discuss that 
further.

                         COLD WEATHER TRAINING

    Mr. Aguilar. Yes. I would love the Commandant to also talk 
to us about how the preparation is different, how you prepare 
for the region, cold-weather training, and how that fits into 
the Force Design 2030.
    General Berger. Here you rely on allies and partners a lot, 
frankly. We go to Norway at least every other year, frequently 
every year, because Norway, Finland, Sweden, a handful of other 
countries, they are the best in the world at operating in that 
environment persistently.
    And, as the Secretary noted, if you were to go to visit 
Marines there a couple months ago, in Norway, you know, they 
have to learn how to keep a helicopter flying when it is 
outside when it is below zero and do maintenance on there. And 
this is a world they have never been in.
    So it is not learn by doing; it is learn by ``listen to the 
Norwegians, they can tell you how to do that.'' And you have to 
go there and train alongside of them and learn those lessons. 
We can do preparation, and we do, in United States. We go to 
Alaska frequently. You go to other parts of the world and you 
pick up different techniques, different things that work.
    All of that feeds back into, okay, if we are going to need 
to operate in there persistently, how do you go about doing 
that? And some of it is gear, but some of it, as you highlight, 
is mental, is medical, is logistics. It is the parts that 
aren't as apparent, perhaps, that are more consequential.
    Mr. Aguilar. Will that mean more frequent rotations in the 
future? I mean, talk to me a little bit more about that 
training and how you keep that, you know, mental edge.
    Secretary Del Toro. Just a quick comment on that. I look 
forward to the prospect of Sweden and Finland joining NATO, for 
example. And I foresee a day where we are actually increasing 
our maritime operations in the Baltic Sea.
    General Berger. I think the suggestion that we might do it 
more frequently, I think, yes, probably on smaller scale, more 
frequently. You do large exercises to learn big lessons and 
send big messages, but smaller units, more frequently, on a 
more enduring basis, has a lot of return on investment too.
    So I think, yes, in both Alaska and, frankly, in Europe, we 
are going to more frequently deploy smaller units for 2 to 4 
weeks at a time. Absolutely.
    Mr. Aguilar. Admiral, I would love your thoughts on this 
too, but if you could also talk a little bit about, you know, 
increasing accessibility in the region, and how are your 
resources and fleet prepared for those operations? And if you 
want to build on what the Commandant was saying about 
partnerships as well.
    Admiral Gilday. So, since the fall of 2018--the fall of 
2018 was really a watershed moment for us. We did our first 
carrier strike operations above the Arctic Circle in over 30 
years.
    Since that time, we have routinely been in the High North. 
In fact, during this ongoing conflict between Russia and 
Ukraine, to the Commandant's point, we have had small units, 
destroyers, operating with allies and partners in the High 
North to put pressure on Russia to make sure that they know 
that we are there with capable platforms. We are operating in 
the High North or in the Arctic Circle. Almost every month 
routinely now, we have a ship going up there, particularly in 
the European theater.
    The money that was put in the infrastructure bill this past 
fall, one of the elements of that was to increase 
infrastructure in the Port of Nome, Alaska. What that will give 
us is a lily pad or a foothold up there, not just the Navy but 
also the commercial sector as well, as a refueling and 
sustainment point.
    So I think we are on an upward trajectory with respect to 
the Arctic, sir, and I don't think we are going to turn back.
    Mr. Aguilar. I appreciate you drawing that connection to 
the infrastructure bill that we passed as well, and happy that 
that can play a role in giving you that additional capability; 
and for your comments, Mr. Secretary, on potentially some new 
NATO allies. Could be helpful, especially when we talk about, 
you know, training in this region.
    Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. The gentleman from California is always 
welcome to the ``Bold North'' in Minnesota.
    And so is the gentleman from Florida we are going to hear 
from, Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                         LITTORAL COMBAT SHIPS

    Mr. Diaz-Balart. From the High North to the Low South. 
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
    Gentlemen, thank you for--not only for being here but, more 
importantly, for your service and your commitment to the safety 
of this amazing country.
    And let me first associate myself with Ms. Granger and Mr. 
Calvert and Mr. Cole on their statement about, just frankly, 
the overall level of spending for defense, which I believe is--
the recommendation of the President is highly, highly, highly 
insufficient.
    You already heard about the LCSes, and you have explained 
your reasoning behind it. I think the full committee ranking 
member very eloquently talked about, obviously, the 
frustration, because that is serious money. That is taxpayer 
money. Hard to say that that is not money that was totally 
misspent or blown.
    Having said that, you know, I don't have to tell you, and I 
am sure you have read the reports and you know about 100,000 
Americans dying last year, right, because of overdoses. A lot 
of the fentanyl and drugs is coming through the open southern 
border, but a lot of it is also coming just by air, by sea, 
from down south.
    SOUTHCOM sees, as you all know, a lot of this stuff coming, 
and if they only had a couple of vessels, a couple of 
additional vessels with helicopter capability, they could stop 
a large percentage of that.
    So let me tell you what a little bit of my frustration is. 
Again, I am not going to beat a dead ship--a dead horse or a 
dead ship, about the LCS, but, my God, if there is a place 
where they, frankly, could really be useful, it is, by the way, 
in the Western Hemisphere, intercepting some of these drugs.
    What I would ask you, Mr. Secretary or Admiral, is if you 
would please just sit down with the folks at SOUTHCOM and look 
at every possible logical alternative. Since we have these 
ships that the taxpayer has already paid for, let's look at 
every possible way to have some flexibility. Whether it is 
SOUTHCOM using it directly or the Navy or transferring it over 
to the Coast Guard, I don't care.
    I would just ask of you if you could, you know, just 
seriously spend some time and look at what potential--I know it 
is kind of thinking outside the box--potential options could 
exist to use those taxpayer-funded vessels, as opposed to, in 
essence, tossing them away.
    And, again, I understand your justification. But, as 
opposed to doing that, looking at ways to use them in the 
Southern Command area, that literally would be the--probably 
the most direct thing that we can do to save American lives 
immediately.
    Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, I couldn't agree with you 
more. And, in fact, when I leave this hearing today, later on 
tonight, I will be flying down to Florida and meeting with the 
SOUTHCOM commander to discuss this very issue. I have already 
discussed it once with her.
    And we talked earlier about how we have 21 additional LCSes 
that we are going to be employing around the world, and some of 
those will be employed in SOUTHCOM.
    I think there is also an opportunity for a future ESB to 
operate permanently around Central and South America, as well, 
too, focused more so on this mission, in addition to other 
missions, as well, too. I think it could actually participate 
on the west coast of Africa, as well, too.
    So I think there are tremendous opportunities to make this 
situation better in the future.
    Mr. Diaz-Balart. Well, Mr. Secretary, a couple things. 
First of all, thank you for--and I have total confidence, by 
the way, in not only your ability but your willingness to kind 
of rock the boat a little bit. And so I am glad that you are 
looking at that, because, again, I think that would go a long 
way.
    And, by the way, using, again, these vessels that we 
already paid for in a way that does make sense and that, when 
you are looking at the issue of SOUTHCOM, that literally would 
save lives--literally would save lives.
    I am glad to hear that, and I am grateful for that, Mr. 
Secretary.
    Secretary Del Toro. Okay.

                        MENTAL HEALTH OF SAILORS

    Mr. Diaz-Balart. Let me kind of--I don't have a lot a time, 
so just very quickly, Mr. Secretary, there have been three 
suicides recently, in recent weeks, on the George Washington 
aircraft carrier. And your thoughts about what the Navy is 
doing or can be doing to address, you know, suicides or mental 
health issues of our sailors?
    And I don't have a lot of time, and I apologize.
    Secretary Del Toro. No, and thank you for that incredibly 
important question.
    As you mentioned earlier, the CNO and I actually visited 
the George Washington yesterday. There have been four suicides 
over the past year. Three occurred in the same week in April.
    And there is actually a lot the Department of the Navy--and 
I would be happy to submit a response for the record in greater 
detail--but there is actually a tremendous amount that the 
Department of the Navy has been doing over the course of, not 
just this past year, but the past 4 years, actually, to try to 
address this very tragic situation with regards to suicide in 
the Navy and across our Department of Defense and across the 
Nation, as well, too.
    And it is complicated. You have to get after the root 
causes of why people commit suicide, which is a combination of 
depression, problems with relationships, financial problems. 
And you have to look at all those individually.
    And we have to do a better job institutionally to make sure 
that our sailors and our Marines have the mental health 
resources available to them when they need them most. Which 
goes to the earlier conversation I had about how I believe we 
have to start growing these mental health counselors inside the 
Department of Defense, because it is going to be hard to 
recruit them from the private sector.
    We would be happy to submit a more detailed response with 
regards to all of the steps that we are actually taking.
    Mr. Diaz-Balart. I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary.
    Mr. Diaz-Balart. Madam Chairwoman, thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Crist.

                             HOUSING ISSUES

    Mr. Crist. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I would like to associate myself with the comments of 
Congressman Diaz-Balart as well.
    I appreciate you bringing that up.
    I am curious--rising home costs and housing shortages are 
affecting many Americans across the country. It is a serious 
concern in my home State of Florida as well. I have heard that 
our military personnel are being forced to live further and 
further away from their duty stations and having a difficult 
time commuting.
    As the Navy and Marine Corps prepare for this upcoming 
transfer season, what resources will the budget proposal 
provide to assist our servicemembers in finding adequate and 
affordable housing?
    Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman. And it is an 
issue that deeply concerns me, as well, too. The rising cost of 
home prices, whether it is buying a home or renting a home, is 
extraordinary, and our sailors and Marines are feeling the 
impact. I visited the Northwest. It is a particular problem up 
there, but it is a problem in many other places.
    So, from the administration's perspective, in this year's 
President's budget, we actually are proposing a 4.6 percent pay 
increase, which is far more substantial than it has been in 
years past.
    We are also looking at increasing BAH for a lot of our--
which is the housing allowance that is given to individuals 
that is predicated on where they live--and looking at increases 
in that as well.
    We are also looking at future investments in housing for 
single sailors in barracks, trying to build more barracks, more 
apartment-like barracks, for example, that fit the need, as 
well, too.
    So there is a whole issue, and we are very concerned across 
the entire Department of Defense on this very issue. And we are 
trying to come up with solutions that make sense over the next 
years.

                             NAVY WORKFORCE

    Mr. Crist. Great. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, I appreciate 
that very much.
    While it is absolutely vital to our national security that 
our fleet be large enough to counter global threats, I am 
concerned by increasing reports that the Navy cannot recruit 
and retain the workforce necessary to staff these ships and 
aircraft.
    I am pleased by the pay increase that you mentioned. That 
is important. Increased pay, however, is only one way to 
attract new recruits and improve quality of life for our 
sailors and Marines. I think it is also important that military 
families are taken care of, as you do, I am sure, and that our 
servicemembers can have some of the much-needed rest and 
recovery within their families.
    What are we doing to incentivize sailors and Marines to 
stay in the service?
    Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman.
    Without question, when the economy is strong, despite the 
challenges that we face with inflation, and unemployment is 
low, it becomes difficult to recruit members into the military 
services.
    And we are struggling. We are struggling this year to 
actually--I predict that we will perhaps meet our quotas here 
this year in 2023, but it will be tough. It will really be 
tough to get there. And it will be at the expense of 2024, in 
many ways, taking some resources from the delayed entry 
programs.
    And perhaps I could allow the Commandant and the CNO to 
further discuss that matter.
    General Berger. Okay. Picking up where the Secretary left 
off, on the recruiting side----
    Mr. Crist. I am kind of short on time, General----
    General Berger. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Crist [continuing]. With all due respect. I wanted to 
ask you another question, if it is all right.
    General Berger. Sure.

                       MARINE CORPS MODERNIZATION

    Mr. Crist. I understand that the Marine Corps is changing 
from tanks to more agile fighting groups using modern 
technology. Can you elaborate on that?
    General Berger. Yes, sir.
    When we began the process of modernization that we are on, 
that is 3 years into it now, one of the assessments early on 
was looking at what capabilities would the Marine Corps need to 
bring to the joint force in the future and which capabilities 
did we currently have that we either wouldn't need or wouldn't 
need as much of. Heavy armor, tanks----
    Mr. Crist. Yes, sir.
    General Berger [continuing]. Is in that category of we had 
it in the past, it was useful in the past, but going forward, 
for what the Marine Corps is going to need in support of the 
joint force and the National Defense Strategy, tanks is not on 
that list.
    Heavy armor--hard to move, hard to sustain. For a sustained 
land campaign, the Army is very good at that. You don't need 
two Armies or two Marine Corps.
    So, armor? Divest stuff. Reinvest in the things that you 
need for that forward force. They need to be smaller, more 
agile. They need to have precision weapons. They need to have 
loitering munitions. They need to have long-range precision 
fires that can hold either land targets or ships at risk. That 
is how that forward force can deter and respond.
    So it was not a difficult decision at all.
    Mr. Crist. Thank you, General. I appreciate it very much.
    I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    We will go to Ms. Kaptur.

                       USS ``GEORGE WASHINGTON''

    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. I apologize for having to step out 
and vote on another committee.
    Thank you, gentlemen, for serving our country so nobly. It 
is deeply appreciated by myself and the people that I 
represent.
    I heard many of your pleas relating to workforce. And I 
just want you to remember, there is a fourth seacoast in the 
country, and we have some remarkable people.
    I think, Commandant Berger, you know something about that 
part of the country.
    And what do we offer? We offer the fourth coast, but we 
offer people who enlist in our military, as well as phenomenal 
building trades academies, producing some of the skills that 
are so vitally needed across this country.
    I would encourage you to come and see, if you haven't, and 
to work with some of our community colleges to produce the 
talent that is needed.
    Frankly, I am confused by your submission with three 
alternatives for the Navy. I don't really understand. We have 
lot of geniuses on this committee, on this subcommittee. I am 
sure they understand, but I don't. And so any clarification you 
could provide, either now or later, would be most appreciated. 
I hope you don't intend for Congress to make the decisions 
about 1, 2, or 3.
    But I really wanted to focus on the George Washington for a 
moment, as illustrative of what I see as problematic for my 
view of the Navy. I don't understand why it was in dry dock for 
4 years and then it was extended for another year. And we had 
some terrible situations happen with some of those sailors.
    And I am asking myself, are we trying to do too much? We 
are kidding ourselves? And, for some reason, this all got 
backed up, but it is not the only place? How do we get out of 
this continuing extension of contracts that were misnegotiated 
in the first place, all costing us more money than they should 
have?
    So help me understand the George Washington situation, and 
maybe I can understand the rest. But it is very confusing to 
this member and very concerning.
    Why was that contract extended another year? Why wasn't it 
finished? Why wasn't it finished in 2022? Why did it have to be 
extended to 2023? And how many other ships did that happen to? 
And are we trying to do too much?
    Secretary Del Toro. Let me start off, Congresswoman, and 
then I will ask the CNO to comment.
    So, in the case of the George Washington, she is an old 
ship. She has got--I believe, 35 years old now. And when they 
go in for these very complex overhauls, there are many things 
that we can properly estimate with regards to what we think 
needs to be done, but too often you get into the repairs 
themselves and you make new discoveries of things that need to 
be fixed that you just were unaware of, because it takes 
getting into the ship itself to figure it out--fuel tanks, 
things of that nature as well.
    It is complicated. And then, of course, it was made even 
more complicated by 2 years of COVID, with shortages in the 
workforce, with reduced work times in the aircraft carrier 
itself, where both the workforce of the shipyard and also the 
workforce of the ship itself couldn't be on the ship because we 
are trying to protect each other from people catching COVID.
    I think that there are some legitimate reasons why there 
has been delays, but we also need to hold our shipyards more 
accountable in the future. And I think you are absolutely right 
in that regard.
    And I have taken time, and I am taking even more time, to 
meet with the shipyards to make sure that they understand that 
they are accountable for delivering their contracts on time and 
on schedule.
    I think we need to get more creative about how we structure 
these contracts, make them more sort of cost-plus-incentive-
fees, where, if the shipyard does not deliver a ship on time, 
then they don't get that much more percentage of the profit 
associated with it.

                               SHIPYARDS

    Ms. Kaptur. Mr. Secretary, have we cut our public shipyards 
too deeply? If you look at the last 25 years, what is the 
reduction in public shipyards?
    Secretary Del Toro. So the challenge with the public 
shipyards is more on the infrastructure side, and, actually, 
over the course of the last 10 years, we have actually added a 
considerable amount of personnel to the workforce itself.
    Ms. Kaptur. Hmm.
    Secretary Del Toro. CNO?
    Ms. Kaptur. Yes, Admiral. Thank you.
    Admiral Gilday. More than 10,000 in the public yards.
    With respect to George Washington--and up front, I would 
like to express my condolences to the families and to the 
shipmates who lost those sailors. The three in 1 week was just 
terrible, and we did not see it coming, obviously.
    One of the things we are doing right now, ma'am, besides 
surging help to George Washington in terms of psychiatrists, in 
terms of behavioral health specialists, in terms of to the 
Secretary's point about teaching frontline supervisors how to 
recognize problems in their people so that we can address them 
quickly. This doesn't necessarily mean mental health disease, 
but somebody having a bad day, somebody having problems with 
relationships, with finances, so that we can get them help 
quickly.
    We have opened up tele-help lines to increase the 
availability of help to our sailors. We have provided 
additional courses in things like stress management, financial 
management, marriage counseling.
    We have surged almost 40 percent of our mental health 
providers from our hospitals to the tactical edge so that they 
are available for our families, for our sailors, at our bases.
    We have set up courses to teach people to recognize mental 
health signs.
    We are not satisfied, ma'am, with where we are. We continue 
to invest in these programs in George Washington and in other 
facilities as well.
    If I--on George Washington, one of the things that we are 
doing is we are conducting a deeper look at these extended 
availabilities, these maintenance availabilities, to see if 
there are any causal issues that are causing a spike in mental 
health problems.
    So we don't have an answer yet. We have brought in 
behavioral health, mental health specialists to help us with 
that ongoing assessment. I would be happy to come and talk to 
you and share what we learn.
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    We are going to a second round of questioning. The order in 
which I have it is Mr. Calvert, then Mr. Ruthersberger--Mr. 
Ruppersberger--sometimes getting my tongue around your name is 
a challenge, so I apologize.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. You know, the easy thing, just call me 
``Dutch.''
    Ms. McCollum. I am going to be respectful and--I am going 
to be respectful and get your last name wrong, I guess, 
sometimes.
    Mr. Cole and then Ms. Kaptur, and then I will close.
    So, right now, I would like to recognize Mr. Calvert.

               ``GERALD R. FORD''-CLASS AIRCRAFT CARRIER

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    You know, I understand the complexity of the Washington, 
the age of the ship, and so forth, and number of years it has 
been in the yard. But when is the Ford going to actually 
deploy?
    You know, I was at the--you know, when she was brought into 
San Diego. Then she was sent out on the shakedown tour. And I 
think we fought and won World War II in 4 years. How many years 
has the Ford been out there until you are going to be able to 
deploy it?
    Admiral Gilday. The Ford will go out this year, sir. I am 
not going to say exactly where she is going to deploy to, but 
she will be out for an extended----
    Mr. Calvert. How many years did that take, from the time 
that she----
    Admiral Gilday. Too long. Too long, sir. She was supposed 
to be deployed probably before 2020. And we have actually 
accelerated it 2 years. So the estimate was 2025; we have 
pulled it back to 2022. And so, sir, we are sending it out this 
year and then again next year.
    All I can tell you--I can't apologize for the past, but to 
tell you that that ship had the highest OPTEMPO of any ship in 
the United States Navy last year. It was our carrier Qualship 
off the East Coast. We were trying to get our best use of her 
based on the challenges we have had.
    Mr. Calvert. So the elevators are all working, the 
electromagnetic launch is working, all the----
    Admiral Gilday. All 11, all 11 elevators are working. We 
have had over 8,000 cats and traps on that ship, sir.

                            AMPHIBIOUS SHIPS

    Mr. Calvert. Now let's go to amphibious ships.
    General, I am generally supportive of what you are trying 
to do with modernizing the Corps for future conflict, but I am 
concerned that both the Department of the Navy and the 
Department of Defense are not supporting certain components of 
your vision.
    One example of that is the size of the amphibious ship 
fleet, which DOD is proposing to cut. You said that 31 
amphibious ships should be the bare minimum, yet you are having 
to put advanced procurement to LPD-33 on your unfunded priority 
list.
    I understand that the light amphibious warship, a 
cornerstone of your force design, is coming along slower than 
we may have hoped. And, obviously, if we are going to do this, 
speed is of the essence, so to win a war against any peer 
adversary--and, obviously, China is building--how many ships a 
month? Two, three ships a month? And we are only planning on 
building eight.
    So how do you respond to that, General?
    General Berger. The funding for both the LHA and LPD that 
is in the budget, absolutely critical. Thirty-one is the 
minimum, not a ceiling, as you point out. That comes with risk, 
at 31, and the risk is, of course, maintenance--that 
maintenance is done on time and we have the availability of the 
ships that we need.
    Now, amphibious ships, plus the Marines that are embarked 
on them, that is your insurance policy. That is your wedge. 
That is your 911 force. You have to have it or else the time 
that it takes to respond to a crisis extends. Then it is a 
worse crisis than it was a week and a half earlier, when you 
should have gotten there.
    This is the best chance you have to deterrence, because 
they are forward all the time, they are working with allies and 
partners. Those ships are so critical.
    I think, in the future--although in the past everything was 
manned, as many of the members have mentioned today, that ship 
in the future, you are going to see unmanned vessels come out 
of the back of an amphibious ship.
    And the great part about that is, if you are the adversary, 
you don't know what is in the back of the ship because it is 
buttoned up. So it could be LCACs, the air-cushion vehicles; it 
could be Amphibious Combat Vehicles; there could be a whole 
bunch of unmanned vessels with sensors or weapons. This is the 
Swiss Army knife of the future.
    The light amphibious warship, the second part of your 
topic, essential also. If you are going to be forward in the 
face of the threat, you have to be able to move around.
    What we will do in the interim is lease. We use other 
vessels. We will ``planes, trains, and automobiles'' it to make 
sure that we learn what it takes for that forward distributed 
force to operate persistently inside the threat.
    Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
    Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Ruppersberger.

                           U.S. NAVAL ACADEMY

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you.
    Mr. Secretary, when you and I met a few months ago, we 
talked our shared love of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. 
As we discussed, the Academy grounds frequently flood and the 
infrastructure is aging and consistently producing new 
requirements for upgrades and new facilities that are guarded 
against sea-level rise and storm surges.
    As I have said before, we don't want our midshipmen to be 
good swimmers, and--we do want them to be good swimmers, but we 
don't want them to have to swim to class.
    That was a joke. I don't know if you----
    Ms. McCollum. I got it.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay, good.
    Ms. McCollum. I got it.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. But we don't--this last year, we were 
able to get from the congressional an extra $40 million, and we 
can't guarantee that every year, and especially where we are 
now and possibly more war and that type of thing.
    The Farragut seawall was needed, and it should last for 
about 75 years, we hope.
    And I would like you to really kind of instruct someone on 
your staff or--to just try to make sure we make this a 
priority. Because I have been on the Naval Academy Board 8, 9 
years, and we have not gotten any money from Congress. Now we 
do, and I want to try to keep some of that momentum. Because if 
you don't spend $1,000, all of a sudden it becomes $100,000.
    The Naval Academy, there is too much there. You know, Naval 
Academy is, as far as high schools are concerned, it is the 
number-one public high school in the country. And, you know, I 
do a lot of work with the Army also, but I am really proud of 
being a part of that board and to see how great the instructors 
are, the students are, and the whole system. And you all need 
to be proud of that. And we want to keep that going.
    Also, the graduation is next week. I understand the 
Presidentis coming. That is kind of a big deal. And there will 
be a lot of us, I think, from the Board of the Naval Academy. 
And we are all looking forward to it. And I think we can all be 
proud of them.
    So just a commitment from you to work with us to try to 
maintain what we need to do from an infrastructure point of 
view.
    I yield back, and if you want to respond.
    Secretary Del Toro. I thank you for your support of the 
Naval Academy. And I thank you for your support of the efforts 
to ensure that the Farragut wall stays sound.
    I would argue that the Navy is truly in the cross-hairs of 
a climate crisis. And it does impact our combat readiness at 
the Naval Academy and out in the fleet, and the Marine Corps, 
as well, too.
    We are making great strides, I think, to try to come to 
terms with this. Just this morning, I signed out the Department 
of the Navy's Climate Action Plan for 2030. The Marine Corps at 
Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, for example, just became 
DOD's first net-zero-energy installation.
    There is an urgent charge to build a climate-ready force, 
and your efforts are greatly appreciated, Congressman.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, all this body helps us.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Because the gentleman had a minute left, I am going to just 
interject in here that the committee, in the past, has directed 
funds, through report language and other ways, to the 
academies, not just Annapolis but West Point. We don't have the 
Merchant Marine Academy but it is important. The Air Force 
Academy is important.
    We weren't seeing those funds being spent. And so we 
spelled it out. We shouldn't have to spell it out, but we 
spelled it out. So, hopefully, the Pentagon and at the 
Secretary level going down will watch that report language very 
carefully. And we would prefer not to have to spell it out.
    But thank you for the transition into how it is being used 
this time. And we look forward to having a much more 
integrated, you know, discussion on how funds are being spent 
in the academies in the future.
    So, with that, I thank you, and I will----
    Secretary Del Toro. Madam Chair, if I could just say, I am 
deeply committed to this issue. The health and welfare of our 
professional military education institutions is critical, not 
just at the Academy, but the Navy War College, the Navy 
Postgraduate School, the Marine Corps War College. And I will 
be paying close attention to this issue moving forward.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Cole.

                        E2D HAWKEYE RADAR SYSTEM

    Mr. Cole. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    I have got two questions, one shamelessly parochial and one 
specific.
    Admiral, they are probably both addressed by you.
    First, the specific one. It is my understanding that the 
E2D Hawkeye's radar system is, like, 25 years old. And, 
obviously, we are facing new kinds of threats--Chinese 
hypersonics. So I am curious as to what the plans are to adapt 
that going forward, find an adequate long-term replacement.
    Admiral Gilday. Sir, we have. And so the new E2D aircraft 
that we are procuring--77 of them, total--actually has a phased 
array and not a mechanical radar. So it is the best in the 
world in terms of advanced capabilities for the air wing.
    Mr. Cole. That is great. It is good to hear.
    Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Cole. Did you have something you wanted to say?
    Admiral Gilday. No, sir.

                                 AWACS

    Mr. Cole. Okay. The second question, and, you know, just a 
point of parochial pride. We are privileged to have all four 
services in my district. Because we have Marine Artillery at 
Fort Sill, and then we have your E-7 units at--or E-6, excuse 
me, at Tinker Air Force Base.
    So I am curious what the long-term plans are for that, 
particularly looking at some of the things we see the Air Force 
proposing in terms of AWACS, and I am curious what the Navy is 
thinking is long term for the need for that particular unit and 
how you are going to modernize it going forward.
    Admiral Gilday. Sir, it is a critical component of 
STRATCOM's nuclear command and control and communications 
network.
    And so our proposal is to invest in the C-130. It is a 
platform that is well-known. It is sustainable. It is proven. 
And that is the future for that particular mission, which is a 
communication link to our SSBNs, our seaborne nuclear 
deterrent. And so we have money in the budget this year to 
begin the transition to C-130s in 2023, and the plan would be 
to fully execute that.
    We just delivered a report to Congress last month answering 
some questions with respect to the viability of the C-130 for 
that mission. We are very bullish on that program as a 
replacement for the long term.
    Mr. Cole. Terrific.
    And then just a last comment, General Berger, to you. I was 
really pleased to hear you talk about long-range precision 
capability, because that is exactly, as you know, what the U.S. 
Army is working on, and the Marines at Fort Sill, in terms of 
trying to make sure that you have that kind of option going 
forward. It is one of the very top modernization efforts for 
the Army. So we look forward to hosting you for a long time to 
come.
    And, with that, Madam Chair, I will yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Kilmer and then Ms. Kaptur.

            DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE RESEARCH AND INVESTMENTS

    Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Admiral, the GAO recently issued a report on the Navy's 
unmanned vehicle efforts, and that report focused on several 
areas for improvement in the Navy's unmanned plans.
    One specific concern they raised was that the digital 
infrastructure, the computing systems needed to develop 
autonomous ships was lagging behind current vessel prototyping. 
They also raised concerns about the lack of funding for these 
IT systems in the Navy's budget request.
    I was hoping you could just speak to what steps the Navy is 
taking to address these issues around research and investments 
in digital infrastructure for our unmanned systems.
    Admiral Gilday. Sir, I mentioned a little bit earlier, we 
just had our largest unmanned exercise in the world a couple of 
months ago. We have another one, based out of Australia, this 
week. We are bringing together dozens of vendors, and so what 
we are trying to do is to tie platforms--and there are hundreds 
of them available--with, the secret sauce is the AI software 
integration that plugs into those platforms.
    The parallel I would draw, I would use Tesla as the digital 
native in the car industry. Other companies are trying to catch 
Tesla. They all have platforms. What they are really looking 
for is that AI software integration piece that actually makes 
it autonomous.
    We have a DevOps kind of framework in place right now, 
learning from the GAO report, that is allowing us to do this 
real-time experimentation so that we can put unmanned 
capabilities in the hands of Marines and sailors within this 
FYDP and then inform longer-term solution sets to power 
generation, engineering configurations on larger unmanned 
vessels, as well as command and control challenges that we are 
trying to get after as well.
    I would be happy to come up and brief you, sir, on where we 
are and where we are going with this, but we have learned from 
the GAO report.
    Mr. Kilmer. I appreciate that.
    Admiral Gilday. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. So we will go to Ms. Kaptur.

                            SHIPYARD STATUS

    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Admiral, I would like to go back--and perhaps Mr. 
Secretary--go back to my initial question about the issue of 
moving repair work through the yards.
    How many ships are in yards now? Can you provide us with 
that? And what is your estimated time of completion? Obviously, 
George Washington fell far behind the target date. And what 
would it take to hasten completion? Is it working with the 
private contractor, and they don't have the personnel? I am not 
really hearing from you clarity on this issue.
    Also, in terms of the sailors on the George Washington, 
over 400 of them had no housing allowance, they had no ability 
to have a car, they were stuck on that ship. Morale 
deteriorates when you are in dry dock that long. That is a lot 
of people. And there is something wrong with the model. You 
have sailors trained to do another job, and they are picking 
paint--they are scraping paint off walls and all.
    How many ships do you think we have in dry dock for 
maintenance right now, what would you guess, that are in there 
for a long time like George Washington?
    Admiral Gilday. So, in terms of carriers, we have two. We 
usually have two carriers at a time. I will say, if I looked at 
our last 13 major availabilities for aircraft carriers, 
probably 11 of 13 completed on time. So the track record with 
aircraft carriers is getting better.
    George Washington was forward deployed out of Japan for a 
number of years. So she was operating at an extremely high 
OPTEMPO. That is not an excuse, and I am not trying to be 
evasive. With an older ship that is 35 years old, there has 
been additional work that we have found as we have torn into it 
that we have had to address.
    With respect to the conditions on the ship, as I mentioned 
earlier, ma'am, we are doing a deeper investigation to see 
where we are right now with respect to living conditions on 
ships that are in extended availabilities and what we can 
address in terms of improving. The Secretary and I got some 
good ideas yesterday firsthand from sailors as we walked around 
the ship and we met with them.
    We----
    Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
    Admiral Gilday [continuing]. Have moved hundreds of sailors 
off of George Washington. Not all of them that we have offered 
the chance to move off the ship have taken us up on that. Many 
have stayed--over 100 have stayed aboard.
    And so, again, we are taking a closer look at the 
conditions here to make sure that we are addressing them 
properly for the long term and this isn't just a Band-Aid in 
this case.

                       PARTS AND WORKFORCE ISSUES

    Ms. Kaptur. Well, I would really appreciate, Mr. Secretary, 
you know, when you go back to the Department, if we have a--
there is a human issue, and then there is a parts issue and a 
workforce issue. So there is the sailors, crew people on the 
ships, but then you have private companies that you work with. 
Maybe they can't get parts.
    Are all those parts U.S.-made that go back into whatever is 
happening with repair on the ship? How do we hasten the repair? 
Are we short on personnel? Are we short on welders? We know we 
are short on nuclear welders; we know that.
    What can we do to hasten this so you can get the kind of 
Navy you want and America needs?
    Secretary Del Toro. Yes, Congresswoman. So it does take a 
team to build a ship, and that includes the sailors, it 
includes the Department of the Navy as an institution, it 
includes the shipyard, all doing their part collectively to get 
a ship either built new or repaired out of the shipyard on 
time.
    And, over the past 3 years, COVID has had a very negative 
impact on the supply chain, for example. So there have been 
delays associated with that, as well, too.
    I would also argue that, you know, shipyards probably need 
to add additional workforce on their own to make up for some of 
the delays that they have had in the shipyards while repairing 
these ships as well. In the case of submarine repairs, for 
example, there was a period of time where, you know, the 
private shipyards weren't necessarily doing that. So the 
learning curve for them to actually build the necessary 
workforce to build on a nuclear-powered submarine had to be 
recruited, had to be sought, and that took longer, I think, 
than all of us expected as well.
    It is complicated. It has a lot of moving parts. But it is 
our responsibility to the American taxpayer to make sure that, 
you know, we do our best job to make sure that these things are 
coming together the way they should, so that we can accelerate 
these ships coming out of the shipyards on time, on schedule.
    Ms. Kaptur. I know my time is expiring, but I am concerned 
also about those that carry nuclear weapons, with what we are 
doing with modernization on that side, whether that is going to 
click or that is going to cause more delay.
    I guess I am leaving this hearing more uncomfortable than 
comfortable in terms of our ability to ratchet up that repair 
work and to have the skills in place so that we meet those 
deadlines.
    Finally, on the behavioral issues, I think--and I said this 
to General Milley--the uniformed military health services, we 
need to have a new program where we help to produce, for the 
civilian and military side, the behavioral specialists and 
neuropsychiatrists that we need. We don't have them as a 
country. They are not there. And neither are the behavioral 
nurses. I think you need to really look at that hard and come 
back to us with ideas on how to plus-up those accounts.
    Thank you.
    Secretary Del Toro. Yes, ma'am.

                     Chair Mccollum Closing Remarks

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Ms. Kaptur. We will be having a 
workforce hearing after we finish our budget and the 
subcommittee moves forward with the budget after the full 
committee markup, as we did last year.
    I also think we need to look at--and I hope you are. I have 
mentioned this before in some conversations. You know, when the 
private shipyards were built, they weren't built with sea-level 
rise, with some of the flooding, some of the things that they 
are taking into account. I think we might need to look at some 
public-private partnerships and ways we can partner with them 
too, because we are reaching capacity for what we have 
available on the coasts for shipyard building.
    And I know, Admiral, I was at a breakfast that you had 
where, you know, some of those things were being discussed, and 
I want you to know that I welcome listening to that. And part 
of that will be up to the MILCON committee as well. So we can 
talk about that more later.
    The Arctic. This is something that this committee knows I 
have been very focused on since joining. I am glad to hear 
about all the training that is going on. But we also have an 
Arctic neighbor up to the north, our cousins in Canada, as we 
call them from Minnesota. We would be, you know, remiss--and I 
am sure you are working with the Canadians too. But they are an 
instrumental part, when I have been in Alaska and touring 
around, being there, as well as the other High North nations. 
So we have some real opportunities to do.
    I would also think that we need to--and this is more for 
the Pentagon in general--look at some of our northern National 
Guard and rethink about how the National Guard and some of the 
training can take place up there, not only for maintenance but 
for being out in the elements.
    It is something that I am glad you are training your 
Marines on, because--heat is very dangerous, and I am not 
taking away from that at all, but you can find ways to kind of 
cool yourself off. Other people recognize what is going wrong 
when somebody becomes overheated much more quickly than they do 
with what is happening when you get cold. By the time you 
realize how cold you are, you can be in trouble really fast, 
depending upon the situation.
    I am glad we are looking at that, because Russia and, as 
Mr. Aguilar pointed out, China are looking to make inroads in 
there.
    To the Navy in particular, I am laser-focused on the fact 
that we need to be working with the Coast Guard, but we also 
need to be looking at the Department of Defense, the United 
States Navy projecting power with what we do with an icebreaker 
or ice cutters in the future, or working with our allies in 
that area so that they know we are heavily invested in 
supporting our allies up there.
    The question that I do have, to close up with--and I know 
we will be in conversation. And it is not necessarily an answer 
but a direction. We have to be working hand-in-hand on Red 
Hill.
    Red Hill was a World War II fuel depot built in Hawaii, 
built over an aquifer. No one was paying attention to aquifers 
at the time. We know how important they are now. You are well 
aware of the leak and the issue we have up there. We need to 
get that fuel depot repositioned, removed. In the meantime, we 
have to make sure that no further damage is done.
    Ms. McCollum. We need to know, Mr. Secretary, that--and I 
know that you are, but I just want it for the record--that you 
are committed to get us the report as soon as you can, about 
how the $1 billion request will be used in fiscal year 2023 so 
we can include it in here.
    Your team has been working with staff, but we are preparing 
our budget right now, and so anything that you can get to us, 
even if it is in bits and pieces and you have to go back and 
adjust something, will be tremendously helpful for the 
committee staff as we move forward. We are hoping to be on the 
floor in July.
    We look forward to working with you, and I just wanted to 
put that out there on the record.
    Secretary Del Toro. You have my commitment, Madam Chair, 
that we will continue to work very closely to take all the 
necessary steps to close Red Hill and to distribute that fuel 
where it needs to be distributed and then to continue efforts 
with regards to the environmental steps that will be taken 
afterwards.
    Ms. McCollum. And then also as a person who, both as a 
State representative and as a Member of Congress, has been 
working with the Pentagon--and I will leave it at the high 
level up here--the Pentagon on remedial things that needed to 
happen after pollution occurred, we look forward to making sure 
that the citizens of Hawaii know what happened in the soils 
around there, that we stand ready to assist them and not put a 
burden on the citizens, and also the long-term health 
consequences that may or may not be out there, not only for the 
citizens of Hawaii but especially for the civilians and the 
folks who wore uniforms in and around that area, that we will 
be taking care of them and monitoring any potential health 
consequences. And I know I have your guarantee to do our due 
diligence on that.
    So, with that, I want to thank you for your time and 
attention to the subcommittee's concerns.
    I want you to express our full gratitude from the committee 
to the men and women who both wear the uniform and serve in a 
civilian capacity that make the Navy and the Marine Corps, as 
part of our National Defense Strategy team, the best that they 
can be. We appreciate their sacrifice. We appreciate their 
diligence.
    And, with that, I will conclude today's hearing. The 
subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Answers to submitted questions for the record follow:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

                                           Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

                              MEMBERS' DAY

STATEMENT OF HON. DONALD M. PAYNE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                  FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

    Chairwoman Visclosky, Ranking Member Calvert, and Members 
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present my 
priorities for the Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Appropriations 
bill. I appreciate your consideration of the following 
programmatic requests which will improve military technology, 
advance medical research, and increase diversity in STEM 
fields.
    I request an increase of $17.65 million above the 
President's request for the Navy Research Development, Testing 
and Evaluation (RDT&E) Force Protection Applied Research 
program. This program plays a critical role in developing 
technologies associated with a wide variety of naval platforms 
such as surface, subsurface, terrestrial, and air. An increase 
to this account would allow for the funding of projects such as 
a Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) Degraded Environmental 
Flight Facility and a cavitation project to better understand 
and address cavitation erosion.
    SUAS are rapidly becoming a common tool for missions 
involving intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) 
in both military and civilian domains. However, current sUAS 
platforms are often constrained to operate in relatively benign 
environments whereas mission needs may require more robust 
operations in conditions such as in high winds, rain, dust, 
fog, and other obscurants. Missions may also require operation 
in GPS denied environments. Current laboratory and operational 
testing capabilities struggle to adequately imitate GPS denied 
or degraded environments. A sUAS Degraded Environmental Flight 
Facility would provide the Navy with new operational testing 
capabilities of sUAS platforms in conditions that simulate 
real-world degraded environments.
    Cavitation research is also of critical importance to the 
Navy, as cavitation reduces the performance of combat ships and 
other vessels by causing significant surface damage and, in 
turn, driving up the cost of repairs and part replacement. A 
project funded by the Force Protection Applied Research program 
to study cavitation erosion of naval propulsors, control 
devices, and surfaces would help reduce costs, enhance vessel 
design, and improve naval and industry shipbuilding to address 
cavitation erosion.
    Additionally, an increase of $5 million to the Army RDT&E 
Air Platform Applied Research would allow the continuation of a 
project on Multiple Drone, Multiple Sensor Intelligence, 
Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Capabilities. The use of 
multiple drones with large area coverage electro-optical and 
infrared sensors for initial target detection coupled with 
multiple drones with interrogation sensors (acoustic, magnetic, 
electric field, vibrometry, seismic, etc.) can provide the Army 
with organic battlefield situational awareness. The 
interrogation sensors can differentiate decoys from real 
targets and detect real targets under camouflage, and which can 
lead to more effective targeting. The University of Memphis, 
which is located in my district, is becoming the primary 
research center for the study of multi-drone and multi-sensor 
warfare capabilities and technology development (sensors, 
deployment concepts, integration, and testing). Advanced drone 
ISR technology will enhance the Army's capabilities to develop 
new system concepts and tools for using multi-drones in early 
battlefield situational awareness that will increase force 
protection and improve threat detection.
    I also request a funding level of $10 million for the Army 
RDT&E's Military Burn Trauma Research Program. Previous funding 
under this program has established the infrastructure, 
education, and leadership to support rigorous multicenter 
clinical trials on burn outcomes at hospitals across the nation 
and foster collaboration among military and civilian burn 
surgeons and researchers. I strongly believe that continued 
funding for military burn research is critical to ensuring that 
we are providing the best possible care to our wounded service 
members.
    Beyond these RDT&E research programs, I appreciate your 
consideration of robust funding for health care research under 
the Department of Defense (DoD). Medical discoveries funded by 
DoD research do not solely benefit our men and women in 
uniform. They also typically have broad application for the 
civilian population. I encourage you to provide robust funding 
for the DoD Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP). My home 
county of Shelby County has one of the highest incidence rates 
of breast cancer in Tennessee, at a rate higher than the 
national average. Similarly, I support $50 million for the DoD 
Ovarian Cancer Research Program (OCRP) and $20 million in 
funding for the DoD Pancreatic Cancer Research Program through 
the Congressionally-Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP), 
as the rates for these cancers in Shelby County are in line 
with the national average. I also encourage you to provide $8 
million for the Bladder Cancer Research through the DoD's 
CDRMP. Bladder cancer is the seventh most commonly diagnosed 
cancer and is estimated to be the most expensive cancer to 
treat over a lifetime. Funding for these programs will lead to 
important medical discoveries and improve health outcomes.
    Finally, I request your support for $100 million for 
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and 
Minority Institutions Program. This program fosters interest in 
STEM fields students at HBCUs and other Minority-Serving 
Institutions, such as LeMoyne-Owen College in my district, by 
connecting them with real-world experiences.
    Thank you again for your leadership on the Subcommittee and 
for considering my requests. Should you have any questions, 
please contact Craig Dulniak in my office at 
[email protected] or 202-225-3265.

    STATEMENT OF HON. VERONICA ESCOBAR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 
                CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

    Thank you, Chairwoman McCollum and Ranking Member Calvert, 
for hosting this Member Day hearing.
    Like the rest of you, I am alarmed with how far ahead China 
is when it comes to investing in research and development and 
the new technologies they are developing for their defense 
capabilities. As an institution, I believe we need to heed the 
advice of the Department of Defense when they tell us they need 
to retire certain legacy systems in order to invest that 
funding and manpower in developing the next generation of 
weapons, aircraft, and more. At the end of the day, we can 
continue to argue over the topline number of the defense budget 
all we want, but if we are not committed to allocating funding 
appropriately and strategically, we will struggle with the 
pacing challenge of China.
    I would like to use my time today to discuss three requests 
I have made for the Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Appropriations 
bill. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I have made 
these same requests for the Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA and hope to 
see them reflected both in the NDAA and this subcommittee's 
final bill.
    The first request is a $10 million increase to the Army 
RDTE Future Vertical Lift Advanced Technology account for the 
purposes of additive manufacturing research for vertical lift. 
As the Department of Defense continues to look towards 
solutions for future vertical lift, additive manufacturing 
offers an affordable and efficient option for constructing 
advanced aircraft structure and the many critical platforms 
that will be involved. Because future vertical lift and 
advanced manufacturing are two lines of effort for the Army's 
modernization strategy, allocating funding for this would 
support two priorities for the Army and permit the Department 
to continue to see the full potential of additive 
manufacturing.
    My second request is a $10 million increase for the Army 
RDTE Long Range Precision Fires Technology for the purposes of 
low-cost missile technology development. As we have seen from 
the war raging in Ukraine, the Ukrainians have seen major 
success in large part due to missile like the Javelin. However, 
the cost of just one of these systems can reach hundreds of 
thousands of dollars. I am incredibly supportive of ensuring 
Ukraine has the tools they need to counter the Russian invasion 
and allocating funding to backfill our own missile system 
supplies, but we also need to find alternatives to broaden our 
existing arsenal with cost-effective solutions. The allocation 
of this funding would allow the Department to engage with 
institutions of higher education and small to medium 
manufacturers to provide innovative answers to lowering the 
cost of manufacturing missiles
    Finally, my last request is related to the Space Force 
University Partnership Program. I would like to thank the 
committee for allotting $10 million to this program in the 
Fiscal Year 2022 omnibus. As you all may know, this endeavor is 
a vital piece of Space Force's mission of maintaining a robust 
presence in the space domain. Through this program, Space Force 
is establishing strategic partnerships with nationally-
recognized universities to enhance research opportunities and 
develop a pipeline of top-tier, diverse talent from these 
institutions to Space Force. The current group of universities 
selected for this program have some of the best STEM and 
research programs in the country and include HBCUs, HSIs, other 
MSIs, and universities with robust first-generation student 
populations. Allocating $20 million to this program for Fiscal 
Year 2023 will grant the Space Force to continue expanding its 
outreach to these institutions and begin funding the research 
they need to remain competitive with our adversaries.
    Thank you to the subcommittee for this opportunity and 
consideration of my requests.

  STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE COHEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS 
                  FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

    Dear Chairwoman McCollum and Ranking Member Calvert:
    I want to thank you for the opportunity to submit this 
testimony with you today. The Defense Appropriations 
subcommittee is responsible for funding many branches of our 
armed forces, national intelligence infrastructure, and 
activities related to military personnel; operation and 
maintenance; procurement; research and development; and the 
Military Health System. As co-chair of the Congressional 
Colorectal Caucus, my focus today will be in two very specific 
areas of Defense and military health concerning colorectal 
cancer and cancer research in fiscal year 2023 (``FY23'').

             PEER REVIEWED CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM (PRCRP)

    I first want to thank the Committee for including 
colorectal cancer research among the eligible cancer categories 
in the FY2022 Defense appropriations bill passed in the House. 
In its most recent Report to Congressional Defense Committees, 
colorectal cancer received the highest number of awards and 
research funding among eligible cancers and highlighted the 
importance of colorectal cancer and its relevance to military 
health.
    This research has had bipartisan and bicameral support 
since Fiscal Year 2010 when colorectal cancer was first 
eligible for funding through the PRCRP including in this most 
recent FY2022 bill passed by the House Appropriations 
Committee. Certainly, we are aware that the Senate companion 
did not initially include colorectal cancer and are grateful 
that during conference negotiations colorectal cancer did 
remain in the final FY22 omnibus appropriations bill.
    In this spirit, I request the committee continue its 
support of colorectal cancer as an eligible category of cancer 
research within the PRCP.

       CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED MEDICAL RESEARCH PROGRAM (CDMRP)

    As the Committee begins its work on the FY2023 Defense 
appropriations bill, I ask for your support of $20 million 
dollars to create a Colorectal Cancer Research Program within 
the Department of Defense (DoD) Congressionally Directed 
Medical Research Program (CDMRP).
    As Member of this Committee are aware, colorectal cancer is 
the second highest leading cause of cancer death and is the 
fourth highest cause of new cancers among both men and women in 
the United States. Since 2000, The Department of Veterans 
Affairs has conducted multiple studies on colorectal cancer 
among its member population to better refine practices for 
screening, testing, and treatment. While colorectal cancer 
incidence rates in individuals over 50 years of age have 
remained stable or declined due to significant advancements in 
preventive screening, the incidence rates have been increasing 
among individuals under 50 years of age. This is of great 
concern especially considering that that the average age of our 
active and reserve duty military personnel is 29.6 years. And 
we have estimates that by 2030, colorectal cancer will be the 
leading cause of cancer death for Americans between the ages of 
20 to 49 years.
    For roughly a decade, colorectal cancer has been eligible 
for funding through the Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program 
(PRCRP). The PRCRP has supported research exploring issues 
important to both the warfighter and the civilian population 
including whether environmental chemicals are associated with 
increased risk of colorectal cancer and whether drugs for other 
conditions can be used to treat colorectal cancer. And this 
support and research remains vital.
    The fact is that colorectal cancer remains among the top 
five deadliest cancers, yet it stands the lone cancer without 
its own research program within the CDMRP. All while it remains 
the number two cancer cause of death. It is time we apply the 
model that has been successful in other cancers such as breast 
and lung to colorectal cancer. We need a dedicated funding 
stream and strategic approach to innovate and deliver 
meaningful advancements in the fight against colorectal cancer.
    I thank the committee for considering this bipartisan 
proposal--with my fellow Congressional Colorectal Caucus Co-
Chair, the Honorable Rodney Davis (IL-13)--for $20 million 
dollars to create a Colorectal Cancer Research Program within 
the CDMRP account in FY2023.
    On behalf of my constituents in New Jersey's 10th 
Congressional District, I sincerely appreciate your 
thoughtfulness and consideration of these concerns and 
priorities in your diligent work on FY2023 appropriations. 
Thank you and have a good day.

    [Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not 
be printed due to classification of the material discussed.]

                                            Thursday, May 19, 2022.

 OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE 
     AGENCY, AND THE OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR 
                       INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY

                               WITNESSES

HON. AVRIL HAINES, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
HON. WILLIAM J. BURNS, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
HON. RONALD S. MOULTRIE, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE 
    AND SECURITY
    [Clerk's note.--The complete hearing transcript could not 
be printed due to classification of the material discussed.]

                                             Tuesday, May 24, 2022.

                       NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE

                               WITNESSES

GENERAL DANIEL R. HOKANSON, CHIEF OF THE NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU
LIEUTENANT GENERAL JODY J. DANIELS, CHIEF OF THE U.S. ARMY RESERVE
VICE ADMIRAL JOHN B. MUSTIN, CHIEF OF THE U.S. NAVY RESERVE
LIEUTENANT GENERAL DAVID G. BELLON, COMMANDER, U.S. MARINE FORCES 
    RESERVE
LIEUTENANT GENERAL RICHARD W. SCOBEEE, CHIEF OF THE U.S. AIR FORCE 
    RESERVE

                  Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

    Ms. McCollum. This hearing will come to order. This hearing 
is virtual, and we must address a few housekeeping matters. In 
today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by the chair 
may mute the participants' microphones when they are not under 
recognition for the purpose of eliminating background noise.
    Members, you are responsible for muting and unmuting 
yourself. If I notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I 
will ask the staff to send you a request to unmute yourself. 
Please accept that so that we can unmute you.
    I remind members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock 
still applies. If there is a technology issue, and we have had 
our share today already, I will move to the next member until 
the issue is resolved, and you will retain the balance of your 
time, members.
    If you notice a clock on your screen, it will show how much 
time left is remaining. One minute remaining, the clock will 
turn yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the 
gavel to remind members that their time is almost expired. When 
your time has expired, the clock will turn red, and I will 
begin to recognize the next member.
    In terms of speaking order, I am going to follow the order 
set in House rules beginning with the chair and ranking member. 
Members present at the time the hearing is called to order will 
be recognized in order of seniority. And, finally, members not 
present at the time of this hearing will be recognized in the 
order in which they appear.
    Finally, House rules requires me to remind you that we have 
set up an email address to which members can send anything they 
wish to submit in writing to any of our hearings or markups. 
This email address has been provided to you in advance with 
your staff.
    I am going to bring the Subcommittee on Defense, we will 
all come to order. This morning, the subcommittee will receive 
testimony on the posture of the National Guard and Reserve 
Components for fiscal year 2023 budget. Today, we recognize the 
Chief of the National Guard Bureau and Reserve Component Chiefs 
from Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, and Air Force Reserve. This 
subcommittee provides funding for the National Guard and 
Reserves personnel class, operations, maintenance class, and 
equipment, including funding for the National Guard Reserve 
equipment account. This appropriation is not included in the 
President's request. This funding also provides for activities, 
such as counter drug operations, helicopters, fixed-wing 
aircraft, Humvee modernization and much more. The subcommittee 
has taken a particular interest in the Humvee modernization, 
especially considering the several incidents of vehicle 
rollovers within the Army in recent years. We would like to get 
an update from you about your modernization efforts.
    It is also vitally important that you are providing a high 
level of quality care for our soldiers. Incidents of extremism, 
harassment, and sexual harassment are all too common amongst 
the ranks. And your continued leadership is critical for 
addressing these acts and reversing these trends.
    We would also like to receive our year input on the current 
pace of operations. Our National Guard forces are called upon 
to support a variety of missions, including mandatory missions, 
acts of civil unrest, and the continued COVID response, support 
to the Southwest border, and overseas operations, including 
partnering with and training Ukrainian forces. We are 
interested in the continued high tempo of this duty, how it is 
affecting our troops, the morale, their readiness, and 
retention efforts. Please know that each member on this 
subcommittee appreciates your tireless effort and the service 
of those who serve under your leadership.
    And, with that, I would like to recognize the distinguished 
Ranking Member Mr. Calvert for his opening remarks.

                     Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Chair McCollum. I am happy that we 
were able to proceed with the hearing today. I would also like 
to welcome General Hokanson to this subcommittee. Over the past 
year, we have seen our Nation continue to rely on the National 
Guard at an increased tempo, COVID-19, the crisis at the 
southern border, natural disasters, all placed a demand or our 
guardsmen that this subcommittee recognizes and is grateful 
for. In addition to its domestic responsibilities, I want to 
high loot the Guard's impact on America's role in the world, 
specifically, the State Partnership Program, which we also 
fund. As I have mentioned before, I am extremely proud that the 
California National Guard has been training alongside the 
Ukrainian forces for several years now. When conflict was on 
the horizon, the adjunct general of the California Guard was 
one of the first phone calls made by the Ukrainian military. 
The success and determination of the Ukrainians during this 
conflict come in part due to this relationship and investments 
that we have made in the National Guard and the State 
Partnership Program. It is important that when we consider 
future investments, we look at the crisis in Ukraine to see 
what lessons we have learned.
    Robust funding and the expansion of the State Partnership 
Program is something I look forward to working with the chair 
on, both in the fiscal year 2023 bill and beyond. As our 
adversaries around the globe continue to threaten the rules-
based order that we have led since World War II, it is vital to 
our interests that America remains the security partner of 
choice.
    General Hokanson, in addition to hearing about the demands 
on our Guard, I am also interested in hearing about how we can 
increase recruitment and retention, improve quality-of-life 
issues, and ensure that our Guard is appropriately modernized. 
I share the concerns of many of my colleagues that the Guard 
has not been properly prioritized in its history. You have my 
strong commitment that this subcommittee will continue to 
ensure that the Guard is not a second-tier force but, instead, 
remains an integral part of our National Defense Strategy.
    I want to conclude by thanking you for your service, and I 
look forward to your testimony.
    With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much, Mr. Calvert.
    I would like to welcome our first witness, Daniel Hokanson, 
the Chief of the National Guard Bureau and member of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff.
    General, welcome. This is your second time testifying on 
the record, and members have full copies of your statement. And 
so I would really encourage you to summarize your statement and 
to be complete and succinct as you can be when we ask 
questions. General, would you please proceed.

                 Summary Statement of General Hokanson

    General Hokanson. Yes, Chair McCollum, Ranking Member 
Calvert, and esteemed members of the subcommittee, thank you 
for the opportunity to testify and share the story of today's 
National Guard.
    When you think of the National Guard, some might think of 
the way we used to be viewed as a part-time force, serving one 
weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, often referred to 
as weekend warriors who cleaned up after disasters. 
Unfortunately, our combat capabilities were not always part of 
the conversation or even understood.
    But, as we all know, after September 11, 2001, that all 
changed. And in the two decades since, and especially over the 
past 2 years, when we responded to COVID, several disturbances 
and disasters while meeting every overseas deployment, the 
National Guard really transformed.
    Our purpose and our mission are no longer strategic; they 
are operational. Because of our experience in combat and the 
congressional investment in our personnel, training, and 
equipment, today's National Guard is stronger, more capable, 
and more be effective than ever before. We have become an 
operational reserve and integral to the Joint Force.
    Part of it is our size. We are the second largest force in 
the Department of Defense Enterprise behind only the United 
States Army. We make up 20 percent of the Joint Force. One in 
every five servicemembers is a National Guardsman.
    But more than that, it is our combat experience honed over 
two decades of conflict that provides our Nation the increased 
capability and capacity it needs.
    As an example, last year as our mission in Afghanistan came 
to an end. The last fighter aircraft to leave Afghanistan was a 
New Jersey National Guard F-16. Soldiers with the Minnesota 
Army National Guard were on the ground at Hamid Karzai 
International Airport as were Air National Guard teams of F-16s 
providing air cover for the evacuations. Air Guard C-17s were 
there to transport American citizens and Afghan refugees. Air 
National Guard KC-135 Stratotankers were refueling the airlift, 
and pilotless Air National Guard MQ-9 Reapers were monitoring 
conditions on the ground.
    More recently, I received a message from the CENTCOM 
Commander General Erik Kurilla after he visited an Avenger air 
defense site on Al Asad Airbase in Iraq where he met members of 
the Ohio Army National Guard who shot down a one-way attack UAB 
just 3 days before his visit. He also visited northern Syria 
where he met an infantry of Bradley fighting vehicles from 
Montana National Guard. In January, the use of Bradleys during 
intense fighting following an ISIS prison break, every gunner 
in that platoon was a school-trained master gunner, and the 
battalion commander called them, quote, the best Bradley 
company he has ever observed.
    This is today's National Guard. We exist to fight and win 
our Nation's wars, and the Joint Force cannot do so without us. 
It is the mission that drives our manning, training, and 
equipment needs and makes possible our ability to respond to 
almost anything here at home. Today, these needs are evolving. 
For the first time in history, we simultaneously have two 
nuclear-capable strategic competitors in China and Russia. We 
cannot predict when or where the next conflict will be or what 
you are competitors are bringing to bear. So we must ensure our 
personnel are ready and our equipment and training and 
processes are modernized. We have be to ready to fight and to 
win. We must also continue to strengthen ties with our allies 
and partners who provide an unmatched strategic advantage. 
Through the State Partnership Program, our State National 
Guards are partnered with 93 countries, 45 percent of the 
world's nations, and in coordination with our combatant 
commanders in the State Department, we are looking to grow 
another 30 partnerships in the next decade.
    The benefits of this program cannot be over emphasized but 
are readily apparent in the partnership between the California 
National Guard and Ukraine. Their partnership began in 1993. 
Since then, they have conducted more than a thousand training 
events together. While the rest of the world underestimated the 
Ukrainian Armed Forces' abilities, the National Guard was not 
surprised because we have been training with them for more than 
29 years. In fact, National Guardsmen were some of the last 
Americans to leave Ukraine. 165 members of the Florida National 
Guard were deployed to the Joint Multinational Training Group 
Ukraine Mission to help Ukrainian forces enhance their 
capabilities, and today they're training their Ukrainian 
partners in Germany.
    When Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, 
Ukraine's military leaders reached out to people they trusted, 
people they had known for years, and those were members of the 
California National Guard. Ukrainians' first text messages 
were: We are being invaded.
    Their second messages said: Here is what we need.
    I hope to work with Congress to provide predictable and 
consistent funding for the State Partnership Program. It is an 
important cost-effective program that makes us stronger and 
helps our Nation's military--makes sure our Nation's military 
has trusted, capable, and interoperable partners at our side.
    Today's National Guard would not be possible without your 
investments over the past 20 years. For us to maintain the 
capability and capacity with regard to our Nation, the National 
Guard force structure and equipment must be included in future 
modernization efforts so we can continue to provide a strategic 
depth and deterrence for our Nation.
    I am proud to represent today's National Guard, a force 
that is ready to fight our Nation's wars, ready to serve our 
communities in their time of need, and ready to work with our 
partners at every level from local to international. Throughout 
our evolution of the past 20 years, the National Guard has been 
and will always remain: Always Ready, Always There.
    Thank you for your time. I look forward to your questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
                  Summary Statement of General Daniels

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much. And a great story on 
Minnesota public radio, so I am assuming it was also part of 
National Public Radio, on the Guard mentioning my ranking 
member's favorite State, California. So thank you very much for 
your testimony.
    Next, we will receive our testimony from Lieutenant Jody 
Daniels, Chief of the Army Reserve.
    General Daniels. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, 
distinguished members of the committee, on behalf of the 
200,000 soldiers and civilian employees of America's Army 
Reserve, thank you for this opportunity to testify before you 
today, and for your continued support to our soldiers, 
families, and their employers.
    Ladies and gentlemen, the Army Reserve continues to provide 
the Army and the homeland with critical enabling capabilities, 
including over half of the total Army's quartermaster, medical, 
transportation, and civil affairs force structure. These Army 
Reserve capabilities and others, such as intelligence, 
chemical, and engineer, enable America's Army to fight and win 
our Nation's wars as a member of the Joint Force. To date, the 
Army Reserve has provided over 4,000 medical professionals, 
logisticians, engineers, and other enablers to provide relief 
to our civilian counterparts during this continuing global 
pandemic.
    In support of the Afghan evacuation, we quickly mobilized 
Army Reserve soldiers for Operations Allies Rescue in 
Afghanistan and Operation Allies Welcome here at home. In 
Afghanistan, the 936 Forward Resuscitative Surgical Detachment 
provided emergency care to military and civilian patients 
wounded in the Hamid Karzai International Airport suicide 
bombing.
    Here at home, my Army garrison commander at Fort McCoy, 
Wisconsin, quickly transformed an Army Reserve installation 
into temporary housing and relocation facilities to support 
over 12,000 Afghan guests. Over 1,000 Army reservists were 
activated to backfill the Active Component personnel at 
multiple LAW locations, and 44 remain on duty today.
    The Army Reserve also continues to provide critical 
capabilities in response to national disasters in the homeland, 
alongside our teammates in the National Guard. In addition to 
our support to wildland fire and hurricane response through our 
emergency preparedness liaison officers, 45 Army Reserve 
soldiers from the 361st Multi-Role Bridge Company stationed in 
Georgia conducted emergency bridging operations in Louisiana, 
which allowed for a supply and evacuation corridor to assist 
communities impacted by Hurricane Ida.
    The Army Reserve continues to support every geographic 
combatant command. Since March 1, 2021, we have mobilized 
almost 18,000 soldiers in 268 units to support operations 
around the globe. Although the Army Reserve accounts for just 
20 percent of Army personnel, we maintain approximately half of 
the Army's enabling forces and a quarter of its force 
mobilization capacity at only 6 percent of the total Army 
budget.
    While the Army Reserve maintains its readiness, we are also 
shaping tomorrow by bringing innovation and depth to Army 
modernization efforts. Through the 75th Innovation Command, the 
Army Reserve continues to support Army Futures Command that is 
linked to unique private sector expertise. This diverse talent 
pipeline was instrumental in the formation and development of 
the Army Software Factory.
    Yet mobilization and readiness are nothing without people. 
Ready and resilient soldiers, capable leaders, cohesive teams, 
strong families, and supportive employers are the key to a 
ready and capable Army Reserve. We were aggressively addressing 
harmful behaviors that threaten to undermine our ability to 
build cohesive, fit, and disciplined teams. We are building 
resilient soldiers through tough, realistic training done 
safely. Sustaining our critical capabilities requires talent 
development at all levels. To this end, we are hyper focused on 
the growth and retention of mid-career officers and NCOs that 
are the backbone of a ready force. We must also ensure that our 
senior leaders have robust joint experiences, which is why I 
support the reinstatement of exemptions for the 18 Chairman's 
Reserve Positions. Many times these personnel bring a unique 
set of qualifications from their full-time duties in their 
civilian capacities. These positions are vital to the seamless 
integration of Active Duty officers along with Reservists who 
bring invaluable joint experience.
    Sustaining our central enabling capabilities also requires 
consistent adequate and predictable funding to ensure the Army 
Reserve meets the needs of the Army combatant commands and the 
homeland. We are grateful for consistent appropriations that 
positively impact Army Reserve readiness and modernization 
efforts, including the ongoing support of the National Guard 
and Reserve Equipping Account. We are deeply appreciative of 
the additional MILCON funding you provided, which would allow 
us to replace some of our World War II-era wooden barracks with 
modern facilities at Fort McCoy. Also, I would like to thank 
the committee for the additional funds to help us get after 
critical facility repairs.
    The future holds many challenges, but today's Army Reserve 
strives every day to be the most ready Army Reserve in our 
Nation's history. With your continued support, we will leverage 
our essential enabling capabilities to meet the needs of the 
Nation and shape the Army Reserve for the future of warfare. 
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
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                  Summary Statement of Admiral Mustin

    Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. And I and some of the staff 
went out to Fort McCoy, and it was a cold, snowy, gray, bold 
north day, and the hearts were warm, both the people in uniform 
serving the community and the Afghanis. So congratulations on 
short notice for such a great job to everyone involved.
    We will now hear from Vice Admiral John Mustin, the Chief 
of Navy Reserve.
    Admiral Mustin. Good afternoon, Chair McCollum, Ranking 
Member Calvert, and distinguished members of the subcommittee. 
It is my distinct honor to report to you on the status and the 
vision of America's Navy Reserve. First, I would like to 
recognize my wife, Kim, whose steadfast support throughout my 
three-decade Navy career exemplifies the unsung sacrifices and 
service typical of our military spouses.
    I would also like to express my gratitude to Navy Reserve 
Force Master Chief Tracy Hunt, my partner and confidant, who 
tirelessly represents and advocates for our enlisted Reserve 
sailors every day.
    And I am honored to speak to you today alongside my peer 
Reserve chiefs with whom I have experienced great camaraderie, 
alignment, and collaboration.
    Finally, I would like to recognize our 97,000 Reserve 
sailors, our nearly 450 dedicated civilians, the families who 
support them, and the thousands of employers who value and 
enable the service of our citizen sailors worldwide. They are 
all stakeholders in the success of our Navy Reserve.
    Today's security environment is increasingly competitive, 
faster-paced, and far more complex than historical norms. The 
reemergence of long-term strategic competition and accelerating 
advancements in technology require the Navy Reserve Force to 
adapt to deliver the personnel, platforms, and operational 
capability necessary when called upon. For over a century, the 
Navy Reserve has reliably delivered strategic depth and 
critical operational capabilities to our Active Navy and Joint 
Force in peace and war. Recently nearly 9,000 Navy sailors 
responded to the coronavirus-19 pandemic. And earlier this 
year, we surged hundreds of sailors to support the evolving 
security crisis in Europe. These activations highlight the 
flexibility, readiness, and value our citizen sailors bring to 
the fight, and yet their significant contribution merely hints 
at the demands expected of the Navy Reserve in a future great 
power maritime conflict.
    The Navy Reserve is rapidly transforming to deliver at a 
favorable resource-informed cost, a peerless force, designed, 
trained, and ready to fight confidently and boldly in sustained 
multidomain high-end warfare. To that end, the singular 
priority of our Navy Reserve is simple: warfighting readiness. 
Modernizing Reserve equipment, training systems, and 
mobilization processes is critical to delivering that 
readiness. To ensure our sailors are ready to serve on day one 
of any conflict, the Reserve Force must maintain parity with 
our Active counterparts by operating relevant, modern 
equipment. To this end, procurement of the more reliable and 
capable KC-130 Juliet aircraft to replace our legacy C-130 
airframes remains the Navy Reserve's number one equipment 
priority. Last year, Navy Reserve fleet logistic squadrons flew 
26,000 hours and moved 24 million pounds of cargo for the Navy 
and the Department of Defense at a cost avoidance of a billion 
dollars. However, with an average age exceeding three decades, 
the currency C-130 fleet is challenged to maintain sustained 
fleet logistics requirements. Modern KC-130 Juliets can do more 
and will realize an additional $200 million in annual 
transportation cost savings to the Navy.
    Additionally, we are defining and documenting comprehensive 
education and credentialing requirements for each mobilization 
billet, ensuring every sailor is fully trained for their 
assigned duties and conflict. We are reimaging access to 
training for our widely distributed force. Concurrently, we are 
implementing policies and processes, placing the right sailors 
in the right billets at the time and continuously and 
accurately assessing and reporting their warfighting readiness.
    In concert with these efforts, our adaptive mobilization 
process, demonstrated in practice and refined in ongoing series 
of large-scale exercises, will leverage the Navy Reserve's 
nationally distributed infrastructure to locally mobilize 
Reserve sailors, rapidly and at scale. In a high-end conflict, 
these efforts will enable the Navy to activate 50,000 sailors 
in 30 days.
    Our talented, patriotic Reserve sailors are central and 
vital to our enduring warfighting advantage. The Navy Reserve 
is committed to a culture of excellence based on our Navy's 
core values, honor, courage, and commitment. Further, we are 
dedicated to eliminating destructive behaviors, ensuring sailor 
wellness, and fostering a diverse, inclusive culture to enhance 
and retain our asymmetric advantage.
    As always, I am grateful for the committee's support of the 
Navy Reserve. Our efforts are made possible by the timely 
delivery of the fiscal year 2023 appropriations bill to provide 
predictability to our sailors, their families, their employers, 
and, most importantly, to our global combatant commanders.
    In closing, I remain humbled every day by the commitment 
and contribution of our citizen sailors, the civilians who 
support them, and the supporting families that are collectively 
your Navy Reserve. They serve our Nation with distinction every 
day in every theater around the globe; 24/7/365, they are the 
sentinels of our security. I thank you for your support and 
attention, and I look forward to your questions.
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                  Summary Statement of General Bellon

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
    Next we will hear from Lieutenant General Bellon, Commander 
of the Marine Corps Reserve.
    General Bellon. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the 
opportunity to appear before you today and to testify on behalf 
of the commandant of the Marine Corps, the Marine Corps 
Reserve. I am honored to appear with my fellow Reserve 
component service chiefs and my senior enlisted First Sergeant 
Major Carlos Ruiz. He is sitting on my left shoulder. He joins 
me today from Brazil where we are working with 21 different 
nations and marine corps from around the globe to mitigate 
global threats.
    As the combatant stated before this committee last week, 
the Marine Corps continues to be our Nation's 911 force 
readiness. Since its founding in 1916, the Marine Corps Reserve 
has continued our legacy of answering our Nation's call with 
relevant, ready, and responsive forces as part of the vital 
commitment to Marine Corps has to the Total Force concept.
    On average, every year approximately one-third of my force 
activates for exercises or in global support of combatant 
commands. Here at home, the Marine Corps Reserve activated and 
deployed over 1,000 Marines on short notice this year to 
provide substantial support to Operations Allies Welcome on our 
Afghan partners.
    As the Marine Corps' approach to global threats continues 
to evolve, so must your Marine Corps Reserve. And this means 
not only having the right capabilities but also gaining the 
right access to our warfighters at the speed of relevance to 
meet future demands in an increasingly complex global 
landscape. Our 3-year effort under Force Design 2030, 
punctuated by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, has led us to 
consider whether the current models for authorities and 
resource funding will allow us to generate access in deploying 
Marine Corps Reservists that will be required by growing global 
threat. With the current lack of overseas contingency 
operations funding our ability to respond at the speed of 
relevance in future contingencies and scenarios seems greatly 
reduced. I would like to work with this committee to explore a 
new, more modern set of authorities and oversights and fundings 
that would enable and empower your Marine Corps Reserve to 
continue responding to crises globally and contingencies with 
increased flexibility.
    As you are aware, a vitally important component of Force 
Design 2030 is the Marine Corps strategy for talent management. 
As part of this evolving strategy, the Marine Corps must 
continue to leverage the Reserve Component to recruit, refrain, 
and promote diverse warriors who possess unique skills and 
perspectives. The Marine Corps' talent management efforts will 
greatly enhance skill development, diversity, leadership, 
inclusion, and equity throughout the Reserve Component. We will 
continue to develop innovative policies, pathways and tools 
designed to capture, catalog, and maintain visibility of our 
diverse flue of talent and ensure ways and a path for future 
service.
    I am continually inspired by professionalism, competence, 
and dedication of our Reserve Marines. Reserve Marines work 
extraordinarily hard to balance family responsibilities, 
civilian careers, and education with their military service. 
They introduce different perspectives to the Marine Corps based 
on their wide range of backgrounds and experiences. They have 
chosen to continue to serve honorably, even though many of them 
have long since fulfilled their initial obligation to the 
Corps. On a daily basis, they have demonstrated extraordinary 
selflessness and continue to answer their irrational call to 
serve.
    I want to thank the committee for our continued support of 
the National Guard and Reserve Equipment Appropriation. As I 
had testified the last 2 years, I would request your ongoing 
support to my effort to use NGREA funds for individual combat 
clothing and equipment for our Marines. I would also ask for 
your assistance in exploring opportunities to enhance the 
Marine Corps' overall littoral maneuver and sustainment 
capabilities by building this capacity within the Marine Corps 
Reserve. By increasing the flexibility of NGREA, Congress can 
help protect our warfighters and prevent strategic risks to 
mission by ensuring the Reserve Marines remain at peak 
operational readiness.
    In closing, I want to extend my gratitude for your ongoing 
efforts to provide timely appropriations each year. This has a 
direct impact on your Reserve Marines and sailors and their 
limited number of training days. Your continued support will 
help and ensure Marine Corps Reserve will have predictable and 
uninterrupted training schedules to maximize personal material 
training legs. I look forward to this opportunity to be here 
today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
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                  Summary Statement of General Scobee

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much for your testimony. And, 
last but not least, we are going to hear from Lieutenant 
General Richard Scobee, Chief of the Air Force Reserve, and 
this is his last time to testify before the committee. And 
maybe you will share the exciting news with the committee 
during the hearing, if you have an opportunity to, about what 
you and your family will be doing next. Sir, you are up.
    General Scobee. Chair McCollum and Ranking Member Calvert 
and distinguish members of the subcommittee, it is an honor for 
me and my Command Chief, Chief Master Sergeant Tim White, to be 
here today on behalf of the men and women of the Air Force 
Reserve. I am continually amazed of the accomplishment of our 
Reserve citizen airmen as they met every challenge put before 
them over this past year.
    The Air Force Reserve provides strategy depth with rapid 
surge capability across every Air Force core mission set. 
Because we are a predominantly part-time force, we provide 
ready forces and exceptional value to the American taxpayer. We 
are assessable as a force, as evidenced by our daily 
contributions to the global Joint Force operations, and we are 
committed to attracting top talent by fostering the culture of 
inclusion in which every American and every Airmen can serve to 
the fullest potential.
    Over the past year, we have once again proved our ability 
to rapidly surge and provide capacity on demand. Within 24 
hours of notification, Reserve airmen answered the call to help 
evacuate our most vulnerable allies from Afghanistan. At the 
same time, we also surged 500 airmen to support Afghan evacuees 
here in the United States. Within three weeks, Reserve airmen 
worked with our interagency partners to provide for the basic 
needs of all of our 11,000 evacuees as part of the Operations 
Allies Welcome. With appropriations from this committee, we 
increased our organizational effectiveness, enhanced our 
ability to provide excellent care for our citizen Airmen and 
their families.
    Likewise, we are grateful to Congress for the continued 
direct hiring authority. Last year, thanks in part to this 
authority, we achieved a 10-year high in our Air Reserve 
technician staffing. Our requested fiscal year 2023 budget will 
ensure the Air Force Reserve meets the priorities laid out in 
the National Defense Strategy to succeed against facing 
threats. We remain in lockstep with the Secretary of the Air 
Force's operational imperatives as well as the chief of staff's 
vision to accelerate change or lose.
    We request resources from Congress which ready our force to 
defend our Nation. The Reserve Personnel Appropriations and 
Operation and Maintenance Funds drives our readiness. These 
accounts fund our training, our flying hours, our mobilization 
requirements, our equipment maintenance, and our salaries. We 
are particularly grateful for the additional funding in the 
fiscal year 2022 omnibus to offset increased fuel prices and 
our facility sustainment repair modernization projects. Your 
continuing support enables steady progress towards readiness 
for the Air Force Reserve.
    Achieving Total Force readiness requires Total Force 
investment in both personnel and equipment. We accomplish 
equipment parity through the National Guard and Reserve 
Equipment Appropriation. NGREA enables us to modernize gear, 
sustain our capability, and replace obsolete equipment when 
recapitalization by the Active Component is not feasible.
    Parity is critical to seamless Total Force integration 
across the Joint Force, encountering those facing threats 
outlined in the National Defense Strategy. We remain grateful 
for these appropriations and cannot overemphasize how vital 
they are to our readiness. I appreciate your support for NGREA 
now and in the future. Thank you for the opportunity to appear 
before you today and for your steadfast support as we ensure 
the Air Force Reserve is prepared to defend our great Nation. I 
look forward to answering your questions.
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                                UKRAINE

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. With that, we will move on to 
member questions.
    Members, they are going to put things up in the chat. It is 
myself, Mr. Calvert, Mr. Ruppersberger, Mr. Cole are the first 
four up. The rest will be in the chat. And in about 18 minutes, 
I will be turning the gavel over to the vice chair, Mr. 
Ruppersberger. They have sent you a list of who is next.
    I would like to, one, just a couple of things. We want to 
thank all the work that has gone into Ukraine. And so, General 
Hokanson, we know that the Guard is going to be training again. 
It was on the news. Can you maybe tell us some of the actions 
that the Guard is going to be taking because you got the 
continued hostilities in Ukraine. How do you see the program 
transforming or changing at all?
    General Hokanson. Chair McCollum, thank you for the 
question. So, when we look at the Ukraine, specifically, and 
part of the EUCOM AOR, you have got 24 partnerships in EUCOM. 
And, obviously, California and Ukraine have been partners since 
1993, as I mentioned earlier, and they have conducted over a 
thousand training events together. Also, after Russia came into 
Crimea in 2014, we actually stood up like very similar to our 
National Training Center in the Lviv area. And, since 2016, 
National Guard trainers have been training the Ukrainian Army 
there. And, as I mentioned earlier, their ability to defend 
their nation is obviously very reliant upon the fact that it is 
their willingness to do so. But I think a lot of the training 
that we conducted with them when it comes to command and 
control logistics, small unit tactics, development of 
noncommissioned officers, we are really seeing the result of 
that on the battlefield today in Ukraine.
    And so, right before hostility started, we pulled our 
trainers, 165 from the Florida Guard, out of Ukraine, and they 
relocated to Germany. And they have been training now the 
Ukrainian Armed Forces on a lot of the newer equipment that the 
U.S. is providing, primarily the M777 artillery 155 millimeter 
artillery, the M-113 armored personnel carriers, as well as the 
Q-36 Radars. And they will continue to train them until the 
next Guard unit comes in behind them to continue that level of 
training.
    In addition, we are working very closely with all of our 
other state partners in the EUCOM AOR. And, very shortly, I 
will be out there to visit them. And, really, when you look at 
Poland and Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, a lot 
of those other state partners, many of them, in fact 13 of 
them, are providing assistance to Ukraine. And so it has shown 
the value of the investment that our Nation has made for almost 
30 years in the State Partnership Program in working together 
and developing those partnerships and then working together for 
the greater good.

                                 NGREA

    Ms. McCollum. Well, we look forward to anything that you 
see, as I asked in my question, anything forthcoming with 
either training for the Guard, equipment, or anything that you 
might be needing, as well as integrating some of those other 
National Guards, those other countries into working together 
with one another. We have a closure (ph) meeting, some of the 
Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. They all have different 
missions, but they are all working to support one another.
    I am, for the record, going to be asking to submit some 
questions on NGREA, which the 2022 conference report included 
$950 million, which was consistent with the previous year. And 
I am going to be asking the Guard and Reserve how it matched up 
with the priorities that you had given and where you are still 
short on it, and how the supplemental budget, especially with 
the Guard right now, but the supplemental, in general, for the 
mission in Ukraine is moving forward.
    Then I am also going to be submitting for the record a 
question on facilities maintenance. As was pointed out by 
Lieutenant General Daniels, you know, it was--they made it warm 
and cozy, but Fort McCoy is not up-to-date in shelter that we 
would normally expect. But they make it work. They always do. 
The Guard knows how to make things work. But I would like a 
little more information on how you were able to utilize the 
facilities, sustainment, repair, modernization funds in this 
2020 Appropriations Act. Knowing that we didn't get that done 
on time, we are trying to get this bill done on time. The House 
of Representatives is working on it. So I would like to know 
the age of your facilities and how that is going. Some of that 
can be done in DOD money. Some of it gets done in MILCON. And I 
would like to have a big list of that. Mr. Calvert and I could 
sit down and talk to our counterparts in MILCON about what we 
can do in the future to help you. So they both will be 
submitted for the record.
    Mr. Calvert, I'll turn to you.

                       STATE PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

    Mr. Calvert. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. On the State 
Partnership Program, obviously, it has been a tremendous 
success. Taiwan now is obviously an issue. It is in the news. 
Section 1249 of Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization 
Act requires the Secretary of Defense to consider the 
feasibility, the advisability of enhanced cooperation between 
the National Guard and Taiwan. Perhaps similar to how the State 
Partnership Program functions in general. I understand that the 
Secretary of Defense is still evaluating the operational 
concept.
    General Hokanson, how do you envision the cooperation and 
functioning and funding requirements you need in fiscal year 
2023 to get this going? I would like to get this going sooner 
rather than later.
    General Hokanson. Thank you, Member Calvert. Thank you for 
that question. And so, when you look at the relationship 
between the National Guard and Taiwan, both--actually, the 
Hawaii National Guard, Michigan, and Minnesota have ensuring 
relationships with Taiwan. We work very closely with INDOPACOM 
and the State Department to look at what capabilities the 
National Guard might be able to provide. And, in October of 
last year, I actually met with the Chief of Staff of the 
Taiwanese Army to discuss the Reserve Component and what their 
goals were for that force. And so, when we look at the options 
that we can provide Taiwan, we are working closely to stay in 
sync with INDOPACOM, as well as the State Department, but we 
are looking at what possibly we can do to help them, and then, 
of course, the resources depending on what we are authorized to 
do would be directly correlated to that.
    When we look at options, obviously, there is a State 
Partnership Program, but we also have a relationship with 
Israel where we have multiple states that help with specific 
capabilities that that country would like to share or learn 
about. And so that might be an even other option that we look 
at Taiwan. But, as I have relayed to Admiral Aquilino, the 
INDOPACOM Commander, is the National Guard is here, and our 
foot is on the gas. We are not slowing anything down. And, if 
there's any way we can help, we will gladly do that as quickly 
as possible.
    Mr. Calvert. Well, since you brought up the, you know, 
force multiplication, I would hope that the Japanese certainly 
would be helping the Taiwanese, and--would probably get under 
the skin of the Chinese even more--and the Australians and New 
Zealand. Is there any movement in that direction?
    General Hokanson. Sir, for the--specific to the National 
Guard, we have 13 partnerships in the INDOPACOM area of 
responsibility, and actually six of those share borders with 
China. And so, for us, we work very closely with INDOPACOM and 
all the other allies and partners in the region to ensure 
everything we do is supportive of their theater security 
cooperation plans. Because whatever we do, we want to make sure 
that everything we do is integrated and supports the overall 
U.S. effort.

                         BASING ACTIONS IMPACT

    Mr. Calvert. Okay. Good. A quick question with--for General 
Scobee, obviously, if we move toward Asia, we have long 
distances, and tankers are going to be very important. And, 
obviously, I am pleased that the KC-46 is coming to March Air 
Force Base in California. And we have discussed the amazing 
contribution that March has for the Reserves, General Scobee. 
Can you provide an update on the final selection and bed-down 
process from this basing action?
    General Scobee. Ranking Member Calvert, thank you very 
much. So as we get towards our final solution with the KC-46 at 
March, we are pretty excited about getting that capability 
there on the West Coast. I would have to say that is the one 
thing that makes our Air Force so successful is the ability to 
project power. And the only way you can do that is with a 
robust air refueling kind of capability. And that is what this 
is going to give us.
    Moving to KC-46 to March, in particular, gives us the 
ability to get jets on the West Coast, which puts them in 
better alignment with what is going on in the INDOPACOM right 
now. So I would say, the first thing that is going to happen is 
in June of this year. We will finish up our basing strategy for 
March and determine exactly what the bed down is going to look 
like. And, in fiscal year, the second quarter of 2025, is when 
the first KC-46s will be starting to show up at March. And we 
will try to do it heel to toe with the KC-135s that are there 
that will be replaced. But we have a divestment plan for those 
as we start to bring on the KC-46. And with the Air Force's 
help, we were able to bring those earlier in the fly deck in 
order to get those fielded to the March. So we are pretty 
excited about that.
    Mr. Calvert. Any assistance you need as far as MILCON or 
other funds, please let me.
    With that, I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Mr. Ruppersberger, then it will be 
Mr. Cole and Mr. Kilmer.

                             THE 175TH WING

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Good. Thank you. General Hokanson--and I 
want to thank you all for being here today and the work that 
you do for our country.
    General, there is a total of four Air National Guard units 
that still fly the ATAC, and one of them is in my district. The 
175th Wing is stationed at Warfield Air National Guard Base in 
Middle River. I think it is necessary that I highlight the 
importance of renovating the Martin State Airport runway to 
ensure that we maintain the future missions after the A-10 is 
fully divested. Several of the A-10s are deployed to Europe 
from my district as we speak. Can you speak to the importance 
of the runway renovation project in Martin State Airport in 
Middle River to the National Guard? And I have one quick 
followup question about cyber.
    General Hokanson. Yes, sir. So we look at the whole 
portfolio of the Air National Guard; we have 25 fighter 
squadrons. And I think it is absolutely critical that we retain 
all 25 because of the capability and capacity that our Nation 
needs. And, of course, Martin State is part of this. And, when 
we look at some of our older airplanes, like the A-10, the F-15 
CBs, and the pre-block F-16s, I think it is very important that 
we have a plan to retain those squadrons within the Air 
National Guard. And, with any of these, as we modern airframes, 
we are going to have to make adjustments to the existing 
facilities. So, in the case of Martin State, of course, you 
know we think it is important to make all those adjustments so 
that we can retain those squadrons in the Air National Guard 
because that is what our Air Force and our Nation needs.

                     RECRUITING CYBER PROFESSIONALS

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. Thank you. Also, the I--175th 
Cyber Operations Group is dual-missioned--wait a minute, I hear 
background noise. Okay. The 175th Cyber Operations Group is 
dual-missioned with the A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft war vehicle. 
Maintaining cyber space plays a dominant and important role in 
National Security.
    General, can you share with the subcommittee how you plan 
to recruit cyber professionals when the demand in the private 
sector continues to have such an advantage over the military. 
What challenges exist, and what do you suggest to do in this 
subject area?
    General Hokanson. Sir, you highlight a great point. And, 
when you look at the investment the Department of Defense makes 
in training our cyber professionals, there is a significant 
draw for them when their service obligation ends in the Active 
Component to seek employment in the civil employer environment. 
So, in one aspect to that, we will work very closely with the 
Active Component to identify those cyber warriors that are 
leaving the Active Component and link them up with a National 
Guard cyber unit in the area that they may be seeking civilian 
employment. In addition, we look at those areas that have a 
strong IT or cyber business environment and really look at 
opportunities to recruit folks to do that because many of them 
find a lot of satisfaction, not only in serving their country 
but getting to do some of those things that they may not be 
able to do in their civilian capacity that they could do on the 
military side. And we are also looking to make sure that we 
have the right bonus structure set in place to retain those 
folks and also to recruit them to what they do because, in many 
cases, the experience that they bring from their civilian 
employer is significantly helpful to what they are doing on the 
military side. So anything and everything we can do to leverage 
their civilian skills but then also capture those departing the 
Active Component so we will retain their experience in the 
Department of Defense is really important to us.

                       STATE PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. And what plans do you have for 
improving the program to make sure that the State Partnership 
Program is of great importance to many members of our 
subcommittee?
    General Hokanson. Sir, one of the big things that we can 
really use your help on is--we get really a great amount of 
funding, which we can execute a hundred percent. Unfortunately, 
when we have continuing resolutions or a delay, sometimes we 
don't get that money until later in the year. And, because we 
get it later in the year, our fiscal year ends on September 30. 
Sometimes that window is so short that our party nations can't 
adjust accordingly, and, unfortunately, we have to return on 
that money. Whereas if we had the flexibility to go, in some 
cases, beyond the fiscal year, it would allow us to plan with 
them and utilize the full intent of what you intended that 
money to be utilized for.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Well, I know it is important. We need to 
work with you on that, and that is an issue we are going to be 
dealing with. I yield back.
    General Hokanson. Yes, sir.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Before I yield to Mr. Cole, I want 
to just thank everyone for their testimony here today. The 
followup will be occurring with the staff as we put the budget 
together.
    And, with that, as I yield to Mr. Cole, I give the gavel to 
Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you for helping out, Mr. 
Ruppersberger. Mr. Cole.

                               HEALTHCARE

    Mr. Cole. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
    As usual, Mr. Ruppersberger has anticipated my question on 
the very popular and very effective State Partnership Program, 
as I have exactly the same concerns that General Hokanson 
outlined for us. And we don't get our work done on time, and 
then we give you money, and you don't have the ability to 
execute the mission, even when we are giving you the resources. 
So, just for what it is worth, count me as in very much in 
favor of providing you with a flexibility to be able to keep 
those funds and deploy them as you see fit. I don't think there 
is anybody on this subcommittee that has any question about the 
value of this program and how effectively those dollars had 
been used. We shouldn't let our own dysfunction from time to 
time keep you from executing your mission.
    But, since Dutch already covered that--I should say 
chairman now--let me move to another area. Last year, General, 
in your testimony, you talked a lot about the importance of 
healthcare parity between the services. And I would like you to 
elaborate a little bit on that and give us the things that are 
most important. I do remember at Fort Sill in my district years 
ago when execute--Iraqi Freedom was being executed, and General 
Mike Maples was commander down there. I went down, and I just 
asked him: What is your number one problem as all these units 
are coming through here.
    And he looked at me, and he said: Teeth.
    I said: What do you mean teeth?
    And he said that a lot of these guys are showing up, and 
they don't have good dental care. And, you know, we got to take 
care of that problem. We can't send them off to combat with 
that, and it is really delaying our ability to deploy these 
soldiers. So it really began to hit home to me how important 
this was in maintaining a ready force. So I would like to you 
tell the subcommittee what we need to do to give you that 
ability.
    General Hokanson. Yes, sir, and you really touched on one 
of my highest priorities. And, obviously, with all of us, we 
couldn't do anything without our people. And when we look at 
what we have asked them to do not only after the last 20 years 
as you have highlighted, but also in the last 2 years related 
to COVID, asking them to literally leave their civilian career 
and immediately step into an environment we were really 
unfamiliar with, we want to make sure what we were getting 
into. But, when we do that, we want to make sure that all of or 
personnel are medically ready. And, in order to do that, we 
have got to ensure that they have got medical care. And, when 
you go back to when a soldier Airmen comes into the National 
Guard, they make a significant commitment on their part--the 
investment in time and effort to go through training. And our 
Nation makes a significant investment in the resources we put 
to train them, not only through basic training but their 
advanced skills prior to getting into their unit.
    And so, for me, we want to really protect that investment 
so that when our guardsmen are needed, they are medically ready 
and there is nothing preventing them or really delaying them 
from getting the medical care that they need. And so any way 
that we can do that to improve that process will make sure that 
every single guardsmen and Reserve soldier, airmen, sailor, and 
Marine has access to medical care and will just make sure our 
medical readiness is that much better.
    And it is not just the medical readiness. When we also look 
at some of the mental health issues, it would give them access 
to care as well. And, you know, we are not sure how big of an 
input that would have, but we think anything and everything we 
can do to provide that care might alleviate some of the 
concerns that we find out later.

                          CYBERSECURITY ISSUES

    Mr. Cole. Let me switch to--well, again, I am very 
supportive of that. And I think this--as a resource question, I 
don't think there is an argument about the merits of doing 
this. It just gets down to how much money we have in the end, 
and, of course, we don't know that at this stage in the game.
    Let me ask you about one other area, if I may. On Thursday 
of last week, your vice came by, and we had a good talk about 
some of the needs in terms of maintaining communications 
ability and cybersecurity and some of the things the Guard 
might need in that respect going forward. And I think, you 
know, we all know--nobody knows more than Dutch Ruppersberger 
about cyber and the disruptions that can happen. If we were to 
lose GPS, or something like that, and not have any backup 
capability, we would be in a world of hurt.
    So, as you wrestle with that problem, what is it that the 
Guard is proposing and suggesting that we take a look at? And 
how long a period do you think it would take us to actually get 
a system like that up and running?
    General Hokanson. Yes, sir, and so, when we look at that, 
when we look at the nonfederalized mission of the National 
Guard, something that is really important to that is our 
critical infrastructure. And, as you highlight, the key is when 
we talk about precision navigation and timing, which is 
primarily through GPS signals, if we have a backup or an 
alternate system that can potentially fall into place if that 
is ever compromised, it would ensure that really our first 
responders still have that capability to communicate and get to 
where they need to go, and also it would help many of our 
critical infrastructure maintain their abilities. And so, when 
we look at that, we currently set up three of those locations. 
There is a plan over the next 3 to 4 years, if properly 
resourced, not only with the equipment itself but also the 
sustainment, where the National Guard could provide that 
capability to our Nation in a nonfederalized status.
    Mr. Cole. Well, again, I would hope the subcommittee looks 
at that seriously, Mr. Chairman. It actually fits with a lot of 
the concerns that you have expressed in a variety of ways. I 
think it is an excellent, excellent proposal.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Mr. Ruppersberger [presiding]. Mr. Kilmer.

                         REFUELING CAPABILITIES

    Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Chairman, and thanks for being with 
us.
    General Hokanson, there have been several recent reports by 
leading think tanks outlining the need for increased air 
refueling capabilities. And without this refueling capacity, 
experts think the Air Force would struggle in a conflict 
against adversaries like Russia and China.
    Despite that acute need, the Air Force still operates 
several Air National Guard units as classic associate units 
without assigned KC-135s, including the 141st Air Refueling 
Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base on other side of my State in 
Spokane. So, as the Air Force brings more KC-46s into service, 
could we explore realigning KC-135s to the Air National Guard 
units like the 141st to fill this refueling capacity gap? And 
maybe if you could just speak to how would this increased 
capability assist our global refueling mission?
     General Hokanson. Yes, sir, and thank you.
    And, when we look at the total tanker fleet--I know this is 
really important not only to TRANSCOM but Strategic Command as 
well and the Air Force--and, as highlighted earlier by General 
Scobee, our ability to project power is really one of the great 
advantages that the United States military has.
    And so we are going to need to maintain the right 
capability and capacity when it comes to aerial refuelers. And, 
for us, it is finding that balance as we field the new KC-46, 
but also retaining enough of the KC-135s so that we can meet 
all of those requirements. And so we will continue to advocate 
for each of our flying squadrons within the Air National Guard 
to maintain the capability and capacity our Nation needs, 
whether that is in the KC-135 or hopefully in the KC-46 or 
potentially the next generation of aerial tanker.
    Now--but the key there is, when we look at that, is to make 
sure that we have the ability to sustain and operate and 
maintain those aircraft. So, anytime we reallocate them, we 
just have to make sure we have the appropriate funding 
associated with it.

                        CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

    Mr. Kilmer. I appreciate that.
    I also want to just touch briefly on--I know Congressman 
Cole and Chair Ruppersberger raised issues related to cyber. 
You know, obviously there is concern in most of our communities 
around just attacks on critical infrastructure, whether it be 
power grids or energy pipelines or water utilities, which could 
really cripple access to some of the necessities that we rely 
on, whether it be electricity or water.
    In our neck of the woods, we have the 252nd Cyber 
Operations Group. I know there are several units that are 
focused on countering these sorts of cyber threats and with a 
particular focus on safeguarding critical infrastructure.
    Any direction to us? Anything Congress can do to support 
the National Guard in carrying out and potentially expanding 
that type of important mission of safeguarding our critical 
infrastructure?
    General Hokanson. Well, sir, that is a great question.
    And, when we look at the importance of our critical 
infrastructure and really the resilience of it, I think the 
continued investment in cyber forces in the National Guard is 
really important to our Nation, for a multitude of reasons. 
Obviously, under title X, in support of CYBERCOM and NORTHCOM 
to defend really all of our assets, but then one area that we 
often overlook, which we have really tried to emphasize lately, 
is our State partners.
    Many of them ask for additional cyber help as well to help 
defend that--their networks and to help make their critical 
infrastructure more resilient. And then, if you bring that even 
here closer to home where, if we have this capability in the 
National Guard, not only can they do their State partnership 
and their Federal mission, but they also, in a State Active 
Duty status, can help mitigate some of the cyber attacks that 
we see on our school districts and counties and other State 
locations.
    And one thing we did earlier this year is I actually 
reached out to all of our adjutants general to have them 
identify the 10 most critical infrastructures within their 
State that we really needed to focus our resiliency on. And, in 
many cases, those are cyber-related work that they can do to 
help, you know, basically get with those agencies or 
organizations to test the vulnerability of their systems to 
make sure that they are resilient because, in that way, we can 
hopefully deny what any adversary might want to do to impact 
our--basically our homeland.
    Mr. Kilmer. Thanks very much.
    I don't have enough time for--to get another question in, 
so I yield back. Thank you, Chairman.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay.
    Mr. Carter from Texas.

                         MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS

    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And, General Hokanson, we have heard a lot about Army 
modernization efforts over the past 2, 3 years. Good news is, 
according to the Chief of Staff of the Army, 24 of the Army's 
signature modernization programs will be in the hands of 
soldiers in 2023.
    Does that include the Army National Guard? Which of the 
Army signature modernization programs would have the greatest 
impact on the Guard, and do you believe that the Guard has been 
given sufficient opportunity to provide input into the 
acquirement process of Army modernization?
    General Hokanson. And, sir, thank you for that question.
    And, when we looked at Army Futures Command, which is there 
in Austin, we have 20 guardsmen that are there full time to 
help make sure that the Guard is part of that conversation. 
And, when we look at the modernization process, I have got an 
extremely good relationship with General McConville and the 
Secretary of the Army, and they have included the National 
Guard in all of those modernization plans.
    And, when you talk about specific systems, I would say 
three to highlight is future vertical lift--I know, whenever 
that decision is made, the National Guard will be part of that 
initial fielding of some of the first units out there. We are 
also working very closely with the multidomain task forces so 
that, once that is developed, that the National Guard will be 
included to develop one of those units as well.
    And then, also, when we look at the eight National Guard 
divisions--obviously the 36th is there in Texas--is to make 
sure that they are modernized so that they look exactly like 
their Active Duty--you know, their Active Duty counterparts so, 
if they are ever needed, they would basically almost be a one-
for-one fill.
    And the bottom line, sir, is, as you know, the National 
Guard has got to look exactly like the Army National Guard and 
the Air National Guard so that we can be utilized whenever our 
Nation needs us.

                            SOUTHERN BORDER

    Mr. Carter. And you have been in many fights hand-in-hand 
with our regular Army and performed in excellent performance. 
We are very, very proud of our National Guard in Texas, and 
that TPAC (ph) means a lot to us.
    Another question that hits the heart of our people in Texas 
is the role of the National Guard on the border. Now, would you 
like to make a comment about what you have seen in support of 
our border operations and what you see that we could do from 
the experience of our guardsmen to make it better?
    I, for one, know it is a big political issue to send the 
Guard, but I believe they are capable better than probably most 
anybody down there except maybe the Border Patrol. And I want 
you to--I would love to see you be given strength in your 
performance on the border.
    Would you like to comment?
    General Hokanson. Yes, sir.
    So, when you look at the National Guard support on the 
border right now, we have got about 2,400 guardsmen under title 
X working for U.S. Northern Command. And that mission is 
scheduled to end in the first of October, but we know DHS has 
put in a request to go beyond that.
    We are in the phase right now of negotiating what that 
force structure will look like and what mission sets that they 
will be asked to provide.
    Right now, they provide a lot of surveillance. They also 
provide aviation support and logistic support to CBP along the 
border.
    Now, we also have Operation Lonestar, which I would really 
have to defer to the State of Texas for those personnel that 
are working under command and control of the Governor of Texas 
there.
    But, when we look at long term, sir, I think this is a--
really a CBP mission, and I know the Guard is there to help 
fill in the gap. But I think there may be some technical or 
technological solutions to help there that would reduce the 
manpower request or potentially hire more law enforcement to be 
there.
    But, obviously, until we get to that point, the Guard will 
be there to support in any way that we can.
    Mr. Carter. Well, it is imperative--homeland security is an 
issue, but the thing we have to worry about is the overflow 
that is causing us to shut down our operational people at the 
border, and it is only going to get worse.
    Thank you for the Guard's participation. Operation 
Lonestar, we are very proud of it. And you guys are back--you 
have got our backs, and we appreciate it.
    I forgot to yield back.
    General Hokanson. Thank you, sir.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Now, Congresswoman Cheri Bustos from the 
State of Illinois and a graduate from the University of 
Maryland.

                          CAPACITY CHALLENGES

    Mrs. Bustos. Thank you to my fellow Terp, Congressman 
Ruppersberger. I appreciate that.
    General Hokanson, thanks for your service and your 
leadership. I am going to direct my questions to you.
    Thank you to the other panelists also for your service. We 
greatly appreciate it.
    General Hokanson, since the start of the Russian invasion, 
I am going to focus a little bit--I will be parochial here, but 
the Illinois National Guard has provided hundreds of thousands 
of dollars in literally tons of critical medical supplies, 
ambulance support, humanitarian goods for the people of 
Ukraine. And the Illinois Guard has also continued to maintain 
a three-decade-old State partnership program and security 
cooperation with Poland, which really has--we have seen that 
has proven to be critical to global security today.
    General, I wanted to get your perspective on the capacity 
challenges the National Guard may be facing with everything 
that they are being asked to do, responding to COVID-19 or 
domestic disaster response, the crisis in Ukraine, just, you 
know, to name a few. But how is the National Guard holding up? 
Are there any missions that have had to be put on hold to 
handle these high-priority cases? If you can kind of just give 
us a lay of the land.
    General Hokanson. Yes, ma'am, and thank you. And that is a 
very, very important question.
    When we look at our guardsmen and their ability and, 
frankly, all Reservists, to balance their civilian career and 
their military career and their family, and we have asked a lot 
of them, not only over the past 20 years, but especially over 
the last 2 years--and obviously the crisis in Ukraine is also 
even bringing that more to light--and fortunately what I am 
finding is, everywhere I go, everybody said: Look, we love what 
we are doing.
    And we have historically high retention rates, and so our 
guardsmen--you know, they are voting by staying in, that they 
like their ability to not only help out in their communities 
but help out internationally and to deploy. And, when you look 
at all that we have asked our guardsmen to do over the last 2 
years, particularly related to COVID, civil disturbances, and 
deployments, there is not a single mission that we missed.
    And, when a certain case--State needed additional capacity, 
other States volunteered, or through the emergency management 
assistance compact, they came to their help for anything that 
they needed.
    And so, when I look at that, I think we are in a really 
good spot.
    Now, there are certain areas where we really have to rely 
on our first-level leaders to work with their soldiers and 
airmen and their families to find that right balance for those 
that may be in a critical area. But I think we have been able 
to balance that really well.
    And a lot of that goes back to the funding that we receive. 
And, really, the expectation of our guardsmen when they come in 
today, they expect to deploy. They expect to help out in their 
communities. And we have been very fortunate that our employers 
support that as well.
    So we do keep a close pulse on it, ma'am, and thank you for 
asking. But, you know, we are still in a really good place 
right now.

                          CONTINUED INVESTMENT

    Mrs. Bustos. Thank you, General.
    And, obviously, as you have talked about in your opening 
statements with your mantra, always ready, always there, this 
is all playing out.
    You know how important--I am going to switch gears a little 
bit, but you know how important the 182nd Airlift Wing in 
Peoria, Illinois, is to your overall operation, and obviously 
to us here in Illinois, to we here in Illinois. But, you know, 
they have consistently maintained the highest mission 
capability rate in the Air National Guard, and the C-130 
community has been recognized for winning their tenth 
outstanding unit award. So we are very, very proud of that.
    You know, thanks to you, to General Brown, to General 
Scobee, we have made significant progress to keep our C-130 
units going. And, as they continue to face the challenges and 
the need for continued investments in modernization, if you 
could weigh in first--and, if we have time, General Scobee can 
also maybe weigh in on this, but how does the Guard plan to 
address this in the coming years, the challenges and the need 
for continued investment in modernization?
    General Hokanson. Yes, ma'am.
    And, when you look at our C-130 Fleet, as we have seen 
every year, not only internationally but domestically, the 
importance of that capability to provide airlift into almost 
any environment is something that we absolutely have to retain. 
And so, when we look at the C-130Js, obviously that is where we 
would like to get to eventually, but between now and then, 
everything we can do to upgrade our H models with the newer 
engines, the intercontrol fuel system, the mission package in, 
as well as the propellers, things like that, we look to extend 
the life of the current airframes out to 2040, which gives us 
more time to replace those H models with J models.
    But, also, it is really trying to find that balance as we 
modernize our fighter fleet as well with only a set number of 
resources, trying to make--put our investments where they are 
the most critical. But, in this case, we want to retain that 
capability any way that we can and make sure that it is 
modernized and relevant.
    Mrs. Bustos. General Scobee, we can maybe follow up 
offline, because my time has expired, and I don't want to hold 
my colleagues up.
    With that, I yield back, Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you so 
much.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. We are going to check with staff right 
now on availability of witnesses for a second round, so after 
Ms. Kirkpatrick asks her questions, we will then make a 
decision whether we have a second round.
    Okay. Ms. Kirkpatrick.

                        162ND AIR NATIONAL GUARD

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. And thank you for having this 
hearing. I really appreciate it.
    General Hokanson, the 162nd Air National Guard Wing at 
Morris Air National Guard Base in Tucson is a vital part of our 
community here. The base is home to multiple F-16 squadrons, 
and, last year, we began hearing about potential plans to shut 
down a training squadron at the base.
    I am concerned about this, because they provide training 
not only to U.S. pilots but to allies and partner nations. 
These international partners pay the Air Force for the training 
and structures and use of the aircraft. The training squadron 
pays for itself while improving our relationships around the 
world.
    While it sounds like this plan may have been part of a 
budgeting drill, I want to stress the unique mission set of the 
training squadron at the 162nd and ensure the National Guard 
and Air Force are properly accounting for the broader impact of 
the decision this would have.
    General Hokanson, can you comment on the importance of 
these international partnerships and how our support makes our 
own homeland safer?
    General Hokanson. Yes, ma'am.
    And, to go back to my earlier comment about the fact we 
have 25 fighter squadrons in the Air National Guard, and I 
think our Nation really needs that capability and capacity to 
continue all 25 of our fighter squadrons. And, as you 
highlight, the training that goes with our allies and partners 
there in Tucson is really important, particularly as a lot of 
those countries that we try to get to buy U.S. equipment so we 
are interoperable on the battlefield, and I know a lot of 
countries are buying the F-16s.
    And so, to me, we will work very closely with the Air 
Force. I know it is an Air Force decision, but we will continue 
to advocate for really the capability and capacity they provide 
but also the importance to our allies and partners, as a lot of 
those look at where they are purchasing their future military 
material and that the U.S. and the F-16 is a very important 
option to each and every one of them.

                 THE INTELLIGENCE CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I really appreciate your 
answer.
    My next question is for Lieutenant General Daniels.
    My district is home to Fort Huachuca and the Army 
Intelligence Center of Excellence. The Intelligence Center of 
Excellence plays a critical role in providing training to our 
military intelligence professionals and also has a significant 
positive impact locally, recently celebrating its 50th 
anniversary at the fort.
    Lieutenant General Daniels, can you discuss the Army 
Reserve's intelligence capabilities within the total Army and 
the essential role it has in the United States' domestic and 
global security operations?
    General Daniels. So thank you very much for that question.
    The Army Reserve's intelligence capabilities are linked in 
very tightly with our inter community partners, as well as our 
Active Duty counterparts. We have a number of different units 
that aligned with our Active Duty counterparts and work with 
them on a regular basis around all of our geographic combatant 
commands. There is an incredible relationship between them. 
They have a long history of working well together and mastering 
their skills together, going to war together.
    So we have a really strong relationship with the Active 
Component as well as the intelligence community, supporting all 
of the different agencies with lots of strategic intelligence 
capability. It is rather robust.
    And, in fact, we have some folks that are currently doing 
mission in support of the Ukraine effort right now that have 
sort of turned from what they were doing and are assisting on 
that effort. We have got quite a few folks. We have got about 
113 personnel right now who are helping out in a part-time 
capacity and, in some cases, full-time activations to help out 
with that mission.
    Thank you.
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much.
    My time is almost up, so I am going to yield back. Thank 
you.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. We are going to go to a second 
round, 3-minute per question. I will start, and then with Mr. 
Calvert, and we will go down the line.
    Okay. General----
    Mr. Ryan. Excuse me. Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes. Oh, yes. You just came in.
    Mr. Ryan. I did.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. Mr. Ryan.

                         SPECIAL MISSION UNITS

    Mr. Ryan. Yes, I have a question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
Sorry.
    I appreciate the opportunity. I just have a question I want 
to ask General Scobee. As you know, General, Youngstown Air 
Reserve Station maintains the 910th Air Wing, which we have 
talked about a number of times over the years. And let me just 
say first thank you for your service to the country. You are 
one of my absolute favorites over my 20 years here in Congress 
that I have had to work with, and so you are going to be 
missed.
    But you know we have talked about the aerial spray mission, 
and I want to thank you for your support in recognizing the 
importance of the Reserve Special Mission Units and your 
steadfast support in seeking to get new C-130J models to these 
units that need them.
    I am also grateful to Chair McCollum and her staff for 
their diligence and understanding throughout the few years that 
we have been working on this to help these units upgrade from 
the H models to the J models.
    But I did want to note a couple of things as the Air Force 
and the Reserve work together to finish the basing study that 
will ultimately determine where these planes go.
    Firstly, the subcommittee has twice passed report language 
to the Air Force Reserve that was written with DC-130Js in 
mind. Both the fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 2017 HAC-D 
reports state, in nearly identical language, quote: The Air 
Force Reserve includes units that have a designated specialized 
mission, and--as well as a traditional tactical mission, and 
the committee encourages the chief of the Air Force Reserve to 
review the requirements to ensure that specialized units are 
allocated equipment, upgrades necessary to address safety 
concern associated with these missions, and of course--end 
quote.
    And of course you yourself have repeatedly stated to the 
subcommittee that this is your intention to base any C-130Js at 
one of the specialty mission units.
    So point number two is, quickly, under the prior 
administration, this basing study was already delayed once. It 
was put on hold after site visits had already been completed at 
the aerial spray unit in Youngstown and the firefighting unit, 
Peterson, Colorado.
    So I want to express my strong desire for the Air Force to 
use the work that has already been done and been completed and 
finish this basing study in the most expeditious manner 
possible.
    General Scobee, can you continue to advocate for this on 
behalf of YAR (ph) so that the Air Force completes a basing 
study adhering to the standards laid out by this subcommittee 
and executes the study as expeditiously as possible so that our 
pilots are not forced to fly older, less safe aircraft any 
longer than they have to?
    General Scobee. Yes. Congressman Ryan, thanks for that--the 
introduction to what we are talking about. You absolutely have 
my commitment to do that and spent time with the Secretary of 
the Air Force talking about the same.
    Our special missions, as you know, are so important to what 
we do in the Air Force Reserve. These are missions that 
uniquely are designed to protect what is most dearest to that, 
and that is the American people. Whether it is fire, whether it 
is spray, they become incredibly important.
    And so I am committed to make sure that the work that we 
have done in the past informs decisions as we go forward. It 
has always been my intent to, you know, prioritize those 
special missions as we go forward.
    Now, I would expect in June or early July that we will 
start moving down this process in an expeditious manner, and 
you have my--you have my confirmation that we are going to work 
with the Air Force and the Secretary to ensure that happens.
    Mr. Ryan. Great. Thank you, General.
    Again, thank you for your service, and we appreciate you. 
And hopefully we can catch up here before you move on, but 
thank you.
    And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
    General Scobee. Thank you, Congressman.

            RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION OF CYBER PROFESSIONALS

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. We are going to go to the second 
round now, 3 minutes, and I am going to start.
    General Daniels, as Secretary Wormuth and General 
McConville mentioned in our Army hearing last week, there will 
continue to be a huge demand for cybersecurity professionals in 
the Army of the future. Clearly the Army Reserves will continue 
to be a huge attraction for many who work in the private sector 
but want to contribute to the national mission set.
    Can you talk about your current recruitment and retention 
of cyber professionals and how the adjustments in end strength 
will affect the Reserves?
    Additionally, can you provide the subcommittee some 
insights on the contributions in the cyber domain on your 
Reserve soldiers?
    General Daniels. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes.
    General Daniels. The Army Reserve is doing incredibly well 
in terms of building up our cyber protection teams. We 
represent about 25 percent of the Total Army Force in terms of 
cyber protection and cyber capabilities. We have 10 teams, of 
which--they are authorized. Six are already at full operational 
capability, but the other four are going to be fielded ahead of 
schedule. So we are not having too much challenge to recruiting 
on that front.
    And, in fact, we are looking at, in fact, building out an 
additional Army Reserve Cyber Brigade. That is something that 
they are looking for a future of force structure. We are having 
discussions about whether--and where the timing of that and how 
we do it so that we don't build it all in one shot but we sort 
of--so we can get folks through the training pipeline in a 
rational manner.
    We are, just like the National Guard, looking at those 
folks who are transitioning off of Active Duty and whether or 
not they would like to continue doing that great cyber mission 
in the Reserve as well as holding down their civilian 
positions. So we have had some good success on that front.
    And then the Army is also commencing with some JROTC cyber-
focused pilot schools to additionally gain propensity for 
military service, as well as the cyber career field.
    So that has just kicked off recently, and we will continue 
to look into that and how we can leverage those personnel in 
future years.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. And we don't have a lot of 
time, 52 seconds, but would any of the other Reserve chiefs, 
Admiral Mustin, Generals Bellon and Scobee, would like to add 
to those comments?
    Admiral Mustin. I will jump in and just say that I echo the 
sentiments of General Hokanson and Lieutenant General Daniels. 
You know, we continue to seek cyber expertise both in and out 
of uniform, and we recognize that the significant training that 
has gone into our Active Duty sailors is a tremendous benefit 
to the Reserve community.
    So having the mechanisms in place for us to create a 
landing spot for them is of utmost importance, and we are 
working with our Navy Recruiting Command specifically to ensure 
that that happens.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you. Finished by the bell. I yield 
back.
    I yield to Mr. Calvert.

                 RECRUITING FOR THE GUARD AND RESERVES

    Mr. Calvert. Okay, Dutch. Thank you. Excuse me. Mr. 
Chairman.
    I was happy that Judge Carter did bring up the border 
issue. Obviously, that is a tremendous challenge to those of us 
in border States, and I want to thank the Guard for the work 
that they have done so far and the work they are going to 
hopefully do in the future to protect the country. And I 
suspect we are going to--may have in the next few days 
significant challenges on the border.
    The issue--the other thing I wanted to bring up, General 
Hokanson, was--and maybe for everyone on this panel--is 
recruitment and retention--do we have a technical problem?
    Anyway, recruitment and retention----
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Hokanson needs to mute.
    General Hokanson. Yes, sir. I am good. Go ahead, sir.
    Mr. Calvert. Are we okay now?
    Mr. Ruppersberger. He is, but go ahead.
    Mr. Calvert. Coming out of this pandemic obviously been a 
lot of stress on the force, and I am wondering, how is our 
recruitment and retention going on--both in the Guard and the 
Reserve for all the people? First to General Hokanson and maybe 
the rest of the panel.
    General Hokanson. Can you hear me okay, sir, this time?
    Are you able to hear me okay?
    Mr. Calvert. Yes. Go ahead.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes. Go ahead.
    General Hokanson. Okay. Great. Thank you.
    So we look at the National Guard and the recruiting across 
the Nation. When we looked at last year, we are very fortunate 
we met our recruiting goals on both the Army--in the Air Guard 
and the Army earlier than we had previously.
    But, as we go forward, we do face many challenges with the 
economic environment. The need for companies to hire employees, 
they are adding a lot of benefits and incentives that they 
previously hadn't that we really relied on, like--such as 
educational benefits. And so it is a tough environment.
    And the other thing we are finding is, having been in a 
COVID environment for 2 years, now we are starting to get back 
to the face-to-face ability to recruit, and some of our 
recruiters actually haven't been in that environment.
    And then, when you add that--the process to get in has 
reduced the number of people that are eligible due to a 
multitude of factors, both physical or background checks and 
things like that. But we are also seeing a lower propensity to 
serve. And so that pool of eligible candidates continues to get 
smaller, and the competition for them becomes greater.
    But we been fortunate. Our recruiters and recruiting teams 
are working really hard to meet their requirement, and the 
summer months are usually our biggest recruiting months, so we 
think probably June, July, we will know how we are looking for 
the end of the year. But we are in a fairly good place right 
now, but we won't know until probably August or September what 
that is going to look like for the year.
    Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
    Mr. Ruppersberger.
    And, by the way, we are having problems with the general's 
communication, but we can hear him, so I think we ought to go--
move forward.
    And Cole? Oh, back to Cole. You are still there, Mr. Cole?
    Mr. Cole. I am indeed, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Good to see you here.

                  THE FUTURE OF THE GUARD AND RESERVES

    Mr. Cole. I am glad to be here.
    I have got a question really for General Scobee. Number 
one, I just want to echo what our colleague from Ohio, Mr. 
Ryan, said. We are going to miss you, General. You have done a 
fantastic job for the country, and just appreciate all the hard 
work.
    And we have talked a little bit about the importance of 
some of the Air Guard's units, everything from fighters to 
tankers to transport. We don't talk very much about Special 
Operations Units. I have one just outside my district, the 
137th Special Operations Unit, MC-12s that do really valuable 
work on our ISRs--our ISR.
    So I am curious as to, number one, how the contribution you 
think those units make, and, two, what sort of future do you 
see for them going forward?
    General Scobee. Hey, Congressman Cole, thanks very much for 
the question.
    Our special operations organization, whether they are Guard 
and Reserve, we work in tandem a lot with--especially with--the 
Air Force's Special Operations Command does. And the three 
components work together to solve those.
    There is a--there is always going to be a place for those 
organizations within our command, and particularly it is 
because these are unique capabilities and unique individuals 
for that matter that have trained to a really high degree. It 
takes a lot of treasure of the U.S., you know, people in order 
to train them, but it is also how do you find special people 
like this.
    And so I will have to dovetail into what General Hokanson 
said. It is really about how we retain those individuals. Once 
we have them in our organization, are we creating that place 
where they can serve to the fullest of their capability? And 
that is what we have been trying do.
    And so, whether it is in rescue, whether it is in special 
missions, MC-12s, or any of our other special operations 
missions that we are in across the entire spectrum of the Air 
Force is doing right now, it is really important that we retain 
that talent.
    Mr. Cole. Well, thank you for that.
    And, again, we wish you well in retirement, and we regret 
losing you.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Mr. Carter if he is here. Mr. Carter? Is 
there a Carter? John Carter?
    Mr. Calvert. Judge left. He had to leave at 1 o'clock.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Oh, he did. Okay.
    I am going to close--turn to you to close, Mr. Calvert.

                    Closing Remarks for Mr. Calvert

    Mr. Calvert. All I want to say, as everyone knows, General 
Scobee, we are going to miss you. It has been great working 
with you over the years, and I am sure you will do wonderful in 
retirement. I hope I see you--see you around. Maybe visit 
California now and then.
    But, with that, Mr. Chairman, I thank the panel and 
appreciate it. And I yield back.

                 Closing Remarks for Mr. Ruppersberger

    Mr. Ruppersberger. I will acknowledge your service and your 
leadership and your competence, and you are going to be a role 
model for those that follow you.
    Secondly, the--all the other witnesses who were here, we 
also respect you and your leadership skills and--as we move 
forward in this very--these very dangerous times. And I thank 
you for coming here today. It was a good hearing, and we 
learned what we need to learn to do our jobs to help support 
you.
    So, unless there is no objection, I close this meeting.
    Adjourned.

                                           Wednesday, May 25, 2022.

                  DEFENSE HEALTH AND MEDICAL READINESS

                               WITNESSES

LIEUTENANT GENERAL R. SCOTT DINGLE, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE U.S. ARMY
REAR ADMIRAL UPPER HALF BRUCE L. GILLINGHAM, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE 
    U.S. NAVY
LIEUTENANT GENERAL ROBERT I. MILLER, SURGEON GENERAL OF THE U.S. AIR 
    FORCE AND U.S. SPACE FORCE
SEILEEN MULLEN, ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR HEALTH 
    AFFAIRS
LIEUTENANT GENERAL RONALD J. PLACE, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE HEALTH AGENCY

                  Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

    Ms. McCollum. This hearing will come to order.
    This is a fully virtual hearing, so I am going to address 
some housekeeping matters.
    For today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by 
the chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not 
under recognition for the purposes of eliminating background 
noise.
    Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves. 
If I notice that you have not unmuted yourself, I will ask you 
if you would like the staff to unmute you, but usually you hear 
me ask that and get yourselves unmuted. If you are still having 
problems, indicate by nodding and the staff will then try to 
unmute your microphone.
    I remind all members and witnesses that the 5-minute clock 
still applies. If there is a technology issue, we will move to 
the next member until the issue is resolved and you will retain 
the balance of your time.
    Please notice that there is a clock on your screen and will 
show how much time is remaining. At 1 minute remaining the 
clock will turn yellow. At 30 seconds remaining I will gently 
tap the gavel to remind members that their time is almost 
expired. When your time has expired the clock will turn red and 
I will begin to recognize the next member.
    In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order set 
forward in the Rules of the House, beginning with the chair and 
the ranking member, then members present at the time the 
hearing is called to order, and then you will be recognized in 
your order of seniority. And finally, members not present at 
the time that the hearing is also called to order will be 
recognized as they appear.
    Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have 
set up an email address to which members can send anything they 
wish to submit in writing to any of our hearings or markups. 
The email address has been provided to your staff in advance.
    Today the subcommittee will receive testimony on the fiscal 
year 2023 defense health appropriations and medical readiness 
budget request.
    We have five witnesses: Ms. Mullen, Acting Secretary of 
Defense for Health Affairs; Lieutenant General Place, Director 
of the Defense Health Agency; Lieutenant General Dingle, 
Surgeon General of the Army; Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, 
Surgeon General of the Navy; and Lieutenant General Miller, 
Surgeon General of the Air Force and Space Force.
    We are looking at some new faces on our distinguished 
panel, and we want to thank you all for appearing here today, 
and we look forward to hearing from each one of you.
    The President's budget request for fiscal year 2023 
continues with significant transformation of our Military 
Health System. As appropriators, we are concerned about what 
some of these reforms will ultimately cost in terms of dollars 
and loss of medical capacity and time. These capabilities, once 
lost, cannot grow back overnight, if they can even return at 
all.
    The Military Health System is unique in its roles and its 
responsibilities. The committee remains focused on ensuring the 
reforms do not prescribe less than optimal military health 
systems for our servicemembers and their families.
    In particular, questions remain on planned reductions to 
military medical manpower and the impact this will have across 
the military healthcare system.
    We understand the difficult balance that the military 
departments are trying to come to terms with. We want to hear 
from the services on planned reductions and the Defense Health 
Agency on plans to mitigate risks to beneficiaries and 
servicemembers.
    The survivability of our servicemembers in future conflicts 
will depend upon how successful our military is in planning, 
programming, and budgeting for the right mix of medical 
military personnel.
    We do not have time to get the solution set wrong. Lives 
depend upon it. We have to get it right and make sure it is 
right the first time.
    We must give thoughtful attention to the potential 
unintended consequences of these reforms, from medical research 
to military readiness and beneficiary care. If the assumptions 
prove wrong and we have already divested the capabilities, it 
could take us decades and billions of dollars to rebuild, and 
in the meantime patient care will suffer.
    On medical research, we understand that the Department is 
preparing a major organizational shift of medical research from 
the Army to the Defense Health Agency starting in fiscal year 
2023. We want to hear more about those plans. We have the 
services' surgeon generals before us to discuss their 
priorities for medical readiness within each of their military 
departments.
    In particular, we will want to hear how mental health is 
being prioritized, especially in light of the tragic suicides 
on the USS George Washington. We must better understand what 
the services are doing to ensure our servicemembers and their 
families have the support that they need to do the 
extraordinary jobs we ask of them.
    The last few years of the COVID pandemic have been 
difficult for our healthcare medical providers, and they have 
strained our military healthcare system.
    I want to thank each of you and the dedicated medical 
personnel that you serve with for deploying community 
vaccination centers across the country in support of FEMA and 
the national response to COVID. Much appreciated from my 
constituents here in Minnesota and I know all across our 
Nation.
    So I am going to ask you to present your summarized 
statements in a moment, but first I would like to recognize our 
distinguished ranking member from a very sunny State. You might 
hear the rain falling behind me in the background.
    But, Mr. Calvert, will you please give us any of your 
opening comments?

                     Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

    Mr. Calvert. Well, thank you, Chair McCollum. And I, quite 
frankly, am envious of your rain. I wish we had some here in 
California.
    And thank you to our distinguished panel for appearing 
before us today.
    The defense health enterprise plays a critical role in 
ensuring the readiness of the force, but as we have seen over 
the last 2 years, it is also an integral part of our Nation's 
crisis response. As such, it is important that we adequately 
resource this important endeavor.
    Unfortunately, the President's fiscal year 2023 budget 
request fails to do that. In fact, it cuts the Defense Health 
Program budget from the fiscal year 2022 enacted levels.
    That cut is even deeper than it appears when you consider 
the discrepancy between the current rate of inflation and the 
estimate used by the Department in building this budget.
    One of the major assumptions in cutting this budget is that 
COVID requirements are, according to the budget request, 
expected to decrease as we transition to COVID becoming 
endemic. I will be interested in hearing more from you about 
this assumption.
    I will also want to hear your views on whether you think 
this budget provides sufficient funds for mental healthcare. As 
you know, the military continues to have an unacceptably high 
rate of suicide.
    Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Russell Smith 
testified to our colleagues recently that it takes Navy sailors 
an average of 5 weeks to get a mental health appointment. That 
is unconscionable, and I will be interested in your views on 
how we can fix that.
    Finally, the Military Health System is undergoing 
significant structural changes and shifts in roles and 
responsibilities between the Defense Health Agency and the 
services. I will be interested in an update on these ongoing 
changes.
    So thank you, and I look forward to your testimony.
    And with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Your full written statements, to the testifiers before us, 
they are going to be placed in the record, and members have had 
copies made available to them. And I would like to leave as 
much time as I have for members to ask questions. So I would 
like to encourage each of you to summarize your statement, to 
be complete, and then be succinct in responding to questions.
    So we would like to start out with Acting Secretary of 
Defense Mullen first.
    We will hear from you first, Ms. Mullen.

                    Summary Statement of Ms. Mullen

    Ms. Mullen. Thank you.
    Chairman McCollum, Ranking Member, distinguished members of 
the subcommittee, I am pleased to represent the Office of the 
Secretary of Defense to discuss the Defense Health Program and 
its contributions to health and medical readiness of the 
Department.
    Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the tragic events 
that occurred in Uvalde yesterday. Two of the victims are being 
treated at Brooke Army Medical Center, and this is a reminder 
of the extraordinary care that the Military Health System can 
provide when called upon, none of which is possible without the 
support of this committee. Our hearts go out to the victims and 
their families.
    In my testimony I outline the major activities unfolding in 
the Military Health System that inform our budget proposal for 
fiscal year 2023, as well as briefly discuss issues affecting 
fiscal year 2022 execution.
    The past year witnessed significant advances in our 
response to the COVID-19 pandemic, both within the Department 
as well the Department's support to civilian authorities. 
Lieutenant General Place will provide further details on our 
COVID response and preparedness for the future.
    The National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2017 
enacted sweeping reforms to the organization and management of 
military medicine. We have made significant progress in 
implementing these reforms. Today, DHA exercises authority, 
direction, and control of all MTFs worldwide.
    This same act directed DOD to restructure or realign MTFs 
as appropriate to support the Department's readiness 
requirements. Restructuring efforts were paused on April 2, 
2020, as a result of the resources required to respond to the 
COVID-19 pandemic. We plan to restart implementation beginning 
in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023 with targeted 
completion by September 2026.
    The Department's mission requirements in supporting our 
national COVID response, however, have adversely affected the 
Defense Health Program budget execution in fiscal year 2022. 
Private sector care costs have increased as military medical 
staff are deployed to support civilian missions, as well as 
other military medical personnel vacancies increased at MTFs.
    At this point in the fiscal year, the DHP private sector 
care projections are still uncertain both due to the trajectory 
of COVID-19 costs and the uncertainty regarding return of 
suppressed non-COVID-19 care.
    Despite these short-term budgetary challenges, the MHS 
continues its decade-long track record in responsibly managing 
healthcare costs, which remain below the national health 
expenditure per capita rate.
    The Department is grateful for the long-term advocacy and 
support from this committee for our military medical research 
program in those areas of most pressing need and relevance to 
today's emerging threats, which include the COVID-19 pandemic.
    In order to prepare for future pandemics, our future budget 
will support pandemic readiness and response in the MHS by 
enhancing capabilities to conduct rapid research and medical 
countermeasure development, such as diagnostics, treatments, 
and vaccines, while strengthening the capability of the 
Department to quickly identify and characterize new variants 
and other emerging biological threats.
    In closing, I want to reaffirm this budget's commitment to 
the Secretary's three priorities: defending the Nation, taking 
care of our people, and succeeding through teamwork. These are 
our no-fail missions.
    Current events outside the Department's control may test 
us. But our force is only as strong as its people. Respect for 
every single person who volunteers to serve this country in the 
Armed Forces and taking care of them and their families is core 
to what we do.
    Thank you for inviting me to speak with you. I look forward 
to answering your questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
                  Summary Statement of General Dingle

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
    We will next hear from Lieutenant General Dingle.
    General Dingle. Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member 
Calvert, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank 
you for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of the Army's 
soldiers, civilians, and their families about the Defense 
Health Program.
    As the 45th Army Surgeon General, my promise to you, our 
soldiers, and family members is that we will remain good 
stewards of the appropriations and we will always be ready to 
answer our Nation's call.
    Our Army's medical force is ready to deploy today, fight 
tonight, and return them to duty tomorrow as we provide world 
class healthcare to over 147,000 forward-deployed U.S. Army 
soldiers around the globe. The Army's ready medical force will 
provide evolving healthcare to meet the demands of the 
warfighter in any operational environment.
    My strategy to provide a trained and ready medical force 
consists of five objectives.
    We will synchronize and integrate the medical effort within 
the Army, the Defense Health Agency, the Joint Staff, and 
combatant commands to ensure responsiveness and relevancy to 
execute the National Defense Strategy.
    We will build readiness through investments in our human 
capital. People are first. We are grateful to Congress for the 
authority to increase health professional officer special pay 
caps. Our healthcare professionals have demonstrated their 
dedication and readiness in response to the global pandemic for 
the last 2 years.
    We must be innovative and judicious to remain competitive 
with national healthcare industries to recruit and retain our 
best professionals.
    We must monitor the impacts of the prolonged pandemic 
response on our healthcare workforce, our soldiers, and family 
members.
    We must also mitigate the suicide and stress issues, for 
they harm our most valuable resources, our people. One suicide 
is too many, and we will continue to combat it at every level.
    We will modernize the medical force. Modernization is 
occurring in near term as Army aviation expands future vertical 
lift and Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft.
    In parallel, we are developing a medical variant. Army 
medicine will not be left behind. We will medically reform. We 
are transforming in accordance with legislation and the 
Department guidelines.
    As demonstrated by the fiscal year 2023 Presidential budget 
request, the Army has completed our program resource transfers 
of more than $22 billion of the DHP and over 32,000 civilians 
to the Defense Health Agency.
    Further, the fiscal year 2023 Presidential budget includes 
transfer of resources for medical research and public health 
organizations to the DHA and DHP.
    Focused on readiness, our regional health commands will be 
renamed medical readiness commands this fall.
    Finally, we will strengthen alliances and partnerships. I 
have reestablished liaison roles in support of our NATO and 
partner medical groups. The cohesion ensures combined forces 
medical readiness in a globally integrated environment.
    In closing, I want to thank the subcommittee for your 
longstanding support to the Army and Army medicine. Our trained 
and ready medical force depends on timely, adequate, 
predictable, and sustainable funding. With your continued 
support, Army medicine, from the foxhole to the fixed facility, 
will, in fact, remain trained and ready. Army medicine is Army 
strong.
    I look forward to the subcommittee's questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
              Summary Statement of Rear Admiral Gillingham

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Rear Admiral Gillingham, would you please go ahead with 
your statement?
    Admiral Gillingham. Thank you.
    Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, members of the 
committee, I am pleased to be with you today to provide an 
update on Navy medicine. On behalf of our mission-ready One 
Navy Medicine Team, please know that we are grateful for your 
support, as well as the trust and confidence you place in us.
    Navy medicine is best described as well-trained people 
working as expeditionary medical experts on optimized 
platforms, demonstrating high reliability performance as 
cohesive teams projecting medical power in support of Naval 
superiority. These priorities guide our deliberate planning, 
resource allocation decisions, and strategic program 
investments.
    Consistent with the Chief of Naval Operation's emphasis on 
``Get Real, Get Better,'' I continue to reinforce that rigorous 
self-assessment and rapid cycle feedback remain important 
considerations of our efforts to objectively evaluate our 
performance and establish high reliability throughout Navy 
medicine.
    In my written statement, I provide you more details about 
our efforts in many key areas. However, in the interest of 
time, I will highlight three significant lines of effort: 
COVID-19, operational capabilities and requirements, and mental 
health.
    In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our highest priority 
remains protecting the health of sailors, marines, and families 
while maintaining readiness and operational effectiveness of 
the Naval forces.
    The most effective and advantageous public health 
preventive measure is vaccination, our biologic body armor. 
Demonstrating personal commitment and unit responsibility, 
sailors and marines have responded with approximately 97 
percent of Active Naval forces fully immunized.
    Throughout the pandemic, Naval personnel have shown 
responsibility, resiliency, and toughness in helping to protect 
their shipmates, installations, and communities from COVID-19. 
And as you mentioned, we also rendered medical assistance to 
our fellow citizens.
    The operational tempo of our response teams over the last 2 
years remained consistently high as we deployed to 28 cities to 
support civilian medical facilities. There is no doubt that 
these efforts made a difference in the lives of our fellow 
citizens while sharpening the skills of our teams, which they 
will use when they deploy outside the United States.
    To this point, Navy's hospital ship USNS Mercy is currently 
deployed in support of Pacific Partnership 2022, the largest 
multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster relief 
preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific.
    We expect a lot of our Navy medical personnel, and we 
recognize that we must provide them with the operational 
capabilities, including responsive and flexible platforms and 
equipment sets, that allow them to execute their demanding 
responsibilities.
    To meet the challenges of providing force health protection 
and saving lives at sea, we are adapting our Naval 
Expeditionary Health Service Support capabilities in alignment 
with the challenges of Distributed Maritime Operations and 
Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations.
    We were grateful to this committee's continuing support of 
our requirements.
    A key priority for us is ensuring our sailors and marines 
have access to the mental health services they need. This 
includes placing more providers forward and embedded in 
operational platforms.
    We currently have 36 percent of our mental health providers 
serving Navy and Marine Corps personnel in operational and 
training commands, effectively positioning the access to care 
where it might be needed most.
    All of us recognize that every death by suicide is a 
tragedy with devastating effects on families, shipmates, and 
commands. Suicide prevention is an all-hands responsibility. It 
requires ongoing work to promote health, build resiliency, and 
develop a sense of community.
    In summary, Navy medicine's center of gravity is our 
commitment to provide expeditionary maritime medical care to 
our forward-deployed Naval and joint forces. The ability to 
quickly deploy in support of crisis response around the world 
makes military medicine unique, but more important, demands 
that we are both operationally relevant and clinically prepared 
to save lives at sea and at shore.
    Again, thank you for your time, and I look forward to your 
questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
                   Summary Statement of General Place

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
    And, Lieutenant General Place, I went out of place--no pun 
intended on your name, I am sure you have had that before--and 
I did not mean to skip over you. Would you please go next?
    General Place. Chair McCollum, thanks. And Ranking Member 
Calvert, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you 
for inviting me today to join Ms. Mullen and the service 
surgeons general to discuss the Defense Health Program. I will 
briefly focus on some of the critical responsibilities of the 
Defense Health Agency.
    The response to the COVID-19 pandemic was one of our top 
priorities vital to the medical readiness of our forces and the 
health and well-being of all Americans. We have conducted over 
6.5 million COVID tests worldwide.
    In February of this year, we also enabled military medical 
treatment facilities to distribute hundreds of thousands of 
over-the-counter antigen tests to eligible beneficiaries at no 
cost.
    The Defense Health Agency is regularly updating our COVID-
19 practice management guidelines--we are currently on version 
No. 8--to provide military clinicians worldwide a single 
document on best practices, the latest evidence, and guidance 
across all clinical specialties.
    The Defense Health Agency led a comprehensive campaign to 
administer COVID-19 vaccines. As of May 18 of this year, the 
Military Health System had administered almost 8.3 million 
doses of COVID-19 vaccines, and more than 1.7 million military 
uniformed personnel have been fully vaccinated.
    Throughout this pandemic, the DOD provided extensive 
support to FEMA for COVID-19 responses that include both mass 
vaccination and healthcare delivery augmentation in communities 
needing additional personnel resources, as you indicated. We 
also delivered medical support to the Departments of State and 
Homeland Security for assisting evacuees in Afghanistan. Our 
medical teams were proud to contribute to this whole-of-
government response for both events.
    In non-COVID activities, the Department continued to 
proceed with the multiyear implementation of our new Electronic 
Health Record, MHS GENESIS.
    Today, MHS GENESIS has been deployed at 53 military medical 
treatment facilities and at more than 1,300 individual 
locations with more than 77,000 Active DOD users. We are 
currently on schedule to complete the deployment by the end of 
calendar year 2023.
    The DHA also manages the TRICARE program. Among the most 
important strategies we will pursue is the development of 
effective TRICARE contracts that deliver high-value, patient-
centric care that integrates military and private sector care.
    T-5 contracts represent the next generation of these 
contracts. The DHA issued the T-5 request for proposals in 2021 
and is now evaluating those proposals, with our intention of 
announcing awards by the end of this calendar year.
    Ms. Mullen noted our current budgetary status for future 
plans. I will add that the Military Health System is not unique 
in year-to-year variability associated with predicting 
healthcare costs. COVID-19 has only exacerbated these 
challenges.
    Nonetheless, we remain vigilant about our medical 
expenditures, and we appreciate that Congress continues to 
grant the Department carryover authority, allowing the DOD to 
maintain better funding flows to minimize disruption of 
healthcare services to our beneficiaries.
    Again, I am grateful for the opportunity to represent the 
men and women of the Defense Health Agency, and I thank you for 
inviting me to speak with you today, and I look forward to your 
questions.

             Summary Statement of Lieutenant General Miller

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much.
    Lieutenant General Miller, if you would wrap this up for us 
and then we will start with questions. Thank you so much for 
being here.
    General Miller. Thank you, ma'am.
    Good morning, Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to 
appear before you today as the Surgeon General of the Air Force 
and Space Force to discuss the Air Force Medical Service and my 
vision and priorities. I appreciate the committee's 
longstanding support to the AFMS and the Department.
    I want to take the opportunity to recognize and thank the 
outstanding professionals of the Air Force Medical Service. 
Since its creation in 1949, the AFMS has provided leadership in 
aerospace medicine developments, aeromedical evacuation 
capabilities, emerging military operations, and, recently, U.S. 
COVID-19 response efforts. The AFMS team has and will continue 
to serve the Nation as we fly, fight, and win.
    The Air and Space Forces are inextricably linked in defense 
of our Nation. AFMS provides ready medics to ensure airmen and 
guardians are medically ready to defend the Nation. In the past 
year, we faced unprecedented challenges, from responding to the 
COVID-19 pandemic to finalizing the transition of Air Force 
military medical treatment facilities to the Defense Health 
Agency.
    Currently, more than 80 percent of uniformed AFMS medics 
work and train in military medical facilities, which serve as 
one of our key readiness training platforms.
    The AFMS, more than ever, must be bold, resilient, and, 
above all else, ready for a fight tonight, tomorrow, and 
beyond. Our vision is to ensure we are the world's elite 
medical service in air and space.
    The reality we know is the future fight will not be like 
what we have seen in the past. We need your support to evolve 
now to modernize our key readiness capabilities, properly equip 
our medics, and ensure the Air Force and Space Force remain 
ready fighting forces.
    In future conflicts, we cannot assume we will have the 
upper hand. Advances in our understanding of human biology, 
digitization, communications, and artificial intelligence will 
enable Air Force medics to accelerate change and win.
    Included in this testimony is the AFMS Strategy Map. I will 
briefly outline my priorities.
    First, generate high-performing airmen and guardians by 
prioritizing training, maximizing medical availability, and 
optimizing human performance.
    Second, enhance joint and combatant commander capabilities 
by increasing the agility of patient movement, improving the 
medical supply chain, and increasing global health engagements.
    And third, maximize human capital and strategic resources 
by breaking down barriers of inequity, incorporating policies 
focused on diversity and inclusion, and equipping airmen to 
evolve for tomorrow's fight.
    The AFMS is reimagining the design and future of our 
readiness capabilities, such as Aeromedical Evacuation and 
Critical Care Air Transport Teams. We are exploring and 
challenging our previous decisions about the size and types of 
clinical teams and how to best train and sustain their skills. 
We are actively evaluating how our medics can remain agile and 
leverage technology to provide trusted care anytime, anywhere.
    To respect the committee's time, I have submitted my 
remaining comments into the written record. Thank you for this 
opportunity and your continued support, and I look forward to 
answering your questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
                      MILITARY MEDICAL REFORM ACT

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much, Lieutenant General Miller.
    I want to thank all of you for your testimony. But before 
we go to questions, I would just--I don't know who is doing 
your technical. On a few occasions the mike has cut in and out, 
so that might be something on your side you want to take a look 
with your microphone.
    And, members, if when you are asking a question or 
something like that you don't hear everything because of it 
cutting in and out, please let us know. We will make sure you 
get everything you want on the record.
    We will now begin questions, and I am going to direct my 
questions to specific witnesses, and I would encourage my 
colleagues to do the same who they want to hear from.
    An order of recognition is now being placed in the Zoom 
chat. Hopefully it matches what I have been emailed and members 
should know their place in line. Right now I am going to 
recognize myself for the first question.
    When the Military Medical Reform Act was introduced in 2017 
in the National Defense Reauthorization Act, there were 
assumptions that were made about efficiencies and future cost 
savings that would be gained. These assumptions also were made 
about what the private sector was going to be able to do.
    The Department, with the rest of our country, has seen the 
private sector medical costs continue to grow, and we are also 
seeing a shortage of medical expertise in some areas. The 
pandemic exposed weaknesses in the private sector capacity. And 
we have concerns that some of these reforms are going to be too 
far in the way--in the direction that they are going.
    So my first question is going to be on the cost savings.
    So, Ms. Mullen, what is the basic line that the Department 
is using of point of comparison to determine how reforms impact 
both the bottom line of the Defense Health Program?
    So essentially, 5 or 10 years from now, how do we look back 
on this effort, and how do we actually measure cost savings so 
that we have a common understanding at what point in time will 
we be using to measure--for a measuring stick, and cost savings 
also, with not having quality be deterred in any way but maybe 
even quality enhanced with these cost savings?
    My second question is on the analysis that has been done to 
inform the Department's implementation of these reforms. For 
example, the 619 report was submitted to Congress last August. 
It was detailed in the descriptions of manpower reductions that 
the services wanted to take, but gave very little in assurances 
that beneficiary care would not be adversely impacted.
    So as you can see, I am not only interested in what we were 
going to maybe see for cost savings, but quality and timeliness 
of care for our beneficiaries and the survivability of our men 
and women in conflict as well.
    So we need to be thinking ahead about our public medical 
system and mental health system 5 or 10 years from now. We know 
that there is a shortage of providers. Our public health system 
relies on practitioners being produced by the medical health 
system.
    So, General Place or Ms. Mullen, can you describe the 
consultations that are going on with the American Medical 
Association on their gaps in our public health system?
    Ms. Mullen. Thank you for the question. A lot of that was 
cutting in and out, so I will try to attempt to answer the 
questions I believe that you asked.
    Ms. McCollum. Okay.
    Ms. Mullen. I believe the first part was about the budget.
    As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the last 10 years the 
budget has grown at a lower rate than NHE. And in fiscal year 
2022, COVID-19 costs have tracked about $669 million through 
March and projecting about $1.9 billion for fiscal year 2022, 
which includes deployment support for FEMA.
    Fiscal year 2023 budget, it is going to be lower for the 
COVID projected costs, and that is going to be--and that does 
include testing, surveillance, variant identification, and PPE.
    As for the medical manpower reductions, as you know, we are 
in a current congressionally mandated pause on those, on the 
cuts. The military medical manpower cuts are clearly of concern 
to Chairman Milley, and the military departments are 
responsible for sizing and we respond to those requirements. We 
plan on backfilling those cuts with civilians, our Managed Care 
Support Contract Network partners, and contracting staff.
    I think that gets to the bulk of your question, but I am 
not quite certain.

                   SHORTAGE OF MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS

    Ms. McCollum. Well, it does, but it still doesn't answer 
it. So are you really looking--bottom line, are you really 
looking at the shortage of certain medical professions in the 
private sector, and in some of the areas particularly where 
some of the beneficiaries would be receiving their care? 
Because if we are taking from the private sector, we are only 
making the private sector worse and then creating an even 
bigger problem for some of our beneficiaries.
    And I know Mr. Kilmer is going to have some follow-up on 
this. He is our bird dog on this.
    So I just want to know, what are you looking at? How are 
you doing this? Are you talking to the medical association, the 
nurses association, PAs, occupational therapists, the whole 
gamut? What has been the dialogue you have been having, and how 
are you tracking this regionally?
    Ms. Mullen. Regarding the recruiting and retention of 
military mental health providers, we are working on a 
behavioral health staffing model to match supply with demand, 
which we believe will be finalized this summer. We intend to 
implement a pilot this fall, in 2022, to synchronize effort 
with the military assignment cycle.
    We are adding psychiatric PAs, nurse practitioners, 
licensed mental health counselors, professional counselors, 
family and marriage therapists. And we will also significantly 
increase our telebehavioral health, including 63,500 visits 
this year.
    We are also trying to lower the referral and approvals of 
TRICARE barriers. And as you know, while there are shortages in 
certain areas, we are tackling them, and we understand that 
this will not be an easy or a quick fix.
    Ms. McCollum. I thank you for that. I think I am going to 
be submitting some more detailed questions on that for the 
record and not taking up any more of my colleagues' time.
    Mr. Calvert.

                           MENTAL HEALTHCARE

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Chair.
    The chair brought up mental health, Ms. Mullen, and I would 
like to ask a question both to you and to the Lieutenant 
General. Either of you, please feel free to respond to this.
    As noted in my remarks, we have a problem with suicide in 
the military. One of the ways we can try to remedy that is 
through access to mental healthcare. But the wait times for 
appointments have been way too long. As you know, the TRICARE 
``see you in 28 days'' is just too high.
    As you prepare the requirements for the new TRICARE 
contract that is due out this fall, are you considering 
reducing the maximum mental healthcare access wait times below 
the 28 days in the current contract?
    And the other service generals could also answer that 
question.
    Ms. Mullen. I will start first and then I will turn it to 
General Place.
    As the Secretary has said, one death by suicide is one too 
many. The Department is taking a comprehensive public health 
approach to suicide prevention. As I have mentioned, not only 
have we increased telehealth, we have also increased 
screenings, and we are working closely with the VA in 
developing clinical guidelines.
    As you know, most MTFs actually do meet the care standards. 
However, each month one or two MTFs are out of compliance. But 
the average across the system is 13 days for an initial and 18 
days to a follow-up, with cases requiring immediate care being 
seen absolutely immediately.
    The managed care support contract requirements are not 
something that I am familiar with in the T-5 right now.
    Ms. McCollum. General.
    General Place. Yes, sir, if I could.
    You mentioned the standard. The standard for behavioral 
health is as a specialty care. That is based in conversation 
with subject matter experts in the civilian community.
    As Ms. Mullen already indicated, in general the timeline, 
the average timeline varies somewhere between 11 and 13 days 
for an initial behavioral health evaluation, and then follow-on 
appointments are based on the individual person, the care 
requirements of them.
    The variability is certainly there, in particular in some 
of our remote locations. In order to address that, we are 
leveraging all kinds of capabilities, to include telebehavioral 
health and seeking significant investments both from our own 
facilities as well as contracting with other behavioral health 
facilities that offer telebehavioral health, both for our 
servicemembers and their families here in the United States, as 
well as those in OCONUS locations that it may be more difficult 
to find behavioral health capability.
    General Dingle. Then, Representative Calvert, one thing 
that I would add is, in the Army we are also working in 
conjunction with the DHA.
    To those locations where it is hard to hire in those remote 
areas, I am leveraging and shifting uniformed personnel to go 
to those locations to fill those gaps to help with the workload 
in those areas. And we will continue to work with DHA to surge 
COMPO 2, COMPO 3, and Active-Duty uniformed personnel to assist 
with the behavioral health workloads also.
    General Miller. And, Ranking Member Calvert, from the Air 
Force standpoint, we appreciate that really two key ways to 
increase access is filling in manpower where there are gaps.
    So we are working with the DHA to consider privileging of 
specialists such as licensed professional counselors, licensed 
marriage family therapists, if we are having challenges finding 
psychologists, social workers, or other mental health workers 
in certain locations that might be a little more remote.
    Another way to address access is something we call a 
targeted care model where we are looking at ensuring that 
patients are getting to the right care at the right time.
    And the question is, does everyone need to be seen at the 
MTF and mental health, or through a triage process would some 
be better served in other means, working through chaplains, 
working through marriage family life counselors, in addition to 
the potential for group appointments?
    It is a pilot that has been ongoing. It has been very 
successful and has increased access for those patients in 
highest need that need to get to mental health, and that will 
continue within the AFMS.
    Admiral Gillingham. Yes. And, Ranking Member Calvert, I 
would just add, like all of my colleagues, we also focus on the 
prevention side.
    So beginning in boot camp, all of our recruits are taught 
stress reduction or meditation techniques. We are teaching the 
junior leaders, the enlisted personnel, as well as the chief's 
mess and the line officers, how to identify those at risk so 
that we can get them to care.
    But really building on the CNO's Culture of Excellence 
initiative to really try to develop toughness and resilience at 
the front end.
    Mr. Calvert. Well, this obviously is a concern to all of 
us. We see a rise for a number of reasons, and not just in the 
military, throughout our society, I think, in mental illness 
and dealing with suicide.
    So I hope that all of you focus on that and try to 
potentially bring us some solutions. If we can help fund that 
in any way, I am certain it will be a priority both to myself 
and to the chairman.
    Thank you. Yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. Well said.
    And could you please provide us the standard for licensing? 
I worked on this issue for licensing, especially for family and 
marriage counseling, and it is different in different States, 
and we should be going for the highest standard and not just 
what a State standard is on there.
    So if you could get to me your mental health standards. I 
know we train our chaplains well, but States, as you are very 
aware, could be very different. So if you could get it to the 
committee, I think the ranking member and I want to make sure 
that our people are getting the very best--the very best--when 
it comes to counseling.
    Ms. Mullen. We are happy to provide that.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Next we will hear from Mr. Ruppersberger and then Mr. 
Carter.

                              TRAUMA CARE

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
    First, I want to thank each of you for being here. I look 
forward to your testimonies today and how the DOD plans to 
better mental health services and medical readiness for our 
military servicemembers.
    I tell this story frequently, but since it is so important 
to why I ran for and continue to run for office, I thought I 
would let the panel know about the importance of trauma care 
and trauma research.
    My life was saved at the University of Maryland Shock 
Trauma, considered one of the top trauma centers in the world. 
I have personally had Army leaders from General Dingle's team 
up to Shock Trauma to learn about the important breakthrough 
they are doing there and the unique insights they have as a 
trauma center for both our military and our population.
    And my question is, Ms. Mullen or General Place, how would 
you assess the current capabilities we have in trauma care both 
on the front lines and for our servicemembers who access 
treatment facilities?
    What adaptations or investments are you looking to make in 
the fiscal year 2023 budget to improve reliable and effective 
trauma care or access to it?
    And how are you leveraging private healthcare systems or 
university-based research centers, like the University of 
Maryland Shock Trauma Center?
    And how is the Department continuing to invest in the 
Uniformed Services University for the Health Services so they 
are able to ensure military readiness, especially when it comes 
to trauma care?
    Either Ms. Mullen or General Place.
    General Place. Yes, sir. Ron Place here, if I could.
    So when it comes to the trauma care itself, the Department 
continues to expand the number of medical centers that are 
trauma centers. Only one Level One Trauma Center, that is 
Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, but the number of 
level Two and Level Three Trauma Centers continues to expand.
    When it comes to the financing part of it, we are not very 
good at billing for care. But significant efforts, in concert 
with Members of Congress and State legislatures, for Medicaid 
capabilities and uninsured capabilities. The funding flows that 
we are receiving and the ability to partner with States for 
those Medicaid and uninsured continues to increase, which makes 
it doable for us.
    Now, you specifically mentioned shock trauma. As you are 
very well aware, shock trauma is one of the organizations that 
the Department of Defense, specifically the Department of the 
Air Force, has had a relationship with for years. We continue 
to leverage that relationship.
    But each of the military departments continues to evaluate 
their individual relationships with Level One Trauma Centers to 
leverage to the greatest degree possible those areas that most 
closely mimic the types of trauma that we see in combat to 
leverage what they see.
    And then, finally, you mentioned research. Yes, the 
Uniformed Services University does a good job of that, but 
across all three of the military departments and within the 
Defense Health Agency, whether it is clinical research, bench 
research, pharmacological research, all of it goes through the 
joint trauma center and the Joint Trauma Education and Training 
working group to leverage the most critical research 
capabilities using cooperative research and development 
agreements for internal research to further our understanding 
and capabilities within trauma.
    I don't think we are perfect, but iteratively we are making 
great progress each and every day.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Is that level of communication between 
the DOD and trauma center, like University of Maryland Shock 
Trauma and other centers, is it a good communication 
relationship, and are both sides benefiting from that 
relationship?
    General Place. Yes, sir, both sides are benefiting. And the 
relationship is really through the NDMS, the National Disaster 
Medical System. We leverage it, we get it better every day. But 
relationship is very good, sir.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter, and then Mr. Kilmer.

                            MEDICAL BILLETS

    Mr. Carter. Thank you.
    I want to thank all of our guests for being here, and I 
thank you for talking about something that is really important. 
We want to make sure that our warriors and our beneficiaries 
have proper care.
    And the mitigation efforts require hiring civilian 
contractors to fill medical billets. We are eliminating 18,000 
billets, and that is a lot of folks.
    We need to decide--I need to know from Secretary Mullen and 
Lieutenant General Place, we have little confidence that 
beneficiary care will not be negatively impacted by the 
reduction in medical billets based on reports that have been 
submitted.
    What factors are you looking at to suggest that DHA can 
recruit the number of civilian practitioners needed to mitigate 
potential access to our care for beneficiaries? What is the 
average amount of time it will take to hire civilian medical 
professionals?
    General Place. Sir, if I could. General Place here.
    So the Department tasks the Defense Health Agency to 
develop a plan for how to accomplish both the potential 
reduction of uniformed medical practitioners as well as the 
potential rightsizing or scoping of three dozen different 
military medical treatment facilities.
    That plan is a comprehensive plan. I don't believe it has 
left the Department yet. Certainly none of it will be done 
until it gets to the Congress. In fact, none of it will be done 
until 6 months after it gets to the Congress.
    But we look at what is available in the community and we 
look at what is the quality available in the community and then 
have developed significant interactions with the managed care 
support contractors, the local physicians' offices, and the 
local hospitals on what is within the realm of the possible in 
each and every one of those installations.
    And then, depending on how it actually works, because no 
plan survives first contact, we have all learned that as 
military officers. So as it starts to be developed, if it ends 
up going in a direction differently than what we planned, the 
Department has given us the authority from a conditions-based 
requirement to change, modify, or even potentially stop the 
transition in some particular community or some particular 
area.
    Again, that very detailed plan will be coming to you likely 
this summer, I think, but we won't action any of it until that 
plan comes to you.

                          MEDICAL REQUIREMENTS

    Mr. Carter. Well, part of that plan is determined--is about 
the survivability of our warriors. And if we want to have a 
more lethal force, how can you balance that with survivability 
in any one of the major military conflicts that we need to be 
ready for?
    Looking at medical requirements from the tip of the spear, 
are you concerned that with the reductions each of your service 
is planning to take over the next 5 years that those reductions 
will make survivability more difficult? Why or why not? We have 
got great survivability----
    General Place. Sir, I am not sure exactly who you are 
asking that question for. I will start.
    Only to say that we all work together on it. But the most 
important responsibility the Secretaries of the military 
departments have is to mitigate all risk, to all parts of the 
mission, to include the medical support part of the mission in 
their force-shaping requirements.
    So the communication from the service Surgeons General and 
my team happens on a daily basis, on an iterative basis, to 
balance what those requirements are.
    We share your concern for America's sons and daughters in 
combat. But it is not just healthcare. It is protective 
equipment, it is the lethality of the armaments that they have, 
it is the public health services that we provide to them, it is 
all of everything. And our healthcare team is just one part of 
that risk that our senior military department leaders must work 
through.
    General Dingle. And, Representative Carter, what we have 
done in the Army as we work, again, not in a silo but as a team 
with the DHA, initially we were reducing 6,900-plus billets in 
the Army.
    After that look, we did exactly what you talked about, done 
the assessment, synchronized with the Defense Health Agency. 
And the Chief of Staff of the Army, General McConville, 
basically said, no, we must take care of our people and we 
cannot reduce 6,900.
    And so our number is 2,900 now, where those 2,900 billets 
are not impacting any specialties or providers or healthcare 
capability.
    At the same time, what General McConville has done for the 
Army, we have done a bottoms-up review from the warfighters, 
looking at our medical operational force, and what are those 
requirements.
    And so as we go through the TAA, or the Total Army Analysis 
process, some of those billets will be coming to the medical 
operational side of the house.
    The 2,900 billets are from my command, the Medical Command, 
which supports our medical treatment facilities. But we are 
looking from the foxhole to the fixed facility to try to ensure 
that there is a trained and ready medical force to save the 
lives that you talked about.
    Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, General. I appreciate your 
answers.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Kilmer, and then Mr. Diaz-Balart. Inaval hospital 
bremerton
    Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair.
    And thanks to each of you for being with us today.
    General Place, as you know, Naval Hospital Bremerton in my 
neck of the woods in recent years has closed both its emergency 
department and more recently the labor and delivery unit.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer, you cut out. Please repeat, and 
we won't hold it against your time.
    Mr. Kilmer. Okay. My question is for General Place.
    Naval Hospital Bremerton in my neck of the woods in recent 
years has closed both its emergency department and labor and 
delivery unit.
    General, I was assured by your office that these closures 
were based on a thorough market analysis which confirmed that 
surrounding hospitals, including St. Michael's in Silverdale 
and Madigan, had the capacity to provide care for the folks 
impacted by this closure.
    The Defense Health Agency also assured me that vacancies 
could be filled by hiring medical professionals in the 
community.
    But despite these assurances, St. Michael's recently voiced 
serious concerns about absorbing additional patients and their 
ability to hire medical professionals to fill growing 
vacancies. Madigan expressed similar concerns, particularly 
around hiring. And these difficulties seriously undermine DHA's 
market analysis.
    This should not come as a surprise, given that even before 
the pandemic the Department of Health and Human Services 
identified Kitsap County, where Naval Hospital Bremerton is, as 
a geographic Health Professional Shortage Area and a Medically 
Underserved Area.
    So I am concerned about these closures, and so are my 
constituents.
    So to turn this into a question, can DHA and the Surgeon 
General commit to filling civilian positions and completing a 
new labor market analysis before shifting any additional 
billets and personnel away from Naval Hospital Bremerton? And 
can DHA provide me with their current market analysis?
    General Place. Well, to the last part of the question, sir, 
yes, we are happy to provide you with that analysis.
    I will specifically talk about the OB part of the market 
analysis. Ten years ago, Bremerton Naval Hospital had about 60 
births per month. Two years ago, it was 33 births per month. 
This last year, it has been 16 births per month.
    So can St. Michael's absorb that? The answer is they tell 
me they can. Now, if they are telling your office they can't, 
then they are telling us different things, and for that I 
apologize. But it is 16 births per month right now.
    And you mentioned the closure of the inpatient ward, the 
med-surg ward. That is absolutely right. That said, the number 
of inpatient med-surg admissions was less than one per day over 
the last 2 years. St. Michael's has assured us that they can.
    In addition, from a backup perspective, because, as you 
know, Madigan is not nearly as close, I think St. Michael's, 
from the gate, is about 8, 8.5 miles away. Madigan is 
significantly farther away, so we are not primarily relying on 
Madigan. But Madigan has indicated--in fact, I talked to the 
Madigan commander today--that they can absorb whatever St. 
Michael's can't, whether it is med-surg, whether it is 
specialty care, or whether it is OB care.
    It is not a onetime analysis, sir. And if I have indicated 
that to you or your office in the past, I apologize for that. 
It is a regular update that we have with Health Net as the 
managed care support contractor responsible for integrating the 
way that we handle care on the peninsula for your beneficiaries 
certainly, but even those in other communities outside of your 
district. We are responsible for them all.
    If you are getting information that is different than that, 
I would welcome it to add it to what we are holding Health Net 
to.
    And I will turn it over to Admiral Gillingham if he has 
more to offer.
    Admiral Gillingham. Thank you, Representative Kilmer.
    We work very closely with General Place and his team. In 
those areas, like your region, where there may be difficulties 
hiring, if there are individual positions that we can backfill, 
then we do that as required. And that follows from the analysis 
that General Place mentioned.
    I can assure you there have been no divestments of 
personnel at Naval Hospital Bremerton consistent with the 
congressional language.
    We do evaluate each of our MTFs in terms of ability to 
support platforms for unit training, and so any changes that 
you may have seen in fiscal year 2019 or 2020 came from some of 
those reassessments----
    Ms. McCollum. Excuse me, gentlemen.
    Mr. Kilmer, can you hear the answer to your question? I am 
having difficulty.
    Mr. Kilmer. Yeah. It is a little hard. If you can speak 
into the microphone, please.
    Mr. Calvert. Seems like you are having some feedback 
issues.
    Ms. McCollum. And now there is no volume from the 
witnesses.
    General Place. If there is an additional question, we are 
here.
    Ms. Mullen. We were all just very quiet.
    Mr. Kilmer. Well, let me ask one more question, and I guess 
it is a bit of a----
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Kilmer.

                    COMMUNICATION WITH STAKEHOLDERS

    Mr. Kilmer. And that is, as decisions are being made 
regarding potential closures or downsizing of military 
treatment facilities, my plea is for more robust communication 
to the impacted communities.
    I have been on this subcommittee for 6 years. I don't think 
we have had a hearing related to this subject where I haven't 
raised concerns about reduction in billets and reductions in 
services provided at Naval Hospital Bremerton. And yet DHA made 
no effort to proactively communicate with my office or, 
frankly, any of the outside stakeholders prior to downsizing 
and closing some of these facilities at Naval Hospital 
Bremerton.
    And I am concerned about that. I think that doesn't leave 
room for input from outside stakeholders, including 
servicemembers and beneficiaries and veterans.
    So my question is, can we count on that going forward?
    General Place. Yes, sir, you can.
    Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. I know I have exhausted my 
time. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Kilmer, your questions are very 
important, and you and Mr. Carter have expressed similar 
concerns. And this committee will work with both of you to 
follow up on them.
    Mr. Diaz-Balart, and then Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

                       Remarks of Mr. Diaz-Balart

    Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
    I actually thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for stating what 
you just stated. I think it is important to stay in touch with 
the members of the subcommittee on issues that are that 
important.
    Now, Madam Chairwoman, my specific question was answered, 
so I know there are a lot of other questions, so I will yield 
back at this time.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Diaz-Balart.
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick.

                          PPE AND SUPPLY CHAIN

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    My first question has to do with COVID preparedness and PPE 
supply chain. And this is a question for Secretary Mullen.
    The Department is undergoing significant reviews as to how 
to prepare for and respond to this pandemic and what could be 
done differently or better in the future.
    One of the lessons we learned from the pandemic is that 
much of the lifesaving PPE that we depend on, such as face 
masks, gloves, medical gowns, are made overseas, potentially 
leaving our supply chains vulnerable to future disruptions like 
a pandemic.
    So, Secretary Mullen, as things begin to return to normal, 
what is the Department doing to ensure that the basic 
necessities are available in the event of the next conflict or 
national emergency?
    Ms. Mullen. Thank you, ma'am. That is a very appropriate 
and timely question.
    Our office is in the midst of a biodefense posture review 
with the Assistant Secretary for Nuclear, Chem, and Bio. Part 
of that review is looking at the industrial base of PPE. We are 
just starting that effort, though the working groups have been 
underway, and we would be happy to brief you on that outcome 
when that comes forward.
    Right now, we are still negotiating roles, 
responsibilities, and we will be briefing the DepSecDef later 
this summer. And, at that point, we could probably make those--
share with you what those efforts are.

                           MEDICAL READINESS

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I really appreciate that. 
Thank you so much.
    My next question is for Lieutenant General Dingle, and it 
has to do with military medical staff.
    I understand that the Army plans to eliminate nearly 1,500 
medical billets in fiscal year 2023 in favor of lethality 
billets. It seems that readiness for the next conflict is the 
driver behind this proposed reduction. But for many soldiers 
with families, part of them being ready is that they know their 
family is going to be taken care of.
    How is the Army balancing medical readiness with the 
responsibility to care for beneficiaries and Army families?
    General Dingle. Ma'am, thank you. Thank you for that 
question.
    You know, again, as I kind of touched on earlier and expand 
a little further, is we continue to work with DHA on any impact 
or any change that we do with any military medical billets 
reduction. As I mentioned, initially, 6,900 billets we were 
initially going to eliminate. That was dropped down to 2,900, 
and the 1,300 of this you talked about in fiscal year 2023 is a 
projected off-ramping.
    The majority of those billets are empty. Our analysis 
includes making minimal impact to any healthcare at any 
facility that we have targeted for the elimination of those 
billets.
    What do I mean? We have done a detailed analysis that the 
number is not going to close or adversely impact any care that 
year.
    And then we will continue to do that assessment each year 
going into fiscal year 2024 also, the remaining billets. And, 
if it is something that impacts that that greatly, then we 
would have to do some adjustments, whether uniformed personnel, 
working in conjunction with the Defense Health Agency.

                                 CDMRP

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I appreciate your answer.
    My final question is regarding the CDMRP and has to do with 
cancers.
    So the Defense Health Agency is scheduled to absorb medical 
R&D efforts that had fallen under Army's Medical Research and 
Materiel Command by the end of fiscal year 2022.
    So, Secretary Mullen and General Place, the Congressionally 
Directed Medical Research Program is an important program to 
this committee and, as the GAO has found, a very successfully 
run program.
    As medical research, including CDMRP, transitions, do you 
see any changes occurring in the management or structure of the 
program?
    Ms. Mullen. Thank you, ma'am, for that question.
    The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program is 
vital to our research program at large. And, first, let me 
thank you and the committee for the support of that program 
every year and the additional dollars that you provide to us to 
execute.
    As you have said yourself, we have had excellent outcomes 
and management of that program, and it will transfer to DHA 
intact. We do not anticipate any changes to the program. It is, 
in fact, successful, and why ruin that?
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much.
    My time has expired. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    We will next go to Mr. Aderholt, followed by Mr. Aguilar.

                            ABORTION POLICY

    Mr. Aderholt. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thanks to all the panel for being here this afternoon.
    It is my understanding that the DOD is restricted from 
using funds or military medical treatment facilities to perform 
abortions except in the cases of rape or incest or where the 
life of the mother is in danger.
    There is a draft Army memo that was recently leaked to the 
press, and it allows for compassionate reassignment, which 
would allow commanders to reassign servicemembers out of a 
State that is considered to have discriminatory laws in regard 
to various issues, including abortion.
    My question to you, Acting Secretary Mullen, can you 
describe the now-leaked compassionate reassignment Army memo 
and, in particular, how it would work, and who is covered, and 
of course particularly in relation to pregnancy and abortion?
    Ms. Mullen. Ensuring the health and well-being of our 
servicewomen and female beneficiaries is a top priority. By 
law, the Department, as you said, does not pay or provide for 
abortions except in the case of the life of the mother, rape, 
or incest. And we do have, as you mentioned, established 
processes and procedures to ensure access to legally authorized 
care.
    I cannot comment on that Army leaked memo as I have not 
seen it.
    Mr. Aderholt. Do you know if other services, like the Navy, 
Marines, Air Force, or Space Force, are also considering 
similar policy?
    Ms. Mullen. I believe we provide transportation for legally 
authorized care regardless of what that care is.
    Mr. Aderholt. Oh. Okay. Well, I certainly would hope that 
the Department isn't considering reassigning soldiers based on 
their ideological beliefs. And I could only imagine that that 
could hurt the military's need for good order and discipline.
    Do you know what the average cost is associated with that 
permanent change of station for a soldier, either under 
compassionate care or otherwise?
    Ms. Mullen. I cannot answer that question. I will have to 
take that for the record.
    Mr. Aderholt. Okay. If you could please let us know for the 
record, I would appreciate it.
    Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Aderholt.
    And our women, based on where they are stationed, should 
not be subject to not being able to assert their full rights 
for healthcare.
    Mr. Aguilar.

                           EQUITY ACTION PLAN

    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    This question, I will start with Acting Assistant Secretary 
Mullen and Lieutenant General Place.
    Last month, we were pleased to see the DOD published an 
equity action plan following President Biden's executive order 
to advance racial equity in support for underserved communities 
through the Federal Government.
    Can you share the health barriers that underserved military 
members and their families have faced and what specifically 
this action plan--how specifically this action plan can help 
address those?
    Ms. Mullen. Under Secretary Cisneros, who is my boss, has 
made racial equity and disparities one of his top priorities. I 
heard him speak about that at the Uniformed Services University 
graduation last week.
    As far as our organization, as you know, our healthcare 
system, because it is accessible and almost is free to Active-
Duty servicemembers and their families, our actual outcomes are 
better than the average in the United States, particularly for 
our Black families. We are very proud of this. We have other 
areas that we do need to work on. But I would say that we are 
in a good place.
    General Place. If I could add to that, sir.
    You asked specifically about now the execution of it. It is 
twofold.
    First, as Acting Assistant Secretary Mullen said, the 
outcomes are very, very close, but they are still not the same. 
And there is a belief among some of our communities that the 
care that they will receive, even though they have access to 
it, will somehow be different.
    So part of that now, our responsibility is to get into that 
decision space. Why do they think that? And where can we target 
information to either help them understand or show them what 
they need to see such that they will access it? They already 
have that ability to access it, but in some places they are 
not.
    So the research that we are now doing and the databases 
that we are using are getting to the exact question you are 
asking to answer that question.

                         MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

    Mr. Aguilar. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    Shifting gears a little bit, Secretary, I wanted to ask, 
follow up on Mr. Calvert's question related to mental health. 
He talked specifically about wait times within TRICARE. But how 
can Congress support DOD's goal to lower patients' costs 
specifically for mental health services?
    So we should treat this in two areas, access, obviously, 
and wait times. But cost associated with this and the role that 
telehealth services plays, can you talk a little bit about 
that?
    Ms. Mullen. Well, there are small copays for Active-Duty 
family members who are accessing the mental health within the 
managed care support contract. It is low, but there are some 
costs associated with that. And as we stated earlier, the wait 
times there are a little longer, though I believe they are much 
shorter than those of our civilian counterparts.
    As for wait times within our system, I think we commented 
on that, that we are striving very hard to add providers to the 
system. We actually have incentives and bonus pay to try and 
recruit additional providers into our system.
    So we do appreciate what you are doing for us.
    And, General Place, do you have more to comment?
    General Place. Yes, sir. That is a fundamentally important 
question.
    Telemedicine, I believe, has multiple uses, but in 
particular in behavioral health in that most of what we do as 
clinicians involves some sort of physical exam. Now, that is 
not to say that it is not important in behavioral health, but 
it is not nearly as important.
    What is happening in the thought processes is the most 
important part. So really leveraging the capabilities in 
telebehavioral health, we are doing it. We need to do more of 
it.
    Specifically to the Congress, though, there are some 
limitations, not just for us, but for the entire community, on 
what is the requirement for the location of the patient, what 
is the requirement for the location of the counselor, the 
psychiatrist, the psychologist, et cetera? They don't always 
match. And so there are significant challenges using 
telemedicine to do that.
    Further, the TRICARE program, of course, is capped at 
Medicare and Medicaid rates. And when we go through the 
network, when we use our managed care support contractors, of 
course they take their pay out of that as well. So all that we 
are using in the network is Medicare and Medicaid minus. And so 
it limits, in some locations, the number of practices that are 
willing to be part of our network just because how little we 
pay for behavioral health services.
    Those are things for potential consideration.
    Ms. Mullen. Though I do believe we get to pay our providers 
up to 125 percent of the CMAC rate in order to recruit some 
mental health providers. We have been authorized for that.
    Mr. Aguilar. Appreciate the answers. Thank you both.
    I yield back, Madam Chair.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Crist will be joining us, and there he is.
    Mr. Crist, I call on you.
    Before I do, members, we would have time for a limited 
second round of questions. So far, only one member has 
responded that they have a second question. Anyone else who has 
a second question, please put it in the chat so that I know. 
Other than that, you might not be called upon, and that would 
make me feel bad if you wanted to ask a second question and I 
didn't know.

                  TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY DEVELOPMENTS

    Mr. Crist.
    Mr. Crist. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I appreciate 
it.
    In January 2020, Iran launched 11 ballistic missiles at Al 
Asad Air Base in Iraq. While we avoided immediate loss of life, 
over 100 servicemembers have since been diagnosed with 
traumatic brain injury.
    I am concerned because, even though the bunkers mostly held 
and they had ample warning to take shelter, so many 
servicemembers were diagnosed with brain injuries. Some of them 
were severe. As General Milley said at the time, the troops in 
the attack will need to be monitored for the rest of their 
lives.
    If we are making investments to counter Russia and China, 
we also need to protect our servicemembers against powerful 
weapon systems, including ballistic missiles.
    What are we doing to better protect servicemembers from 
ballistic missiles and more advanced weaponry?
    Whoever would like to answer.
    Ms. Mullen. Okay. All right. Let me just start off with 
this.
    In terms of traumatic brain injury, there is probably 
nobody better for the actual treatment--diagnosis, treatment, 
and follow-on--than the Department of Defense. We have invested 
hundreds of millions of dollars in traumatic brain injury 
research and treatment, and we have a very warm handoff to the 
VA, which then subsequently takes care of our men and women.
    Mr. Crist. Right.
    Ms. Mullen. The research that we have also done to that to 
try and do preventive is also underway. And I imagine that, 
though this is outside the scope of probably the people at this 
table, the kind of preventive gear and armor, I am certain we 
are investing in that, and I actually do know that, although I 
have not seen that myself.
    General Dingle. And then, Representative, if I may.
    Mr. Crist. Well, thank you so much.
    General Dingle. Just a small piece. Most from Project 
Convergence 21 is classified, but the Army, through Army 
Futures Command, is working on several systems to help defend 
soldiers or troops on the ground against that type of missiles. 
And that is under Army Futures Command and Project Convergence 
21.
    Admiral Gillingham. And, Representative Crist, I would just 
add, within in the Navy, the Office of Naval Research is doing 
a significant amount of work in terms of understanding chronic 
exposures, particularly for our special operators and those who 
operate underwater, understanding the long-term impact to the 
blast exposure they receive. So I can assure you there is quite 
a bit of work going on in that area.
    Ms. Mullen. I would also point out that the Army Institute 
of Surgical Research, which I recently had the opportunity to 
tour, is doing some amazing, cutting-edge combat casualty care 
research and deployment of new items and protective measures.

                       TRANSGENDER SERVICEMEMBERS

    Mr. Crist. Thank you very much.
    In this same hearing 3 years ago I asked about the ban on 
transgender servicemembers. I am still deeply disappointed that 
officials minimize the service of these brave patriots in front 
of this committee. However, I was proud of the leadership shown 
by the President and Secretary Austin in reversing that 
misguided policy just over one year ago.
    Can you all please provide an update on how that reversal 
has been implemented in the services and across the Department? 
And thank you very much.
    General Dingle. So I will have to take that for the record 
to give you the exact numbers and where we were and where we 
are right now.
    General Miller. And, sir, this is General Miller from the 
Air Force.
    Mr. Crist. Yes, sir.
    General Miller. All airmen and guardians that are going 
through a transition process are seen in a single unit for us 
down in San Antonio at the THMEU, the Transgender Health 
Medical Evaluation Unit. That continues to be a successful 
single point of contact.
    Present numbers for them, they actually have 374 airmen 
that are in the process, of which 100 have transitioned. And an 
additional 33 have had surgery based upon their unique needs 
and requests.
    So that is something that we feel is very successful. And 
irrespective of what base an airman may be from, having that 
single point of contact allows for consistency and then ongoing 
follow-up after they are--if they so desire--are there for 
generally about a week of time to meet with the specialist.
    Mr. Crist. Thank you very much, General Miller.
    I see that my time is running out, and I will yield back. 
And thank you, Madam Chair, very much.

                              BABY FORMULA

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Calvert, because we are trying to do this livestream 
and people have been on and off, I am just going to call on 
members for a second question. And I will let people think 
about whether or not they have one, and I will do a quick one. 
And I know Mr. Kilmer, for sure, wants to ask one.
    So I want to talk about baby formula for a moment, which is 
not something the Department of Defense and most of you are up 
thinking about. But we have a lot of servicemembers and their 
families that are here in the States dealing with the baby 
formula issue.
    I would be interested in knowing what you have done to 
reach out, especially with all the misinformation on social 
media.
    Many of these families, when they are traveling, they are 
away from friends and family and people that would normally be 
there to help and support them on an issue like this, maybe 
even checking stores routinely, shelves, to get the formula.
    What have you done to make sure that families are receiving 
the right information at the right time and anything that you 
have done to assist our families? As I said, they are sometimes 
often far away from home, experiencing a birth or kind of on 
their own.
    So what has been the Department's health response on this?
    General Place. Ma'am, Ron Place from the Defense Health 
Agency, if I could.
    So multifactorial, the first of which is correcting 
incorrect or misinformation. For example, there is a social 
media site that said TRICARE has free formula, which we do, but 
for very specific medical conditions to have that provided as 
if it is medication.
    In addition, we have partnered with DeCA, the commissaries, 
and have looked at what do we have available on our commissary 
shelves and what are the requirements in those communities. We 
have the ability through the Defense Logistics Agency to 
balance formula availability.
    When it comes to formula availability in our medical 
treatment facilities or, in particular, for those that have 
obstetric services, we don't have an issue with it. From the 
relationship that we have from the commissary system, we don't 
have a significant issue on our shelves.
    The question that you are asking, though, is what happens 
when they PCS, or what happens when they go on vacation? The 
information that is coming from our installation leaders as 
well as our local medical leaders is plan ahead.
    We are blessed to not have those issues in our community, 
so plan ahead. And if you are going to be going somewhere, make 
sure that you utilize your commissary benefits before you 
travel so that you have it everywhere as opposed to relying on 
what may not be available in a particular community.
    That is, in general, the depth and breadth of what we are 
doing.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.

           FACILITIES SUSTAINMENT, RESTORATION, MODERNIZATION

    Mr. Calvert.
    Mr. Calvert. The only last issue I would like to talk about 
is, Ms. Mullen, is I am concerned about the trend, the 
worsening trend of Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, 
Modernization. That account is obviously in need of help. I 
understand there is already about a $3.6 billion gap in your 
FSRM needs, which is now projected to grow another 500 million 
if this request is supported as is.
    So I would like you to address those needs. And I 
understand that some of these costs may be a result of 
maintaining empty buildings. So what do you need to do as far 
as a way of authorities to divest yourself of these buildings? 
Is there any assistance we can do?
    I don't think--I am hopeful that doesn't necessitate some 
kind of a BRAC or that we can't do this administratively or 
through the appropriations process.
    And are DOD and VA trying to leverage each other's 
facilities when possible to increase efficiency and reduce 
costs?
    Ms. Mullen. We share your concern about that backlog as 
well. The current inflation rate hasn't helped that either on 
that end. The backlog is about, I believe, 500 million and 
growing.
    As you know, over the years, as our budget has been 
tightened up, unfortunately, it is one of the places where we 
have had to take, as one could say, for efficiencies and 
reprogramming, that is where we have found the dollars. Our 
facilities and building them are extensive and multiyear and 
quite expensive.
    As for what we would need to get rid of empty facilities, 
that part, I don't know. I will ask if General Place can 
comment on that.
    General Place. Sir, all I will add is three things.
    First, thanks to the committee for adding $78 million to 
our FSRM budget for this year. Certainly it will go to some of 
that backlog. I am equally tracking the 3.6 billion in arrears 
in costs.
    The second thing that we are doing--or first thing we are 
doing, second comment--is bringing them all into the 
Department's program--it is called BUILDER--where we evaluate 
every single structure and their capabilities, to include the 
critical infrastructure.
    The advantages that we have is to be able to look at all 
bits of critical infrastructure on every building on every 
installation at every week. And so, while the delta is growing, 
the critical infrastructure has not changed. It is always cared 
for. It is always updated. We have always had the resources for 
that.
    Now, what that might mean in the out-years may be 
significant, in large part because of the investment of the 
Congress over the last 20 to 25 years, in particular when 
Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom first 
started, with an investment in multiple new facilities.
    They are all at about the same age, which means as they 
grow older the investments, instead of being flat, tend to go 
in a sinusoid fashion, and that will be a challenge for us.
    What you have addressed with the last part of your 
question, though, the relationship between the DOD and VA, is 
significant. I think you are aware of the AIR Commission that 
the VA has done, the Asset and Infrastructure Review. We are 
very tightly integrated with them to potentially utilize our 
buildings for their use or their buildings for our use to drive 
down the requirements for medical infrastructure between the VA 
and the Department of Defense, meeting those effectiveness of 
the use of the buildings that we have. We are not looking for a 
medical BRAC, nor do we see one coming.
    Mr. Calvert. I would hope you could do that. Just thinking 
out of the box a little bit, if we have these facilities that 
you could leverage both for VA and normal use, that makes 
perfect business sense. And if you need any authorities or 
assistance, I am sure the chair and myself would be happy to 
help in any way we can. It just makes perfect sense.
    Ms. Mullen. Thank you for that.
    Mr. Calvert. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. I am with you, Mr. Calvert.
    It appears that Mr. Ruppersberger left, so I would next go 
to Mr. Kilmer, and then to Mr. Carter if you have a second 
question. And these are 3-minute rounds.
    Mr. Kilmer.

                            CIVILIAN HIRING

    Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. I will be brief.
    General Place, I know DHA will increasingly rely on 
civilian personnel to backfill some of these military billets.
    Unfortunately, medical treatment facilities are already 
struggling to hire for open positions given some of the 
nationwide shortages of healthcare workers and challenges in 
terms of providing competitive wages and some of the long 
hiring times, not to mention COVID's impact on the entire 
healthcare sector.
    Certainly, the Military Health System has seen folks 
leaving for higher pay and more flexibility and more stable 
work environments at civilian hospitals.
    These reductions are particularly acute among women's 
healthcare specialists who have not been prioritized by the 
Military Health System.
    So given these challenges, does DHA's budget reflect the 
need for additional civilian hiring incentives to make up for 
uniformed billet reductions. And if so, can you just explain 
how so? And if not, what else do you need from this committee?
    General Place. Well, the environment that you are 
describing is an accurate reflection of the environment that we 
are facing. To project what authorities we might need or what 
incentives might be helpful from a monetary or other, I think, 
is a great one. I think it would be better for us, instead of 
answering in a minute, to provide you with a really in-depth 
answer. So if I could, I will take that specific part for the 
record.
    But the other things that we are doing is talking with our 
staff about the nonmonetized benefits of working in our 
system--the privilege that we have to take care of America's 
sons and daughters, the leadership opportunities and leadership 
growth that we have for both our uniformed and civilian staff, 
the ability to utilize their GS status to move from place to 
place--not everybody wants to, but some do--and how do we 
leverage that ability for those who want to be able to move 
around the country.
    Those are just some of the examples. But much more that I 
could get into in a formal response.
    Mr. Kilmer. Can I just ask? You know, I am curious what you 
need, but is what you need reflected in the budget submission?
    General Place. Sir, it is a complicated question, as you 
know. In general, I think the answer to that is yes.
    Mr. Kilmer. Okay. Thanks, Madam Chair. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Carter, did you have a second question?

                       FILLING MEDICAL POSITIONS

    Mr. Carter. Yes. A little bit.
    This may be scuttlebutt, but is the Navy deliberately not 
filling medical positions because the decision has been to hold 
off approval to shed those billets in favor of lethality 
purposes? Who has made or who would make the decision to begin 
suppressing billets?
    Admiral Gillingham. Yes. Thank you, Representative Carter.
    No, there has been no divestment of any of our Navy medical 
billets. We are actively reanalyzing the requirement for our 
medical manpower, recognizing the guidance from Congress as 
well as the realities of what we have learned from COVID, 
homeland defense DSCA mission, what we have learned in the 
fleet about the ability to respond to a pandemic and keep the 
fleet out forward.
    So, sir, I can assure you that that analysis is ongoing. 
There has been no billet suppression. We are strictly following 
the requirements of the NDAA.

                         JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA

    Mr. Carter. The other thing I want to point out is it has 
been reported to me that there are concerns at locations like 
in Japan and Korea with respect to the care of our 
servicemembers.
    What risks are beneficiaries going to be faced with? And 
what about servicemembers? Again, Secretary or to General 
Place.
    General Place. Yeah. I am sorry. I missed the last part. 
But specific to Japan, sir, I have been out there for the last 
2 weeks meeting with leaders, meeting with communities, nine 
different townhalls and seven different installations, to get 
some of that.
    There are really two major facts or functions, the first of 
which is the Japanese health system is different than the 
American health system. A great example is they don't follow 
the EMTALA law. So you could show up in the emergency 
department, and they can refuse to see you, which is so much 
different than what we are used to.
    The second is most of the installations that we have, we 
have a lot of them, but most of them are relatively small. And 
so in order to have enough workload to keep a particular 
specialist busy, as well as to keep their skills, it is hard to 
do that.
    And so the things that we are collectively doing between 
the service surgeons and myself is finding ways to leverage 
telemedicine, telespecialty health, find ways to leverage peer-
to-peer advisers, finding ways to leverage where we can 
consolidate particular services and then utilize ground 
transport or air transport that the military services have 
available to get the right person, uniformed or family member, 
to the right location at the right time for care inside of our 
MTFs in Japan, as an example.
    Mr. Carter. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Yield back.

                     Closing Remarks of Mr. Calvert

    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Calvert, we are ready to close. Anything 
you would like to say before I wrap her up?
    Mr. Calvert. I appreciate the hearing and look forward to 
working with you to make sure we get the assistance to our men 
and women in the military for their healthcare. And thank you 
for having this. Thank you to the panel.

                   Closing Remarks of Chair McCollum

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I think you asked some great 
questions, and I look forward to working with you on them.
    I am going to comment on the Japanese healthcare system. I 
can't speak for every incident, but having broken my wrist in 
Japan, the care was--I was literally a foreign walk-in. The 
care was outstanding. And even the one prescription that I was 
given that can't be filled here in the United States, my 
surgeon here--I ended up having to have surgery--was amazed and 
disappointed that we didn't have that type of medicine 
available here in the United States.
    So we are going to follow up on that. It might be an 
outlier. But having to do a cold walk-in for a broken wrist, no 
questions asked, just being taken care of, and they did not 
know I was a Member of Congress. They just knew I was somebody 
who was in pain and hurt.
    I want to follow up on that, because my experience was 
totally different.
    I want to thank you for all the questions and the time and 
attention and the concerns that you have expressed, 
subcommittee members, with the panelists. We look forward to 
hearing back.
    But before I get into my two questions for the record, I 
just want to take a second, I think, to reflect on all the work 
that you did during COVID. We appreciate it. Our Nation 
appreciates it.
    And right now we appreciate the work that you are doing at 
Brooke in Texas to help us with a tragedy of tremendous 
proportion, watching innocent children being gunned down with 
assault weapons. Congress needs to act to do something on that. 
So thank you for taking care of them. We know that they are in 
good hands.
    I have two questions that I am going to be submitting for 
the record. One has to do with the Chaplain Corps and a little 
bit about what I said earlier with mental health. But I would 
like to understand how integrated we are with the Chaplain 
Corps respective to their roles in mental health support.
    I have spoken to several chaplains over the last couple 
years and one just recently on Saturday, and they stand ready 
to help. But the way that they are deployed and brought in and 
used, I think, is something I would like to better understand 
to see how we can have that be a multiplying of force, 
especially when it comes to mental health.
    How integrated they are in suicide prevention programs, how 
often you talk to them, if you are able to just have a dialogue 
to kind of pick up on the health, the things that are going on, 
respecting everybody's healthcare privacy and religious privacy 
as well.
    I am also going to be asking a question for the record on 
the medical, chemical, radiology, and nuclear prophylaxis and 
what is going on with that. I have been approached by two 
groups that want to be more engaged in educating me on that. 
And if I am going to be educated by them, I want to be educated 
by you as well. So I am going to have some questions for the 
record on that.
    With that, once again thank you for your service. We thank 
all of those who serve alongside of you, both in uniform and in 
civilian clothes.
    And, with that, that will conclude today's hearing.
    Hearing adjourned.
    [Answers to submitted questions for the record follow:]
    
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    

                                             Thursday, May 26, 2022

                   DEFENSE ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION

                               WITNESSES

RICHARD KIDD, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND 
    ENERGY RESILIENCE
AMY BORMAN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY FOR ENVIRONMENT, 
    SAFETY AND OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
KARNIG OHANNESSIAN, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY FOR 
    ENVIRONMENT
NANCY BALKUS, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE FOR 
    ENVIRONMENT, SAFETY AND INFRASTRUCTURE

                  Opening Statement of Chair McCollum

    Ms. McCollum. This hearing will come to order. This hearing 
is fully virtual, so we must address a few housekeeping rules. 
For today's meeting, the chair or the staff designated by the 
chair may mute participants' microphones when they are not 
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markups. This email address has been provided to your staff.
    Today's Subcommittee on Defense will come to order. This 
afternoon, the subcommittee will receive testimony on the 
Department of Defense Environmental Restoration Program and 
Accounts. Our four witnesses are Mr. Richard Kidd, Deputy 
Secretary of Defense for Environmental and Energy Resilience; 
Ms. Amy Borman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 
Environment; Mr. Ohannessian--and sir, please, introduce 
yourself and let everybody know how to say your name correctly. 
I fear that I have not said it right. But you are here with us 
as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for 
Environmental. And then we have Ms. Nancy Balkus, Deputy 
Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Environment, Safety, 
and Infrastructure.
    I welcome you to the hearing, and I thank you for your 
service.
    This is the second time that the subcommittee has held a 
hearing on environmental restoration and remediation issues 
within the Department of Defense. I note that our very first 
hearing on this issue was exactly one year ago today.
    This is critically important that this subcommittee remain 
engaged because environmental cleanup is directly relevant to 
every single State in our Nation, many of our congressional 
districts that we represent, and other places in which the 
Department of Defense has a presence. The impacts of 
environmental contamination on our communities, whether it be 
from hazardous chemicals or military munitions is not a 
partisan issue. It is about the health and the safety of our 
servicemembers and their families, our constituents who live in 
and around military installations. And it is the duty of the 
Department of Defense and its services to ensure that they are 
responsible stewards of the land in which they operate.
    Where contamination has occurred, the Department and the 
services must ensure that those sites are responsibly cleaned 
up in a timely fashion to standards that meet the needs of the 
local community. It is our job in Congress to ensure that there 
is adequate funding and proper oversight of these cleanup 
projects. One of my hopes for this hearing is for us to discuss 
how we can be collectively smarter and accelerate site cleanup.
    While answers sometimes can be more money, the President's 
budget routinely proposes to reduce cleanup funding, and 
Congress is left to restore the funding. And cleanup of 
hazardous sites and military munitions should not be used as a 
budget offset. It needs to be a serious priority for the 
Department and not a second- or third-tier issue.
    Some of the topics for today's hearing I hope we can hear 
more about include how funding is prioritized in the 
environmental restoration accounts, the cost to complete the 
Department of Defense-caused contamination and military 
munitions at current and former military facilities, and what 
constraints exist to speeding up this cleanup.
    In places where the Department has--where the Department is 
the known source of contamination, how is the Department 
communicating the risks to servicemembers, families, and their 
neighboring communities to ensure those that are affected are 
aware and that their voices are heard? We spoke of DOD's PFAS 
plan. Where is the Department identifying possible PFAS 
contamination of DOD contamination at DOD installations? And 
how far along in the CERCLA process is the services in 
remediating PFAS contamination?
    Given the tight timeframe that we will have to write the 
bill, I ask that those of you who are testifying and your 
support staff be prepared to respond to members on any specific 
budget request that are asked today, and that also includes the 
committee staff when they are asking for information.
    With that, I thank you for appearing before the 
subcommittee today to discuss these important issues, and I 
will ask you to present your summarized statement in a moment.
    But, first, I would like to recognize our ranking member, 
Mr. Calvert, for his opening remarks.

                     Opening Remarks of Mr. Calvert

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Chair McCollum. I appreciate you 
calling this hearing today.
    And, Henry, good to see you.
    As all of us contest, there are a few issues more important 
to the quality of life for our servicemen and women, their 
families, and their communities than healthy living conditions 
and assured access to clean drinking water. The Defense 
Environmental Restoration Program addresses contamination from 
DOD activities at active installations, formerly used Defense 
properties, and base realignment and closure locations, many of 
them right here in my home State of California, and I know 
throughout the United States.
    The longstanding program addresses a broad spectrum of 
pollutants and other hazardous substances, including from 
unexploded ordnance. By far, the largest source of concern, as 
the chair mentioned, however, is the leakage of PFAS chemicals 
into groundwater and drinking water, community notification, as 
well as timely and effective remediation. Addressing the 
problem with PFAS has been a growing area of focus for 
Congress, as reflected in the fiscal year 2022 defense 
appropriation bill, as well as the fiscal year 2022 NDAA, both 
of which contain robust funding and other important provisions 
relating to cleanup, disposal, and study of PFAS. And this is 
certainly something that is personally important to me because 
I have a number of bases, both past and present.
    So, in this regard, I would appreciate the update on the 
work of the Department's PFAS task force, including efforts to 
mitigate and eliminate the use of the current aqueous film-
forming foam and to assess the impacts of PFAS on human health.
    Finally, as Congress devotes more funding to the 
remediation and study of PFAS, it is also important that there 
is transparency and planning budgeting and program execution, 
as well as metrics for evaluation and cost estimates.
    Again, thank you for your appearance today. I look forward 
to your testimony.
    And, with that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you so much. And I couldn't agree with 
you more.
    So today we will start out with Mr. Kidd. Please proceed. 
And, remember, we do have your testimony in front of us. We 
have had an opportunity to review it. And so summarize it so 
that we have time for questions. So, Mr. Kidd, please start.

                     Summary Statement of Mr. Kidd

    Mr. Kidd. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, members 
of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today 
and to provide a summary of the Department of Defense's 
Environmental Restoration Program. Thanks to strong consistent 
support from Congress, totaling approximately $62 billion since 
inception, the Department has been able to establish and 
maintain a mature, effective, cleanup program. Indeed, we have 
completed work at over 85 percent of the total sites across the 
Department. Nonetheless, the cost to complete the remaining 
sites is estimated to be just under 31 billion, and that some 
of the hardest sites and most intractable issues remain.
    While our program is broad spectrum in nature, one of the 
long-term significant challenges is, how do we address per- and 
polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. At this meeting a year 
ago, I gave you my first candid assessment where I stated that 
physics, chemistry, and science establish the realm of the 
possible and dictate the parameters and pace of our work. My 
assessment remains unchanged today. It will be years before we 
fully define the problem and decades before it is completely 
cleaned up. Given this, we all recognize that we must be 
diligent in our work, sustain and persistent, seeking 
opportunities to accelerate our activities where we can and 
continue to invest in research and development to expand our 
response options.
    Congress has been a strong supporter of our PFAS efforts, 
and we have allocated over $1.5 billion to date. With this 
money, we have achieved a number of results. In regards to 
cleanup, all sites where the Department of Defense was known or 
suspected to have released PFAS are now in the CERCLA process. 
That is 700 sites. Ninety-six of those have been identified 
where no further action is required; 168 have moved to remedial 
investigations phase; and 62 more are expected to enter that 
phase before the end of the fiscal year.
    We have completed our testing of commercially available 
PFAS-free alternatives to AFFF. That information and data has 
now been incorporated into the process developed for the 
military specification for PFAS-free foam. Our research and 
development activities continue at pace. We start at 50 new 
projects this year. This is the largest research effort in the 
Federal Government related to the detection and a cleanup. 
Thirty percent of our cleanup-related projects have now 
graduated out of a proof of concept and moving into 
demonstration and commercialization.
    In regards to public outreach, I have hosted and have been 
joined by my colleagues on this committee for four townhall 
meetings where we have met with communities and PFAS activists 
across the country. These meetings have been very informative 
and have improved our actions. We continue to seek further ways 
for improvement in how to revise the format of these events to 
meet the needs of your constituents.
    Internally, the Department is taking a number of steps to 
improve our responsiveness. We are adding staff, we are 
revising our website to make it more data-driven and user-
friendly, and we are reviewing our community engagement 
practices.
    Looking forward, I feel obliged to highlight for you, 
although many of you already know, the EPA is in the process of 
developing enforceable regulatory standards for certain PFAS in 
drinking water and expects to finalize them within the next 
year or so. These nationwide standards are expected to be much 
lower than current EPA health advisories and will have 
significant effects on the Department's cleanup activities. EPA 
is working as quickly as possible to provide interim health 
advisories. And, just 2 weeks ago, EPA released new screening 
levels.
    The Department welcomes this work and the certainty that 
these standards will provide, but it will affect what we do. We 
will likely reopen past investigations, be required to install 
more extensive and expensive cleanup measures, and, as a 
result, will generate more PFAS-containing materials for 
disposal.
    We are watching the topic of disposal very carefully. We 
would like to ensure that all pathways are available. We do not 
want to be in a position where we are faced with either 
curtailing our cleanup activities or storing materials onsite 
because we do not have a clear disposal option.
    So, in conclusion, I would like to thank the members of 
this committee for your strong support and interest in the 
Department's Environmental Restoration Program, and I look 
forward to your questions.
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    Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much, Mr. Kidd.
    Ms. Borman.

                    Summary Statement of Ms. Borman

    Ms. Borman. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the 
soldiers, family, and civilians of the United States Army, 
thank you for the opportunity to address your interest in and 
answer questions about the defense--about the Army's Defense 
Environmental Restoration Account, or DERA.
    Our priority remains the health and safety of our 
servicemembers, families, civilians, and the communities 
surrounding our posts, camps, and stations.
    The Department of the Army's restoration program is a 
mature program managed and executed by a team of soldiers and 
civilians from across the Army. I am proud to report that over 
90 percent of our restoration sites have reached the response 
complete milestone, which occurs when sites complete the 
proposed remedial action or requiring no further investigation. 
The Army appreciates the support you have provided to our 
restoration program over the years that has allowed us to reach 
this milestone.
    The remaining sites to achieve response complete are 
approximately 1,200 and spread across our active and our closed 
installations. To make the most impact, we continually reassess 
the cleanup program by addressing the highest risk sites first. 
At the same time, we are committed to achieving response 
complete at all of our sites.
    The Army's fiscal year 2023 budget request sets 
requirements that protect soldiers, families, and civilians 
working on or near our Army installation. This budget allows 
the Army to continue to fund new and ongoing PFAS investigation 
to cleanup. But projects with legally binding requirements are 
ongoing projects and projects that represent the greatest risk 
to human health and the environment.
    While the Army's proud of our successes and remains focused 
on continued improvement of our cleanup program, we know that 
cleanup at many of the remaining sites is more complex and 
requires additional time and/or remedy based on more advanced 
technology. The Army has been identifying and conducting 
cleanup at sites since the 1980s and has come a long way. 
Still, we remain fully aware of the magnitude of our mission 
and look forward to continuing partnerships with fellow Federal 
agencies, State regulators, and industry stakeholders to 
increase the efficiency of our cleanup efforts.
    In addition, the Army is focused on responding to the 
challenges of PFAS and is resolute in making the substantial 
investment necessary to continue forward progress. We thank you 
for the support you have provided to date. We are diligently 
working on completing the initial phase of PFAS assessment at 
each of our 337 installations by the end of 2023, as required 
by the NDAA. We have completed preliminary assessment and site 
inspections at 37 percent of those installations to date.
    Where we have identified exceedances of the Environmental 
Protection Agency health advisory for PFAS and drinking water, 
we are acting very quickly to provide alternative water to the 
affected residents, and we are working with members of the 
affected communities, along with State and local health 
officials and regulatory authorities to provide immediate 
action, if needed, as well as long-term solutions. I assure you 
the Army continuously seeks to ensure protection of human 
health and the environment.
    The Army is dedicated to being transparent about our 
cleanup progress with both Congress and the public. To that 
end, as we complete the analysis of our PFAS investigation, we 
are taking steps to make our PFAS cleanup progress and results 
more publicly accessible through our websites and through 
increased community outreach. The Army fully supports community 
involvement and outreach in the Environmental Restoration 
Program. We use the Restoration Advisory Board, or RAB, rule in 
the OSD handbook to guide our RAB activities.
    The Army is supporting 26 RABs currently, and we are 
reaching out to 39 additional communities this year, including 
those around PFAS sites, to determine if there is sustained 
interest in supporting a RAB. Our priority remains the health 
and safety of our servicemembers, their families, Army 
civilians, and communities surrounding our installations. We 
will continue to prioritize and address sites where risks to 
human health is the highest. I assure you that the Army is 
fully committed to addressing our cleanup responsibilities.
    Thank you for the opportunity to present this testimony and 
for your continued support of the Army.
    [The information follows:]
    
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                  Summary Statement of Mr. Ohannessian

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much, Mr. Borman.
    Mr. Ohannessian--say your name. You said it for me last 
year, and it is a beautiful name. And I apologize. I have been 
through a lot of Nordic names, but please, for the record, 
state your name the correct way.
    Mr. Ohannessian. My last name is pronounced Ohannessian.
    Ms. McCollum. I was close. Ohannessian. Please continue.
    Mr. Ohannessian. Thank you. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member 
Calvert, distinguished members of the subcommittee, my name is 
Mr. Karnig Ohannessian, and I am the Deputy Assistant Secretary 
of the Navy for Environment and Mission Readiness. I appreciate 
the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the 
Department of the Navy's Environmental Restoration Program. The 
Department of the Navy's Environmental Restoration Program is a 
mature program with a well-established record of protecting 
human health and the environment through short and long-term 
response actions taken over the past three decades. We are 
proud of the substantial progress and many successes we have 
made at the Department's more than 4,000 environmental 
restoration program sites. We have achieved the response 
complete milestone for 83 percent of our sites.
    The remaining sites are our most challenging sites and will 
require additional time to achieve final remedies, address new 
and emerging chemicals of concern, restore lands impacted by 
munitions, and complete long-term remedies that are in 
progress.
    Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, continues to 
be at the forefront of the chemicals of emerging concern across 
the Nation. The Department is implementing a comprehensive 
strategy to manage and address the known or potential releases 
of PFAS from our activities on Navy and Marine Corps 
installations and facilities nationwide. We also continue to 
make progress in our Munitions Response Program, cleaning up 
and restoring beneficial use of former military sites known or 
suspected to contain unexploded ordnance, discarded military 
munitions, or munitions residuals. We remain steadfast in 
working with affected communities and taking protective action 
to identify and mitigate the impacts of our releases for the 
human health and the environment within the framework of the 
Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability 
Act.
    The Department of the Navy remains committed to exercising 
good stewardship of the environment while advancing our mission 
to defend and protect this great Nation. I thank the leadership 
and membership of this subcommittee for your attention, 
interest, and ongoing support of the Department of the Navy's 
Environmental Restoration Program, and I look forward to 
answering your questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
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                    Summary Statement of Ms. Balkus

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you very much, Mr. Ohannessian.
    I would like to hear you from Ms. Balkus.
    Ms. Balkus. Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the 
opportunity to be here today to provide a summary of the 
Department of the Air Force Environmental Restoration Program. 
Although, I have only been in this position for 2 months, I 
have to say I am extremely proud of the work that Mark Correll 
led before me and the outstanding work being done by our team. 
I am excited to share with you our program updates.
    The main priority of our mature and effective Environmental 
Restoration Program is to protect our airmen, guardians, 
civilian workforce, and all families who live and work on our 
installations and in our surrounding communities. We live, 
work, and play in the same communities in which we serve. We 
drink the same water. We live on the same dirt. And where our 
mission has negatively impacted people and communities, our 
first priority is to ensure that no one has drinking water 
above the EPA limits.
    Then, we focused our attention on the cleanup of the oil 
and groundwater using our risk-based approach to address the 
long-term impacts to groundwater, soil, and surface water in 
accordance with requirements of the Federal Comprehensive 
Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, or 
CERCLA. I am proud to report that over 85 percent of our 
restoration sites are at the CERCLA response complete 
milestone. The remaining 2,000 restoration sites require 
further investigation or cleanup, and we continue to work them 
aggressively. Our responses in all cases are based on the 
overall relative risk at individual sites. We rank all sites as 
either high, medium, or low risk, based on the toxicity present 
at the site, the migration potential, and the presence of 
pathways to reach human or environmental receptors. We ensure 
the highest risk sites are addressed first.
    The cleanup of CERCLA sites is a complex process, which is 
why meaningful community engagement and involvement are a 
fundamental part of our cleanup program. We are committed to 
transparency about our restoration program with Congress, our 
State officials, regulators, and our local communities, and we 
utilize multiple venues to include formal restoration advisory 
boards to ad hoc community meetings, public safety websites, 
and installation commander interactions. We are committed to 
providing all stakeholders validated and timely information on 
our cleanup activities.
    Although our program covers a myriad of contaminants, we 
recognize that PFAS, and particularly PFOS and PFOA, are a 
major concern across our Nation. In recognition of this 
important national issue, we accelerated implementation of our 
CERCLA process to respond to PFAS by implementing immediate 
response action. This acceleration was made possible by the 
additional $370 million in PFAS-targeted funds from Congress 
over the last 3 years. I thank all of you for your very 
generous support.
    To date, the Department of the Air Force has spent nearly a 
billion dollars to provide the following: alternative drinking 
water at 39 installations, completed 202 preliminary 
assessments, 132 site inspections, and awarded 81 remedial 
investigation contracts. We will continue to make every effort 
to expedite the CERCLA process to complete our response.
    For the past 5 years, the Department of the Air Force has 
been aggressively looking upstream to prevent new PFAS impacts 
by implementing a new DOD and Department of the Air Force 
policy initiative restricting the use of the aqueous film-
forming foam, or AFFF, for the following: We have retrofitted 
our fire trucks from the legacy AFFF to an alternative foam 
that has no PFAS and trace PFOA. We are limiting the use of 
AFFF for emergency response situations only. We use water for 
our training. We are treating uncontained accidental releases 
of AFFF as hazardous substance spills. We are ceasing off-
installation use of AFFF in our mutual aid responses. And we 
are requiring the replacement of all AFFF fire suppression 
systems in our hangars with automatic water sprinkler systems. 
There will only be a very few exceptions. We have been and will 
continue to be as proactive as possible in addressing this 
national concern.
    The Department of the Air Force is fully committed to 
responsible environmental management, which includes assuring 
our airmen, guardians, families, and surrounding communities 
are protected. Thank you again for the opportunity to meet with 
you today. I look forward to your questions.
    [The information follows:]
    
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                     REDUCTIONS TO CLEANUP ACCOUNTS

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Thank you all for your testimony.
    I am going to recognize myself first for questions. And I 
am going to suggest if, members, if you have a specific 
question that someone can answer, to ask them, but my first one 
is going to be rather broad. So here we go.
    As former chair of the Interior Environment Subcommittee, 
along with Mr. Calvert--and I served as his ranking member when 
he was chair--it is striking that we allocate more money to the 
Department of Defense for environmental cleanup than we do to 
the EPA Superfund. The defense bill last year included $1.5 
billion for DOD's Environmental Restoration Programs whereas 
the EPA's Superfund program only received $1.2 billion in 
total. Now the infrastructure bill, thankfully, also provided 
$3.5 billion to the Superfund site. So there is more to the 
story to be told yet.
    But this also speaks to the scope of the liabilities on the 
books for the Department of Defense. The DOD estimates the 
total bill of cleanup of all the known contamination with 
Defense Environmental Restoration Program is $31 million--$31 
billion.
    So I would ask why the budget process has such a large 
reduction. It is a negative reduction, $408 billion to the 
Environmental Restoration Programs, especially as in your 
testimony you point out that you might have to go back and 
clean up to a better standard as we learn more about these 
contaminant materials.
    So why does this reduction seem to be a common occurrence 
year after year? I am concerned that it creates an impression 
that Congress will be restoring the funds this year instead of 
the Department making these activities priorities in their 
budget. And I know you don't make the final numbers, so I know 
there is other people listening. I am watching as to what is 
happening with these numbers and watching very closely.
    So here is my question--and you can get back to us in 
writing on this--what activities will not be funded under the 
proposed budget? The Army has a reduction of $103 million in 
its budget. The Navy has a reduction of $31 million in its 
budget. The Air Force has a reduction of $270 million in its 
budget. And the funding for former used defense sites is 
reduced by $65 million. So I would like you to get back in 
writing to us about what is not happening with that. But if you 
want to make a comment right now, I would be happy to hear.
    And, Mr. Kidd, maybe it would be you.
    Mr. Kidd. Good morning, ma'am. So thank you for the 
question. It is a very important topic. We will take advantage 
of the opportunity to provide full details back in writing. I 
would just say that the budget is primarily a bottom-up-driven 
activity based on what we believe the needs are and what we can 
execute during the given year.
    I would also note that, due to the high past funding that 
you all have provided for PFAS, we still have a residual amount 
of money in the transfer account that is available to address 
PFAS issues going forward.
    Unless my colleagues want to add anything, we will take the 
remaining details for the record.
    Ms. McCollum. So you are saying you are at capacity then 
for what you are going to clean up?
    Mr. Kidd. Ma'am, I am saying that we have sufficient 
funding right now, and in the budget request, we have 
identified cleanup needs.
    Ms. McCollum. And I am asking, is it an issue of your 
identified cleanup needs based on the capacity that you have 
currently, or if you had more capacity, you would clean up 
more? You can take that for the record, if you want.
    Mr. Kidd. Sorry. Yes, ma'am, I will do that. Thank you.

                          PFAS ACCOUNTABILITY

    Ms. McCollum. Okay. And then the other thing I would ask--
and we are going to have a second round for questions, so I 
want to make sure everybody gets a chance to answer something. 
I was at somewhere--I have been on several of the air bases. 
One was up in Alaska, particular--cost that wasn't included in 
the total cost of the net 35 was making larger hangars. So, 
when they dug up, at Eielson, when they dug up the dirt to make 
the larger hangars, they also dug up mounds and mounds and 
mounds and mounds of PFAS, which are just sitting there.
    When the cleanup is done, how is that--how is that cleanup 
accounted for? Do you have a separate account where you know 
you are going to have to go back and remediate and do something 
about the PFAS that you dug up? Because when I look up at like 
the Air Force's spend plan, I see investigation, removal; 
investigation, removal; investigation, removal. But if it is 
removed, it is not, as you pointed out, it is not done yet 
because we still have to account for how we are going to either 
store, dispose of, or eventually hopefully maybe find a way to 
make this contaminant break down. How is that accounted for in 
the budgets? Is that considered completed and then it is kind 
of like off the books, but it is not really off the books?
    Mr. Kidd. I am prepared to defer to the Air Force, Ms. 
Balkus. Unless you would like me to try to answer.
    Ms. McCollum. No, the Air Force is fine. I just know that 
you kind of see the--the Air Force is probably the only place 
this is happening. But, Ms. Balkus, how does Air Force account 
for something that is removed but it is still storing, because 
eventually it is going to have to be taken care of?
    Ms. Balkus. Yes, Madam Chair, so that is part of the 
difficulty that we are facing right now is, when we do our 
military construction, and we have to remove soil from the 
ground. Right now, our only choice is to stockpile it, and so 
that is what we are doing until we have technology where we can 
remove the PFAS from the soil. So we are on a pause at the 
moment, but your question I believe was focused on, how do fund 
that, which account does it come from? And so we would like to 
place the dirt back into the ground, if we can, if the 
limitations would allow us. So it is partially in the military 
construction account because it came out of the ground through 
those efforts. But because we need to do the cleanup of the 
materials, that would indeed be in the environmental 
restoration account manager.
    Ms. McCollum. So you do two cleanups. You do the one where 
you remove it so you can build the construction project, and 
then you have the ground set aside. Is that counted? How is 
that accounted for, that portion of that cleanup? Is there like 
a column like to be cleaned up in the future? Or is that just--
is a box checked that it is done, and it is in Mil Con's 
budget? Because we can certainly talk to the chair and ranking 
member of Mil Con on this.
    Ms. Balkus. Madam Chair, I would like to give you a more 
complete written answer, if I may. But to give you an answer at 
the moment, I would offer that the disposal cost, I believe, is 
what we are going to have to do through the environmental 
restoration account.
    Ms. McCollum. Okay. So I think it is important that, when 
you are done with the site, you are only done removing it from 
the site and placing it at another place, so it is not really--
it is--the last check hasn't been done on the checklist for the 
PFAS. And I would also like to know how the surge is protected 
so that--because restoring this stuff outdoors, that we are 
making sure that it is not running into streams, brooks, or 
percolating back down in the water again, how are you 
accounting for it. And you can get back to me on that. Thank 
you.
    And I am not trying to put anybody on the spot, we are just 
trying to understand how this budget works, because I know 
sometimes we are impacted by Mil Con, and so sometimes we need 
to talk to our partners over there on how to clean it up. So 
this will be helpful when you get back to us.
    With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Calvert.

                    NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN RESTORATION

    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I think, you know, 
we are hitting on some of my frustration with this cleanup, or 
supposed cleanup, that is going on across the country. Many of 
the technologies that are being considered for cleanup of PFAS 
and groundwater center on the same technologies we have been 
using for well over a half a century. That basically is just 
pumping the PFAS out of the ground for filtration and then 
putting it into the carbon filter, then disposing the carbon in 
the landfill or somewhere else. And it requires an extreme 
amount of capital costs for these so-called pump-and-treat 
systems, and operating these pumps 24/7 are certainly far from 
environmentally friendly, and it seems like it never ends.
    I have a base in California, in my district--or right next 
to my district, March Air Force Base, and they have been doing 
this, it seems forever, and they don't seem to be making any 
real progress. But there are new technologies out there, and it 
is difficult to get approval for these technologies to get them 
in the field and to get these sites cleaned up, such as 
injection of activated carbon under the PFAS-contaminated 
aquifers has been demonstrated to effectively immobilize PFAS 
within the aquifer itself.
    Can you comment on how the DOD plans to use these in-place 
treatment technologies, one, to lower the cost of the 
environmental impact of treating PFAS contamination and then to 
finally clean these sites up? Is there any comment on that?
    Mr. Kidd. Sir, this is Mr. Kidd. So I think all of us 
involved share your frustration with the length and time and 
cost required to clean up PFAS. And that is the reality of the 
current technology, and that is what I referred to in my 
opening statement.
    Thanks to Congress, we have largest research and 
development program in the Nation to address both detection and 
cleanup activities. And as I said, a number of the projects 
that we started to fund in 2017 are now moving into the 
commercialization phase. Some of the technologies do require 
permitting by other Federal agencies, and we are working 
closely with that. We have used--the barriers that you have 
discussed have been used as interim response action on a number 
of installations where we have been able to slow, if not stop 
completely, the propagation of PFAS through the water tables. 
And we have provided to other members and their staffs a full 
detailed briefing on our research and development activities. 
We would be happy to come back and do that with you and other 
members of the committee.
    Mr. Calvert. The frustration I have, again, is--and this is 
affecting these communities across the country--to accelerate 
these technologies--the technologies, in some cases, as I 
understand it, that we have identified the technology that 
destroys PFAS. And I know it is a difficult molecule to 
destroy, long-chain molecule, but I understand those 
technologies are out there. And you have money to fund for 
procurement of these technologies and deploy those 
technologies, as I understand it. Isn't that correct?
    Mr. Kidd. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Calvert. And, in other words, once performance testing 
and assessments are complete, why aren't these technologies put 
out into the field more rapidly?
    Mr. Kidd. Sir, I think we have been putting the 
technologies out in the field as rapidly as we can with 
significant--with the required level of both scientific 
engineering and safety assurance.

                    PFAS IMPACT ON CURRENT TIMETABLE

    Mr. Calvert. Well, okay. And, lastly, the current 
moratorium on incineration of PFAS chemicals and attendant 
onsite storage impact your timetable. How is that being handled 
in your department?
    Mr. Kidd. Here, no--so, sir, the EPA has published interim 
disposal guidance that articulates three pathways to disposal. 
One is to put the items into a landfill, either a hazardous 
waste landfill or an appropriately lined, sealed, and monitored 
landfill. The second method is through thermal technologies, 
and the third method is through deep well injection. We and 
others do not use deep well injection. In terms of thermal 
technologies, we have in the past and continue to research the 
ability to use incineration, which is right now the safest and 
most reliable form of thermal technologies. The research 
program----
    Mr. Calvert. Now, I understand that incineration in itself 
doesn't destroy the molecule. Sometimes that molecule still 
gets into the atmosphere and settles back down into the 
environment. Is that true?
    Mr. Kidd. So we have reviewed the scientific studies on 
incineration as well as our own work. And before we published 
the guidance that permitted incineration, I went to the CEQ and 
the EPA, and I asked for them to review our work, given how 
important it is not only for us but for the interagency. We 
have confidence, we have the indicators that a very large 
portion of the PFAS molecules are, in fact, eliminated when the 
incineration is conducted for a long enough time at a high 
enough temperature.

                          REPLACEMENT OF PFAS

    Mr. Calvert. I would like to see that report when you get 
it available. Lastly, the replacement for PFAS--obvious, PFAS 
is extremely effective at putting out fire. I mean, nobody 
denies that. It has been used over the years, but we have been 
putting a lot of money in research to find a replacement for 
PFAS. Are we any closer to getting something out there in 
market that works as well as PFAS?
    Mr. Kidd. So, sir, PFAS refers to over 1,600 different 
chemical combinations, about 600 of which are in commerce and 
out there in industry. And, specifically, in regards to the 
fire-fighting foam, we have completed testing of commercially 
available alternatives, and we sent the test on those--the 
results of those tests have moved forward and are being 
incorporated into the development of a military specification 
for a PFAS-free alternative.
    Mr. Calvert. Is it as effective as what we were using now?
    Mr. Kidd. It does not put out gasoline-based fires as fast 
as the current foam does. But we do not use gasoline in the 
Department of Defense, except in rare circumstances. We 
primarily use jet fuel. And it is easier to contain and 
suppress jet fuel fires with PFAS-free alternatives.
    Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chair, I will come back to 
that.
    Ms. McCollum. I am just going to take a second, to Mr. 
Calvert, at the hangar that I was at where the F-35s were in 
Alaska, I got on my knees and started looking at the 
extinguishers. They were PFAS-free. And the technicians, the 
pilots, and everybody there had great level of confidence that 
they had something that would take care of the job there. But 
that was jet fuel that I was around and looking at.
    Mr. Ruppersberger, and then Mr. Carter.

                   ARMY COMPATIBLE USE BUFFER PROGRAM

    Mr. Ruppersberger. And thank you, Madam Chairman.
    And my question is to Ms. Borman. So the Army Compatible 
Use Buffer, the ACUB, Program. Ms. Borman--and there might be 
some questions I understand that you might not be able to 
handle, but let's try to do our best. As you know, the Army 
Compatible Use Buffer Program is very important to the Army's 
ability to train our troops, especially where a lot of land is 
required. It is used at places like Aberdeen Proving Ground, 
which is in my district and which has a test and training 
range. The goal is to limit encroachment on development 
surrounding the installation and also limit any damage to 
endangered species on the installation.
    I was in local government for 17 years as counsel and 
county executive for that jurisdiction of 900,000, and land use 
and a lot of these environmental issues are extremely important 
to where people live and to the future of our jurisdictions. 
The program empowers the Army to work with land trusts, 
conservation entities, and State and local governments to 
create buffers around installations. And these partners 
contribute almost half of the total program cost. That is very 
unique that we have outside partners that raise money to work 
with the government and to maintain open space. And a lot of 
the time that we use open space for farming. We use open space 
for quality of life. In this situation, we are using open space 
to have a military base to have training and yet have enough 
land to make sure that we can do it the right way.
    Now, I would like to ask the about capacity to expand this 
program, and I have these questions. How many requests does the 
Army and Installation Management Command receive for ACUB 
funding? And how many are you able to provide at current 
levels?
    Another question: How much capacity exists to further 
expand ACUB, or whatever you call it, cooperative agreements? 
When it comes to carrying out large-scale experiments and 
exercises, such as project conversions, how would you 
characterize current external encroachment issues?
    And then I want to follow up with this. Last year, the Army 
awarded funding to the ACUB cooperative agreement between the 
Aberdeen Proving Ground and the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy. 
I would like to state for the record that I hope the Army will 
continue to do all it can to support Aberdeen Proving Ground 
ACUB priorities. The Chesapeake Bay watershed is an area in 
need of continued investment. As communities spread further and 
further from our city centers, we must ensure that the Army 
doesn't suffer from encroachment of its testing and its 
training areas. Good luck.
    Ms. Borman. Thank you. So, with regard to ACUB, the Army is 
very proud of what it has been able to do with ACUB, and we are 
very invested in the Army's Compatible Use Buffer Program. I 
don't have specific numbers in front of me as to how many 
requests the Installation Management Command received this 
year, but I will absolutely take that for the record and get 
back to you.
    With regards to overall funding, the Army competes with the 
other services to gain REPI dollars. And so I would ask if 
Richard Kidd could provide you the specific information on REPI 
and REPI-related funding because that is our source of dollars 
for ACUB and our support for the ACUB program.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Let me say this: I spent 17 years as a 
local elected official, and a lot of that was dealing with 
infrastructure and the things we do in local government. And a 
lot of that also was in land use. And so I would like you to 
meet with me or someone in my office, and let's work with you 
to try to see what we can do, especially because I represent 
Aberdeen, to move forward with this project. We have willing 
partners that are willing to move forward. As an example, we 
need to have that open space for our national security. I mean, 
to have national security and to also have land use come 
together is very unique. A lot of people who do the national 
security would be surprised. But it is something we need to do. 
So I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. We will now go to Mr. Carter, and 
then Mr. Aguilar, if he comes back. If not, if he is not back 
in time, it will be Mrs. Kilpatrick.
    Mr. Carter.

                     CLEANUP OF MILITARY MUNITIONS

    Mr. Carter. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman.
    I want to talk about something that is kind of a current 
event for those of us who are at Fort Hood. You know, we have 
one of the few posts as a live fire range outside of Fort 
Irwin, California. And so we do an awful lot of live fire 
training at Fort Hood. And we have a lot of unexploded ordnance 
out there. And I have been curious about this for a long time 
as to what you do in the currently utilized live fire range 
because historically it has been like formerly used defense 
sites that you have cleaned up unexploded ordnance. What is the 
current estimate to complete cleanup for the military munitions 
under Military Munitions Response Program, and what is the 
relation between munitions and explosive cleanup and military 
readiness? We like to make sure that our guys go to war, our 
guys and gals, go to war as ready as ever. What role does the 
availability of the workforce skilled in munition response have 
to--in the Department's ability to be along cleanup? What are 
the main obstacles that exist to completing cleanup of the 
military munitions? Are you similarly concerned about shrinking 
workforce? And does the Department have a plan to increase 
funding, execution of Military Munition Response Program? And 
how does the balance funding agreement in the FIB [inaudible] 
to PFAS mediation in the environmental restoration accounts? A 
lot of questions there.
    Mr. Kidd. Sir, this is Mr. Kidd. I will start and see if I 
can get through some of those. So the Defense Environmental 
Restoration Program, the munitions response portion of which 
does not address cleanup on active ranges. All right? Active 
ranges are the purview of the installation or the service that 
is there. Normally, there is no cleanup done other than doing 
the maintenance of the range or in the event that a round were 
to go outside of the range and pose an immediate health and 
safety measure.
    Our cost to complete across the MMRP program in total right 
now is $11 billion, a little more than $11 billion. It is a 
significant amount. Currently, we see no shortage in the labor 
force or the industry for the MMRP program. We have talked to 
industry, and they realize that there is no new MMRP sites 
being generated. So, in this case, we do believe that we have a 
sufficient workforce to meet those needs. And I am sorry; I 
missed your last question on PFAS, if you wanted to repeat 
that.
    Mr. Carter. Are we competing with MMRP, are we competing 
with the same money as the PFAS program, which is clearly a 
current event?
    Mr. Kidd. No, sir, we are not competing the same money. I 
would say that, on PFAS in general, the Department of Defense 
is sort of a leader in what will become probably a national-
wide effort. So, in the case of AFFF, the best that we can 
determine is we the Department of Defense used 30, maybe 33 
percent, one-third of the total AFFF used in America. So we are 
the largest consumer but by no way the majority consumer. So, 
when private industry, municipal airports, and others start to 
engage in the same process that we do, there could be some 
competition for PFAS, which goes back to the earlier question 
about technology. So it is so important that our research 
continues on the technologies.
    I am also prepared to answer, just briefly, the question 
about ACUB from the previous question, that the REPI program 
has increased significantly, and there is much more money 
available to protect lands for training, for climate 
resilience, and for local communities.
    Mr. Carter. If I understand you correctly, if there is a 
desire to clean up live fire range, it only has to be if it is 
a danger to either the soldiers or the neighborhood, and if 
there is any cleanup, it is the responsibility of the posts.
    Mr. Kidd. Sir, we can take that for a more detailed 
response, which would come from our training and readiness 
community. But, in general, we continue to use the live fire 
ranges. We have to ensure that they are safe enough for range 
crews to go down and work in the targets and if there is any 
outlying explosive hazard. But, if you would like, we can get a 
more detailed response on training range maintenance.
    Mr. Carter. Great. Thank you. I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Carter, would you like that for the 
record to get that response for him for the record?
    Mr. Carter. I would like that response, please.
    Ms. McCollum. Okay. Next we will go to--we will go to Mrs. 
Kirkpatrick.

              CLOSED WATER SYSTEMS AND SOLE-SOURCE AQUIFER

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Chair McCollum. And thank you 
for having this hearing.
    My first question is for Ms. Balkus. I represent a district 
in southern Arizona that has Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and 
neighbors Morris Air National Guard Base. PFAS contaminants 
have been found in production wells above the safe levels near 
Davis-Monthan and threatened primary and backup sources of 
drinking water. The spread of these contaminants has been 
initially mitigated thanks to the rapid actions of the city of 
Tucson's Water Department. However, this is come at a 
significant financial cost to the city, which is bearing the 
brunt of the effort to protect over 700,000 residents.
    Ms. Balkus a large portion of my district resides in an 
EPA-designated sole-source aquifer. So the watershed does not 
have an active surface water connection to an ocean where 
contamination can move out of the community. How does the 
Department of the Air Force account for different types of 
water systems when evaluating priorities for remediation, and 
do you account for closed water systems and sole-source 
aquifers?
    Ms. Balkus. Thank you very much for your question, 
Congresswoman. So I am happy to say that in my short 2 months 
in the job, I have already had some community engagement with 
one of the community members from DavisMonthan. So I haven't 
yet met anyone from Morris yet.
    However, I would like to just briefly describe what our 
approach is for focusing on environmental restoration. So, of 
course, you know, first and foremost, it is protecting human 
health and the environment. So we want to make sure that, if 
the drinking water is impacted, that is when we are going to 
provide bottled water or connect to a municipal system, et 
cetera.
    Your specific question about a sole source or sole aquifer 
source, that is going to be very high on our risk calculations 
using the relative risk scoring method that we use in the 
Department of Defense. So we absolutely will take that into 
consideration.
    And the notes that I have here indicate that we have done 
all of the immediate activities to make sure that everyone has 
access to clean drinking water, and now we are going into the 
site prioritization stage where we can get after the long-term 
effects that we need to resolve.

                         PFAS CLEANUP TIMELINE

    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. Thank you very much.
    My second question is for Mr. Kidd regarding cleanup. The 
Department of Defense has identified 700 installations where 
the Department may have released PFAS. Most are still in the 
preliminary assessment and site inspections phase and only a 
small portion of installations are in the remedial 
investigation stage.
    So, Mr. Kidd, is the Department of Defense on track to 
deliver a schedule for PFAS cleanup at contaminated bases and 
complete preliminary assessments and site inspections for PFAS 
at all of Department of Defense facilities, as required by the 
fiscal year 2022 NDAA? And considering the health risks posed 
by PFAS, shouldn't the Department of Defense focus on 
installations near population centers?
    Mr. Kidd. Ma'am, thank you for that question. So, in 
regards to the transition of the 700 installations through the 
CERCLA process, as I indicated in my opening remarks, 168 have 
already moved to the second phase remedial investigation. We 
think that an additional 62 will do so by or before the end of 
the fiscal year.
    With the 96 that we have identified as no further action, 
we will have by the end of the fiscal year completed over 300 
of the 700 installations. And right now, we are on track to 
complete the investigation by the end of 2023. I caveat that, 
as I indicated earlier, as the EPA develops new numbers for 
both screening and assessment, we may have to go back and 
reopen some of those earlier investigations. So some of those 
may continue past the 2023.
    This occurrence highlights one of the key features of this 
program, which is uncertainty, uncertainty around standards, 
uncertainty around the source, how it has propagated through 
the medium, and where the receptors are. We prioritize risk 
first. We prioritize actions where communities are located. But 
we still have to complete the entire--much of the investigation 
process to understand the full parameters of the challenge, 
which will then allow us to build a comprehensive schedule all 
the way through the end of the cleanup for all 700 
installations.
    As was pointed out earlier by the ranking member, you know, 
the technology is currently pump and treat. We, the Department 
of Defense, Department of Energy, EPA, and others have pump-
and-treat systems for other chemicals that are going to be in 
place for many multiples of decades, so that is the reality of 
where we are. And we don't know when we will be done until we 
are actually done with the pump and treat. So that is why we 
are investing in new technologies to try to change that curve, 
bring it closer in, add some certainty to what is an inherently 
uncertain practice.
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. I know it is an enormous job, and I 
really appreciate your efforts.
    Thank you, and I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mrs. Kirkpatrick.
    I am looking at a list that got sent to us today and make 
sure that you have a copy of it. We just got it late. So there 
is--in Arizona, I'm looking really quickly at this list, and it 
might not be a complete list--there are three activities going 
on in Arizona. And two are investigations, and one is a removal 
action. So we will make sure that you get a copy of that as 
well as----
    Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. [continuing]. Being able to follow up with 
the Air Force.
    Next, we are going to hear from Mr. Diaz-Balart.

                             NEW TECHNOLOGY

    Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
    Actually, a quick question. When Mr. Calvert talked about 
the technology for cleanup, and, again, I apologize, I am not 
quite sure who responded, but talked about how you have 
actually given briefings about some of the new technologies and 
the research that you are doing. I think it would be very 
helpful, if you have that in writing, if you could get to 
that--get that to us, if it is possible, that would be really, 
really helpful.
    And, with that, Madam Chairwoman, I will yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think that 
would be very helpful. And Mr. Calvert and I are aware of a 
couple of projects that are going on, one I don't feel like I 
am at liberty to even discuss right now because I don't know 
where it is in the realm of things, but if it holds a lot of 
potential, that would be a great help.
    Mr. Cuellar is ready for a question.

                       SAN ANTONIO CLEANUP STATUS

    Mr. Cuellar. Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member and 
all of you all. Thank you. It is good seeing you all again.
    And, to the witnesses, thank you for being here.
    I have just one short question or just to ask if you all 
could followup. A couple years ago, I was working on an issue 
with the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, and, quite 
honestly, the Department gave us a hard time, and the Air Force 
did. And we were trying to work with you all, and it was very 
difficult, and the answer that we got was ``we don't have 
money, we don't have money, we don't have money.'' And I 
understand that is an issue. I understand that.
    So I had to basically go to the former Armed Services 
chairman, Mr. Thornberry, and we added some language to force 
you all to work with us. I just want to see where we are in the 
remediations and any sites that we have in San Antonio. I just 
want a status on anything going on in the San Antonio area, and 
ask you all that when Members ask you to work with you all, 
just try to work with us instead of just saying ``there is no 
money, there is no money, there is no money, there is no 
money.''
    None of you all were on those conversations, none of you 
all were, the ones who are present here, but I just ask you 
because I think, as some other folks have brought this up, 
that, you know, those are big issues, big concerns in our 
communities, and it was a big concern in San Antonio.
    So I just--I want to thank you, and we will work with you 
on the funding with the chairwoman and the ranking member, Mr. 
Calvert, also. But all I want is just an update on any work 
that you all are doing in San Antonio, Texas.
    And, with that, I yield back, Madam Chair. And it is so 
good seeing everybody again.
    Ms. McCollum. Thank you.
    Mr. Kidd. Sir----
    Ms. McCollum. Well, go ahead, Mr. Kidd, if you want to add 
something, please do.
    Mr. Kidd. No. No. No. Sir, just last year, in following 
this hearing, we provided a detailed summary of where we were 
in cleanup activities across your district, as well as some 
installations that were close to your district. I mean, the 
military history of San Antonio is it is a city that has 
contributed greatly to the readiness of our forces over the 
years, and you do have a number of sites. So we will work--our 
office will work with the Air Force to update that list.
    And, if Ms. Balkus wants anything to add, I turn it over to 
her.
    Ms. Balkus. No, I think what you said, Mr. Kidd, is 
perfect. Thank you.
    Mr. Cuellar. Well, Mr. Kidd, thank you so much. If you can 
just follow up with any updates on that, and thank you so much 
to all of you all.
    Madam Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you. And San Antonio, it looks 
like 2.758, so about $2 million, and it is under investigation. 
So I guess the only way the investigation would be--would be 
helpful for all of us, so thank you for your question, Mr. 
Cuellar.
    Mr. Cuellar. Thank you.

               COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND STATE REGULATORS

    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Calvert, I am going to go to a second 
round of questions with the caveat that, if Mr. Aguilar is able 
to join us, that I will take him immediately because he hasn't 
asked a question yet, if that is okay with you, sir.
    Mr. Calvert. Sure.
    Ms. McCollum. Okay. I want to talk about community 
engagement and State regulators here for a minute, and I know 
this is going to take a little longer than the 3 minutes, but 
we have an hour left. We might not use it all, but we have 
plenty of time.
    So both the DOD and the EPA are largely tasked to perform 
the same kind of cleanups under CERCLA. Most people don't think 
about DOD as a solution to a contamination problem because they 
think of things out and about in their communities, especially 
if they don't, you know, have a base. It might be an older 
ammunition site or something like that that hasn't been used 
for a while.
    So I would like to hear from the witnesses how you engage 
with the servicemen and women and their families when you are 
on a base and around the base. But how do you engage with 
surrounding communities on a site that might not be active very 
much anymore?
    But I am going to give a base example, because this is 
something that really struck home for a lot of us. And, in 
Minnesota, we are cleaning up PFAS-contaminated water. It is 
not the DOD that has responsibility for my cities of Oakdale, 
Woodbury, and Maplewood that are concerned about it. We are 
working with the private sector, and they have stood up to the 
task of trying to cleanup the water to the best of their 
ability.
    But I do have--in the northern suburbs, I have an Arden 
Hills facility where the water will be cleaned up for the 
remainder of--as long as there is people on Earth. So 
communicating with community is really important, and I get it 
both from a private sector pollution issue as well as the DOD 
with a former munitions plant.
    So let me use Camp Lejeune as an example. It has 
significant groundwater contamination in the last two decades, 
including PFAS. How was the community informed or engaged, or 
how are you engaging with them? So if each one of the services 
could talk about how you have engaged with communities when 
they either report something or when you are seeing something. 
And then I have a followup question on your work with local 
governments.
    Mr. Kidd. So, ma'am, before we get to the services, I would 
like to say, from the Department level, this administration, 
and particularly the Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks, has 
charged us to improve at all levels our community engagement 
and outreach. We recognize that these communities provide--they 
are where our servicemembers live, and they provide support for 
our installations and our families.
    So, at the OSD level, as I mentioned earlier, I have 
engaged in four townhalls. The colleagues here have joined me 
for those. They have been very informative, and they have 
helped to guide some of our actions. We are committed to 
producing a more user-friendly interactive website so 
communities can get higher resolution data faster, and we are 
looking at our community engagement practices at the local 
level.
    So I would just say, from the Department's perspective, we 
recognize this is important. We have heard you. We have heard 
your constituents. We have made improvements, but we recognize 
that we have more to do. And, with that, I will turn it over to 
the services for some service-specific comments.
    Ms. McCollum. That is fabulous news. So what are you doing 
that is improvement, and what are you learning in the townhall 
meetings of how you can be more effective in communication? I 
could call on somebody to go first. I am a former substitute 
teacher, but----
    Mr. Ohannessian. I can go first.
    Ms. McCollum. You saved everybody.
    Mr. Ohannessian. So I will go because you mentioned Camp 
Lejeune, and also I want to give another example too to give a 
fuller answer to the rest of your question about how we do 
these things.
    At Camp Lejeune, so the notifications can take on a number 
of channels just because we are trying to reach as many people 
as we can, whether they are on base or off base or used to be 
on base. And so that could be the installation commander; that 
could be the environmental program manager; that could also be 
the Bureau of Medicine; that could be the Navy-Marine Corps 
Public Health Center, so we have public health centers; that 
could also be the personnel command. So different commands and 
different channels to be able to reach depending on the 
audience or the population that we are trying to find, and so 
we try to get to everybody as best as we can.
    From the community point of view, there is more to it, of 
course, because there is also opportunity for fact sheets, 
there is opportunity for meetings, there is opportunities for 
speaking with elected officials, interested organizations, lots 
of opportunities to engage with people. There is something 
called a Restoration Advisory Board, which you heard mentioned. 
That is only a part of the community involvement plan. There is 
more to it than that, including electronic and other media 
outreach.
    But we also keep our--we reevaluate our community 
involvement plans periodically everywhere, and part of that is 
actually reaching out and doing research. Sometimes we even 
hire a contractor who is good at doing that to help us with the 
research project of getting to people and understanding, what 
are their information needs, and how do they want us to 
communicate?
    And sometimes there is surprising results. Sometimes what 
we think is what everybody wants, for example, an in-person 
meeting with the Restoration Advisory Board, is not what people 
want. They would rather get a letter or a newsletter or an 
email or something like that. So it changes, and we make it 
very specific to that locality.
    Where we do see that our Restoration Advisory Board or any 
other communication channel is maybe atrophied--has atrophied 
and needs some revitalization, we will go and try to do an 
effort to reenergize that. For example, this past year in 
Calverton, New York, that Restoration Advisory Board has 
dwindled down to, I think, one member. So we spent the better 
part of 2022, and now I can say that we have revitalized it. A 
lot more community members have come into the Restoration 
Advisory Board, and there is more participation in the meetings 
too, as well as additional information.
    So, when we see that something is maybe not happening as 
energetically as we would like, we are not shy about reaching 
out. And, by the way, sometimes people are worried about, why 
are you asking me? And, in this case, there was hesitancy at 
first in the community. What are you up to? There was a little 
bit of questioning; why are we reaching out? And it took a 
while to earn that trust that, no, we really are interested in 
making this better than it is.
    Ms. McCollum. Does anybody want to add anything, or I will 
go to State regulators?
    Ms. Borman. So ma'am, if I just--Madam Chair, this is Amy 
Borman. If I just may add a few comments. From the Army's 
perspective, we have empowered all of our installation 
commanders, and we have given them all of the materials that 
they need to be able to meet with their communities, whether 
they are off installation or on installation. And we have risk 
managers who have provided them guidance and advice on how to 
communicate with those communities about what may or may not be 
coming off of the installation or impacting them.
    And we have found, as Mr. O has said, that that very local 
community engagement is really the most valuable because those 
installation commanders live in the community and work in the 
community, and so they are really the ones that we try to 
empower to be able to speak on behalf of the Army and explain 
the concerns associated with the installation.
    Ms. McCollum. Well, ``empower'' is a lovely word if people 
choose to take what they are empowered with and use it. So I am 
sure that there is a--that you go back and make sure that the 
commanders are actually doing everything to the best of their 
ability and perhaps beyond? You go back and reaffirm and check 
that? Because each base, you know, can be run differently, 
depending upon what is going on. I mean, some of these 
commanders are getting ready to, you know, rapid deployment, 
doing things. I mean, there is a lot asked of them. So you go 
back and help them if they need it?
    Ms. Borman. So, yes, Madam Chair, we do. And we have gone 
back a couple of times and surveyed our installation commanders 
and determined what they have or have not been communicating to 
the community and how many communication engagements they have 
had.
    Ms. McCollum. Okay.
    Ms. Borman. And so we do have a mechanism to go back and 
ask those questions. And, if there are concerns, we do have the 
ability to bring our public health center in to be able to also 
speak with communities and provide risk engagement and risk 
discussion.
    Ms. Balkus. Madam Chair, from the Air Force perspective, I 
just wanted to add that there is sometimes community interest 
groups that we want to specifically target. And so I would just 
add, in addition to what my two colleagues have already said, 
that we pursue, for example, the Alaska and the Hawaii Native 
American groups to make sure that they are getting a voice in 
the process. Sometimes it is incumbent on us to go pursue their 
opinions and their insight to make sure that we are getting the 
entire community and not just those that might want to respond 
to an email or a flyer or a mailer.

               DOD'S AUTHORITY FOR COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS

    Ms. McCollum. Okay. The next thing I have is a followup, 
and, Ms. Balkus, you teed this up perfectly, and I am going to 
ask this to be for the record, but I am going to put on what I 
am asking on the hearing today.
    The DOD has authority under title X, section 270(d) to 
enter into cooperative agreements with a State, agency, or 
tribe to assist with carrying out the responsibilities under 
the environmental restoration program. This includes 
identification, investigation, and cleanup of any off-site 
contamination resulting from the release of hazardous substance 
or waste from at a facility under DOD's jurisdiction.
    DOD exercises this authority in part through a Defense and 
State memorandum agreement, a part of which allows the DOD to 
reimburse the States--and I would hope it would also include in 
some cases local governments--and territories--and think of all 
the cleanup going on at Vieques in Puerto Rico--for eligible 
regulatory services like technical review of documents, site 
visits, public participation support, Restoration Advisory 
Boards, identification and explanation of requirements, and 
quality assurance and quality control sampling analysis, all of 
which support the DOD in the execution of the Defense 
Environmental Restoration Program.
    Now, I am very familiar with cooperative agreements 
established in the cleanup of the Twin Cities Army Ammunitions 
Plant, TCAAP, located in Arden Hills, where the local 
government is conducting treatment of drinking water and being 
reimbursed by the DOD through a judgment fund, which is 
different than most of the funds that you are using when you 
are working with local units of government.
    So I am interested in knowing how frequently this authority 
is used, how it is being used to support or alleviate burden on 
State regulators. Could this be a tool used more often to help 
avoid bottlenecks and advance sites through peer-reviewed 
pipelines? Could this help speed things up if this is used 
properly?
    And then so what I would like you to do is provide for the 
record how much assistance has been provided to States, Tribal 
organizations, or our territories with this authority over the 
past 5 years? How much help has really gone out to them? 
Because I have with me a copy of the Army Corps Defense and 
State Memorandum of Agreement, and it says that the CAS 
allows--it doesn't say must or will--it says allow, so I am 
curious as to how often this is used and if States are aware 
that that is out there for them to use or if they have--and 
territories in that--or if they have to be relied on outside 
people that they have to hire to help them when this is going 
through can be a very substantial burden on local governments.
    So you can take that for the record, Mr. Kidd, unless you 
would like to kind of say something at 30,000 feet about it. I 
know it is rather technical what I asked.
    Mr. Kidd. No, ma'am. So the DSMOA program, Defense and 
State Memorandum of Agreement, is very important to the success 
of our efforts, and we rely significantly upon local, 
environmental, and regulatory authorities.
    I would not say that there is an impediment now or that it 
is slowing down the pipeline, but I share your concern that, as 
the PFAS cleanup goes through the CERCLA process and we have 
more removal actions, more remedial actions, more long-term 
actions in place, each of which requires sort of regulatory 
review by the State authorities, as we anticipate this 
program's growth, we should also anticipate a growth in the 
requirements on our State environmental regulators and 
permitters. So I would sort of share a sense of--I mean, I 
share your sense of possibility that this could be a 
constraint.
    Overall, we do have 53 DSMOAs in place right now. Only 
Arkansas, North Dakota, and the Virgin Islands do not have a 
DSMOA with the Department, and we have 52 cooperative 
agreements. To date, we have provided just under $32 million to 
State regulators, and last year, we provided $3.1 million to 
RABs across the country.
    I do think that, as we look to reinvigorate the RAB program 
and a supporting program, the Technical Assistance for Public 
Participation, the TAPP program, that these are all sort of 
three activities, States, RAB, and TAPP, where we should look 
to maximize the involvement of communities and regulators so 
that we don't face any delays as we go into public commentary 
or State review. But we will take this for the record and give 
you the exact figures and numbers.
    Ms. McCollum. I think that would be very helpful, because 
my office had to get involved with the TCAAP arsenal on another 
site, Round Lake, and it was absolutely amazing to me the--in 
my opinion, and I don't say this lightly, I say this with a 
heavy heart--the impediments that the Army kept putting up time 
and time again with what U.S. Fish and Wildlife was even saying 
was needed to happen for remediation and for what the local 
units of government wanted to do. The Army just kept pushing a 
third, third, third, third alternative.
    And the amount of time and energy that local units of 
government, the State of Minnesota, and even Fish and Wildlife 
had to put in was something that got resolved with what the 
community of interest and Fish and Wildlife asked for the first 
time was just baffling to me the amount of lawyer hours that 
got put into this.
    So I think we can do better, and I am hearing from all of 
you that there is a different attitude; there is a different 
change. I take you at your word for it, and that is exciting to 
hear.
    So, Mr. Calvert, if you have a second question, Mr. 
Ruppersberger. And then if any of the members that are still 
on, if you could email Chris Bigelow if you have a question. 
Other than that, we will be wrapping this up shortly. Mr. 
Calvert.

                    Closing Remarks for Mr. Calvert

    Mr. Calvert. Just real quick, you know the old saying, if 
you are in a hole, quit digging. And I just want, for the 
record, obviously this old--I don't think I can pronounce it 
correctly--the aqueous film-forming technology, which no one 
disputes is extremely effective at putting out the fire, is it 
still being used?
    Mr. Kidd. Sir, it is only being used in an emergency 
response or if it can be properly contained and disposed of. So 
we have some--we have eliminated the use of AFFF. I have been 
at it for 18 months. I can't get it right either. Anyway, AFFF, 
we have eliminated use for training and testing unless we can 
contain it and then only in the event of an emergency response.
    Mr. Calvert. Okay. So, yes, it is being used but in rare 
circumstances where you believe it can be contained or properly 
disposed of?
    Mr. Kidd. Yes, sir. We also unfortunately have incidents of 
accidental discharge, which we report to Congress within 48 
hours. So we do have a reporting requirement on accidental 
discharge. And, as you heard from some of the Deputy Assistant 
Secretaries, particularly the Air Force, they have taken steps 
now to reduce the possibility of discharge in their hangars.
    Mr. Calvert. Okay. Secondly, the chair and my job is to try 
to fund things as effectively and efficiently as possible. 
Obviously, this PFAS cleanup is enormously expensive and 
growing, especially using these as existing technologies. I 
don't want to sound like a broken record, but if you have 
technologies that have been proven to work that are much 
cheaper and more effective, by the way, let's not waste a lot 
of time getting to it, because the quicker we can cleanup these 
sites, especially these old sites, and put it back into 
economic activity, the better off we all are going to be, and 
it saves money in the long run.
    So that is the only comment I want to make, Madam Chair. 
And, with that, I will be happy to yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Mr. Ruppersberger, do you have a followup 
question? You are on mute. I am wondering if you have a 
followup question or comment. We are going to--Mr. Calvert and 
I are likely going to close up if you don't.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. I do.
    Ms. McCollum. Okay. Please.

                        CLIMATE IMPACT ON ARCTIC

    Mr. Ruppersberger. Okay. Good. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    My question is for Mr. Kidd. Mr. Kidd, the climate change 
is altering the strategic context in which the Joint Force 
operates. I am particularly concerned about the Arctic, which 
is warming faster than other parts of the world and causing sea 
level to rise at a rate that is threatening critical 
infrastructure and supply chains. How is the Defense Department 
and how are their assets and the installations being impacted?
    I represent Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and I am concerned 
about issues involving Aberdeen, as all the other bases in our 
country. The Defense Department assets and installations that 
are being impacted are, again, high priority for us. What is 
DOD investing in that are critical for mission and safety of 
our servicemembers that meet our climate goals?
    I will be at the Naval Academy tomorrow for the 
commissioning of the class of 2022. While the subcommittee has 
been concerned about the investment in infrastructure needs at 
all of our great service academies, Annapolis is particularly 
vulnerable to sea-level rise. The subcommittee last year had to 
make a considerable increase for infrastructure repairs in 
Annapolis.
    Given that, Mr. Ohannessian--I hope I got it right--what 
are you doing to ensure that sea-level rise is accurately 
accounted for in infrastructure needs through the budget 
process?
    Mr. Kidd. Sir, this is Mr. Kidd.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Yes.
    Mr. Kidd. So climate change is an issue of extreme 
importance to the Department. It is altering our geostrategic 
environment. It is adversely affecting our installations and 
infrastructure. It is creating increased operational demands on 
the force, whether it is the National Guard fighting forest 
fires or whether it is requirements on our forces overseas, and 
is degrading the performance of our servicemembers and their 
equipment, particularly so in the Arctic.
    Our Department has now created a new Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of Policy, who is--her purview to look at Arctic 
security matters. Our team works at climate adaptation and 
mitigation. I would be happy to provide you a brief on that, 
but I would direct your attention that, for the first time in 
this year's budget submission, there has been a J-book prepared 
outlining $3.1 billion or so of investments that the Department 
is making that will have effects--or investments that will--are 
in response to climate threats or threats to our installations. 
So we can take as a due-out to provide you directly and your 
team that J-book and to follow up with a detailed briefing, 
unless Mr. Ohannessian has anything to add about Annapolis.
    Mr. Ohannessian. No. I would like to take it for the record 
and provide a fuller response. I could give a partial response 
because of the environmental piece, but it is a lot bigger 
question than that; it is infrastructure. And we will come back 
with the fuller answer.
    Mr. Ruppersberger. Thank you, and I yield back.

                   Closing Remarks for Chair McCollum

    Ms. McCollum. Thank you, Mr. Ruppersberger. I would be 
interested if you have them come, working with our schedules, 
to be present when you are getting that information. And we 
will let other members know too. Thank you.
    Mr. Calvert, anything you want to say before I close?
    Mr. Calvert. No, Madam Chair. Thank you. Very interesting 
hearing. I certainly thank the witnesses for being here today 
and informing us. And, with that, I yield back.
    Ms. McCollum. Well, thank you.
    As you know, we care about all contamination, and we want 
to see it get cleaned up, from unexploded ordnance to trace 
elements that are sometimes left in the ground after an arsenal 
closes and many, many other things. But, as you know, PFAS and 
PFOA contamination sites, the monitoring, the sampling, and the 
remediation of those sites, and maybe continued upgrade 
remediation, and we have done that with our drinking water here 
in Minnesota. So I hear you loud and clear that, as the EPA 
learns more about the harmful effects of this, sometimes we 
have to go back up back and get it even done even better. So 
thank you for pointing that out.
    The importance of partnering with State and local 
governments and in research and development technologies as the 
DOD finds and discovers things, as Mr. Calvert pointed out, you 
know, getting that information out to local units of government 
and being able to work with them on how to get things right is 
going to be really important, too. And you play a unique role 
in the research and development that you are doing on that.
    I am excited to hear the change in direction and the way 
you are doing engagement and the enthusiasm all of you bring to 
this job. I know Secretary Austin--I actually had a 
conversation about environmental remediation with General 
Milley back a while ago, so I am very excited about the 
administration's push on this.
    But I am disappointed--and this is--once again, you don't 
set the numbers. I am disappointed at the way that we saw the 
numbers go down. So I look forward to hearing where you are on 
cleanup activities and other things that I asked for the 
record.
    So thank you very much. This is a tough topic to talk about 
because, you know, pollution is something we have to address 
and clean up, and the Department of Defense has a lot in its 
backlog of cleanup. So I want to thank each and every one of 
you for your testimony today, Mr. Kidd, you know, to all three 
of the services here. And I notice that even your colleagues 
went with ``Mr. O.'' So thank you very much for your work on 
this.
    And with that, the meeting is adjourned.
    [Answers to submitted questions for the record follow:]
    
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                           W I T N E S S E S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

Balkus, Nancy....................................................   390

Bellon, Lt. General David G......................................   177

Berger, General David H..........................................    52

Borman, Amy......................................................   371

Cohen, Hon. Steve................................................   115

Daniels, Lt. General Jody J......................................   137

DelToro, Hon. Carlos.............................................     5

Dingle, Lt. General R. Scott.....................................   273

Escobar, Hon. Veronica...........................................   117

Gilday, Admiral Michael M........................................    35

Gillingham, Rear Admiral Bruce L.................................   289

Horkanson, General Daniel R......................................   125

Kidd, Richard....................................................   362

Miller, Lt. General Robert I.....................................   310

Mullen, Seileen..................................................   256

Mustin, Vice Admiral John B......................................   151

Ohannessian, Karnig..............................................   381

Payne, Hon. Donald M.............................................   118

Place, Lt. General Ronald J......................................   309

Scobee, Lt. General Richard W....................................   214

                              [all]