[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS,
AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
FOR 2025
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
_____________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS,
AND RELATED AGENCIES
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas, Chairman
DAVID G. VALADAO, California DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
TONY GONZALES, Texas SUSIE LEE, Nevada
MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
NOTE: Under committee rules, Mr. Cole, as chairman of the full
committee, and Ms. DeLauro, as ranking minority member of the full
committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.
Justin Masucci, Jason Wheelock, Arianna Delgado, and Emma Lou Ford
Subcommittee Staff
_________________
PART 2
Page
FY 2025 Request for Air Force and
Space Force Military Construction and
Family Housing................................................. 1
Department of the Army Budget Request
for Military Construction and Family
Housing........................................................ 53
Department of Veterans Affairs.............................. 95
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______________________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
58-514 WASHINGTON : 2026
_______________________________________________________________________
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
----------
TOM COLE, Oklahoma, Chairman
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky,
Chair Emeritus
KAY GRANGER, Texas,
Chair Emeritus
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
CHARLES J. ``CHUCK'' FLEISCHMANN,
Tennessee
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
BEN CLINE, Virginia
GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania
MIKE GARCIA, California
ASHLEY HINSON, Iowa
TONY GONZALES, Texas
JULIA LETLOW, Louisiana
MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas
MICHAEL GUEST, Mississippi
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
ANDREW S. CLYDE, Georgia
JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
JERRY L. CARL, Alabama
STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida
JAKE ELLZEY, Texas
JUAN CISCOMANI, Arizona
CHUCK EDWARDS, North Carolina
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
STENY H. HOYER, Maryland
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BARBARA LEE, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER,
Maryland
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
DEREK KILMER, Washington
MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
GRACE MENG, New York
MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
PETE AGUILAR, California
LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
NORMA J. TORRES, California
ED CASE, Hawaii
ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York
JOSH HARDER, California
JENNIFER WEXTON, Virginia
DAVID J. TRONE, Maryland
LAUREN UNDERWOOD, Illinois
SUSIE LEE, Nevada
JOSEPH D. MORELLE, New York
Susan Ross, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
FY 2025 REQUEST FOR AIR FORCE AND SPACE FORCE MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND
FAMILY HOUSING
Page
Chaudhary, Hon. Ravi, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force,
Installations, Energy and Environment.......................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hollywood, Bruce, Associate Chief Operations Officer, U.S. Space
Force.......................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hartless, Brigadier General Brian S., Director of Civil
Engineers, U.S. Air Force...................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY BUDGET REQUEST FOR MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND
FAMILY HOUSING
Jacobson, Hon. Rachel, Assistant Secretary, Installations, Energy
and the Environment, Department of the Army.................... 55
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Vereen, Lt. General Kevin, Deputy Chief of Staff G9, Installation
Management Command............................................. 56
Prepared statement........................................... 58
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
Elnahal, Shereef M.D., Under Secretary for Health, Veterans
Health Administration.......................................... 100
Prepared statement........................................... 104
Jacobs, Josh, Under Secretary for Benefits, Veterans Benefits
Administration................................................. 102
Prepared statement........................................... 104
(iii)
MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES
----------
Wednesday, April 17, 2024.
FISCAL YEAR 2025 REQUEST FOR AIR FORCE AND SPACE FORCE MILITARY
CONSTRUCTION AND FAMILY HOUSING
WITNESSES
HON. RAVI CHAUDHARY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE AIR FORCE,
INSTALLATIONS, ENERGY, AND ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF AIR FORCE
BRIGADIER GENERAL BRIAN S. HARTLESS, DIRECTOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, U.S.
AIR FORCE
BRUCE HOLLYWOOD, ASSOCIATE CHIEF OPERATIONS OFFICER, U.S. SPACE FORCE
Mr. Carter. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Energy,
Installations, Environment; Brigadier General Brian Hartless;
Air Force Director of Civil Engineering, Deputy Chief of Staff
for Logistics, Engineering, and Force Protection, and Bruce
Hollywood, Associate Chief Operations Officer, United States
Space Force.
Our ability to project power in the Pacific is critically
important. We need to ensure that we have the necessary
infrastructure to do so, whether it be maintenance hangers,
training facilities, or runways.
This subcommittee understands the important connection
between infrastructure readiness and the effect it has on our
Airmen, Guardians, and our families.
I look forward to discussing how the budget request
balances these priorities. I thank each of you for being here
today and for your support and dedication to our Nation's
Airmen and Guardians.
I would now like to recognize my good friend and
counterpart, Ms. Wasserman Schultz for her opening statement.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Chairman Carter. I
appreciate you yielding and welcome back to our witnesses,
Assistant Secretary Chaudhary, Brigadier General Hartless, and
Mr. Hollywood, whose name always makes me smile. [Laughter.]
Thank you. I can only imagine what your friends have done
with your name throughout your life.
Appreciate all of you being here today. The FY 2025 budget
request for the Department of the Air Force is $4 billion to
support military construction, the active and reserve
components, and for family housing construction and operations
for the Air Force and Space Force, which is $65 million above
its FY 2024 level.
We are in an extremely tight fiscal environment this year,
operating under the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which is leaving
Defense funding, essentially, flat.
Under these circumstances, I am pleased that the Department
of the Air Force is requesting $368 million more in its budget
request this year compared to its budget request last year.
We have been stressing for years on this committee that
MilCon needs more investment, as it is critical to support the
men and women of our armed forces. Considering the current
budget environment, I will take $368 million. That is what we
will have to call progress for now.
In an era of Great Power Competition, this budget request
addresses critical Air Force infrastructure needs in the
Pacific and Europe. The budget request also improves the Air
Force's infrastructure resiliency in Florida. We know the
importance of resiliency all to well, as the Air Force
continues the task of recovery efforts at Tyndall Air Force
Base. I am pleased to see the Air Force taking steps to improve
its bases' ability to withstand future disasters.
It has been a long time coming. I am hopeful that this last
$144 million will finally complete their recovery efforts.
However, we still do have questions about the priorities of the
Department of the Air Force and how it is taking care of its
Airmen and Guardians.
Again, I know that we are in an extremely tight fiscal
environment and this year, more than ever, we need to
prioritize the things that matter most, a budget is a
reflection of your values.
And I have to say that while I appreciate that the budget
requests one Child Development Center (CDC), and frankly, that
is more than the other services have requested, it is not
enough.
And I don't think it meets the needs of the service members
and their families. Nowhere are these needs more obvious than
Eglin Air Force Base and Camp Bull Simons where servicemembers
face an acute shortage of childcare and solutions are delayed
year after year.
Being expected to drive over an hour each way to drop off
your child or pick them up at a Child Development Center is not
an acceptable solution. Beyond needing the infrastructure
necessary for adequate childcare, the Air Force must also
ensure the safety of the children served at those CDC's.
Not related to the Air Force, but last week there were
deeply troubling reports about child abuse at a Navy CDC and
leadership failures there that resulted in unacceptable delays
in families getting answers.
The safety of our children is the most important thing and
we need to ensure that our troops can trust their children's
care to the services and their families and keep them safe from
harm.
So I am going to have some questions about what steps the
Air Force is taking to ensure that something like what happened
in the Navy facility can never happen.
On the housing front, the Air Force is requesting
government investments in privatized housing at two bases
because the privatized projects have insufficient funding to
address sustainment needs.
We have to take care of our servicemembers and do what we
can to provide safe, livable housing, but at the same time, the
Air Force, along with the other services, is considering
privatization as a potential part of the solution to
unaccompanied housing shortfalls.
I am skeptical of additional privatization efforts and am
interested in hearing more today about how changes will be made
to ensure continued financial investment throughout the
duration of the contract to maintain livable housing well into
the future.
The whole point of privatization is to take the
refurbishment and maintenance off of the books of the Air
Force. And here we are with a request to rescue the private
companies who have already done an atrocious job in these
areas, and now we are swooping in to take care of them, and I
mean, what is the point of privatization if they aren't going
to be able to meet the needs and the requirements of their
contract?
Last week, the EPA announced final PFAS drinking water
standards. This drinking water rule gives us a standard moving
forward and will undoubtedly increase the Air Force's PFAS
funding needs.
I would like to hear from our witnesses today both how the
Department is working to address this new standard into your
work, that is what you are doing now, and how you believe it
will impact the long-term PFAS remediation funding needs.
The scale of PFAS contamination from former Air Force
installations is immense and it will take years to address,
another enduring requirement on the Department that needs to be
properly prioritized.
We have to do right by our affected communities to ensure
that BRAC installations are not harming water quality. So we
have a lot of ground to cover today and I look forward to your
testimonies and diving into these issues.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
OK. Without objection, your written statement will be
entered into the record. Please summarize your remarks for
about five minutes each.
And we will start with Dr. Chaudhary.
STATEMENT OF RAVI I. CHAUDHARY
Mr. Chaudhary. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman
Schultz, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you
for the opportunity to discuss Department of the Air Forces' FY
2025 request for military construction and family housing.
The Department recognizes that we are in a decade of
consequence. An era of Great Power Competition in which the
impact of our installations have become crucial to our ability
to project combat power.
Our adversaries have committed to using both kinetic and
non-kinetic means to cripple critical infrastructure nodes. As
Secretary Kendall recently stated, we are out of time.
Whether in the CONUS or abroad, we must ensure vital
infrastructure at our installations is resilient, survivable,
and ready to meet the demands of more sophisticated threats
posed by China, or even Russia, who have demonstrated their
ability and intent to weaponize energy resources in their
aggression against Ukraine.
As we read the headlines this morning, a potential Russian
hacker is disrupting vital water systems in Texas, we are
reminded that the threat to our infrastructure is real and we
must be ready.
First, I would like to thank the members of the
subcommittee for your support in meeting this imperative. Our
FY 2025 budget is focused on ensuring we can equip our Airmen
and Guardians with the tools to effectively execute their
mission.
More importantly, we owe them modernized facilities and
quality housing that is befitting of their service. To maintain
our cadence of modernization programs, we are requesting a
total DAF military construction (MilCon) investment of $3.45
billion through the FY 2025 President's Budget.
This is $368 million more than the FY 2024 requested
amount. Pending passage of an appropriation, this MilCon fund
will support combatant commanders and their most critical
requirements, to include the beddown of new weapon systems,
like the B-21, F-35, C-130J, and T-7 aircraft.
This effort includes largescale investments in the Indo-
Pacific, like Tinian Island, where we will be applying agile
combat deployment techniques that complicate targeting
solutions for potential adversaries.
We are also securing critical investments at our Space
Force installations. Mission ready resilient facilities are
integral to the Space Force's readiness and effectiveness. Our
Spaceport of the Future Program, which optimizes range costs
and launch throughput will receive $77 million in MilCon,
primarily for planning and design and $84 million in operations
and maintenance in both Florida and California.
Upon my confirmation in March, I made it a personal mission
to ensure our Airmen, Guardians, and their families have
housing befitting of their service.
Upon the recommendation of the subcommittee, I visited over
30 bases and conducted detailed focus groups with our youngest
Airmen, Guardians, and their families to garner their feedback.
As a former Air Force officer and pilot, I've lived in
military housing, to include raising a family during transition
to privatized housing.
My service has given me firsthand knowledge of how housing
can impact quality of life for our personnel. As a concerned
parent of an Air Force Officer Candidate, I can tell you there
is no issue that is more personal to me than this one.
That is why I'm proud to share that in FY 2025, the DAF
request $1.1 billion for housing, dormitories, and Child
Development Centers, to include all new dorms at Joint Bases in
Virginia and Texas.
This is part of a $1 billion Facility, Sustainment,
Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) investment from FY 2022 to
FY 2026 to improve the condition of our dormitories. Nearly
triples the investment over the previous 5 years, and is the
largest dorm investment in over a decade.
Our actions in privatized housing can be summed up in three
words, oversight, accountability, and where appropriate,
enforcement, including a $58 million determination to recover
taxpayer dollars for remediating mold in over 1,000 units.
Finally, we recognize that, in a high-end fight, our
installations can no longer be considered a sanctuary. As a
result, we are transforming our installations with all new
resiliency initiatives designed to reduce electrical grid
stress, bolster cyber resiliency with microgrids, and new
energy storage capabilities.
We are also pursuing redundant utility sources, like
geothermal, small modular reactors, and wind. These
capabilities are designed to harden installation infrastructure
and enable commanders to fight the base for extended periods.
As an example, Kadena Air Base recently installed a
microgrid funded by energy efficiency savings. The capability
ensured full power on the installation during a typhoon, a
testament to the resiliency that can be achieved when we invest
in innovative technologies.
I'll close with a quote from General Henry ``Hap'' Arnold
who declared in 1941 that air bases are a determining factor in
the success of air operations.
I agree and add that investments in our installation today
could prove to be the margin of victory in Great Power
Competition. A competition in which we dare not come in second
place.
Once again, thank you for your support of our Airmen and
Guardians, and I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Carter. Thank you very much.
Now, Mr. Hollywood.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE HOLLYWOOD
Mr. Hollywood. Thank you, Chair Carter.
Chair Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify on behalf of the United States Space
Force for our military construction program and initiatives.
As the newest armed service, we were established to
organize, train, and equip space forces to secure our Nation's
interests in, from, and to space. The majority of our
capabilities were built and fielded in a time when our space
systems were unchallenged, and our installations were safe
havens.
These uncontested space capabilities enabled U.S.
prosperity and ensured our military is the envy of the world
and the finest combat force in history.
Now, in this era of Great Power Competition, our
challengers are aggressively fielding their own capabilities to
contest and control the space domain, fundamentally shifting
space from a peaceful expanse to a warfighting domain.
They are also challenging our installations at home and
abroad. It is impossible to overstate the importance of our
Space Force installations and stations. We are working hard
everyday to be good stewards of the resources you provide and
to balance mission accomplishment and quality of life
requirements.
Our installations serve as home to our Guardians, Airmen,
mission partners, and their families who work, live, rest, and
recuperate there. Most of our combat-ready Guardians are
employed in place, meaning they execute their combatant command
directed and service missions from their home stations.
Using that infrastructure and equipment across the entire
spectrum of conflict to provide essential capabilities to the
joint force.
The Department of the Air Force provides an allotment of
military construction funding to the Space Force, which
provides flexibility to our capacity to provide projects,
balancing weapon systems, quality of life, and force support
infrastructure.
Assured access to space is the key to Space Force providing
our capabilities in support of national security. In line with
this priority, the Space Force launched the Spaceport of the
Future initiative.
We thank Congress for the $24 million in planning and
design appropriated in FY 2024 for Spaceport of the Future,
that will help keep our launch enterprise globally competitive
and provide for the exponential increase in launch activity.
This funding will prepare numerous projects, large and
small, for execution over the future years Defense plan at both
Vandenberg and Patrick. Meanwhile, Space Base Delta Two at
Buckley and Space Base Delta One at Peterson-Schriever and
numerous geographically separated units across the world are
literally home to thousands of Guardians and Airmen and dozens
of Space Force systems, including missile warning and missile
defense systems, position, navigation, and timing (PNT) space
radar capabilities, communication systems, intelligence,
surveillance, and reconnaissance and many more.
We are strategically examining our bases that may be
impacted by climate change and planning resilience in our
mission operations while protecting the Guardians and Airmen
stationed in potentially vulnerable locations.
Energy and infrastructure resilience is important at every
military installation. A loss of power at any of them is
inconvenient, but for us, with our employed in place missions,
it can be catastrophic.
Space Force military construction programs are critical to
performing our mission and to the well-being of our Guardians,
supporting Airmen, and their families. Notably, the Space Force
requests $84.9 million in FY 2025 for planning and design,
including $62.8 million for Spaceport of the Future
requirements.
The Space Forces' FY 2025 President's Budget Request also
includes $24.9 million for three unspecified minor military
construction projects, to including two that support the
Spaceport of the Future initiative.
Thank you again for your generous support of our people and
our missions through the Military Construction Program. I look
forward to our dialog. Semper Supra.
Mr. Carter. Now, General Hartless.
STATEMENT OF BRIGADIER GENERAL BRIAN S. HARTLESS
General Hartless. Good afternoon, Chairman Carter, Ranking
Member Wasserman Schultz, and distinguished members of the
subcommittee. I am honored to appear before you today to
discuss the Fiscal Year 2025 Air Force Military Construction
and Family Housing Programs, and to represent the nearly 50,000
Total Force, Airmen engineers working around the globe to both
enable the execution of these programs and to ensure our Air
Force installations both at home and abroad are ready and
resilient and able to effectively employ combat power, anytime,
anywhere.
Throughout my career, I've seen the innovation and hard
work of Airmen solve our toughest problems and I know they will
continue to do so as we look ahead.
I would like to begin by thanking the subcommittee for your
steadfast support of our Nation's Air Force and the generous
military construction funding contained in the FY 2024 Military
Construction and Veteran's Affairs Act.
The $3.85 billion appropriated allows us to meet our
Nation's highest priorities, continue modernization of our
nuclear infrastructure, and beddown new transformational
weapons system, such as the B-21 Raider.
It also enabled us to meet combatant command requirements
with $794 million dedicated towards supporting Pacific and
European deterrence.
Furthermore, numerous quality-of-life projects, such as a
dorm at RAF Lakenheath, a Child Development Center in both
Hanscom and Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland received generous
funding support.
Also, the $776 million in additional appropriations above
the FY 2024 President's Budget benefitted multiple projects,
including the Chapel for America's Airmen at Joint Base San
Antonio-Lackland, a fire station in Malmstrom Air Force Base in
Montana, and a host of planning and design for current mission
projects. Thank you.
I look forward to working with the subcommittee on our
Fiscal Year 2025 Air Force Military Construction Budget Request
as we strive to modernize for new missions, recapitalize aging
facilities, and reduce the Department's growing deferred
maintenance backlog.
At the same time, we are continuing to deliver safe, high-
quality housing and childcare facilities for our Airmen. In
total, the Department's Fiscal Year 2025 Military Construction
Request is $3.45 billion, across active, Guard, and reserve
components.
Comparing to fiscal year 2024, this request is a $371
million increase. This budget is a continuation of last year's
priorities by focusing on modernization of the nuclear
enterprise, new weapon system beddowns, and combatant
commanders' support.
For the latter, combatant command priorities account for
$682 million or roughly 20 percent of the FY 2025 Air Force
Military Construction request. We are requesting increments
totaling $343 million for two weapon storage and generation
facilities that are top U.S. Strategic Command priorities.
Within Indo-Pacific Command, the budget captures two
projects totaling $228 million dedicated to infrastructure and
facilities. Meanwhile, the request also includes $110 million
for a war reserve equipment pre-positioning facility in
Denmark.
These projects reinforce the Department's priorities
towards modernizing the nuclear enterprise at home while
setting the Indo-Pacific and European command theaters for
joint and coalition forces to prepare for, recover, and respond
to aggressive regional actors.
In preparation for the Sentinel Missile System, the Air
Force is continuing the largest and most complex program the
Air Force has ever undertaken. The FY 2025 request includes six
projects to support the Sentinel Program at F.E. Warren Air
Force Base, Malmstrom Air Force Base, and Vandenberg Space
Force Base.
Additionally, the request prepares Ellsworth Air Force Base
to welcome the first B-21 Raiders and begin similar efforts at
Dyess Air Force Base in Texas. Once online, these weapon
systems will be the future mainstay of two-thirds of our
Nation's nuclear triad entrusted to the Air Force.
Equally important is the Air Force's commitment to the
well-being of our Airmen and their families. The FY 2025 budget
submission includes a $40 million Child Development Center at
Mountain Home Air Force Base, an $81 million dormitory at Joint
Base Langley-Eustis, and the first increment of the new medical
education and training campus dormitory at Joint Base San
Antonio-Fort Sam Houston for $77 million.
Furthermore, the Department is committed to our target
investment in dorms of $1.1 billion in facilities sustainment,
restoration, and modernization across fiscal years 2022 to
2026, in accordance with the 2022 NDAA.
This is nearly a three-fold increase over the previous 5
years. For fiscal year 2025, we are planning approximately $300
million of dormitory improvements across our installations.
On the family housing front, this budget request includes
$65 million to provide whole-house renovations at homes at
Yokota Air Base in Japan. Additionally, it encompasses $173
million of de-maintenance and repair of 475 homes across our
installations in Europe and predominantly Japan.
Lastly, generous congressional support from FY 2022 to FY
2024 accelerated designs for quality-of-life efforts. We are
actively working to design additional projects for inclusion in
future budget submissions.
In closing, the Air Force values its continued partnership
with the subcommittee's members and staff. Together this budget
request is essential to the modernization of our force, the
beddown of key weapon systems, and allows us to take care of
our Airmen and their families.
I thank you for your ongoing support and look forward to
your questions.
[The prepared joint statement follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Carter. Let me remind the committee that there is a 5-
minute rule. I will yield my time to my friend, Mr. Rutherford
because he has got another committee to go to.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really
appreciate that and I thank all of our witnesses today. Thank
you for being here today, but most of all, thank you for your
service to our country.
General Hartless, I want to talk a little bit about the
Pacific, specifically the INDOPACOM. Having been out there on
some RIMPAC exercises a few years ago, just the massive area
that INDOPACOM covers and the population, obviously, the
distances between things are almost incomprehensible.
I mean, it is big. We have some major problems, you know,
with Red Hill going down. I am more--when you talk about your
agile combat deployment, what are we doing with our fuel
capabilities under that strategy?
General Hartless. Congressman, thank you for that question.
I would assert that it isn't just recently. That we certainly
consider this a top priority for the Air Force. Looking back,
for the last 10 years, at Pacific deterrence, the Pacific
deterrence initiative for the last 10 years has been about $600
million in investments, primarily in airfields, fuels, and
munitions.
So that's an investment that we've been making for the
last, roughly the last decade all across the Indo-Pacific Area
of Responsibility (AOR). Looking ahead to the future, to the
next 5 years and this budget year and Future Years Defense
Program (FYDP), there's a very large budget map programmed to
continue to get after airfields, fuels, and munitions in the
Indo-Pacific AOR, $2.2 billion in the FYDP alone.
So it's absolutely a priority and we understand how that,
in and of itself, will enable us, a scheme of maneuver that you
referred to, but it's an investment that we've been making
really for quite some time. Thank you for that question.
Mr. Rutherford. Good. And can you talk a little bit about
Guam and the typhoon? How are we doing on the recovery and are
there special needs? I saw a couple things in here, but is
there anything that you need beyond what has been listed here?
General Hartless. Congressman, the damage sustained at
Guam, specifically, Andersen Air Base and Joint Region Marianas
is extensive. The initial response, over 600 buildings damaged,
some level of damage. Several hundred million needed just kind
of initially that we spent just to sort of respond to the
initial impact of the storms.
And as we look at the future, the requirements are
significant. Well over 40 MilCon level requirements and on the
order of $7.9 to $8 billion in MilCon that we anticipate we are
estimating that will be required, and just for reference,
that's about two times the amount that we spent on the National
Disaster Recovery Program in Tyndall and Offutt. So it is
significant and significant damage at Andersen.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you very much, General.
Mr. Chairman, I really do appreciate it. I am going to
yield back the rest of my time. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Chaudhary, the Air Force's budget requests funding for
two restructures of privatized family housing projects that
total $144 million. We talked about this at last year's
hearing, but I continue to be concerned, as I said in my
opening comments, as well as more in my office, that we are
spending money the right size at the housing portfolio when we
do not own the units.
These are units that private companies assumed
responsibility for years ago. So I am going to continue to ask,
why should it be the government's and not the private
companies' responsibility to cover these additional costs for
sustainment and reinvestment, and importantly, how will this
funding help a servicemember and their families and not be
bailing out the project companies?
Mr. Chaudhary. Ranking Member, thank you for the question.
As we discussed last year, what we've done is laid in an
oversight program that we believe is getting us gains these
days.
We had a number of restructures last year, that number has
gone down this year. We expect that trend to continue. That's
by providing significant oversight with accountability,
oversight, and when we need to, enforcement.
So I want to give you an example of one enforcement
activity, which one, where we discovered mold at one of our
installations and we held the project owner accountable for
roughly $58 million and 1,000 units of mold.
We are going to continue this trend and I appreciate your
feedback on this matter, but I will say one thing. When we need
to act on behalf of our military members and their quality of
life, we will.
So when that occurs in these restructures, we make sure
that it goes directly to those housing units and our oversight
programs provide that visibility, to include our resident
advisors or resident advocates who we've hired roughly 218 or
so, we're going to continue that trend to make sure that that
oversight maintains a level of awareness that allows us to hold
these project owners accountable.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. How?
Mr. Chaudhary. First of all----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. How are you holding them
accountable?
Mr. Chaudhary. So the first example that I gave you, $58
million to resolve mold, another $23 million, excuse me, $32
million in FY 2023, we found safety issues that needed to be
addressed by project owners, and we made them--we held them
accountable for $33 million of that.
And another $33 million in FY 2024 that we held accountable
for that. So our oversight program is yielding gains on us and
that's going to bring our number of restructures down.
So taking your feedback last year into account, that's
something that we've acted on and we're going to act upon that.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The Air Force, in spite of what you
are saying, is requesting funding for these restructures,
significantly more than the other services. Why is that the
case?
I get that you have lease constraints, but there are a
number of factors outside of the companies control, like the
BAH, but--and the occupancy rates that affect it, but besides
those things that might make financials somewhat difficult, and
what you just outlined, as far as accountability, what steps
are you taking to ensure that if a restructure of a project is
necessary that the new agreement better ensures that privatized
housing providers, not the Air Force, are responsible for
operating and maintaining the units?
Mr. Chaudhary. That comes from direct involvement with the
activity and the restructure itself. So it is not a, hey, lump
sum, here you go, here are your dollars. We are going to make
sure that those types of activities that allow benefit, they
result in direct benefit for our military members and their
families. That includes direct construction.
That means that we are not going to allow a coffer to be
filled, if you will. We are going to go back and we are going
to make sure that any improvements we make have a direct impact
on the military members and the challenges that we are facing.
And we do that face to face, both with the installation
command, as well as the members that are giving us direct
feedback, and resident advocates who we can directly talk to on
what our individual homeowners are experiencing.
I have been to both locations. I intend to go to them
again, where we are doing these restructures, and getting that
direct feedback from them to make sure that that investment
goes directly to them and not to a project owner.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So when you restructure, are you
making sure that in the new agreements that is factored--the
need to make sure you have enough to be able to hold--to have
the companies on the hook for these refurbishments and
maintenance, and not the Air Force?
Why is the Air Force having an outsized number of problems,
and need to restructure?
Mr. Chaudhary. What I will say is our interest in resolving
problems is acute, specific, and focused. So when we make that
decision, we are making a decision on behalf of the welfare of
our men and women we serve.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Again, I'm asking you a specific
question, Dr. Chaudhary.
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Why does the Air Force have a lot
more--restructures than any other branch of service?
And are you making sure that, when you restructure an
agreement, that you are ensuring that it doesn't happen again,
that the companies are responsible for the maintenance and you
don't have to bail them out?
Mr. Chaudhary. OK, so the first part of your question, why
compared to the other services, I don't know if I can get to
the specifics of why the Air Force has done more. What I can
say is we are compelled to act.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Maybe you should check with the
other services, because they are obviously doing something
differently than you that is not resulting in a need to bail
out their private companies.
Mr. Chaudhary. OK, Ranking Member, I will definitely take
that back and make sure that we take a look at what the other
services are doing. But what I can say is we are compelled to
act, and we are going to act on behalf of our families.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Are you restructuring your
agreements so that it doesn't happen another time?
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, absolutely. So we are going to make
sure that we audit appropriately to ensure that when we provide
a restructure, that that stays very, very focused. For example,
if I need to go to that location itself and ensure that those
benefits are coming and being used in a productive fashion, and
those are--those agreements are honored by our project donors,
then I am making sure that I do it.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And just really quickly, Mr.
Chairman, we provided--the committee provided an additional $10
million for housing oversight for the Air Force in fiscal year
2024. But the two accounts which was funding as part of,
housing--family housing management and housing privatization
support, you have only requested $104 million, down from $110
million in the enacted bill. How are you using the extra $10
million for fiscal year 2024?
And what does it say about the reduced fiscal year 2025
request? Do you have sufficient funds to maintain the robust
oversight, mandated housing inspections, making sure you have--
you hire people who are on the ground in the facilities
themselves, or do you think that there is less of an oversight
need in fiscal year 2025?
Mr. Chaudhary. Ranking member, I don't have the exact
details on what specifically that $10 million is being utilized
for. However, what I would say is----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. If you could answer that for the
record, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Chaudhary. Absolutely, we will definitely do that.
Mr. Chaudhary. But what I will say is we are going to meet
the need based upon the feedback we are receiving and the
surveys that we receive from our members, and address the
issues as they come to us and make sure that we have it
properly focused and a plan for the future so that we can
address any challenges.
If it turns out that it is less, well, then, that is based
upon the amount of feedback that we are receiving. So we are
getting good results with the investment that we are making. We
are continuing that trajectory.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK, I am a little frustrated that
your answer is pretty general. I have asked you a specific
question, not--beyond the what did you use, what are your plans
for $10 million, but you have asked for $6 million less. And in
accounts where we gave you money for oversight purposes, you
are obviously having problems with oversight. And so why less
money? Are you good? You think you are doing enough oversight
and you don't need any additional funds?
You don't even know what you have done with the $10 million
that we just gave you. So why did we ask for less?
Mr. Chaudhary. Ranking Member, I don't have the answer to
that question for those $10 million and why it is less, but I
will take that for the record and get back to you.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
back.
Mr. Carter. I will claim Mr. Rutherford's time now. I have
got a couple of questions along that line, too.
Two projects totaling $220 million in the Indo-Pacific, and
that should be the major place we are spending money, and we
sure as heck want to dominate the air if we have to get in a
fight over there. And the Navy will be there, and I want the
Air Force to be there. So why such--I mean, basically, that is
a very small request. Why?
Now, you say you got X money already spent and all that
stuff, but isn't there more needs that we can put in there
right now?
General Hartless. Mr. Chairman, absolutely. I actually
misquoted the amount we have invested in the last 10 years. I
said it was $600 million. It is actually a little over $2
billion in infrastructure investment in airfields, fuels, and
munitions the last decade, and we are projecting to spend
almost $2 billion in this FYDP.
So I think this year it is not that there is not a need, it
is just about timing. So the projects that we placed, you know,
placed this year to meet Indo-Pacific Command's priorities,
are, you know, the beginning of a runway extension at Yap, and
then also a corrosion control facility at Kadena Air Base. So
those are the projects that we positioned this year based on
timing. But I assure you, the commitment in the FYDP is
enormous.
One other thing I do want to highlight as it relates to
steps that we have taken in that--in the Indo-Pacific AOR is in
October of 2023 Pacific Air Forces stood up a theater engineer
capability of combat engineers. So an expeditionary civil
engineer group, they are headquartered out of Andersen and
Joint Region Marianas on Guam. And they are--they were stood up
and they are resourced to do reclamation of airfields around
the AOR, short of military construction.
So it illustrates the commitment on the O&M side, as well,
and using the active duty. Right now they are working at the
northwest field in Guam and the northern airfield on Tinian, a
World War II-era airfield. So there is also a commitment, as
well, on the O&M side that is significant.
Mr. Carter. Are you all on schedule on Guam? Because
everybody else isn't. They claimed that they didn't have enough
workers. I spent an inordinate amount of time raising Cain with
the State Department. We got some more H-2B visas to get people
from, I guess, Philippines, and I hope that helped everybody.
But are you on time? Because I know the Navy is behind, the
Marine Corps is behind, the Army is behind. You are saying you
are current on Guam.
General Hartless. Well, Mr. Chairman, we--No. 1, thank you
for the support and the extension of H-2B visas. That is a huge
relief, and will enable a lot of the work that is happening
there both in Guam and in Tinian. So that is a huge relief. So
thank you.
The investment in Guam over the last decade, a little
over--almost $600 million, in the FYDP about $320-some-odd
million. So we already have had a pretty significant investment
in Guam. We certainly project to in the future with more
projects.
Really, it is the recovery from Typhoon Mawar that I think
is, really, the complicating factor.
Mr. Carter. OK. The Air Force missions, its work on
innovation and construction, have you ever taken a look at 3D
printing for building runways and dwellings that you might use
on those islands out there?
General Hartless. Well, Mr. Chairman, we are excited about
the opportunities that might exist with 3D printing. We have
demonstrated it once at Tyndall Air Force Base, with a small,
as you mentioned, a single-story building. We 3D printed the
concrete walls. There is still a bit of traditional
construction that has to follow when you install the roof and
the utilities and doors and windows. The 3D printing of the
walls went very well. It actually is allowed by unified
facilities criteria, so we are excited about the opportunity
that may exist.
I think looking to potentially transport that into the AOR
is certainly something we are looking at. And the opportunity
very well may exist in the future.
Mr. Carter. I have got several of those people I have
talked to. I have no dog in this fight. I have just--every one
of them said they could use the local materials on those
islands to do that kind of work and--see, and they can pack it
up in a fairly small container, and go over there and do
things. It looks like a good idea to me.
I can tell you, they built a four-bedroom, two-bath house
in a very nice neighborhood in Austin, and when they finished
it looked super. It really did. I would have moved in the next
day. My wife wouldn't let me, but I would have.
Well, thank you. I hope you will keep an eye on that
because it really moves fast. It really does. OK, who is next?
Ms. Lee, you were right after me, weren't you? I should
have seen that.
Ms. Lee. Thank you, Chairman Carter, Ranking Member
Wasserman Schultz, and thank you to all the witnesses for being
here today. I am proud to represent military families from
Creech and Nellis in southern Nevada.
As you know, housing is a major challenge for military
families at Nellis, where there is currently a 500-room deficit
on the base. This is exacerbated by the lack of any housing at
Creech, requiring Airmen who work on that base to live at
Nellis. And this is why your efforts to address the
unaccompanied Airmen dormitory shortfall is so important.
Each year that deficit remains, Nellis and Creech Airmen
are forced to find housing in the private market. And it is one
of the toughest housing markets in the country. The local
leadership team has worked very hard to help the Airmen through
this process. But ultimately, we are just not providing for our
first-term Airmen the support that they need.
I am glad that--General Hartless, I am glad we were able to
provide design funding for dorms in fiscal year 2023 and 2024.
However, I don't see either of those projects in this year's
budget request or in the future year defense program. Can you
provide us--when can we anticipate seeing that funding request
come through?
General Hartless. Congresswoman, thank you for that
question. As I mentioned last year, the strategic importance of
Nellis Air Force Base and Creech Air Force Base, having been
stationed there, resonates deeply with me. It is certainly a
challenge that we look to resolve expeditiously, and knowing
that it is one of our biggest deficits.
Thank you for the generous funds in 2023, and then recently
in 2024. We are working to get those designs on contract and
completed. Typically, it takes about 2 years from the time we
receive the appropriation to the time that we are at about that
35 percent design phase. So we are still a little bit inside
that window to where we don't quite know the cost yet and where
we might think it might be best positioned in the future years.
We have a number of dorms--Nellis is absolutely one of
them, the two dorms at Nellis--but many other bases where we
are actively designing dorms, and we are looking at where--the
best places to position those in the future requests.
Ms. Lee. So if it is a 2-year and we are finished with the
design--so we can expect to see something move next year?
General Hartless. Well, I think the earliest that we would
likely see it is potentially fiscal year 2027, and with a
possibility, depending on how fast the design goes, to
potentially pull it into 2026.
Ms. Lee. OK. Well, let's--hopefully, we can speed that up.
Secretary Chaudhary, one of the findings of the September
GAO report--or 2023 GAO report on military barracks is that the
Secretary of the Air Force failed to implement a method to
ensure the Air Force has the visibility of all dorm MilCon
requirements, regardless of whether or not they are submitted
for funding. Of the over 200 named projects listed in your 5-
year defense program, there is just 9 projects to construct
dorms.
We know that Nellis has an urgent need here. Do you expect
this list to grow? And we want to be there to help you close
this gap, but that starts with some better shared visibility.
So when can we expect that?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Lee, thank you for the
question.
Overall, we are watching it closely. We have a dorm master
plan that takes a look at where our deficits are. We are
tracking Nellis very, very closely to make sure that we address
this challenge up front. We anticipate using that strategy to
come up with the list that is going to grow. And so that dorm
master plan has given us valuable insight going forward, and we
expect to really address our challenges from dorms and
shortages using that dorm master plan.
Ms. Lee. Can you just keep me apprised, keep me in the loop
on that? Obviously, this is a very high priority.
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, absolutely. And I am planning on
visiting this summer, if I can, to make sure I spend time and
get direct feedback.
Ms. Lee. Good. I want to turn to Creech now. As you know,
because of its remote location, Airmen face significant
challenges, especially because there is a lack of base
infrastructure and services, and an undersized medical clinic,
which means that they have to travel to Nellis. It is a 50-mile
commute each way. In 2022 that added up to over 140,000 hours
that Airmen were pulled away from their basic duties. Creech
Airmen also lack food options and are crowded into facilities.
And of course, families with child care, struggle to find
childcare.
So these just don't, you know, impact quality of life, but
the airport's ability to attract and maintain--retain Airmen.
That is why I fought for the feasibility study to evaluate if
we can offset some of these challenges with assignment
incentive pay.
Now that the Defense Health Agency is responsible for
medical facilities, what input is the airport able to provide
to ensure mission-impacting infrastructure shortfalls are
addressed?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Lee, thank you for the
question. Last year we provided that feedback. We got back
together with our staff, MR, Manpower and Reserve Affairs
Office, that has that portfolio. We gave them the feedback.
I believe that now we are building an extension to the
health care facility, and we hope to get moving on that as soon
as possible. We also took a look at child care hours to make
sure that we can improve child care hours at appropriate times
for folks who fly remotely-piloted aircraft, which has its
additional strains that we know about. And we are also looking
at dining facility capabilities that we think will have an
effect.
So based upon your feedback--thank you for that last year--
we are moving out with some of these initiatives. We want to do
more, and we are going to stay focused on that going forward.
Ms. Lee. Great.
Mr. Chaudhary. I look forward to visiting again. I am going
to come to Creech, too, as well.
Ms. Lee. Hopefully, I will be there and can accompany you.
Thank you very much.
I am over my time, sorry.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Franklin.
Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Assistant Secretary Chaudhary, at the risk of piling on, I
want to follow along a little bit with what the ranking
member--her questioning regarding the privatization and the
oversight of those. I am all for oversight whenever we can get
it, but obviously it is better to be on the front end before
the horse is out of the barn.
Could you comment or expand on the metrics that the
Department is using to ensure contractors are consistent with
oversight and performance standards before they get into the
contract as far as, you know, what metrics are put into the
contracts when you are evaluating the options?
And then, you know, specifically, what are--you know, how
are we holding them accountable? Because going back after the
problems are diagnosed later and, you know, forcing our troops
to live with these issues, isn't really good enough. We need to
prevent it from happening, going forward.
Mr. Chaudhary. Thank you for that, Representative Franklin.
To kind of give you an overview of a progressive approach
to the oversight, which we think hits a number of levels, we
start with--if a contractor is not performing up to standards,
we put them on a watch list. And that watch list is pretty
impactful because it really puts the focus of the installation
and headquarters on that particular project owner. So on that
watch list they get a notice from us that they need to improve
upon a given area that the installation is reporting to us on.
Mr. Franklin. Are the standards that they are expected to
meet, are those crystal clear in the contract that they are
signing into? They know exactly what is expected before, or----
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, they are. In fact, one of our biggest
indicators is feedback directly from our residents. So we get
surveys both from our residents, as well as our installation
commanders. And if they are not performing, they go on that
watch list. If they don't go--if they don't perform in that
period, they stay on the watch list, but they are added to a
performance improvement program which starts really getting at
a--their performance incentive fees.
So if--their performance incentive fees, which are now
linked to those surveys and feedback from residents, will hit
them up and hit them with directly--direct dollars, and that
could be anything from resident inspections, failure to inspect
appropriately, safety issues--of course, on safety issues we
have no room for not acting almost immediately. So we get that
almost immediately, and we start impacting their performance
incentives.
Now, ultimately, if they fail in all three levels, we will
go back and go to a default situation. So that progressive
approach, we believe, has been yielding some good impacts,
especially with our newer project owners that are realizing
that all they have to do is meet a certain standard and they
will get A grades.
So some of the folks who have been around since 2005, they
are slow to come along, but they are now starting to come along
recognizing those gains.
Mr. Franklin. And I assume those scores and the watch list
and all that is going to follow them for subsequent projects
and how they bid future opportunities.
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, it sure does. It sure does.
Mr. Franklin. So it like a score on Airbnb, and if you are
a bad player, it is going to haunt you, and I presume at some
level people are just not invited back to bid again.
Mr. Chaudhary. And honestly, it is rolling into our
discussion into privatized unaccompanied housing. So if a
particular project owner wants to participate in privatized
opportunities for unaccompanied housing, we are going to look
at that record, and we are going to hold you to account, and
you are not going to do well if you are not doing well with our
base privatized company housing.
Mr. Franklin. All right, very good. Thank you.
Mr. Hollywood, I understand there is a decision still
pending out there with the Space Force regarding the Guard
component as to whether that is going to remain the Air Force,
go to the Space Guard, become part-time--I know the uncertainty
has got to be make it hard to budget, but does your budget
reflect a decision possibly being made with that?
And what are the repercussions, one way or the other?
Mr. Hollywood. Representative Franklin, the folks that are
working that issue are several levels in the food chain above
me, sir.
Mr. Franklin. Right.
Mr. Hollywood. But I can tell you in the budget
deliberations that I have heard, they are allowing for the
flexibility for whatever the outcome, whatever we are directed,
so that we can comply with the law, sir.
Mr. Franklin. OK. So your budget can accommodate whatever
that decision may be, then.
Mr. Hollywood. But--yes, sir. By default, it will.
Mr. Franklin. OK, got you. Very good.
That is all I have now, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me say
welcome to our witnesses.
I know that the budget request this year is a mere one
percent over what it was last year, yet it is clear--and I
think the Department recognizes--that there is still tremendous
challenges that you face. So what I would like to know is, with
just a mere one percent increase in request, how are you going
to improve and meet the challenges that you have with respect
to, for example, child development centers with the budget that
is requested, or the challenges with the unaccompanied housing
units and the family housing?
I noted that the environmental remediation of closed
installations due to PFAS contamination has not really made
much progress. And of course, we have had a lot of conversation
today about the privatized housing concerns: fraud, poor
service, quality, oversight. And everybody agrees that there
should be reforms. But how are you going to be able to do that
if you don't have additional resources?
Those resources have to be converted into FTEs, where
people can actually do the work and exercise those
responsibilities. How can you do that, asking for less?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Bishop, I will answer your
question.
Ultimately, it comes down to prioritization. And one of the
things that we are doing to get ahead of this is increase our
demolition programs. For example, we have scheduled
traditionally $30 million annually to--for demolition of older
facilities. That has not served us well. In fact, that has
compounded the amount of backlog and maintenance that is
required of us across our portfolios that we are seeing. So
what we have done is we have essentially quadrupled that
amount. So we are now at roughly between $130 to $160 million
annually in our demolition. So by removing old facilities, we
are reducing costs in that way.
The other area that we are looking at is ways in which we
can work with communities to partner on challenges going
forward. I will offer one example. We have dozens of other
examples, but the one I would like to share is at Fairchild Air
Force Base, where we had a requirement for a $10 million
training range for security forces, we have partnered with the
local community to come together to have a common facility with
the local sheriff's department. So by establishing that
intergovernmental service agreement, we have avoided $10
million in costs.
So there are a number of things that we are utilizing to
get at some of these challenges. We know it is not enough, and
I acknowledge you recognizing that we do not have enough
funding. We know that our FSRM account is stressed, as is our
MilCon account. So utilizing some of these innovative methods
to get at these, partnering with other local communities, we
can be more innovative to address some of these problems going
forward.
But that doesn't negate your comment that these accounts
aren't stressed. And I would agree with you that they are.
Mr. Bishop. I am really concerned, and I noted that in your
statement it was mentioned that 99.3 percent of the permanent
party beds and 100 percent of training dorms met the office of
the Secretary of Defense standards for adequacy. I put that in
quotation marks. Have you learned anything?
Are there any insights or successful practices or best
practices that were acquired from achieving those adequacy
rates, and what does adequacy really mean? Does it mean a high-
enough quality of life such that we can enhance retention and
recruitment in terms of the quality of life of military
families?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Bishop, I will start off, and
I will turn it over to General Hartless for additional
comments.
For me, adequate--as I have gone to the multiple
installations, adequate is not enough. While we meet the
standard for DoD, that is encouraging, but I want to continue
to do more. That is why we are investing $1.1 billion in
improvement areas across the board, in our dorms and housing.
So as we go across our installations, we know that there is
more to do. But I will see if, General Hartless, you would like
to add what that means, what the number means to you, and what
we can do going forward.
General Hartless. Congressman, I will add, as a best
practice, you asked for those.
In the Air Force our unaccompanied housing, our
dormitories, we have what is called Airman Dorm Leaders. So
these are--it could probably be equated to, like, a barracks
manager or a dorm manager. These are actually Airmen, non-
commissioned officers (NCOs) and senior NCOs, that are
handpicked, nominated by their and picked by their installation
commander. And their duty is to essentially manage our dorms.
So they work in the dorm complex on a day-to-day basis. They
get specially trained for that duty, and then they spend 3
years on that special duty without any other distractions. It
is not an additional duty or a collateral duty. It is something
they do every day.
So I think that is a best practice, and it is something
that we have been committed to for a number of decades, and I
do think that is a contributing factor to the--ultimately, the
condition--we certainly know we can do better, but the
condition we find our dorms in today.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you. My time is expired.
Mr. Carter. Mrs. Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the
witnesses for being with us this afternoon.
As you may know, I proudly represent the Oklahoma City
metro area, which is home to Tinker Air Force Base. And I
recently was pleased to visit the 137th National--Will Rogers
National Guard base, along with the Assistant Secretary of
Defense Maier.
My first question is actually in regards to that. I want to
ask--there is a transition happening with the armed overwatch
program at Will Rogers. Can you talk a little bit about the--
sorry, Mr. Chairman, I am not sure if it is--maybe we will
try--let's try Mr. Franklin's mike.
Can you talk about transitioning to the new platform, and
the speed at which we may be able to provide the MilCon
projects that will sustain that new aircraft at the National
Guard base?
Mr. Chaudhary. Is that for me?
Mrs. Bice. Yes, sorry.
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative, I sure can do that. Right
now, as you know, the Will Rogers Air National Guard Base was
approved as a preferred location, replacing the MC-12 for the
OA-1K Sky Warden, which is going to be in the leading edge of
our capabilities going forward. Right now--once you get to a
preferred location, and it's a single location, we're awaiting
completion of NEPA, the NEPA study and NEPA requirements, once
that is fulfilled, we're going to move to a final decision. And
once that final decision is made, we estimate is quarter three
of 2024, we can start work, and that's where we get our
statutory requirements to conduct the work.
Mrs. Bice. Are you expecting that NEPA report to be
finished fairly soon?
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, 2024, so quarter three is when the
report will--
Mrs. Bice. Oh, is when the report will be finished, and
then you will make the decision.
Mr. Chaudhary. That's affirmative.
Mrs. Bice. I also just want to bring to your attention,
we're currently in the process of Tinker of the potential
transition from the E-3 to the E-7, there are some MilCon needs
at Tinker Air Force Base, and currently, there's no--the budget
does not allocate for any of those funds. Hangar 230 at Tinker,
which currently houses them, will require significant updates
to house the state of the art E-3, there's no indication in the
budget that these updates will be completed, suggesting there
could be a delay in that procurement. Do you have any comments
on that?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Bice what I have is right now
we're planning in FY 2026 program for a E-7 squadron ops
facility, and right now it's on our integrated priority list so
it's in our plan. We just need to make sure that we're staying
on top of it. We'll stay in touch with your office and give you
updates as required as that plan comes to form. What I would
say is it's the sole selection for location for upgrade for
that weapon system. So we anticipate--we don't anticipate any
changes. But we'll stay in touch with your office to make sure
that as opportunities to work this into the FYDP emerge, that
we stay in touch with you, we'll keep you apprised,
Mrs. Bice. I appreciate that. And I would also just add
that I am fairly new to Congress, being elected in 2020, it is
very apparent to me that this aircraft should have been
replaced decades ago, literally. And because of that we're
behind the eight ball. So I encourage the Air Force to put a
focus on not only the procurement of E-7s, but also the
building of these facilities to house those aircraft. Let me
pivot, if I may, to another issue that has come up and that is
testing facilities for engine test cells, specifically for the
F-135s. The current infrastructure is not adequate for these
powerful engines. I believe that the test cells that we
currently have at the base have been old pieces of equipment
that have been relocated. I didn't find any of these test
engine cell replacements on the unfunded priorities list or on
the President's budget. Is that something that you all are
looking at?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Bice, thank you for the
question. That is actually new information to me. What I'd like
to do is take a closer look at it and interact with the team
there, get their feedback on the health of the test cells.
Having worked at a depot, myself, I understand how vital depot
operations are to include these tests cells that do test, non-
destructive and destructive, testing on these engines, and how
vital F-135 is to the Nation. All those add up to something
that we need to take a closer look at. And so I look forward to
working with you on that as well.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you very much for that. And final quick
question. I have an interest in the restructuring. My team has
actually asked for a org chart previous to this restructuring
and then a org chart as the restructuring is taking place. Do
you anticipate cost savings and/or a reduction in force by
doing this? And also, are there any MilCon requirements that
are going to be needed for this reorganization of the Air
Force?
Mr. Chaudhary. We're in the process of conducting that
assessment right now as we work through the details. We're
going to do a full briefing to Congress on what the restructure
is going to look like. And so our Secretary has made that
pledge. And as we move forward, we'll make sure that your team
is apprised, and you are apprised, on what, if any, changes
occur. The general sense is that we're striving for cost
neutral. We know that there are going to be some costs
involved. But we're going to work through those details in the
coming months.
Mrs. Bice. Great, thank you for your time, and Mr.
Chairman, I yield.
Mr. Carter. Do we have some more, people? Mr. Zinke.
Mr. Zinke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Hollywood your comment intrigued me when you said
there's several layers above you. And forgive me on chain of
command. General, who do you work for in your--explain your
chain of command. You work for a two-star? You work for--what's
your chain of command?
Mr. Hollywood. Congressman, I work for Lieutenant General
Miller. He's a three-star general, the Deputy Chief of Staff
for Engineering, Logistics and Force Protection.
Mr. Zinke. And who does he work for?
Mr. Hollywood. The Chief of Staff.
Mr. Zinke. For the Chief of Staff. And the Chief of Staff
works for?
Mr. Hollywood. Chairman, the Secretary--the chairman, the
Secretary of the Air Force.
Mr. Zinke. All right, all right. So that's three layers
deep. And Mr. Hollywood, you are the deputy director--Associate
Chief Operations Officer. Who do you work for at Space Force?
Mr. Hollywood. Lieutenant General Burt, sir, is the chief
operations officer. And then she works for General Saltzman who
is the chief.
Mr. Zinke. OK. All right. And obviously, you report
directly to the Secretary.
Mr. Hollywood. That's correct, sir.
Mr. Zinke. Not to dismiss information, because a lot of
information is on the front line, I get that. But I find it
amazing that you're talking to this Committee on
Appropriations, and you're pretty deep in the chain of command.
I think that's interesting, considering, I think, that
appropriations and funding is a critical element of your
service.
Switching hits, the HUMVs in Montana, and North Dakota and
probably Cheyenne, they're out there, they're doing their
missile work, and has been brought up multiple times, even when
I was here in 2015, that HUMVs are just not a great vehicle in
the winter in Montana. And the statistics of number of road
accidents would support that. Is there any movement on the
HUMVs? Because I every time I'm with you, I ask the same
question. Are we replacing the HUMVs with a four-wheel drive
suburban that kids across America are a little more used to and
can keep them on the road? Because it's a big safety deal and
deal in Montana, and they are protecting our missiles, which I
think is important.
General Hartless. Congressman, it's a little bit out of my
purview, but I am aware that there is a high priority in Air
Force Global Strike Command to make that move to a different
vehicle that's, as you as you alluded to a little bit safer to
drive. So I am aware there's an effort to do it, but I'm going
to have to take that one for the record to give you back the
details is it is out of my purview.
Mr. Zinke. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Guest.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, to all our witnesses,
thank you for being here today. Dr. Chaudhary, good to see you
again and speak with you. First of all, just want to thank you
all for your emphasis that you're placing on the quality of
life issues for our service members. The investment that you're
looking at making into housing and dormitories and the Child
Development Centers, those things that are so vitally
important. And so thank you all for recognizing the need and
prioritizing that in this budget.
I do want to talk a little bit about installation
infrastructure. And I know from reading the report that was
provided here, for the testimony day, it looks like on page 10
of 24, when we were talking about military construction,
approximately 41 percent or $1.42 billion supports the beddown
of new weapons systems, or new missions to ensure the
Department of Air Force remains the world's premier Air Force
and Space Force. And then we talk about some of those
platforms, the B-21, the F-35, F-16, C-130s.
But I want to talk a little bit about our tanker fleet,
which supports all of the platforms, and so vitally important
that as we are facing uncertainty across the globe, that we be
able to deploy our aircraft anywhere around the world and be
able to keep them flying at a very dangerous time. I know that
the Air Force is in the process of transitioning some of their
tanker fleet from the older KC-135s, to the KC-46s, which is
important to my district, because we have a National Guard
facility, the 186th Air Refueling Wing, which is one of the
Wings, which is seeking to be in the contention for that
platform as it rolls out. A matter of fact, just this last
week, a letter was sent to Secretary Kendall, from the entire
Mississippi delegation, supporting that.
So I want to talk about a little bit as we are bringing new
platforms into play, whether it be the KC-46, or some of the
other platforms, talk a little bit about infrastructure and
base infrastructure and how that comes into play as the Air
Force is determining the future locations for whatever
particular platform that we're talking about. Because we know
that some of the bases that are being looked at for various
platforms, they already have the infrastructure there, the
majority the infrastructure to go ahead and receive that
platform almost immediately, while we have other bases that
needs substantial investment in infrastructure.
So if you will, I'll start with you, Dr. Chaudhary, if
anyone else would like to add in, to be able to help me
understand a little bit how existing base infrastructure plays
into basing decisions as the Air Force is making these crucial
decisions.
Mr. Chaudhary. Right, yes, thank you for the question.
That's a really good question because ultimately, we look at
basing on a variety of levels, for one we look at capacity,
once we look at the NEPA piece, we look at cost as a factor,
and a number other areas as well, too, I won't go into them.
But for a given weapons system, you establish an enterprise
definition, and that sets all the criteria. So certain weapons
systems have, and rightfully ought to have, tailored criteria
for their particular specific mission, and that drives
infrastructure.
In some cases, if the infrastructure provides a compelling
case, then it can provide some help in terms of basing.
Sometimes states use funding on their own to bring up
infrastructure level in order to be competitive in the basing
process.
Mr. Guest. And state investment is that something that is
considered, because I know but again, relating back to the base
there, Meridian, the state legislatures recently approved $20
million for a new crash rescue center, and they're going to be
able to then take the existing facility and use the existing
facility once the new facility is built to add some additional
housing, if you will, for an early response, if you have to
have pilots who were there on standby ready to fly at a
moment's notice to be able to have them there in house close to
the aircraft so that they could perform their mission quickly.
So you talk about, again, and I didn't mean to interrupt you,
Dr. Chaudhary, but we talk about the cost, we know that we are
living in a time of limited budgets right now, the budgets are
tight, that we have to prioritize where those investments are
going to be. And we also, as we're looking at rolling out these
new platforms, we have to prioritize what is the investment
we're going to have to make in these facilities. Again,
sometimes you have state investment and then sometimes you have
facilities which are fairly ready to take on the new platforms.
Other times that requires substantial investment. And so, and
I'll let you finish your answer, and I'm sorry for interrupting
you.
Mr. Chaudhary. That's great, and you touch on a really
important subject because one of the things we do with our
basing team is work closely with various constituencies to
better understand what facilities can provide good potential.
And so in the basing process, what happens is a site activation
team or a survey team goes and looks at that facility. At that
time, it's a good time to have a good discussion on what
facilities are available and what can be viable for the future.
If the state is providing funding, we definitely take a look at
that. How it sits against the criteria in terms of the basing
competition, if you will, is less certain, because if you have
a dual use, that would bring the state a lot of benefit. But if
it's a single use, meaning you're investing predicated on the
fact that you would like to have the best opportunity to get a
gain a basing decision, that can be less advantageous,
especially when you have a large enterprise. So it's a little
bit of a squishy answer, but I want to let you know that
through that we will work closely with a particular
installation to understand what investments are coming in, what
are projected, and what the state is willing to do. And that
will factor into the discussion going forward.
Mr. Guest. Thank you so much. Mr. Chairman, at this time, I
yield back.
Mr. Carter. OK. Mr. Gonzales.
Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Chairman. And thank you,
gentlemen, for testifying today.
My question is for you, Mr. Secretary, Laughlin Air Force
Base in Del Rio, Texas right along the border. Every U.S. pilot
gets trained out of Laughlin Air Force Base. It's absolutely
critical to not only our national security, but also helping
our partners along the border. My question is very simple. If
we were to close Laughlin Air Force Base, what operational
impacts would occur?
Mr. Chaudhary. Representative Gonzales, thank you for the
question, and I appreciate your good words on our Laughlin Air
Force Base. I happen to be an alumnus of Laughlin Air Force
Base so I learned to fly in that airspace. I learned to fly
upside down in that airspace, and I gained a great appreciation
for the mission of Laughlin. So if Laughlin Air Force Base were
to be closed, that would reduce a significant amount of our
pilot production for the United States Air Force. Currently, we
have several bases that do that, including Columbus Air Force
Base, and Sheppard Air Force Base, which also supplies Euro
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) pilots, for our NATO
partners as well, too. So Laughlin carries a large production
capacity on an annual rate. So if the base would be closed, it
would not be able to fulfill that mission.
Mr. Gonzales. I agree with you, and thank you for that
response. On that note, you know, the U.S. Air Force budget
included $56 million for T-7As for Laughlin Air Force Base
training facility. This is a critical facility for the
development of our Nation's Airmen, as you just noted,
including the 47th Flying Training Wing and the 96th Flying
Training Squadron. How else is the Air Force prioritizing
facilities and personnel at Laughlin? And what can we do to
ensure we're taking care of our military personnel?
Mr. Chaudhary. Thank you for that question. I had a chance
to visit Laughlin Air Force Base. It was one of the
installations that I visited. And I got a chance to see where
the T-7 facilities are going to be. I also saw the new T-1
facility, the training systems that are going to be replacing
the future pilot training system there. And I looked at a
number of things that are going on there. One, a new dormitory,
so that--we're breaking ground on that. We're also looking at
ways in which we can expand food options for our Airmen who are
serving there. That includes grab-and-go opportunities, and
this really nice facility that has come to be a really nice
gathering place for junior Airmen. Through the OLDCC program,
Office of Local Defense Communities, we've also partnered for
other investments on the installation itself. I'd encourage
local leaders to look at infrastructure and other opportunities
to invest in facilities and get annual grants to provide
quality of life improvements at Laughlin Air Force Base.
Mr. Gonzales. I appreciate that. Laughlin is so critical in
so many ways. I previously hosted former Chief Master Sergeant
of the Air Force JoAnne Bass there to see it firsthand, and
it's one of the things we cannot lose Laughlin. Laughlin has to
thrive, and we got to we got to attain, retain and obtain the
talent that we need in order to keep that mission going.
My next question is on is on Fort Sam Houston. Once again,
this Joint Base San Antonio model. Last month at a quality-of-
life panel hearing, I asked the Chief Master Sergeant of the
Air Force about barracks issues at Fort Sam Houston. The
barracks have mold and raw sewage, and there is a lack of
running water in some cases. I noticed in the Air Force's FY
2025 budget, it includes $77 million for the METC dorms for
Fort Sam, but the issue cannot wait until 2025. Is there
anything that can be done ahead of that?
Mr. Chaudhary. Thank you for that question, Representative
Gonzales. I've actually visited that dorm myself personally,
and so I'm very, very glad that we are executing a full dorm on
that around one increment for $77 million, we believe is
positive. I appreciate your feedback on that. I'd like to take
that back for the record to see if there's anything else we can
do to address the immediate challenges with that dorm. And I
look forward to getting back with you on that.
Mr. Gonzales. Thank you. And that area is only growing, and
I understand the Air Force is just a portion of it, but that
area is only growing.
My last question is this, and this is for Mr. Hollywood.
Texas Governor Abbott recently announced the launch of the
Texas Space Commission. This, combined with some already great
initiatives between the University of El Paso, Texas of El Paso
(UTEP), and Space Force positions, Texas to be a leader in
space exploration. Is the Space Force willing to work with
Texas more so that we can further advance the Nation to meet
national security threats in space? What a softball.
Mr. Hollywood. Representative Gonzales, thank you very much
for that question. The Space Force is--one of the things that
we're very proud of is our work with universities and colleges
and our partnerships with communities across the United States.
And we would be thrilled to work with the people of Texas is to
find out how we can advance science, how we can advance space
together.
Mr. Gonzales. I'm sure the Chairman would agree with me,
Texas is the place, so please work with Texas on a regular
basis to include there at UTEP.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for indulging me, and I yield
back.
Mr. Carter. How about we all do one short more round, OK?
Mr. Hollywood, you referenced Spaceport of the Future as
part of your mission. Now my first thought was, it was way up
in space, but I was told it wasn't. So tell me about it. Tell
me what it is.
Mr. Hollywood. Chair Carter, thank you very much for that
question. And thank you on this committee for your support of
that endeavor. Over the FYDP, it's over a billion dollars that
we're investing in both Patrick Space Force Base and Vandenberg
Space Force Base in order to ensure that we are globally
competitive, that we have the ability to keep up with the
launch demand as it is growing. A decade ago, our commercial
launch accounted for about 10 percent of the global picture.
Now we're up over 65 percent. And we are extremely proud of
this country and moving forward. And that supports both the
military, civil and commercial customers. But the Spaceport of
the Future allows us to keep up with that demand. Our
spaceports were built in the 50s, and we've kept pace, we've
kept maintenance, but we need to do massive improvements now in
order to keep--make them the world class facilities that this
country deserves, sir.
Mr. Carter. You know, privatized launches in Texas are
pretty regular now for at least three different groups. So if
that has any influence on coming to Texas, we'd love to have
you.
Mr. Hollywood. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say that we appreciate every public servant
that comes in front of our subcommittee, and students of the
subcommittee understand that, you know, it might be cool and
sexy to have the people with the most stars on their uniforms
and the fancy titles, but the ones that are rolling up their
sleeves and doing the nitty gritty work and understand
backwards and forwards MilCon and infrastructure and how we
make decisions, that's who needs to be in front of us, and we
appreciate you and your service, even if some do not. And that
includes you, Mr. Secretary, even though I know you've got a
little bit fancier title.
So what I not surprisingly want to hear an update on is the
construction of a CDC at Eglin Air Force Base for the families
of service members who work at Camp Bull Simons specifically.
So I understand the Air Force intends to pursue a CDC that's
planned for FY 2026. It is incredibly frustrating that a
solution for the families that need the CDC, at Camp Bull
Simons continues to be delayed and that families still don't
have access to a CDC that is within a reasonable commute. I'm
concerned that the Air Force and Army are not properly
communicating their plans with the families affected by these
decisions. So what communication has the Air Force had with the
families directly? And are the families satisfied with the
solution for the childcare deficiency at Eglin and at Camp Bull
Simons specifically?
So I understand the proposed project, like I said, is now
slated for FY 2026, that it's not executable in FY 2025. So
what are you also doing to make sure that the project moves
forward expeditiously? And how are you addressing childcare
shortfalls in the interim?
Mr. Chaudhary. Ranking Member, thank you for your
discussion of this, and especially thank you for your advocacy
on behalf of the men and women who are serving there. We share
your concern and interest in doing this. So much so that we've
elevated this to taskforce level between our respective
Secretaries. We have looked through a number of options. We
want to make sure we do two things, one, ensure safety of our
members who are at a CDC, and at the same time, accommodate
them, and as expeditiously as possible.
So as you know, FY 2026 is when a potential option is on
the table. That being said, we're exploring all options. These
are--both of our Secretaries are nearing an agreement. We hope
to have that agreement in the coming weeks. And as soon as we
do that, we're going to----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Nearing an agreement on which part
of this?
Mr. Chaudhary. On what the solution is to accommodate
permanent childcare facilities for Camp Bull Simons. And so
once we come to that agreement, we want to make sure that we
communicate that to the families. And so the Army has requested
to make that communication, and we will work with them closely
on what that solution is going forward. In the interim, we're
doing a number of things to make sure that we don't rest on our
laurels, we expand capabilities while this option is being
discussed.
One of the things that we're doing is making sure that
we're providing access and growth and training for in-home
childcare. As I've researched this, we've increased the number
of opportunities to 50----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That's part of the interim
alternative?
Mr. Chaudhary. Part of the interim alternative, which is, I
believe we've increased the capacity by 59 children. We're also
utilizing the DoD policy on incentivizing opportunities for
childcare at our CDCs to give greater incentives. The Air Force
has offered, I think, a little bit above that, in allowing
multiple children to have free childcare if that is available.
We've also renovated the Eglin facility. So we're trying to
address this in the interim in a number of ways to make sure we
accommodate to include----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You mean the Eglin Air Force
facility?
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, the Eglin Air Force facility.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Good. Has Air Force families'
children in it?
Mr. Chaudhary. Yes, that is true.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Are there slots available there?
Mr. Chaudhary. Absolutely. We want to make sure that we
advance those and give the maximum opportunity for Camp Bull
Simons.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And how far a ride is that for these
families?
Mr. Chaudhary. So that that is roughly the same distance
that you were talking about, an hour, but we've also looked at
Crestview. And so we're renovating a facility, so it's close,
close by to add that option as well, too. So we're addressing
this in the interim. That's an interim, that's not a future,
future opportunity. That's an interim capability that we're
trying to grow capabilities with. So both between that and the
in-home childcare opportunities, we're growing that capacity
regularly to address those challenges. Honestly, working with
both the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC)
and the Army is something that we've committed to do. We
continue to do it regularly, and we're going to continue to do
it until this problem is resolved.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And how far--Crestview is being
looked at as an interim option?
Mr. Chaudhary. It is--for a renovation of an interim
option, which is closer, we also understand that some members
of Camp Bull Simons live in Crestview, so that provides
additional options. And then the permanent solution involves an
all-new facility in Crestview as well, too, separate from that
renovated facility. So we have a number of options to include
options that are closer to the range. And we look forward to
communicating that once the Secretary, Army Secretary and Air
Force Secretary make their agreement.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Since you just mentioned
Crestview in both permanent and temporary way, is the Air Force
still considering other potential locations in the testing
range fence line for CDC construction?
Mr. Chaudhary. I believe that analysis is ongoing. It is
one of the options, and so we're going to consider it. But my
general sense of that is that the risk calculation is not
favorable. But I don't want to get ahead of our Secretary, Army
Secretary and Air Force Secretary, because it is their decision
to make. But my general sense is that's where the direction,
the feedback that we received from the test community.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But that would not be a viable
option?
Mr. Chaudhary. That it would not, yes.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And that's the closest option for,
in terms of distance, for these families?
Mr. Chaudhary. That is true.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Has the Air Force selected or the
Secretaries settled on an alternative that meets the needs of
Camp Bull Simons families that ensure that they aren't driving
2 hours round-trip, the families at Camp Bull Simons? I'm not
talking about, like, a temporary alternative, but a permanent
one?
Mr. Chaudhary. That is the intent and what this taskforce
was designed to do, to address the safety issues concerning the
range as well as accommodating the members of Camp Bull Simons.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Presumably, if it's not--if the
permanent alternative is not in the fence line, then they're
still going to have a distance to drive.
Mr. Chaudhary. That is what a good assumption is in this.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But the goal is obviously for it to
be shorter drive than they have now?
Mr. Chaudhary. Absolutely, to minimize it as much as
possible.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK, if you could keep us updated,
that would be incredibly helpful.
Mr. Chaudhary. Absolutely.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Chairman, I just have one more
question about PFAS. So the EPA published a rule, a final rule,
last week on drinking water standards and for certain PFAS
under the Safe Drinking Water Act. It sets limits on PFOS and
PFOA at four parts per trillion. So that is obviously going to
have a significant consequence for the Air Force's PFAS
remediation needs as you examine what current and future
remediation work needs to be expanded and in scope to address
contamination at the new maximum allowed contamination level.
So to what extent will this impact the cleanup under the
BRAC account? And will the Air Force require additional
resources? So you were previously remediating PFAS to 70, 7-0,
parts per trillion, and now it's four, the standard is four
parts per trillion. How will the new standard impact the work
the Air Force has previously done to the higher standard?
Mr. Chaudhary. Ranking member, let me give you first an
update on where we are on the 70 parts per trillion. So the Air
Force has accomplished a lockout tagout in all of our hangers,
that is roughly 500 hangers with the exception of two. That is
for Presidential airlift. Those two hangers for Presidential
airlift are now going to be using fluorine free foam, which is
a less impactful alternative to PFAS. So, in addition to that,
we've completed all 191 required site assessment and site
inspections to address remediation going forward.
Now with the new rule, we anticipate conducting more
assessments to ensure that we are addressing clean drinking
water according to our statutory requirements. We are going to
wait for the DoD policy to determine the direction they want to
take, but the 5-year requirement we are committing to that we
are going to ensure that we drive towards that, we are already
making preliminary assessments are where we want to start. Our
general focus area is going to be areas that are most affecting
our drinking water. And so that is where we anticipate we start
our assessments at. From a cost standpoint, right now we have,
in FY 2025, we have, we have approximately $100 million
allocated for that. However, we anticipate this to grow, to
include technologies needed to get us to four parts per
trillion and test to four parts per trillion. So that is a bit
of the overall scope of how we are looking at this.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So you are going to be working,
obviously, to achieve the four parts per trillion. Is your FY
2025 request couldn't possibly meet what the costs are to get
to that point, correct?
Mr. Chaudhary. That is a true statement. We know that there
is going to be additional costs, and we are going to have to
address, and we will come to you and communicate that to you
based upon what our assessments uncover going forward.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So you have asked for $100 million,
that is less than we appropriated in FY 2024, from my
recollection. So arguably, it would be better for us to make
sure that we are at least maintaining, at a minimum what we've
previously appropriated, which, frankly, that was one of our
disagreements in the last, you know, in the last fiscal year.
Not that there was really disagreement between us, but it was
the, sort of, higher level disagreements, but we were able to
get, you know, get to where we needed to be pre EPA ruling. So
we have got a lot of work to do. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you all for being here. This meeting is
adjourned.
[Answers to submitted questions follow:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY BUDGET REQUEST FOR MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND
FAMILY HOUSING
WITNESSES
HON. RACHEL JACOBSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, INSTALLATIONS, ENERGY AND
ENVIRONMENT, DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
LIEUTENANT GENERAL KEVIN VEREEN, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF G9, INSTALLATION
MANAGEMENT COMMAND
Mr. Carter. Good afternoon. And today's hearing is on the
Army's Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for Military
Construction and Family Housing. And it is a great pleasure to
welcome back the Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary
of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment; and
Lieutenant General Kevin Vereen, Deputy Chief of Staff G9,
Installation Management Command.
Last year, we discussed challenges and opportunities for
the Army in INDOPACOM, as well as the importance of healthcare
facilities for our soldiers and their families. I look forward
to continuing that discussion today, as well as discussing the
Army's efforts to address the deficiencies in barracks
identified by the GAO.
Investing in facilities and infrastructure is critical to
supporting our soldiers and their families. These investments
directly impact the way our soldiers train, sleep, eat, and
take care of their families. High-quality infrastructure is the
bedrock of the quality of life for our Army families and
directly impacts military readiness.
Now I will recognize Ms. Wasserman Schultz for her opening
statement.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate you yielding.
Assistant Secretary Jacobson and Lieutenant General Vereen,
thank you so much for being here once again to testify. It is
good to see you both.
I think you probably realize this is going to be a bit of a
tough year for us. We are in the second year of spending caps
that were set in place by the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and so
we are going to have an especially tight decisionmaking process
that we go through.
The top line spending level for defense programs is barely
a 1 percent increase over last year's level. So this year's
budget request really shines a light on what is important to
the Army.
In total, the Department of Army is requesting $3.7 billion
for Military Construction for the Army, Army National Guard,
Army Reserve, and Family Housing Operations and Construction.
And that is a $185 million increase over last year's inactive
level and, importantly, an increase of $1 billion over last
year's budget request.
Year after year, we press the services in this subcommittee
to submit adequate budget requests. And while I know that there
is certainly much more work that we can do, it is good to see
us trending in the right direction. That is not the case with
every one of our hearings. So I am really pleased to see that
the Army is prioritizing its soldiers and families.
The Army has requested almost $1 billion to construct new
barracks and $101 million for new family housing construction,
which is especially meaningful in a year when flat budgets feel
like a win.
The condition of Army barracks has been deplorable, and the
Government Accountability Office highlighted just how bad they
can be in a report issued in September 2023. There is still a
long way to go to right the ship, but seeing the Army taking
this seriously and submitting a budget that strongly invests in
the quality of housing for our soldiers is heartening. This is
progress that I expect the Army will continue to build upon in
future budget requests as well.
Military construction supports installations and facilities
to support the warfighter. But that is more than just missile
and munitions, distribution facilities, hangars, and ranges. It
is also the facilities that support the whole person and their
family to ensure a quality of life that we promise.
Sexual assault is still rampant across all the services.
The Army saw a decrease in reports of sexual assaults in 2022
by about 9 percent compared to the year before, which is the
most recent year we have the statistics. I am wondering whether
that is because the Army is doing a better job of preventing
assaults or because fewer soldiers are comfortable reporting.
If soldiers are expected to give their full attention to
training and warfighting, they can't be worried about whether
or not their children have safe and reliable childcare either.
How is the Army meeting the needs of its families, providing
safe and reliable childcare, and ensuring CDC facilities are
being adequately prioritized?
Beyond just the infrastructure necessary for adequate
childcare, we also have to ensure the safety of the children
served at those CDCs. There were recently deeply troubling
reports about child abuse at a Navy CDC and leadership failures
that resulted in unacceptable delays in families getting
answers.
The safety of our children is the most important thing, and
I think we can all agree on that. And we need to ensure our
troops can trust the services to care for their family members
and keep them safe from harm.
On the housing front, privatized family housing has a
terrible history of unlivable housing conditions, and with past
instances of fraud from the housing providers to boot, it is
imperative that we continue to do more to hold private
companies accountable and ensure all housing that DoD oversees
is clean, livable, and safe.
They make rounding error decisions that are a cost of doing
business for them, both in terms of the fraud that they have
committed and the neglect that they have perpetrated on our
military servicemembers and their families, when it comes to
the utter disregard for the care for their facilities that they
are responsible for.
Now, hearing that the services want to double down on this
effort to use privatization as a means to solve its
unaccompanied housing issues is not something that we are
taking lightly. I approach this with deep skepticism. These
proposals need to be seriously scrutinized to make sure that we
don't repeat the same mistakes of the past.
Privatization of unaccompanied housing might end up being
the right answer in some limited circumstances, but it should
not be the first and only option considered to rightsize our
unaccompanied housing portfolio. I am interested in hearing how
and why the Army is considering this solution.
Lastly, we must continue to focus on environmental cleanup.
I have prioritized funding in this bill over a number of years
now for PFAS remediation because of how widespread and harmful
these chemicals are.
We must do right by our affected communities to ensure BRAC
installations are not harming water quality in the surrounding
area. To that point, EPA announced its final rule earlier this
month that sets a national standard for PFAS contamination in
drinking water. This not only emphasizes the seriousness of
this issue, but it will also undoubtedly increase the Army's
PFAS funding needs. I am interested in the Army's plan for
remediation moving forward.
So we have a lot of important issues to discuss today.
Thank you again for being here, and I look forward to your
testimonies.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Thank you both for taking the time to be here.
Without objection, your written statements will be entered
into the record.
Please summarize your remarks in about 5 minutes each. We
will start with Ms. Jacobson.
STATEMENT OF RACHEL JACOBSON
Ms. Jacobson. Thank you, Chairman Carter and Ranking Member
Wasserman Schultz and distinguished members of the
subcommittee, for inviting us to present the Army's Fiscal Year
2025 Budget Request for Military Construction and Housing.
The readiness and resiliency of our force starts with high-
quality places to work and live for our soldiers and families.
We thank you for funding Army MilCon projects in the 2024
appropriations bill. Our 2025 budget request will build on
these important investments.
The Army's 2025 budget request in MilCon will fund 45
projects across the Active Army, the Guard, and the Reserves.
From nine new barracks buildings to four child and youth
centers, our 2025 MilCon projects will improve soldiers' and
families' quality of life. Our budget request also includes
important investments in operational facilities, including the
organic industrial base, that are critical to ensuring our
soldiers are well-trained, equipped, and ready to defend our
Nation.
Much of the infrastructure supporting our installations is
aging and in need of upgrades. Along with water and energy
conservation and community partnerships, the Army's 2025 budget
request promotes infrastructure resiliency both on and off
base.
The backlog of deferred maintenance for Army's sizable
building inventory grew over the course of many years for many
reasons. This deferred maintenance has consequences, as we have
seen with barracks. We take very seriously the recommendations
in the GAO barracks report, the barracks-related provisions of
the 2024 NDAA, and the recent recommendations of the House
Quality of Life Panel.
Any increase in poor and failing barracks for any reason
must be reversed, and barracks that are in good condition must
remain that way. That is why the Army is requesting 100 percent
of the funding required for sustainment of all barracks. The
Army is taking a number of steps to improve the soldier
experience in new and renovated barracks by creating better
living quarters and communal spaces.
The Army is also improving our business practices. Working
with the Army Corps, we will ensure design is sufficiently
complete and that cost estimates reflect rigorous analysis
before we request funding for MilCon projects. This will give
both the Army and Congress more predictability in our budgetary
needs.
Similarly, the Army is improving our building management
systems to better see the status of our facilities and manage
needed repairs. We are also working to ensure our data is
accurate and reliable.
To build ready installations of tomorrow, we must modernize
how we construct and operate our buildings. It is important to
evaluate during the design phase of a building how it will
function efficiently through its entire life cycle. For
example, a building's proposed location can determine
environmental risks, such as flooding. Installing more
efficient systems can decrease future utility bills.
Constructing with more durable materials will create longer
lasting buildings and reduce maintenance costs. Careful upfront
planning will make our buildings more resilient and ready to
support the Army of the future.
We must also ensure that contamination emanating from our
installations does not pose health risks to anyone, either on
or off base. The Army appreciates the recent actions taken by
EPA to impose regulatory standards for PFAS, and we stand ready
to comply.
Through these 2025 investments, the Army is looking to
improve soldiers' quality of life and operational
effectiveness. We look forward to working with Congress to
build and maintain the installations of the future.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Ms. Jacobson.
And let's have Lieutenant General Vereen talk now
STATEMENT OF LT. GENERAL KEVIN VEREEN
General Vereen. Chairman Carter, Ranking Member Wasserman
Schultz, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you
for the opportunity to speak about the Army's Fiscal Year 2025
Military Construction Budget Request. And thank you for your
continued support to our Army soldiers, families, and
civilians.
The Army's investments in quality of life are critical for
the readiness of the total force and our ability to retain and
recruit the best of our Nation. Investing in soldier barracks,
family housing, childcare, and spouse employment enables
readiness because soldiers can focus on their mission. Our
requested barracks funding is now an average of $2.1 billion
across all components of the Army, and we have requested a
hundred percent of the sustainment requirement for all barracks
types in the operations and maintenance account.
We are also implementing new processes to improve our cost
to complete for MilCon projects. By involving the U.S. Corps of
Engineers and the garrison commanders earlier in the process,
we can provide more accurate costs.
How we invest in barracks to ensure the safety, health, and
well-being of our residents demonstrates our commitment to the
most basic needs of our soldiers and their families. We recruit
soldiers, but we retain families, which is why the Army
continues to make significant progress to provide high-quality
family housing.
This budget requests $752 million for the operation,
maintenance, leasing, privatization, oversight, and
construction for Army family housing worldwide, and also
includes investments in Army control family housing. Privatized
housing providers will invest over $2.5 billion in new
construction, renovations, and other development work.
When it comes to Army families, investing in the access to
affordable childcare also makes a difference in supporting a
soldier's ability to serve. Thank you for funding eight new
child development centers from fiscal year 2021 through 2024,
renovating 11 child development centers and 12 more in fiscal
year 2024.
This budget request includes $174 million for three
childcare development centers and one youth center. This also
includes the Fort Liberty Childcare Development Center, which
we would like to thank you for pulling it forward.
We also continue to support our spouse employment
opportunities. We have implemented and supported many
initiatives to help spouses maintain their professional
careers. We know that spouse unemployment can lead to potential
financial strain with Army life and lead to retention
decisions. Thank you for your efforts to expand the scope and
licensure reimbursement with 38 States.
When we can provide critical support to professional
spouses and enable them to continue meaningful careers
throughout multiple PCS moves, we also enable that family to
continue their commitment to the Army.
The strength of our Army is our soldiers and the strength
of our soldiers are our families. This budget request is an
investment in the well-being and the readiness of our soldiers
and families.
I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared joint statement follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Carter. Thank you both for your statements.
As we begin our questioning, I would like to remind our
members that we will follow the usual hearing procedures. Those
that I shared with you ahead of the first meeting we had last
month. And I guess I will begin.
I strongly believe that the Army's role in the Indo-
Pacific, and I think the need to invest in that region is
critical. I made a tour out there and I saw a lot of things
that need fixing.
The Army's fiscal year 2025 budget includes about $300
million in major construction in Hawaii, Alaska, and Japan. The
request also includes $75 million in minor construction for the
region.
Lastly, though there is no funding in fiscal year 2025 for
Guam, there is over $900 million planned for fiscal year 2026
and 2027.
The initial questions that I have are: Can you tell us
about the Army's military construction priorities in the
region? What are the places that need more funding than what is
included in the fiscal year 2025 request?
Ms. Jacobson. I would be happy to start and then, of
course, Lieutenant General Vereen will, of course, supplement
and weigh in and tell you everything that I didn't tell you.
So we are very focused, Chairman Carter, on the Indo-
Pacific. Through our fiscal year 2029 program, we will be
investing $1.7 billion, collectively, in the Indo-Pacific. Of
course, Guam is still being planned and worked out, so there
might be additions with respect to Guam.
Hawaii, there are many examples. We have got Schofield
Barracks, water tank projects, water pumping projects. We have
an aircraft maintenance hangar at Wheeler Army Airfield. We are
doing a lot of integrated resilience planning at Kwajalein,
where that is obviously extremely necessary. Going back to
Hawaii for one second, we stood up a task force specifically to
look at infrastructure, because the Hawaii infrastructure, both
on the water and the electricity side, is in need of repair. We
are so intertwined with the communities in Hawaii, it makes it
all that more urgent. So we have a dedicated task force just to
help us evaluate and propose and cost out infrastructure
projects, of course, in conjunction with the local utilities.
We are also investing in Alaska. We have a programmed project
in the fiscal year 2025 for a machine-gun range and as well as
at Wainwright, as well as barracks for fiscal year 2026. So
huge focus on the Indo-Pacific. Some of my colleagues and I
will be going to Hawaii and Alaska, both, in 1 week.
Mr. Carter. That would be quite a trip.
Ms. Jacobson. I know. In the week of May 18, we are heading
first to Hawaii and then to Alaska. So just a demonstration of
our commitment.
Mr. Carter. General?
General Vereen. Chairman Carter, just to add to what
Honorable Jacobson kind of talked about. We are heavily
investing in, I think, the Indo-Pacific. We have--over the last
year have been able to at least travel to Hawaii, Guam, and
Alaska, and so understand the significance of what that region
does for our military and the strategic location. There are
quite a bit of investments there.
I will just highlight Guam because I think that is, as we
continue to build out, that is going to be a very interesting,
you know, region, or at least island because of just in terms
of distance of trying to get things there. And we are working
with OSD, of course, in the sequencing to ensure that, you
know, the Army's equities are in line with all the other
services. We do have a substantial amount of money that we are
going to invest in 2026 and 2027, and most of that is already
dedicated to support several of our units there, primarily our
air defense unit that is there as well. And so I think we are
in good stead with the Pacific. But, of course, like you said,
there is plenty of work to be done, and we will continue to
make sure that the Army is positioned and postured to support
whatever happens in that region.
Mr. Carter. I have a couple of follow-up questions on this
subject matter. How will the lack of funding for Guam in the
Army request impact the timeline for building out Army--the
Army's presence there? Are there any projects on Guam that
should be considered in the fiscal year 2025? If so, we would
like to know about them. Does the Army have the workforce that
it needs on Guam? And I have been working on that since I went
at Guam. And I think we have gotten the visas. Are we getting
the workers? Are the Army--how is the Army working with sister
services, INDOPACOM, to ensure the right projects are in the
right places at the right time? Can you discuss the Army's role
in implementing INDOPACOM construction pilot program from last
year's National Defense Authorization Act?
So that is a lot of stuff, but I need to know it.
Ms. Jacobson. Chairman Carter, we might want to take some
of that for the record so we can give you a fulsome answer, a
comprehensive answer.
Because of the sequential nature, because of the intra-
agency respective roles at Guam, with, of course, Navy being
the lead, the Missile Defense Agency is conducting the NEPA for
all the proposed sites where the new equipment will be housed.
We are going to be positioning soldiers there, so we were going
to focus on the housing needs in particular. I don't know even
yet what the status is of the Endangered Species Act
consultation.
So we are trying to balance all of the prerequisites to the
construction needs that we know are going to have to go
forward, of course, in conjunction with OSD, Navy, Missile
Defense Agency. But we can take that for the record and give
you a fulsome report of what we are going to be doing. I think
we are having an Army Guam meeting Friday, if I am not
mistaken.
Mr. Carter. That would be great. I would appreciate that.
General Vereen. Chairman Carter, I would just highlight,
you know, kind of what Honorable Jacobson said, of course, is
sequencing. We are very aware of the challenge, I think, as all
the services are really trying to get their equities met. And
so we are working with the Navy and, of course, with the
Department of Defense to ensure that our equities are met as
well.
I think we have identified our first set of requirements,
and we have funding for those, and so we know what we are going
to put in first. And then as we continue to work with the Navy,
the housing, to ensure that--it is probably going to be joint
housing, it is probably going to be all co-located together
where all of the services will share, you know, family housing.
So I think we have a plan in the long run, and then, of course,
there are going to be some significant requirements, funding
requirements on the back end of this as we continue to build
out. But, again, I think we can take a lot of this for the
record and we can give you a little bit more detail.
Mr. Carter. Well, every place I went over there said, we
got money, but we don't have workers. And they recommended we
get visas from Philippines. I think they have given some
special--how many, I don't know--but they have at least given
some special visas for Philippines.
I mean, I heard this from the military, also from the
civilian construction, and civilian people said, now, look, we
know you got to go to the military first, but keep them in
place so we can finish our streets and all our stuff we have
got to do to make this thing work. That needs to be worked out
there on Guam. But I hope that the State Department will also
be cooperative in these visas, and I was told they would.
So let me know about that, because that is--you can't
make--get it done. It is not that we can't bring them--bring
people from the United States, you know, continental United
States, it is too far away. They won't come. It is just that
simple. Plus, there is too much going on in the United States
in construction that they don't need to go over there and do
it.
I think that is enough for me. I will yield to Ms.
Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Thank you.
The Army is requesting $2.3 billion in fiscal year 2025,
and that is $841 million more than the fiscal year 2024 budget
request. Like I said, it was going in the right direction.
There are significantly more funding requirements to the Army
than requested in this year's budget, but--just like every
year--but I am really glad to see the trend going. The way we
have encouraged you, cajoled, pushed you to go, because each
year we need to make sure that we are better meeting the needs
of the Army and its soldiers, even in a tight fiscal
environment.
So I am a big believer that a budget request shows your
values, and it is good to see that the Army is focusing on
prioritizing the quality of life for its soldiers and families.
So the billion dollars, almost billion dollars requested
for the nine barracks projects between the Army and Army
Reserve is a substantial investment to rightsize the conditions
of Army housing. It was a pretty scathing GAO report that
described the horrible condition of Army barracks that likely
led to the request. I hope that it did. But it is good to see
that it is--you are taking it head-on.
I mean, construction funding alone is not going to solve
the issues with the Army barracks, and we are going to be in
the same place again if the Army doesn't prioritize proper
maintenance and oversight of the housing.
So, Secretary Jacobson, can you talk to us about how the
billion dollars will help the Army improve the condition of the
barracks? Also, is the plan simply to build new barracks
instead of updating and fixing the current barracks or is the
number of Army barracks being requested simply indicative of
the size of the deficit of barracks spaces?
Ms. Jacobson. Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, I am so
pleased that you recognize our commitment through our budget
request, because we obviously took it very seriously, and that
budget request reflects a lot of thinking and a lot of
strategizing with the Army senior leadership about how to best
get after this.
We are going to use MilCon to address deficit. That is
where we don't--literally don't have enough barracks buildings
to accommodate soldiers at certain installations for various
reasons. It can be there is a mission increase or what have
you. But we are going to use the vast majority of our $2.5
billion budget request for restoration and maintenance and 100
percent sustainment.
Through the restoration and maintenance, we hope to restore
as many of the so-called Q3, Q4 barracks to bring them into Q1,
Q2 condition. And then with the hundred percent sustainment
funding, which is a first in many years, at least for us, to
request that, we are going to maintain those Q1, Q2 barracks so
they don't fall into disrepair.
We are also very cognizant that we have to have civilian
managers, not just because the NDAA now requires that we have
civilian managers over our barracks, but because it is the
right thing to do. So we have the funding in our fiscal year
2025 budget for 75 civilian managers. We are completing a
manpower study to increase that substantially in future year
budget requests to make sure that we have the right ratio of
civilian managers to barracks buildings, so that soldiers no
longer have to do this as a collateral duty. And we are going
to also make sure there is accountability. Commanders are going
to take much more personal responsibility and oversight over
the condition of our barracks.
This is going to be continuing. Our base program budgeted
$2.1 billion on average going forward, but we will see; that
may be subject to change as we continue to assess the
conditions.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. I would really like to
get an idea of what you are doing to address the barracks
housing issues now in addition to building new barracks.
Because the conditions are horrendous already.
So if you can answer that question. How do the new barracks
fit into the Army's holistic plan to ensure that every soldier
has clean, livable housing? What is the timeline to get all
barracks to a livable standard? What do you expect that to
cost?
Ms. Jacobson. Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, the
question you are asking is a good one and an appropriate one,
and is also part of the requirements we have in section 2839 of
the 2024 defense bill to report specifically on how we are
going--what is our 5-year plan for bringing our barracks that
are in good condition--or bad condition into good condition,
and how we are going to keep our barracks in good condition,
how are we going to keep them that way, and then, again, we are
going to try to use MilCon specifically to address deficit
where we need to build new barracks.
We are also going to select, very shortly for fiscal year
2025, we are going to select a certain number of barracks
buildings that are beyond repair, and we are going to use the
new authority Congress has given us to replace those barracks
instead of repairing them when the cost of repair exceeds 75
percent cost of replacement.
So we are going to--we have a one-to-end list of the worst
to the best, best we can assess that right now. I mean, a lot
of this is modeled. We are also going to--working with the
Corps of Engineers, we are going to do a more in-depth
inspection of all of our barracks buildings to get a better
sense of it.
But our approach right now is address the worst first and
use the funding that we are requesting in 2025 to fix those
barracks first in addition to the ones we are building.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK, and then I just want to touch on
the plans or the purported plans to privatize barracks. Why is
privatization the best option? Have you considered other
options? If you are actually already moving forward with
privatization of barracks, what lessons have you learned from
the scandals that plague the privatized housing initiative so
that we don't make those mistakes again? Specifically, because
we have had hearings on this in this subcommittee and very
strong bipartisan support for our concerns, how will the
contracts be different this time? What in the contract
specifically will require the private companies to invest in
the maintenance of the facilities decades down the road when
the projects are no longer new?
Ms. Jacobson. The privatized barracks is one option. It is
not the solution, by any stretch of the imagination.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. It is not.
Ms. Jacobson. It is not our preferred option. For fiscal
year 2025, we have a request for one--no, we received funding
in fiscal year 2024, I apologize, to build one new--to enter
into a contract for one new privatized barracks at Fort Irwin
in California with the Michaels company. It will be for 544
beds, and Michaels has a track record. They built some
privatized barracks for the Navy in San Diego.
We are only going to do this, first of all, where the
lifecycle cost analysis makes clear that it will be more
efficient and a cost savings for a privatized company to build
and maintain those barracks than for the Army to do so, and
also, where it makes sense to do so, where the circumstances of
the particular installation warrant privatization. Particularly
Fort Irwin, where there is really no available outside housing,
it is a pretty remote location, and austere, we felt it made
sense to do so and, again, with a provider that has a track
record already.
The same bill of rights, the same improvements we have made
with respect to privatized family housing will apply. We don't
yet know the specifics of the contract. We have to work that
out, but we have to do so that gives Army leadership and
commanders full access and oversight.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The contracts--and just before I
yield back, Mr. Chairman--if you remember--I mean, what we
learned about the contracts were that they were wound so--the
complexity of those contracts were wound so tight that it made
it impossible, nearly impossible for the military services to
hold the privatized companies accountable. There was no threat
of unwinding. There was no threat of, OK, we are taking back
these properties.
So I would strongly suggest--and, Mr. Chairman, I would
suggest that, even though this is laying out there only as a
possibility, that we put language in our bill that directs the
services on how they structure those contracts so that they
aren't left to the mercy of the privatized companies years down
the road.
Thank you. I yield back. Thank you for the indulgence.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Zinke.
Mr. Zinke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for both
being here.
General, I will start with you. I asked the Navy and the
Air Force the same thing. I was watching the comments of the
commanding general at Fort Bliss. He spent a lot of time
talking about that part of the issue in the barracks was the
training necessary of some of the young soldiers to make sure
that they have discipline and learn how to clean. So a lot of
it was basic cleanliness. This is how you do it if you are
going to have accommodation.
Do you think that is an isolated incident or do you think
that was--is prolific along the force that we need to do a
little more training on how to do basic cleaning?
General Vereen. Sir, that is a very good question, and I
appreciate it. I think first that the discipline of our
soldiers is really taught in basic training, and so it really
starts in basic training. For all of us who I think have gone
through basic training understand the long hours of just trying
to do general cleanliness, not only--there is personal
cleanliness but also cleanliness of your living space.
So I don't think it is a systemic problem. I think it is
probably more of an isolated problem. But I think with
instilling and reinforcing the why cleanliness is important to
readiness--because it is a readiness issue; we want our
soldiers to be ready--but coupled with leadership at the first-
line supervisor level, that is a unit problem to solve, and we
are expecting leaders to be involved in daily lives--
Mr. Zinke. Let me follow up on leadership, because I do
have some concerns about privatization of barracks and command
and control. Because cleanliness, conduct, all those things,
and barracks--and believe me, I have been a commanding officer
and I have been through a lot of barracks. Lived in them both.
Having the ability for someone to be in charge and someone to
be accountable is incredibly important.
Are you concerned about privatization? If we go forward on
these contracts, are you confident that we can write a contract
so senior leaders can still maintain control of the barracks?
General Vereen. Congressman, we are absolutely confident
that we will be able to do that. I think regardless of how we
move forward--and I will be honest with you, I think for the
most part, the Army is not on the side of full privatization of
our barracks. There is reasons why we--it doesn't necessarily
fit for the Army. Most of our units are force-generating units,
and the fact that they have to be ready to deploy at a moment's
notice and vacate barracks and infrastructure really doesn't
bode well for privatization for the Army, for the most part.
But I do feel confident that, you know, we hold folks
accountable, and we will.
If we move down that road, it is about holding our soldiers
accountable and leadership accountable to ensure the vitality
of our barracks for the long term.
Mr. Zinke. I appreciate it, and, Madam--thank you for your
service, by the way.
So I know the DoD instruction mandates that we are going to
go to all electricity. I get a little concerned about how to do
that since China controls northward of 80 percent of the
critical minerals, battery, et cetera, et cetera. But have--
first of all, in Indochina, how much of your request is for
warfighting, and how much is for barracks and other amenities?
You don't have to break down without--the general breakdown of
your request in the Indo-Pacific. How much is it for
warfighting capability, installations, hardening barracks,
hardening fuels, fuel supply, those type of things, as opposed
to barracks?
Ms. Jacobson. In the Indo-Pacific specifically?
Mr. Zinke. Yes.
Ms. Jacobson. Well, of course, our request reflects the
installation needs, the facility needs, military construction
needs. So I would have to give you the specifics on that of a
breakdown of all the projects in the Indo-Pacific, and we would
be happy to provide that. But because our request reflects
installation of facilities and military construction, I am
guessing it is more towards the installations and facilities
and barracks.
Mr. Zinke. We reviewed the Navy's budget too, and I think
there is concern that we need ammunition, we need fuel. We need
those type of logistics, and the supply chain is out of whack
in the Pacific. Looking at the request, we want to make sure
that our frontline capability to defend this country is not at
risk.
So I understand the need for great barracks. Believe me, I
understand that, but our primary mission is to defend the
country, and we want to make sure those requests are made.
Lastly, I understand you are the waiver authority. If they
deviate from going to all electricity, you are the waiver
authority if they want to design something. Just out of
curiosity, have you given any waivers? Have you done a cost
analysis of what--of what going all electricity would mean,
cost, and looked at metrics for a waiver, if you have given
one?
Ms. Jacobson. Congressman, the waiver authority that is
contained in our electrification policy hasn't been exercised
yet. I think it is still very new. Of course, this policy tiers
off of administration policy, and OSD policy, and actually is a
requirement under the Energy Independence and Security Act of
2007. So it is all geared toward being prepared for
electrification.
But the central goal is to reduce consumption and increase
readiness, bottom line, and we are also making sure that any
electrification that we--that a prerequisite is a capacity
analysis. So we are engaging in partnerships with the utilities
to understand capacity, both on and off base, because of all
the demands on the grid. So we are very cognizant that we can't
just look at this electrification in isolation. It has to be
part of a big picture, and we will consider many different
factors if a waiver request is made.
Mr. Zinke. I appreciate that, and I ask to just keep us
informed. As you go through the process, there is a lot of
variables in there.
Ms. Jacobson. Absolutely.
Mr. Zinke. Let us know how we can be helpful.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Ms. Jacobson. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the
distinguished witnesses, Secretary Jacobson and Lieutenant
General Vereen, for your unwavering dedication and service.
Your presence is instrumental in our efforts to enhance a part
of life for our servicemembers.
I have got a couple of questions for you. Given the
increased funding allocation for family housing, how will the
Army ensure that the allocated funds for family housing are
utilized to address the most pressing needs that have been
identified by military families? How does the Army plan to
measure the success and the impact of the family housing
renovation projects?
My second project is a little broader, goes to
prioritization. Among the 45 projects that are supported by the
$3.9 billion military construction budget, how were the
projects prioritized with a specific criteria or strategic
considerations that influence the selection of these particular
initiatives, and are there specific areas where tradeoffs are
necessary?
You can both take your time.
Ms. Jacobson. I will take housing; he will take
prioritization and projects.
Congressman, thank you very much for the question. Our
housing budget, of course, reflects two parts, if you will. Our
continued funding for oversight of the privatized housing
providers, which we continue to increase. In the last several
years, we have added 150 professionals to our housing offices,
most specifically to engage not just in oversight of the
providers, but to engage with the tenants so that their needs
are being met and addressed.
We are also--our budget request for fiscal year 2025
includes funding for our overseas housing, which, of course, we
own and operate. We are going to be building 84 new homes in
Belgium, 54 in Germany, and 35 in Japan, because we also don't
want to forget our soldiers and families overseas who are in
need of new or renovated homes, and, of course, that is the
Army's primary responsibility.
Mr. Bishop. How are you going to measure the success?
Ms. Jacobson. Well, you know, we do have tenant
satisfaction surveys for our privatized housing. We take those
very seriously. We are also--the tenants have a lot of rights
now. And we will know if they are--we are engaging with them
much more frequently. I think success will mean that they are
happy, that they are happy and they are satisfied, and we won't
stop until they are.
Mr. Bishop. That will help retention and recruitment then,
huh?
Ms. Jacobson. Yes.
Mr. Bishop. Sir.
General Vereen. Yes, Congressman, to answer your second
question on how do we basically prioritize our requirements. So
every requirement comes from the field. All of our units, our
ACOMs, our Army commands, submit their requirements, based on
their priorities, through to our Installation Management
Command, which controls all of our facility investments, and
so--and that document is--it is extremely large, but it has got
all the requirements from every organization in the Army. Those
requirements have been fed into the Department of the Army.
We take those requirements. There is sort of an analytic
process where we put those requirements in, and then it will
deliver basically what the priorities are based off the
different categories of how we prioritize our units.
For instance, our force-generation units probably will rate
a little higher than some of our training units. Just because
it is that way, and we want to make sure that, you know, our
mission is to fight and win our Nation's war. So once those
requirements are done and we have a thoroughly concise facility
investment plan which has everything in it, then we have to put
the human in the loop. That is where we have the opportunity to
be able to brief our Army senior leaders on what the list looks
like, and then we are making trades. As you said, there is
tradeoffs that have to happen because we only have but so much
money.
So we are balancing now our MilCon in all our facilities
with different categories. I mean, so what is our operational,
what is--you know, what is just our basic housing and those
categories, and we are making trades based on what the Army
senior leaders choose to make as a priority. For instance, as
an example, now you hear the message, I mean, we are really
prioritizing and investing in barracks. That is absolutely
proven through now the outputs of what our facility investment
plan is doing for us based on the Army senior leaders, their
guidance and their priorities.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, sir. I think my time has expired,
but thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mrs. Bice.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for you both
being here this afternoon.
I am a proud part of the Oklahoma delegation and
representing the Oklahoma National Guard in Oklahoma City,
which is within my district, but also Fort Sill and McAlester
Army Ammunition Plant within my colleagues' districts.
First, I want to thank you for putting the Shawnee National
Guard Readiness Center Complex into the budget this fiscal
year. It is an important project in my district to replace the
current armory that dates back to the 1950s and is in very poor
condition. So I appreciate you paying attention to that.
I am also glad to see the planned construction of an
additional ammunition demolition facility at the McAlester Army
Depot, which currently uses World War II-era infrastructure,
but it is also the largest employer in McAlester with over
2,000 employees.
Looking through the budget, I notice there are several
projects that will be, quote, fully electrified, incorporating
onsite renewable energy sources and battery storage. Within the
Department, there has been a recent announcement that you will
be using solar panels on the Pentagon.
So my question is, you all, I am sure, are very aware that
China controls the vast majority of the solar panel market,
because nearly 45 percent of--there is a 45 percent reduction
in cost from panels that are produced here in the U.S. But what
I want to make sure is we need to have a secure supply chain,
and that is an extremely important piece of this.
Secretary Jacobson, will solar panels be used in any of the
Army's construction projects that are listed in the budget this
year?
Ms. Jacobson. Congresswoman, first of all, thank you for
your appreciation for our investment, particularly in the
organic industrial base. That is part of a multiyear effort to
modernize our organic industrial base, and so we look forward
to working with you on that.
I can't say for sure whether solar panels will be on any of
those facilities, but what I can tell you is that our national
security is absolutely paramount. We comply with the Buy
American Act, which does allow some exemptions in certain
instances, so it is by law, where procurement is not otherwise
feasible or cost-effective.
However, we always make sure that we have full integrity of
our systems, so that any components that are not sourced in the
U.S. because of unavailability or because they are cost-
prohibitive are not operationally vulnerable, so that we are
not ever compromising readiness. We also have--
Mrs. Bice. Have you granted any exemptions?
Ms. Jacobson. I personally have not, but the Army has been
using solar panels in construction now for--it wouldn't be--the
exemption wouldn't come from our office. It would come through
the construction process itself. The Army has been using solar
panels since the late 1980s, and it has constructed many
facilities with solar panels, and we have also installed solar
arrays.
But we are very, very cognizant, and much more so now, to
try to source all materials we can domestically, and to make
sure that when components are not sourced in the U.S., that we
ensure, along with the vendors, that they are free from any
nefarious interference.
Mrs. Bice. Well, just for the record, I think it is
probably wise to mention that there are construction projects
at Letterkenny Army Depot in Pennsylvania, the Red River Army
Depot in Texas, Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington,
Ansbach, Germany, and I would be curious if you could let us
know if there are potential solar projects that are being--or
panels that are being considered for utilization in those
areas.
This is an issue and, you know, I am concerned that we are
looking at the purchase of these solar panels, not necessarily
for cost-effective reasons, but maybe other initiatives, and I
worry about that. I also worry about the cost increases of
these. I think that we have seen, not only the rarest minerals
that are in these solar panels being procured from our
adversaries across the world, but also when we are talking
about battery powered, whether it is battery-powered vehicles
or otherwise.
The minerals that go into these solar panels and these
batteries are not being mined in countries that we have good
relationships with, nor should we be relying on. I want to make
sure that every, you know, consideration is being made by the
Army to ensure that this is being considered when you are, you
know, building these particular facilities.
Ms. Jacobson. We share your concern, and we are
simultaneously addressing, along with the rest of the Federal
Government and, frankly, industrywide, this problem of the need
to source materials in the U.S., the need to refine the
materials in the U.S.--
Mrs. Bice. Well, with all due respect, Madam Secretary, I
think the challenge is that we have put the cart before the
horse, and we are pushing these initiatives of electrification
before having a robust conversation about supply chains and
making sure that we are protecting ourselves from the
challenges that we face with our adversaries. That is probably
a longer conversation that we have time for at this time.
But, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you indulging me, and with
that, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Lee.
Ms. Lee of Nevada. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here. I was really
happy to see in your budget the construction of Nevada's first
certified small arms range at the Hawthorne Army Depot. This
facility will ensure that servicemembers in Nevada will receive
the training and maintain their readiness without having to go
out of State. So we are very happy about that. Thank you.
But I also want to focus on something that has become a
more pressing issue, and it is being critical that we provide
facilities that are designed to limit exposure to unnecessary
risk.
I was shocked to learn in 2023, during just the first 3
months, nearly 50,000 servicemembers had to undergo treatment
for traumatic brain injuries. The worst part is that we know
too many of these are from blast overpressure exposure during
routine weapons training.
Madam Secretary, are you aware of the efforts across the
Department of Defense, specifically in the Army, to address
these concerns, and to what extent are you involved in those
conversations?
Ms. Jacobson. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee. We are very,
very focused on how to address the blast overpressure issue and
to maintain the health of our soldiers and to prevent any of
these sorts of adverse health effects and conditions.
Especially when it is during routine weapons training, we
really need to avoid that. There is a lot of focus right now on
preventative efforts and modifying existing tactics.
In addition to current efforts for hazard communication,
which is important in training; neurocognitive assessments so
that we have real-time understanding of what is happening with
our soldiers in reaction to these events; wearable sensor
development, protective equipment, and training, we also need
to evaluate our range and facility designs to develop
engineering solutions and modifications to reduce the exposure.
Lieutenant General Vereen may have more to say on that.
General Vereen. I think what the Honorable Jacobson kind of
described is we continue to improve and modify so that we don't
put our soldiers at risk when you are looking at some of the
impacts of noise and what we do on our ranges with regards to
their mental well-being. So I think we can continue to further
evolve and make modifications moving forward.
Ms. Lee of Nevada. Yeah. You know, I read in an Army
research lab study that recommended the use of prepared firing
positions with blast-absorbing materials. From an
infrastructure perspective, are there other modifications to
ranges or shoot houses? You know, where are we on that process?
What can we do to jump-start or fast-track this? I mean, we
know that our servicemembers are being injured while training
as--today. So what is it? How can we be helpful to help jump-
start this modification?
Ms. Jacobson. Congresswoman Lee, the discussions around how
to address blast overpressure occurring servicewide and with--
the Office of Secretary of Defense is taking the lead, but Army
has a big role to play here, a very big role to play to help
influence that process. We would be happy to take, for the
record, more specifics about what we are looking at for future
design and engineering and other ways to prevent this sort of
exposure, and also to advise Congress--not that we would advise
Congress--to inform Congress of where legislation might be
helpful.
Ms. Lee of Nevada. OK. Yeah. You know, again, I want to
make sure that we can talk about training techniques, et
cetera, but really there are some modifications we can make
infrastructurewise, and I would like to see some focus put on
that as well.
I am going to turn to geothermal energy. America's first
geothermal plant officially went online in Nevada. Today it is
actively producing energy for cloud operations in Vegas and
data centers around our States. I am really happy to see that
the Army and Defense Department are more broadly investing in
next-generation geothermal technologies, including a project at
the Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada.
So I just wanted to ask, can you share with the committee a
little bit more about this initiative and how investment in
alternatives--or energy sources contributes to the Army's
mission and our national security?
Ms. Jacobson. Sure, absolutely. And I really do thank you
for that question.
Our goal is to make sure we diversify our energy sources
from wherever we can, and geothermal is particularly attractive
because it is onsite and has so many potential benefits. So we
are engaged in a few research projects right now.
The Environmental Security Technology Certification
Program, otherwise known as ESTCP, which funds innovative
research, has given a grant to Sage Geosystems, in partnership
with the University of Texas, actually, to conduct a geothermal
exploration feasibility study at Fort Bliss. So we are really
excited about that.
We are also engaged in a geothermal feasibility study at
Fort Wainwright in Alaska, because that is a place where we are
particularly challenged with respect to having many energy
options available to us and where the need is really great.
Right now at Fort Wainwright in Alaska, we have got the
oldest, still serving, still operating coal-fired power plant
in the U.S., and it is really old. It is decades beyond when it
should still be operating. So we are planning for the future a
gas-fired power plant there, but we also are--even that is a
challenge because of the need to move the gas hundreds of miles
to the facility. So we are exploring geothermal there as well.
Ms. Lee of Nevada. Great.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for indulging me.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Rutherford.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the Secretary and General for being here,
and, General, thank you for your service as well.
Madam Secretary, the Florida National Guard is suffering
from some inflation, as the rest of the country is. And it has
had a significant impact on some of their MilCon needs,
particularly at the Gainesville Readiness Center. They are now
unable to complete the original barracks there. They are $18
million short because of inflation over the construction time.
Can you tell me, how are we prioritizing our MilCon dollars
to these previously scheduled and started programs,
construction programs, that haven't been completed yet?
Ms. Jacobson. I will start and turn to Lieutenant General
Vereen if he has--well, he probably does have something to add
to that.
That is a very important question, Congressman, because,
particularly in the last few years where the cost of
construction and labor rose considerably and in a pretty much
unpredictable fashion, we really came in with a lot of cost-to-
complete requests and so forth. I will look specifically at the
Gainesville Readiness Center barracks situation and report back
to you on that.
But what we are doing now is, with every MilCon project, we
are really, first of all, making sure that we have the 35
percent design truly completed. Also, we are working with the
Army Corps to scrub those numbers and take a very--as close to
realistic total construction numbers as possible, factoring in
these considerations.
Because it is an untenable situation to plan a project that
then falls $18 million short. The requirement is still there,
the need is still there.
Mr. Rutherford. Right.
Ms. Jacobson. Then we have to go back for a reprogramming
or a second tranche, and that is just not ideal.
Mr. Rutherford. OK.
General Vereen.
General Vereen. Yes, Congressman. I will just reiterate,
kind of, what Honorable Jacobson said.
One is, we try to create parity as well. And that is
important for the Army. We understand that our COMPO 2 and
COMPO 3 soldiers are absolutely vital to the readiness of the
Army. We couldn't do it without them as well. Understanding the
importance of their facilities, we want to make sure that we do
the investments in proper manner.
But it does cause us to have to go back and reprogram in
some cases, and when we do that then something else doesn't get
funded.
Mr. Rutherford. General, could you provide this committee
with a list of those reprograms that we are going to have to do
so that we can help you get the funding that you need to
complete these programs?
General Vereen. Yes, Congressman, we can.
Mr. Rutherford. If you can get that to us that would be
great.
I want to congratulate both of you on the Fort Bliss, kind
of, pilot program out there. I know the first--when I read
this, I was like, you have got to be kidding me. It is a 3D
barracks, a 3D-printed barracks. I am like, can that really be
true?
But I understand the first one is complete, and there are
three more that are coming on line, I think, this summer. Is
that correct so far? Is the article I saw correct?
Ms. Jacobson. Thank you. We are excited about getting that
3D barracks on line. It is not quite on line yet. I think they
are still doing some seismic testing on it, because we haven't,
you know, built this barracks with this processing before. But
we are excited by the possibility, because it cuts a lot of
time and cost.
Mr. Rutherford. That was going to be my followup. Once it
is complete, to look at the savings on the construction, the
maintenance, the daily operations, and then also the fact that,
you know, you are building with material that is mold-
resistant, I was shocked, and a 5,700-square-foot barracks,
that is a big building.
General Vereen. Congressman, no, you are absolutely
correct. I think it is important for us to, you know, make sure
that, as this thing comes on line and, you know, we actually
occupy it, then, of course, we are all looking at it because we
want to ensure that it is going to give us the longevity of
what a facility should give us.
Then we will use that to be able to say, OK, how do we
evolve and how do we continue to look at 3D printing as an
option, you know, for construction? I think it is a viable
opportunity for not only the Army but, I think, for all the
other services as well.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I see my time is used up, and I will yield
back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Valadao.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to both of you for taking some time today.
California and large States like Florida, Texas, New York
have more facilities to manage and respond to more disasters
than most other States. Yet they receive the same number of
construction projects as smaller States with fewer disasters.
Because of this, many of the Army National Guard facilities in
larger States are significantly behind the curve in
construction, modernization, and maintenance.
What is the Army doing to address the significant MilCon
needs of facilities in these larger States?
I think that is a question for Ms. Jacobson, if you don't
mind starting on that one, and then if Lieutenant General wants
to answer, I will give you the opportunity as well.
I know, politically, this is a complicated one, but it has
to be addressed at some point.
Ms. Jacobson. It certainly does, Congressman. And we
request--as we build our budget, we work closely with the Guard
and Reserves to make sure needs are addressed and that they
present to us projects that can be included in our budget
request.
We do have several both Guard and Reserve projects--in our
fiscal year 2025 and going forward, there are several projects.
But I appreciate your concern that particularly States
where, you know, most of our presence is in the form of Guard
and Reserves centers, that we should pay more attention to
those places, and we have every intention of doing so.
General Vereen. Congressman, thank you for the question as
well.
I think what is important for how we do--I kind of talked
about the Facility Investment Plan and how the Army does it.
We have separated both the National Guard and Reserves
requirements to ensure that they don't get absorbed in what the
Active requirements are because they are extremely large. That
way, we can turn to ensure that we have parity when we are
looking across all of our investments so that they are not
embedded in a long laundry list of just Army requirements; they
are highlighted because they are on a separate investment list.
So I think we have evolved over time, but, of course, it is
really to create parity. And are we as good as we should be?
Probably not. We can improve. But we also know the importance
of those COMPO 2 and COMPO 3 units, as well, to what the Army
does, so----
Mr. Valadao. Did you have a followup on this, Ms. Jacobson,
or should I hit my next question?
Ms. Jacobson. Well, no, I just somehow magically pulled out
the fiscal year.
Mr. Valadao. Magically?
Ms. Jacobson. No, believe me, with this stack of papers, to
find this thing just like that within your 5 minutes was pretty
good.
No. We have requested for the National Guard in our fiscal
year 2025 MilCon request $362.1 million. So it is--I could get
you a more specific--readiness centers, vehicle maintenance
centers, some of that is going to go to planning and design and
ranges and training facilities. It is a combination.
Mr. Valadao. All right. Well, I appreciate that, and this
question follows--a different question. I have brought this up
at a few different hearings with different agencies, or
different branches.
But during our quality-of-life hearing, I flagged a concern
that a local community hospital which supports nearby
servicemembers recently announced that they would be suspending
their labor and delivery services due to unprecedented
financial challenges.
This loss in care means our servicemembers will need to
drive almost 2 hours to the next-closest labor and delivery
unit, which places an incredible hardship on our servicemembers
and their families.
While this particular case involves a Navy base, I am
concerned that, as the Defense Health Agency moves forward with
their plan to consolidate on-base hospitals and clinics in
coming years, many of our bases will not be able to rely on
community care to provide the level of healthcare our
servicemembers deserve, especially in rural communities.
Is this an issue you are tracking? What steps is the Army
taking to ensure essential healthcare services are readily
available for our servicemembers?
General Vereen. Congressman, thanks for the question.
I am not necessarily tracking that particular incident. I
do know that there are a lot of discussions with regards to
healthcare, you know, working with DHA and their transformation
of DHA and, in some cases, how the services will be providing,
you know, their medical experts to support the DHA new reform.
That is concerning for the Army as well.
That I know of today, there is no movement to, I think,
reduce any of our Army hospitals. And I think, for the most
part, we have the capacity to be able to do most of the care
required on our Army hospitals. As a matter of fact, I think a
lot of our Air Force servicemembers and their families are
utilizing Army facilities when it comes to the medical
facility.
So I think we are OK. Right now, as I know, there is no
movement to reduce our capacity or our capability.
Mr. Valadao. Well, I appreciate that. I was mostly just
bringing it up to raise awareness on this issue. So thank you.
And I yield back, Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Gonzales.
Mr. Gonzales. Thank you, Chairman.
And thank you, Secretary and General, for testifying today.
It is my understanding that President Biden is going to
allow displaced Palestinians from the Israel-Hamas war into the
U.S.
It is my absolute honor and privilege to serve the people
of Fort Bliss, as well as parts of JBSA San Antonio. Will Fort
Bliss be used to house these folks from Palestine?
Ms. Jacobson. I have no familiarity with that issue.
Mr. Gonzales. I raise that because, as my colleague, Mr.
Rutherford, mentioned on the 3D printing, Fort Bliss is the
Swiss Army knife of the Army, right?
When Afghan refugees were looking for a place, guess where
they went. It was Fort Bliss. When the border crisis boiled up
to a point where there was no place to put them, guess what
they used. Fort Bliss. It seems as if, every time there is a
crisis of some sort or another, Fort Bliss is at the top of the
list.
I am OK with that. I mean, the people of El Paso are very
warm and welcoming. But here is the deal: We house and we deal
with this crisis, and then we don't get reimbursed for the
issues, right? I am still dealing with some of the funding from
the Afghan resettlement, if you will.
So I bring this up to you. This is a very serious issue,
and not only is it going to cause a monetary setback, if you
will, or extra cost to Fort Bliss, there is also a political
element to this as well.
So I would ask, if there is something that is going to
happen, will you please contact my office so we can be made
aware of it?
My next question is on family separation allowance. At what
point is the Army going to increase the family separation
allowance to $400?
General Vereen. Congressman, I will have to take that for
the record. I have no timeline, and I am kind of unaware of----
Mr. Gonzales. Currently, the family separation allowance is
$250. Last year, Congress passed in the NDAA to raise it to
$400, at the discretion of the services.
So we talk about taking care of our soldiers, sailors,
Army, and Marines, but we don't act on it, right? So I am
asking, you know--and there is Airmen thrown in there too
somewhere--I am asking every service, when are these families
going to get their money? I think it is an important one to
ask.
The next question--man, I am firing fastballs today. My
next question is on JBSA.
JBSA is very important. Fort Sam is very important to San
Antonio, and it seems as if Fort Sam is the long-lost,
forgotten child that nobody wants to take care of. It is not
even in my district, but there are people that are impacted by
that in so many different ways.
So am I reading this correct? There is no Army MilCon for
JBSA in the years of 2025 through 2029 in the FYDP?
General Vereen. So, for JBSA, that is a joint base, and the
Army is not the landholding agency for it. It is the Air Force.
As far as I know, there--I do know there is a MilCon
project for some of the training barracks that are there. I
think the Air Force is the first one in for construction of a
new barracks that is in the medical training complex. But, as
far as I know, that is the only facility I know that is on the
short list for construction.
But, again, the Navy handles that, because they are the
lead agency for JBSA.
Mr. Gonzales. So I know METC, and I know part of that is, I
think you were going to price it out.
But, once again, in this joint base environment, what I see
is, everyone is saying somebody else is going to take care of
it, and nobody takes care of it. I am trying to go, OK, who is
going to take care of it? So, that way, I can go and help
advocate to allocate funds to take care of this.
I will tell you this. Out of the JBSA process, I feel as if
Fort Sam Houston is the last to eat, man. Right? There is
nobody advocating for them. You are not asking for any dollars
in here for that, so, you know, if I am the Air Force or some
of these other services, I am going, well, the Army isn't
asking for anything, then guess what, you are not going to get
anything.
So I just worry about the direction that Fort Sam Houston
is heading. I have been there many times. It is falling further
and further behind, and, once again, you know, it seems as if
nobody is advocating for it.
I would like to--you know, we can't select a program, we
can't select a project if you don't submit a project. You are
telling me, no projects in 4 years? I mean, that just doesn't
make any sense to me.
So, with that, Chairman, I am out of time, and I will yield
back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Guest.
Mr. Guest. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To our witnesses, thank both of you for being here.
I also want to thank you for your commitment to improving
the quality of life for our servicemen and -women. Your
submitted documents go into great detail about housing,
childcare, the 5-year plan, Madam Secretary, that you
mentioned, the restoration, maintenance, replacement. So thank
you all for focusing on taking care of those men and women who
take care of us.
I want to talk about a couple of Mississippi-specific
issues very quickly.
In fiscal year 2023, in the NDAA, the Secretary of the Army
was--and it was in Section 2845. It talks about the land
conveyance of an abandoned armory there and 5 acres located in
the city of Starkville on Highway 12.
There is, of course, a process in which there would be
restitution cost paid to the Army for the conveyance of that
property. But since that was included back in December of 2023,
that conveyance still has not yet taken place.
We routinely get calls from some of our constituents in
that area asking us to help determine a timeline. I know you
don't have that information here in front of you. I don't
expect you to be able to give me a timeline as to when that
will be able to take place.
But I would ask that you all continue to be in contact with
our office about the process, if possible, a potential date as
to when we could look at that conveyance being able to take
place. We appreciate and look forward to working with you on
that to make sure that that is carried out in a timely fashion.
I also want to talk about, at Meridian Naval Air Station--
excuse me, Key Field in Meridian, which is an aviation support
facility, they have there the Chinook platforms that they fly
from that facility.
In the recently passed fiscal year 2024 budget, there was
money placed in there for the planning and design for a hangar
facility. These platforms sit out there, open, exposed, on the
runway, being exposed to the elements.
So this is something that I know that our National Guard in
Mississippi has been seeking to try to move forward. That
funding was secured in the fiscal year 2024.
So my question is, what is the general timeframe for
something--and, again, we are talking about not construction
but just planning and design--for a facility such as that?
Would this be something that you would be looking at 12 to 18
months?
Again, just in the planning, can you all give me a rough
timeframe as to, now that those funds have been allocated, when
we could expect to maybe see the planning and design work
begin?
Ms. Jacobson. Well, the goal, when planning and design
money is appropriated for a specific project, typically that
takes place immediately, because the goal is obviously to move
forward with the project itself.
I don't know the specifics of the status of the planning
and design for the hangar facility. I would hope that it is
fairly routine, that there is nothing so unique about it that
should take too long, but we would be happy to check, unless
you know?
General Vereen. No, I don't.
But I would--having a look at most of our projects, most of
our P&D is about 12 to 18 months P&D time, and then everything
else comes on the back end.
Mr. Guest. Yes. And, again, I was just asking in a general
timeframe; I wasn't asking specifically.
General Vereen. Right.
Mr. Guest. Just so that, you know, I have an idea as to
when to kind of be benchmarking this and looking so that, if
there needed to be followup--so thank you all for that.
The last question, or, really, just more of a statement,
just for your situational awareness. And I know this is not
going to be a decision that you will make. But our National
Guard has applied for a state partnership with Sweden.
Currently, they have partnerships with Uzbekistan and Bolivia.
They are seeking to move into the NATO space--very important, I
believe, in light of what we are seeing going on in the
European theater.
So, just wanted to make you all aware of that. Again, I
know that that decision will not come down from you
specifically, but anything that you can do to see if we could
expedite a decision on that request would be greatly
appreciated.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Wasserman Schultz has requested a second
round. I am going to yield my time to her, and then we will
finish up.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you so much. I appreciate it,
Mr. Chairman.
I want to focus on child development centers. The Army has
asked for three new CDCs--in Fort Meade, Fort Liberty, and in
Germany.
Can you briefly tell me, what is the Army's current backlog
of children waiting to get into a CDC? How many more CDCs are
necessary, in addition to these three centers, to address the
backlog?
General Vereen. OK. I can take that one. I appreciate the
question, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz.
So, right now, the current backlog is roughly 130 days. And
I say that, but it varies across our installations and where
they are. Most of our larger installations probably have the
largest backlog, and then our category----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. 130 days, Army-wide?
General Vereen. Army-wide, on average. But, again, we have
some installations that are 30 days or less, and then we have
some that are closer to the far end, 120, 130 days on average.
But I say that because most of our category of childcare
where we really are finding that we don't have the staffing is
really in our newborns to 5-year-olds. It is the very young
kids that we really are strapped for the staff to be able to
actually care for them.
I would say that, now, we are in a really good position
when we look at the amount of infrastructure we have for
childcare CDCs across the Army. That is probably not the
limiting factor anymore.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right.
General Vereen. Yes, we do have to repair some of the ones
that we currently have that are down for various reasons, but I
think we have the amount of facilities. Now, it is just trying
to get the workforce in.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So what are you doing to address the
workforce issue? Other branches of the service have been able
to work with spouses and making sure that they can get
certifications--and kind of----
General Vereen. So we are absolutely--probably in step with
the other services.
There are some things that we are doing a little bit
different. I just would highlight, we are all in this fight for
talent, and we are doing the same things. So I think, when we
look at salary and incentives and, you know, tuition assistance
and things of that nature, those have been really beneficial.
But the things that are really turning the needle for us is
really the offset for childcare. When you have employees who
have kids that are of childcare age, then, of course, we either
give free childcare or we give it at a reduced rate. So that
has been a great program that has turned the needle for us.
The second thing is our access to our commissaries. We have
a lot of our workers that have no DoD affiliation. So they are
working on installations, but they don't have CAC card access
and are not dependents. But we have opened it up, 17 of our
installations, where we allow our CDC workers who are not
affiliated to the military to be able to shop at those
commissaries, which is a huge motivator for them. So we are----
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I am sorry. I am running out of
time, and I want to actually ask you about Camp Bull Simons.
General Vereen. Oh, OK.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And I appreciate the update.
General Vereen. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But I don't want to lose the
opportunity.
So I am concerned about the problem that is going on with
access to childcare at Camp Bull Simons. At the recent Air
Force budget hearing, Assistant Secretary Chaudhary shared that
the issue has been raised to the level of the Air Force and
Army Secretaries.
My understanding is, there is a CDC that is planned for
fiscal year 2026 to provide a permanent solution for Camp Bull
Simons families, and there are interim steps being taken,
including expanded at-home care and renovating the Eglin CDC.
Secretary Jacobson, do you have an update to the status of
the child development center for Camp Bull Simons? When is a
final decision going to be made to address the childcare
shortage? What communications has the Army had with the Camp
Bull Simons families to explain the decision-making process for
a CDC for Camp Bull Simons families?
Ms. Jacobson. Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, I am sorry,
I don't have any news since Assistant Secretary Chaudhary
reported during his hearing a couple of weeks ago.
I would say that, based on the safety analysis, risk
analysis that was conducted by the OSD organization that
conducts such analyses, that it is highly unlikely that a green
light will be given to build the CDC on Camp Bull Simons. So
the question is, what is the alternative location for a CDC,
and when?
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right. The main question is, how are
we going to get those families to not be in a position where
they are driving an hour each way in order to be able to get
their children access to quality childcare and also be able to
have access to a quality of life that makes sense for them?
Ms. Jacobson. Correct.
The Secretaries in both the Air Force and Navy have been
engaged on the issue and are working through an agreement that
will address the issues about interim childcare and then
longer-term childcare for our 7th Special Forces Group.
However, I will say that, in the last couple of years since
this issue has been brought to our attention, we have made a
lot of arrangements, alternative arrangements, offered to those
families, and we will continue to do so.
But I am sorry to say that the issue is not resolved.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But have you been taking into
consideration and getting input and feedback from the families,
instead of just preparing to impose a decision on them?
Ms. Jacobson. I have personally met with the families; it
has been over a year now, and I, you know, hear stories back
through their representatives about the concerns.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. That is a long answer. It is a yes-
or-no question. Have you been taking into consideration their
needs and communicating with them in order to make sure that a
resolution works for these families?
Ms. Jacobson. The--it is my understanding that both
Secretaries have representatives who have met with the
families.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. That is not really my
understanding, so we need to make sure that we clear up--there
has not been a lot of--I am asking because there has been
insufficient communication.
Ms. Jacobson. Understood.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And I am feeling like, from two
hearings now, asking both people in the same position that you
hold, I am not getting a straightforward answer as to whether
or not there has been recent direct communication and
coordination with these families on a permanent solution and
the interim solutions for their families that alleviate the
really unacceptable problem that has been created.
Ms. Jacobson. Understood.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So if you could correct that and
make sure--and come back to me and tell me when and how that
communication is taking place.
Because I know there are decisions being made, and I know
what some of those decisions are, and those decisions, as far
as I know, have not been communicated or coordinated with the
families.
Thank you.
Ms. Jacobson. Understood.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop, do you have anything else?
Mr. Bishop. I yield, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. OK.
Finally, a couple of comments by me on the issue of
childcare.
I spent 21 years on the bench, and I tried an awful lot of
sexual assault child cases. An awful lot of those people that
had that problem, the ones that I got, ended up in jail. But
the ones that we didn't find, they like to be around things
like childcare centers. That was one of their--that was a
constant.
I put in place, in Texas, a provision where you could go
and--in fact, I think it is at a Federal level now--where you
could check and see if there is any indication of any
prospective employee being from someplace else that has moved
in there seeking basically that same kind of contact that we
are trying to avoid.
So I want to--nothing is more important than making sure
the people that have that problem don't get into our childcare
system. I am not going to go into what the problem is, but you
know what it is. We want to be very cautious, because these are
treasures of our soldiers, and we don't want them to ever have
to worry that their child is not safe.
It takes a little extra effort as you are interviewing
people, but that effort will pay great dividends if you catch
somebody that is trying to get in there.
General Vereen. Chairman Carter, yes, we--you know, it is
not normally just an interview. I think we have really strict
processes in place where we vet every single employee through
background checks, and we run extensive law enforcement checks
on every single employee to ensure that we don't have anybody
that has, really, entered our space when it comes to our CDCs.
We also have continuous vetting, meaning that we are
constantly reviewing individuals' names to ensure that, you
know, they are not committing crimes and they are going
unknown, so----
Mr. Carter. Well, one of the ones--just for your
information, one of the ones that I convicted and sent to
prison, he got out after his--he had a pretty good sentence,
but he got out, and I was still on the bench when he got out.
He didn't come back to Texas; he went to Colorado, and there
was no way, at that time, Colorado could find out about the
Texas conviction. So I fixed that. There is a way to do that.
If I can help, I will be glad to help you. Because these
folks travel all over the country. They truly do, and that is
an evil we need to keep away from our children.
That is one thing I wanted to say.
Secondly, on contracting, two things.
First, on the 3D printing, they are going to need another
form of contract, because the standard contract, they don't--it
is just not what they do. Everything else is usually cement
blocks and stuff. So they need to have a different form of
contract.
There are a dozen people who do this. I am not talking
about one particular company. There are a dozen people now
doing this 3D printing. Any of them, or all of them, would be
glad to sit down with you people to show what they need in the
way of a contract. Not that they would automatically be
selected, but so that they can compete against the regular
contract. Because the standard contract you have now makes it
hard for them to do anything. It would be a demonstration
project, and so keep that in mind.
I used to do, Secretary, housing projects. And if we did
them with bond financing, we withheld money for repairs. That
was their money, and they got it in pieces. Because the
bondholders wanted to make sure that what they were investing
in wasn't going to be trashed up before there was even any
worth to it.
The easiest way to do that is to tell them, OK, no money
until--we are going to check every year, and if you have kept
up with your maintenance, we will give you X amount of dollars
back. They don't like it, but that is one way you can get it
done.
Maybe you are thinking about that. I don't know. But I
drafted a lot of those contracts back when I was doing that,
and so did some other lawyers, so I know a little bit about
that.
Thank you very much for what you do. I appreciate both of
you very much. My door is open to you at all times. You both
know that. We will work together and get this thing done, and
we are going to crank it out by the 1st of June. The bill will
be out by the 1st of June.
With that, we will adjourn.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS
WITNESSES
SHEREEF ELNAHAL, M.D., UNDER SECRETARY FOR HEALTH, VETERANS HEALTH
ADMINISTRATION
JOSH JACOBS, UNDER SECRETARY FOR BENEFITS, VETERANS BENEFITS
ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Carter. The subcommittee will come to order.
We got a couple of nice folks going to talk to us today
about some misunderstandings we have got with the Veterans
Affairs Committee. Dr. Shereef Elnahal, close?
Dr. Elnahal. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. All right, and Mr. Joshua Jacobs.
We want to welcome both of you and we hope you can give us
good answers to the questions we have.
The subcomittee recognizes and appreciates the work done by
the Veterans Administration. We know that since the PACT Act,
enrollment in the VA healthcare has grown significantly as we
provide earned benefits to our veterans.
Unfortunately, the inability to accurately forecast is
hindering these efforts. In July, the VA alarmingly notified
Congress of a potential $15 billion shortfall, including $12
billion in fiscal year 2025 for the Veterans Health
Administration.
Oddly, VA opted to notify Congress of this immediately
following the House and Senate marked up bills for the fiscal
year. Given the dire emergency expressed by the VA of the
potential September lapse in pensions, disabilities, and
education benefits, Congress quickly acted and passed the
Veterans Benefits Continued Accountability Supplemental
Appropriations Act.
Unfortunately, we recently found out that none of the
nearly $3 billion provided in that act was utilized in fiscal
year 2024, as intended. In fact, the VA carried over $5.1
billion into the new fiscal year or the next fiscal year.
This inability to accurately forecast is unacceptable. The
VA's irresponsibly insisted fear that benefits and pensions
would be interrupted for American veterans caused us certain
concern. That brings us to today's primary hearing topic to
discuss the VA's request for $12 billion in additional funds
for Medicare account in fiscal year 2025.
Failing to immediately utilize the $3 billion as indicated,
it is kind of a natural question that we would have the
accuracy of your predictions. So we will also remain steadfast
in our commitment to our veterans and we'll make sure they
receive the benefits they have earned, but current estimates
continue to raise questions.
We hope we have a candid conversation this morning on this
request test and we look forward to hearing from you.
Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, I will now yield to you
for any opening remarks that you would like to make.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank the gentleman for yielding and welcome Dr. Elnahal
and Mr. Jacobs, and thank you both for being here today and for
your service.
So we are here to discuss some of the budget challenges
that VA is facing as they work to accommodate the growing
number of veterans who rely on services by the Department,
which is a good thing.
Before we get into that, I want to quickly walk through how
we got here today. Two summers ago, we passed the PACT Act,
which was the largest expansion in a generation of healthcare
and disability compensation for veterans who were exposed to
toxic substances during their military service.
We also created the Toxic Exposures Fund, or the TEF, which
ensured that these expenses would be covered on the mandatory
side of the ledger because our veterans deserve to have
certainty that all of their qualifying needs will be taken care
of year after year.
When we make promises like the PACT Act, we must keep them.
Since the passage of this bill, the Biden Administration has
worked tirelessly to make sure that veterans who qualify
receive the benefits and the healthcare that they deserve.
The administration has been so successful that VA has seen
a 37 percent increase in veterans enrolled in VA healthcare and
serviced 7.5 million more healthcare appointments than last
year.
Additionally, VA processed over 2\1/2\ million disability
benefit claims, a 27 percent increase over last year. And those
claims are being granted at higher rates. This year, Veteran
trust in VA has reached an all-time high of over 80 percent.
Clearly, the PACT Act is working. Such success, though,
does bring challenges. And one of those is predicting how much
it will all cost, all of this will cost.
Now, I recognize how difficult that can be, but it is also
incredibly concerning that the VA incorrectly estimated its
costs. In June, VA told us that there would be major shortfalls
in both VBA and VHA. In fact, at that time, VA told us the
shortfall would be $2.8 billion for VBA and $12 billion for
VHA.
VA also told us that the $2.8 billion for VBA was urgently
needed by September 20 of this year. So Congress quickly worked
to appropriate this funding, only to find out 2 months later
that VBA had more than enough carryover to cover all of its
needs for the year.
Now, while I join my colleagues in asking the tough
questions as to how we got here, it is important to understand
a key fact here. The fact that VA did not need the full
supplemental is rare.
In this case, the government agency actually needed less
money than anticipated and was still able to provide high
quality benefits and care without going over budget.
Now, some of us have been in this Congress where we have
had to go and pass appropriations because an agency overspent
their money, including VA, a number of years ago. Judge Carter
and I, you and I were in that Congress and so we have dealt
with overspending line items.
In this case, we have a situation where they actually spent
less. I would always prefer that an agency, particularly one as
important as the VA, try to make sure that they have all the
money they need to serve our veterans rather than them spending
like drunken sailors overspending their line items and then we
have to rush in and appropriate more because they have over
promised and not delivered in the way that they should.
So we should be digging into the VHA shortfall because
quite frankly we need to reexamine your $12 billion estimate. I
know you are taking a closer look at that number and you are
awaiting OMB's review, but it is absolutely essential, as you
and I spoke about Dr. Elnahal, that your new estimate be as
accurate as possible.
In addition to managing the 37 percent growth in
participation, VHA is also facing the rising costs of
healthcare, which I think all of us understand is occurring,
which adds to the uncertainty around your budget needs.
So we would like to better understand what those cost
increases are. I feel confident in saying that we are all here
to support all of us. This Committee has repeatedly shown that
we are all here to support the needs of our veterans.
We want to ensure that we keep our promise to care for
those who have served in our nation's military and for their
families, caregivers, and survivors. But what truly worries me,
in the coming year, is what the incoming administration is
saying about ``government efficiency'' by threatening to defund
unauthorized programs. $119 billion in VA healthcare is on the
chopping block. Everyone needs to understand that that cares
about our veterans. Congress must not delay our work into next
year. I think, as appropriators, we all prefer an omnibus bill
to a CR. We should be passing full year appropriations bills
and we should be working on them right now so that we fully
fund the benefits and care our veterans have earned.
However, here we are 1 month away from the expiration of
the Continuing Resolution still without any top line agreement,
and at the same time we need to appropriately fund all of our
non-defense programs so that we are not constantly facing
shortfalls and requiring supplementals just to fund our
government's basic functions.
Responsible governance requires taking care of our
veterans' needs inside the VA and I hope our friends on the
other side of the aisle continue to keep that in mind and I
look forward to your testimony and I yield back the balance of
my time.
Mr. Carter. We have been joined by the ranking member of
the Appropriations Committee, Ms. Rosa DeLauro, and I am happy
to yield you for any opening remarks you consider to make.
Ms. DeLauro. Thank you so much, Chairman Carter, and I
appreciate the opportunity to be here. And thank you and
Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, for holding this important
hearing on the potential shortfall for the Veterans Health
Administration.
Again, my thanks and a warm welcome also go to today's
witnesses, Under Secretary for Health, Dr. Elnahal, and Under
Secretary for Benefits, Mr. Jacobs. Thank you for appearing
today and look forward to your testimony.
While today's hearing covers a vitally important topic, I
just have to echo something that the Ranking Member said. I
really am dismayed that the Committee is disinterested in
completing the work of the Appropriations Committee on time.
We do sit 1 month from the expiration of the Continuing
Resolution that we passed in September and the date is December
20 and we, to date, do not have a top-line agreement.
What we should be doing, this committee and the Congress,
really laser focused on finishing appropriations bills, bills
that we ought to have become law before the end of the year.
There are some of my colleagues who want to delay our work
until well into next year and they would like to pass another
Continuing Resolution. Well, Continuing Resolutions are never a
good way to fund the programs and services that our veterans
depend on.
We need to properly fund the government so that we are not
constantly facing shortfalls, needing supplementals to keep the
government functioning to ensure veterans receive the
healthcare services that they are entitled to.
So Congress needs to do its job. My view, let's not adjourn
without enacting full year appropriations bill. Democrats are
at the table and ready to negotiate on a final full year bill
that can gain the support of Democrats and Republicans in the
House and the Senate for that is what is needed in order to
keep the government open. So I really do implore the majority
to join us.
On the topic of today's hearing, thanks to the successful
outreach efforts of the Biden Administration, the VA is serving
more veterans than ever before. But that increase in
beneficiaries in addition to the rising cost of health care has
led to a funding shortfall for VA medical care.
This is a success story and we should applaud the Biden-
Harris Administration for ensuring America is upholding its
promises to our brave veterans.
Over 2 years ago we enacted the PACT Act. We promised
veterans that they would receive benefits and medical care that
they require after exposure to toxic substances with dedicated
funding, and we extended that to all veterans, all of them.
Thanks to the administration's outreach to veterans
entitled to the care, the number of veterans seeking care from
Veterans Health Administration has increased beyond projections
necessity facilitating additional funding to bridge the gap.
In fact, more than 760,000 veterans have enrolled in VA
health care since the PACT Act was passed, which represents a
nearly 37 percent increase compared to an equivalent period
before the legislation was signed.
So we must provide this dedicated funding to uphold our
promises. Our Nation's veterans laid down their lives, their
bodies on the line for this country's freedom and security. We
talk about it all the time. We pride ourselves in talking about
these issues. We take pictures with veterans when we go
overseas. We take pictures of the young men and women who are
serving abroad for this thing.
So they are entitled to this care. We said it was there.
They now have said, hey, I need the care. So we need to ensure
that this care is provided for. This should be nonpartisan and
non-controversial.
Before I conclude, let me address the VA benefits
supplemental that we passed in September. While it remains
clear that there is a large resource gap that we must take
steps to address to ensure our veterans receive the benefits
and the care that they deserve and they're entitled to, I am
concerned by the Department's apparently unnecessary request
for an expedited $2.8 billion for Veterans Affairs, which was
in fact not needed prior to October 1.
Quite frankly, it does make it more difficult for this
committee to pass and provide the necessary supplemental
appropriations if we cannot be confident of the accuracy of
what agencies are telling us about their need and when they
need it.
So I look forward to receiving more information about how
this costly error occurred. What steps the VA is taking to
ensure that future estimates are as accurate as possible.
Having said that, the purpose of today's hearing is on VA
healthcare, and I look forward to a robust discussion and how
we can support our veteran's health needs.
We stand together, as the Ranking member pointed out. There
is no difference of views as to our support and our dedication
to the young men and women who have fought and served this
great nation. But that means we send them off with a blare of
bugle and a ruffle of drums. But we have to deal with the
issues that they face when they return. We must ensure that we
uphold promises that we made to our veterans. Thank you very
much for being here. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Ranking Member. We
thank you for your hard work. Chairman Cole could not be here
today because he had something that interfered with his ability
to, but he did send a written statement which, without
objection, his prepared remarks will be included in the record.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Cole follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Tom Cole, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Oklahoma
Dr. Elnahal and Mr. Jacobs, welcome, and thank you for
taking the time to appear here today to discuss this pressing
issue affecting our veterans. America's long line of service is
reflected through the millions of people who have served her in
uniform across the Nation, and I'm proud that nearly 236,000
veterans call Oklahoma home. We owe our freedoms to these
heroes, and it is our duty to honor the commitments we've made
to them. Our veterans should never be underserved--and they
should never be misled to believe that their care and benefits
are at risk.
It's why, based on the President's Budget Request, we acted
to fully fund health care and benefits for our veterans in our
Fiscal Year 2025 MilCon-VA bill, which was passed by the House
in June. The Senate's bill also went through the full committee
in July. Prior to these actions, the VA had not indicated to
Congress any sort of imminent shortfall. Subsequently, 1 day
following the Senate passing their bill in committee, the VA
came to us warning of a potential shortfall of $15 billion--
this is wholly unacceptable.
It is unclear how the estimate could have deviated so
significantly from the time the President's Budget Request was
submitted in March, to the time Congress acted on that request.
The timeline--and lack of communication regarding an
approximated $15 billion shortfall--is extremely concerning.
The alarming discrepancy did not stop us from acting to fix
the reckless mismanagement of the Biden-Harris administration
and its VA. In September, Congress passed Congressman Mike
Garcia's Veterans Benefits Continuity and Accountability
Supplemental Appropriations Act to ensure the earned benefits
of our veterans were intact. The bill provided an additional
$2.9 billion after the VA repeatedly stated the Compensation
and Pension and Readjustment Benefits were on the verge of
total liquidation, and they may not be able to process payments
for October 1.
Yet, in another stunning about-face just last month, the VA
notified Congress that it, in fact, did not utilize any of the
resources provided in the supplemental before the end of the
fiscal year. Instead, the VA carried over $5 billion in the
account into the new fiscal year. The funds were simply not
utilized in the intended timely manner that the VA stated they
were needed for.
This all calls into question the remaining balance of the
potential VA shortfall. As of this morning, the VA still seeks
$12 billion in additional funding for the Medical Services
account in FY 2025. While the VA may be revisiting this
estimate, Congress has yet to see any new information noting
that it is required. Given the misfire on the Compensation and
Pension account estimates, we have genuine concern about the
current estimate, and the VA's ability to accurately project
its needs.
Further, the manner in which these funds have been
requested raises additional concerns. Why would we shift this
discretionary expense to the mandatory side of the ledger? We
will not engage in any attempt to use the Toxic Exposure Fund
as a slush fund or deviate from the statutory caps established
in the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
These actions have brought the credibility of the VA's
forecasting and budgeting process into serious question. While
this committee greatly appreciates the ongoing efforts in
providing the care that our veterans have earned--and fully
understands the increased workload required from the PACT Act--
the VA's inability to accurately project its needs has been
unacceptable.
Given the bipartisanship of this subcommittee, I hope we
can have a productive discussion on how we got here and what
measures can be put into place to ensure that every promise
made to our heroes remains a promise kept.
Mr. Carter. Without objection, your entire written
testimony will be included in the record.
Now we will recognize each of you for an opening statement
and then we will proceed with questions.
Dr. Elnahal, you may proceed.
STATEMENT OF SHEREEF ELNAHAL, M.D.
Dr. Elnahal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
DeLauro, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on
the ongoing budget needs for the Veterans Health Administration
to continue serving our nation's veterans.
Since President Biden signed the PACT Act, we've provided
veterans with more care and more benefits than ever before. We
know that VA care is the best and often the most affordable
care available to vets and that those in our care are less
likely to be lost to suicide.
That is why we have opened the door to VA eligibility for
health care at every possible turn we could under this law,
launching the most aggressive outreach campaign in history to
educate veterans about the resources available to them.
Thanks to the resources provided by Congress and our
relentless efforts to reach more veterans, we exceeded even the
most aggressive projections for care delivered last year. At
the end of fiscal year 2024, nearly 800,000 veterans had
enrolled in VA Healthcare since the enactment of the PACT Act,
a 37 percent increase over the period prior to the PACT Act.
Additionally, over 900,000 veterans saw an increase in
their priority group, meaning reduction in their co-pays and
qualifying for more services like dental and long-term care for
many veterans.
We also set an all-time record for appointments delivered
last fiscal year, all while driving down wait times for primary
care and mental health and these trends have continued in the
initial weeks of fiscal year 2025.
At the same time, VA care continues to outperform non-VA
care and external care reviews around quality and patient
safety. In fact, the most recent CMS Overall Hospital Quality
Star ratings show that nearly 60 percent of VA hospitals were
rated four or five stars compared to only 40 percent of non-VA
hospitals.
For 10 quarters straight, we have outperformed our
counterparts in the CMS HCAHPS Survey measuring patient
satisfaction with inpatient care. Most importantly, we've
increased veteran trust in VA healthcare, reaching an all-time
high of 92 percent trust for veterans who receive an outpatient
appointment.
These outcomes are the direct result of hard work from our
frontline employees and leaders alike across our system.
Through a series of access sprints earlier this year, teams
made it easier and faster for veterans to access VA care by
offering night and weekend clinics and by increasing the number
of veterans scheduled into daily clinics.
Today, we continue to see their impact and shorter wait
times for primary care and mental health. And through the
Referral Coordination Initiative, we're working to maximize the
number of options we offer to every veteran, including more VA
options alongside community care options when they qualify.
Veterans have voted with their feet often choosing these VA
options even when they did not qualify, even when they did
qualify rather for community care, contributing to a slower
growth of referrals in the community than over the last few
years.
Our clinicians have also become more productive, achieving
a nine percent increase in productivity per clinician since
pre-pandemic levels in 2019, and a seven percent increase in
physician productivity specifically in fiscal year 2024 alone.
While we're optimizing every resource provided by Congress
to deliver world class care to vets, we also face many of the
same cost challenges as the private sector. In fact, the cost
for drugs and medicine in fiscal year 2024 increased by just
over 13 percent compared to the approximately nine percent
increase that was estimated at the time of the 2025 President's
Budget, and we continue to estimate further cost escalations
this coming year.
Because of our aggressive efforts to manage responsibly
within the budget VA achieved this historic growth in veteran
care while staying just under the fiscal year 2024 enacted
budget. We stayed within the budget, an outcome that we did not
expect when we initially submitted our supplemental request to
Congress this past July.
However, many of the strategies we used are not sustainable
in the long run. For instance, we cannot continue to delay
medical equipment purchases year over year, and we continue to
believe that growth in staff, rather than attrition, is needed
to meet increases in veteran care demand.
Due to the updated information about our financial position
at the end of last year, we're continuing to evaluate our
fiscal year 2025 funding requirements and we now estimate that
we will need less than the amount that we requested in July.
With more updated information, we are analyzing our revised
funding need carefully and methodically, and we will share the
revised need with this committee as soon as we finalize it with
OMB.
If VA medical care does not receive additional funding in
FY25, VA will be forced to make difficult decisions to remain
within the current budget, most notably on outreach, care
coordination, and more.
That is why our excellent field leaders have been briefing
you and your teams this week about the real and specific
impacts to veteran care if VHA has not afforded additional
resources this year.
To conclude, the most important reason we need more
resources is our record in delivering more care and more
benefits to veterans than ever before, and our hope is to
continue this historic level of outreach and care delivery and
we appreciate the consideration of this committee. I look
forward to your questions.
STATEMENT OF JOSHUA JACOBS
Mr. Carter. Mr. Jacobs.
Mr. Jacobs. Good Morning Chairman Carter, Ranking Member
DeLauro, Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, and members of the
committee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today.
As you know, VA is currently delivering more benefits to
more veterans, family members and survivors than ever before.
This historic success stems from implementation of the Sergeant
First Class Heath Robinson PACT Act and our unprecedented
proactive outreach to connect veterans with the benefits that
they've earned.
This summer, VA identified several factors that required us
to reassess our FY 2024 mandatory funding needs, largely driven
by an increase in the total number of anticipated disability
compensation and pension claims.
Our goal was to ensure sufficient resources would be
available to carry us through the end of the year and deliver
on our promise to provide veterans and survivors with earned
benefits on time and without interruption.
We were mindful that a funding shortfall of just $1 would
have prevented VA from processing its September pay file,
delaying monthly disability compensation, pension, and
education benefit payments to the approximately 7 million
veterans and survivors who rely on the them.
When we recognized the risk of exceeding our performance
targets and jeopardizing timely payments, VA notified the
committee and kept Congress apprised of developments in the
subsequent months.
Veterans and survivors rely on these payments and any delay
could have been devastating to them and their families. This
was a risk we simply were not willing to take and slowing
benefits delivery was not an option because we know the
transformative impact these benefits have on the lives of
veterans.
We serve veterans like Dave Hale and his wife Carrie. Three
years ago, Dave survived a vehicle collision with only minor
injuries. But months of persistent neck pain ultimately led to
a diagnosis of a rare cancer.
Following Dave's diagnosis, Carrie quickly became his
caretaker. Dave's claim was denied, but Carrie didn't stop
fighting. After attending a PACT Act outreach event and working
with both VA employees and advocates, she got the help she
needed and Dave's cancer was finally granted 100 percent
service connection in June of 2023.
In his final days, Dave's only worry was his family and
comforted by the knowledge that they would be taken care of,
Dave passed away less than 2 months later.
This is the power of the PACT Act life changing support for
veterans, their families and survivors and Carrie and Dave's
story is just one of millions that demonstrates the impact of
this historic law you helped to pass.
Since the PACT Act was signed into law, VA has approved
more than 1.3 million PACT Act related claims equating to over
$8 billion for veterans and survivors.
In fiscal year 2024, VA delivered an all-time record $187
billion in benefits to nearly 7 million veterans and survivors.
We also processed more than 2.5 million disability benefits
claims, a 27 percent increase over last year's all-time record
and thanks to the largest, most aggressive outreach campaign in
VA history, veterans, family members, and survivors are
applying for and receiving a variety of benefits at higher
numbers than ever before.
We are grateful to Congress for providing the supplemental
funding we requested. While those funds were not immediately
used, prudent management compelled VA to request the funding so
veterans benefit payments could continue without interruption.
In October, the amount of the supplemental funding and more
was used directly providing disability compensation, pension,
and education benefit payments for veterans, families, and
survivors.
Moving forward, we're incorporating lessons learned to
adjust our budget projections, including estimates for the 2026
President's Budget, so we can avoid this situation in the
future.
That means accounting for the capacity of our workforce to
deliver at record levels, anticipating higher rates of annual
growth and average disability ratings, and continuing to
transparently share our status of funds reports every month.
We will provide updated estimates when they're finalized
and will continue providing these monthly updates to the
Committee. We remain focused on delivering more benefits to
more veterans and survivors more quickly than ever before and
we thank you for your continued support. I look forward to
answering any questions members of this committee may have.
[The prepared joint statement follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Carter. Thank you. And we appreciate you being here to
explain this. I don't think anyone sitting at this dais would
disagree that we are very proud of the way the VA has reacted
to the PACT Act and the way that you have done a great job to
take care of our fighting people.
But what the question we have here is communication with
the people who pay the bills. That's us, and accurate as can be
communications. I would like to hear, and I hope everybody else
would like to hear, exactly how you make your estimates.
I am going to have a question about that. What do you use
to make these decisions? It was sort of coincidental that we
got this information 1 day after the presidential election was
called.
So that seemed a little circumstantial, as we would say in
the courtroom. But anyway, we are concerned about it, and we
still don't have a real number. We are talking $12 billion
right now as you study it or as you talk to OMB or whatever is
coming up.
We need clear communications is what we are talking about.
Because this is a lot of money. It is a lot of money on the
short fuse. Nobody's criticizing you, but that you are
accomplishing great things in the VA. You are. But we have to
pay the bills and we have to know what is going on. That is
what this is, at least I am trying to shorten what we are
thinking about.
We are talking about why are we in the dark? If you get,
and if you don't know, then you don't know. But we are going to
have the same situation. We will have time on each question,
and I will start.
I will start and then the ranking member will follow me and
then we will go as you came into the hearing.
Our office was briefed earlier this month about status of
the funds and projections for VA's funding for FY 2025. As I
mentioned, it is oddly coincidental that 1 day after the
President's election was called, he told us about the $12
billion. This raised a flag. There was something strange about
that.
OMB, you said OMB is working on it. Your statement
continues that we are at the same place, OMB is working on it
right now. According to your response to the letters we were
sent, VA projected that you would have nearly $12.5 billion
unobligated funds carried over into FY 2025.
Now that we are more than halfway through November, please
tell us the burn rate, fiscal year to date, and the latest on
the projections for the remainder of the year.
While we appreciate that you relayed to us the $12 billion
shortfall as an overestimate, you still said more funds would
be needed as you projected to the end of the year. When do you
expect to provide the revised number to us so that we can
resolve this matter?
It is critical that the VA answers us so that we can assess
this matter swiftly. Veterans and this body deserve to have
honest, transparent, and documented budget needs to enable us
to provide the great care to all of our veterans.
How do you anticipate this request to come forward? The
final proposal of moving to the mandatory side is not viewed by
at least this side of the aisle as a viable last option.
So with that, if you would answer the questions is how do
you make projections? You say more projections are going to be
made and give us an example of how they will be reported to
this body so that we can have a continuing idea of where we are
going to be.
Appropriating in the dark is very difficult for
appropriators and we would rather not do that. So if either one
of you would like to give us what device you use to make
projections, it would be of interest to me.
Dr. Elnahal. I'm happy to start, Mr. Chairman.
I think you're more than right to demand transparency or
it's our constitutional obligation to grant you that
transparency, which is why in July, when we were mid-year, not
knowing where we would necessarily end up, we came forward with
our projected funding need into the end of fiscal year 2025.
So we went as much in advance as possible with that
request. That estimate has proven to be an overestimate, as you
said, based on the data up to that point in the fiscal year on
our care execution levels, on things like the cost per full-
time employee.
As we briefed to your staff, we were off by about two
percent on ultimately what the cost per full-time employee was
amounting to about $3,000 per employee. But because we have a
more than 400,000-person workforce, when amortized over the
entire organization, that ended up being well over a billion
dollars of costs that we didn't actually obligate when we
expected to in July. And so that's one reason that our estimate
was off.
In the coming weeks Mr. Chairman, we are going to make sure
that we methodically and carefully recalculate what that need
is, because we need to get it right, or at least more right
than we did in July. We don't want to be giving you something
that was as ultimately inaccurate that we gave you in July.
Now, that was, again, our best estimate with the data we
had at the time. Another factor was that our operational
leaders across the organization manage to the budget by making
key decisions to be able to achieve that. So, we did stay
within the FY 2024 enacted budget, but some of the actions they
took are ultimately not sustainable.
So, for example, deferring and delaying equipment
purchases. We also anticipate continuously increasing costs in
pharmaceuticals and prosthetics. Medical inflation is far
exceeding consumer price index, and so these are cost pressures
that the entire healthcare system is facing, Mr. Chairman.
Normally we project our funding needs through actuarial
models called the rolling healthcare projection model. Mid-
year, we had to do an estimate run with a different
methodology. We're now going to be using more up to date and
hopefully more accurate assumptions when we calculate and
deliver our funding to you.
Mr. Jacobs. Mr. Chairman, on the benefits side, we estimate
our cost requirements, looking at the number of claims we
anticipate receiving and producing, and that could be
influenced by the total number of employees we have, their
efficiency levels, the availability of overtime funds.
On the education side, we're looking at economic indicators
trying to assess the rate of utilization for those education
benefits, to include whether veterans and beneficiaries are
using those benefits in a full time or part time capacity
online or in person.
What we found in looking back at fiscal year 2024 is the
primary driver, and the primary reason why we came to you and
requested the additional funding is we updated our projections,
assessing that we would complete 2.5 million claims, not the
2.2 million we had originally projected and thought was
aggressive yet achievable. Well, it turns out we did in fact
exceed 2.5 million claims completions. What we didn't
anticipate is that the proportion of those claims was more
heavily weighted on veterans receiving a claim for increase
rather than new veterans getting a claim for the first time.
The cost differential there resulted in us not exceeding the
amount of mandatory funding as we had anticipated.
The other point that I'll mention is that without the
supplemental funding on the education account, we would only
have carried over about half a percent of our total funds,
which would have meant that if we had had even about 5,000 more
students utilize those training and education programs, we
would have exceeded the total level.
So, as we look forward to improve on our budget formulation
process, we're taking into account the lessons learned,
increasing total production estimates, trying to dig deeper
into the proportion of claims that are new versus claims for
increase, and we're making sure that we also anticipate a
greater growth in the average disability rating for veterans.
Mr. Carter. Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to come back to the short fall, and just want to
begin by underscoring the concern that I raised in my opening
remarks.
President-elect Trump recently announced that Vivek
Ramaswamy would co-lead a so-called Department of Government
Efficiency, which sounds like it is not even actually going to
be a governmental agency. He's already made headlines saying
that unauthorized programs should no longer receive
appropriations. His precise words were that, ``we can and
should save hundreds of billions each year by defunding
government programs that Congress no longer authorizes.''
As you well know, veterans healthcare benefits are
currently not an authorized program, so if--and perhaps my
colleagues are unaware of that. But--so if Republicans in the
majority follow through on Ramaswamy's wishes, it will mean
that veterans would no longer be eligible for in-patient
surgeries--for--no longer be eligible for in-patient services,
like surgeries, acute care, and injuries that may require
urgent care and outpatient services like health appointments,
immunizations, and nutrition and education.
Ramaswamy's strategy would strip this committee members--
this committee of our authority to determine how the federal
government should be funded. All members of this committee
should be outraged about that. It appears that we should be
reminding the incoming administration that our nation's
founders gave Congress the power of the purse.
So, Dr. Elnahal, my question is, this stated strategy would
obviously have a devastating impact on our veterans. Can you
further elaborate on what eliminating almost $119 billion in
medical care would mean for our veterans?
Dr. Elnahal. I'd be highly concerned about it,
Congresswoman. Right now, we take guidance from our general
counsel and our authorities. So, we have a 1996 law that
established the medical benefits package that clearly does
state that our authority to provide care is related directly to
the advance appropriation that we get every year.
So, we're pretty confident in our authority to provide the
full scope of medical care. We're in a position now, because of
the historic growth in the number of veterans enrolling in VA,
but also the number of veterans who are relying on us more
because we're doing things like increasing priority groups when
Josh and his team out of VBA offer more service connected
benefits to these vets who are already enrolled. That is
actually substantially increasing care demand.
So, we'd be highly concerned about any cuts. In fact, we
need to grow our workforce to a level of 405,000 employees as
we estimate to be able to deliver that care in a timely way.
Despite these increases in demand, we've seen wait times on
average go down instead of up for primary care and mental
health. We've seen historic performance on quality, patient
safety, veteran satisfaction and trust. We want to make sure we
maintain those outcomes while we provide accessible, high
quality care to vets.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, and just to my colleagues
on Appropriations, you know, we have a culture here that we are
proud of that is--that there are Democrats, Republicans, and
appropriators. I mean, I think we all have to think through if
this is a plan that actually is moved forward, about the number
of laws that have expired in a sense and no longer have an
authorization that we fund here, even without the
authorization, which is our right and Congress's authority.
So, it's just something that I wanted to make sure that I
shined a spotlight on, because it would dramatically affect
the--Congress's authority more broadly, and specifically our
authority as a--as a committee.
On the VHA shortfall, Dr. Elnahal, as I mentioned in my
opening statement, both the increasing cost of healthcare and
the uncertainty around the number of veterans with PACT Act
qualifying needs who will be coming to rely on your services
adds to the uncertainty in your cost estimates certainly.
You in your testimony and your answer to Chairman Carter
just now pointed to that, particularly in pharmacy and
prosthetics. With the success of the PACT Act, can you give the
committee some insight into how many veterans you are now
serving, and where the shortfalls exist?
For example, what types of providers will you need to be
hiring, and can you be more specific about exactly what costs
are increasing, and how that's impacting your ability to not
just predict your costs, but to sustain a high level of care?
Dr. Elnahal. Yes. So, we face systemic cost increases,
again, as does every health system in America, Congresswoman,
on pharmaceuticals, prosthetics, key elements of veteran care
delivery that VA shoulders a responsibility for.
We're a very integrated, comprehensive healthcare system.
We have one of the largest pharmacy operations in the country.
We bear those costs and deliver those needed medications to
vets, and so, we anticipate that we will see an increase. We
observed an increase, I should say, of about 13 percent in
pharmaceutical costs this last fiscal year.
We're projecting an increase of up to 24 percent into FY
2025, both because of the intensity and volume of medications
we're delivering, but also because of the newer types of
medications for obesity that are high cost, but can ultimately
help and serve veterans across the country. So, those are a lot
of the systemic costs. When it comes to our fulltime employee
needs, Congresswoman, we have been relentlessly hiring
frontline employees and clinicians and folks who directly serve
veterans.
The vast majority of employees that we hired at historic
levels in FY 2023 were frontline employees. We are budgeting
for physicians, nurses, housekeeping aides, food service
workers, and the entire gamut of employees needed to make
hospitals and clinics move to give veterans timely care, and
that's really--we're going to be indexing--should be able to
get these supplemental funds.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Just one more brief thing. How has
the growth in community care impacted your budget, particularly
as it relates to this shortfall?
Dr. Elnahal. Every single referral into the community is an
added--what we'll call variable cost--and an added cost to
ultimately the agency. Now, I've supported community care from
Day 1 in my tenure. Community care is absolutely needed for
many veterans when we don't have a service available, and when
we can't offer timely services. It's actually the law under the
MISSION Act for us to be able to offer those services.
What we've done instead of limiting access to community
care is actually over-indexed and offered more VA care over the
last fiscal year. So, we're offering telehealth appointments,
more in-person appointments. We are offering appointments
between medical centers that more veterans are taking us up on,
and veterans are voting with their feet. So, between 2022 and
2023, and 2023 and 2024, there was a significant difference. It
was 18 percent over the last period, and we grew by about 14.8
percent between 2023 and 2024.
So, we're slowing the growth of community care, not because
we're limiting those options, but because we have a more robust
workforce than ever. Our clinicians are becoming more
productive, and we're offering a lot more VA options to vets
whether they qualify for community care or not.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Great. Thank you. Thanks for the
indulgence, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Valadao.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you to our
witnesses for testifying before the committee today. Like the
rest of my colleagues, I am incredibly concerned with the VA's
ongoing challenges in accurately estimating demand utilization
and cost, and reiterate the need for more transparent and
detailed explanations of what the VA needs to fulfill its
mission of providing for our nation's veterans.
I know it's been hit on a little bit, but even chatting
with my colleagues on the authorizing side, there's a lot of
concern--there's not a lot of clarity on the way that these are
estimated, and there was a letter that was signed by our
chairmen here, Chairman Carter and Chairman Bost, specifically
requesting quite a few different clarifications, and it sounds
like there has been little to any response at all on those, and
a lot of excuses. Any response to what's taking so long to give
the answers to, what is it, 15 questions on there?
Mr. Jacobs. Congressman, I was under the impression we had
responded, but I can go back and confirm if I am mistaken. We
certainly--as Dr. Elnahal mentioned--we have a Constitutional
responsibility to cooperate in a transparent manner to provide
you with the answers you need to do your duties to the people
you represent, and to the taxpayers of this country. We owe you
that, and we will commit to doing that.
We will be transparent. We have provided monthly status of
fund reports since the summer; those will continue. We are also
complying with requirements associated with the supplemental
appropriation you passed to provide reports detailing
information about our budget formulation process.
Mr. Valadao. After that supplemental was passed, we were
under the impression, or at least it's come out that we--it was
no longer needed. When did you actually know we didn't--that
you didn't need those $3 billion?
Mr. Jacobs. We identified that after we had received the
funds. It takes us several weeks to reconcile our accounts and
make sure that we've identified things like prior recoveries,
and kind of the--all of the numbers. So, once we had verified
that, we communicated that.
Mr. Valadao. So you knew a few weeks afterwards that you
didn't need the extra 3 billion that was--
Mr. Jacobs. The full, complete--I think we had a sense of
the CNP earlier, and the RB took a little bit longer, but then
we had to reconcile and verify that.
Mr. Valadao. All right. How does the VA plan to measure
long term outcomes and increase funding, particularly in areas
like mental health, homelessness reduction, and caregiver
support?
Dr. Elnahal. I'll take that one, Congressman. So, the most
important public health and clinical priority we have is
veteran suicide. So, that is going to be--it continues to be
the most important metric that we measure when it comes to the
mental health and well-being of our vets.
We also measure access to care. So, we've been able to
reduce average wait times for a new patient in mental health by
about 14 and a half percent year over year from fiscal year
2023 to 2024, mostly because we hired thousands of mental
health frontline clinicians to be able to see more vets, but
also because we've been working on productivity and ensuring
consistent standards on the number of patients seen per
provider, and of course we also have a large gamut of metrics
on quality and reliability of care delivery when it comes to
mental health, and we're happy to follow up with you on exactly
how we're measuring those outcomes. I was just handed a note
that says we did send back a 46 page response to the letter
that you mentioned on November 8th, but we'll make sure we'll
double back with you and your team on that response.
Mr. Valadao. So, from what I understand on the responses
they have gotten so far, the numbers don't add up to the $12
billion that you are asking for. That is a huge problem. When
we talk about a number of $3 billion that was given and then
not necessary. Now there's a $12 billion request, but there is
no clarification on what those needs are.
I feel like we need a little more transparency on that. If
you can bury in a 38-page letter actual facts, I think that
would be helpful on.
Dr. Elnahal. I don't disagree, Congressman, that our
projections could have been more accurate. Conceded that for
sure. What we're trying to do is make sure we work very
diligently to make sure that the number we do give this
committee is much more accurate. That is taking time and we're
going to work as methodically as we can with OMB. But yes, the
projections as of July were an overestimate.
Mr. Valadao. All right. What mechanisms are you currently
using to keep these numbers as transparent and accurate as
possible moving forward?
Dr. Elnahal. We have monthly budget execution reviews,
Congressman, with every single one of our network leaders. We
have robust participation from our medical centers. We're
tracking full-time employee levels, community care utilization,
pharmaceutical costs, prosthetic costs, productivity, a number
of metrics that are giving us much more real time information
directly from the folks managing our system.
So that information is available to this committee upon
request at any time when it comes to our budget execution. I
will say that a large part of the reason why we're here and we
ultimately need less money this fiscal year is because our
operators grew care significantly while holding down costs as
much as they could responsibly.
So we're seeing wait times go down, we're seeing care
volumes go up, and we stayed within the FY 2024 enacted budget
not by accident, but because we have excellent leaders across
our system managing the costs very, very closely.
So that was an unexpected outcome, ultimately a good one
because we have more resources going into this year, but our
projections need to be more accurate.
Mr. Valadao. I am under the impression that one of the
administrators at the Department actually used the phrase SWAG.
So scientific wild ass guess as a way of some of the estimates
that were projected and why they were so far off.
I think that was actually addressed in the letter. I mean
that's a scary thought when you think about the billions of
dollars that were being budgeted, spent, not spent, asked for.
Then when you hear phrases like that from whistleblowers, I
think that is a pretty scary thing for us, especially when we
are all in the same room here. I think we all care about the
same thing. Making sure that we take care of our veterans and
the amount of money that is being thrown around is
irresponsible for the taxpayers.
A lot of veterans are taxpayers as well. A lot of them left
the services and go out in private sector and work hard, pay
taxes. We want to make sure that we are as responsible as
possible, and when we hear phrases like that, I think we owe it
to our citizens to make sure we do our best to not play these
games anymore.
I hope that in the response we can find some of the answers
to the questions I had and that the committee had. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Bishop.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Dr. Elnahal,
and Mr. Jacobs. Thank you so much for being here today and
thank you for your commitment to ensuring that our veterans
receive the care and the services that they deserve.
I greatly appreciate your service and your invaluable
contributions to this important discussion. I really think that
while there has been discussion about the overestimates of
cost, I want to congratulate you because it appears to me that
by any metrics of quality and care that you have taken your
mission to take care of those who have served very, very
seriously.
This Committee, for over several years now has insisted
that we not come up short on care for our veterans and even
made it a part of our annual process to advance fund medical
care for our veterans to make sure that regardless of what
exigencies might happen here on the Hill, that our veterans
would be cared for.
But by all of the metrics of performance, you have done a
tremendous job, better than in many, many, many decades. So I
want to congratulate you for that. I would like to associate
myself with the comments of the Ranking Member because I think
that it is better to have the resources and not need them
urgently than to need them and have our veterans come up short.
I think that you gave our veterans the benefit of the doubt
in those estimates and fortunately, budget wise, you didn't
have to expend it. But nevertheless, I appreciate, and I think
our veterans appreciate the fact that you had them in mind and
you did not want them to come up short.
So I certainly congratulate you on that. But I want to ask
you, with the fluctuations and costs related to pharmaceuticals
and your need for additional staff, the fact that your managers
were able to cut costs to stay within the projected budget, but
as you say, those cost-cutting mechanisms are not sustainable,
you have got to invest in the future. You have got to hire more
staff. You have got to anticipate the additional cost increases
that will be coming for the quality of services and equipment
that you have to acquire.
What is it that we can do, on this Committee, to give you
additional tools to more accurately project and to make sure
that we never, ever have to come back for additional funds
because we have targeted and have sufficient resources
projected?
Dr. Elnahal. So I'll start, Congressman. I appreciate your
comments very much. As the Secretary compels us to do every
day, we are not going to relent on our outreach to more
veterans across the country to give them their earned
healthcare and benefits, and we've acted that way since the
PACT Act was signed.
We accelerated healthcare eligibility 8 years in advance of
what was required for the law for different cohorts of veterans
as of March 5 of this year, including every veteran who's
deployed to a post 9/11 conflict now qualifying for VA
Healthcare, every veteran deployed to the Gulf War, every
veteran deployed to the Vietnam and expansive deployment
locations.
That is the primary reason why we are here. We were given
the authority to bring more vets into the system. Every single
veteran we enroll, on average, reduces their risk for suicide,
which is reason enough to do this.
Mr. Bishop. I am hearing from my veterans every day that
they are really, really happy with the recent support that they
feel from the VA. They feel like their claims are being
addressed, that they are getting better care, they are
increases where they deserve an increase, are coming quicker,
the wait times are better. They seem to be happy.
The data that you supplied in your testimony indicates that
the confidence in veterans is much, much increased. So I really
have to congratulate you for that. I think this administration
has done a tremendous job in that.
Dr. Elnahal. Thank you, Congressman. But I know that we do
need to work on our budget formulation, and that is something
we're commissioning an external review to assess. We are going
to make sure our projections get better and better over time.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Rutherford.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our
witnesses for being here this morning.
You know, I want to echo Mr. Bishop's thanks. As a Navy
dependent growing up, my father was a World War II and Korean
veteran. I know what veteran benefits and all meant to my
family growing up.
I know Mike and Scott and others in the Appropriations
Committee who have served this country and are veterans
themselves. The future of veteran care in America couldn't be
in better hands, I think, from an appropriation standpoint,
nobody is going to be cutting care to our veterans.
Now, can we do it better? Sure. We need to look at that. I
want to ask because in my previous life, I had to put together
big budgets every year. You know something that I noticed, I
could really hit it on the dime when it was simply carrying
everything forward the way it had been for 10 years, you know,
15 years. But when you throw in a new program like the PACT
Act, that's where the SWAG comes in, I know.
Now, it is scientific, but you try to base it on something,
but you don't have those former events that you can really turn
to to gauge what's the response going to be. You don't know how
many veterans are going to respond to PACT Act. I first want to
say also I think you all did an amazing job getting the call
out to all the veterans, making them aware of the PACT Act
existence even.
But not knowing how they're going to respond to that, you
know, for you to try and put together a budget, that's, I know
that's tough. I think when you look at the size and scope of
veteran healthcare and veteran benefits, I think you all did a
pretty good job, quite frankly.
Now there is also processes that are in place where we can
do rescissions and that sort of thing. So it is not like the
money is just gone. But I do want to ask you one thing because,
and the reason I would rather see you overestimate than under
is because I know how important, and I think you would agree,
preventative healthcare is early healthcare.
You know, I have members in my family that have had
screenings and things that have literally saved their life and
saved the system a whole lot of money because they don't have
to pay for the more serious illness down the road.
So my question is the PACT Act and in the call that you all
put out, getting these folks in earlier, getting to them more
quickly, 4 years, I think, versus eight, those kind of changes.
Is there any projections on, and it may be too early yet,
but are there any projections on how much is actually being
saved by addressing these health needs earlier by the clarion
call that you all put out?
Dr. Elnahal. Yeah, Congressman. So we believe that
preventative care is the best care, and that was one of the
main motivations for us to accelerate healthcare eligibility
under Section 103 of the PACT Act, which you granted us as an
authority under that law.
For the first time for many, many veterans, they no longer
had to prove that they needed to have a service-connected
condition to get access to VA healthcare The benefit of the
doubt on their need for healthcare was given to the veteran for
the first time for millions of additional veterans.
So we could say for the first time to those veterans that
we can be there for you in a preventative posture rather than
waiting for you to get sick and ultimately get granted service
connection before we treat a condition you already have.
Mr. Rutherford. Exactly.
Dr. Elnahal. We would much rather be in a preventative
posture as you may. Now, in terms of projections on cost
savings, that remains to be seen. This is a historic piece of
policy that will be thoroughly analyzed into the future. But
the main motivation, Congressman, as you know, isn't cost, it
is preventing illness and prolonging the life and allowing
veterans to thrive across the country.
Mr. Jacobs. Congressman, I would just add, as we look at
the two decades leading up to enactment of the PACT Act, our
obligations for the compensation and pension account grew at an
average rate of eight percent. In the 2 years since the law was
enacted, it grew at 17 percent and then 16 percent. So there's
been tremendous growth. We carried over significantly more
money in the last 2 years at about a 10 and 11 percent rate
relative to what we had done previously.
We obviously were a little too tight in this past fiscal
year. So we'll work to apply those lessons moving forward. But
your point is a good one. The PACT Act has fundamentally
expanded our ability to deliver more benefits to more veterans
and survivors.
It's an incredible authority. But it's challenged us with
respect to budget formulation, and we'll make sure we apply the
lessons learned moving forward.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you. Look, linear projections are
easy. Dynamic projections of what human behavior is going to be
is tough, and quite frankly, I think you all did a good job.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Cuellar.
Mr. Cuellar. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and to the Ranking
Member also, and I want to thank our witnesses for being here.
I certainly want to thank you for all the work that you do for
our veterans. So I want to say thank you.
My question goes on the shortfall. I know it has been
asked, but I want to ask it a little differently. So in July
2024, you all projected a $15 billion budget shortfall. Then it
was revised in November to $5.1 billion. That is a shift of
about a little bit over $20 billion. Not 1,000, not thousands,
not millions, but billions. That's a large amount of
discrepancy. I got serious questions, if you all can write down
the questions.
What measures are being implemented to enhance the accuracy
of future budget forecasts and prevent similar situations is
one question, and in that what internal controls are being
strengthened?
The second question, to ensure financial accountability
within the VA and to go into some of the questions, I assumed
that the financial projections were influenced by three things,
lower than expected workforce costs, I assume? If that was one.
Delay equipment purchases, I assume that was another one?
Slower growth in community care, I assume that was another one?
But my question when you talk about the measures to
strengthen internal, I assume you all are using the internal
control systems within the standards set forth by the GAO that
is the Green Book, the Standards for Internal Control of
Federal Government. I assume you all are doing that now?
I assume also that you all are conducting your yearly
evaluations internal control systems to comply with the Federal
Managers Financial Integrity Act of 1982 to make sure that we
have the effectiveness and the efficiency in operations,
reliable financial reporting, and of course compliance with
applicable regulations.
I assume, also, you all been implementing the OMB Circular
A123 also to do this. On the measures, and I say this to my
colleagues, 14 years ago we changed the law to ask you to do
performance measures. The only thing is I couldn't get across
was I was trying to add this to the appropriations where we
could actually have an input and we can still do that, Mr.
Chairman.
Right now the way the measures are being done, including
cost savings, they are left up to the agencies to in many ways
pat themselves on the back because they will put certain
measures that are a lot easier to achieve. But I hope sometime
we can talk about where Congress can have a say so on the
measures that include cost savings.
If we put in $1, what do we get for $1? What are the cost
savings? I haven't seen your measures in a while, but a lot of
the measures we are looking at were just measures of activities
and not results or results oriented. I think you know what I am
talking about.
But anyway, I have a couple questions that are down the
line as the Chairman and the ranking woman also, but I want to
ask you about some of the internal measures.
Dr. Elnahal. Absolutely, Congressman.
Just to clarify one thing, we had estimated a potential
need in FY 2025 as of July to be $12 billion for VHA. We have
not yet submitted what that revised number will be. We know it
will be lower, potentially substantially lower, again based on
all the factors I mentioned.
Our operators managing as closely as they could to the
budget and ultimately staying within the enacted budget,
affording us the carryover approximately that we had estimated
originally in the budget.
But then there are also elements that we expect like
increased pharmaceutical, prosthetic costs and other systemic
factors in healthcare that will factor into that ultimate need.
On the budget formulation review that we're doing, as
Congressman Rutherford mentioned, you know, dynamic factors in
play here. We hired a huge number of people, unprecedented
number. An all-time record of more than 60,000 people in FY23
precisely to prepare for robust implementation of the PACT Act.
Because we were also doing an unprecedented outreach campaign
to bring more veterans in.
And so even if we are off by about two percent in the cost
per FTE, which is approximately what we were off by as of July
versus what we know now, that translates into well over a
billion dollars of difference in the actual outcome. So we're
really looking at these factors.
We want to make our projections as better and ultimately
more accurate. But there's a very dynamic last few years in
play here. We also just finished our audit with the OIG on
complying with all of the different parameters that you
mentioned.
So we're taking that. We've improved year over year, but
there are still things that VA needs to work on, and of course
we welcome your oversight and accountability on outcomes. Our
most important outcomes are veteran trust, which stands at an
all-time high of 92 percent, quality and patient safety
outcomes, which VA outperforms the private sector by 60
percent, getting the top two grades versus 40 percent of the
private sector.
Of course access wait times are down in primary care and
mental health, and when it comes to actual care delivery, we
are up significantly, breaking records every year in
appointments delivered.
Mr. Cuellar. We thank you. My time is up, Mr. Chairman. But
if you recall, in the State of Texas we actually did put
performance measures where we actually sat down with the
agencies and looked at them.
There's a way we can add them to the report language at
least so we can see customer service like you mentioned, and
thank you for a good job on that. You can look at cost savings.
There's a lot of things we can do and maybe next year we can
look at some of that.
Florida also has done that also. I know Texas and Florida
and probably the other states, also Nebraska and the other
folks have looked at this, but it is something that we should
start thinking about having to say so on performance measures.
But with that, thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member and
to both of you, thank you for what you do to help our veterans.
Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Ms. Bice.
Ms. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank Dr.
and Mr. Jacobs for being with us today.
I first want to say that it is disappointing to hear the
ranking member politicize this topic. No one is suggesting that
VA benefits are going to be cut. No one is suggesting they're
going to be eliminated.
The next administration will do everything they can to
ensure that our veterans' care is a top priority. It didn't
happen under the first Trump Administration and it is not going
to happen under the next one. So I think it is important to
point that out.
I want to talk about a couple things. First and foremost,
the budget relied heavily on unobligated funds. You all had
quite a bit of that. Can you talk about what specific factors
led to the assumption and why were these risks not highlighted
to Congress early on?
Dr. Elnahal. Are you referring to the medical care
carryover that we budgeted?
Ms. Bice. Correct.
Dr. Elnahal. Yeah. So this has been a consistent pattern of
advanced appropriations over the last many years where, for
reasons that I think are very veteran centric, you all have
authorized funding for us that would more than complete the
needs for the current fiscal year and then carry over a
substantial amount into the next fiscal year to minimize the
risk that ultimately the agency would run out of money.
Ms. Bice. What percentage would you say are these
unobligated funds?
Dr. Elnahal. Yes. So in terms of amount, we approached
about $12 billion that we carried over into this fiscal year.
Out of a denominator for this fiscal year, a budget approaching
$150 billion and so----
Ms. Bice. Eight percent.
Dr. Elnahal. It is a substantial amount, and again, I think
the point is to make sure that we're well resourced. But
because of the PACT Act and because of historic care delivery
rates, we are going to be requesting additional funds. It's
just not going to be $12 billion and that's what we're working
out right now.
Ms. Bice. Thank you. In the 20 October 2024 report to
Congress, it was identified that the VA still needs to hire
about 5,000 additional employees specifically for mental health
care. Did you hire fewer medical employees this year than
anticipated?
Dr. Elnahal. We think we need to hire more employees,
Congresswoman, than we were able to this fiscal year because we
had a budget that was tighter just like every other agency
under the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
So that is why we came forward in July saying we know we're
going to need more employees. This is what we're estimating to
deliver timely, high-quality care. We still think we're going
to need about 405,000 employees into the next fiscal year,
which is higher than what we are currently at right now.
We again are going to be over indexing, and the vast
majority of them are going to be frontline clinicians and folks
directly serving veterans.
Ms. Bice. Did you slow hiring because of your budgetary
concerns?
Dr. Elnahal. We had to, we had to slow hiring. Now, we were
still thankfully able to maintain better access, good outcomes.
We're concerned though about our ability to do that if we don't
get additional funds this fiscal year, which is why we came out
in July with that request.
Ms. Bice. Was slower growth in community care because
providers weren't available to provide the care, such as dental
or specialty care for the new priority veterans that were
adopted into the program?
Dr. Elnahal. So we're dealing, Congresswoman, with
significant growth in community care year over year. So that's
the first point. You know, we're talking about 14.8 percent in
2024 compared to 2023, 18 percent from 2023 to 2024.
So we're all talking about growth across the board. We were
able to slow that growth not by impacting eligibility for
community care or denying community care to veterans, but
rather by offering more VA options reliably to veterans thanks
to the hard work of our employees across the system.
So every time a veteran now qualifies for community care,
we attempt to also say, here's a telehealth option, here's your
in-person option, and empower the veteran with the choice. We
want the veteran in the driver's seat choosing where they get
care next and if they choose the community when they qualify,
we have to honor that and we should honor that.
Ms. Bice. You mentioned at the beginning of your testimony
that there were 1.7 new enrollees and increased priority
rankings. What was your estimate for each of those initially?
Dr. Elnahal. So we were not sure exactly how many veterans
would take us up on this. So that's a big variable that was
hard to predict. Right now we're close to 70,000 veterans
enrolling because of the Section 103 authority alone.
We are now well over 800,000 veterans enrolling since the
PACT Act was signed. So what's interesting is that if you take
our most recent data up to where we are in November, right now
we're actually 47 percent more enrollments than the equivalent
period before the PACT Act.
So if anything, we're potentially accelerating that growth.
The fact that we increased priority groups for veterans was
actually an accelerant to get more veterans qualifying for
dental care, long-term care, for folks who ended up in the
highest priority group.
So that's a whole set of services, some of which,
especially in long-term care is very costly. But we're still
going to do it and we're obligated to do it because that's what
these vets have earned.
Ms. Bice. If I just can just with my closing, give a shout
out to Wade Vlosich, who is the VA director back in Oklahoma
City, who is doing an absolutely remarkable job of making sure
that my vets back home are well taken care of. So shout out to
him.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Dr. Elnahal. Agree.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Franklin.
Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses for your time here with us today. I would like to
echo a lot of the comments my colleagues have already made.
When you get to the end of the dais a lot of those
questions that I had originally have been touched on, but it
also gives me a chance to kind of assimilate and assess kind of
what I have been hearing. I really do hope you all understand
the significance of this.
I mean, you put us through big hoops to try to get money
appropriated. Our phones lit up back home. We had veterans
scared to death thinking they were going to lose all their
benefits, and it turns out this was all in a big budget screw
up, really.
Dr. Elnahal, I do appreciate your comments that we need to
get it right. You are looking at an outside group to come in
and help do a review and that it is important to work hard to
improve the accuracy of these projections. I fully agree with
you.
I know you have had service on the private side and the
public, you know, on the private side, you don't have the
luxury of missing budgets like that. You just don't. In the
government, we can always make it up. We just create money out
of thin air and we press on down the road.
So it is easier. It is always easier to underestimate and
have carryover than to miss your budget, and Mr. Jacobs, I get
it, I understand your point that we can't afford to miss. We're
certainly not going to leave our veterans hanging. But to say,
you know, it is a risk we are not willing to take to under
budget by a dollar and you know, you have made the comment
about it being prudent management.
I guess I just want to understand, do you feel that this
whole episode was prudent management?
Mr. Jacobs. Congressman, when we identified the updated
projections that identified the potential need for additional
money, we had a couple options to make. One, which we chose to
do was to elevate the risk, to communicate it and to seek the
funding knowing that if we're even $1 over our spending cap, we
would have to delay benefits for all nearly seven million
veterans and survivors.
Unlike other mandatory programs, we don't have authorities
to provide such sums as are necessary, and so we're limited by
that fact. We considered a couple of other options.
One is we could keep our head down, hope everything worked
out and pray to God that we didn't exceed the cap and have to
come to you telling you that we are going to delay payments
because we know the impact that would have on the customers we
serve.
The other option we considered was, OK, maybe we can slow
down benefits so we don't hit the cap. That's what I assume
would happen in the private sector. That wasn't an option we
thought was fitting with a veteran centric ethos of delivering
more benefits to more veterans.
So I'm certainly not happy with the way things turned out.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to come here. I spent 10
years working in Congress. I worked for an appropriator. I know
how significant it is to make a request of this nature and
secure the funding.
I'm incredibly grateful for you, for everyone, for making
this happen, and we want to make sure we apply the lessons
learned moving forward so it doesn't happen again.
Mr. Franklin. So it sounds like some of the brakes you did
put on though were reducing the hiring, the pace of hiring
personnel and the equipment, bringing on new equipment?
Mr. Jacobs. On the benefits side, we did not. All of the
funding we're talking about was dollars in the pockets of
veterans, families and survivors. And I'll defer to Dr. Elnahal
for----
Mr. Franklin. I am interested in the equipment purchase
delays because here it is we are in a new budget year and the
safe thing to do, if our standard of performance is to never
screw up and be as safe as possible, are we holding back on
these equipment purchases now because it is early in the new
fiscal year and then we may get to the end of this fiscal year
and we are kind of worried again so we kick the can on down the
road? What kind of equipment are we talking about and what are
we suffering by not making these purchases that have been
appropriated?
Dr. Elnahal. It ranges, Congressmen, from some of the more
most complex equipment we have at our medical centers.
Upgrades, maintenance, entirely new equipment to deliver
complex surgeries and high acuity care to more simple things
like the rising costs of, you know, CPAPs and home devices that
veterans need.
We're anticipating significant cost increases, as is every
other health care system across the country. So that is why we
know we are going to need additional funding.
Mr. Franklin. So why did you not, once you got the extra
appropriation, and then you realized, whoops, we really did not
need all that money, why not make end of the year equipment
purchases instead of rolling it forward? Why not execute the
things that you thought you were going to do at the beginning
of the fiscal year?
Dr. Elnahal. I think, Congressman, what was enacted as a
supplemental was the veteran's benefits money for compensation.
I don't know if you want to comment on that, Josh?
Mr. Franklin. OK, I understand.
Dr. Elnahal. Yeah.
Mr. Franklin. Different pot of money, right?
Dr. Elnahal. Yeah.
Mr. Franklin. Got it.
All right, thanks, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Carter. I guess we can have a second round, short.
So I have a question just popped up. Who's doing the
external review?
Dr. Elnahal. We are still trying to secure the folks who
are going to do that on the outside. It's going to be contract
based and it is going to look at our budget formulation
processes.
So once we have that available, of course we'll share it
with the IG, we'll share it with this committee. We're
committed to that.
Mr. Jacobs. Mr. Chairman, the Inspector General is also
conducting an independent review of our budget formulation
process. I believe that's a requirement of the law you enacted.
Mr. Carter. That is an inside review.
Mr. Jacobs. Yes, sir.
Mr. Carter. He is very competent. Very competent.
Well, with all the issues that we have got that we are not
getting any information, then AI lies out on the perimeter and
people are going to start speeding things up.
I don't know if you thought about that or not, but one of
the things that, you know, we knew all about this, you knew all
about this back in July, all right? Now, if I understand AI
correctly, it's like a, it goes vroom. I mean, it just
instantly covers every kind of information you ever wanted to
know, maybe something you didn't want to know. I am totally
ignorant as what it does.
But so far I've seen nine or 10 people come talk to me
about getting it, and everything has to do with speed. Speed is
very important. I think I want you to be at least be thinking
about the fact that you are overwhelmed without speed.
If you don't get accurate numbers and figure out a way to
get accurate numbers with speed, then that is going to make it
even worse. I fear that for Appropriations too. Consistently we
are moving money around when we have the opportunity to move
money around and are not on a CR, and if we speed things up, it
is going to be a lot harder to get this thing all figured out.
I think that is the real reason all of us are saying we
have got to be kept current. A billion dollars, $1,000,000,000,
to the American public, is a tremendous amount of money. $15
billion is almost beyond anybody's comprehension, and a
trillion dollars is beyond anybody's comprehension except the
people that deal with it.
So when we start, when you realize that, and I loved what
he said, what we have to realize is there is nobody staying
more current on what is going on with the VA than our veterans.
They pay attention. They belong to organizations that keep them
informed. The minute they see something they think might be
going wrong, they light up the telephones all over this country
and good for them, you know?
I made a mistake one time when I was on my first trip
overseas and I went to Korea and I decided I would be smart and
hold a town hall meeting with the, woah was that rough. Those
soldiers, they knew exactly what they wanted to ask me and
although I appreciate it and I enjoy doing it, but I mean,
these guys pay attention to these current events because it is
their livelihood, a lot to a lot of them.
Just like people on Social Security pay attention to that.
People on Medicare pay attention to that because if something
goes wrong, they are left out in the cold. I understand a lot
of talks going on, but I don't think I can guarantee you that I
am not going to be standing for anybody trying to abolish
anybody's anything to do with our Veterans Administration.
I don't think my colleague is either. We are with you 110
percent, but keep us informed. I hope the external audit, or
whatever you want to call it, is going to give you some
information about tools you can use because you know, I know
you are not, we haven't mentioned it, but we are in an
inflationary period right now. That gives people the ability to
raise prices above a legitimate value, in some instances,
because of inflation. I know the cost of this weight loss drug
because I am using it. It is $1,000 a month. That is a lot of
money. But I have lost a lot of weight, so I am happy.
But bottom line is that we have got, medicine is hard to
deal with, but the shock of a number and the coincidental shock
of the number right after the presidential election was
confirmed looked very political, to be honest with you, and
very concerning to the people on this side of the aisle.
A day after the change is coming and you people are subject
to that change and we know that. Those kind of things bring
politics into it and you shouldn't bring politics into this.
So I ask you to please, I am not going to have a question,
I am just going to make a speech. I ask you and if you don't
then I am going to be really mad. I don't get mad very often,
but when I do, it is pretty dangerous.
So please, I'm asking you and then I am going to be over
there knocking on doors if I don't get the answers.
I yield back to my friend and colleague, Ms. Wasserman
Schultz.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to make sure I underscore that I am absolutely
going to be pointing out concerns that arise as a result of the
decisions of the incoming administration or the projections
about decisions of the incoming administration that affect our
veterans. That is our job.
So when we have a leader, who has been selected by the
incoming president, who has specifically said that any
unauthorized program would be recommended for elimination and
elimination of their funding, it is important to point out
here, in a public hearing, the impact of that on our veterans,
which would, as I mentioned, be very significant. There's
nothing political about that.
To just paint a brush and say, well, we didn't do that in
the last administration. It wasn't proposed in the last
administration. It is potentially going to be proposed in this
one. If that is the case, as appropriators, we need to be aware
of that.
It wouldn't only affect veterans' programs. There are
hundreds and hundreds of unauthorized items that we fund here.
Congress has the power of the purse. So it is not political. It
is a respect for the system of checks and balances and the way
the founding fathers established our role in the Constitution,
which specifically gives Congress the power of appropriations
and exclusively gives us that role.
So that having been said, I want to just ask a question
about women's health because obviously we know women make up
the fastest growing group of veterans that are enrolled in VA
health care, but many of their health care needs go
unaddressed.
I know VA has been working to address those problems. You
have made some progress in hiring gender specific providers and
addressing harassment at VA facilities.
Can you talk about that progress in hiring providers that
specialize in issues like intimate partner violence, military
sexual trauma, maternity and newborn health services, and what
more needs to be done? Can the VHA shortfall and where you come
in around what you are going to need address funding some of
those needs?
Dr. Elnahal. Yes, Madam Ranking Member. Absolutely. We've
been prioritizing women's health, fastest growing demographic
by far across the system. Our Office of Women's Health reports
directly to me, the Undersecretary, and we've been able to
preserve the support and the resourcing for women's health
providers even throughout this more difficult budget time.
In fact, we have specific purpose funding thanks to your
enabling legislation that require us requires us to do that.
And so that funding was distributed in part to retain our
essential women's health providers throughout last fiscal year,
but also to hire additional providers.
We have the same exact program going into this fiscal year
that's actually agnostic to whether or not we get this money
because of how important this is. We need to make sure that we
are catching up to the demand of increasing numbers of women
veterans enrolling. We broke a record just this last year with
more than 50,000 women veterans enrolling in fiscal year 2024,
and we hope that number gets even higher because of our
targeted outreach.
Our programming has also only accelerated our women's
health mini residencies for providers who had not been used to
seeing women. Historically, there were fewer women in the VA
and many of our clinicians have been in VA for a long time.
Our efforts to bring in more gender specific care, more GYN
specialists, more access to mammograms in the VA, but at the
very least coordinating breast cancer screening. Maternity care
coordination, we made a move to provide more coordination for
women veterans up to a year after birth rather than just eight
weeks. That was a change we made last fiscal year.
We've been much more expansive about how we talk about
screening and mammograms to women vets across the country. So
this remains a priority, will remain a priority as long as
we're here and we can continue to push it.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The VHA shortfall, is there any way
that we can address some of the resources being directed to
address those issues?
Dr. Elnahal. Absolutely. I think the shortfall, if it's
filled when we get you all a number, will allow us to net grow
our full-time employees. So of course women need the full gamut
of medical care and they will benefit from increasing numbers
of physicians, nurses, and other frontline providers that will
be as essential for women vets as the rest of our veteran
population.
But we've been able to preserve our investment in women
vets even throughout these more difficult budget times.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Good.
Then Mr. Chairman, again, flagging things is not
politicizing them, but the incoming administration has not been
shy about its plan to indiscriminately fire and harass federal
civilian employees.
I really want to underscore that doing that will be
directly attacking veterans. VA has the second largest number
of civilian employees among all federal agencies, maybe some
members don't realize that, second only to the Department of
Defense. It includes VA doctors, nurses, dentists, social
workers, mental health professionals, pharmacists, people
working to streamline electronic health records, our cemetery
caretakers, many others.
Additionally, when considering the entire federal civilian
workforce, 30 percent are veterans. So cutting the number of
civilian employees means cutting healthcare and other services
for our veterans. So Dr. Elnahal, can you talk more about how
civilian employees contribute to VA's mission and what it would
mean if a subsequent administration follows through on a plan
to reduce the civilian workforce and how that would impact our
veterans?
Dr. Elnahal. Well, about a third of our employees, Madam
Ranking Member, are veterans themselves. So many more have a
veteran in their lives, a spouse of a veteran, a caregiver, and
take the mission personally. Where we've increased our staff
has overwhelmingly been for frontline employees and employees
carrying out our essential programs like veteran homelessness.
We've been able to bring veteran homelessness to a record
low since we started measuring it. Because we've been able to
preserve and staff up on our homelessness program teams in the
field, we're now offering support and care to more caregivers
than any time in the history of the VA. About 80,000 caregivers
benefit from one part of our programming or another.
All of this is on the backs of our excellent employees.
They're the ones executing this mission, and so I'd be
concerned about broad brush approaches to reducing the
workforce. That would have to be a very methodical effort. But
right now we estimate that we're going to need more employees
and not less.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right.
Thank you. And thank you both for your service to our
Nation's veterans.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carter. Mr. Rutherford.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, let me begin by saying, you know, I represent
Northeast Florida and Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and I can
tell you our veterans are very appreciative of the healthcare
that we receive in Northeast Florida and the attention that
that they get.
The challenge that we have is our VA Medical Center, the
closest VA Medical Center is in Gainesville, which is about a
little over an hour away. So our VA health care clinics like
the Leo C. Chase CBOC down in St. Augustine, very important to
us because of the distances to the other facilities.
We have got a little situation. I am going to get a little
parochial here, but we have got a little situation where I
think, because of their upfront folks, the numbers are not
there. They are short staffed is what I am hearing that the
phones are being rolled over to the Villages Clinic for
answering.
What that's doing is a lot of our veterans who access them
by phone normally looking to get those community care referrals
and things, they get sent down to this clinic down there just
for the phone answering, and either they never get the message
back at the CBOC or the people that they are talking to down in
the Villages Clinic can't help them.
So they are not getting the service, obviously, because of
this phone transfer system. I am sure it is happening probably
all over the place. So my question is, what can we do to help
hire those frontline people that really, I mean, that is the
door in. So, you know, do you, do you hire through staffing
agencies? Have you tried that? Is there, you know, what can we
do to get these offices manned?
Dr. Elnahal. So I did get a heads up, Congressman, about
your concern on the St. Augustine CBOC and the call center. I
conferred with our network director over VISN8, which is
Florida, this morning, and he told me that we'll have at least
two new members of the call center team at the St. Augustine
that will serve the St. Augustine CBOC within the next couple
of months by the end of January.
Right now it's being diverted to the Villages Call Center
because they do have the capacity to be able to take these
calls, but you prefer to have folks who are closer to where the
veteran gets that care and has personal relationships, ideally
with the clinicians delivering that care, which is why VISN8 is
going to staff up.
So that's a concern we'll follow very closely, and more
generally, Congressman, this is why we are coming forward with
a supplemental funding request for VHA. The more resources we
have, the more frontline employees, like our essential call
center employees who are serving vets every single day to be
able to meet that need.
So yes, this is not only an issue in your area of the
country. We need more medical support assistance and call
center employees. That's part of where, if we do get the
supplemental funding, that's part of where it will go.
Mr. Rutherford. Did I understand you correctly that you
missed it by two percent on the salaries and benefits and
that's a billion dollars, right?
Dr. Elnahal. Yes. So in general, we stayed actually about
$240 million below what the enacted budget requires overall.
When it comes to a big variable about why our estimate was off,
as of July, we estimated the cost per FTE to be about $158,000
per clinician. That's skewed quite high because of the number
of physicians we have.
Mr. Rutherford. You were 2 percent off?
Dr. Elnahal. Yes, and we were 2 percent off. We ultimately,
that number came down to 155,000 as of the end of September.
When we got that data, that two percent difference translated,
when you over 400,000 employees to be a very high dollar amount
in the absolute terms.
Mr. Rutherford. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all doing a good
job. Thanks.
Dr. Elnahal. Thank you.
Mr. Carter. Both of you were well informed and informed us
well. We appreciate it. We appreciate it very much. You
communicated well with us today and we are asking for to be
communicated well either by when we write you a letter or
whatever with the kind of information you have given us.
So thank you. Thank you for what you've done. Remember, we
all are here to support the veterans of our country, and there
is no one on this committee that is trying to do anything to
wipe out our veterans or the veteran care. We will be soldiers
in the field fighting on your behalf if something like that
comes along.
And I will remind anybody that so far I haven't found any
agency that is authorized. Maybe somebody knows one, but I
can't think, the State Department is not authorized. There's a
lot of people who aren't authorized. The Defense Department is
not authorized. It is kind of an amateur's, no offense, an
amateur's comment about the government.
We could spend about two or three sessions authorizing
people if we wanted to. We probably should, just to get back in
the real world, but you are talking about just about the whole
government is not now not authorized. So that's another
politics I am trying to point out.
Listen, thank you very much for doing this. I remind the
members, if you have any questions you want to submit, submit
them to us within seven days to the Subcommittee, and with
that, we thank you very much for your time.
The subcommittee is adjourned.
[Clerk's note: The Department of Veterans Affairs did not
provided answers to submitted questions in time for inclusion
in the record.]
W I T N E S S E S
----------
Page
Chaudhary, Ravi.................................................. 3
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hollywood, Mr. Bruce............................................. 5
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Hartless, Brigadier General Brian S.............................. 6
Prepared statement........................................... 9
Jacobson, Hon. Rachel............................................ 55
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Vereen, Lieutenant General Kevin................................. 56
Prepared statement........................................... 58
Elnahal, Shereef, M.D............................................ 100
Prepared statement........................................... 104
Jacobs, Joshua................................................... 102
Prepared statement........................................... 104
[all]