Source: United States Navy
Below is a transcript of the hearing:
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
This hearing will come to order. This hearing is virtual, and as usual, we’ll go over a couple of housekeeping matters. For today’s — someone needs to mute. For today’s meeting, the chair or the staff designated by the chair may mute participants’ microphones when they are not under recognition for purpose of eliminating background noise.
Members are responsible for muting and unmuting themselves. If I notice you have not unmuted yourself, I will ask you if you’d like the staff to unmute you. If you indicate by nodding for approval, the staff will unmute you. I remind all members and witnesses that the five-minute clock still applies. If there’s a technology issue, we will move to the next member until the issue is resolved, and you will retain the balance of your time.
You will notice the clock on your screen, and that’s showing how much time is remaining. At one minute, the clock will turn yellow. At 30 seconds remaining, I will gently tap the gavel to remind members that their time has almost expired. And when your time has expired, the clock will turn red, and I will begin to recognize the next member.
In terms of speaking order, we will follow the order set forward in the House rules, beginning with the chair and the ranking member. Members present at the time when the hearing is called to order will be recognized in their order of seniority. And finally, members not present at the time the hearing is called to order.
Finally, House rules require me to remind you that we have set up an email address to which members can send anything they wish to submit in writing at any of our hearing markups. The email address has been provided in advance to your staff. So, members of the subcommittee, we’ll fully come to order now that we took care of the housekeeping.
First and foremost, I wish you all a good new year and hope that your families are doing well and that they are safe from COVID. What we’re going to do this morning is we’re going to receive testimony on the impact of the continuing resolution on the Department of Defense and Services. And we’re joined by Mike McCord, undersecretary of defense; General David H. Berger, commander of the United States Marine Corps; Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of naval operations of the United States Navy; General Raymond — excuse me, General John W. Raymond, chief of space operations for the United States Space Force; and General Charles Q. Brown, chief of staff for the United States Air Force; and General Joseph M. Martin, vice chief of staff for the United States Army.
I want to thank you all for attending. And I would like to mention that chief Army staff, General McConville, is not with us today because he is attending General Odierno’s internment today. General Odierno is a remarkable leader. And, General Martin, I want to thank you for appearing on behalf of the Army today.
It has been the case far too often in recent years that the government once again is operating under a continuing resolution. Today’s hearing will explore the impacts of CRs on our national security, particularly the problem that would be created by a yearlong CR for fiscal 2022. When our subcommittee writes a full-year bill, even that the year-over-year total remains the same, we increase and decrease funding for hundreds of specific activities that are essential to our national security.
Under a CR, none of this occurs. We do not cut spending in areas where it’s no longer needed like sunsetting legacy platforms or inefficient programs that are no longer survivable in a high-end fight. Simply put, CRs are bad for our national security. They increase inefficiency. They waste taxpayers’ money.
They also signal to our troops and the millions of workers in the defense industry that their needs are just not a priority. At a time when Putin is threatening to invade Ukraine, China continues to be a pacing threat. We do not have time to waste. Our national security cannot afford more CRs. Now, among the members of this committee, I want to be perfectly clear.
I know each and every one of you all wants a new fiscal year 2022 defense bill. But I have to tell you, it is frustrating to read quotes from one House Republican published in December, and I’m going to quote directly. “Republicans should be in favor of a CR until Biden is out of office. It would be the proper Republican thing to do, and everybody saying otherwise is foolish.” Well, that type of thinking, that’s what’s foolish.
And I believe it’s dangerous. I’ve heard similar comments from other Republicans in recent months. The least we can do is to get funding bills done. And I thank Chair DeLauro for trying to do just that for months now. I urge my Republican colleagues to continue to come with us to the negotiating table so we can fund the entire government.
But because America’s national security is more than just about dollars that we provide the Pentagon, it’s part of the reason why we’re having this hearing. We also need to make the necessary investments in diplomacy; development abroad; and, most importantly, education, health, and America’s economy here at home.
They all impact our national security. So, today, I look forward from hearing to our witnesses about how a full-year CR could affect modernization, slow our ability to retire ineffective programs, and how it would be an inefficient use of taxpayers’ dollars by directing billions of dollars to purposes that are out of date such as a war in Afghanistan, which we’re no longer fighting.
We have a lot to cover. And so, now, I will turn to the gentleman from California, the ranking member, Mr. Calvert, for his opening remarks. Mr. Calvert.
KEN CALVERT:
Well, thank you, Madam Chairman, and happy new year. And I also want to recognize General Odierno. Not only was he a great patriot, a good friend of this committee, and we certainly thank him and his family for his lifetime of service. I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. While I look forward to hearing from the senior leaders here today, I’m disappointed there’s a need to have this hearing.
Since I’ve joined the subcommittee, I’ve been very vocal about the damage done by our inability to pass defense appropriation bills on time. When we’re able to carry out the most — when we’re able — unable to carry out the most fundamental constitutional responsibility, we create self-inflicted wounds that are difficult to recover from.
Typically, as appropriators, we’re able to negotiate in good faith, reach a bipartisan deal. Unfortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle have decided they’re more committed to the progressive wing of their party than to the responsible governance of this country. We have offered to start negotiations as long as we work under the same-terms negotiations that we have worked for in the past two years.
They are simply no poison pills, and we retain all legacy riders. We’ve also made clear that in order for us to support these bills, domestic spending must come down and defense spending must go up. It should be noted that the HAS, SAS, and the Senate appropriations all have agreed to a higher defense number.
This committee is a long holdup. It is disappointing to watch the majority try to blame Republicans, who are the minority party in both chambers, for being at this unfortunate place, especially when it’s their leadership that has failed them. May I remind people, the Democrats were unable to pass their version of the fiscal 2022 defense appropriation bills on the House floor.
And today, under the guise of caring for our men and women in uniform, they’re attempting to use the Department of Defense as a means to an end, with the hopes of passing radical, irresponsible policies that will harm the American people. It’s disingenuous at best, and it breaks a longstanding tradition of bipartisan cooperation that has made this committee, and especially this subcommittee, specifically so effective.
Excessive spending on the domestic bills is irresponsible and will dangerously add to our national debt, which former chairman of the joint chiefs, Admiral Mullen, called top threat to our national security. These increases are also in addition to the massive spending spree that the Biden administration and this Congress have been on, which has directly led to massive inflation.
As a matter of fact, the number came out this morning, seven percent inflation this year, the highest number in almost 40 years, which is harming American families and, certainly, harming the Department of Defense. I’ll remind everyone that inflation is drastically harming DOD’s own buying power. When your account for COVID spending — when you account for COVID spending on national security — a national — on our national security, our entire — our entire spending on national security is 10 percent of that allotment, 10 percent.
The overwhelming majority of our spending goes towards domestic programs. As a ranking member of this subcommittee, I’ve remained firm in my resolve. We will fight to ensure a proper funding for the Department of Defense. It’s encouraging to hear reports that the majority is now considering supporting additional funds above the president’s misguided request for fiscal year 2022. It’s my hope we can avoid devastating impacts of — of — of a CR. We’ll hear about this today.
Committees — this committee’s storied reputation of bipartisan commonsense governing, I hope, will continue. Thank you for your service, and I look forward to your testimony. And with that, I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you, Mr. Calvert. And I certainly know that the words that you said were heartfelt, but I don’t think you meant to imply that any of us on this committee from the other side of the aisle are disingenuous. I would now recognize Chair DeLauro.
ROSA DELAURO:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to thank you and the ranking member for holding this important hearing on the impact of continuing resolutions and what they have – – the kind of impact they have on the Department of Defense. I first want to just say a thank you — and Secretary of Defense Austin is not here this morning, but on December 6th, he issued a statement about the content of what we’re speaking about today and what the — how — what he described fiscally unsound way of funding the Department of Defense and government as a whole.
So, please, convey my thanks to him. I want to say a thank you to all of our witnesses today. It was amazing to me in reading through the testimony of the consistency of — of message here about what, in fact, occurs when we engage in continuing resolutions. If I might, and I don’t mean to slight the others, but, General Brown, thank you for your authorship of the book, “Accelerate Change or Lose,” that we must change so that we do not go backward.
The time for us has come. We need to go faster, and the time is now for us to be able to do that. And I appreciate the witnesses and their distinguished leaders of the military, coming to explain the consequences of what are, quite frankly, Congress’ failures. Madam Chair, you and I have worked closely for months to enact the defense appropriations bill for fiscal year 2022.
But while — and- I, too, would agree with you that the members of this subcommittee are committed to a moving forward on the defense appropriations bill. But while the Democrats are ready to negotiate and complete our work, a number of our Republican colleagues have — they have not even — leadership hasn’t even offered a proposal of their own. And just — I have to say this, I wasn’t going to, but just to clarify the record, the fact of the matter is in the history of appropriations bills, the issues on whether you call them policy riders or poison pills or legacy riders, whatever you want to call them, that has been debated at the end of the process, that there has been the willingness on the part of Democrats and Republicans to come together and say, “Let us talk about the top line.
Let us move programmatically.” Because in order to achieve a bicameral bipartisan piece of legislation, those issues will be — will have to be resolved. So, the fact of who is — it’s not a question of pointing fingers, but they — Democratic proposals are out there. To date, there has not been one single document that outlines where our Republican colleagues want to go.
President Kennedy once said, “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.”
We need action on full-year spending bills — funding bills now. The longer our colleagues get comfortable in their inaction, the greater the long-range risks will be for our nation. And as you are, Madam Chair, I’m particularly alarmed by the suggestion of some that they would prefer to fund the government under a full-year continuing resolution.
This would harm our military, stalling modernization efforts, readiness, capacity, recruitment, operation, and maintenance, impacting pay for our troops, and wasting billions in taxpayers’ dollar on capabilities we no longer need. After 20 years of war in Afghanistan have ended, we need to prepare for the security challenges of the future by modernizing weapons systems such as strengthening our hypersonic weapons and artificial intelligence capabilities.
A continuing resolution would have severely curtailed the transition to these modern high quality tools. Readiness is essential to the strength of our military. But as the testimony from our witnesses affirm, extended CRs, full-year CR would greatly impact our troops, their quality of life, their health care.
Under a continuing resolution, services would have to significantly curtail other personnel expenses, including potentially slashing the number of new recruits to provide a statutorily authorized pay raise. The witnesses in their testimony, they lay out, as I mentioned earlier, a consistent message that asserts that, already, there are serious consequences to the four-month delay of a budget agreement.
A full-year continuing resolution would keep platforms and systems that are no longer necessary in service, while blocking the start of new projects. It would reduce the buying power of the Defense Department, lock the Pentagon into last year’s spending such as for a war in Afghanistan we are no longer fighting.
There are few dollars, more egregious ways to waste the Americans — people’s hard-earned tax dollars. Finally, I’m deeply concerned about the impact of a full-year CR on the millions of jobs the defense industry sustains across the United States, and I ask unanimous consent to insert into a — into the record a letter from 11 defense trade associations, which puts the harmful consequences of a full-year CR in stark terms.
And I quote, “Defense industry workforces are subject to seemingly endless stop and start contract cycles, creating inefficiency and disruption that ripples through the defense supply chain with disproportionate effects on smaller companies.” The consequences of a full-year CR are simply unthinkable. To protect our national security, sustain American strength vis-a-vis China and Russia, and further American leadership around the world, we need a government funding agreement.
We need it now. And it is time for our Republican colleagues to join us, negotiate a bipartisan, bicameral funding agreement. I thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this hearing, and I thank our witnesses once again. And I won’t deal with the quote now because I’ve already gone over my time, but I’m hopeful that Assistant Defense Secretary McCord will speak about this issue.
He has a great quote in his — in his testimony about our competition with Russia and China and what they do in terms of being competitive and what we do not do. I say thank you, and thank you to my colleagues for being here this morning, and I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you, Chair DeLauro. You had, you said, 11 letters to enter for the record?
ROSA DELAURO:
No. One letter that has been signed by 11 heads of the trade association.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
OK.
ROSA DELAURO:
Aerospace, air force.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
I just wanted to make sure I said the amount of letters correctly.
ROSA DELAURO:
That’s helpful.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
So, without objection, we will be entering that letter into the record.
ROSA DELAURO:
Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Now, I turn to Ranking Member Granger from Texas for her opening remarks. Ms. Granger.
KAY GRANGER:
Can I speak now? OK. Thank you, Chairman McCollum. As a longtime member and a former chair of this subcommittee, I’ve been proud of its history of bipartisanship. The members of this subcommittee care deeply about our national security that have been able to put partisan politics aside in order to ensure we provide the funding needed to protect our great nation.
Unfortunately, the Defense appropriations bill has fallen victim to partisan politics. I think we would all agree that no one here wants a continuing resolution, no one. That’s not our goal. However, Republicans will not allow the majority to ram through irresponsible spending and harmful policies in other parts of the government by using the Department of Defense as a political weapon.
My position should not come as a surprise to anyone. During Full Committee and subcommittee markups, I made it clear that House Republicans would not support any bills unless the majority remove poison pills, reinstated long-standing riders, and address the disparity between defense and nondefense spending.
Those two — three issues have been for the past two years as a part of this. But instead of working across the aisle to get our work done, the majority drafted unrealistic, irresponsible appropriations bills, many of which contain the most partisan policies I have seen since I have been in Congress. For example, the FY ’22 Labor, Health and Human Services bill includes a staggering 36 percent increase over current levels.
The majority also remove long-standing bipartisan pro-life protections that have been included for decades. The list goes on and on. As appropriators, we know it takes bipartisan cooperation to craft spending bills that will be signed into law. Counter to what the majority has said, Republicans are ready and willing to negotiate.
We simply asked that the majority agree to the same terms that it will — have allowed us to complete our work quickly in the past, draw a controversial language and restore long-standing provisions. If majority would agree to these terms, I will clear my schedule, and I’m happy to begin negotiations immediately following this hearing.
Madam Chair, I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. Bottom line is people need to get to the table and talk to each other, and that — that — that is leadership in both the House and the Senate. So, I’m going to turn to our witnesses now, and I — we don’t pick favorites. I don’t pick favorites, especially on my side of the family. When my father was Army Air Corps, I never picked a favorite between the two of them.
So, we’re going to start with the service chiefs. We’re going to go in alphabetical order then followed by the Vice Chiefs Martin and McCord. Your full statements are going to be entered into the record, so I ask you to limit your remarks to no more than five minutes. Undersecretary McCord, you are first.
MIKE MCCORD:
[Audio gap] and also Chair DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger. Thank you, members of the committee. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today along with our leaders from the services on the importance of getting full-year appropriations rather than seeing continued extensions of the current continuing resolution or CR. In particular, I want to express our concerns about the potential for a full-year CR, which is something the department has never been forced to operate under.
Our military leaders are going to speak in more detail about specific impacts on their services and their people. But let me begin with some points that are of concern across the department to amplify the point Secretary Austin made in his statement of December 6th, 2021, which I would ask the chair that you allow it to be inserted in the record of this hearing also.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Without objection.
MIKE MCCORD:
Thank you. A full-year CR, Chair and members, would — would move us in the wrong direction and leave us stuck in the wrong place. First, if you want us to be more competitive with our adversaries, it’s going to make us less so. If you want us to be more agile, a CR has the opposite effect. It would undermine our — your support of our men and women in uniform and their families.
Finally, Congress, in passing the recently enacted FY ’22 defense authorization bill was voting in part to increase DOD funding. If that is what Congress wants, enacting a full-year CR would send our — our top line down, not up. Let me now briefly expand on a few of these concerns. First, as I believe you are all aware, a full-year CR would reduce our funding level below what we requested than what we believe we need.
On the surface, at the department level as a whole, the reduction to our accounts would appear to be about $8 billion below our request, which would be significant even if that was the only impact. The actual reduction in practice will be much greater because we would have significant funding that’s misaligned trapped or frozen in the wrong places and unusable because we don’t have the tools or flexibility to realign funds on anything like the scale we would need to fix all the problems that the chiefs are going to describe.
To cite one major example, although it’s a different subcommittee, I know all of you are very familiar with the fact that virtually all military construction projects in each year’s budget, including the FY ’22 budget, are new stars that cannot be executed under a CR. In this specific case, that’s over 100 projects and over $5 billion in funding that would be unusable.
So, that’s one example of — on top of the 8 billion that it looks like at — at the gross level when you get down in the details. If you add the impacts of this unusable funding to the straight loss of purchasing power under a CR, the real impacts on our operations probably will double or triple the impact of the cuts as we go into the procurement and the research and development accounts to calculate all the funding tied to individual program rate increases or new starts that we would not be able to execute leaving those funds stranded.
Not every acquisition program would be restricted, and impacts would be very uneven. Some programs such as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent would be delayed significantly by the cuts imposed by a CR, while others such as the procurement of two Virginia-class submarines might be relatively unaffected.
The most damaging impacts would be on those who deserve it least — our servicemembers and their families. The biggest tolls would be in our military personnel accounts and our training and readiness accounts. Our military personnel accounts will be funded $5 billion below our requested level under a CR. Yet, inside those flat funding levels, as several members have noted, we would have to absorb the cost of a well-deserved pay raise and other statutory housing and subsistence increases for the troops.
This means that within — within a flat number absorbing a pay raise, we will be forced to take actions such as delaying and suspending permanent change of station moves for our people, and delaying accessions of new troops, which would disrupt our training pipeline. In the operating accounts, where a CR would leave us another 5.3 billion below our requested levels, we would almost certainly have to defer training and readiness and take greater risk in our facilities maintenance, especially if we endeavor to avoid any furloughs of our civilian workforce because civilian pay is a very large part of the operating accounts.
We also have an issue with military health care. This account would be short by over a billion dollars compared to our request. Yet, we have no ability to control the demand for health care by our beneficiaries, nor would we wish to, especially during a pandemic. So, people show up to the doctor, we have to pay that bill.
Some might ask, well, can’t we address these issues by reprogramming funds to solve our biggest problems? First, the committees have never approved a reprogramming during a continuing resolution. If we get past that issue, as we would need to, under a yearlong CR, just to fix one high-impact problem such as the billion-dollar shortfall in the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent program, would consume 25 percent of the $4 billion in transfer authority available to me for the entire department for the entire year.
And yet, I would still have dozens of other CR-imposed problems to address. The idea that being under a continuing resolution into January or February is not unusual, and that a full year CR is now considered a serious possibility, did not come from nowhere. And I believe it’s important just to take a moment to step back from this current situation and look at the broader context.
We’ve been slowly boiling this frog for a number of years, and we may not fully appreciate what’s been happening. For the 20 years that followed the end of the Cold War, from fiscal years 1991 through 2010, the date of enactment of the defense appropriations bill averaged 24 days into the fiscal year, or less than a month late.
But since the enactment of the Budget Control Act in FY 2011, the 10 years of the BCA that then followed that enactment, and now this first year after the BCA, that average has ballooned to 118 days late over the last 12 years, assuming that we can land this plane on February 18th this year. The sixth longest CRs in the history of the Defense Department have all occurred in this last 12-year period.
We have turned a 12-month fiscal year into an eight-month fiscal year in terms of our ability to initiate new starts and enter contracts. This should be unacceptable and not the new normal. It’s hard to see this full impact because — or the inefficiency from looking from outside because the organization has, of course, adapted to its circumstances, just as organisms do. Nobody plans to enter into contracts in the first quarter of fiscal year now because the odds that we would actually be able to do so are so low.
Therefore, we, in turn, have no significant contract delays to report to you when we’re under a CR. In addition to the direct consequences of a CR, including with the inefficiency, the disruption to our people and our operations, and reduction in the resources that I have described, we should not forget that inflation is also eating into our funding while our funding remains on hold, as Mr. Calvert noted.
For example, I’ve had to improve — approved two increases in our fuel prices this year already, first on October 1st and the second one on January 1st, in order to keep our — our working capital fund solvent. So, this has created a bill of $1.5 billion to the services for FY ’22 in addition to the reductions that we already have described.
And finally, to be clear, the department is not alone in this regard. We recognize that. In fact, we have been treated better over the years than some other agencies. The Department of Health and Human Services is on the front lines against the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a tax on our critical infrastructure and natural disasters that we expect the Department of Homeland Security to respond to. We have to ensure our children get the quality education they need to become the trained and capable workforce of tomorrow.
So, we can’t afford to run the federal government, any agency on a long year — on a yearlong CR. Our competitors, China and Russia, in particular, use all the pieces on the chessboard to compete with us, not just their military assets. We’re competing on the diplomatic front, the economic front, the military front, innovation, and technology.
If we take this competition seriously, as we should, and as our adversaries do, then we cannot afford to continue acting this way. Time is money, and year after year, we’re giving away time in these lengthy CRs. We do not have such an insurmountable edge on our competitors that we can afford to keep doing this.
Let me close, Chair, and turn over to our military leaders for more specifics by quoting what Secretary Austin said last month, “I strongly urge Congress to seize this opportunity to sustain American competitiveness, advance American leadership, and enable our forces by immediately reaching a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on full-year FY ’22 appropriations.
It’s not only the right thing to do but it’s the best thing that they can do for our nation’s defense.” With that, I look forward to your questions once all the witnesses have concluded their statements. Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you very much and thank you for the accessibility. Our office — and I know other offices that serve on this committee have had questions, especially during the seriousness of the Afghan refugees. Thank you very much for your — your work and your professionalism. General Berger, your next.
DAVID BERGER:
Chairwoman McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, Chair DeLauro, and Ranking Member Granger, and the other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thanks for the opportunity to appear before you today. Last spring, at the FY ’22 Posture Hearing, I updated this really on force design effort. The Marine Corps began in 2019. We’re now two and a half years into that major effort.
Force Design 2030 is how your Marine Corps is adjusting for the future in order to match the operating environment and withstand kind of our adversaries. With that in mind, I’d offer three ways that a yearlong continuing resolution, which as noted, we’ve never had before, would have a much greater adverse impact than the previous year’s continuing resolutions, and I’ll start with people, your Marines, and their families.
Now, if we were in a conscript course, we wouldn’t worry much about the impact of an extended CR. An all-volunteer force, on the other hand, relies on volunteers. Volunteers to enlist, volunteers to stay in service. CRs eat away at the trust those Marines and their families have in their government. With no appropriations, I will have to delay and cancel some transfer orders; the incentive pays and bonuses reduced; families won’t know whether to renew their housing leases; spouses won’t know whether to accept the job offer they got last week all due to uncertainty.
The impacts on recruiting and retention will last, I’m confident, well beyond 2022 because you cannot rebuild trust in a week or a month or a year, not in an all-volunteer force. Second, for the Marine Corps, impacts on modernization and the industrial base were especially acute, as a result of force design decisions I’ve taken over the past two years.
We’ve already divested [inaudible] and begun to reinvest in them, which was a prudent plan that this committee recommended I take, and each of you has fully supported to date. Continuing resolutions, however, look in one direction backward. They execute last year’s budget against this year’s priorities. CRs effectively prevent modernization at speed, the speed required for us to keep up the pace that our adversaries have set and sustained.
And here’s the thing about that. We actually stand to be outpaced by China, not because of their speed but because of our failure to comply with our own budgetary processes. Time is the one critical resource, as the undersecretary pointed out, we need to effect real change, and no amount of resources in the future can fight back lost time.
Under a full-year CR, we will delay acquisition of critical Marine Corps Force Design programs. MQ-9A procurement won’t happen. Production increases for F-35Bs, KC-130Js, CH53K aircraft. The Amphibious Combat Vehicle won’t happen. Workers in Southern California; York, Pennsylvania; Dallas-Fort Worth; Camden, Arkansas; Tucson, Arizona; Stratford, Connecticut; and a dozen other locations will be affected.
Those workers need predictability. Actually, there is one predictable outcome of a yearlong CR, and that is that those workers will go elsewhere because they have families to support. Third, we face the prospect of losing the trust and confidence of our allies and partners because commanders will have to scale back its scheduled exercises they have for this year.
And in some cases, they’ll need to cancel. Well, that’s only relevant if your national security strategy depends on allies and partners; ours does. Trust is a big part of what keeps the door open with our partners. Once that door closes, it’s really hard to recover from the damage done to the military relationships.
We should anticipate that some of them will begin to look elsewhere for more reliable, dependable partner. One final point. Sadly, as pointed out, as a military, we’ve become accustomed to a process that fails to deliver a budget on time. And over the past decade of CRs, we’ve learned how to adjust our operating and contracting practices for the continuing resolution that we just assume is going to happen [Audio gap] at behaving badly.
If the past 10 budget cycles are prolonged, we’ll be meeting here again next year to talk about the same things. During that time, the Chinese will launch more than a dozen new surface combatants. They’ll launch patrol craft carrier, capable of carrying long-range anti-ship cruise missiles. They’ll field additional squadrons of fifth-generation aircraft.
We can’t afford to have that meeting here next year. Service chiefs need sufficient, stable, predictable funding to stay in front of our pacing threat to deter our adversaries, and if need be, to fight and win. We haven’t taken any of these extreme actions, not yet. This train wreck in front of us is entirely preventable.
Again, thanks for the opportunity to appear here this morning, and I look forward to your questions.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you, sir. Admiral Gilday, you’re up next, please.
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, Chair DeLauro, Ranking Member Granger, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify with my fellow service chiefs this morning. And Mr. McCord as well. The peace dividend has long passed. We are now in a relentless race with peer competitor.
Every day matters in this critical decade. In the face of a rising China, Navy’s top line, in other words, our buying power has been relatively flat for more than a decade. A yearlong CR will cost us time that can’t be recovered and have irreversible impact to some of our most important programs. This is exacerbated during a time when we’re still fighting the pandemic, as well as, as Ranking Member Calvert mentioned, a seven percent inflation rate on a budget, 60 percent of which already rises above the rate of inflation.
I’d like to briefly summarize what I see as the major impacts in three areas. The first is strategically, the impacts of a yearlong CR will further erode our ability to credibly deter our adversaries. A yearlong CR will yield a smaller, less ready, less capable, and less lethal United States Navy. It will have significant impacts to readiness, modernization, and shipbuilding.
The work that we are pursuing, the once-in-a-century work on our public shipyards will come to a stop. The work that we are doing to invest in a new SSBN, the most survivable leg of our strategic triad, will be put at risk. This [Audio gap]
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Sir, you’ve lost your audio, if you can hear me.
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Can you hear me now?
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
I can hear you now. Thank you.
MICHAEL GILDAY:
I mentioned the impacts on the Columbia program, our SSBN, the most survivable leg of the triad, and the fact that that program has no margin as it replaces submarines that have been in the water for four decades. And lastly, importantly, game-changing investments that we’re making in hypersonics and laser weapons will also be impacted.
The second area the commandant covered, I’ll briefly cover as well and that’s people, will reduce the sections by almost 75 percent and will delay or cancel a change of station moves by more than 50 percent. As the commandant mentioned, families have already been planning for that. Spouses have already been accepting jobs or planning to relocate.
We will withhold reenlistment bonuses and special incentive bonuses that keep our best sailors and their families in the United States Navy. And importantly, we will exacerbate a say-do gap that risks breaking trust, that further risks breaking trust with sailors and their families. And the last area that I think is important to highlight at least for the Navy is the impact on the defensive industrial base.
The impact of COVID and inflation, as I’ve already mentioned, will be magnified by a yearlong CR. It’ll hurt shipbuilders, it’ll hurt aircraft manufacturers and small innovative high-tech companies in all of your districts that have made significant investments on their own in both infrastructure and their workforce to make us a stronger, more capable military.
As others have stated, we are well accustomed to adjusting to short-term CRs as much as they are inefficient and costly, but we’ve become good at it. A yearlong CR is a completely new territory that we have not dealt with before. It will have significant impacts across our military. Our Navy is grateful for the subcommittee’s support, and I look forward to fielding your questions. Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you very much for your testimony. General Raymond, please.
JOHN RAYMOND:
Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, Chair DeLauro, Ranking Member Granger, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify virtually with Mr. McCord and my fellow service chiefs. I also want to thank this committee for your continued leadership and support of the guardians, who I’m privileged to serve alongside with.
The primary focus of the Space Force is to deliver capabilities that give our forces the freedom to maneuver in the time, place, and domain of our choosing. That includes land, sea, air, cyber, and space. We are working to do this at speed, focusing on our core missions and working closely with this committee as we stand up this force.
As you know, space is a contested domain. Threats are increasing and adversaries are challenging our dominance. China recently launched a hypersonic glide vehicle and a fractional — in a fractional orbit, likely capable of delivering weapons. If we can’t track it, we can’t defeat it. Russia’s recent anti-satellite test, which shattered a defunct Russian satellite into thousands of pieces of debris, also threatened the freedom of our forces to operate in the time and place of our choosing.
Our adversaries are accelerating. This is not the time to be slowing the development and fielding of modernized capabilities for our forces. Please allow me to detail how a long-term CR will hurt our ability to address these and other threats. A yearlong CR would reduce the Space Force’s top-line budget by $2 billion, slowing modernization, decreasing readiness, and impacting our ability to compete and deter with China and Russia.
It would decrease research and development for resilient missile warning and missile tracking. It will — and for space domain awareness, protected satellite communications, and precision navigation and timing, all of which are critical capabilities that the joint force needs to operate effectively. It would slow our ability to manage risk and inform future force designs, delaying our ability to modernize to resilient and more mission-capable architectures in the face of growing threats.
It would cut the procurement of two of five planned national security space launch missions, delaying our ability to place previously acquired capability on orbit and putting at risk the cost savings of the National Space Launch Program. It would cut — excuse me, it would cut $800 million intended for the development of classified operational systems designed to deter China and Russia and respond if deterrence fails.
And I can fully describe these capabilities in a closed session. And lastly, most important, it would break trust with our guardians and their families. Because we were established as a lean, mission-focused force, we continue to rely on the Air Force’s airmen and family programs to support our guardians.
General Brown will describe negative impacts to pay, recruiting, retention, airmen programs, all of which would have long-term lasting effects on our guardians and their families as well. A continuing resolution will undoubtedly have negative impacts across the entirety of the joint force, but the effects of the Space Force are particularly acute as we stand up. It would seriously compromise our ability to enhance unity of effort and efficiency, generate mission-ready forces, and deliver the new capabilities the joint force needs to deter and prevail.
Thank you for this opportunity to testify, and I look forward to your questions.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you very much. We will now turn to General Brown. General Brown, please.
CHARLES BROWN:
Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, Chair DeLauro, Ranking Member Granger, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify with Mr. McCord and my fellow service chiefs and to testify on behalf of the 689,000 total force airmen of the United States Air Force. As the nation’s 22nd Air Force chief of staff, I’m humbled to uphold my responsibility to ensure our airmen in our Air Force remain the greatest in the world, both today and tomorrow.
So, actually in my position, I wrote “Accelerate Change or Lose.” Over the last 17 months, I’ve made collaboration a priority to enable acceleration. Back since August of 2020, I’ve engaged with Congress members and staffers nearly 200 times because I believe we must work together on our Air Force’s future and our nation’s security.
I’m pleased that Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act made significant progress. But as you understand, the goals of this important policy will be unrealized absent the dedicated service of this committee and their counterparts to pass an appropriation bill. Unfortunately, a yearlong continuing resolution would stall progress towards today’s readiness and tomorrow’s modernization.
Bottom line, it would have devastating impacts on the Air Force’s ability to retain quality airmen, maintain our readiness, and modernize for tomorrow. Specifically, we would lose $3.5 billion in purchasing power if held to fiscal 2021 budget policy. As much as this affects Air Force physically, the impact it has on our rate of change is more shattering.
Time is irrecoverable. And when you’re working to keep pace against well-resourced and focused competitors, time matters. The yearlong continuing resolution would hinder our airmen’s readiness, resilience, and retention. If held to fiscal year 2021 funding, the Air Force’s military personnel account could lose up to $1 billion.
Critical annual and professional military training for gun reserve airmen will be curtailed or canceled. Vital funding for airmen and guardian programs, programs addressing sexual assault and harassment, suicide prevention, diversity, and inclusion can also be eliminated at a time when they’re most needed.
Additionally, it can eliminate central incentive and retention bonuses, eroding airmen’s trust across current and future multiple-year groups. The yearlong CR could force reductions in our flying hour program, weapons systems sustainment, and facilities sustainment, restoration, and modernization accounts.
It can also slow down and/or freeze hiring of civilians, all impacting Air Force capability, capacity, and readiness. The yearlong CR could impact billions of dollars in worldwide military construction, 78 new start programs for active guardian reserve components for programs such as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, B-21, KC-46, F-35, F-16, and C-130. Further, it will affect vital mission growth at the Air Force base in four states, Air National Guard location across nine states.
Four areas of modernization I want to highlight are the nuclear enterprise, advanced weapons, air dominance platforms, enterprise information technology structure. A yearlong CR could irreversibly delay Ground Based Strategic Deterrent’s initial operating capability past 2029, Long Range Stand Off Weapon by over a year, and the conventional initial operating capability and nuclear certification of the B-21 up to a year.
Additionally, the advancement of our two conventional hypersonic weapons could be prevented. I’d like to point out that our pacing challenges have either modernized our nuclear enterprise and/or our fielding hypersonic systems. Meanwhile, we are still in the beginning phases of both. Moreover, funding for Next Generation Air Dominance, our sixth-generation tactical aircraft system, enabling future air superiority could be reduced.
Finally, vital funding to enterprise information technology modernization could be eliminated, increasing network vulnerability and impacting our contribution to Joint All-Domain Command and Control infrastructure. Although a yearlong CR would decrease our funding, the greater loss will be time. Time that can — we could have spent accelerating today’s readiness and tomorrow’s modernization.
Meanwhile, our competitors’ rate of change is enabling them to approach parity with many of our warfighting capabilities and concepts. A yearlong CR will further erode our advantage and impede the Air Force’s acceleration towards the force of tomorrow. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today, and I look forward to your questions.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you so much, General. And now, we will hear from General Martin. Please, sir, the time is yours.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Chair McCollum, Ranking Member Calvert, Chair DeLauro, and Ranking Member Granger, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, on the behalf of the secretary of the Army, the Honorable Christine Wormuth; and the chief of staff of the Army, General James McConville, thank you for inviting me here today to testify and discuss the impact of continuing resolutions under the part of the Army.
And I also want to especially thank you for recognizing the service of General Odierno. It’s a huge loss. The Army, by doctrine, is the nation’s initial response force to emerging threats. Last year, the Army contributed over 50 percent of the joint forces provided to combatant commanders and 66 percent of the composite directed readiness tables supporting operational planning requirements.
This included responding to and providing continued support through the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, natural disasters, support of our southern border, and the security of the national capital. Total joint emergent costs to the FY ’21 Global Force Management Allocation Plan were $2.8 billion, of which the Army contributed $1.6 billion or 56 percent of the total emergent costs.
The Army responded to these unforeseen requirements, all while continuing to deter aggression abroad, strengthen relationships with allies and partners, conduct counterterrorism operations around the world, and maintain the readiness of our soldiers and our DAC civilians in preparation for the next mission whatever that may be. Simultaneously, to keep pace with any potential adversaries, we’re currently undergoing the most significant transformation effort in the past 40 years to provide the joint force with the most capable and lethal land army in the world.
The ability of the Army to accomplish these diverse tasks wouldn’t be possible without the support from Congress, and we sincerely thank you for that. However, readiness is fragile, and I can’t emphasize enough how important timely, adequate, predictable, and sustained funding is to keeping the Army at the highest state of readiness possible because who knows what tomorrow will bring.
Over the past 10 years, the Department of Defense has started all but one fiscal year under a CR. Although we’ve adapted our business practices to maneuver through this fiscal uncertainty and the effects of the short-duration CRs, a full-year CR would adversely affect our soldiers, our readiness, our modernization program, and our infrastructure improvement efforts.
Monetarily, we assessed that total impact of the Army under a yearlong CR could be as high as $12.9 billion. The impact is even larger when considering the effects of inflation. Included in this number are misaligned funds, as well as funding spread across military pay, research, and acquisition programs, military construction projects, and family housing initiatives.
A few impacts to readiness include pilot readiness due to reduced aviation flying hours, also to base operations support, and a decreased ability to send soldiers to professional military education and properly maintain proficiency in our formations and maintain the readiness of the equipment that they use.
A full-year CR would severely impact our ability to modernize to meet tomorrow’s challenges. The combined effect of delays in procurement and prototype advancement on top of a disruption in timelines for development and construction of critical army and joint technologies may very well create a cumulative impact to our modernization initiatives that would be difficult to overcome.
This includes potential impacts to modernization of our organic industrial base. In summary, a yearlong CR would cause severe impacts to the Army’s ability to care for our soldiers and our families, to our readiness and capability to respond to emerging operational requirements, and to our ability to make the necessary funding decisions required to modernize our force.
The Army strongly urges Congress to pass all FY ’22 appropriation bills to avoid the complex and undesirable effects of a yearlong CR. Again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify before you today, and I look forward to answering your questions.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you so much, General Martin, and thank you for stepping in. Once again, I just want to reiterate, I truly believe it is the wish, the desire, the — the commitment from our entire committee, both sides of the aisle, not to have a yearlong CR and to get our job done. Before we turn to other member questions, I want to enter into the record Secretary Austin’s statement from December, as well as a letter from several defense trade groups, a statement from the Aerospace Industries Association, a letter from the National Defense Industrial Association on the harmful impacts a full-year CR would have on our national security.
So, without objection, those letters will be entered. Now, I’m going to turn to questions, and, as has been the custom and usage, the ranking member and I sometimes go a little over five minutes. So, we haven’t had a timer on, but I do have the timer running on my — my iPhone, so I don’t abuse the — the opportunity that our other committee members have given Mr. Calvert and I. And I’m going to extend that same courtesy to the Full Committee chair and to the Full Committee ranking member when we start with questions.
So, I’m going to start first. And the top line to a full CR would technically stay the same as has been pointed out, but things like pay raises and inflation, as long with funds, that simply could not be spent in 2022, such as $3 billion for Afghan security forces mean that DOD and the services would actually face substantial cuts from 2021 to 2022. And you’ve had that in your testimony, but I just want to reiterate it. A full yearlong CR is a cut, and none of us on this subcommittee want that to happen in such a callous way.
Additionally, the department would lose out on the substantial increase that would be negotiated by a full-year omnibus bill, and I believe we would have a bill that we would all be proud of and would serve the service as well. Undersecretary McCord, I would like to ask you. Does the department have an estimate as to how much funding would essentially be lost under a full-year CR due to cost increases and funds that would not be spent?
MIKE MCCORD:
We would estimate that the lost purchasing power is more on the order of triple the $8 billion account level, only for the reasons that you cite, the military construction, the Afghanistan, other funds that some of the witnesses have to — have included in their testimony that are estimated to be misaligned.
It is very difficult to get a precise number because you have to go down to a program level all across the department. But at the — at the more general level, about triple the $8 billion.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. Generals and Admiral, in some of your testimony, you mentioned how this would really affect modernization and our capabilities vis-a-vis Russia and China, as well as our inability to reduce funding for weapons systems that you would prefer to ramp down spending on 2022. Would any of you like to take another minute to either reemphasize or add to your testimony on that?
JOSEPH MARTIN:
This is General Martin, vice chief of staff of the Army. I’d be happy to.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Please, sir.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Specifically, as it pertains to modernization, a yearlong CR would delay modernization to counter Russia, China persistent threats, and impact our industry partners, and delay modernizing our industrial facilities. There’s second, third effects when you talk about supply chains and everything else.
But for new starts, we have 71 programs that’ll be affected by a yearlong CR. For procurement delays, we have 29 and at developmental days — procurement delays — those are equipment that we planned on procuring. And then developmental delays, research and development activities associated with programs, there’s 32 of them.
Additionally, there’s an impact to the Army-owned industrial facilities where we had planned on modernizing our organic industrial base as part of a 15-year plan. And those activities for this year would not be able to happen and would subsequently be delayed. And so, that would be deferred work. But I’ll tell you, it’s a compounding effect because, Chair, we also would have to, next year, re-prioritize those projects, which means that they could potentially bump another project.
So, it’s almost a double effect on the industrial base, and for that matter, all of those programs that I described. Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. Is there anyone else who briefly would like to add something? We do have your full testimony, or you can submit something for the record later.
CHARLES BROWN:
Chair McCollum, General Brown. We have so many new starts for the Air Force, but I would highlight particularly our nuclear portfolio, each of the key aspects, the GBSD, LRSO, the B-21, will be delayed anywhere from a year up to 24 months. I would also add our Next Generation Air Dominance would — delayed by about two years.
It’ll also impact F-35 by a year. And so, it’s a — it has a compounding impact, just as General Martin described, not just to us but also when you think about what our adversaries are doing and how they’re pacing out. It’s important that we stay on track.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. And as Mr. McCord pointed out, all these delays will end up making things cost more, and it’s an inefficient use of taxpayers’ dollars. I’m going to move on to the president’s pay proposal, the 2.7 percent for all military personnel that went into effect on January 1st. The cost of the pay increase across the services is more than $2 billion in 2022. And the military pay raise is an — is — automatically went into effect at the start of the calendar year. But under a full continuing resolution, that’s not budgeted for. But for the record, both Democrats and Republicans on this subcommittee fully support, and we have in — in my bill the cost covered for the bill for the pay raise. Could you speak briefly to what the military pay raise, by doing that, how that’s going to really impact you under a full year?
Because not only some of you mentioned that they’re going to get the raise, but the other things that go along with the job that they’re looking forward to are going to be delayed because of the CR. And how that would affect recruitment and retention, which, as was pointed out by General Berger, is very important to an all-voluntary army.
MIKE MCCORD:
Chair, let me just make a brief comment that — because of this problem is pretty consistent across the services before I ask them to comment any other detail. Exactly as you state, the – – by definition, under a CR, the amount and the personnel accounts is flat. And so, the pay raise costs have to be absorbed.
The accounts themselves are flexible, but that doesn’t mean that we have good choices within that flexibility. We’re going to have to look at accessions as have been mentioned. And PCS moves for our troops is probably the first and least disruptive things we could do. And then some of the chiefs have mentioned, there’s other things that might be the next things that we’d have to do that are more distasteful, the bonuses.
But again, within a flat account, we have to do something within — within the personnel accounts to absorb costs and find some other way to save money. And that’s going to have to be impacting our troops in another way.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. If any of the other gentlemen would like to add something, that’s fine. Other than that — yes? Did somebody wish to be recognized?
JOHN RAYMOND:
Chair McCollum, this is General Raymond.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
General Raymond, you’re recognized.
JOHN RAYMOND:
You know, one of the — one of the biggest benefits that we’ve realized after establishing the Space Force is our ability to attract incredible talent. This talent is highly technical. It’s highly educated, and it’s sought after. And they have other options. And if we enter into this delay and have to reduce accessions and put hiring freezes in place to help pay for the muchneeded and deserved pay raise, they’re going to go to other places.
And those are people that we will not be able to get back. So, to do that, we’re going to have to come up with ways as discussed — putting hiring freezes in place, potentially, reducing accessions, cutting PCS travel. It’s going to impact not just the guardians but also their families.
Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. And I think you all did a great job of mentioning that. With that, I am going to turn it over to Ranking Member Calvert with the notion that I had — I was six minutes and — well, I’m going to round up. I was about seven minutes. So, that — that’s going to be the max for — for the next three speakers, questioners. Mr. Calvert.
KEN CALVERT:
Thank you, Madam Chair. And for the record, I’d like to say that BCA was certainly a disaster for the Department of Defense. And two, no one wants a CR. And I know you don’t. I don’t. Most responsible people don’t. And we’d all want to get this done by February 18th. I think that’s — I think that, at the very latest, we need to get this done.
So, I’m going to emphasize again, let’s strip these poison pills, let’s put the legacy riders back in, and let’s just talk about numbers. Higher defense number, lower non-defense discretionary account — let me define pay raise as we talk about that. Obviously, the pay raise that we — that we’re anticipating is really a down payment on inflation because, let’s face it, we’re not keeping pace with inflation with a seven percent inflation rate and rising.
We may end up with eight to 10 percent inflation in the next — in the next year according to some economists. So, let me get to what’s happening to — to our defense spending. It’s no secret. This hearing is at — is, obviously, on an unclassified level. It’s broadcast on the internet. There’s no doubt that our enemies are watching at the present time.
While we are frozen, unable to properly provide for our nation’s defense, our adversaries are planning to react accordingly. Admiral Gilday, please give this committee your assessment, a probable Chinese activity regarding Taiwan over the next year and what an invasion of the island would mean for the — for America and its allies.
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Ranking Member Calvert, thank you. So, I mentioned up front in my comments that what the CR does — what the CR yields for the nation is a smaller, less-ready, less-capable, lesslethal Navy. We need to be forward to matter. We need to be in the way to matter. That means we need to be in the western Pacific, and we need to be there in numbers.
And so, being able to sustain the numbers that the INDOPACOM commander needs in a day-to-day basis, both Navy and Marine forces, as well as the other services, is going to be challenged by cuts to our operation — operations and maintenance accounts. I’d also say that there are some risk there when we talk about — for example, one of the chiefs talked about cuts to flying hours. With that usually comes an increase in mishap rates. So, the less you train, the more likely you are to make mistakes. And so, there’s compounding problems here that we’re going to have to deal with. But I think — you know, I also talked about the fact that this makes us a less-credible — it presents a less-credible deterrent to any type of opportunistic behavior by Russia and China.
And it’s not just China in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, but we just have to look east right now to what’s going on on the Russian — Russia-Ukrainian border and the potential for significant activity there as well.
KEN CALVERT:
Yeah, I was glad you brought that up, Admiral. I was going to ask General Martin to give the committee his assessment on probable Russian activity regarding Ukraine over the next few months and what further invasion into the country would mean for America and its allies, especially the first ground war since the end of World War II.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Congressman, thank you. What I’ll tell you is we’re in the business of making sure that never happens. And so, to do that, we need predictable, adequate, timely, and sustained funding over time. And in order to do that, we’ve got to have soldiers who are ready today for tomorrow’s challenges.
Who knew that we would be conducting the NEO operation out of Afghanistan last year? Who knew that we’d be in Ethiopia this year? Who knew that we’d be doing Operation Allies Welcome? Those are all expressions of the Army’s ability to provide ready forces to respond to things that happen in the world. As it pertains to securing this nation’s interests, we need a ready army. And so, we need that consistent, predictable funding in order to be able to do that.
For our readiness accounts, we’ve asked for more money in ’22. And many of these subactivity groups that we did in ’21, we won’t be able to use that money to do that. And so, our units as we speak in month four of a 12-year plan — budget are — are executing their training, but it’s not at the level that we planned on doing because we don’t have all of the funding that we should have gotten with the ’22 budget.
So, even right now, if we stop the CR today, there’s been a four-month impact in the United States Army. There’s also the — the — the supply chain that provides parts to our forces that’s impacted by this because they expected to execute so many — so much operational activity this year. And with that decrease, there’s an impact on our ability to forecast sales within the working capital fund and make contracts between that entity and contractors and suppliers across this country.
And so, it’s a huge impact when we can’t predict accurately, exactly how much money we’re going to have, and we change what we’re planning to do because we’re all about building readiness in the United States Army, Congressman.
KEN CALVERT:
Thank you. Lastly, General Brown is [inaudible] referred to Rummel. I read the book, and I read — in the process of reading your book, “Accelerate Change or Lose,” we’re clearly not accelerating. So, what’s at stake, and how are our adversaries are taking advantage of our inability to adapt to the current threat environment, especially in space?
CHARLES BROWN:
I’ll actually probably have to defer to General Raymond on space, but I’ll just tell you from — from the Air Force perspective, the thing I do think about, Ranking Member Calvert, is the aspect of our adversaries are increasing their capability. It puts us at a disadvantage. And — and by slowing down our pace of acquiring capability, maintaining our readiness, taking care of our airmen and families has an impact to be able — to be able to [inaudible] we don’t get the situation that General Martin just described vis-a-vis Russia and Ukraine.
I’ll just — if you don’t mind, I’ll turn to General Raymond on space.
JOHN RAYMOND:
On the space capability, sir, we’re — we remain the best in the world in space. We’ve got incredible, exquisite capabilities, but they are built for a different domain. They’re built for a benign domain without a threat. The domain that we see today is — is threat from a full — full spectrum of threats, everything from a reversible jamming to kinetic destruction as demonstrated by Russia.
We have to modernize. We have to make that shift, and we are losing time. That’s why this — not having a CR is so critical to us. We have to move out, modernize a more resilient, defendable architecture that can meet the demands of a contested domain.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you very much, gentlemen.
KEN CALVERT:
Thank you. I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
And, Mr. Calvert, you and I were — we’re right — right in the sweet spot with the same amount of time. So, now I will turn to full — full chair of the Appropriations Committee, Ms. DeLauro.
ROSA DELAURO:
Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to make a comment first before my questions. The debate over riders is going to occur, and as far as I know about negotiating, an ultimatum is not — is not negotiating. As has been in the fast — in the past, there will be a very robust debate around policy issues and riders.
And, you know, the fact is I may not get everything that I want, and you might not get everything that you want. But that is about a negotiation, and that means that you need to come to the table to have that conversation. And as I said, to date, there has not been a single piece of paper outlining what it is that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like.
There has to be a discussion, especially, and looking at why would we jeopardize our national security. There’s already been a four-month delay and, as has been described, causing serious consequences and our adversaries gaining an advantage. And with that, let me ask those who have not really addressed the issue of the importance of recruiting and retraining and — in order to recruit and to retain the best fighting force.
We — when we talk about military readiness, each of the services faces a unique challenge on the military personnel side, whether you’ve got a pilot shortage or appropriately manning ships. So how would — and I want to ask those who have not answered this question. How would a full year see or impact the services — your services’ ability to recruit and to retain the force you need to meet the challenges that our nation is facing?
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
[inaudible] being respectful of one another, so who would ever like to go first.
ROSA DELAURO:
That’s right. Don’t be shy.
DAVID BERGER:
Ma’am, this is General Berger.
ROSA DELAURO:
Yes.
DAVID BERGER:
I think probably for us, no different than the other services. If you have a fixed bank account and you — you have the force that you have, the inflation has gone up, and you have a pay raise, then you’re going to slow down recruiting. And what does that mean? That means that the recruiter in Iowa or Colorado or Pennsylvania is going to have to tell the people that they’re working with, “I can’t bring you onto — I can’t bring you onto active duty.
I can’t recruit you now. Can you please wait eight, 10, 12 months? And then we can bring you on.” And as my peers mentioned, of course, they can’t wait. They’re — you know, they need jobs. They’re going to go look for work elsewhere. So, they’re very — the war for talent, the -that is the — that is the world today.
They are not going to wait, just as General Raymond said. But I think the recruiter — at the recruiter level, at the bottom level, they’re going to try to hold onto their pool and tell them to wait, wait, wait, and those — those — they are the high school graduates. The college graduates are not going to be able to wait.
So, a year from now, in other words, when — when we do have appropriations, and we can’t afford to start recruiting in the numbers we need, the quality won’t be [inaudible]. So, the recruiters will have to look at different directions just to fill the ranks, the holes that we have. Retention, I think, will be the same way.
If we have to go the route of bonuses, if we start to affect retention, then the same war for talent exists for those who have six, seven, 10 years of experience. They’ll leave. They’ll leave because they have to support their families, and they need some confidence that their — their employer has their back and is going to compete in that market.
If that’s not the case, they’ll leave. Now, I’ll turn it over to my other peers.
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Ma’am, this is Admiral Gilday. Let me just also tie together accessions and retention real quick. As Secretary McCord mentioned, the way we’re going to pay for that 2.7 percent pay raise is through cutting accessions, cutting reenlistment bonuses, incentive bonuses, and also by reducing permanent change of station moves.
So for the Navy, we’ve got about 145,000 sailors at sea. Over the past year — a year ago, we had 10,000 of those billets that were gapped. We’ve been able to cut that down by more than half. So about three percent of our billets at sea right now are gapped, and we adjust to make up for that.
If we cut our accessions by 75 percent, that — that’s 23,000 sailors. We are, again, going to exacerbate that gap at sea in a place where we need it least. At the same time, we’ll try to entice sailors, our best sailors, to stay in the Navy. So, we’re cutting those — and their families. We’re not just retaining sailors.
We’re retaining families. We’re going to have to cut reenlistment bonuses, incentive of bonuses to keep the best in. So, that’s also going to exacerbate that — those gaps at sea again, where we need those people and most — at the tip of the spear. And then with respect to PCS moves, so we’re going to reduce those by, we think, around 37,000, which is about half of our moves for next year.
Those are families — as the commandant so eloquently articulated earlier in his comments, there are people that have already taken jobs, spouses that are already planned on taking jobs, school plans that have been made that are going to have to be — they’re going to have to be curtailed. And then we, again, risk breaking faith with our sailors and their families.
Thanks for the opportunity, ma’am.
ROSA DELAURO:
OK.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Chair, may I say a couple of things, too?
ROSA DELAURO:
Please, yes. Thank you, General.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
So, I agree with everything that General Berger and Admiral Gilday said. These are measures that we may have to do in the United States Army. But I can tell you that there’s a couple of things I know for sure that are going to happen as a result of this. And once again, we’ve got eight months left in the year.
We’ve got to — we’ve got to watch things very closely, prioritize, but God forbid if we have to do it. But — so, we’re going to — we’re going to bring in a full cohort of our second lieutenants out of ROTC and West Point. But as it pertains to ROTC, about 25 percent of them are not going to start their initial entry training as officers until the beginning of the fiscal year because we won’t have enough MTSA funding.
This is funding used to travel to professional military education available. Additionally, a 10 — one of those sub-activity groups I talked about with the misaligned over resources is one that pertains to funding basic training. And so, we’ve got a $10.2 million reduction that’s going to lead to a degradation of the quality of our basic training.
And we see that as significant because of how important initial entry training is. But those are the two additions I wanted to make to the previous statements of my other fellow colleagues.
ROSA DELAURO: Thank you.
CHARLES BROWN:
And Chair DeLauro, I’ll just make one additional comment. I think the thing that — we talked about some of the near-term impacts, but — when we [inaudible] the Air Force will be about 50 percent of our accession. But what you’ll see that it’s not just the near term. It’s a long-term because you will have a bathtub of airmen that will not be here throughout a 20- year career.
And that’s something we’ve got to pay attention to as well anytime we have these types of delays in accessions. Thank you.
ROSA DELAURO:
Is there anyone that we missed in terms of asking that — answering that question? If not, thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
I’m looking at the layout here to see if maybe she’s just muted here. Is she — Ms. Granger, it’s your time for questions. We cannot hear you, however. KAY GRANGER: OK, we’re fixing that.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
It’s good now.
KAY GRANGER:
Mmm hmm.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
You magically fixed it.
KAY GRANGER:
One thing that I want to start out with, it’s just — I think there’s a misunderstanding about where we’ve been. We are not saying we want a continuing resolution. We’re saying how do we get this done. But it concerns me. We gave you an offer. Just because you didn’t like the offer doesn’t mean that we didn’t give an offer, and we did, and then it just stopped. And so, a way forward is to get back together and say, “All right, how do we work this out?” But I am concerned that there’s a misunderstanding about — about the offer that we had and the way forward.
UNKNOWN:
And then you can ask your question.
KAY GRANGER:
What?
UNKNOWN:
You can ask your question.
ROSA DELAURO:
Madam Chair, in fact, there has not been an offer. So, they have to correct the record.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
There’s not been an offer of money on the table. That’s correct. Ms. Granger, do you have a question?
UNKNOWN:
Yeah, just go ahead and ask your question.
KAY GRANGER:
OK. My first question. Every member of this subcommittee is greatly concerned about China’s rapid military modernization. Could each of the services share how long-term CR would inhibit our ability to compete with adversaries like China?
UNKNOWN:
The purpose.
KAY GRANGER:
Are they still available?
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
They’re still available. I haven’t been calling on them. They’ve been kind of volunteering on their own. This one — I’m a — I’m a former substitute high school teacher. I can start calling on you, gentlemen, if — or Ms. Granger.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
I will first — Chair, if you’d like.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Certainly. Good to see you, Mr. Martin
JOSEPH MARTIN:
OK. As — as it pertains to China, it’s the same as Russia. It’s the same for any adversary that’s threatening the security of this nation. Long-term CR will impact our ability to provide ready forces today, make sure that we could take care of our soldiers and their family members and our civilians and the infrastructure and the ecosystem that surrounds them.
It’ll impact our ability to modernize. For the Army, it’s 71 new start programs, 29 procurement delays, 32 developmental delays, and several items in the organic industrial base that we will not be able to modernize. We — it impacts our ability to compete today and compete tomorrow. And so, a long-term CR has a significant impact on the United States Army.
Thank you.
KAY GRANGER:
Thank you.
CHARLES BROWN:
Ranking Member Granger, General Brown from the Air Force. I would highlight that, you know, when I think about the PRC and what we’ve seen them do over the course of the past several months in relation to their nuclear portfolio, this has an impact — a yearlong CR impacts our nuclear portfolio by delaying GBSD by a year, LRSO by 18 to 24 months, the B21 by about a year, and the modernization of the B-52 by a year as well.
I’d also add to that the slowdown of the F-35 by about a year, which will be very important to any type of deterrence and/or capability. I would say the same thing with NGAD. It would delay it for at least two years. And so, what you see is a series of capabilities that would actually provide us [inaudible] advantage, ensure we maintain, at least, you know, advantage if not parity in certain key warfighting capabilities and concepts.
And a yearlong CR actually allows our adversary just to continue their acceleration while we are, I would say, stuck in neutral. Thank you.
JOHN RAYMOND:
I would — this General Raymond from Space Force. I would add as it relates to China. China has gone from zero to 60 in space. They are moving at incredible speeds and doing two things: one, building space capabilities for their own use to have that same advantage that we currently enjoy; and two, developing capabilities to deny us our access.
As I mentioned in my opening comment, we — we view our ability to provide space capabilities and the advantage that they provide to our joint forces a sacred duty. And you can’t take that for granted anymore. The continuing resolution is going to impact our ability to modernize our forces to be — to be there in the face of a growing threat or reduce our readiness and will hinder long-term impacts to our guardians and their families.
Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Anyone else wishing to comment?
DAVID BERGER:
Yes. This is General Berger. Just perhaps one or two things, building on what my peers have stated.
KAY GRANGER:
[inaudible]
DAVID BERGER:
We’re going to treat — we’re going to treat it like — like probably a surgeon would treat a patient, in other words, treat us. You have to put the forces forward that can handle a crisis of the moment. You’re going to take risk in areas that this budget — that increase of research and development, things like that, that [inaudible]. And your peers are going to — your peers are going to go ahead.
The competition is going to make that investment. You’re not. So in terms of relative pace, they’re going to move forward quickly because they’re stealing our technology, plus they’re investing fully in research and development. We’ll be at — we’ll be at flat. And we cannot make that up, that research and development time lost.
You can’t make that up with money a year from now. That’s time lost you cannot catch up because the laboratories — research and development, you just can’t accelerate it by so much. I think we approach it like you would a patient. We’ll have the — they’re least ready when the nation — the most ready when the nation is least ready.
We’ll put that forward. We’ll hold the door best we can, and we’ll fall farther behind in areas where we should be, at least [inaudible] should be and actually should be in front. That’s where we’ll pay a price. We can’t — we will not be able to catch up.
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Ma’am, this is Admiral Gilday. Adding on to the other — what the other two have said. They’re accelerating. We are decelerating, right? So, in areas where we want to — we want to close on known gaps with China, as an example. Hypersonics would be a really good example of that, right? The Army wants to fill the system in ’23. The Navy wants to follow along with that same system shipboard based in ’25. We are going to slow that program down if we can’t move money around to keep it alive.
Another area where we have over match right now, where we want to maintain that over match would be in the undersea, right? And so, we want to keep on building submarines. And the submarines that we have, we want to be able to continue to maintain them, to sustain them.
So, based on a yearlong CR, we will delay doing maintenance on 10 percent of our submarine force. That’s five submarines. We’re not going to do maintenance on them. We’re going to move it. We’re going to push that down the road. We know what the cost has been to that in the past, and we’re going to do it again.
We’re going to do the same thing with two aircraft carriers. We need those carriers in the water, and we need them forward, you know, fully maintained, but we’re going to stop that. In areas where we have gaps, we’re trying to catch up. Another good example would be weapons with range and speed. That’s where we’re putting money.
But we’re going to slow that down and important areas where those gaps are going to be exacerbated as the Chinese continue, as General Berger said, to do their R and D and increase their production lines. And I’ll pause there.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. Thank you all very much. Next, we have up Mr. Ryan, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Cuellar, and Mr. Cole. Mr. Ryan? And the five-minute clock will start.
TIM RYAN:
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity. Just a quick comment. You know, all the discussions around the budget and the appropriations and that be — in the context of us trying to compete and outcompete China. I mean, it’s very, very clear that these conversations we’re having around defense, technology are critically important.
But there’s no way you outcompete China when our kids are going to McDonald’s to download their homework because they don’t have access to quality internet. There’s no way we’re going to be able to outcompete them if they’re producing 600,000 STEM graduates a year, and we’re producing 60. And that’s why the investments that — that we’re trying to make here are critical for us to be able to outcompete them.
And you’re just not going to outcompete China by cutting taxes for the top one percent and hoping that somehow, someway, we’re going to have 330 million people healthy, educated, skilled, and innovative to take them on. It’s just not going to happen. We’ve tried it for 30 or 40 years, so to me, there’s got to be a whole-of-government approach.
And I think it’s important for us to keep that in mind. I’ve got a couple of questions that are local to Ohio that I would love to get answers to. One of them is the procurement of additional M1A2 SEPv3 systems. The M1 Abrams tank provides the lethality and sophistication necessary to counter Russia and the Chinese Communist Party.
Their third-generation platforms enhance readiness to our military while providing economic stability to the state of Ohio. And the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center in Lima, Ohio, provides nearly 1,000 jobs within the local community, generates millions of dollars in economic growth, and involves over 700 different Ohio-based suppliers in the manufacturing process.
And the provisions of the FY 2022 defense bill would procure 70 additional tanks and variants and strengthen our ability to counter near-peer adversaries. So, this is a critical thing that I’m really worried about with the CR. So, I would like to ask General Martin. What role does this funding instability and unpredictability play in your resourcing decisions on programs like the Abrams upgrade?
What are the strategic implications of delaying manufacturing as a result of the CR? And additionally, I know Poland announced plans for FMS procurement of 250 tanks to counter Russia aggression within the region. Can you provide an update to the status of that request?
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you, Mr. [inaudible]
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Thank you for your question, Congressman. What I can tell you, comparing ’21 and ’22, there will be no significant impact to our plan to produce the Abrams SEPv3 vehicles — A2 SEPv3 vehicles at JSMC. And I’ll also tell you that we are not anticipating any related impact to the workforce. There is an impact that I’d like to discuss that I think is worthy of your awareness.
And that is we had two organic industry-based improvement projects planned for ’22 — that would start in ’22. They’re new starts, and so they’ll have to be delayed by a year and then compete against other demands across the board. But it was to modernize some of the infrastructure to support not only tank but also striker production, but also to improve the heating and cooling system or the HVAC system.
So, those will have to be delayed. As it pertains to Poland, we’re in the process of talking to Poland, and we’re looking how we can best meet their needs. Thank you, Congressman.
TIM RYAN:
I’m sorry, you’re breaking up there, General. Can you — what was that you said at the end about Poland?
JOSEPH MARTIN:
We’re in the process and we’re considering — we’re discussing this with them. We’re considering the best way to meet their needs. That’s where we’re at right now, Congressman.
TIM RYAN:
OK. Thank you. A couple of questions, just kind of — that are very local in nature. At the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, for our friends in the — in the Air Force, we had $8.7 million to expand the Air Reserve Station assault strip, which provides infrastructure to support C-17 and C-130 aircraft, which is critical to maintaining readiness, as you know.
How would the CR impact the viability of the air station and its operational capabilities should the infrastructure project be delayed further? And then also, the issue with the C130J platform integration, we’ve been talking about this for years. And as you know, the C130J platform provides additive capabilities, enhancing the system’s aerial capabilities in support of its global mission.
The ’21 defense bill provided two C-130J platforms for YARS, and the ’22 bill would secure four additional platforms. How does any further delay in the procurement of C-130J aircraft affect the specialized mission of the 910th Airlift Wing and their aerial spraying mission and the longevity of YARS as a combat multiplier?
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Sir, you have about a minute to answer that great question from Mr. Ryan.
CHARLES BROWN:
Sure. On the assault runway project, well, it does impact the training rounds for — not just for Youngstown but, really, for a number of training units around the Northeast. The challenge here is that we won’t get — gain that savings as far as fuel and time-distance for training. At the same time, with — with increased construction costs, it will be an issue because it’ll be more expensive in the long run.
On the second question here, with the continuing resolution, what happens then is we do not have enough C-130s to actually start another basing action to — whether it’s there at Youngstown, with the great mission they do, or any place else just based on a CR not having enough C-130s to actually start a basing action going forward. Thank you.
TIM RYAN:
I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you.
TIM RYAN:
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Certainly. Mr. Rogers, you are now recognized. And after Mr. Rogers, over to Mr. Cuellar, Mr. Cole, and then Ms. Bustos. Mr. Rogers, you’re recognized as the former chair of this subcommittee.
HAL ROGERS:
Well, I thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for holding the hearing. Let me apologize to the witnesses. In this hearing, we require them to spend valuable hours doing research, but we all know what the answer is. I mean, there’s appropriators, especially members of this Defense Subcommittee. We know that CR is not good for the military, exhibit A. It comes as no surprise then that their — their testimony will say that CR is not good for the country.
Bad for our servicemembers, they are bad for our readiness, for research, development, for the procurement of new systems, for our industrial base, and everything in between. CR is for our national security. We all know that. So, why have a hearing on something that we all know is — should be admitted?
BETTY MCCOLLUM: [inaudible]
HAL ROGERS:
So, this — this hearing was called to score political points, try to bring pressure on the Republican side of the aisle, but this would harm the military. Well, surely it does. But it’s the Democrats who are in charge and causing it, including taking all this valuable time from very important people to tell us what we already know.
It’s surprising, and honestly, it’s disappointing. So, I apologize to all of you in the Pentagon that are being used as pawns in these budget negotiations. And I can certainly think of better uses of your time and ours. Well, thank you for all your lifetimes of service. Rest assured that we share the same goal of preventing another CR. Let’s be clear, Madam Chair, that the framework for success in this business we’re in has always been no poison pills in these bills and restore legacy riders.
I’ve been at this a long time. So, let’s not have any revisionist history. This is what we’ve always done. You’re not doing so far on this bill. This is about decreasing domestic spending and increasing defense spending. Well, Madam Chair, that’s all I have, and I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. And you know how much I do respect you, but this was not my effort to take political shots. This was my effort to quash those who are — are talking about yearlong CRs. No one, no one on the — on the Appropriations Committee is, yet you see things in the news. And unfortunately, sir, it’s usually from your side of the aisle.
And I’ll quote again, and it’s a December 1st quote, and I can get you the gentleman — the person who said it. “Republicans should be in favor of a CR until Biden is out of office.” So, they’re not even talking about a one-year CR. “That would be the proper Republican thing to do, and anybody saying otherwise is deeply foolish.” I know you and I, sir, do not agree with that sentiment, and my — my — my goal here is to educate other members who don’t understand the appropriations process as well as you and I and many other of our colleagues that we serve alongside with.
So, I understand your frustration, but I want to — I want to be clear what my — my intent was, and I wanted that on the record. Mr. Cuellar.
HENRY CUELLAR:
Thank you, Madam Chair, and to all our witnesses, thank you for being here with you all. You know, when you look at — we don’t like CRs. We don’t want to see a CR. We want to make sure that we — as appropriators, I think both sides want to make sure that we do our work and at the money. But the military has operated under CRs in the past, short-term CRs, but it’s operator of CRs. Are there any strategies that any of the services plans to implement to minimize the effects of the CRs on our ability to maintain the readiness of our troops? You know, it’s — we learned some lessons. We don’t want to see another CR. I think none of us here want to see another CR, definitely not a long — a yearlong CR. But are there any lessons learned that we have taken from past CRs?
MIKE MCCORD:
Congressman, let me just open with saying we have — as a number of members have — have stated, we have a lot of experience, sadly, now with CR. So, we certainly have some lessons learned. But in general, there’s no — there’s no strategy to combat math, right? If you don’t have enough money, you can’t — you can’t operate the way you need to. You can’t pay — you can’t pay the troops more pay raise with the same amount of money and not have an impact come out some other way.
Yes, we have adapted on the contracting side, and we’re thinking about prioritization. You’ve heard some of the chiefs mentioned, I would probably have to do A and do B and do C. But again, this is fundamentally a math problem.
HENRY CUELLAR:
OK. Let me ask this question. So, we’re looking at the CR from our perspective — a highlevel perspective. Tell me, from your experience or — and this applies to General Martin or anybody, tell me how that affects an enlisted person on a day-to-day basis under a CR.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Congressman, thank you. So, let’s talk about someone that’s at Fort Bliss, Texas, and they had planned to execute multi-echelon training and were unable to execute multi-echelon training because the resources were not there. We had to — we had to take the training, and we had to take it a level or two down from where it was.
So, where they were going to gain a certain amount of proficiency doing their military occupational specialty under the conditions of a multi-echelon training environment, they’re not going to have that opportunity to do that. In the Army, we’re not going to turn off CTC or Combat Training Center rotations because of the CR, but we’re going to have to take a hard look at what multi-echelon training we’re doing at home station, places where we build readiness each and every day.
And of course, as it pertains to that soldier, take that soldier 18 months from now, because of the impact of the metered funding and the less-than-anticipated funding going into our supply chains, there’s going to be an impact on our ability to provide that soldier a part on his vehicle 18 months from now that we would have been able to today if we had predictable funding because of the lagged effect it’ll have on an industry base and its ability to produce those parts for our soldiers of the future.
HENRY CUELLAR:
General, thank you so much. I appreciate that — that impact on the enlisted soldier down there, whether it’s Fort Bliss or Joint Base San Antonio or wherever it might be or somewhere close to Carter — John Carter’s area, Fort Hood also. Let me, before I close — because I got about a little bit over a minute.
You know, I lost one of my constituents, Lance Corporal David Lee Espinoza, in Afghanistan, you know, part of the 13 soldiers that got killed at the very end. The FY appropriations had certain funds toward Afghanistan operations. And maybe you all have answered this, but if you don’t mind repeating this again, what are those funds going to be used now?
How — what are the reprogramming of those funds? What are the priorities that we’re looking at if there’s a CR — yearlong CR?
MIKE MCCORD:
Congressman, the funding to support the Afghan military, the so-called ASFF training, those funds are basically not usable now because there is no — there is no, you know, Afghan forces that meet the legal standards. So, that money would basically be something that — if your committee writes a full-year bill, I would anticipate you would — you would take all the money and redistribute it to other needs.
But we are unable to do that for you or with you under a CR. Of course, there are reductions in other areas because we have less presence ourself within the Army’s account, in particular. But those things focused specifically on Afghanistan are just — that money is sort of sitting there frozen and not useful because it’s — we don’t have enough transfer authority to move all of that to other needs.
HENRY CUELLAR:
All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Thank you to the witnesses.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. We’re going to have Mr. Cole go next. After him, Ms. Bustos, Mr. Womack, and then Ms. Kirkpatrick. I recognize my friend, the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Cole.
TOM COLE:
Thanks very much, Madam Chair. And I want to begin by associating myself with the comments of Ranking Member Granger and Ranking Member Calvert in terms of their concerns. I think Representative Calvert pointed pretty well when he said, “Look, the outline of the deal here is pretty obvious. The defense number has got to go up, and the domestic number has got to come down to some degree.” Once the bill’s going to go out, Hyde has to go back in, and I think we all know that.
And I want to commend the chairwoman of the Full Committee because nobody’s worked harder to try and get everybody around the table than our chairwoman. And nobody’s been more aggressive about trying to be tough on datelines than our chairwoman, you know, trying to restrict the time, trying to make sure that we got this done in a timely fashion so that the folks at the Pentagon and every other agency of government could plan and use the resources we give them wisely.
So, I’ve got very little criticism for this subcommittee — none for this subcommittee; frankly, very little for our Full Committee. I will say this as a suggestion before I get to my — my question. Just, well, maybe beyond us, Madam Chair, we may need, number one, the leadership of both parties to sit down and get engaged from both the House and the Senate.
I know they’ve got a lot of different responsibilities, but I think their big one is funding the government. And I would say the same thing, with all due respect, and I mean this respectfully, for the president, the administration. The president has been a pretty busy guy. He got some things done, you know, the COVID relief bill, infrastructure bill.
He’s working on things now. He’s not having as much success on [inaudible], you know, changing the filibuster, voting legislation, Build Back Better bill. Maybe he needs to focus on funding the government that he heads, and maybe we need a White House convention here because we’re not going to get some of these decisions transcend this committee.
This subcommittee has very little to do with Hyde, you know, but Hyde certainly is going to impact our ability to get our job done. So, we’re going to have to get some people above our level engaged in — in the process. And the president, at the end of the day, is the commander in chief, is responsible for the military.
And we need some focus here, not on some of these other agendas that, frankly, are stalling out right now. Now, in terms of this specific hearing, let me ask a couple of questions. I want to go first to General Brown if I may. I’m fortunate enough to have Tinker Air Force Base in my district, and I know how important logistics are and just the maintenance of what you have.
So, I would like to ask you what a CR would do. Number one, we’re expanding capabilities down there for the KC-46 and for other potential missions, looking ahead, we might pick up. And then, number two, just the day-to-day maintenance of what’s, frankly, an aging air fleet. You know, what will a CR do in terms of your ability to take care of those kinds of problems?
CHARLES BROWN:
Thank you, Representative Cole. And, you know, specifically, I mean, very broadly, the CR will have a number of challenges that — for a number of our depots, and really, our weapons systems sustainment accounts will also be impacted. When you think, really, about Tinker, one of the things — when I had the chance to visit there was the site for the KC-46 aspects for the depot.
That — it will be one of those that would not get done if we had a yearlong CR. And that would get delayed, which would impact our being able to sustain that particular platform. I think the other aspect, we’ve looked at WSS and our depots. When you have this aging fleet that we do have, it does also impact the workforce.
And if you don’t have the funding there to balance that workforce to actually go against the platforms we’re trying to work through, in addition to the parts and the spares and supply chain, all those things kind of come together that have an impact. And then the other part of a CR also offer the investment not only with the Air Force but also with our industry partners and the small business and vendors that help support us. They don’t have a predictable funding flow, and so you don’t bring on the workforce.
You don’t bring on the parts. It just slows everything down for us. It’ll have a huge impact on our readiness across the Air Force. And then a lot of that will end up going on the back burner. And we don’t want that, and then it becomes a retention issue. So, it just — there’s compounding impacts with a yearlong CR. Thank you.
TOM COLE:
Appreciate that very much. And, Madam Chair, I may be out of time. If not, I’ve got a quick question for General Martin, which he partly covered earlier, but I also –
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thirty seconds. Go for it.
TOM COLE:
OK. Thank you, Madam Chair. Also privileged to have Fort Sill in my district and a couple of the modernization missions that have been laid out by the Army or our base there. And, General Martin, from a modernization standpoint, I know we are in a very serious contest with near-peer adversaries. What would a CR do in terms of setting back your efforts to have the force ready to deal with, God forbid, you know, the kinds of adversaries that have — well, we haven’t fought in a long time, that have armor, that have air forces, that have comparable technical capabilities to what the United States military has?
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Congressman, it’s good seeing you again, and thank you for the question. I’ll just — I’ll try to put this as simply as I could. You know, our chief of staff of the Army, General McConville, stated previously that we’ve got 24 of our 31+4 signature programs are going to be, in some form or fashion, in the hands of soldiers.
Whether it’s in an operational testing environment, a soldier touchpoint, or actually fielding it, 24 of those programs will be out there by 2023. Well, without the funding that would be associated with the restraints of the CR, 19 of those 24 programs will be impact — the timing of those programs will be impacted.
So, that’s a huge impact. And once again, as my colleagues have all said so aptly, you can’t get back time, but it’s also — the resources that we could have spent this year, we’re going to have to spend next year, which means it’s twice the cost. And so, it’s a huge impact on our modernization and maintaining our ability to compete in the future.
Thank you.
TOM COLE:
Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Ms. Bustos, Mr. Womack, then Ms. Kirkpatrick, and Mr. Carter. And I have to step out for a minute, so Mr. Cuellar has the gavel. Ms. Bustos.
CHERI BUSTOS:
Yes, thank you very much, Madam Chair. And I also want to thank you and the ranking member for having this hearing today. And I want to thank our witnesses as well for your service and your leadership. And certainly, during these uncertain times, obviously, I — whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, we can all agree that national security is critical to all of us, and funding the Department of Defense reliably and on time is something that, and I think we all know, is desirable.
Let me start if I could, please, with General Martin. I’d like to ask you a question about the modernization efforts at the Army. In the congressional district that I serve in Illinois, we are home to the Rock Island Arsenal. And as you know, that sits on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River, between the states of Iowa and Illinois.
And the arsenal is home to the Army’s Center of Excellence for Additive and Advanced Manufacturing. And right now, the Center of Excellence is working on, really, just some amazing new research into the next-generation combat vehicle. And it will soon be home to the world’s largest metal 3D printer that is actually being manufactured in the northern part of our congressional district out of Rockford.
So, that will go from Rockford being manufactured and then come down to the Quad Cities. But this program is critical to the future of the arsenal and, we believe, also to the future of the Army. So, General Martin, if you could share your thoughts about how a yearlong continuing resolution would impact major acquisitions and research programs within the Army and if any thoughts that you have specific to the Rock Island Arsenal as well.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Congresswoman, I am not tracking any direct impacts to Rock Island Arsenal, but what I’ll tell you is it’s a great example of the need and our executing a long-term organic industrial base modernization program so that we can meet the needs of the future. That being said, there are other organic industrial base modernization efforts that we are planning on doing this year but won’t be able to do it because we won’t be able to use the ’22 funds for a new start.
But across the modernization programs for the Army, new starts, 71 programs effected, where Rock Island Arsenal indirectly supports those programs? I don’t know, but I’ll bet there’s an impact. I don’t want to speculate, though. Procurement delays, 29, and developmental delays, research and development activities, 32 programs delayed.
So, there’s a huge impact across the Army there. And arsenals like the Rock Island Arsenal are a key component to our holistic organic industrial base, not only for today’s needs but also for the future. So, it’s very important that we continue to modernize them, and we don’t want to wait till next year to do that — what we plan to do this year.
Thank you.
CHERI BUSTOS:
Thank you, General Martin. I appreciate that. Just one more question, and I’ll be brief here. But, General Brown, it’s great to see you, even though it’s virtual. We so appreciated, out of Peoria, Illinois, that you came to the 182nd Airlift Wing this past summer, and we always welcome you back. And I know that Congressman Ryan already talked with you a little bit about the C-130s. I’m — you know, let’s — if you could drill maybe a little bit deeper on that.
Obviously, as we had this discussion about a yearlong CR and how that would affect Air Force acquisition and modernization efforts, you know, for the Air National Guard, you know, we’ve talked about providing upgraded technologies for the C-130Hs like the ones that are flown at Peoria. But any additional thoughts around — especially specific to Peoria, Illinois?
CHARLES BROWN:
What I’d tell you, it’s not just for Peoria and the work that they do, and I appreciate the opportunity to go visit, but it’s when you look at across the Guard because of the funding and the way they will have to dip into our — some of our other accounts, and it will curtail some of their trainings. So, you know, just for their day-to-day readiness as a C-130 unit, that will be impacted.
Then there’s also the individual training, so the professional involvement for those particular airmen that will continue to build up on their skill sets, that will also be impacted. I would also tell you, it’s a ripple effect. So, if you have — you know, you don’t get the full training when you deserve it and you’re supposed to be training someone behind you, then it just kind of — it kind of slides downhill, and it becomes this little bit of a slippery slope that we have to dig ourselves out of. And so, I have a concern not just about Peoria, but I really look across, you know, the Guard as a whole, the impact of curtailing or canceling training.
And you may miss those opportunities for those airmen. It’s tough to make up because you don’t get that time back. And so, it’s important that — and we want it — we want quality airmen. You want to make sure they have quality equipment to work with, and that’s why it’s important not to have a yearlong CR. Thank you.
CHERI BUSTOS:
Very good. Thank you so much, General Brown. And, Chairwoman McCollum, I’ll yield back. Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. And, Mr. Cuellar, thank you for being there. Mr. Womack, then Ms. Kirkpatrick, and Mr. Carter.
STEVE WOMACK:
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and my thanks to the witnesses that are here today. I’m going to be very brief. And first of all, I apologize to all of the witnesses today that we’re now two hours into this hearing. And I think we could have saved a lot of time on the part of these very busy gentlemen and ourselves, for that matter, by just being honest with ourselves and recognizing that a yearlong CR is bad.
And you can define bad a lot of ways, and we’ve seen and heard a lot of those definitions of what bad looks like. It’s just bad. But not only is it bad, it is embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that we, the adults in the room here on the Appropriations Committee, cannot get out of our own way. A couple of data points.
One, we didn’t get the president’s budget until May 28. And now, that’s not a dig on President Biden. It’s a new administration. I realize it takes some time. But we got the budget on May 28. And the budget was for $753 billion, thereabouts, which figured in about a 1.6 percent increase over the CR of about 740 billion, woefully short and unacceptable.
And it was known to be unacceptable when it was printed. So, here we are, looking at the prospect of having to deal with a full-year CR in the 740 range. But we have a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the NDAA of $768 billion. So, a lot of good bipartisan, bicameral work has already been done, and the number is pretty acceptable, I would say.
I’m not going to ask you, all the service chiefs, to comment on it, but 740, 768, I don’t think there would be any doubt where everybody would fall on that particular number, which kind of leaves us, I think, to the legacy riders, legacy riders that have been in these bills for decades that have always had bipartisan, bicameral support.
So, I am — frankly, I’m embarrassed as a defense appropriator and as an appropriator in general that we have allowed that discussion to keep us from doing what our constitutional duty is, and that is provide for the common defense. So, it’s a bad, bad situation that we’re in right now, and we’ve got to overcome it. And the sooner, the better.
I think we could get to work on it tomorrow if we could just get some agreement that things that have been in these bills for decades deserves to be back in those bills. And that’s the only way we’re going to get a passage on something other than a full-year CR. My only question, I’m going to direct to the undersecretary.
Back in 2018, another member of this subcommittee, Derek Kilmer, on the other side, and myself participated at a Joint Select Committee on Budget Process Reform. And we spent the better part of the entire year of 2018 looking at the budget process, which is, in fact, part of the problem right now. And we came up with a few ideas, and we got to the finish line in — even though our threshold for passage of anything was pretty high, five members on each side of the aisle to come to agreement.
And we didn’t get there, but that doesn’t mean that the work was for naught. So, my question for the undersecretary is simply this. One of the reforms that we advocated in that process reform and never got a chance to take to the floors of the House and the Senate was a biennial budget. So, my question for you is this.
Would changing the process and at least getting us to a point where we could do a two-year budget with, say, annual appropriations, even annual reconciliation, but a biennial budget, how would that help us get past what we’re doing here today?
MIKE MCCORD:
Thank you, Congressman. I do remember your service on that committee, and as I recall, defense per se was not a big player because it was more focused on something — some of the bigger movers on the entitlement side. But I do recall your work on that, and I thank you for it. Biennial budgeting was looked at, I know, early in my career on the Armed Services Committee in the Senate in the ’80s. We tried doing biennial authorizations once or twice, had limited sort of consensus with the Appropriations Committees at that time between the appropriators and authorizers, and it kind of petered out, honestly.
It does offer potential. I would love to see us master the art of annual budgeting first because biennial budgeting is a little harder, you know, but I recognize that many states do it, and it can be done. We would certainly be open to looking at that. I know that there’s a commission that has been created by the new authorization bill, newly enacted authorization bill on PPP reform, which is a subset sort of focused on the internal Pentagon part of the process, a little different than what you’re saying but related.
I think ironically, we won’t be able to support the standup of that commission under CR until that — this issue is resolved. But there is some movement afoot, I think, on that front, and that commission may well want to expand its purview a little bit beyond the internal Pentagon part of the budget process to take on the very idea that you’re mentioning.
It might be good work for that commission to take a fresh look at also.
STEVE WOMACK:
Well, we would like to continue to elevate that discussion because anything is better than where we are today, and hopefully, we’ll eventually get there. Anyway, I thank — my thanks to the panelists today. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity. I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
You are so welcome. Ms. Kirkpatrick, Mr. Carter, and then Mr. Kilmer.
ANN KIRKPATRICK:
Thank you, Madam Chair and Ranking Member, for having this hearing, and thank you to all the witnesses who have taken the time to appear before the committee. I appreciate your testimony. I appreciate the time that you spent with us. You know, this is a really important hearing in terms of my district. Admiral Gilday touched on hypersonics, and I understand that the Army expects its hypersonic weapon to be ready by fiscal year 2023 and is investing significant resources to make that a reality.
Important research and development activities for hypersonic weapons are conducted in my district, and our committee appreciates how critical these programs are for our national security. So, General McConville or General Martin, either one of you, the entire department has focused on increasing resources on hypersonic weapons in recent years.
I know you are on an aggressive track to field the first system by fiscal year 2023. So, can you please describe to us what a delay in appropriations does to your schedule?
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Congresswoman, thank you. So, as it pertains to the first battery — the first battery field in 2023, no impact. However, $100 million — $111 million shortfall in ’22 resulting from the CR will delay the initial operating capability of our second battery from 2025 to 2026. In addition, the Army won’t have the necessary funds to produce this year, as we planned, the training rounds, think — just the training rounds so that the units can use those rounds to train on in preparation for executing their jobs in a live environment.
And so, there would be a delay on that as well. But those are the two significant delays to the hypersonics program in addition to what Admiral Gilday described previously in his testimony pertaining to the technical delays.
ANN KIRKPATRICK:
So, now I just want to shift gears just a little bit to the Next-Generation Interceptor. The Next-Generation Interceptor program is required to provide the United States homeland coverage from incoming intercontinental ballistic missile attacks in the 2030 time frame. These are ground-based. So, Undersecretary McCord, in the case of a yearlong CR, how would programs like NGI have to pivot and adjust?
And then my second question for you is give us an understanding of how contracts might need to be modified to reflect less funding and what impact that would have on the bottom line of these programs.
MIKE MCCORD:
Thank you. Thank you. On the Next-Generation Interceptor, since that program is in a somewhat earlier stage, it’s got the — the flexibility that R and D has if there is not a new start involved. And I would have to — I will give a response to you for the record as to whether there’s a new start issue specific to that program.
With respect to contracting, the — probably the most common thing that people do is either delay a contract award until — if there is a new start issue, they have no choice but to delay a contract award, or to shorten a period of performance. So, there are ways that basically, it’s part of the hidden inefficiency of this — of the CR processes, the workarounds.
You know, the job will get done in a less efficient way and possibly more costly way. But there are contracting modifications. Contracting and budgeting, of course, are — you know, our process is a little bit — two separate things, and there are multiple ways that one can contract for something depending on — you know, on the circumstance.
But the lack of funding is something that no contracting mechanism can — can, by itself, overcome.
ANN KIRKPATRICK:
OK. Thank you. And — and can you — can you address a little bit how this is going to affect the bottom line of these programs?
MIKE MCCORD:
Well, both with respect to hypersonics — and I think General Raymond also made some great points in his opening statement about — about the Space Force generally. The areas where you’re trying to go the fastest to where you have the most change or what’s — or what is impacted the most by the requirement if you do what you did last year, at the rate that you did it last year, at the funding level that you did it last year.
So, hypersonics is a great example across several of the services, and I think several of the chiefs could probably respond to this with respect to their own program. Where — the fact that we’re trying to make more progress, that’s where we’re hurt the most.
ANN KIRKPATRICK:
Thank you very much. And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. Next, we go to Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter and then Mr. Kilmer. And then to close up, it’ll be Mr. Diaz-Balart and Mr. Aderholt. Mr. Carter.
JOHN CARTER:
Thank you, Madam Chairman. You know, we’ve got some members of Congress that don’t know comeback from [inaudible] about the appropriations process. They make stupid comments about what would be good for this country. That may be the purpose of educating them this particular year. And everyone in the Appropriations Committee, we do not like CRs, and we do not want long- or short-term CRs. We like to finish our work on time and put together our product for the benefit of the country.
I think that when somebody’s reading the newspaper, he shouldn’t be driving out [inaudible]. But I want to thank all of you for being here. You know, [inaudible] and I want to thank you for telling everybody about the importance of training. Training keeps soldiers alive, and the inability to train makes those soldiers not as prepared, and that’s very important.
You know, we’ve got to try to rebuild the modernization of the United States Army. Today, we’re looking into the big six priorities of long-range fire; next-generation combat vehicle; future vertical lift; network, air, and missile defense; and soldier lethality. Tell me, in this — do you realize that nobody wants a CR? [inaudible] CR do the same? General Martin.
JOSEPH MARTIN:
Thank you, Congressman. It’s good to see you as always. So, everyone — well, like I — like I – – there’s 24 programs that were supposed to have in their hands, in one form, fashion, or another, in 2023. Nineteen of those 24 programs, the timeline for those activities to land those in formations would be affected.
So, it’s a huge effect to our modernization effort. You know, you’re from the state of Texas, and you know all about Army Futures Command, and you understand what they’ve done with Project Convergence in 2021. We’ve got a lot of momentum going with that with the joint force. And next year, we’re to focus on multinational partners.
Our efforts would be severely impacted with a CR because there’s funding that we’ve asked for ’22 that will help us set conditions to execute Project Convergence ’22 that we won’t be able to put our hands on. And so, all the progress we’ve made over time for the past two years will be slowed at best, could be potentially stopped.
And as my colleagues have said multiple times, our adversaries are not having the same problems with consistent, predictable, timely funding for these various programs. And so, Project Convergence is huge for the United States Army, and we’ve got to have the funding to be able to do that. And without any anomalies and the ability to reprogram, it will — it will be virtually impossible to do that.
And so, I look — I sincerely urge Congress to move forward with appropriating the FY ’22 budget. Thank you.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. Mr. Kilmer.
JOHN CARTER:
Can you hear me?
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Mr. — you’ve got a minute left. I thought you said you will –
JOHN CARTER:
OK. I accidentally hit the wrong button.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
OK. I can hear you now.
JOHN CARTER:
I just want to say that the Odierno family are in our thoughts and prayers. The family has given an awful lot to the United States and all throughout the United States Army. And we all should be thinking about the sacrifices the entire Odierno family has given for our nation. I’m proud to call them my friends.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
I reflect those words. Well said, Mr. Carter, and thank you so much for saying that. Appreciate it. Mr. Kilmer.
DEREK KILMER:
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for being with us. I had two questions, and they’re both for Admiral Gilday. First of all, I know I don’t need to emphasize to you the importance of the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program, or SIOP, Navy’s 20-year, $21 billion effort to upgrade and modernize our public shipyards.
I very much appreciate your past statements in support of this program. I applaud the Navy for appointing Rear Admiral McClelland as the head of the SIOP program office. I was lucky enough to meet with him earlier this week. He provided some valuable insights into the program, and I’m glad to see the Navy showing its commitment to the SIOP with his appointment.
I think it’s a big deal as we look to restore and reinvest in our public shipyards, including Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in my neck of the woods. And knowing the importance of the SIOP and also reading all of your testimony about the impact and the potential impact of a CR, not just on operations but on military construction as well, I worry that any CR-related impacts to the program can lead to a situation in which maintenance drives operations instead of maintenance supporting operations.
So, with that in mind, can you just share what impact the — a full-year CR would have on the SIOP?
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Yes, sir. There’s a — there’s a few areas we’re going to see impacts. The first would be in the ongoing project at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard up in New Hampshire and Maine. And so, in my unfunded list, I requested $225 million for a base project up there, for a dry dock that needs to be revitalized because there are actually single-digit days a year we can bring your ship in and out of dry dock there.
Our dry docks, the 18 of them across our four shipyards, the average age is 97 years old. We haven’t touched them in a century. This is once-in-a-century work. The new Virginia-class submarines that we’re building, they’re longer. They have a payload section in them that brings considerable lethality to the fight.
And so, because they’re bigger and the dry docks — they — they’re too large for the dry docks. And so, for that particular dry dock up there in Portsmouth, we need to finish that project in time for ’28 to get the first subject — the first Virginia class in the East Coast in maintenance, and that will be delayed.
And we’re not sure how specifically we’d be able to mitigate that delay. Separately, we’re in the process of identifying and hiring 42 subject matter experts who are coming from industry, real patriots, to join this effort, and the hiring of those individual — individuals will be delayed. We do the best we can to try and — to try and entice them to stay with us, but I think it’s going to be difficult.
As you’re aware, besides a dry dock work, we’re also trying to accelerate infrastructure work. So, these are — these shipyards, because they’re over 100 years old, are like Frankensteins in a way that we just added buildings. And so, they’re very inefficient with respect to workflow of pump work, valve work that flows through these yards.
And so, we’re taking a look at through modeling how we can best recapitalize this infrastructure in a way that — that accelerates — that gives us the best efficiency, the best optimization. And it’ll delay that work that we’re trying to do for infrastructure. So, this is MilCon and also projects that fall below the MilCon level that would allow us to reinvest in critical infrastructure.
It’ll delay that as well, probably one to two years, and I’ll pause there.
DEREK KILMER:
Let me — if I could, Admiral, in your written testimony, you also mentioned the impacts of a CR on the operations of our public and private shipyards and specifically referenced some of the potential delays or cancelations of maintenance — maintenance availabilities for five attack subs, two carriers, and just the cascading impacts that will have on our shipyard maintenance availabilities well into the future.
I hope you could just expand on some of those written comments and provide the committee some additional insight into those future delays to maintenance availabilities under a potential yearlong CR. How will these maintenance availability delays and cancelations impact our capability to compete with China and other near-peer competitors?
MICHAEL GILDAY:
Sir, you — you said it very accurately when you said that it would create a situation where you have maintenance leading operations. It’s not where you want to be. And so, our availabilities — our maintenance availabilities for those nuclear-powered vessels are really planned toe to heel. As soon as we’re done with one, we’re bringing in the next.
That’s the way the production line works. That’s how we’re most efficient. And this is going to cause a perturbation. And we saw this during the sequestration, and we’re still catching up a decade later. We can’t afford to do that based on where we are now with China for all the reasons my contemporaries in the sector and reports stated earlier.
And so, this is going to — this is going to cause a perturbation that we’re yet — we’re still unraveling in terms of operational schedules to keep carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups on point in the Western Pacific and beyond. I’ll pause there, sir.
DEREK KILMER:
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. I was looking on the screen to see Mr. Diaz-Balart. Mr. Diaz-Balart, are you present to ask a question? Sometimes, people turn their cameras off. We’ll give him another minute. Or Mr. Aderholt, if you’re there, you can certainly go. It appears, Mr. Calvert, that those members are not there. Do you — do you confer with that?
KEN CALVERT:
Apparently not. So, Madam Chair, I would you like to —
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
So, if you’d like to make a closing summary statement, I’ll make — I’ll make mine, sir.
KEN CALVERT:
Sure. Sure. Thank you. I appreciate the witnesses being here today, and we’ve — we’ve had a lot of difficulties of late in trying to get these appropriation bills complete. And that’s unfortunate. And while we’re doing that, we’ve seen our adversaries become bolder because weakness is provocative. Certainly, our hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan was a signal to the world that this administration will abandon our allies, risk the lives of US servicemembers, and even leave US citizens behind
It was a very unfortunate situation. And now, we’re facing an unfortunate situation both in Europe and in Taiwan. And as I think our friend, Mr. Churchill, said many years ago, “The worst two words in the English language is too late.” So, we have a responsibility to get this – – get this bill done. I know we all want to get it done.
And the people say there’s not any offers on the table. Well, let me — let me reiterate what the former chairman of this committee said about revisionist history. We all know that this – – the framework has always been that these legacy writers remain, and these poison pills go out. That’s what happened last year, year before that, and the year before that.
And so, I would hope that that understanding we can get to the table and negotiate this bill bring the defense numbers up, the non-defense discretionary down. Let’s get this done by, at least, February 18th for the men and women who serve in the United States military. With that, Madam Chair, I yield back.
BETTY MCCOLLUM:
Thank you. And I — I am not in a position to disagree with everything that’s happened in every Appropriation Committee in the history of humankind here in the United States Capitol. But the — the conference committees I’ve been involved in, the writers were left to the end. We had our budget agreement for what our new target was between the House and the Senate that we had to spend up to. And so, I — you know, everybody has had different experiences up here, and I just have to say that those have been my experiences.
Another point I’d like to bring out and — yes, President Biden’s budget came out on May 28th. That was his first budget, his first year as president. President Trump’s budget came out on May 23rd. That’s a five-day difference, but President Biden was dealing with an assault on our Capitol on January 6, as well as COVID, in preparing his budget.
So, I — I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that all president’s first-year budgets come out a little late. Today was an opportunity not only to recommit ourselves as appropriators on this subcommittee but on the Full Committee which we all serve to get our job done on time and — and now to really push leadership to make sure that we finish this appropriations process by the February date that we’ve agreed to. I want to also say that this was an opportunity, I believe, to educate our colleagues, those who don’t understand the work that we do, the impacts that CRs have.
And as many of my colleagues on the other side said, CRs are just not a good idea. We are all in agreement with that. Gentlemen, I want to thank you all for being here today. I want to thank you for your testimony. I also would like you to pass on our thanks to those who serve in uniform and the civilians who serve alongside of you.
Your work is very much appreciated, and we know that the work you do keeps us safe here at home and keeps democracy’s beacon abroad lit well. This concludes today’s proceeding. And as I said, once again, from all of us, thank you to all of our witnesses and members for an enlightening discussion, and let’s get the bills for appropriations passed this February.
Thank you very much. And with that, the meeting is adjourned — the hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
List of Panel Members and Witnesses:
PANEL MEMBERS:
REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM (D-MINN.), CHAIRWOMAN
REP. TIM RYAN (D-OHIO)
REP. C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER (D-MD.)
REP. MARCY KAPTUR (D-OHIO)
REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TEXAS)
REP. DEREK KILMER (D-WASH.)
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CALIF.)
REP. CHERI BUSTOS (D-ILL.)
REP. CHARLIE CRIST (D-FLA.)
REP. ANN KIRKPATRICK (D-ARIZ.)
REP. ROSA L. DELAURO (D-CONN.),
EX-OFFICIO REP. KEN CALVERT (R-CALIF.),
RANKING MEMBER REP. HAROLD ROGERS (R-KY.)
REP. TOM COLE (R-OKLA.)
REP. STEVE WOMACK (R-ARK.)
REP. ROBERT B. ADERHOLT (R-ALA.)
REP. JOHN R. CARTER (R-TEXAS)
REP. MARIO DIAZ-BALART (R-FLA.)
REP. KAY GRANGER (R-TEXAS),
EX-OFFICIO WITNESSES:
UNITED STATES ARMY VICE CHIEF OF STAFF JOSEPH M. MARTIN
UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE COMPTROLLER MIKE MCCORD
UNITED STATES NAVY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS MICHAEL GILDAY
UNITED STATES AIR FORCE CHIEF OF STAFF CHARLES Q. BROWN
UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS COMMANDANT DAVID H. BERGER
UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE CHIEF OF SPACE OPERATIONS JOHN W. RAYMOND