Category: MIL-OSI

Source: United States Navy

MIKE ROGERS: [Off-mic] These hearings have helped provide the information we need to mark up the FY ’24 NDAA next month. I also want to thank our witnesses for being here and for their service to our nation. The President’s requesting a 5 percent increase for the Navy and a 3 percent increase for the Marine Corps. Unfortunately, with today’s record level of inflation, these increases don’t go very far.

We are seeing that very clearly in the request for shipbuilding, the President is seeking to build a paltry nine force, nine battle force ships in FY ’24. At the same time, he wants to retire 11. The several of these ships have years of service life remaining. The retirement represent a loss of capability, especially for the Marine Corps.

The President plans to slash the number of amphiibs by 10 percent, leaving the fleet below the statutory minimum of 31. We put 31 into law because that’s what the Marine Corps told us was the bare minimum. They needed to successfully carry out their mission going below that number invites a tremendous amount of risk.

That’s clearly why General Berger included in, included a new amphibian his number of the unfunded priority list this year. I think you’ll find support for that request from this committee. But even if we fund the NFB, the Navy still plans to reduce the number of battle force ships by 11 over the next five years.

Forget about the 500 ship Navy, many say we need to counter China at no point over the next 18 years. Does the size of the fleet even reach the statutory goal of 355. While this administration dithers the CCP is rapidly growing and modernizing its navy. It already controls the largest navy in the world. Our fleet of 296 ships was eclipsed years ago by a Chinese fleet of over 350. In two short years, the DOD predicts the CCP will control over 400 battle force ships.

I don’t understand how this administration can conclude reducing the size of our fleet will somehow deter China. Making matters worse is confusion surrounding the Navy’s shipbuilding plan. It’s not one plan, it’s four plans, each of them with different force structures and total numbers of ships. Our shipyards can’t plan make investments in properly operate with this uncertainty.

It is an — it is the absolute worst signal to send to our adversaries, especially the CCP. Finally, I’m going to — I’m also concerned about the strike fighter gap. It’s not forecasted to close until 2031, but that assumes Congress grants the Navy relief from the statutory requirement to field an air wing for each deployed aircraft carrier.

I would inform the Navy that it is highly unlikely we will grant that relief. The Navy should focus on mitigating the fighter gap in the short term by accelerating planned upgrades to existing fighters, especially the F-35s. They should also expedite the fielding of unmanned collaborative drones and pair them with our existing fleet to enhance capabilities.

The point is we should be modernizing and expanding our naval capabilities. We absolutely should not be cutting them. Finally, I want to commend the commandant on the progress he’s making with the Force 2030 Design. Preparing our Marines to be successful in a conflict with the CCP is critically important.

Force 2030 will do just that. I look forward to further updates on the progress he’s making to transform the Marine Corps into a 21st century fighting force. Finally, this will likely be the last time Admiral Gilday and General Berger will testify before us in their current capacity. I want to thank both of you for your decades of service to our nation and for your dedicated leadership to the Navy and the Marine Corps.

With that I yield to my friend the ranking member for any comments he may have.

ADAM SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to start by echoing your last comment and thanking General Berger and Admiral Gilday for their leadership in these current positions. It’s not been an easy time to be in the positions that you’re in. You’ve both done an outstanding job. We’ve always appreciated working with you.

And I also want to echo the chairman’s comments at the start about the posture hearings that we’ve gone through. It’s always an interesting and challenging time, but I think it really helps inform this committee about the decisions that we have to make as we put together the NDAA for this year and as we work on the budget going forward.

And I think the chairman’s done a really good job of pulling those hearings together. We’ve learned a lot, had a lot of good solid debates, and I think it will put us in a good position to do a good bill again this year. I lose track, I think it’s the 63rd consecutive year could be the 62nd, somewhere in there.

It’s over 60, let’s put it that way. And it’s only happened because of strong bipartisan support and I appreciate the chairman’s leadership and getting us started on doing that again this year. And I think he correctly points out the problem. We have this large logical challenge here in terms of here’s what we’d like to do. Here’s how much money we have.

And you gentlemen, have to somehow deal with what I referred to yesterday as our cognitive dissonance here in Congress. At the same time that were beating you up for not spending enough money, the House majority is passing a bill to cut the overall amount of money that we spend on the discretionary budget.

And you’re just supposed to somehow figure that out. I used to have this analogy about 10 pounds of manure in a 5 pound bag, but I’ve discovered that most people don’t like that analogy, but I think I nonetheless think it is apt and that’s what you’re trying to do and it’s not easy. And one of the things that we could do here in Congress is just pick the number all right.

You know we spend all of our time complaining about how we’re not spending enough money and then we spend all of our time complaining about how much we spend too much money. You kind of got to pick a lane on that one or you’re going to put people like the Department of Defense like all of these fine gentlemen in front of us in an absolutely impossible position.

So you can’t both vote to cut the discretionary budget and then complain at the DOD for not spending enough money. Well, that’s not true actually you can, but it’s just not very consistent and certainly not very helpful when it comes to setting policy. I do believe that the challenge beyond that, even if we were clear on the money, is as has been mentioned many times, you have to both modernize because rapidly changing technology, whether you’re talking about hypersonic, missiles, you know different vulnerabilities space, JADC2 that we’re working on, modernization.

I believe, is the most critical thing that we need to do to make sure that we have the joint all domain command and control that we have systems that can get us the information we need and be protected so that every aspect of our warfighting machine is working and is ability is able to deliver what it’s supposed to deliver.

But in modernizing, you also have to make sure that we have a force right now today they can meet our national security needs. And that’s where you get into the difficult balance of decommissioning ships now so that you can have the money to build that modernizing force. I won’t get into an extended debate on that except to say that part of the challenge here and I think the — the cruisers are a good example is, yes, you have a ship all right, but that ship spends the overwhelming majority of its time in drydock — drydock first of all.

So you don’t have a useful ship. And second of all, you have to spend an enormous amount of money just to keep that ship in dry dock. Yes, you have a ship, if you were to look at your little chart, you’d say well, we got one more. Is that actually helping us If it can’t be in the fight and if you’re having to spend a lot of money, even while it can’t be in the fight.

Tthose are the decisions that we have to try to make, and I think the gentlemen before us have done a pretty good job of doing that. General Berger, I know several years ago you launched the effort to modernize the Marine Corps. I’m sure you’re aware, not everybody liked that and you get a fair amount of criticism for it. But I think you made the right decisions, you showed leadership and you put the Marine Corps where it needed to be to be an effective fighting force today for the world that we face.

And I greatly appreciate your leadership on that. When it comes to the Navy, we are battling with the expense of building ships, but I also think that in the last couple of years we’ve started to make the right decisions about what the future of that Navy should look like. So I appreciate the leadership.

I appreciate the difficult position that you all are put in and look forward to working with you this year to get a good budget to get the NDAA done. And I want to put — stop one final point. We also need to pass appropriations bills.

I’ve heard — I’ve heard a lot of my colleagues talking about how we’re just going to do a CR this year that would be a complete and total disaster for the United States military for the ability of this country to defend itself. I also like to point out that the other 45 percent of the discretionary budget, it would also be a disaster for all of that as well.

But sitting here on the Armed Services Committee, let’s not kid ourselves about the impact that that would have on what is supposed to be our paramount duty to defend this country. If we passed a continuing resolution, it would be devastating and with that I yield back.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank the ranking member now to introduce our witnesses, the Honorable Carlos del Toro, Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval Operations and General David Berger is the Commandant of the Marine Corps. Welcome to the witnesses secretary Del Toro will start with you. You’re recognized.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of this committee. It’s an honor to appear before you today alongside General Berger and Admiral Gilday to discuss the posture of the Department of the Navy. Today, our nation faces challenges in every region and domain.

We operate in from the seabed to the stars. We do recognize the People’s Republic of China as our pacing threat. Executing a strategy that’s aimed at upending international order. To preserve our way of life, the National Defense Strategy calls upon the joint force to deter aggression while being prepared to prevail in conflict.

A strong Navy and a strong Marine Corps are the foundation upon which the successes of the joint force rests. The President’s 2024 budget sends a strong signal to the American people of the value that President Biden and Secretary Austin placed in maintaining a robust Navy and a Marine Corps team to confront the threats that we face today.

This year’s budget request supports our three enduring priorities. Those are strengthening our maritime dominance, building a culture of warfighting excellence and enhancing our strategic partnerships around the globe. With your support over the past year, we have made major strides in modernizing our fleet and our force.

I know that we often talk about the negative, but allow me to focus on the positive differences that we’ve made over the course of the last two years. 2022 saw the first deployment to the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, providing the Navy with lessons learned that will benefit future Ford class carriers.

Construction of high end surface combatant continues including the first Constellation class frigate, USS Constellation and the first of our Arleigh Burke class Flight three destroyers, the USS Jack Lucas, which brings significant advantage to sea. We continue progress on our first Columbia class ballistic missile submarine, the USS District of Columbia, while pre-construction activities on the second Columbia SPN, the USS Wisconsin have also begun.

On the innovation front, Task Force 59 in Bahrain continues to test a wide range of unmanned surface vessels and we are looking forward to expanding this effort now to the Fourth Fleet as well. When we consider the composition of our fleet, we seek to strike a balance between readiness, modernization and capacity with an immediate emphasis on readiness to be able to fight today and tomorrow.

This year, our divestment request includes three amphibious ships and at least two cruisers that are in tremendously poor material condition that offer very limited warfighting capability regardless of how much more investments we put into those ships. Our decisions to divest or extend the ship’s life are based on a hull by hull evaluation.

For example, we recently announced the modernization of the destroyer Arleigh Burke DDG 51 to keep it sailing through 2031, five years beyond its estimated service life. We hope to be able to continue that trend with other ships when possible. The USS Alexandria just came out of drydock in San Diego as well, two with a three year extension.

We hope to continue this trend on other Arleigh Burke destroyers and even on Ticonderoga class cruisers, where we actually have the ability to extend them for perhaps 1 or 2 more deployments. We owe it to the American people to be responsible stewards of taxpayer, dollars, investing in platforms that have limited capability conflicts with that responsibility.

Our naval forces are more than just platforms and systems, however. Our sailors and our Marines are our greatest strength. This year’s budget request contains multiple investments to support them and their families with services, benefits, housing and education, all that are critical to combat readiness.

In addition to our commitments to our people, we are reinforcing our international relationships significantly, including those with our Ukrainian partners as they defend their sovereignty and response to Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion. In the Indo-Pacific, we continue to play a leading role in the AUKUS security partnership.

Our Navy will be critical to this initiative success as we support Australia’s acquisition of conventionally armed, nuclear powered, fast attack submarines. We continue to hone our skills with allies and partners in the Arctic as well, ensuring we are prepared to operate in this challenging and very unforgiving critical environment for the future of our nation’s economy.

Along with our partnerships abroad, we are committed to strengthening our relationships here at home. We value your support and recommit our leadership toward refueling and remediating the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility spills. We are committed to doing what it takes to address the concerns of service members, their families, the people of Hawaii and all other communities throughout US. As I have said before, we build trust one day at a time one action at a time.

Finally, I’m grateful for the trust that you have placed in me personally to lead this department. I look forward to discussing how best to support our sailors, our Marines and their families and defense for our nation, and I thank you.

MIKR ROGERS: Thank you very much. Admiral Gilday you’re up next.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished members of the committee., good morning and thank you for the opportunity to appear today alongside Secretary Del Toro and General Berger. I’d also like to thank my wife, Linda, who’s also here with me this morning. For more than [Applause] Thank you. For more than three quarters of a century, The United States Navy has been an anchor of world stability.

Deterring war, upholding international law and ensuring access to the seas. Today, our Navy’s role has never been more expansive or more consequential. At this moment, we have about 100 ships at sea, reassuring America’s allies and partners that we stand watch alongside them and remind the world that we seek to preserve peace, but we’re prepared for any fight.

We are America’s Away team. Constantly present in contact, with allies, with partners and potential adversaries every single day. Operating forward defending the rules based international order our United States Navy flies that operates and we sail wherever international law allows, so that others can too.

Our fiscal year 2024 budget request remains consistent with our Navy’s enduring priorities. We are prioritizing readiness first with an emphasis on sailors who empower everything that we do. Next, we are modernizing our current fleet, 70 percent of which we will have a decade from now. And third, we are continuing to build capacity, ensuring we have lethal platforms to achieve warfighting advantage.

It fully funds the Columbia class submarine ensuring the on time delivery of the most survivable leg of our nation’s strategic deterrent. It keeps our fleet ready to fight tonight, dedicating the resources required to train and educate resilient sailors that can outthink. They cannot decide and they can out fight any potential adversary.

It funds private and public ship maintenance to 100 percent, increasing capacity and retaining highly skilled labor to get our ships back to sea faster with full magazines and spare parts in their storerooms to be prepared for any contingency. It invests in modernizing our fleet, procuring weapons with range and speed along with integrated systems to improve fleet survivability and a resilient cyber secure network infrastructure.

It invests in capable capacity, building towards a larger distributed fleet, fielding a ready fleet today while modernizing for the future. Meanwhile, our competitors are also investing heavily in warfighting capabilities of their own and the oceans we operate in are growing more lethal and more contested every day.

This means that we can no longer afford to maintain ships designed for a bygone era, especially at the expense of readiness and modernization or at the expense of buying new ships that are relevant to tomorrow’s fight. America cannot afford to feel the hollow force. We have been there before and we have seen the tragic results.

It is a mistake that we must never repeat. Ships, submarines and aircraft are no doubt expensive instruments of national power as are the costs of maintaining them. But history shows that without a powerful navy, the price tag could be much higher. As we enter this critical decade passing the budget on time is absolutely essential.

We have no time to waste. Certainly our adversaries are not slowing down. For the first time in history the threat of a year long continuing resolution seems like a real possibility. Let me be clear, a year long CR would be devastating for your Navy and for America’s national security. It would set back delivery of Columbia class submarines.

It would delay construction of our attack submarines and our surface combatants. It would postpone the modernization of our most crucial weapon systems. It would adversely impact our sailors and their families who are trying — who are we trying so hard to retain. And it would be disastrous for our industrial base America’s arsenal, which depends upon steady, predictable funding to deliver the naval forces that America needs.

I urge Congress to pass the budget on time. Failing to do so would damage our maritime superiority at a time when command of the seas will determine the balance of power for the rest of this century. Thank you again for inviting me to testify this morning. Thank you for your enduring support for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, and I look forward to answering your questions.

MIKE ROGERS: Thank you, Admiral. and General Berger you’re up.

DAVID BERGER: Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, my wife Donna is also with me, and she’s been beside me for more than 40 years and she sent two of our sons into the Marine Corps, so it’s sort of family business for us. So, thank you. I’m a little nervous because she’s sitting behind me where I can’t see her right now.

UNIDENTIFIED: As you should be, yes.

DAVID BERGER: Three years ago, I appeared before you and described how change, a rapid change was required in order for the Marine Corps to meet our statutory requirements and the mandates of the National Defense Strategy. With the bipartisan help of this committee and the support of my civilian leadership in the Pentagon, I’m here to tell you that as ranking and chair mentioned, force design for the Marine Corps is no longer and future aim point, it’s a reality today.

A couple of examples. In INDOPAYCOM under Admiral Aquilino Task Force 76.3, designed to put together advanced information webs. And they support maritime domain awareness that he the COCOM so desperately needs. And they took what they learned during the experimentation and he put it right into application in an exercise in the Philippines, in Japan, right in China’s backyard, which is where we ought to be. In Europe right now as they were last year, Task Force 61 using new technology and reorganized in a different way, they’ve created both air and maritime domain awareness for six fleet working for the fleet commander, primarily focused on Russian air and naval capabilities.

They’re in Estonia right now, marines are in Estonia doing the same thing. They’ll be there for the next three months. And in Central Command under General Carrillo, Marine Corps, MQ nines, they’re providing the ISR that he needs the awareness over the key maritime terrain, and that’s exactly what we should be doing.

This week there’s a major exercise in the Philippines, exercise Baluchistan. Our new Marine litter regiment out of Hawaii is in the Philippines and they’re applying the new equipment and the new techniques that they’ve developed with the Philippine military and several other militaries right alongside our counterparts, I think that’s what you expect.

A couple of months ago, Japan that announced when they came here their senior leaders came to the US that they would host the next Marine Littoral Regiment forward in the first island chain, and that’s where they belong. In short, in other words, your Marines are forward where it matters and that’s where you would expect them to be. Three years ago, I described how the Marine Corps would not just modernize quickly, but we would self-fund the changes we had to make.

We had to get leaner, we had to get lighter and we had to get more naval. And three years later, your Marines are doing just that.

MICHAEL GILDAY: The results are in the field now because we are not waiting for 2030 or 2027 or even 2025. We have to be ready today. The major divestments that the Marine Corps made, they’re the right ones and we are done. We are at our fighting weight right now. Now we have to sustain the modernization efforts while focusing on the quality of life effort issues that are most important to Marines and sailors and their families.

People, just as the secretary and the Cal mentioned people. They’re the real source of our competitive advantage as a nation and as a corps. And I ask for your help now to invest in their quality of life. We’ve got to invest in where they live, where they work, where they eat, where they work out, all of that, they’ve earned it. We have to deliver.

I think restoring and modernizing our infrastructure is directly tied to recruiting directly tied to retention. That’s how we support families, that is readiness. So on behalf of all Marines, I ask for your support now as we bring our facilities up to par with the Marines and sailors who — who work from those platforms.

I also asked for your support for the amphibious fleet. That’s how this nation projects power. The CNO and I agree on three key principles here. There’s no difference between the two services, the absolute minimum operational requirement is 31 L-class ships. Second block buys. They do two things: One, they save the taxpayer money; and second, they give the industry what the CNO calls headlights in front of them.

And third, I think divesting without replacing I think that’s a dangerous approach as several of you all have mentioned. Amphibious ships is how we respond to crisis. They’re critical. That’s how we evacuated citizens out of Lebanon. That’s how we went into Afghanistan in 2001. And today we’re asking them to do all that plus deter plus contribute to, to campaigning.

Here’s my concern, the first time this nation can’t respond to a crisis and one of our adversaries can probably the last time we get asked. And I’ll just finish up by saying in my last years Commandant, thank you. Thank you, sincerely thank you for the support of your Marines and your Marine Corps and I look forward to your questions.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank all of our witnesses and I wanted to advise the members we’re going to be called for a vote, a single vote at about ten. So I’m going to urge members just to roll through and go over there and vote and come back and we’ll continue to hearing throughout that process. I recognize myself for questions.

Admiral Gilday you did a stellar job of explaining why a Chinese resolution is not a good idea for Congress to pass by not getting their business done. General Berger, can you give me one shining example of what a continuing resolution, aka a China resolution, would mean to the Marine Corps?

DAVID BERGER: A month ago, Chairman, the Chinese announced that they would increase their budget to 7.2 percent, 7.3 percent from the year before. Last year it was 7.1. So from my perspective, China is the strategic pacing challenge, but I’m a military guy, so they’re the — they’re the threat. So over two years, they’ve increased their budget by 14.5 percent.

We would go to zero. We cannot keep pace. It’s almost like right now the NFL draft, it’s on the news. It’s almost like we would pull ourselves out of the draft on purpose and everybody else would pick better players and have a better roster next year. Yeah, we can’t — we can’t modernize. We can’t take care of our people just like the CNO said, unless — unless we get a budget on time, we’re tying our own hands.

MIKE ROGERS: And I appreciate the fact all of you recognize that we have a real challenge in quality of life and we’re going to all get after it together. Secretary, give me an example of what you think a CR would mean to your operation as a as a whole.

CARLOS DEL TORO: [Off-mic] our submarines because we didn’t have the necessary funds to move forward with their training and the investments that we also want to make in the programs of their training to advance those technologies as well too. And finally on the shipbuilding side, it would have negative effect on Columbia would have negative effect on just about every major platform that we have in the Department of the Navy.

MIKE ROGERS: Yeah, and I want everybody to know that that we get into a conflict in INDOPAYCOM, these folks in front of us are at the tip of the spear. We cannot let them go without funding in a timely manner. General Berger, if we drop below the statutorily required 31 amphibious ships, what does that do to your ability to meet operational requirements and project strength?

DAVID BERGER: A couple of things. First, we would have gaps during the year when we would not have an at sea capability for the combatant commander when something happened. We would not be deterred. We would not be in a position to respond. Here, places like Turkey or last couple of weeks in Sudan, I feel like I let down the combatant commander because General Langley needs options.

He didn’t have a sea based option. That’s how we reinforce embassies. That’s how we evacuate them. That’s how we deter. So one, the crisis part two, the deterrence part, it opens up risks for the combatant commander. We have to have 31 at a minimum, nothing less.

MIKE ROGERS: Okay, Mr. Secretary, how long is your strategic pause for AMPHIBS planning to be?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I hope it’ll be as short as it can possibly be. There is unquestionably a need for heavy lift when it comes to fulfilling the Marine Corps responsibilities in INDOPACOM and — and crisis situations around the world, I support the 31 amphibious requirement. The question we have is that we have some LSD platforms, for example, that cannot be made operationally available to fulfill the requirements that we need in the ARG/MEU combination.

Therefore, we need to retire some of those LSDs, so we can use those moneys more wisely and the investments of future LPDs in the future.

MIKE ROGERS: Okay, thank you. I yield to the ranking member.

ADAM SMITH: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, one of the things that comes up frequently is the survivability of Navy platforms that I’m interested in, actually all of your answers on this. But as we’re building aircraft carriers, destroyers and all of that, there’s a lot that goes into survivability. But can you reassure the committee that even in a — in a China fight, even in a fight against a pure competitor with — with sophisticated missile technology, sophisticated jamming technology, that we are moving towards a modernization plan here that will enable our Navy to be survivable in that type of fight and how that plays out.

And I guess the second piece of that, what’s most important for us to invest in to make sure that that’s the case?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Congressman first, let me state that we obviously in the construction of our naval ships and all our platforms for that matter, try to make them as survivable as possible in every way. And I think if you look at the — the Ford aircraft carrier, for example, and the testing that was done on Ford with the explosions to test out, its material readiness, prove that out.

That the investments that we made in technologically speaking and its and its hull to strengthen its hull and all the weapon systems and on the aircraft carrier itself truly paid off. And the CNO could talk about that more in detail, but that’s a worthwhile investment. But we should also consider the fact that today, given the long ranges of weapon systems of our adversaries and you know we are going to operate in the high threat area and the weapons engagement zone.

It extends out to the west coast of the United States right now, for example. And so we have to continue to develop weapon systems that are going to be effective in masking themselves within that weapon engagement zone so that their ISR capabilities can’t detect them.

ADAM SMITH: Thank you, Admiral Gilday.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, thanks for the question. I think it’s an important one. I think maneuvers are really important and the question is how do you enable that? I think you have to leverage all domains, particularly we can’t talk about it in detail, but cyber and space. And so what the operational commander wants to do is to — is to blind the adversary so that we can put ourselves in a position of maneuver and a position of advantage to deliver effects.

The — you spoke to modernization, I’ll talk about a few investments that we’re making that I think that are worth doubling down on high powered microwave and directed energy. We already have lasers on board, seven of our ships. We are slowly — we are slowly increasing that and need to pick up the pace electronic warfare systems advanced systems.

In fact, in my unfunded list, I’ve added on there for both destroyers and for the carriers because we know that that has an effect with respect to deception of the — of the adversary, the extra power capacity that we’re putting into frigates that we put into the Ford Carrier allows us to back fit with these modernized systems that will make us more survivable.

And the last thing I’d add is that the — the potential here with unmanned, particularly a medium unmanned vessel that you put a power source on and then you can outfit it with a high powered microwave or directed energy. That’s the way of the future for probably broader area survivability.

ADAM SMITH: And just following up on the AMPHIBS question, So there’s sort of two possibilities here because the basic reason you’re not going to hit the 31 is you’re the mothballing, wrong word, you’re shutting down a couple of them before you build build the new ones. Is that the case that you’re doing that because you just don’t have enough money to keep them going and fund the things going forward?

Or is it the case that those ships are no longer worth the cost of keeping them going?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Congressman, let me give you a personal example I visited the Germantown, which is in San Diego and walked her decks. She has a crane. Her main crane on the Germantown has not operated in six years. We’ve even had the OEM over to try to fix the crane and we can’t get it to work properly. She’s the ship with the oldest, actually wood deck, which is also deteriorating.

It would cost approximately half a billion to replace that deck, replace that crane. And the best that you could do is actually perhaps if you’re lucky get one additional deployment out of her. I would much rather use those funds on a brand new LPD that could have capabilities that last out 20 plus years and be far more effective and provide a greater return on investment for the Congress and the American taxpayer.

ADAM SMITH: That certainly makes sense. And then what we have to do is to make sure that we provide you the funds to, to do that and make sure that we can build that new and that we can deliver it on time, because that’s where we really get into trouble here in all of this is as programs move to the right as they say and then it falls us what makes us fall further behind.

So thank you very much. I yield back.

MIKE ROGERS: And I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson for five minutes.

JOE WILSON: And thank you very much, Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking member Adam Smith. It’s great to see the bipartisan support for our extraordinary persons who are here testifying today. And I appreciate so much your service to the country. I was grateful to have 31 years of army service, three of my sons joined the army and then one went astray and joined the Navy.

And I’m just really grateful that he’s currently orthopedic surgeon at Buford Naval Hospital, gluing, Marines back together. And so it’s a — we really appreciate his service and then of course we appreciate Parris Island, which of course is an extraordinary location just north of Hilton Head. And so everybody needs to visit.

And with that General Berger, we appreciate 17,000 Marines annually come through the Marine Corps Depot at Parris Island. It’s been so inspiring to me to see young people talking to their family members, explaining at graduation, um, the slug and human debris you sent here. They don’t recognize them, so it’s a positive transformation.

Additionally, I’m really grateful for the activation of Camp Blaze at Guam, the incredibly strategic territory of our country. It indicates, of course, the forward posture we have of the Indo-Pacific and again, the patriotic people of Guam are so supportive as they work for peace through strength. With that in mind, General, the Marine Corps has shifted their focus toward forward persistent presence throughout the Pacific to deter strategic attacks against America and our allies.

And of course, yesterday was extraordinary, we had the opportunity to have an address to Congress by his Excellency, Yoon Sung Yul, the President of Korea. He cited the miracle of the Han River where his devastated nation had an income after the Korean War of $67 and now it’s over $30,000 per capita. And so how incredible due to free market democracy and working with the United States.

With that in mind, how are we general being prepared in the Indo-Pacific?

DAVID BERGER: I think as you would expect the — the role of the Marine Corps and the Navy as an expeditionary force forward creates the depth that Admiral Aquilino needs. So essentially you want your Marines forward persistently 24/7 every day of the week. To do that, you have to have the amphibious ships and the training and the people and all to make that possible.

And they’re integrated into a whole combined force. Guam is the foremost hub, as you said, critical to project power forward from it. I think for the next 10 or 15 years, you’re going to see that grow in strategic importance to the US and the importance as Admiral Aquilino says to defend it. I would say for us we have to work hard on the ability to distribute which the carrier talks about all the time and then the ability to sustain that force logistically because we have protected lines for decades now it’s going to be contested.

So we have work to do, but I think the role of your Marine Corps, I know the role of your Marine Corps is forward all the time persistently.

JOE WILSON: Well, again, I appreciate so much you’re really giving opportunity to young people to serve and I was grateful my late father in law was one of you. My late brother in law was one of you. So we appreciate Marines. And Mr. Secretary, the ability of the United States to maintain US shipbuilding repair is critical and geopolitical issues have demonstrated how important it is. What are your industry concerns about ensuring the rapid production and replenishment of the US Navy?

CARLOS DEL TORO: There are multiple concerns, Congressman, it starts with the labor force. We need a really strong blue collar labor force in this country to actually support our shipbuilding interests across the shipyards around the country. We obviously don’t have enough of them. We’ve shut down too many in past years, but we’ve got to rebuild those.

And so we’re — another concern I have is working with smaller shipyards, for example, so that they can actually come on board and do Department of Defense work and work as subcontractors to the larger shipyards so that we can increase productivity. So labor force across all shipyards getting smaller shipyards to work with larger shipyards.

The case in Austal for example, that is now building steel to support our Columbia class program in an electric boat is a perfect example of that. I think I believe Austal is looking at hiring close to 1000 more people over the course of the next year. So we need more labor, we need more legal immigration.

We need more work visa programs that can bring the types of folks to this country that allow us to work in the shipyards. That’s my primary concern. Of course, I meet constantly with the CEOs of all the shipyards to understand how well they’re moving in there with regards to their production rates. I believe on the destroyer side, we’re getting a lot better now to the point where we can build 1.8.

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired. I recognize the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney for five minutes.

JOE COURTNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I want to join my colleagues again in congratulating Admiral Gilday and General Berger for your amazing service. I think it’s worth noting that during your tenure you had to deal with a global pandemic and but the mission of your departments didn’t come to an end because — or pause.

And you were able to, to balance all of the operational challenges and public health challenges so successfully. And I think that certainly should go down in the annals as a sort of bonus points in terms of your service. You also served at a time in the last administration where there were five secretaries of the Navy or acting secretaries of the Navy, which is a record, which hopefully this country will never experience again in terms of the instability of civilian control.

And — and again, I want to thank both of you for really being pillars of stability during that time period. Secretary Del Toro and Admiral Gilday again, we had the honor of being at Navy Base Port Loma back in March when the AUCUS announcement was rolled out, the optimal pathway. Three heads of government, three navies together with the USS Missouri in the backdrop.

Really announcing what I think David Ignatius called the most significant security agreement in decades. Which is again to give our great ally Australia the undersea capability to again be part of an effort to deter in the Indo-Pacific region. Admiral Gilday right after that announcement, the Minister for Defense and Industry for Australia, Pat Conroy, announced that Australia will be investing $3 Billion directly into the US industrial base.

I mean this is Australia investment into the industrial base of the United States, which is again unprecedented and certainly shows the level of commitment of that nation to this undertaking. You and I were at the shipyard about a week and a half ago talking about the fact that you know, integrating the industrial bases, which is key to successful execution of AUKUS is going to require some work by Congress in terms of making sure that the restrictions In terms of foreign nationals being able to — to be even in the shipyards or also have access to different points.

Maybe and we have to fix that in Congress. So I wonder if you could just sort of talk about again how that is really so instrumental and required for — for this alliance to work?

MICHAEL GILDAY: So I think when I look across the three nations advantage AUKUS, particularly Australia and the United States, I think about Manpower as the biggest challenge that we all have. And I think with respect to getting the Australian experts into our shipyards into — into our submarines without any restrictions, this is a fellow five eye nation that we trust with our most sensitive intelligence and they do and they trust us with theirs.

I think that we need to look at, look at where the constraints are and I think bring those to the right level that might be the Congress, it might be the White House, but to break those down so that we can, so we can truly make this optimal path a reality.

JOE COURTNEY: Thank you. And another sort of issue that causes I guess some heartburn and you know for with good intention is that some people in terms of the acquisition of three Virginias and possibly up to 5 they seem like a, you know detraction or diminishment in a zero sum game in terms of our own undersea fleet.

Can you talk about again the value of that type of transfer which will be paid for in terms of again the, our own undersea fleet and our own sort of strategic position?

MICHAEL GILDAY: First thing, based on our — well informed by our visit just a week ago up to Groton, in an electric boat, I have a high degree of confidence that industry is responding. They understand that they need to hit the accelerator with respect to their production rates and whether it’s Newport News, Shipbuilding down and down in Virginia, we’re up in electric Boat in Connecticut.

I think they both have that clear message. I do think that the forward deployment of submarines as a first step in in, in Australia is a game changer. And so the chairman in his opening comments mentioned deterrence and deterrence is all about capability and intent. You bring it up to an exponential level when you leverage allies and partners in PRC’s backyard with the best capability in the world, operating it in — in and around in and around China.

So I think there’s so much there with respect to potential, not just for the United States, but for all the nations that intend to sail and use the maritime Commons around the PRC.

MIKE ROGERS: Thank you. I thank the gentleman chair, now recognize the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wittman for five minutes.

ROB WITTMAN: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for joining us. General Berger, Admiral Gilday, thank you also and thank you both for your service to our nation, what an incredible impact you have had. This will probably be the last time that you testify before us in your current positions, but we look forward to continue dialog in the years to come.

And again thank you. Secretary Del Toro, I want to begin with the scenario that we have before us. The request from the administration on building nine ships retiring 11 ships. From last year’s request building eight ships retiring 24 ships. The 30 year shipbuilding plan that gives a choice where the code says 355 ships.

All of these things to me are very frustrating and Mr. Secretary, I’m not a mathematician, but I do not know any laws of math that allow you to do addition by subtraction. Here we are — today we’re taking five cruisers out of the weapons inventory and I say weapons inventory because each of them have 120 VLS tubes.

So we’re talking 600 tubes, there is no replacement between now and 2027. And for that matter, even in the near term, beyond. We see we have a 31 ship floor now in the code for AMPHIBS. Now we’re going to retire three LSDs. Early by the way. With the Navy shrinking and ship building capacity as you spoke about in a crisis mode.

We see ourselves at a tipping point in the history of this nation’s Navy Marine Corps team. And I appreciate the conversations that we’ve had. I look forward to working with you. I do think there are things that we can do together that help us get on the plus side of where our Navy needs to be and we can talk about our ship capabilities but capacity is by itself critically important.

Quantity has a quality all its own. I’d love for you to share with us what your plans are going forward to make sure we get both sides of the equation right, to make sure we hit the gas pedal on the build side. But also make sure we do everything we can to make sure that the ships we have get to their expected service lives.

You know, we cannot afford anything less and the maintenance side is also critical and Admiral Gilday, I appreciate you meeting with me at some of the maintenance yards and I take your commitment to and the maintenance side being an all hands on deck call. Thank you for doing that but Mr. Secretary I’d love to get your perspective on that.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your leadership on this position and I do very much look forward to continuing to work with you very collaborative collaboratively on solutions that are going to get us to a better place. At any given time. The three of us are always concerned about readiness, modernization and capacity without question.

We don’t want a hollow force, we put an enormous amount of investments in readiness. Over the course of the last ten years, this Congress, previous Congresses, and previous administrations have all been focused on modernizing our Navy because we’ve essentially inherited John Lehmann’s navy. And the fact is that ships get old.

And once they reach a certain point, even if they’re below their ESL’s but they’re not in the correct material condition to be able to continue to operate those ships, we cannot deploy those VLF cells, for example, if they’re stuck in a maintenance pier and they can’t be fired from ashore. So the real key to success is trying to get them operationally available to the fleet to fulfill the missions that they have to fulfill.

So out of those five cruisers, for example, there’s nothing more that I would love to do is to invest resources into three of those to actually extend them by one or two deployments. And I think that’s achievable as you and I have spoken about in the past. In the case of both the Vicksburg and the Cowpens, those ships will never see another deployment regardless of how much money we put into them.

So I think it’s a far better strategy to — to allocate the monies that are dedicated to those ships and apply them to say the LSD’s for example, so that we can get the Tortuga out of its maintenance availability and operational again to support the commandant. And I think those are the types of solutions that we could work together on in the future in this year’s budget and next year’s budget to get to a better place.

ROB WITTMAN: Very good. Thank you. General Berger, thank you so much for your vision for looking in the future for taking some bold moves to make sure the Marine Corps is in the right place. Force Design, 2030 pushes those issues, asks our Marine Corps to — to experiment to look at what the path is forward. Can you tell us from your perspectives, tell us the lessons learned about the things you’ve learned that didn’t work, but the things that you’re finding do work and especially as we relate to these challenges in the Indo-Pacific?

DAVID BERGER: First of all, I think if I had to do it all over again, I probably would have spoken more earlier on about the things in the Marine Corps that would not change, which is most of the Marine Corps. This is an evolution and we have — we have modernized the Marine Corps several times in our history when we sensed if we don’t will fall behind.

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired. Chair now recognizes gentleman from California, Mr. Garamendi for five minutes.

JOHN GARAMENDI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My good fortune was my tenure as chairman of the Readiness Committee coincided with the leadership that General Berger and Admiral Gilday had. I was very fortunate we dealt with shipyards, we dealt with ship maintenance, training, housing safety depots and on and on. I thank you gentlemen for being there all the time on all of these issues.

There’s much to be said, I’ve had the good fortune of working with you. I’ve also had the good fortune of working with Ms. Sherrill who I will now yield the balance of my time to.

MIKIE SHERRILL: Thank you, Mr. Garamendi. Gentlemen, and with this department, it’s always gentlemen. I’ve spent most of my life dreaming of being a naval aviator, training to be a naval aviator, flying in the Navy or proud of my service as a naval aviator. And this year marks the 50th anniversary of women in naval Aviation.

And today is the 30th anniversary of Secretary Osmond’s order that allowed women into combat aviation. So imagine how thrilled I was when I was a second class midshipman or a junior at the Naval Academy to hear that order to know that in really the horrible aftermath of Tailhook and with the lifting of combat restrictions, I would be headed to Pensacola to earn my wings in a new more fair era.

Sadly, we know that that hope has not become a reality. In fact, the stories I’m now hearing out of Pensacola could just as easily have been stories coming out of the Tailhook conference in Vegas in 92. Women’s flight suit, zippers being pulled down. Calls of, “are you headed to your gynecologist appointment” in the halls.

Rides, home being offered by flight instructors only to have those women taken to that instructor’s house and forcibly kissed before she escapes.

MIKIE SHERILL: But you know the worst part about it and the part that makes me see red and the part that truly speaks of the dearth of leadership in the Department of Navy and in our Marine Corps is when that woman, those women step forward to report these things, they’re shut down. Punitive measures are being taken against the women that report it and their careers are ended or being put in jeopardy.

So is this the price that women are expected to pay to serve our nation in our Marine Corps? Is the message after a shoddy command investigation that failed to even interview witnesses that the price of entry into aviation is hazing, harassment and sexual assault? It should really come as no surprise today that we have a recruitment and retention disaster when it comes to women in naval aviation — aviation.

There is a significant gap between the number of women aviators and the number you would expect to see after three decades. And the problem is particularly acute in the Marine Corps. 2021 Statistics show that women made up just 9 percent of our United States Marine Corps. By far the lowest among the services and I think it’s safe to say that the USMC has a problem recruiting and retaining women.

I think it’s also safe to say that with a 480 person tactical pilot shortfall, the USMC has a problem recruiting and retaining pilots and the statistics just get worse. Zero four star female general officers in the history of the Corps. Less than 15 female general officers in the Corps ever, and I’m sure you’re aware, there are significant problems with sexual harassment, sexual assault, retaliation and a toxic workplace climate at flight school in Pensacola.

The training environment that sets the norms of conduct for all the rest of our Navy and Marine Corps fleet squadrons. It was recently brought to my attention that three, active duty currently serving female USMC aviators in training have been retaliated against for reporting their military sexual trauma.

All three in the last two years. And all three instigated or condoned by Navy and Marine Corps instructors. All three initially faced administrative separation, not just from aviation, but from the Marine Corps. Now after an overturned investigation, one has to restart an entire flight syllabus after two years in limbo.

MIKIE SHERRILL: This should really come as no surprise because it is in fact well understood at NAS Pensacola, where 81 percent of respondents strongly agreed or agreed with the statement quote “In my unit military members, employees who file a sexual harassment complaint would be blamed for causing problems”, 81 percent know that to be the case.

So, after almost two years of pain with investigation dogged with inconsistent testimony and a shoddy investigation, these young women are now facing separation for standing up to their sexual harassers. And this is just three women who’ve been brave enough to share their stories. I’m sure there are many who have been silenced or unable to come forward.

MIKIE SHERILL: So gentlemen, my time is about to expire. I’m sure we’ll continue to discuss this. I sincerely hope we have a better command investigation coming and I look forward to hearing your responses to the questions. I’ll submit for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I yield back.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank the gentlelady chair. I recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Gallagher, for five minutes.

MIKE GALLAGHER: Last week in this room, the Indo-Pacific commander, Admiral Aquilino told me that he was not concerned about the number of long range precision fires pre-positioned in the region. Just for the sake of Congressional clarity, secretary Del Toro, do you think we have sufficient stockpiles of long range precision fires west of the international dateline?

CARLOS DEL TORO: No, we do not, we need more and I am concerned about the fixed long range precision fires that PRC has and is continuing to build in the region and I’m confident that Admiral Aquilino is as well too.

MIKE GALLAGHER: I think we have a huge opportunity to fix this and start to rebuild our stockpiles. I hear your lesson two years away from having a ready for EL regime for example, but where are we with the missiles? What’s the planned buy rate? What’s it been our average over the last five years and how do we get the unit cost, not just for LRASM but for SM six and maritime strike Tomahawk down?

CARLOS DEL TORO: So just in last year’s and this year’s Presidential budget ’24, we’ve increased the amount of funding by 50 percent, putting in $250 Million for 103 anti-ship missiles, naval strike, missiles themselves, which are needed across the both the Marine Corps and the Navy. We’re putting in $1.6 Million for the Standard missile six, 125 of them, the advanced medium range air to air missile $1.2 billion for 831 missiles.

In the case of the LRASM $1 billion for 108

MIKE GALLAGHER: What does that buy us though? What’s our target?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well it — it would advise us it actually is, it sends a very strong signal to industry as well too that they have to get their production rates up. So that we can actually build these missiles faster.

MIKE GALLAGHER: I think at least for me, I think we need like a target for a number. I think we’ve averaged about 40 a year over the last five years. There’s claims that we can get that above 200. I think we should test those claims. But as for getting there and getting the unit cost down to me, the solution is obvious.

We need — we have multiyear authority; we need multiyear appropriation. Admiral Gilday, you look like you’re chomping at the bit.

MICHAEL GILDAY: So as the secretary is mentioning, we have four multiyear contracts in this, proposed in this budget. Naval standard missile with the Marine Corps, SM six with the Marine Corps, LRASM and AMRAAM with — with — with the Air Force. Sir, I’ll get back to you on — on precise numbers, but what we’re trying to do is absolutely maximize the production output of those factories.

And we did it last year and last year the bill that I submitted essentially was for extra weapons to maximize those — their production rate this year. That’s what we’re trying. That’s what we’re trying to do. In terms of savings for those four categories I talked about 15 percent savings doing a bundle buy.

MIKE GALLAGHER: Well, I would say if we can’t get the — the appropriation that we need a multiyear appropriation, I just would suggest, I know we got a little bit, we but it’s well below the authorized number. I would suggest we, you know, put the relevant members of Congress on your airplane, take them down to Troy, Alabama, take them to Huntsville, take them wherever they need to go to see.

I mean, these companies should not be coming to us saying, hey, we can do more. We should be testing the limits of what’s possible and if we can’t do it now in light of what’s happening in Ukraine, we’re never going to do it.

You have to assume you’re fighting with what’s already in theater just given the geography of the Indo-Pacific. And so now is the time, it’s almost as if we need a war footing now when it comes to critical munitions in order to avoid the war. And that’s — that’s what we want to partner with you all on. In the time that remains, when can we expect to see a maritime strike tomahawk on surface ships and what’s your plan buy rate for that?

I don’t know if that’s Admiral Gilday.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, I don’t have the plan by right at my fingertips. I don’t want to give you the exact date. I would say very soon maritime strike, Tomahawk in terms of integrating that capability.

MIKE GALLAGHER: Well, we have unmanned surface vessels with launch tubes ready this decade.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Yes, we will.

MIKE GALLAGHER: And then how do we — you can elaborate?

MICHAEL GILDAY: So right now we’ll begin procuring our first large unmanned vessels in ’25. We have five. We’re looking at five in the FYDP. The intent is to outfit those with — with missile tubes, essentially give you a missile arsenal with our — with missiles with range and speed.

MIKE GALLAGHER: And then my — my colleagues mentioned our inability to even get go in the right direction towards the goal of a 355 ship Navy. In order to do that, you’ve got to — you’ve got to build more frigates. I know I’m a homer on this one, but Admiral Gilday, give me your assessment.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Right now sir, we — across — we only have seven shipyards. And so just a touch of context for 20 years the Navy hasn’t been a priority for obvious reasons for the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve turned the tide now, 57 ships in construction and others, 77 on contract. Again, we’re trying to maximize the output of those facilities.

I do think we’re on a path with frigate to two a year up in Wisconsin and open a second yard with hopefully

MIKE GALLAGHER: Eventually four year.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Four year.

MIKE GALLAGHER: And my time has expired.

MIKE ROGERS: Thank the gentleman, I would inform members that we have been called to floor to vote. We have only one vote so I would urge you to move over. We’re going to keep the hearing rolling and if you have a question you need to get vote, get over there and vote and get back. With that I recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Norcross for five minutes.

DONALD NORCROSS: Thank you, Chairman, appreciate it and to the witnesses for being here, particularly Admiral Gilday and General Berger for your service really appreciated working with you over the years. General Berger, I want to talk about the Humvees. We’ve seen the reports on the news of the turnovers and the loss of life.

And the Army is very much getting at using the new technology to avoid those rollovers. I think the Marines have somewhere in the 17,000 Humvees. Two part questions, how many of those would be eligible for the upgrade and why haven’t we started to upgrade those to avoid what we’ve seen the reality of young men and women being killed?

DAVID BERGER: Thanks, Congressman. About 2000 of our Humvees would be the ones you’re speaking of that we could upgrade. Though in weighing the benefit of should we put the money into the Humvees to upgrade them as old as they are or should we buy new JLTV’s It was an easy decision for us. So we’re putting the money instead of investing into the old Humvees, we’re going to retire them and buy new field new JLTVs. They are built from the ground up, safer.

DONALD NORCROSS: No question about it and I agree with you. So does that mean those 2000 will not be used until the new ones come on, they’ll be?

DAVID BERGER: They’ll be fielded they’re still in the field right now, but they’ll be retired as we bring on the JLTVs.

DONALD NORCROSS: So I understand that. They will cross at a point that we can do it on some of those because it will be years and if they’re actively being used for the small and it is relatively small investment, we believe it is absolutely worth it or take them out because we’ve seen those young men and women being killed.

And I urge you to look at that a little bit deeper.

Admiral Gilday, we’ve heard the challenges we have in our industrial base and that goes across the spectrum from materials, critical materials, especially in munitions. But there are many parts that go into that. But we talk also about making sure that we have the required number of ships, submarines. We’ve heard the secretary talk about labor being the number one issue in supply chain and I agree with that because quite frankly it takes the longest to build.

What is the Navy’s plan to address that labor shortage, those blue collars that the secretary talked about?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, in this decade, we’ve increased the manning at our public shipyards by 10,000 people. Most of that in the trades. Industry is working to do the same thing. representative Courtney, And as we mentioned, we were just up in just up in Connecticut where they were looking to hire 4000 this year based on the workload that they have.

I was just up in Bath, Maine, they’re looking at hiring. I was in Bath earlier this week, another thousand at Bath Ironworks. The money that the United States government is putting into the industrial base in terms of workforce development, I think is absolutely critical. And I would urge the Congress to continue to make those investments.

Mr. Courtney talked about the fact that the Australians are helping us invest in that very thing.

DONALD NORCROSS: Mr. Whitman and I were down in Australia last year talking about the upcoming agreements and their number one issue is labor also. It’s imperative when I say us the parents of America to make sure that we explain to our children that going to work with your hands and your head is just as important as getting a PhD in physics.

We need all of them. And the dignity of having a job and working for your country is paramount. So with that I yield back.

TRENT KELLY: The gentleman yields back. I now recognize myself for five minutes. Admiral Gilday the 30 year shipbuilding plan provided Congress with three options. Although all three of these have the same profile in the next five years. Each is slightly different starting in ’29 and out. I don’t believe that having three options in a report to Congress is helpful to either Congress or to the industry.

What is your best military advice to this Congress on which of these options are required to allow you to meet the missions being placed on the Navy now and in the future? Because to me, this is just like answering a question with a question or repeating back to me what I’ve already told you. We need more finality in that.

And before you answer, I just want to recognize both the outstanding military spouses that are here in support of you. It is a family business and we cannot do it. They serve just as much as those in uniform. And thank you all for your service.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Yes, sir, thanks for those comments. My best military advice would be alternative number three. Alternative number three is not limited by funding, it’s only limited by the capacity of the defense industrial base, which I think over time only increases with respect to efficiencies and their ability to produce more ships.

TRENT KELLY: Thank — thank you, Admiral. Mr. Secretary, the CNO and the commandant of the Marine Corps both agree that the amphibious ship requirement is 31 ships as codified into law. I think we can all agree on the importance of having these strategic platforms in the inventory. Although the 30 year shipbuilding plan does not outline any procurement of LPDs, You have previously testified that you will revisit this in the 2025 budget submission.

Can you tell me what the impact will be to the industrial base if we do not fund the LPD either this year or next year in the strategic policy that we’re talking about that I don’t think will happen?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Yes, Mr. Chairman. It’s hard to completely hypothetically predict what the impact will be, but at a minimum you could expect losses of jobs in the realm of 1500 to 2000, for example in one particular shipyard. So it is a negative impact. More importantly, I think it’s important to provide consistency of messaging in terms of being able to do these multi ship procurements.

It is the unique way for the American taxpayer to save money as well too. So if we can get to a place where we’re doing a multi ship, multi year procurement for three to five additional ships. It does save money and it’s proven way to save money. We’ve seen it on, on constellation class frigates, we’ve seen it on destroyers.

We’ve seen it on numerous other platforms.

TRENT KELLY: Absolutely and I just want to point out, it’s not just the loss of jobs, it’s the loss of that workforce that we are saying we don’t have. And then we’re doing away with the workforce making their skills atrophy and then coming back a year later to build the same thing and losing that skill, which costs us more and takes longer.

Admiral Gilday, with the plan ship decommissioning this year is the Navy able to maintain appropriate amphibious — amphibious readiness to meet the Title ten requirement of 31 operational amphibious warships. And when you’re considering readiness, how do you define an amphibious warship as ready and after you’ve answered?

General Berger, I want your definition on readiness as well.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, we have different stages of readiness all the way from one to four. And so readiness levels one and two are our highest and those are the ships that we are considered ready to deploy. So they’re manned, they’re trained, they’re equipped, they’re certified for combat operations. We do that with our teammates in the Marine Corps together in terms of the certification exercise.

And then we push them out the door. With respect to, you know, with respect to numbers, no, I’m not satisfied with where we are with respect to maintenance and readiness of the force. It does need to improve. That’s why readiness remains our top priority and maintenance. The proposed funding is at 100 percent.

TRENT KELLY: And — and General Berger, I’m at a little to yours. Coming out, you recently stated there’s been a 20 percent decline in marine serving aboard ships since 2018, which you attribute to a lack of amphibious ships availability. Has amphibious ship readiness impacted the Marine Corp’s ability to contribute forces across the world as well as your definition with the remainder of my time?

DAVID BERGER: Sir, it has concisely, yes, it has affected the readiness and availability has affected our ability to be on the water to respond. Absolutely yes. As far as the definition, we share the same definition because we’re a naval force, a ready vessel is one that’s manned, trained, equip material conditions ready to go and the Marines are trained aboard that ship because it operates as a system.

That’s a — that’s an available ship.

TRENT KELLY: And in my final comment, in my last 20 seconds, I just want to say when we talk about decommissioning ships, sometimes we get the product that we try to do. If we say something’s going to be broke the entire time and make sure that it’s broke, it’s going to be just as broke, but we have to get the ships.

When they’re told to be seaworthy, we have to get them to sea regardless of our personal view on whether it should or not. And I yield back and now recognize my friend Mr. Gallego.

RUBEN GALLEGO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Berger, you’ve outlined an ambitious plan for redesign 2030. However, new threats are emerging each day that won’t wait until 2030. The need to modernize and potentially deter advisories. As we’ve seen in Russia’s continued war of aggression against Ukraine and increasingly provocative behavior from the Chinese communist Party toward Taiwan.

How do you balance immediate needs and long term planning and how are you ensuring that we have a modern and lethal force to meet the immense challenges of today?

DAVID BERGER: Thanks, Congressman. First, I take probably a little bit different view on an either or decision. In other words, you can either modernize or you can have a ready force. We’re both of us, all three of us are responsible to do both. As you accurately point out. We have to be ready today. The Marine Corps is America’s crisis response force by statute.

So we don’t — that’s not — that’s not an option, that’s not something I cannot do. We are ready very ready. But if we stay stagnant, if we don’t change, if we don’t stay in front of the threat, then four or five, six years from now, if China — if Russia continues on the trajectory they’re on, they’ll have advantages we can’t tolerate.

We have to do both and I’m very comfortable that we’re there because the forces that are deploying right now Congressman aboard ship and unit deployment program. They are very ready with what they have right now, but they are also leaning into the future, testing new concepts, testing new systems. They — they sense that if they don’t move now will be behind.

And that’s — that’s not acceptable.

RUBEN GALLEGO: Thank you, General. Admiral Gilday, your testimony highlights the incredible speed with which the CCP has increased its Navy tripling in size and only two decades. This dynamic makes it all the more important that we maintain the technological and intellectual edge. How is the Navy ensuring that we maintain this advantage?

And are there any particular gaps where we need to focus more attention? And how is the Navy prioritizing those areas?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, thanks for the question. Just briefly in this budget proposal in front of Congress in the undersea, we’re investing in an upgrade to our visionary class submarines, the block five with 28 additional missile tubes. We’re updating — we are increasing the capability of our torpedoes, including our heavyweight torpedoes.

We are deploying unmanned vessels, unmanned robotics out of torpedo tubes of our submarines. We’re investing in advanced electronic warfare systems on our surface ships. We’re investing in Standard Missile six. We’re putting hypersonics on the Zumwalt class destroyers and we’re investing in maritime strike Tomahawk.

For aviation F-35s with with a — with a fifth generation capability. Our fourth generation F-18 Super Hornets, we are right now taking them through mid-life modernization to bring them from six to 10,000 hours with an advanced combat systems. We’re investing in weapons with range and speed like LRASM. We’re putting that weapon on P-eights.

We’re investing in MQ 25, the drone that will be able to do refueling and more. And so those are the modernization efforts that we have ongoing not to keep pace with China, but to stay in front of China with a fleet, 70 percent of which you’ll have in the water a decade from now.

RUBEN GALLEGO: And Admiral, the goal is obviously a deterrence and — and that’s obviously what we’re always trying to do here. But is there a — a level of technology that is below what we have right now that is also that we could create denial? For example, are there things currently in our armory that we could be using or retrofitting right now to help deny Taiwan, China’s invasion of Taiwan?

And this could also go to Secretary Del Toro. Because at the end of the day, if we stop China from invading Taiwan, it’s over and it doesn’t necessarily mean we need the most sophisticated weaponry to do that. We just need the — the weaponry that can do the job, is there something that where we have in our armory right now that we should stock up on more that would actually do that?

MICHAEL GILDAY: So one of our requests is for additional mines, but also our first large undersea vessel is in the water right now off the coast of California, in testing, that testing is going fairly well. There’ll be five more additional UVs that follow that one. That platform has a clandestine mine laying capability and that will be a game changer for us to your point about making an investment in something that will change it, secretary.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Just adding very quickly Congressman, I think the investment that we make in counter five ISR as well to Operation Overmatch, which we can’t talk about publicly, but that has significant impact on their ability to do what they wish to do on day one.

RUBEN GALLEGO: Excellent, thank you. I yield back.

TRENT KELLY: Gentleman, yields back, I now recognize the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Bacon.

DON BACON: Thank you, Mr. Kelly. We thank all three of you for being here and I just had to run a vote comeback, so catch my breath here real fast. But we thank you for your leadership. My first question is to Admiral Gilday. I’m looking at a quality of life panel here we’re going to start up. It’s a subcommittee that’s gonna start in June.

We’re focused on a lot of different areas that try to improve the quality of Life.

One of the things I hear about the Navy is that a significant number of our junior sailors who are not married have to stay on the ships when they’re in port. And that’s even in the midst of like maintenance. And the loud noises are going to repair a ship to get it ready to go up back out to fleet and that’s that the quality of life for those sailors are not good.

Is there, first of all, what’s your take on that? Am I hearing this correct? Two, do we need to be investing in more barracks at our at our ports?

MICHAEL GILDAY: To your last question, we are with respect to barracks significantly across — across the FYDP. If I could give the example of San Diego right now we’ve got three carriers in port and so E one to E threes by law are not allowed to have basic allowance for housing if they’re in a — if they’re on sea duty.

So they have to stay on the ship unless that ships in maintenance. What we’ve done with what we’ve done with — with those three ships is to the maximum extent possible. We have put those sailors in the barracks to ease the strain. We have taken E-fours that have less than four years of service and we have the ability to waive the requirement or to waive the restriction for BA and to actually allow them to get a housing allowance to, to get them in the ship.

So based on the constraints that we have in the law and we are — and the available housing, we’re trying to do the best we can to get people ashore. We’ve cut a deal with landlords in San Diego as an example, and we’re working this in other places, where they’re giving our sailor’s below market price deals on their properties.

We guarantee a steady throughput, so they won’t be vacant and they also waive the security, the security deposit. So we are trying to get at that very piece with respect to quality of life.

DON BACON: Just to follow up, I hear like in our facilities in Japan, that’s some of the worst conditions for a lot of our sailors. Are you hearing the same thing?

MICHAEL GILDAY: So I’d say that in the commandant spoke about this in his opening comments, it’s an area that we have not put sufficient focus on for the last several years. And that’s why you see significant increases in both our Milken and our restoration and modernization budgets. And it’s reflected in our — in our unfunded list as well.

It’s among the top priorities of the secretary.

DON BACON: Thank you, Admiral. Secretary Del Toro, you know we’ve had a requirement for 355 ships for a while and but we’re under 300 and that number is going down, I understand it. Do we have the right number at 355? Should we be rethinking our strategy? It seems to me the strategy is right, but we’re not funding or building towards that goal.

CARLOS DEL TORO: So Congressman, I do believe 355 is the right number. As you know, there’s a battle force strategic assessment and requirements review going on right now that will be completed by June. That’ll — I don’t want to assume what the outcome of that will be, but I suspect it won’t probably change much from the three 355 ship number and also looking at 150 unmanned ships as well too, which is really important for the future.

The question is modernizing the fleet now, getting rid of those ships that don’t have the greatest capability for us to be able to defer to deter against China and other adversaries around the world. So we can use those resources more intelligently and more valuably in the future to get even more ships for the future.

DON BACON: The image I’m getting not just for the Navy, I see it in all of our services right now. We know we have to grow for the future, but we’re all shrinking and yet we know this vulnerability with China is imminent. And so it’s — I just feel like as a — as an Armed Services committee, I just think we need to sit back and just make sure we are — we’re funding you appropriately, so we’re not falling backwards.

But I just got one minute if I could ask you, what’s your number one quality of life issue that we can help you out in the Marines?

DAVID BERGER: Overseas I’d say you’re probably hearing the same thing as me, medical care. After that family housing, after that child development centers. Here in CONUS, more family housing and medical care and child development centers. All three of those are pretty common refrain here in the US and overseas both. But medical care, huge right now.

DON BACON: Well, we appreciate those inputs. Thank you to all three I look for to tackle and tackle on all these issues on the panel. Thank you. I yield.

TRENT KELLY: Gentleman yields back. I now recognize the Representative from Hawaii, Ms. Tokuda.

JILL TOKUDA: Tokuda, thank you sir. All right, Mr. Secretary, I definitely appreciate your affirmation and for their commitment to Red Hill. I think we both agree this is something that will be a continuing earning and earning back trust every single day. On that note, there’s been some concern among community members in Hawaii that the Navy’s consideration of reuse options of Red Hill could pave the way for future fuel related uses.

Even after the Joint Task Force, Red Hill completes its fueling efforts. Recently, Assistant Secretary Burger stated that the Navy will not pursue any beneficial reuse options that would contain potential contaminants. Can we confirm and commit to this committee and the people of Hawaii that there is no future after fueling in which Red Hill will ever again be used for fuel related options.

CARLOS DEL TORO: For as long as I’m secretary for as long as this administration is in power, madam Congresswoman, I can tell you that there is absolutely zero intent to put fuels back into Red Hill.

JILL TOKUDA: Thank you. I definitely appreciate that secretary. Red Hill was designed for fuel storage though we know it was definitely an engineering marvel and feat back in the 1940s. So it retains all those properties necessary for fuel related operations. And while we have your affirmation that would never take place on your watch, there still is a lot of anxiety that even after the fueling closure and yes, for the time being no potential fuel related operations, it’s still basically one degree away from potential fuel storage over our aquifer going ahead into the future.

And I know right now, outreach efforts are underway to engage community and other individuals in the future of this facility and looking at different options. But has the Navy considered physical modifications to Red Hill that it could take as part of the closure process to completely eliminate the possibility that it could be used for fuel related uses going forward?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, the intent is not to continue to maintain Red Hill in the future once the fuel is out of there in a manner which actually would still allow it to hold fuel in the tanks themselves. So over the course of time, those tanks would deteriorate and you wouldn’t be able to put fuel into them in any effective manner.

And so again, I overemphasize the fact that part of the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, there is absolutely zero intent to put fuel back into Red Hill.

JILL TOKUDA: Okay, you know and I definitely would just reaffirm that part of that earning trust back one action one day every day is to continue to reinforce that message and show that through actions that we will never again have fuel hanging over our aquifers and impairing the — the Drinking water of the people of Hawaii and our military servicemen and women.

Switching subjects, a little bit, joint base Pearl Harbor Hickam Wastewater Treatment plant has, as we both know, continued to spill and discharge untreated or partially treated wastewater for — for many, many years now. Most recently on March 7th, approximately 14,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater was released into our state waters.

There’s a long trail of problems with the wastewater treatment plant at Pearl and after the state imposed a fine on the Navy last year, it sounds like these problems are being taken seriously through corrective actions, although details are hard to come by. Again, Mr. Secretary, looking at that earning of trust and looking at the actions being taken, what is the Navy doing to address the unacceptable state of Pearl Harbor wastewater treatment plants and the impacts that it’s had on our state waters?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, Congressman thank you for your support of this incredibly important issue because it does have a negative impact on the health and welfare of the people of Hawaii, our service members and all other tourists that come to Hawaii obviously. So it’s very important to us. When I came in as Secretary of the Navy, probably less than 1 percent of the budget was dedicated to infrastructure.

Since I’ve been secretary, those numbers have gone up significantly actually and I’m committed actually to a 30 year infrastructure plan that takes a look at the worst of the entire Department of the Navy both in the Marine Corps and the Navy to figure out exactly where it Is that we need to start making greater investments in infrastructure today.

We’ve begun that process actually by taking a look at the utilities in Hawaii, the electricity, the wastewater, the fresh water in across the bases in Hawaii, actually to see where we can make greater investments that take care of them because it’s old infrastructure that it hasn’t been maintained properly over the course of years.

And we need to have those investments now so that we can prevent these things from ever occurring again.

JILL TOKUDA: Absolutely, thank you very much and I absolutely share your commitment and dedication to infrastructure repairs. We are in the middle of an ocean. Things tend to deteriorate a lot faster. The useful life is a lot shorter. But as you know, we have tended to act well beyond those useful lives for many of our utilities and infrastructure facilities.

I know I’m about to run out of time, but we’ll put forth some questions. Obviously, my side of the Island County Marine Corps base, we do have some water reclamation facility compliance projects that I’m very interested in and appreciate all of your support for that from the Corps. Thank you. I yield back.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank the gentlelady Chairman. I recognize the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gae,tz for five minutes.

MATT GAETZ: Mr. Secretary, you know that Pensacola is a Navy town and I want to thank you for coming and spending time at our naval museum. In so many of these hearings I focus on the things that I am concerned about as downward pressure on our recruiting. But in my time with you, I’d like to focus on something that is a really positive thing that can drive recruiting.

So many of these naval aviators I meet in my district, they were inspired by Top Gun or they went to a Blue Angels airshow and they got that spark in them that got them to take that extra engineering class or physics class or aviation opportunity. And this museum that you’ve been to is a gem. We have recovered aircraft out of the depths of Lake Michigan.

We put on displays about the greatest moments of heroism and our military. And my challenge right now is I got, I think the best naval museum in the world and I’m having a hard time getting people to it because the way my base is configured, our bases configured folks are not able to have ingress and egress.

And I know it sounds like a real small problem from a real small part of the country. But what I think is if — if we could have leadership and focus from your office and others and we could get hundreds of thousands of people back onto the base back into that museum, it’s not going to solve all of our recruiting challenges, but it’s one more spark that we can have out there getting excited in a positive productive way.

Will you work with me on that so I can get better access to this to this great gem?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Congressman, I’ve been working with you and your staff and local politicians and the leadership of that museum actually to try to get the throughput through that museum open as quickly as possible. We’ve come up with some near-term solutions, but we’re also focused on finding the long term solutions that actually bring it back to maximum throughput for that museum for all the reasons that you just stated because it is an extraordinary museum.

MATT GAETZ: So you’ve where I at times struggle with folks is seeing the museum not just as a morale and welfare tool, but as a recruiting tool, do you see it as a recruiting tool?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I Absolutely, see it as a recruiting tool. I saw it from the first day that I stepped in it and we have actually been very energized and we’ve come up with some near-term solutions to increase the throughput that are already paid off dividends. But we’re also looking at the long term solutions that are a little bit more costly to be able to provide a direct access to the outside world without having to have folks come in through the base itself.

MATT GAETZ: Well, thank you for casting it in that lens because if it’s a matter of dollars and cents and I have to ask my colleagues to support such an endeavor in the NDAA. I’ll certainly cite your testimony that this isn’t just a museum for the sake of recreation. But it is a way to engage people in naval aviation in a place that’s the home of the Blue Angels, the cradle of naval aviation.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Absolutely.

MATT GAETZ: So — so Admiral Gilday, I had another question. Hopefully this is — this is easy. We can disclaim it. There’s this entity called the Uniform Services University and they come up with a lot of ways to engage in medical treatment throughout the force. They do some stuff at Walter Reed and a group of these physicians got together and they wrote a very strange and concerning report entitled, Caring for Military Affiliated Transgender and Gender Diverse Youths A Call for Protections.

And in this report, we got folks that are working at this university talking about gender affirming care for seven year olds. And in the report it cites that seven year olds ought to be able to participate in the decisions about whether or not they get puberty blockers or any of this other kind of treatment?

I don’t expect to have the Navy own the report of a few people that wrote it of their own volition. But I’m just hoping with our time together, you can say that the Navy has no plans to adopt the recommendations in this report to see things in this way.

MICHAEL GILDAY: So we have to follow the law. I’m not familiar with that training, but I share your concern, I’ll commit to looking.

MATT GAETZ: It’s not training just so we’re clear, it’s not training. It’s a report a group of DOD folks got together and wrote about what they’d like to see. And — and they’ve made like — I wouldn’t be asking you about it, but for the fact that they’ve made specific policy recommendations about gender affirming care for seven-year-olds.

So I appreciate your answer. You have to follow the law. You don’t believe there’s any part of the law that requires you to have military physicians involved in giving puberty blockers to children. Do you?

MICHAEL GILDAY: So I’d be surprised if there were — I just — I don’t know the law in that area well. I’m not trying to be evasive actually that that university is actually run by DHA. I will get back to you with DHA with a firm answer.

MATT GAETZ: Yeah, and it just sort of goes one of two ways. If you guys can say to us in these hearings that you’re not going to do this stuff, you’re not going to move people because of this. You’re not going to administer this care that that probably is sufficient for most of us. If it’s something that’s unclear, we’ll probably put in the NDAA prohibitions so that these adoption, these recommendations are never adopted.

MIKE ROGERS: Thank the gentleman chair. I recognize the gentleman from Massachusetts Mr. Moulton for five minutes.

SETH MOULTON: General Berger, you proposed an ambitious, politically risky modernization plan, that created a fair bit of concern. It included a lot of investments, a number of divestments in particular. As a member of Congress on the House Armed Services Committee I sat down with the critics, the chief critics of this plan and I listened to every one of their concerns and I brought every one of those concerns to you and to the Marine Corps and you and your officers answered every single one.

Eight members of Congress after that signed an op ed in The Wall Street Journal fully supporting your modernization plan. Past commandants have talked about this. Other services are starting to work on it themselves, but you and the Marine Corps continue to lead the way.

And my advice to you sitting here this morning to borrow a Navy phrase is, “Damn the torpedoes damn the critics full speed ahead”. But it’s worth also noting the one concern that all eight of us shared in that piece in The Wall Street Journal and that is to quote, “the Marine Corps may not be moving fast enough”. You’re moving faster than all the services.

You’re leading the way for America, and yet we’re not confident that you’re moving as quickly as our adversaries. So I would encourage you to consider not just full speed but flank speed ahead as you continue this modernization. Mr. Secretary, will you continue to support the commandant and force design 2030 and whatever comes next to modernize the Marine Corps to meet this nation’s chief adversaries?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Absolutely sir.

SETH MOULTON: And Admiral Gilday will you continue to support Commandant Berger and what he needs to do to continue leading the way?

DAVID BERGER: Yes, sir.

SETH MOULTON: General Berger, one area where I think the Marine Corps might be able to focus even more is on artificial intelligence. By some estimates, a China is as a percentage of their overall defense budget spending three to 10 times as much on AI as we are. Repeated reports to the Department of Defense have encouraged the department to move faster in adopting AI, including the Future of Defense Task force.

A bipartisan report from this committee a few years ago, but the services are lagging behind. I think this is a great opportunity for the Marine Corps to continue to lead. Would you be willing to get us a report by this September for what the Marine Corps is doing today to integrate AI and what you can do to accelerate that to give that advantage to our Marines and warfighters in the near future?

DAVID BERGER: Congressman, I’m going to have that to you long before September. Absolutely, yes.

SETH MOULTON: Thank you. Thank you very much. Shifting topics, a bit, part of Forest Design 2030 is about retaining the best personnel and that means keeping them in fighting shape. I teamed up with a fellow veteran in Congress a few years ago and passed the National Mental Health Hotline 988, creating a three digit mental health hotline which should help reduce the number of suicides in America.

It was implemented in July. It’s already having a dramatic effect. Calls to 908 are up 50 percent. Text to 988 representing younger Americans are up 1,445 percent. But I’ve asked a lot of friends on active duty and I’m still not hearing about 988 being posted around our barracks, our bases so our service members know that number and can call it in a time of crisis and help you with a stronger force a. So what I would like to hear is will you be willing to get out by next Friday, May 5th, a standard poster that can be sent electronically and easily duplicated to post around Marine Corps barracks all over the world.

So that Marines know this number.

DAVID BERGER: We can do that.

SETH MOULTON: Admiral Gilday will you do the same so that it’s on all our — all our ships. Obviously, this is not something that will be used. I shouldn’t say ships that it’s on all our naval bases in the United States.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Yes, sir.

SETH MOULTON: And Mr. Secretary, will you commit to making sure that the other services not represented here today will do the same by Friday, May 5th?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, Congressman, I’m not going to commit to Friday, May 5th. I know how tough the bureaucracy is in the Pentagon to get something printed by the gentleman on your left hand. But I will commit to doing this expeditiously as quick as we possibly can to get the poster made and get it distributed to where it needs to go.

SETH MOULTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MIKE ROGERS: Chair now recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Banks.

JIM BANKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last fall before the Supreme Court, the Solicitor general argued in favor of continuing to use race as a factor in university and service academy admissions. Secretary Del Toro if the Supreme Court as we expect strikes down the use of racial preferences in universities and includes the service academies in this ruling, will the Navy stop its affirmative action practices for military academy admissions at the naval academy.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Congressman. The United States Naval Academy in Annapolis has used a whole multiple approach in picking it’s candidates to become midshipmen at the Naval Academy. And that is a methodology that has been successful for decades and it takes into account race, it takes into account many other factors whether you played sports, you know what job you had, where you came from, what hardships you might have suffered through.

JIM BANKS: Secretary, we make a commitment to this committee if the Supreme Court rules that at all if the Supreme Court rules [Crosstalk] and says to stop using race — race as a — as a part of the admissions standards at the military academies will the Naval Academy abide by it?

CARLOS DEL TORO: As a member of the executive, the Department of the Navy and me as Secretary of the Navy will always follow.

JIM BANKS: Have you had any discussions at all with the Naval Academy, about what that transition plan might look like if that Supreme court ruling happens?

CARLOS DEL TORO: There’s no need right now for me to have discussions on a transition plan for a law that hasn’t been passed.

JIM BANKS: So how quickly could you change those standards if the Supreme Court says to stop?

CARLOS DEL TORO: As quickly as is reasonably possible to fulfill the law.

JIM BANKS: But no — no planning at this point, no discussion.

CARLOS DEL TORO: No plan to change the whole person multiple approach that the Naval Academy has used for decades very successfully to create great leaders across the Marine Corps and the Navy as the two that are sitting here before me no.

JIM BANKS: Okay, well — well understood. This month the Vice CNO Lisa Franchetti said that the Navy will likely miss its recruiting goals for this year by 6000 sailors, falling 16 percent short of its target. admiral Gilday, how is the recruiting crisis harming the Navy’s Ability to fully manned or deployed vessels?

MICHAEL GILDAY: It’s going to have an impact, sir, in terms of being able to man every billeted, see what we’re trying to do to mitigate that. Well, first of all, we’re — we’re very focused on recruiting in terms of attracting talent. But in terms of what we’re going to have to do to mitigate that, we — we are trying to incentivize sea duty for those that have moved ashore as we owe them that that kind of shore duty but to get them back to sea in leadership positions.

And we’ve had a lot of success in doing that. We’re trying to — right now our manning at sea is over 90 percent.

JIM BANKS: You would say, you would agree that the falling short of recruitment puts more pressure on our sailors?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Absolutely. We can’t afford to have gaps out there and have people doing twice the work.

JIM BANKS: You did tell me before though that while recruitment is off. Below our target retention is strong in the United States Navy is that, is that right? It is and what can we learn from that?

MICHAEL GILDAY: So, so a few things, I think — I think the work we’ve done to empower people to allow them to have more choices in terms of where they’re going to serve next inside it has to meet their professional development in terms of requirements. But to — to be for the system to be more transparent to give sailors and their families the ability to plan ahead.

I think we’ve — we’ve given them that type of — we’ve empowered them to make — to be — to have a greater — do you have greater leverage in making those decisions.

JIM BANKS: Secretary Del Toro, last month in the Bahamas, you said that fighting climate change was one of your top priorities as a secretary. This comes as the Biden administration proposes to further shrink our Navy. And while China continues a massive expansion of our fleet, where do you rank climate change among other priorities of yours as the secretary?

We know in the military, we know when you make one thing a priority, you have to acknowledge that other things might be less of a priority. So we’re just climate change factor into the priorities that you have is the Secretary of the Navy.

CARLOS DEL TORO: As I said then it is a top priority. Let me give you an example. When I was commanding officer of the USS Bulkeley and I tied up to one of our new piers in Norfolk that two double decker pier, actually all the utilities were on the lower part of the double decker pier. And — and now we appreciate the — I appreciate the anecdote.

I appreciate the anecdote on our earlier. [Crosstalk]

JIM BANKS: It’s my time. Where do you rank climate change with say recruiting, what’s more important?

CARLOS DEL TORO: They’re all equally important. They all have an impact on our combat readiness or growing our fleet. Everything that I do as Secretary of the Navy. [Crosstalk]

JIM BANKS: Make climate change your top priority then recruitment is a lesser priority. So where does it rank in your priorities as Secretary of the Navy?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I stated where my injury priorities are strengthened maritime dominance, strengthened our cultural warfighting excellence and improve our relationships with our allies and partners around the world and climate is included in all three of those.

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired and I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Carbajal.

SALUD CABRAJAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And welcome to all the witnesses. Admiral Gilday and General Berger, thank you for your service. I wish you the best in your next endeavors and certainly our country is better because of your service, so thank you. Today, I’m going to focus on our most precious resource, our personnel.

I want to start with the focus on recruiting on the recruiting challenges of our Department of Defense, the Navy and the Marine Corps are facing today.

SALUD CARBAJAL: Secretary Del Toro, your testimony highlighted a demand for a more aggressive recruiting approach. How are you getting after it? And can you touch on any strategies and metrics? Because oftentimes, we talk about a lot of programs, a lot of interesting concepts, but do we have metrics to measure how well we’re doing?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Yes, Congressman and we actually pay a hell of a lot of attention to our metrics and our data and how we recruit obviously. You know, when I’ve traveled the country, talking to recruiters both in the Marine Corps and the Navy, the number one complaint that they actually have is getting regaining access to our high schools.

And this is largely because high schools have been closed largely to COVID. We haven’t been able to actually talk to the instructors, the guidance counselors, the students themselves. So we’ve got to regain that credibility with all our high schools, be able to get back in there and talk to our marketplace.

We also need to recruit from the entire marketplace, right? So we need far more women in our Navy and our Marine Corps. I’m looking for tough women to join both the Navy and the Marine Corps. And inspiring them in ways that proves to them that despite what Ms. Sherill said actually that there is actually hope for women that they will be able to advance to the highest ranks in both the Marine Corps and the Navy and that’s what this leadership team is dedicated to doing, And Admiral Franchetti is the perfect example of that as our current vice chief of naval operations for example.

So that’s the message we want to send. It’s a positive message we need you. We need you to come join our service and serve in our nation’s national security.

SALUD CARBAJAL: Thank you. Is there anything Congress can do to assist in boosting recruitment and retention other than badgering you about silly things?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Continue to send a positive message to all of Americans that service in the armed services is an honorable thing. Despite whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent. Where you may come from. This is about serving our country. This is about protecting the Constitution of the United States and that there are many things that can be drawn positive lessons, lifelong lessons that can be drawn from a service in uniform.

SALUD CARBAJAL: Thank you. As we work to increase recruitment for our military, it’s important the new recruits and service members understand the life changing potential opportunities the military presents. It most certainly helped me. As I looked at the DOD 2021 demographic report, it shows an increase in minority group representation in the office of ranks from, ’01-’06. However, all the general officer ranks showed decline across the board with the Navy showing an unfortunate decrease of 4.2 percent.

What are we doing? What are we doing to change that? To make sure that the demographics of our military represents the demographics of our country at all levels? For instance, the Marine Corps one in every four Marines are from Hispanic descent. So when it comes to warriors, who do you think is at the front of the spear fighting these wars?

So what are we doing to address this serious issue with metrics and what is this telling young recruits and service members that we don’t take enough action to correct that misrepresentation?

CARLOS DEL TORO: So from the top, let me say that we recognize this challenge. Our enlisted corps needs to have individuals that they see like themselves so that they can continue to advance as well too. We’re putting in a lot of resources in trying to recruit more Hispanics, African Americans, people of Asian backgrounds, everyone across America, people from all over the Country of all types to come into our services so that we can actually build the banks that are necessary to eventually get people to rise to the general and the admiral levels as well too.

And we’re taking a very close look at how we select folks and making sure that there’s proper representation on those boards that will take into consideration everybody’s capabilities like a meritocracy actually should in terms of making those selections. But there is positive news when you take a look at the advancements from ’06 to ’07 in the last couple of years.

For example, we see increasing numbers of minorities across the board that are actually being selected from ’05 to ’06 and ’06 to ’07. So I think it is trending in the right direction, but allow the commandant and the CNO to further comment.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, we’ve seen positive trends ’01 to ’06 across every demographic in the last five years. I can give you specifics on all of those.

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired. I recognize gentleman from Florida, Mr. Waltz.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And — and as much as I respect my colleague, I don’t think these conversations are silly at all. I think they’re fundamental to the type of fighting force that we have. And when I continue to have cadets, military members or family members calling me and reaching out with what I think is — silly and things that divert them from their warfighting focus and ameritocracy that the military should be. It’s incredibly concerning.

I just received a call from a senior cadet who’s decided not to join the Air Force because he was number one in his ROTC program, but he was told by his department that they’ve never had a woman at the top. And so he was going to be number two, because they weren’t meeting their diversity goals. So I think these conversations are actually fundamental in how we maintain the best fighting force.

And I think black, white, brown, man, woman, you name it, they need to see their leaders as the best that they absolutely can be and they can transcend whatever background or whatever held them back through the United States military. Which has been the tradition and I hope that we can stay focused on that.

In that regard, a lot of conversation on recruiting, I asked all of the senior enlisted leaders, which service actually is collecting data. Are they polling or are they talking to influencers or are they talking to folks who are initially interested? But then said no. Only the army is a system — a system wide polling program.

Mr. Secretary, is that accurate? Because none of the senior enlisted leaders said besides the Army that they can point to data. We have narratives, COVID, wokeism, extremism, what have you. We have a lot of thoughts on narratives. Do you have data that you can send the committee?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I’m pretty confident we have data coming particularly data coming into the — the — the recruiting commanders themselves.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Have you seen polling?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I personally have not looked at polling data, no.

MICHAEL WALTZ: So we’re short, we have a huge impact on the force, but you’re testifying today, you haven’t seen any type of polling data.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, I’ll leave that to my chief recruiters, both in the Navy and the Marines Corps.

MICHAEL WALTZ: I would think it would be a key — key priority for you, Mr. Secretary.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, I’ve had meetings with, I meet with them once a month. But I myself have not looked at the raw polling data coming out from the recruits themselves.

MICHAEL WALTZ: I would encourage — I would encourage that obviously, but also if we could have a follow up, if you could share that with us because we’re putting measures in place or authorizing measures it needs to be based on data, not what we think is going on. Fair?

CARLOS DEL TORO: No, it’s fair. I mean, I think there’s a wide recognition that we’re struggling to recruit across the board and we’ve got to do better.

MICHAEL WALTZ: And we need to have empirical data to understand why. Admiral Gilday, if we can just talk about — ASW for a minute, anti-submarine warfare. Key thing that obviously the PRC is investing in to get it our — our advantage. I know we have a significant advantage that they’re trying to catch up with. The Chinese have surpassed us in numbers of submarine, not in capability, but at least in numbers coupled with the Russians.

I’m concerned that there’s no additional procurements for P-8. I understand there’s a validated requirement for 138, but we’re going to sit at 128. If you could speak to that briefly, but also in my visits out there I mean, the P-8 is a great — great platform, but it’s burning through about 50 percent more sonar buoys than — than the P-3 did.

I worry in general about our stocks forward, but I’m particularly worried about our ASD capabilities. Can you speak to that please?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Yes, sir, on the numbers and 128, So the initial — you’re right, the initial requirement was up in the mid 130s. We dialed back to 128 just based on what we were seeing out there with respect to real world missions or efficiencies with respect to sortie rates. And the also the results that we saw in WarGames.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Is the requirement lowered?

MICHAEL GILDAY: It is right, so — so — so we came from 135 to — to 128. With respect to sonobuoy usage. So, we have seen an increase in usage against certain types of submarines. I would sir, I don’t — I don’t mean to be evasive. I would like the opportunity to go into more detail with you in terms of the different capabilities that.

MICHAEL WALTZ: We’re breaking out the joint venture, right or we’re moving beyond that and I’m worried that we have a gap, and I don’t — I would welcome a briefing on how we’re going to address that gap moving forward to keep not only for our own fleet but for our Allies that are also purchasing. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank the gentleman and I recognize the gentleman from Maine Mr. Golden for five minutes.

JARED GOLDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chair and gentlemen. Thank you for being here today and for your service to the country. Admiral Gilday, as you know, getting the transition between the flight 3DTG51 production and the start of the DDGX program is going to be important for the large surface combatant industrial base. And Congress has taken steps to help this transition including a requirement for land-based testing programs for DDGX components as well as last year’s provision for a DDGX common design collaboration with the industry.

According to a reporting requirement, in a prior defense bill, the Navy projected an optimal overlap transition period for three years of additional DDG 51 procurement. Once the initial DDGX is — is funded and this seems to match up with comments you’ve made before such as last year at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Is that still your — your position Admiral?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Yes, sir, and I won’t speak for the secretary, but I know that our discussions have reflected that we need a sound transition plan for industry with overlap between Flight three DGS and DDGX. And that strategy is absolutely going to be informed by the two prime vendors HII, Ingalls and also Bath Ironworks.

JARED GOLDEN: Thank you. Just a few days ago, China conducted exercises around Taiwan where it practiced blockading the island and precision strikes and in response to the Navy carried out a routine Taiwan Strait transit and the Navy has also recently demonstrated freedom of navigation by sailing near manmade Chinese controlled islands in the South China Sea, what type of ship conducted these operations, Admiral?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Destroyer.

JARED GOLDEN: Thank you, sir. General Berger, what is the Marine Corps doing alongside the Navy to complement freedom of navigation operations to demonstrate to those in the South China Sea. That Chinese assertions that the entire body is their sovereign territory is actually not the case. And that freedom of navigation will be enforced.

DAVID BERGER: As you pointed out, and I’ll use AMPHIB ships as an example. The Chinese navy has 38 AMPHIB ships, building more. They’re exporting them. We have 31 and we’re going downhill. What do we need to be doing forward? We need to be married with the Navy as a deterrent force and that means evolving into in addition to what we normally do in joint forcible entry things like Expeditionary Advanced Base operations where we have naval strike missiles that can assist that can be a complementary capability To the ASW and surface capability that the Navy already has.

So, it’s a team approach with the stand in forces and embarked aboard amphibious ships, both anti surface and anti-subsurface, all of that.

JARED GOLDEN: Thank you. Before the hearing started, you spoke to me a little bit about the importance of the Marine Corps mission at our embassies around the world. And I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about the importance of that mission, but also about some of the most recent actions taken by Marines abroad in service to the country.

DAVID BERGER: Thank you, Congressman he and I were talking about the — the Marine detachment that came out of Sudan a few days ago and they got back to Quantico day before yesterday. So, Sergeant Major Black and I went down there and met with them. Like the rest of the diplomats, they flew out with the small backpack and that’s it. But amazing when you listen to them, you ask them how the last two or three days go. You’re a marine.

You would know where I’m going with this. Just flat-out discipline, focus on the mission destruction of classified materials, protection of the embassy, they manned two post continued to man them until the ambassador went on the last aircraft. Handed, brought down the American flag, handed it to folded it up as you would expect handed it to the ambassador.

And through all this, all this is led by a staff sergeant, no officers a staff sergeant, because that’s how well trained, how disciplined they are. You would be incredibly proud of them. And that’s the case at every embassy that we provide a security detachment to. Small detachments led by noncommissioned officers, staff noncommissioned officers doing what you’d expect Marines to do.

JARED GOLDEN: Thank you. I appreciate that. I am proud of them. I know you are too, and I know that we all are. So, thank you for your time leading the Marine Corps as commandant these past few years. I appreciate it very much semper fi.

MIKE ROGERS: Thank the gentleman. I recognize this gentleman from Texas, Mr. Fallon for five minutes.

PATRICK FALLON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, Secretary Del Toro and Admiral, you’re both intimately familiar I’m sure with the water contamination aboard the USS Nimitz?

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, sir.

PATRICK FALLON: Okay, so last December I had a constituent reach out, her son’s, a sailor on the Nimitz and she was rightfully concerned about the jet fuel and her son being sick. And of course, we want to be good members of Congress. So, she said that they were told not to make much of a fuss and don’t bring it up and they were even nervous about coming forward.

So, I just want to get to the truth, so I wanted to hear the Navy side of the story so January fourth, we reach out to the liaison and ask for a report back and then it’s — we get nothing. So, three weeks go by into January, what was the exact date January 23rd, was January 24th, nothing January 23rd, nothing reached out again March 3rd, nothing now, April 28th, nothing.

Can you all help me out with finding out what the Navy’s perspective is and how you’re going to handle this? Because I don’t know what to tell this mom and I hate that wasting a minute of my valuable five minutes talking about this because it should have been done at a much lower level.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Congressman, we’d be happy to give you a full report on the conditions that took place there. I will tell you that the material conditions that were found at fault were all fixed and there’s no current issues at all on the Ike, but we will get back to the full detail.

PATRICK FALLON: Yeah, because we’re working in good faith here, absolutely. I just, you know crickets and it’s just — it’s unfortunate. So, getting to recruiting, we’ve heard now three or four members talking about it. I think it’s an absolute crisis and I would encourage you, Mr. Secretary, to hate to use baseball analogies, but as a Red Sox fan, we didn’t win the World Series for 86 years.

And then we had leadership come in and take care of this and they examine the data, not they didn’t delegate it down the general manager and the President and the owners looked at this stuff. So, I would really encourage you to be on the tip of the spear because we’ve got to figure this out and what specific plans do you have to increase recruiting so we can actually hit our levels.

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, let me assure you, this is an all hands on deck. I’ve been working on this for 18 months. I want to leave you with the suggestion that the data doesn’t matter. We aren’t looking at data. There are people in the Department of the Navy both in the Marine Corps and the Navy full task force that are looking at everything that actual potential candidate recruit does.

And we’re also trying to be innovative about what do we do differently that we haven’t done in the past in order to be able to recruit more effectively, right? And what’s standing the marketplace is one of the things that we did.

PATRICK FALLON: Specifically, what are we going to do?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, I’ll give you a perfect example. Just two days ago I actually went to the Saint John’s College High School for example, that’s a high school that had not been specifically targeted for quite some time. I met with the cadet corps there. There was a cadet corps of 300, for example, we had an enormous amount of minority candidates and specifically Hispanics and people who had come from Africa that have a desire to join the Navy.

So, we’re now linking our recruiting forces up with that school well, that’s a cadet school. We’ll do that.

PATRICK FALLON: With a recruit, we do that respectfully with a thousand several thousand.

CARLOS DEL TORO: That’s exactly right and we’re looking at expanding that model across the United States. We’ve also got an additional funding from the office of Secretary of Defense for our marketing perspective as well too. I actually even gone out to Hollywood for example, to try to engage their support and doing PSAs and reaching out to high schools and community colleges and others to sort of help expand them.

PATRICK FALLON: I think you heard bipartisan concern absolutely. And if I could ask General Berger, the one branch that has met the recruiting goals during this crisis has been the Marines. Can you enlighten us as to — and I know the smallest force, but what is — what approaches are you taking to achieve these goals? Because I would love the Navy, Air Force and Army to learn from the Marines?

DAVID BERGER: It is a tough recruiting environment. I mean, one of our sons is on recruiting duty right now. It’s not easy, but the Marine Corps doesn’t have a recruiting crisis because probably two or three main reasons. One people high school, college just like they always have want to join something that’s a challenge.

Something that allows them to push to another level. And they view the Marines as sort of an elite force that would be hard to get into. You cannot — you can’t join the Marine Corps; you have to become a marine. So, part of it is the Marine Corps, more part of it is the quality of the recruiters. We hand select everybody who goes out on recruiting duty.

They go through tough training, they are our very best majors in 52, recruiting stations, the best majors we have, we put — we put the best people out there.

PATRICK FALLON: And just with the few seconds I have left, I think China in is the largest threat secretary respectfully and not climate change. Considering that the United States footprint carbon footprint has been reduced by almost 20 percent over the last 20 years. And China is opening two coal plants on average a week and their carbon footprint has increased by 300 percent.

CARLOS DEL TORO: I agree with you. I never said climate change was the number one priority. I said climate change was a top priority. I have always consistently said that China is the.

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired. I recognize the gentlelady from Virginia, Ms. McClellan, for five minutes.

JENNIFER MCCLELLAN: Thank you, Mr. Chair, secretary Del Toro, good to see you. Admiral Gilday and General Berger, thank you very much for your service. I really appreciate in your submitted remarks, you’re focusing on quality-of-life issues which are critical to recruitment and retention and particularly your focus on meeting the mental health needs of our service members and addressing suicide.

And I want to talk a little more on the systemic mental health crisis within our armed services and particularly at naval facilities in Virginia. Where at least five sailors assigned to the USS George Washington, which has been docked in Norfolk since 2017, have died by suicide in the last year, And I appreciate the briefing that was held for some of the members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committee.

Unfortunately, these sailors are not alone, and several sailors assigned to other ships undergoing refueling and complex overhaul at the mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center in Norfolk have died by suicide within the past five years. I know for many of our sailors this seems like an unrelenting tragedy.

And I want to focus my questioning on this issue. So first, Secretary Del Toro, can you describe how acute the shortage of trained mental health professionals is across the Navy broadly? And more specifically, how acute is that shortage for naval bases where ships are frequently undergoing refueling and complex overhaul?

CARLOS DEL TORO: It is a significant challenge Congresswoman We’ve been trying to do everything else we can, trying to work with the office of the Secretary of defense, particularly the Defense Health Agency who often owns these professionals and assigns them to the locations where our sailors and our Marines work Globally.

But we are trying to get to a better place. The Secretary of defense is fully hyper focused on this issue and trying to recruit as many as they can from the private sector. I believe the solution quite frankly is to train them intrinsically from within. We need to actually train far many more corpsman and we’re moving in that direction.

It may take a year or two to get to the number of mental health technicians that we need, but it’s tough to compete with the private sector as well to where they’re also extremely shorthanded as well. At the same time, we’re also doing other things like putting more chaplains on our ships, for example. And that’s proven to be very, very effective where we have chaplains on our ships permanently stationed on the average, we get anywhere from 30 to 40 actually calls.

Where we don’t have them on the ships. It could be anywhere from zero to about five calls to chaplains if they’re stationed off the ship. So, a lot of it is helping with their life issues and not necessarily the most complicated of the mental health issues, but they’re seeking life guidance. There have been far too many sailors and marines and service members who we have lost due to suicide.

We need to do a better job across the board, and we’re committed to doing that.

JENNIFER MCCLELLAN: Thank you. And I would note, we’ve heard anecdotally from mental health professionals at the USS George Washington that they’re overwhelmed with the needs of the sailors there. So, the more that you can do to address this shortage and particularly focusing on the ships that are undergoing retrofitting the better.

At this point, Secretary of the Navy, I believe, has concluded its investigations into the series of suicides aboard the USS George Washington, the USS George H.W Bush and the USS Theodore Roosevelt investigation is still ongoing. In all of these investigations is the Navy noticing a pattern of what particular causes are for these suicides that we should be aware of and seek to address or is it a wide range of — of reasons?

CARLOS DEL TORO: It is a wide range of reasons, and our responsibility is to address as many of those reasons as we possibly can with different approaches, which is what we’re trying to do, mental health providers certainly, but also to make dramatic improvements in the quality of life, especially for those ships that are in shipyards, it’s hard duty.

Especially when you have so many young sailors there. They require actually a proper amount of oversight to the CNO’s point. Having those ships properly, manned with individuals who can provide that oversight as well to and help them through the problems that they face. We’re making investments for very specifically in at HII and three parking garages for example.

So, to try to relieve some of those stressors associated We’ve moved many of the junior personnel off the ship unless they’re on duty itself to try to ease with some of the stresses that come from living on board the ship as well too. But there’s many other aspects, negative aspects related to suicide as well to — that have to do with family relationships.

So, we’re taking an across-the-board approach to try to help to give people hope because that’s what we got to give them. Hope that they can get through the challenges that they face, whether it be a family challenge, whether it be a — a drug challenge, whether it be a performance challenge or whether it be a stressor challenge.

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired. I recognize gentleman from Georgia, Mr. McCormick for five minutes.

RICH MCCORMICK: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Gentlemen, it is an honor to be amongst your presence. I appreciate you being here today. I want to note that when — when I was in the service, it truly defined the rest of my life. I still identify as a marine and everything I do, whether I be a physician or a congressman or anything, I still think like a marine, like it or not.

I will say when I first joined it was P.X. Kelly was — was our — our common, God rest his soul. And then we had Al Gray, we had some legends. I actually had arguments with General Kulak on reorganization of the Marine Corps. When I was an anchor, he — he cut our program significantly and I remember having worries about the reorganization of the Marine Corps back when I was just a captain.

And those conversations aren’t quite the same as when you’re a congressman, that’s for sure. I will say as we’ve evolved and the nice thing to see about the Marine Corps still maintain its recruiting standards, whether it be from our stellar reputation, our fine uniforms or the handsome men that wear them.

It’s been — it’s been nice to see that continue. What I’m worried about is we continue in our mission. And you’ve seen that right now we have a humanitarian crisis in Sudan for example, and we’ll continue to see that throughout the history of the world where we’ll have to go in and rescue people from bad places.

Have we seen significant changes in the way we’re reorganizing and how we’re going to be able to do a mission in Sudan and other places when we have to go out and and maintain that mu stability for those cycles, especially with ship and personnel shortages. And and as we shrink to accommodate with technology with that deployment cycle, that’s very hard on families.

But still the same deployment cycle with fewer people because we’re more invested in technologies. How do we accommodate for that?

DAVID BERGER: Like first of all, the Marine Expeditionary Unit, amphibious ready groups that you remember, that’s — that’s the best chance you have of responding to a crisis immediately. And there needs to be one in the Pacific and one in the Mediterranean, Africa, CENTCOM area 12 months a year. That’s your — that is the most versatile tool that a combatant commander has because it’s sovereign territory and you can solve a lot of problems coming from your own sovereign territory from the sea.

The — the modernization of the Marine Corps is tailored and I would say in — in like the Marine littoral regiments that are in the Indo-Pacific, they’re focused on deterring a particular threat. The rest of the Marine Corps and the — and them are very versatile and can handle the problems that we need to handle.

I think the challenge is not being nearby when the problem happens as you highlight, and you don’t have three weeks to get there. You need, the nation needs something there in a week or three days.

RICH MCCORMICK: Do you think we still have more to do in Sedan?

DAVID BERGER: There are more Americans that are in Sudan from what I understand that want to get out. Right now, there’s at least one or two convoys moving overland. So, I don’t know how many eventually will want to get out. But the numbers that we understand are there’s — there’s still Americans in Sudan, some of them, some of them that want to get out.

Correct.

RICH MCCORMICK: You mentioned that some forces are dedicated towards a specific mission, some are more flexible like the model percentage wise. What do you think that the mission, how many people have a specific mission when you’re talking about the way we’ve reorganized?

DAVID BERGER: The two regiments that we are reorganizing, one in Hawaii, one in Japan, they’re still very flexible, very adaptable, but they are tailor made to be a forward stand in force. That represents all of probably a total of less than 5000 Marines out of the whole operating force, which is 100,000.

RICH MCCORMICK: Got it. Final question, I know this is probably a short because I only have about a minute left, but there’s been some controversy. Obviously we’ve had some generals from some legends weigh in on this and I don’t know how much. I’m just curious how much interaction have you had with these former commandants and former generals who have their own distinct opinions based on their unique experiences at that unique time?

How much interaction have you had with you, and do you think that’s going to continue to be a problem for future commandants as we develop this political climate of — of reorganization?

DAVID BERGER: It varies between them, some of them more frequently as you might imagine, some less frequently. Probably the more recent former commandants General Kneller, General Dunford I talked with very frequently farther back, you go less frequently and not because of anything other than probably time. Every redesign, every modernization document that we send out, every update on training, every update on talent management, I send to all of them first before we ever release it because I need their feedback.

RICH MCCORMICK: Got it. Well, I can for a second, say semper fidelis, Semper Fortis. Thank you, sir.

MIKE ROGERS: Thank the gentleman chair. I recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Davis for five minutes.

DON DAVIS: Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and Ranking Member Smith. I want to start today if I may, by extending A deep appreciation, especially to the wives who are here today, miss Linda and Donna, thank you so much. And too obviously you know staff members who are grinding it out every day to help your members and thank you for what you’re doing.

I was talking to one and I said I knew a little bit more about the Air Force and he forgave me today. But for the record, I’m going with the President to present the commander in chief trophy to the Air Force today. But let me say Admiral Gilday and General Berger, thank you so much sincerely for your service to this country and all that you continue to do. And to Mr. Secretary, thank you too.

General Milley came to this committee, and he shared these words as he spoke out losing men and women in combat. He said it was personal. And then it went on for me to express this personal when we see our members go, serve our country, come back, take their lives and I’m glad the work that we are doing there.

But I’ll tell you one other thing that’s personal today is when we inadvertently cause harm to our military families. So military families impacted by toxic wastewater at Camp Lejeune desperately need some level of certainty about how to process these claims that they’re bringing forward. And according to former US District court judge of the Eastern District of North Carolina, James Deaver, he said with the possibility of 1 million cases getting fouled, it could take more than 1000 years to resolve them without streamlining the process.

Now Mr. Secretary, I’m not sure if you’re planning on sticking around for a thousand years, but my question is how can we or can you give this committee just a sense of the timeline of how we can maybe get these claims process?

CARLOS DEL TORO: This is a very complicated issue and let me begin by saying how important it is actually in how pleased I am that the Biden administration has actually worked to ensure that we meet the commitment of these military families who have been negatively been negatively impacted by the toxic water at Camp Lejeune.

Having said that, there are an enormous number of cases that are now coming in and we in the military services across the Department of Defense have to gear up to try to handle these cases far more expedited manner. It’s going to take a lot of additional resources.

DON DAVIS: Secretary, if there’s not a clear timeline, then my question is how do we streamline the process?

CARLOS DEL TORO: We’ll have to look at doing both. Congressman, We’ll have to look at doing both, but each case has to be investigated. Each case has to be looked in carefully as a matter of law. Regretfully, there are steps that we may not be able to mr…

DON DAVIS: Mr. Secretary, let me ask, have we use for instance data a grid to group cases, have we given consideration that or settlement?

CARLOS DEL TORO: General counsel is looking into all these issues, Congressman and I’m more than pleased to get back to you and work with your staff to come up with better ideas on how to do it more expeditiously as well.

DON DAVIS: Well, Mr. Secretary, some believe and have conveyed to me been from North Carolina that they believe the Navy has delayed stonewalled and even tried to cover up perhaps what has happened at Camp Lejeune over 34 years. What would you say to those families?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I can’t speak to the ills of the past obviously, but I accept responsibility for what we do now. And you have my commitment that we will do now to try to expedite this process as quickly as — as I can to build to rebuild trust one action at a time one day at a time.

DON DAVIS: I would like to enter this is an article from WRAL in my home state titled Camp Lejeune Toxic Water Claims Get First Day in Court into the record.

MIKE ROGERS: Without objection so ordered.

DON DAVIS: I just want to end on this note. This is a note from Master Sergeant Jerry Inswinger, who’s retired now from the Marine Corps. He’s talking about his daughter, Janie, who died in 1985 at the age of nine of leukemia. I started this journey in August of 1997 and even then, it was 14 years after Janie had been diagnosed and 13 years after she died that I hadn’t heard anything about the water contamination at Camp Lejeune.

I would hope that we would do the right thing by just giving them their day towards justice and a fair process in a timely manner. Mr. Chair I yield back on behalf of all these impacted.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank the gentleman now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Jacobs, for five minutes.

SARA JACOBS: Well, thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all three of you for being here and in particular General, General Berger and Admiral Gilday for your service and your long career and — and also thank you, Admiral Gilday and Secretary Del Toro for all of your work on making sure we address the housing issues.

When while there have been three carriers in San Diego, I appreciate your creativity and the many conversations we’ve had over many meals on this topic. And I look forward to moving even further in this year’s NDAA on that issue. And — and I’ll be continuing to track the situation closely on the ground in San Diego.

As you know, while housing is a huge issue for us in San Diego, it’s not the only quality of life issue. One of the things I hear a lot from sailors and marines in our region is about child care. As of June Navy region, Southwest had 4000 children on its waitlist for child development center slots. And just last month Ranking Member Smith joined me in San Diego for a roundtable with parents and child care providers at Naval Air Station, North Island, where we heard a lot about these concerns.

So first, General Berger, I know the Marine Corps has had some success here, including the $37.7 million construction project at Miramar. And I have to say I’m a huge fan of Colonel Bedell and all of the work he’s doing on quality of life issues there. How are you planning to address the remaining unmet waitlist for childcare services at Marine Corps bases, particularly in the San Diego area?

And then Admiral Gilday, how are you planning to address your unmet wait list?

DAVID BERGER: Congressman like other people have said, you’ve mentioned it too, this is — we consider this a readiness issue. If you can’t solve health care, then people are worried about other things other than the mission. This is directly tied to readiness. Our average wait time right now is about 100 days. That’s not acceptable.

100 days is too long. What do we need to do about it? In most cases with the exception of Miramar, it’s not that we don’t have the building. It’s that we don’t have the childcare providers, we can’t hire them now. I think our learning over the past two or three years, that’s two problems pay, in other words, they could — they could make the same salary or better outside the gate or it took me too long to apply.

I applied it, took me four months, I had to get a job, sorry, but I couldn’t wait that long. We have got to cut down the application time and we — and we have brought up the pay now to be corresponding with outside the gate. But the wait time right now is a real challenge.

MICHAEL GILDAY: Ma’am, broadly, we have two childcare centers in construction right now, one of them’s at Point Loma and three additional in this proposed budget. Our waitlist has gone from 8,000 last year down to 5,500 this year across the Navy. And one area that we’re trying to put more focus on is a program called Military Childcare in your neighborhood where we actually go out and we try to find additional spaces.

So, we’ve increased from 5,523 up to — we hope to beyond 6,000 in ’24 in this budget. With respect to the comment that General Berger made about childcare workers, that is — we are — right now our staffing is at about 80 percent. What we’re trying to do to attract talent is, is to offer above market median wages as much as $5 above — above that that median.

The last thing I would mention, we have gone out to a couple of colleges, one of them is NC State, the other is Utah Tech and they are providing us additional surge help during the high occupancy during the high usage months, particularly in the summer.

DAVID BERGER: If I could add just one, this is kind of a shout out, thanks. Part of it. Part of the challenge in staffing was people moving from one location to another and they had to start from scratch. The transferability part, huge. Also the ability, the flexibility like the CNO and I and the second that we’re talking about yesterday, where if you work in a — in a child development center and you have a child that you want cared there, you get half off and if you have two of them, another 20 percent, those huge positives.

CARLOS DEL TORO: And if I just — one last thing, we’ve increased recipients for those who choose to go to outside child daycare centers as well too. Thanks to your support.

SARA JACOBS: Thank you and also General Berger, thanks for your help in addressing the issue at Pendleton, where child care workers weren’t able to have their kids at the same childcare center. I know that’s been huge. I will just say I’m very supportive of increasing pay for our child care workers. Anything I can do to help with that?

We also know that, that can sometimes increase costs, and I know DOD recently raised parent fees for on base childcare. So, I just urge you to also make sure you’re taking into account addressing the affordability for the families themselves. While we’re working to make sure we’re getting childcare workers, a living wage.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

MIKE ROGERS: I think the gentlelady spoke was on that topic as the panelists all know this is a big deal for me that we deal with this quality of life issue and there’s no more important aspect in this child care problem. So, with that, we’ll recognize another member of the California delegation, Mr. Khanna, for five minutes.

RO KHANNA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for your service to our nation. General Berger would it be fair to say that right now, we have naval superiority and could thwart any Chinese invasion in Taiwan or any Chinese blockade of Taiwan?

DAVID BERGER: That’s an accurate statement from my perspective. Yes, sir.

RO KHANNA: Mr. Secretary, would you support that?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I absolutely support that statement.

RO KHANNA: My second question is what more do we need as China continues to put more money to build their navy? Do we have sufficient long-range missiles to be able to shoot down Chinese ships if that were needed? And do you think we should be having more long-range missiles in that area? Any — any of you?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, the answer to that is no, and that’s why we’re trying to do multi-year procurement, essentially bundle buy across four significant missile systems. One in order to — in order to a maximize production lines in the US, but also give a steady demand signal to those vendors. I would say it hasn’t come up. I don’t think in this hearing yet is that there are only two producers in the United States, a rocket motors for these exquisite weapons.

And so, we are at a — we are at a premium with respect to the capacity.

RO KHANNA: And Admiral, I think that is a excellent point because in World War Two, in addition to the bravery of our men who scaled Normandy, we won because we out produced Japan and Germany. We had double the production. And today one of my concerns is the state of our defense industrial base. The fact that we are already stretched to get weapons to Ukraine.

We need to do better in terms of building the defense capability so that if there were ever an invasion, we are capable of quickly mobilizing. Could any of you comment on the importance generally of building American manufacturing and a defense industrial base from a national security perspective?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I think you’re absolutely right, Congressman, I think this President’s budget starts to send the right signal, especially when you take a look at the doubling of the amount of funds available for missile production. And — and the shipbuilding plan over the course of the next ten years. It sends a steady signal basically on what the requirements are matched to the capacity that those shipyards can actually build.

And hopefully in the future, they’ll continue to make reinvestments in their own capabilities to build more ships faster across the board, more submarines, faster across the board, so that we can continue to commit to those numbers in greater numbers, actually those funds in greater numbers.

RO KHANNA: I’m obviously biased, I represent Silicon Valley, but I believe that a lot of the work being done there on AI, on quantum, on advanced cyber is going to be critical for our national security to prevent jamming of any of our communication systems to be able to accurately Identify and target, could you help explain from your perspective from a — from a Navy perspective what we can do to adopt the latest technology and why that’s going to matter for a future national security?

CARLOS DEL TORO: I think as you look across the Department of the Navy, we have a thousand projects alone that are committed through AI for future investments. We’re standing up to innovation Center. The Marine Corps Stand Up an innovation center in Newburgh New York and we’re standing up an innovation center in Monterey, California as well.

To further expand those investments, working closely with venture capitalists and others in Silicon Valley and across the country, quite frankly to make the necessary to transition the innovative technologies that are developing at such a high pace in the private sector to be able to more effectively integrate those into the military.

RO KHANNA: Well, I appreciate Chairman Gallagher on the subcommittee and I are very interested in helping work in a bipartisan way to even further improve the adoption of technology. And I know the chairman has expressed an interest and then I’ll look forward to working with you on that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MIKE ROGERS: I thank the gentleman and I recognize the gentlelady from Virginia, Ms. Kiggins, for five minutes.

JEN KIGGANS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you so much to our — our panel here for being here today and with us. The average age of shipyard facilities and their supporting infrastructure is 60 plus years old, and the average age of dry docks is over 100 years. Old Norfolk Naval Shipyard was ranked as the worst 69th in regard to facility condition at any naval installation.

And we had in our office yesterday, you know guys great guys from Norfolk Naval Shipyard just talking to us not only about the condition of the dry docks and I know that what happened on the West Coast with those closures and we’re down really one dry dock That can repair an aircraft carrier in the East Coast, but also the condition of their office spaces.

They said they have charts that are red and green with different rooms and they talked about the crumbling walls and the leaking ceilings and the conditions that they described that they’re working are really — are unacceptable. And I’m sure there was a lot of discussion today about the number of ships and the strategy that the Navy has.

We’re trying to keep old ships at sea for longer and we’ve got to have our ship repair facilities there to do that. And we need the people that can repair these ships. They’re competing with places like Huntington Ingalls for Shipbuilding, which is great. We want to build ships too, but they were saying, you know, we can only offer this much money.

We are — they’re offering more money other places. So, prioritizing just our ship repair facilities is so important to me. So, in your — in your opinions, are you confident that God forbid we have some sort of — of conflict in the near future, our capabilities to repair ships, not just the regular maintenance but there will be repairs needed if there was a conflict?

Do we have that capability right now or what are we doing to prioritize that?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Well, it is a priority and we recognize the negligence that’s taking place over the past decades, basically in the PSYOP investments that we’re now making in this President’s budget alone, $2.8 billion, I just signed a $2.8 billion contract to upgrade the drydock in Hawaii, for example, and in Norfolk, we’re making great strides as well too, but more will be needed.

We have $10 Billion allotted over the FYDP actually to address the drydock problems and the shipyard problems as well too. More will be needed over the future to get these capabilities to where they need to be in the future for us to be able to maintain all the many submarines and ships that we are building today.

JEN KIGGANS: And I just ask that you prioritize their pay, for example, they said they’re offering $15 an hour that Norfolk — Norfolk ship repair whereas Huntington Ingalls can offer $20. So, they’re not able to attract the people that they need to do that. And then quality of life issues, I know we’ve made some progress there for them, but continuing to work on that.

Also just wanted to point out about the smaller ship repair industry as we look at the big ones, but I frequently hear from the smaller guys that are worried about them being awarded contracts to and we’re going to need everybody, you know if needed. So — so just looking out for those — those small businesses too is very important to my district.

And then I’d be remiss if I didn’t spend the last couple of minutes talking about base housing. It’s something that I’m passionate about any association and my understanding is that this year’s budget doesn’t have any money that goes towards base housing any association. And we have three condemned barracks.

The first day I had my staff in DC, I had them in my minivan that weekend driving around Oceana saying look at the conditions that we are asking our single — these are our unaccompanied sailors to live in. Think of any four-year college and university. You visit and the construction that goes on there, how beautiful those campuses are.

I have a senior in high school and drive around for college tours and taking pictures of the construction. It’s unbelievable how beautiful these campuses look. Think about what we ask those kids to do every night of the week in college. And what we ask these guys to do every night of the week, you know, standing watch for our great Navy.

So, it’s infuriating to me that we can’t do better for them and then sitting down with leadership and listening to their challenges of getting new living — living conditions and facilities for their sailors, we’re charging those guys for Wi-Fi at these barracks, we’re moving them into crappy barracks and then we’re charging them for Wi-Fi. So, what are you doing to prioritize living conditions?

I can’t wait to participate in the Task Force on readiness, recruitment, quality of life, but we’ve got to do better because you know as well as I do, all the ships and the aircraft don’t go anywhere without great people behind it.

CARLOS DEL TORO: We have to coordinate those facts, but we are making investments in our company housing in this President’s budget. And if you just take a look at the efforts that are going on in Key West, which is horrible, because Key West has suffered from the hurricane, challenges that they’ve had, but we’ve had to actually take down two unaccompanied housing barracks there.

We’ve had to work very aggressively to place those sailors in the community and other NWR facilities that were actually building. But you’re right, this is — I mentioned earlier in the hearing today that when I came in as secretary, about one percent of the budget was actually dedicated towards infrastructure.

Those numbers have now gone up dramatically. Just in last year alone, 7.3 percent increase in FSRM money that allows us to take care of the worst of those scenarios. And Mike, would you comment further on?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Just real quick ma’am, the money was spent on infrastructure has gone from 78 percent of the requirement to almost 90 percent of the requirement just in the last year and a half. I know that’s still unsatisfactory. We have a long way to go. We’re behind, we’re trying to get after these times expired and prioritizing exactly what needs to be fixed.

JEN KIGGANS: Thank you.

MIKE ROGERS: I can’t overstate how much that drives me nuts to hear things like she just described. I want you all to know it’s our job to get you the money. You got to tell us what you need to fix those problems. We should not have those problems at at our installations and and if we don’t give you the money, then shame on us. But you need to let us know what it takes to get after this in an expeditious way, not over a 10 or 15 year period of time.

Gentleman from Texas Mr. Veasey, recognized.

MARC VEASEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask you, Mr. Del Toro about the — the two operational deployments for the CMV-22. They had really unparalleled success when it came to conducting COD, mission, medical evaluation, Navy, naval special warfare support and search and rescue operations. And I was wondering if you could sort of enlighten us and let us know how the CMV-22 transform fleet operations and have they integrated well and improved the last mile of delivering critical spare parts to the fleet.

CARLOS DEL TORO: They have, Congressman. I think it’s been a tremendous success story. The concern I have obviously is with the combining gear beyond 800 hours that these particular planes have not have experienced quite yet. But what happens when they do actually get up there in ours and we’re working with the manufacturer to try to come up with a permanent solution to that problem set.

And they’re looking at actually designing a new combining gear in order to be able to fix that. But operationally speaking, perhaps you now can expand on what I said. I’m not aware of any problems that we’ve had.

MICHAEL GILDAY: I would just say we’re very bullish on CV-22. We ripped the Marine Corps off. It’s been another example of one service leveraging what’s been going right in another and at economies of scale, buying these aircraft craft as quickly as we can to replace an airframe. As you know, sir, that was designed and built in the 1960s.

MARC VEASEY: Yeah, no. Thank you. And I understand that the Navy is actually reassessing its concepts and operations for CMV-22 specifically concerning contested logistics scenarios. When do you anticipate completing that assessment and can you share anything with the committee?

MICHAEL GILDAY: Sir, if I could take that for the record, I’ll get back to you with an answer on that timing.

MARC VEASEY: Yeah, no. Thank you very much.

DAVID BERGER: Could I just add?

MARC VEASEY: Yeah, please.

DAVID BERGER: One extra thought. When we — when the US military evacuated the diplomats out of Sudan v-22s, Yeah, it’s the only aircraft that could do it. And two weeks ago, three weeks ago we flew MV-22s from Hawaii to the Philippines. No other aircraft in the world does that. It’s an incredible capability. Yeah, okay.

MARC VEASEY: No, no, thank you for sharing that. I wanted to move over and ask a question about mental health services to Secretary Del Toro. What is the Navy and the Marines doing when it comes to physical and mental health resources? And how is that — how are they leveraging that for retention efforts and also wanted to — for you to also think about an answer?

One of the things that we’ve heard from — from — from military service people is privacy. Because if someone has a mental health issue and they think that it’s going to, you know, inhibit them from getting a clearance or a promotion for another job they may not want to share that with someone on base. What are you doing in the area of mental health services?

CARLOS DEL TORO: [Off-mic] more mental health providers. Earlier in the hearing, I actually mentioned that though that continues to be a challenge because mental health providers aren’t out there in the private sector. So, we have to grow more of our own by training our corpsman actually to be mental health technicians that may take a year or two or three in order for us to intrinsically grow more of those to make them available.

We’ve also put more chaplains on ships, which from a family support life support perspective has helped tremendously in tackling perhaps not the most challenging mental health issues, but many life stressors that are associated with that. We’ve put together actually a mental health playbook that’s been distributed throughout all of the Navy for all our commanders and all our leadership to actually rely upon that actually points towards the resources that we have available and the teams that we have available, which we’ve also increased As well too.

It’s an all hands on deck effort and at the end of the day, it’s providing hope to our sailors and marines that whatever challenge they have, whether it’s a mental health challenge or a life challenge that their Navy family, their Marine Corps family is there to provide Them help and assistance along the way so that they do not feel as if they’re disconnected from the environment in which they work and live in.

MARC VEASEY: Yeah, do you think that in regards to their privacy, like if someone had a mental health issue and for instance, let’s say that the — that the person that they needed to meet with that the provider was in their chain of command. Do you think that that sailors and Marines feel like that they have enough privacy so they wouldn’t miss out on the next promotion or miss out getting that next level of clearance?

CARLOS DEL TORO: Congressman, our number one priority is the safe — the safety of that sailor and Marine. That’s the life is too precious. We need them to do the right thing to take care of their safety and their life. And so, we encourage them whether it’s under the Branding Act to go seek help on their own, for example, if they choose to do that.

At the same time, we also need to have a responsibility to know what’s going on with that sailor so that their military family can also try to help take care of them, right? So, it’s a dual edged sword. You have to be very, very careful with that. As well, if they’re seeking out mental health, you know, help on their own and they never share any of that with their military family, then how can we help them get to a better place with perhaps some of the life stressors that they’re going through as well too.

It’s time to remove that

MIKE ROGERS: Gentleman’s time has expired.

UNIDENTIFIED: Thank you. That issue all together.

MIKE ROGERS: I want to once again thank Admiral and Mrs. Gilday and General and Mrs. Berger for your decades of service to our nation. We cannot thank you enough for the sacrifices you have made to ensure that we remain a free great nation. So, thank you very much and I look forward to seeing each of you in the next chapters of your life, which I’m sure are going to be awesome.

Secretary Del Toro on behalf of Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, we’re going to submit some questions for the record on the status of the investigation into the death of Seaman Mullen and appreciate you responding to those when you receive them. Absolutely. And with that, we are adjourned.

Source: United States Navy

MICHAEL WALTZ: Call to order this hearing of the Readiness Subcommittee of the FY 2024 budget request for military readiness. I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare a recess at any time. Without objection, so ordered. We obviously have a lot to discuss today, and you all have — everyone has my apologies for running a few minutes behind.

It’s what happens when my team wants me disappear into a SCIF with HPSCI. We have a lot to — obviously, we have a lot to discuss is it — as it pertains to readiness. I want to thank all of you for your time. In — in having our one on one meetings in the — in the run up to this hearing, we — lots to talk about, pilot shortages, recruiting and retention, weapons systems sustainment, infrastructure management and restoration, just to name a few.

I would like to highlight the detriments of operating under a continuing resolution. I want to highlight that as much for my colleagues here as all — all of our vices well know, that without an on time budget, the department is unable — and I think this has lost a lot of times in the conversation here.

The department is unable to begin any new projects. There are — I’m convinced that there is an underlying belief here that the department gets a lot of money. And if it gets the same amount of money as last year, then everybody will be okay. But not having those new starts is — is — is just critical and devastating.

I ask the witnesses to elaborate these as you make your — on — on these effects as you make your comments. I do remain concerned with this administration’s continuing priority on — on climate change. I want to be clear that we have to deal with climate change. That resiliency is absolutely an important issue.

But as we had today with the secretary of the Army, when we’re outfitting our bases and our fleet with things that come from the — our greatest adversary, with panels, with turbines, with technology, with software that literally comes from China, I have — I have real concerns with our control of that supply chain as we move towards transitioning our fleet.

In fact, you know, in addition to that, the secretary of the Navy recently stated that climate change is a top priority of his, yet we tend to have those same supply chain issues. I’m supportive of efforts to increase resiliency, I want to be clear there, but these policies can’t be an end to themselves.

I’m also concerned — just to be candid here, and we’ve had these conversations, of — of what we’re seeing within the Department of the Navy with regards to amphibs. And we want to talk about that today. And in fact, the Marine Corps number one unfunded requirement is a ship for the Navy, and — and — and that’s something that we have to resolve.

We’ll help you resolve it here. But I think that is a — that is endemic of an ongoing issue. And years of delayed maintenance due to high up tempo, frankly, has gutted the readiness of our amphibs. This has delay — led to delay deployments for our MEUs and decreased capacity with our ships at sea. These are obviously critical capabilities to INDOPACOM and that combatant commander, and I remain somewhat baffled as why these problems persist.

I applaud force modernization taking place across the services. We support the Army’s ReARMM and the Marine Corps Force Design 2030. I’m concerned, however, about the timeliness of these efforts. And you’ll continue — Ranking Member Garamendi and I, I think, agree on this, that the timelines for the threats don’t match the timelines to get our readiness in shape and to get our modernization in shape.

And I’m eager to hear how the services have revised and accelerated these timelines to — to counter China’s ambitious — ambitions. And finally, taking care of our soldiers, taking care of our service members across the board is the utmost responsibility of everybody here in this room. Service leadership continuously touts the rhetoric of people first.

But when we look at some of our facilities, when we look at some of the living conditions for — for our service members, I still remain skeptical of this actually being put into practice. And so, the condition of some of this housing truly is outstanding. It no doubt affects retention. We must provide safe barracks and housing to our service members and put their welfare first to match — have our budget match the match the priority.

So, I just look forward to hearing from everybody here today. And I hand over to you, Mr. Garamendi, for your opening comments.

JOHN GARAMENDI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Delighted to work with you. I am pleased to hear you — your interest and support for climate change issues, and you’re quite right about addressing that issue using Chinese materials. That’s why we wrote into almost all — well, in all of the infrastructure and the energy issues of the future very strong buy America requirements.

And so, we need to push the American industry into the manufacturing of these systems, from solar panels to turbines and the like, and we can do that. And that’s also an issue for the — for the military. Are they buying American made equipment for their ships and planes, or are they buying others? And complex issue, but a very, very important one.

So, each year, as we prepare for this hearing, I’m struck by the vast jurisdiction of the Readiness Subcommittee. As I often say, other subcommittees get to buy the new bright shiny stuff, and it’s left to us to maintain it and keep it operating. And so, in this subcommittee, we need to pay particular attention to the facilities that support this equipment, that sustain the modernization of the weapon systems themselves, and in which the men and women of the military are trained.

So, we have an enormous task here. And over the years, both the minority and the majority as it has changed over time have paid attention to this issue, as you are, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for that. Now, we’ve also learned from Putin’s immoral invasion of Ukraine that many of the issues that we have dealt with over the years here trying to make sure that the — that our military is ready in every way has brought to the attention and to the forefront many of our concerns.

We’ve been forced to think about the organic industrial base, which was heretofore not with this committee, but with the — even the larger committee often ignored. And so, in this budget request, I am finally seeing evidence that we’re getting serious about the modernization of the depots, the shipyards, the infrastructure, the bases, the housing, and all of the rest, and we need to continue to push that.

I know that you intend to do that, Mr. Chairman. And I hope that the members of this subcommittee will continue also with that effort. Through the media, we’ve also watched the — the cost of Russia’s other readiness failures. For the Russians, we’ve watched its equipment fail because it was poorly sustained and maintained, and we’ve witnessed the cost of poorly trained troops, Russian troops.

We cannot let that happen, and it falls to this subcommittee to make sure that, as we go forward, that we are fully prepared. There’s another piece of this puzzle that falls within the jurisdiction beyond the training of the troops, and that is that we have to make sure that the access to sustain the fight is available.

And so, we’ll be working on that also. Now, the comptroller general has analyzed that the readiness of our weapons systems over the course of years has not been good enough. When we analyze the aircraft type, the majority of the systems in our inventory fail to — by more than 10 percent below the department’s own mission capability rate goals.

So, we have to continue to work on this issue. Cannibalization seems to be the way in which we keep most of the fleet — whether that’s an aircraft or it’s a truck or a plane or a tank or a ship, cannibalization seems to be the way in which we keep these things operating. That doesn’t work for long. And so, we need to pay attention to that as we have in the past, and we must continue to make sure that all of the equipment has the necessary parts and pieces on time when necessary.

So, I’m looking forward to the hearing today, our witnesses, as they discuss these issues, what they’ve learned, the lessons they have learned, and it’ll be displayed in this year’s budget. And we’re certainly seeing the lessons in Ukraine, more importantly, what we are doing to operationalize those lessons that have been learned from Ukraine and beyond.

So, look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, look forward to working with the members of the committee, the subcommittee, and we’ll push along. Thank you very much. I yield back.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, Mr. Garamendi. I’d like to again welcome our witnesses and — and thank them for their participation today. We’re joined by General Randy George, the vice chief of the Army; Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the vice chief of Naval Operations; General Eric Smith, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps; and General David Allvin, vice chief of staff of the Air Force; General DT Thompson, vice chief of Space Operations.

General George, over to you for your opening remarks.

RANDY GEORGE: Okay. Thanks, Chairman. Chairman Waltz, Ranking Member Garamendi, distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the readiness posture of our Army. 80 years ago, American troops were fully engaged in the allied war effort in Europe, in Africa, and in the Indo-Pacific.

Among them was a company of soldiers holding a roadblock near a village of Sanananda in northern New Guinea. They were enduring malarial fevers, venomous snakes, torrential rains, and holding off a perpetual onslaught of competent enemy fighters. I reflect on this because it reminds me that our Army must be ready for anything.

We must be ready to deter war and, if deterrence fails, to take the fight to the enemy anywhere around the globe, even in the most hostile environments, just as we’ve always done. It also reminds me that war fighting is a team effort. It takes teams on the ground like at Sanananda, and teams at every echelon above providing a menu of lethal options to our combatant commanders.

Our Army is focused on warfighting and training for battle in which all domains are contested, and we are focused on supporting our combatant commands with ready formations around the world. And right now, we have 137,000 soldiers in over 140 countries. We are strengthening our partnership with defense industry and rapidly modernizing our organic industrial base to increase productivity and ensure that we have the stocks to fight when called upon.

We are deterring the pacing challenge of China by exercising and campaigning across the Indo-Pacific theater and holding the line in the European theater along our NATO — alongside our NATO partners, all the while adapting in real time to lessons learned from the war in Ukraine and rapidly incorporating new tactics into our doctrine and our training.

But readiness for today is not enough. Our Army is also transforming, because honestly we don’t have an option. Warfare is changing and we must change because of it to ensure we stay ahead of our potential adversaries. So, among many things, we are modernizing long range precision fires, air and missile defense, ground combat capabilities, and developing counter UAS capabilities and doctrine.

Finally, we are building the team. And like I said, warfighting is a team effort. This includes providing commanders with the resources they need to support soldiers’ mental and physical well-being, to maintain a healthy command climate, and to build cohesive teams. And it means investing in the quality of life of our soldiers and our families, ensuring that they have safe housing and barracks, adequate child care, and spouse employment opportunities.

I’ll end with recruitment, a critical readiness priority for us right now. We are challenged by the fact that a small number of young Americans, 23 percent, are qualified to serve. Fewer still, we’re finding, are interested in serving, and that’s something that we are working very hard to change. Our Army remains a great place to be, and I think our high retention rates speak to that.

The trouble is many Americans don’t realize it or believe it. Military service to many people seems like a life setback. In reality, it’s a life accelerator. That has certainly been my experience since I enlisted as a private right out of high school. It’s a great team with an important mission and ample opportunity to learn, grow, and make an impact.

And we have to get that story out, and we’re pouring all of our energy into that effort. And we appreciate Congress’s assistance in amplifying our call to service message. And Chairman, the last on — to answer your question on a continuing resolution, I’ll just give you an example from last year. Over three months, we had about 25 new starts that we were looking to get going.

We couldn’t because the continuing resolution impacted about $1.9 billion. And you can imagine some of that in there, for example, was OIB modernization that we were trying to get started. So, as you mentioned up front, it’s the new starts that a continuing resolution would be a problem for us. Thank you.

MICHAEL WALTZ: [Off mic]

LISA FRANCHETTI: Chairman Waltz, Ranking Member Garamendi, and distinguished members of the committee, good afternoon. On behalf of the secretary of the Navy and the chief of Naval Operations, thank you for the opportunity to discuss Navy readiness with you today. The United States is a maritime nation. Our security and prosperity depend on the seas.

For the past 247 years, your Navy has stood the watch. We are America’s away team, operating forward to deter war, protect our economic interests, uphold international law, ensure freedom of and access to the seas, and respond to crises and natural disasters. We provide our nation’s leaders with decision space and options, and stand ready to fight and win when called to do so. Over the past year, we’ve safely executed 22,000 steaming days, almost one million flight hours, and participated in nearly 100 exercises.

With operations spanning the globe, we’ve supported the allied response to Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, conducted freedom of navigation operations, interdicted illegal narcotics traffickers, and provided humanitarian assistance. As I speak, our sailors and Marine Corps counterparts are deployed on more than 100 ships and submarines around the world, ready to meet the security needs of our nation.

Our FY ’24 budget request is consistent with CNO’s priorities of readiness in sailors, then capability, then capacity, with the Columbia SSBN program as our number one procurement priority. We continue to prioritize readiness to sustain our forces through better maintenance performance, more training, improved parts availability, and increased weapons inventories.

Navy readiness begins with our people, the sailors, civilians, and families who are the foundation of our true warfighting advantage. We are committed to improving their quality of service and personal resilience, investing in initiatives such as quality housing and child care, access to the full continuum of mental health care, improved education, and an environment free of sexual harassment and sexual assault.

In this 50th anniversary of the all-volunteer force, we continue to focus on recruiting, retention, and reducing gaps in our billets at sea. Navy readiness is also centered on the readiness of our platforms. Using data analytics, improving our planning processes, and procuring long lead time materials, we have decreased maintenance delays in public and private shipyards, but there is more work to be done.

Our budget request fully funds public and private ship maintenance, aviation depot maintenance, increases parts and spares, and continues to grow our highly skilled public shipyard workforce. Finally, Navy readiness is also driven by the readiness of our bases. Shore infrastructure is critical, and we continue to fully fund the once in a century recapitalization of our four public shipyards through the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program.

Our budget request supports increased sustainment of our shore infrastructure while prioritizing restoration and modernization for water, electrical, and safety systems. As our strategic competitors continue to improve and enhance their capabilities, maintaining a responsive, combat ready, world wide deployable navy is our first line of defense and deterrence.

Sustained readiness investments in today’s Navy are a down payment on America’s future security. I thank the Committee for your leadership and partnership in keeping the world’s greatest maritime force ready to fight and win at sea, and I look forward to your questions.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you. General Smith, your opening statement?

ERIC SMITH: Chairman Waltz, Ranking Member Garamendi, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, I’m pleased to appear before you today to discuss Marine Corps readiness and the fiscal year ’24 budget. Your Marine Corps remains the nation’s force in readiness. We are ready to deter adversaries and, when that deterrence fails, we are ready to strike and enable others to strike.

We also provide the crisis response forces that American citizens abroad and our allies have come to expect from their Marines. We provide this expeditionary combined arms force utilizing the minimum 31 amphibious warships that Congress has directed. Those ships provide the organic mobility required to bring all of our assets to bear at the critical time and place for our combatant commanders.

The most important asset we bring to bear remains the individual Marine. Our modernization efforts, known as force design, ensure that we are manned, trained, and equipped to deter a peer adversary and to campaign to a position of advantage should deterrence fail and lethal force be needed. Our modernization efforts are required to fight and win on future battlefields.

About that, we can make no mistake. Our aviation readiness has increased more than 10 percent in the past few years, thanks to the work of this subcommittee to provide us with the operations and maintenance funding we need and due to our aviation modernization and reorganization efforts. When a marine expeditionary unit deploys on a big deck L-class amphibious warship today, they provide the combatant commander with 66 percent more fifth generation aircraft than before we made force design changes.

Our efforts to modernize our training and education are bearing fruit as we produce an even more lethal Marine. From our basic rifleman training to our service level training exercises, we are becoming more lethal. Our new training integrates our joint and organic fires, improved communications, and updated ISR to sense, make sense, track, and destroy targets at ranges and complexities never before seen by our Marine Corps.

Our individual Marine remains the most lethal weapon on the battlefield. Our efforts to improve the quality of life of those warriors to retain them once we train them are vital and important. Your continued support matters to them and to their families, so thank you. Finally, to your point, Mr. Chairman, I would note that, of the past ten years, approximately four have been spent in a continuing resolution status.

During any CR, we’re unable to improve as rapidly as we might have otherwise done. Our adversaries don’t have that problem. Your help to deliver on time and predictable funding to the 18 and 19 year old lance corporals, who do the fighting for our nation, is sincerely appreciated. As an example, in the past, we had the opportunity to procure our amphibious combat vehicle faster, but were unable to do so because of a CR. That leaves older equipment in the hands of the 18 and 19 year olds who will fight for us. So, the continuing resolution is absolutely detrimental.

I look forward to answering your questions, and I’m grateful to appear before you.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, General Smith. General Allvin, your opening statement?

DAVID ALLVIN: Chairman Waltz, Ranking Member Garamendi, and distinguished committee members, on behalf of our Air Force secretary and chief of staff, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the critically important topic of readiness. We greatly appreciate this body’s continued partnership and support in delivering the resources necessary for the Air Force to respond to today’s threats while preparing for tomorrow.

The events of the past year remind us that global actors have the capability and intent to challenge peace and stability. In the case of the pacing challenge, the People’s Republic of China, the speed at which they are developing advanced capability and capacity should serve as a warning for us to act with a greater sense of urgency.

We must maintain the necessary advantage to deter them from violent pursuit of objectives at odds with our national interests. Your Air Force is laser focused on this task. Readiness starts with our airmen, both uniformed and civilian, who consistently prove to be our greatest strength and competitive advantage.

Since the beginning of the all-volunteer force 50 years ago, we have been fortunate enough to attract the best of America’s youth in sufficient numbers, but recent realities have put this under pressure. As a result, we will likely not meet our recruiting goals this year. We are aggressively exploring multiple options while streamlining processes to attract a broader pool of those talented Americans into our formation.

We also know that a ready airman is a focused and resilient airman, and we must demonstrate that we continue to value our service members and their families. We’ll continue to explore opportunities to expand and — or initiate programs that better support quality of life, and we greatly appreciate this committee’s support for these efforts.

The air crew deficit persists due to several factors, but this shortage has not extended into the operational units or the pilot training bases. We are continuing on the path to transform our approach to pilot training to increase production while leveraging numerous monetary and nonmonetary programs to retain the experience of those trained aviators.

We look forward to working with the committee on these programs, as well as our pursuit of targeted relief from current legislation to enable the hiring of contract simulator instructors to maximize training and optimize our manpower to produce those pilots. While the proposed budget increase — increases weapons system sustainment funding by $1.1 billion over last year, this will only still resource 80 — 87 percent of the estimated requirement due to sustainment challenges of our ever-aging fleet, inflation, supply chain issues, and labor costs.

We are pursuing improvements in reliability and maintainability, supporting initiatives that advance data-driven decisions. This drives efficiency in what we do today and enables responsiveness in dynamic wartime environments. Significant challenges and tough decisions still lie ahead. We must be thoughtful in adequately funding our readiness accounts while pursuing the right investments to develop advanced capabilities to meet future threats.

This year we feel we have struck the right balance. In closing, I would offer this Congress can make the most positive impact on our readiness through a timely budget appropriation. An extended continuing resolution would result in the inability to start critical new programs and continue the momentum that we are building to meet the pacing challenge.

It also creates instability in support to our airmen and families at a time that this has never been more important. A CR will essentially rob us of something both critical and irreversible as we face growing threats to our nation, and that is time. So, Mr. Chairman, to your point as well, specifics, and Chairman Waltz, on a CR, we estimate that the CR will decrease our buying power for the United States Air Force at $5.4 billion, an extended CR. The key things that we are looking at that will directly be impacted by a continuing resolution are the initiation of our research and development in collaborative combat aircraft.

This is integral to our design to have affordable mass against the People’s Republic of China to be able to gain and maintain air superiority in a highly contested environment. These combat — collaborative combat aircraft, we’re working not only the platforms, but developing the autonomy to ensure we can leverage them with our crewed aircraft, as well as experimental operational units that we have funded in ’24 to be able to better integrate into our formations.

And as I mentioned, with the uncertainty, we see this in every CR, families that are getting ready to PCS and prepare their families for the schools they’re going to go into, if we don’t have the certainty of being able to do that on time, that just puts more tension into the families. And it doesn’t show that we support them the way that we should.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, General Allvin. And — and those specifics, General Smith yours — your — yours as well, are incredibly important for us as we go out to our respective caucus as we try to get that — as we try to get this done. General Thompson?

DAVID THOMPSON: Chairman Waltz, Ranking Member Garamendi, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the secretary of the Air Force and chief of Space Operations, thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the readiness of the Space Force. In examining the readiness of the Space Force to accomplish its missions, the overriding consideration remains the dramatic shift to the space domain from a comparatively benign military environment to one that’s undeniably contested.

Given that the capabilities and benefits provided from space are essential to our way of life and crucial to effective military operations in every other domain, this shift was the compelling reason for the creation of the Space Force three and a half years ago. Since then, with the tremendous support of Congress, the Space Force, Department of the Air Force and broader Department of Defense have moved out aggressively to address the challenges the nation faces in space.

We’ve begun the pivot to more resilient and defendable space architectures that ensure soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines can count on space forces across the spectrum of conflict. We’ve begun designing and developing satellite constellations that address the migration of missions to space, including moving target indication, domain awareness on the land, at sea, and in the air, key elements of command and control and the movement of the data and information that enables the joint force in the way it expects to fight in the future.

Finally, the Space Force has begun the shift to a new training and readiness approach that I described last year as the Space Force generation model. We achieved — we achieved initial capability for this approach on October 1st of last year. Once complete, it will ensure our space forces are combat ready against the pacing challenge.

While much remains to be done in each of these areas, the main challenge to Space Force readiness today are twofold. The first is creating a combat ready force that is at — the first to creating a combat ready Space Force is an advanced full spectrum test and training infrastructure. This infrastructure will be a system of systems that provides test and training opportunities with high fidelity mission simulators and threats, a professional aggressor force, and a suitable range.

It will allow us to validate tactics, test system limitations, and train operators in a live and synthetic environment against a thinking adversary. Without this infrastructure, guardians would not have defendable systems, proven tactics, or the confidence and competence they need should it come to conflict in space.

The operational tests and training infrastructure will be a force multiplier, allowing guardians to maintain and improve our strategic advantage in space. The second and primary — the second primary challenge of Space Force readiness lies in whether budgetary resources will be available in a timely manner to execute all we’re planning to do. As I stated previously, Congress has been a tremendous partner in defining and building the Space Force.

In each year since its existence, the Space Force has seen 12 to 15 percent increases in its budget year over year. The 2024 request is nearly $4 billion more than it was in 2023, a 15 percent increase. In the event of a continuing resolution, that increased budget authority would not be available to meet our needs.

This budget request includes at least 17 new initiatives, many of which are focused on this operational test and training infrastructure. Beyond that, new initiatives that were begun in 2023, already delayed because of a continuing resolution this year, are programmed for increases in 2024. As an — as a specific example, the missile warning system that will track advanced hypersonic threats was begun in 2023. The budget for this vital capability doubles in 2024, allowing us to deliver real global capability by 2027. None of that additional authority and none of the new starts required for the — the test and training infrastructure can be — be begun during a CR. The president’s fiscal year 2024 budget request — request affirms the DoD and Space Force’s commitment to a bold, threat informed shift.

It acknowledges the need for a more robust proliferated architecture, intelligence driven space domain awareness, aggressive cybersecurity, measured investment in space superiority, and combat credible forces anchored in a full spectrum training enterprise. The most important thing Congress can do to help us in this endeavor is pass an on time budget.

Thank you all for your steadfast partnership and support. I look forward to your questions.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Yeah. Thank you, General. I’m just going to dive right into — I just have one question, and I want to get to — to other members that we have since we have votes looming. Can we just go down the line? I’ll start with you General George. What are your current projections for your recruiting shortfalls this year?

RANDY GEORGE: Chairman, right now we’re doing better than we were doing. I would say right now we’re probably projecting to be about 55,000. We had set our goal up to be 65,000 this year, which is higher than what we did last year. So, that’s where I expect we’ll be, somewhere —

MICHAEL WALTZ: About 10,000 short?

RANDY GEORGE: Yes, sir.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Admiral?

LISA FRANCHETTI: Chairman, we expect to be about 6,000 short. Also doing better than we started, but about 6,000 short is our projection.

MICHAEL WALTZ: General?

ERIC SMITH: Chairman, the Marine Corps will meet its recruiting mission this year, as we did last year.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Roger that. Semper Fi.

DAVID ALLVIN: The total force Air Force will be coming in approximately, on this path, 10,000 short. That’s about 3,400 in the active duty, 3,100 in the Guard, a little over four — or in the Reserves, and a little over 4,000 in the Guard.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you. General?

DAVID THOMPSON: Chairman, we have a little different challenge than the other services. We need about 700 new recruits off the street. But we still need, and will for the next several years, need about 700 inter service transfers from the other services. And while we’re doing very well in recruiting off the street, as the other services have challenges in their recruiting, it becomes more difficult for them to release folks for inter service transfer.

MICHAEL WALTZ: So, will you fall — are you projecting to fall short in those transfers?

DAVID THOMPSON: Don’t know yet. We — we — we — we will meet our off the street needs. The question will be working with services, how much can they afford to give us. And we just don’t know that yet. We’ll need to wait and negotiate later this year.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you. And minus the Army because you’re already doing it in terms of polling and collecting data on why we’re in this crisis that we’re in, will all of you commit to the committee to begin collecting data, look at programs, initiate programs to start understanding why this shortfall is happening? I — so, I’m looking at Navy, Air Force.

LISA FRANCHETTI: Yes. Yes.

DAVID ALLVIN: Absolutely, Chairman. That’s underway and will continue.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Great. Thank you, Mr. Garamendi.

JOHN GARAMENDI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ve had the privilege of meeting with each of the presenters today ahead of this meeting, and I’m going to turn over my time to Ms. Sherrill.

MIKIE SHERRILL: Thank you. And thank you all for your service and for your support to our troops across the globe. It’s important that we build and procure clean energy sources appropriately without influence and ties to our strategic competitors, who use forced labor, conduct intellectual property theft, and forced technology transfers.

It can be done. GAF, a national roofing company headquartered in my district, has been able to successfully transition from Chinese suppliers to manufacturing and producing solar panels in domestic facilities in Texas and California, as well as in Southeast Asian nations including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Taiwan.

As we work on increasing our energy resiliency, we need to ensure our armed forces are looking at all energy options available. And General Smith, we had a discussion yesterday about how this impacts logistics. Can you talk a little bit about that discussion and how energy options can improve your logistics challenges?

ERIC SMITH: Yes, ma’am. Logistics is the pacing function against the pacing threat in the expanse of the Pacific. As a warfighter, I don’t want to move one pound that I don’t have to move. I want to reserve every poundage of movement for lethality. So, if I am — for example, if I don’t need to bring diesel to operate a reverse osmosis water purification unit to produce water in the middle of the South China Sea, which doesn’t seem to make sense to me, to — to ship water, I want to produce it there, and I can do that via some other means, it’s about — for me, it’s about lethality, because that eight pounds, give or take, per gallon, that’s eight pounds of a warhead that I can bring.

This is about lethality for us. And anything we can do to move less, and polymer ammo means I can bring more bullets instead of more casings, that is what we want to do, because it is about warfighting and lethality.

MIKIE SHERRILL: Thank you for that plug for polymer ammo. We are working on that in my district. And with that, I will turn it back in the interest of time. Thank you.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, Ms Sherrill. Mr. Wilson?

JOE WILSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank each of you. I — I particularly appreciate your service, as a 31 year veteran myself. And — but I’m really grateful to be a Army dad of three sons who’ve served in Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan. I also can claim the Navy, a son that served in Baghdad. And so, I’m really grateful as a doctor.

And then I have a nephew in the Air Force, and one day I’ll have somebody in the family smart enough to be in Space Force. So — but thank you all for what you do. And General George, I’m so grateful to represent Fort Jackson. It trains over 50 percent of all soldiers in the basic combat training facility.

And I’m also grateful that what you’re doing is providing — all of you are providing opportunity for young people to achieve to their highest level and to be so meaningful, and that’s why I appreciate what you’re doing. And General, there’s the Future Soldier Prep Course. And can you explain what that is and how successful it’s been?

RANDY GEORGE: Yes, sir. It’s been very successful for us. We have come into this — we — we did not want to lower our standards, and so the idea of the Future Soldier Prep Course is actually to get people to meet our standards. So, they basically come there — on average, I would say they’re there four or five weeks.

We have some that need help with the ASVAB testing, some that need help with the body fat. And we’ve seen about a 97 percent — percent success rate, 96, 97 percent on both of those accounts getting through basic training. So, we’re really proud of that program down there at Fort Jackson.

JOE WILSON: And in lieu of a question because of time, I just want to commend all of you for the placement of troops in Eastern Europe to provide for peace through strength with deterrence. I — I’ve met with the military personnel in Poland. President Donald Trump was ahead of the curve to put troops there. I’ve met with our American troops working in Novo Selo in Bulgaria, with young Bulgarians to be at MK Air base in Romania, to see success there and the Larissa in Greece.

And so, over and over again, to me, it’s just so important that we have sufficient military effectiveness backing up our NATO allies to back up the very courageous people of Ukraine. So, thank you for what you’ve done. And any other enterprising maneuvers you can do to back up the people of Ukraine, I know the chairman and I would appreciate it. Thank you.

I yield back.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Ms. Tokuda?

JILL TOKUDA: Thank you very much, Mr. — thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the interest of time, I’m just going to go over a few questions. Admiral Franchetti, in February, the Navy closed three dry docks at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and another at the Trident Refit facility in Bangor due to seismic concerns, I believe.

This means that at least right now, of 18 dry docks in our four public shipyards, almost a quarter of them are offline at a time when over one-third of the Navy’s attack submarine fleet desperately needs maintenance and repair. Admiral Franchetti, given our already limited shipyard capacity and the growing demand for ship maintenance, what is the Navy doing to address the challenges posed by these closures and continue to meet our shipyard needs?

LISA FRANCHETTI: We are very focused on our shipyards in general, the focus through SIOP. But specifically to the shipyards in Puget Sound, so there are three dry docks that are being repaired right now. One of them is already complete and in testing. The other one should be complete by the beginning of June, and the other one by late June.

So, right now, we don’t see any impact to the closures of those dry docks. Separately from that, we are continuing to work through all of our public shipyards to improve their performance through project management fundamentals, workforce development, and taking a big effort to buy long lead time supply materials in advance.

That will help us get our shipyards our — our submarines out on time.

JILL TOKUDA: Thank you. That’s very good to hear. Related to the SIOP and shipbuilding industry — industrial base, recently you may have heard the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources issued a letter to Navy Region Hawaii about the discovery of an invasive octocoral, or soft coral species in Pearl Harbor.

What was initially ten acres when discovered back in August 2020 has now grown to be at least 20 acres, and is estimated to be potentially impacting 90 acres. Unmitigated, the spread of this invasive species has potential risk to operations at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, including the new Dry Dock 5 at Pearl Harbor Navy Shipyard, and obviously poses serious threat to our native corals but, more importantly, just the operation of this area.

Can I get your commitment that the Navy is going to work quickly with us to address and mitigate this invasive soft tissue coral so that we can continue operation and, of course, the — the new dry dock at Pearl Harbor?

LISA FRANCHETTI: Yes. As part of the — the SIOP program, the Navy’s been working with National Marine Fisheries, all of the interagency, to better understand the problem and develop that mitigation plan originally for the nine acres of this invasive coral. And the cost for that removal effort was included in the MILCON. We’re also looking at how do we adopt biosecurity protocols to mitigate any risk of spreading of the coral for any work we do there.

Right now, we don’t anticipate that there will be impacts to Dry Dock number 5, but we’re continuing, again, to work. And you have my commitment to work with — with your team and with everyone to make sure that that does not spread any further.

JILL TOKUDA: Thank you very much. As you can see, it’s exponentially increasing, and we want to get this addressed before it impacts. Thank you. I yield back, Chair.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you. Mr. Scott?

AUSTIN SCOTT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here. I want to piggyback a little bit on what Ms. Sherrill said just a second ago. Less than 15 days after China flew a spy balloon across the United States of America, Ford Motor Company announced a partnership with communist China and CATL battery technology.

I want to just make sure that none of our DoD funds are going to purchase Chinese battery technology or any other technology that is coming from China. I think that you will see language to that effect coming in the NDAA. They’re — we are not going to spend US tax dollars to support Communist China or CATL battery technology.

I don’t need you to comment on it. I just need you to be prepared for it. And if — if Ford Motor Company decides that’s who’s going to develop their batteries, this is America, they’ve got the right to — to decide who’s going to develop their batteries, but we’re not going to buy them. General Allvin, I’m gonna — I’m gonna focus on the Air Force, if I could.

Seven months ago, General Kelly, commander of Air Combat Command, said that he has 48 fighter squadrons, nine attack squadrons doing the work of 60 squadrons, three squadrons short of what he needs. He said he needs 28 fighter squadrons to protect power in the Indo-Pacific region, Europe, and the Middle East, eight squadrons to respond to an unfolding crisis, 16 squadrons for homeland defense, eight squadrons for modernization and training.

We’re in pretty much peacetime right now as we speak. Do you agree with his assessment?

DAVID ALLVIN: I — I do, Congressman. And I think the — the point that General Kelly was trying to point out is not only that we can’t just count the numbers, but the missions that those were — are tasked to do. So, those nine attack squadrons are primarily the A-10 squadrons that aren’t as survivable and they aren’t multirole.

So, that’s why we are aggressively — in the FY ’24 budget, we’re asking for 72 fighters, front line fighters, to include 48 F-35s and 24 F-15EXs, which will enable us to be — to be able to do those missions and be able to compete and succeed in the Indo-Pacific theater.

AUSTIN SCOTT: But the A-10s are deployed right now, correct?

DAVID ALLVIN: I’m sorry, sir?

AUSTIN SCOTT: A-10s are deployed right now, correct?

DAVID ALLVIN: They are right now on their — I don’t think they’re in CENTCOM, but they are set to go to CENTCOM in a single role mission. And they’re adapting to that as we speak.

AUSTIN SCOTT: Quantity to me is equality in and of itself, in some cases. And I do worry about standing down fighter squadrons when we — when we have an acknowledged need for — for more squadrons. But I under — understand the A-10 is an old platform, and — and it’s not going to be the platform of the future. You did say over the past two decades that we’ve offered forces to the joint force in an unsustainable manner, and the readiness impact is becoming more apparent in the face of our pacing challenge.

I assume that means it’s safe to say the Air Force needs more resources to maintain current levels of readiness, and that our current levels of readiness are not what they have been in the past.

DAVID ALLVIN: Congressman, I would say for sure to the latter, that readiness is not what it’s been in the past. If that’s reference to my written statement, primarily the point we’re making is, in addition to additional capacity and more modernized capacity, what we do need is also to reimagine ourselves and understand to be ready for what, to optimize our training to make sure we’re generating and presenting the forces in the best way.

In the past, we’ve just been all-in without really looking at how to focus on the high end readiness. And so, our new Air Force force generation model is enabling us to see that and really hone in on our new mission essential tasks and get the very best readiness out of every flying hour that we can get.

AUSTIN SCOTT: So, when we talk about — about the best readiness, one of the concerns I have is, when I look at the readiness rate, it’s significantly below where any of us in this room want it to be. And yet, there’re two different — two different definitions of readiness. One of them is able to perform one of the primary missions, and the other one is able to perform all of the primary missions.

My understanding is that we’re using the definition, when we talk about readiness, that they’re able to perform one of the primary missions, not all of the primary missions. Is that — is that correct?

DAVID ALLVIN: In some — that is correct in some cases. I — the readiness is really talking about the mission essential task which, as I mentioned, we are rewriting specifically to go against the China threat. So, there is — there is both a shortage of being able to do the full spectrum of missions.

AUSTIN SCOTT: Okay. So — so, if I could, again, it’s written specifically for the China threat?

DAVID ALLVIN: We — we are adapting it to make the primary mission —

AUSTIN SCOTT: Okay.

DAVID ALLVIN: The China threat.

AUSTIN SCOTT: Okay. And I — again, Mr. Chairman, if I may, in the last — the primary mission being the China threat, and yet less than 15 days after China flies a spy balloon across the United States of America, we have one of America’s most iconic brands announcing a multibillion dollar partnership to buy a Chinese battery technology, which they intend and think that they’re actually going to sell to the DoD in some cases.

And I would just encourage you to make sure that you’re not preparing to buy any CATL batteries. Thank you.

MICHAEL WALTZ: I think your — your sentiment is shared across multiple supply chains. Ms. Kiggans?

JEN KIGGANS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. And briefly, I know that votes are happening, but just to echo Mr. Scott about having the corporate buy-in for — I mean, you guys are doing a great job on the ground and — and with people and weapons and lethality. But — but getting that corporate buy-in, we’re not — this is not a — a — just a military fight with China, and we’ve got to get the — the corporate buy-in as well.

So, I fully support everything he just mentioned. And also to echo the previous comments about ship repair and shipyards, in my district, I’m Hampton Roads, so Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and — and I hear from those guys all the time about challenges. And I know it’s — that’s multi — multifaceted too, from workforce to supply chain.

But scheduling, gosh, and it’s like this. They want to blame the Navy and the Navy wants to blame them. So, if — if we could get it together on that front, and I don’t know if that’s doing a better job at repairs out at sea, internally what we’re doing, but then when they come to port, making sure that we are staying on schedule, because we can’t keep this old fleet of ships that’s already fewer numbers than I wish we had at sea if we don’t get our ship repair industry behind.

It’s not just the shiny new — new ships and toys, but we’ve got to keep those old ones out there too. So, that’s important to my district, whatever you can do to help that. I just specifically and real quick want to ask about pilot training. I’ve asked about this before. But we know that all of those new toys and wonderful things that — that we can purchase go nowhere without the people behind it, specifically the pilots, which I know Army, Navy and Air Force and Marine Corps, you know, all of us. So, how long does it take?

And if you guys could — could answer just in order, how long does it take to train a pilot from commissioning time til the time they touch a gray combat ready aircraft?

RANDY GEORGE: Ma’am, that — it does depend a little bit on the — on the aircraft. But I would say on average, we’re at a year to 15 months, you know, for helicopter pilots that are down at — at Fort Rucker after they do their other initial training.

JEN KIGGANS: And do those commissioned pilots start right away, or is there a lag time before they actually start flight training?

RANDY GEORGE: No, they — they go down to — like for us, they go down to Fort Rucker and go to the — their basic course for aviation and then get started, you know, soon thereafter.

JEN KIGGANS: How about the Navy?

LISA FRANCHETTI: I’ll get back to you with the exact number. It’s roughly two years. And of course, we have a pilot delay right now in training —

JEN KIGGANS: Yeah.

LISA FRANCHETTI: Backlog, which we are working through as rapidly as possible.

JEN KIGGANS: So, actually closer to four. We were in Kingsville about two weeks ago, and they’ll tell me four years from the time that they get commissioned from the Naval Academy or ROTC til the time that they are actually flying a fleet ready F-18. That is four years to — that is too long. We’re not going to be able to — God forbid replace or have the pilots that we need if we continue to have a four year lag time.

I think the Army is a little bit better. How about the Marine Corps? Well, you guys are in with the Navy, so —

ERIC SMITH: What’s different for us is every Marine lieutenant goes to the basic school for six months —

JEN KIGGANS: Right.

ERIC SMITH: To learn to be an infantry platoon commander. Then we begin flight school or any other MOS. So, it is in excess of two years, depending on the airframe.

JEN KIGGANS: Right.

ERIC SMITH: And those delays from — everything from weather to aircraft availability all contribute to that, which is why those six and eight year commitments post wings are so vital to us. And we’re not having any problems with those who wish. We just need the additional bonuses and help because the airline industries can —

JEN KIGGANS: Right.

ERIC SMITH: Hire them faster than I can.

JEN KIGGANS: Yes. Yes. Air Force?

DAVID ALLVIN: Ma’am, to your point, from when they enter pilot training to when they’re flying a gray tail, if it’s mobility, it’s about 18 months. If it’s a fighter bomber, it’s closer to beyond 24 months. But to your point about from the time they are commissioned, because of the challenges we’re having with the T-6 and T-38, we have a little bit of a — a backup.

And it’s — it can be as many as four years. So, almost an 18 month to 24 month wait just to get into pilot training. So, that’s why we’re trying to accelerate, and our budget asks for more help with the T-38 engines and the T-6s, to move those through.

JEN KIGGANS: Yes. You guys have had kind of comparable challenges with the Navy, and I’m a little bit more familiar with the Navy side. But with the T-45 and some of those OBOGS issues, the blade issues, I mean, we’re — and COVID issues, but we’re seeing those challenges now become where instructor pilot shortage — you know, it’s — we’re short instructor pilots.

So — so, now we can’t train the naval aviators and all the other aviators that we do need because we don’t have the — the teachers. So, now we’re — we’re robbing the fleet to get those teachers. And you talk about retention and competing with airlines and whatnot, we’ve got to do a better job at this.

And I think part of it is the onus is on us, and — and I echo and agree everything you said about continuing resolutions and how — how detrimental that would be. But — but having the right training equipment in place, and — and you guys tweaking the syllabuses too, but — but — so that we can tighten it up. I just — I want to do it faster.

We need more and we need faster. So, I think every service branch has its challenges. I’m mindful of it, but it’s something that I just want to prioritize. So, thank you very much.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you. Mr. Gimenez?

CARLOS GIMENEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to everybody here. If you really want to scratch your head, I — I — it’s come under — somebody gave me information that — that the VA just bought $430 million worth of computers from Lenovo. Lenovo is a Chinese computer company. So, I’ll ask an over — overhead question.

Are — are any other services looking at buying large purchases of computers in the near future? And if you are or if you have bought some, have anybody — has anybody bought — bought Lenovo’s Chinese computers?

RANDY GEORGE: I’m going to have to take that one. I don’t know right off — I mean, we do buy tech and computers, but I can’t answer that one, sir. I’ll take that for the record.

CARLOS GIMENEZ: I would certainly hope that, whatever technology you buy, any computers you buy, any printers you buy, etc, are American made and not made in China. Every taxpayer dollar that goes to China is just funding more equipment, more military capability against ourselves, which is ludicrous. So, I’ll be looking into this VA thing.

I’m hoping I’m wrong, but that’s the information I’m getting. On the question of — of pilots, is it fair to say we have more airframes that — than pilots, or do we have more pilots than airframes?

DAVID ALLVIN: By raw numbers, we — we have many more pilots than airplanes.

CARLOS GIMENEZ: Okay. So, do you — but you do have a pilot shortage. Is — yes or no?

DAVID ALLVIN: Well, we have a pilot shortage in — in the — in the pilots that we want throughout our entire Air Force. We do not have empty cockpits. So, in order to have a healthy pilot — a professional force, you need first and foremost the combat cockpits filled. Then you need the trainer cockpits filled. Then you need the test cockpits filled.

And after you fill out the cockpits, then you go to those that — our next priority is the leadership. You want the leadership positions filled. And then after you have all those filled, then you go to the staff positions. That is where we are currently absorbing our shortage, is in the staffs. So, where you would traditionally want pilot experience, rated experience, we’re managing those at somewhat less than 70 percent.

So, we are not sacrificing our frontline units. But if this sustains over time, then we will have a sort of a misshapen force, where you won’t be able to have professionally developed enough of the rated membership to provide that expertise and the leadership at the higher level. But for right now, we have not had any of our combat training or test cockpits go empty.

CARLOS GIMENEZ: What about reserve units, or have you looked at expanding reserve units or adding reserve pilots to — to the force?

DAVID ALLVIN: Frankly, the — the reserves are having about the same issue that we are having with respect to shortage overall. Now, I believe as we are — we are — in the active duty, we are advantaged by retention. But in our total force, we’re disadvantaged because, as the retention of the active duty goes, a large part of their sort of business model in the Guard and Reserves is those who want to continue to affiliate with the military will go from the active duty to the Guard and Reserves.

And so, oftentimes when the retention is — becomes poor, people still want to stay affiliated with the Air Force, the Guard and Reserves will get a little bit healthier. But as of right now, they’re — they’re feeling about the — the same pain as we are.

CARLOS GIMENEZ: Your reserve bases, are they — are they based in — in large urban areas where you would have a good — I guess a pool of — of — of folks that maybe wanting to be — are interested in — in serving in the reserves? I mean, if you have a reserve base somewhere in the middle of nowhere, it’s hard to find, I guess, reservists that actually live around the area.

So, how do you — how do you — how do you make your basis on reserve bases versus active bases?

DAVID ALLVIN: For the most part, we — we take advantage of being able to leverage both historical old fields, which used to be active duty, so some of them are just — they’re sort of godfathered from — or grandfathered from being existing old active duty air bases and take advantage of the infrastructure there. Those are the ones that have been around 30, 40 years.

Oftentimes what we have now is the associations that the — we have reserve members flying on what are sort of owned and maintained, these classic associations, by the active duty. So, it really is a mix of those that are just on active duty bases. I’m trying to go through in my head and see if there are any remote — very remote and isolated reserve-only bases, and — and none come to mind, frankly.

CARLOS GIMENEZ: Fair enough. Okay, I guess most of my time is up. I — I yield back.

MICHAEL WALTZ: Thank you, Mr. Jimenez. Thank you again to our witnesses. Obviously, the vote schedule is — is getting in the way of a more fulsome conversation here. But I think if you hear a theme, obviously it’s a real concern about the recruiting crisis that we’re in. And I know you share those concerns and are — are getting after it. And — and secondly, though, I’m — I’m just not sure the — the department as an institution and all the way down through the services and through our contracting officers are really looking at the supply chain issue.

And I think you’re hearing bipartisan concern across the board in having that supply chain surety, one, having visibility on it, but then, two, driving our practices along those lines in a systematic — in a systematic way. I — I know I think the committee, and I share Mr. — I think I can speak for Mr. Garamendi here, looks forward to working with you on that.

I hope that’s something that the services and the department can get ahead of rather than really it being driven by this side of the foxhole, because I — I certainly look forward to hearing what you’re doing in that regard as we move forward through the — through the defense bill. With that, the hearing is adjourned.

And thank you. Genuinely, thank you again.

Source: United States Navy

JOHN CARTER: Ms. Wasserman Schultz has — is delayed or tied up, so she’ll give her speech or her opening statement after she gets here. We’ll go ahead and she understands that. Good afternoon. I appreciate you all of you being here. Today’s hearings on the Navy and the Marine Corps is fiscal year 2024 budget requests for military construction and family housing.

It is a great pleasure to be here today with the Honorable Meredith Berger, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy Installations and Environmental — Environment, Vice Admiral Ricky Williamson, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Readiness and Logistics and Lieutenant General Edward Banta, Deputy Commandant for Installations Logistics for the United States Marine Corps.

Military construction and family housing makes up only about 2 percent of the defense budget, yet it has a tremendous impact on our sailors and our Marines and their families who feel the infrastructure investment daily. Infrastructure is a form of deterrence, by that, we mean we must increase our investment in infrastructure to strengthen our ability to deter aggression elsewhere where it occurs.

And with this mind, I look forward to discussing with you — with the challenges and opportunities for the Navy and the Marine Corps. Investing in facilities and infrastructure is critical to supporting our sailors and marines. Their readiness is of utmost importance and we owe it to them to invest in their ability to fight and support their families.

I will recognize Ms. Wasserman Schultz when we get here. So thank you, for the time — time being will start here and try to limit your your review to five minutes, please — please. Ms. Berger.

MEREDITH BERGER: Thank you Chairman Carter and look forward to seeing Ranking Wasserman — Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz when she gets here distinguished members of the subcommittee, it’s an honor to be before you today. First, I’d like to thank you for your support of the Fallon Range Training Complex modernization in the 2023 NDAA. Together, we guarantee the readiness of the fleet, making sure that they can train like they fight, while protecting culture, the environment and the economy.

I’ll return to Fallon this weekend to celebrate Earth Day with our tribal partners as we approach our first milestone under the NDAA memorializing access agreements to shared lands. I also thank you for your support and careful attention to our response at Red Hill in Hawaii. Once the Joint Task Force certifies that they have removed all fuel from the facility, the Navy is prepared to execute the permanent closure of Red Hill.

In the meantime, we’re continuing our long term monitoring program to validate drinking water continues to be safe and I’ll return next week to Hawaii to ensure that with every action we take, we are working together and focused on the health and safety of the people, the environment and the communities in Oahu.

In my portfolio, my work falls across three cross-cutting areas; critical infrastructure, communities and climate action. Critical infrastructure is the means to our ends. Worldwide, Navy and Marine Corps installations are power projection platforms from which naval forces train, deploy and maintain Ford Presidents.

And I love your point on deterrence as well, Mr. Chairman. There are also where our people recover resupply and rest. They’re home to many service members and their families. Historically, the department has accepted significant level of risk in the resourcing of naval installations. This year’s budget represents a first step in fundamentally changing that approach.

We’re developing a 30 year infrastructure plan that will design and deliver the requirements and resources to support the mission set of our naval facilities; warfighting, readiness and quality of life. The Department of the Navy’s budget request also includes $6 billion for military construction projects that enable new platforms and weapon systems, modernize utilities, recapitalize obsolete infrastructure and enhance the quality of life for our sailors and Marines.

We’re also requesting nearly $6 billion to maintain existing infrastructure and more than $300 million to demolish obsolete facilities. This budget includes our commitment to the Shipyard infrastructure optimization program and prioritizes investments in the Indo-Pacific region and the commitments that we’ve made there.

The Department of Defense will continue to highlight the importance of a stable workforce in Guam through long term relief from the H-2B visa requirement through at least 2029. Next communities, where people come together, your districts are installations and the environment, economy and people that connect us. As we continue to make investments in critical infrastructure, we ensure that we have the policy and practice to match keeping oversight of our privatized housing programs and advocacy for our service members families at the forefront.

This budget continues our proactive environmental stewardship of installations and ranges while implementing the Department of Defense’s comprehensive approach to address PFAS and other emerging chemicals of concern. The Department of Navy protects our communities and critical infrastructure through a third sea climate action.

No matter what you call it, extreme weather temperatures, a rising sea and depleting water sources threaten our installations and the infrastructure that support our critical missions. This budget request makes the Navy and Marine Corps installations, our power projection platforms, more survivable by hardening power grids, fuel distribution systems and water lines, and giving our forward deployed forces, the operational advantage by being untethered from long and consistent logistics tails.

I’d like to thank this committee for your steadfast commitment to our sailors, Marines, civilians and their families. I look forward to working with you to ensure that the Navy and Marine Corps remain the world’s greatest maritime fighting force. Thank you.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Chairman Carter and distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is an honor to appear before you today on behalf of our sailors and their families. Thank you for your continued support to the Navy, its military construction program and our 70 installations worldwide, which enables us to strengthen readiness, support delivery of new platforms and ensure quality of service for our sailors.

The chief of naval operations issued a call to action last year for Navy leaders to apply a set of Navy proven leadership problem solving best practices that empower our people to achieve exceptional performance. My realization has fully embraced this call continually self assessing and benchmarking to get real and see ourselves, followed by self correction and staying left of the problems.

To meet the challenges of strategic competition and an evolving threat environment, we must enable global logistics with resilient shore infrastructure and be honest about our current performance. Maintaining our advantage at sea requires transformational change ashore to support and sustain the fleet of the future.

To achieve this, my organization continues to implement the Naval Global Strategy ashore, our strategic direction for the Navy Shore Enterprise and alignment with the National Defense Strategy, the Tri Service Maritime Strategy and the CNAS Navigation — Navigation Plan. As a surface warfare officer, I can confirm that all readiness starts from the shore.

Navy installations are essential shore platforms from which naval forces train, deploy and maintain forward presence. To get real, over the past two decades, the Navy has taken risk and shore investments to focus on afloat readiness and strengthen future platform and weapon system capabilities. Our investments in FY ’23 and proposed budget for FY ’24 begins reversing the impact of those risks over the past decade.

Our single most strategic asset is our sailors who deserve world class quality of service, a combination of both quality of life and quality of work. PB ’24 improves quality of life for our sailors through investments in kind of unaccompanied housing, PPV and child development centers. In FY ’23, we invested $140 million for unaccompanied housing in our FY ’24 budget, invest 165 million and we need to do more.

Investments in child care, are directed at decreasing waitlist and being competitive with the private sector. The waitlist is currently at 5500, down from 8000 in FY ’22. Our goal is to increase it to 2000 by the end of ’24. To address quality of work, PB ’24 funds sustainment at 100 percent for nuclear deterrence requirements and 87 percent for remaining DOD modeled requirements.

PB ’24 also invest in demolition funds to reduce the Navy’s footprint and support better base design. Our Navy Military Construction Program, we thank you for the additional 671 million to our FY ’23 budget which funded six additional projects. The Navy’s 4.7 billion PB ’24 million request, funds planning and design unspecified minor construction in 19 projects including four Pacific Deterrence Initiative efforts in Guam.

The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization program is critical to preparing the nations for public shipyards to meet further needs of the Navy’s nuclear powered submarine and aircraft carrier force in support of the National Defense Strategy. We are making great progress in FY ’23 with the awarding of contracts for area development plans for Norfolk and Portsmouth shipyards in additional project planning for FY ’24, SIOP budget provides 2.4 billion to continue advancing the program.

With Congress continued support, PSYOP investments will be — will halt the degradation of our aging shipyard infrastructure, deliver required drydock repairs and upgrades and recapitalize industrial equipment with modern technology substantially increasing productivity and safety. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.

It has been a distinct honor and pleasure to work with you over the past four years to meet shared goals for our Navy and our country. We look forward to future collaboration in the pursuit of warfighting capability and support for our sailors and their families. I look forward to conversation. Thank you.

EDWARD BANTA: Chairman Carter and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Marine Corps FY ’24 military construction budget request. As my counterparts here said first, I’d like to thank you for funding last year’s budget request and our unfunded priority list. Your support will accelerate improvements to quality of life, enable Marine Corps force design initiatives and rapidly grow our Indo-PAYCOM posture.

In FY ’24, we are requesting $1.3 billion for 16 military construction projects and planning and design funds. This request aims to modernize our installations and it reflects a balanced investment approach to support required warfighting capabilities, improve quality of life for our Marines and their families, and increase the resiliency of our installations.

Viewed through an operational lens, these investments ultimately improve the readiness and the lethality of our force. Eight of our 16 projects will help bolster our presence in the Indo-Pacific region. Seven of them are in Guam, including four projects that will posture combat and logistics capabilities on the island and one project that will enable our marine rotational force in Darwin, Australia.

The remaining eight projects in our request are in the continental United States, yet complement our Pacific investments, recognizing that our ability to campaign forward begins here at home. For example, our budget includes four projects that support aviation and ground combat capabilities to include aviation command and maintenance facilities in North Carolina and a radar support facility in Virginia.

Constructing new communications towers on our ranges in 29 Palms California improves safety and supports our advanced live virtual constructive training while the cybersecurity operations facility in Maryland supports critical operations in the cyber domain. We also appreciate this committee’s continued support to improving the quality of life for our Marines and their families.

To that end, we plan to invest 318 million or about 23 percent of our military construction budget against four quality of life projects to include a child development center, a recreation center and a religious ministry services center on Guam. Most of our family housing construction request is also focused on Guam to build 57 additional units there.

Recognizing the importance of housing, our single Marines were requesting one new barracks at Marine Barracks, Washington, and we intend to renovate 13 more across the force. Importantly, we’re also prepared to renovate 12 more barracks if additional restoration and modernization funds are available. We’ll continue to work with you to deliver the best that we can for our most valuable weapon system, the individual Marine.

We’re focused on improving the resiliency of our bases and stations so they can prepare for respond to and recover from all types of hazards and threats. Our investments in strong community partnerships, water treatment infrastructure like the Project on Marine Corps Base Quantico and Electric utility upgrades will improve our resiliency, enable force generation and support warfighting requirements, again with an eye towards increased readiness and lethality.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today and for your continued oversight, input and support. Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz. It’s good to see you also ma’am. I look forward to your questions. Thank you.

JOHN CARTER: Thank you, General. I’m now going to recognize Ms. Wasserman Schultz for opening statement.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate it. And Secretary Berger, it’s great to see you again and I apologize for us not being able to get together prior to the hearing. Welcome back to all three of you. I look forward to your testimonies and to hearing how the FY ’24 budget would improve the condition of Navy and Marine Corps infrastructure and improve our military readiness.

I also am interested in hearing from you how robust funding for housing and quality of life projects could build on the progress of our past years, so we can benefit the sailors and Marines and their families. That’s something that we’ve been incredibly focused on as a subcommittee. As you know and wanting to make sure we can take good care of them and their quality of life.

The progress that the Navy and Marine Corps makes towards improving the quality of life for our sailors, Marines and their families will undoubtedly help recruitment and retention efforts. And that’s why continued strong investments in these programs is essential. And while I’m pleased — why I’m pleased to see an improved budget request from the Navy and Marine Corps this year, the FY ’24 budget request for the Navy and Marine Corps military construction is $6 billion and that represents a $1.7 billion increase over 2023 enacted, and even larger 2.2 billion over the ’23 request.

So I’m generally pleased with the overall direction of this funding request, but there are certain specific areas that I do wish to cover. For example, the Navy and Marine Corps Family housing construction request is $277 million and that it would equal a $60 million cut from the enacted level. From the Shipyard infrastructure optimization program to the build up in the Pacific.

There are a number of crucial initiatives in this year’s budget, which show why continued investment in military construction is crucial to our national security. Unfortunately, as my friends on the other side of the aisle or rather their leadership proposals to dramatically cut government spending continue to circulate in the news, it is imperative that we examine what these cuts would mean for our service members and their families, the condition of our military infrastructure, and ultimately our military readiness.

Cuts back to the FY ’22 spending level would slow essential construction projects revitalizing our naval shipyards strategically vital construction through the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and investments to improve the quality of life for our sailors, Marines and their families. In addition, I’d like to hear from our witnesses on the following topics, including the progress that we’ve made on these issues and how they’ll affect Navy and Marine Corps budgets moving forward.

For example, contamination from the Red Hill bulk fuel storage facility continues to be a concern to me. Recent reports say that local Hawaii families not only had their water polluted by fuel but also by antifreeze chemicals. This development has only sharpened the health concerns surrounding the incident.

I hope to hear an update on the planning for both immediate cleanup and long term solutions. The Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization program represents crucial investments in our nation’s — in our Navy’s infrastructure to reconfigure, modernize and optimize our four aging naval shipyards into new modern facilities that will serve this nation into the future.

We must ensure this program is taking care of the Navy’s shipbuilding needs now and well into the future, which I know you agree with. Turning to privatized housing, the GAO recent report recognized the progress that all of the services have made in increasing oversight of the housing portfolio. We certainly have pushed for that, Mr. Chairman, you and I and various permutations of the subcommittee, but we also listed — there was also listed a number of further steps that need to be taken.

I hope the Navy and Marine Corps will fully embrace these additional accountability measures and will fully implement the recommendations, including increasing communication with residents regarding their rights and their options. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on the progress that has been made towards improving access to mental health resources for our sailors and Marines.

And finally, I’d like an update on Navy and Marine Corps efforts to prevent sexual assaults and improve trust in the reporting system. Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today, and I know you just went through your testimonies and so appreciate you being here. Thank you. I yield back.

JOHN CARTER: Well, thank you Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I’ll start and we’ll follow the rules we followed that I announced at the beginning of this season. The first question I have is kind of off the cuff. You mentioned the visas. I would just bend over to Guam and other and Basilan and other places over there and the work visas are critical to getting the job done.

The Marines have been slow balled in their — in the building up of their initial investment. They’re still building it, but the labor is not there. They work 18 months and they leave and we need to be able to keep them longer. Have you had — I know you said when we talked — you said you were going to have some constant — conversations with — with the State Department.

Have you had any luck?

MEREDITH BERGER: And Chairman Carter having just done that trip myself, that is a long plane ride. The — the general and I were recently out for the opening of Camp Blaze and I know that the office of the Secretary of defense has been the lead on this visa issue. I anticipate that you are hearing this from my myself, my colleagues all across because there are two things that are critically important to ensuring success in Guam and that is consistency of funding and consistency of labor.

And so that’s why this H-2B visa relief is — is so important. You mentioned the 18 months, but at every point that we can’t continue to guarantee work to folks, it creates a break in the way that we will work on the same with contracting, funding everything else. And so this will be critically important.

As for your question on the State Department, let me check with my colleagues at OSD as their — the lead on that, but I’d be happy to follow up with you.

JOHN CARTER: Please do because it’s very important they need to come from — from the Philippines. They’ve got great, great labor, they’ve worked on before they want them and the people there on Guam, say when the military gets through with them, they got projects they need to work on to support the military. So we need to get some flexibility in these visas.

So they can keep working as they come over there. I know this is a — you know, a question that’s kind of I’m throwing out there without the brief, but the real world is, I was there and they can’t do it without it. — yes, sir — you want to say something?

EDWARD BANTA: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. If I may, secretary, I absolutely concur, sir. We’re about 15 percent with our construction, 15 percent complete with our construction effort on Guam. So a lot of work yet to be done. This effort will be absolutely critical to achieving that workload over the coming years within cost and schedule performance parameters.

If we don’t get it, we’re already seeing the potential for cost overruns on the order of 1.1 to $1.5 billion. So that’s something that we would certainly like to avoid if we can get this extension on the H-2B visas. Thank you, sir.

JOHN CARTER: Admiral?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, just what General Banta and Ms. Merritt said, particularly when you look at the things that are going to Guam, it’s just not a Marine Corps and Navy, it’s also the Army, the Air Force, everybody. And so to ensure that we stay on cost, schedule and scope, I think it’s imperative to have that workforce available to be able to drive to, to the end of the plan, sir.

JOHN CARTER: And just they need to be renewable if not extended because it — you know, you just can’t work and then stop and go through a big process to get them back. That just is so onerous to getting a project done even in the United States if they walk off the job, getting them back is tough and so it’s very important.

On the shipyards, how much progress has the Navy made with these efforts in the Indo-Pacific region remains our top priority and it is important that our shipyards are modernized and expeditious manner. How is the Navy ensuring workflow efficiency? Does the Navy have a sufficient stockpile of materials to adequately complete projects?

And what are the suggestions on how we can speed up the projects?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, thank you very much for the question. Over the past year, I think we’ve made some tremendous progress in our PSYOP initiative, in particular bringing lessons forward from earlier projects into current projects and future projects. You ask very specifically about what are we doing to ensure cost schedule and scope.

By being able to and work very closely with our partners, understanding the environment which we’re in as far as inflation and those things applying that information, not just what is being put out by OMB, but actually what the contractors are seeing. For example, our inflation rates are in Hawaii and San Diego are very high and so we have to project that and be able to get that cost schedule and scope.

One of the other things that we have to do is make the money available so that the contractor that is actually doing the workforce buys down the risk. We have to tie our workforce to the work flow to our supply chain and our EDPs are off and running Hawaii’s complete — we’re doing that analysis now and that’s showing great promise of learning that we can apply to the other shipyards.

We have three sprints with our work flow in particular down in Norfolk that look at monitored state of the art advanced machinery and marrying the work flow to that to see the impacts it has to generate the outcomes that we’re looking for. I’d be happy to come over sir and talk to you in great detail on the progress we’re making.

Yes, sir.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. The FY ’24 budget request of $6.7 billion for the Navy Marine Corps includes several key increases like increased construction funding for the Navy Reserve. Republican leadership has been discussing cutting funding levels to the fiscal year 2022 levels. If funding were cut to FY ’22 levels, the Navy and Marine Corps could be cut to at least $3.6 billion lower than the President’s budget request.

So if all three witnesses could share how if funding were reduced to the FY ’22 levels that would affect the priorities and the budget request. And also from each of your perspectives, if less money were to go towards the projects in the budget request and in the unfunded priorities list, how would that affect our military readiness and the long term condition of our Navy and Marine Corps facilities?

MEREDITH BERGER: Ranking member Wasserman Schultz, I’ll — I’ll — I’ll go first here. As I opened, I talked about the mission set of our naval facilities being warfighting, readiness, and quality of life. So every time that we ask for something in a budget, it is purpose tied to the mission set that we are charged with, each of those missions has mission need dates and different definitions that go along with that.

And so as we look towards these missions and what the needs are, we have different milestones along the way, and if we don’t meet those, then we move away from being able to fully meet that mission in each of these definitions and at each of those need dates with each of those requirements. So I’ll turn to my colleagues to talk in detail about where they see the impacts in their services, but when we — when we move back in budget, the people who will feel it most are sailors, Marines and their families.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, ma’am, thank you for the question. Just doing some quick math, I think it would cut our milk roughly in half directly impact PSYOP, BYOP, CDC, unaccompanied housing and other critical infrastructure investments such as utilities that we’re looking to make in ’24. I think that that would basically allow us to do four increments to four projects and we would undoubtedly I think incur cost just based on having to push the planned projects out and the way that we see it right now.

And to Ms.. Berger’s point, I think that you know, we’ve made a lot of effort to get after the quality of life for our sailors and their families. We have taken a lot of risk in that. And I think our budget in ’23 started showing that ’24 shows that I’m looking forward to ’25 and out to really get after that.

And I think there would be a direct impact there.

EDWARD BANTA: Ma’am, thank you for the question. So yes, if we were to see reduced budgets back to the FY ’22 level, I would expect to see a proportional reduction in military construction and potentially quality of life investments. I think it would be most impactful to our facilities investment strategy that looks at investing in those facilities that matter the most to us from an operational readiness perspective.

And so we tend to focus on those and there is a big piece of quality of life such as barracks and and quality of life investments there. So we would seek to — to preserve it to the extent that we could, recognizing that the service also has modernization requirements and priorities and it would just be more of a rheostat I think that would probably delay and push out further into the — the program and certain key investments.

I hope that helps, ma’am.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you. It does. And just because you mentioned the — the housing that the prioritized housing last year, this committee provided a significant increase of over $250 million for the Navy and Marine Corps Family Housing. Reverting to FY ’22 levels would mean that Navy and Marine Corps family housing construction would be cut 77 percent from the enacted a level.

I’d like my colleagues to let that sink in for a moment. That absolutely disastrous cut would slow the pace of new construction of housing and would prolong instances of costly or inadequate housing for military families. Those who have served on this committee over the last number of years, recall that we’ve had at least two hearings where we heard directly from service members and the impact that the atrocious quality of their housing has had on their family life.

And we’re starting to move in the right direction. So if we start to slow that down, which would be pretty dramatic under those proposed cuts, then obviously retention and recruitment are going to be impacted.

JOHN CARTER: The Marines have been slow balled in their — in the building up of their initial investment. They’re still building it, but the labor is not there. They work 18 months, and they leave. And we need to be able to keep them longer. Have you had — I know you said — when we talked, you said you were going to have some constant — conversations with — with the State Department, have you had any luck?

MEREDITH BERGER: And Chairman Carter having just done that trip myself, that is a long plane ride. The — the general and I were recently out for the opening of Camp Blaze. And I know that the office of the Secretary of Defense has been the lead on this visa issue. I anticipate that you are hearing this from my — myself, my colleagues all across because there are two things that are critically important to ensuring success in Guam and that is consistency of funding and consistency of labor.

And so, that’s why this H-2B visa relief is — is so important. You mentioned the 18 months, but at every point that we can’t continue to guarantee work to folks, it creates a break in the way that we will work the same with contracting funding everything else. And so, this will be critically important. As for your question on the State Department, let me check with my colleagues at OSD as their — the lead on that, but I’d be happy to follow up with you.

JOHN CARTER: Please do because it’s very important. They need to come from — from the Philippines. They’ve got great, great labor. They’ve worked them before. They want them. And the people there on Guam, say when the military gets through with them, they got projects they need to work on to support the military, so we need to get some flexibility in these visas so they can keep working as they come over there.

I know this is a — you know, this question is kind of — I’m going to throw it out there without a brief, but the real world is, I was there. And they can’t do it without it.

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, sir. And —

JOHN CARTER: General, do you want to say something?

EDWARD BANTA: Thanks, Mr. Chairman, if I may, secretary. I absolutely concur, sir. We’re about 15 percent with our construction, 15 percent complete with our construction effort on Guam, so a lot of work yet to be done. This visa effort will be absolutely critical to achieving that workload over the coming years within cost and schedule performance parameters.

If we don’t get it, we’re already seeing the potential for cost overruns on the order of $1.1 to $1.5 billion, so that’s something that we would certainly like to avoid if we can get this extension on the H-2B visas. Thank you, sir.

JOHN CARTER: Admiral?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Just what General Banta and Ms. Meredith said. Particularly, when you look at the things that are going to Guam, it’s just not a Marine Corps and Navy, it’s also the Army, the Air Force, everybody.

JOHN CARTER: It’s everybody.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: And so, to ensure that we stay on cost, schedule and scope, I think it’s imperative to have that workforce available to be able to drive to — to the end of the plan, sir.

JOHN CARTER: And just they need to be renewable if not extended because it — you know, you just can’t work and then stop and go through a big process to get them back. That just is so onerous to getting a project done even in the United States. If they walk off the job, getting them back is tough and so it’s very important.

On the shipyards, how much progress has the Navy made with these efforts? And the Indo-Pacific region remains our top priority and it is important that our shipyards are modernized in an expeditious manner. How is the Navy ensuring workflow efficiency? Does the Navy have a sufficient stockpile of materials to adequately complete projects?

And what are the suggestions on how we can speed up the projects?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, thank you very much for the question. Over the past year, I think we’ve made some tremendous progress in our PSYOP initiative. In particular, bringing lessons forward from earlier projects into current projects and future projects. You asked very specifically about what are we doing to ensure cost, schedule and scope.

By being able to — work very closely with our partners, understanding the environment which we’re in as far as inflation and those things, applying that information, not just what is being put out by OMB, but actually what the contractors are seeing. For example, our inflation rates are in Hawaii and San Diego are very high and so we have to project that and be able to get that cost, schedule and scope.

One of the other things that we have to do is make the money available so that the contractor that is actually doing the work for us, buys down the risk. We have to tie our workforce to the workflow to our supply chain. And our IDPs are off and running. Hawaii’s complete. We’re doing that analysis now and that’s showing great promise of learning that we can apply to the other shipyards.

We have three sprints with our workflow in particular down in Norfolk that look at monitored state of the art advanced machinery and marrying the workflow to that to see the impacts it has to generate the outcomes that we’re looking for. I’d be happy to come over sir and talk to you in great detail on the progress we’re making.

JOHN CARTER: Well, thank you. We might do that.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir.

JOHN CARTER: Ms. Wasserman Schultz?

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. The FY ’24 budget request of $6.7 billion for the Navy and Marine Corps includes several key increases like increased construction funding for the Navy Reserve. Republican leadership has been discussing cutting funding levels to the fiscal year 2022 levels. If funding were cut to FY ’22 levels, the Navy and Marine Corps could be cut to at least $3.6 billion lower than the president’s budget request.

So, if all three witnesses could share how if funding were reduced to the FY ’22 levels that would affect the priorities and the budget request? And also, from each of your perspectives, if less money were to go towards the projects in the budget request and in the unfunded priorities list, how would that affect our military readiness and the long-term condition of our Navy and Marine Corps facilities?

MEREDITH BERGER: Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz, I’ll — I’ll — I’ll go first here. As I opened, I talked about the mission set of our naval facilities being warfighting readiness and quality of life. So, every time that we ask for something in a budget, it is purpose tied to the mission set that we are charged with. Each of those missions has mission need dates and different definitions that go along with that.

And so, as we look towards these missions and what the needs are, we have different milestones along the way. And if we don’t meet those, then we move away from being able to fully meet that mission in each of these definitions and at each of those need dates with each of those requirements. So I’ll turn to my colleagues to talk in detail about where they see the impacts in their services, but when we — when we move back in budget, the people who will feel it most are our sailors, marines and their families.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, ma’am. Thank you for the question. Just doing some quick math, I think it would cut our MILCOM roughly in half. And it would directly impact PSYOP BYOP, CDC, unaccompanied housing and other critical infrastructure investments such as utilities that we’re looking to make in ’24. I think that that would basically allow us to do four increments to four projects.

And we would undoubtedly, I think, incur costs just based on having to push the planned projects out in the way that PC right now. And to Ms. Berger’s point, I think that, you know, we’ve made a lot of effort to get after the quality of life for our sailors and their families. We have taken a lot of risk in that.

And I think our budget in ’23 started showing that, ’24 shows that. I’m looking forward to ’25 and out to really get after that. And I think there would be a direct impact there, ma’am.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you.

EDWARD BANTA: Ma’am, thank you for the question. So yes, if we were to see reduced budgets back to the FY ’22 level, I would expect to see a proportional reduction in military construction and potentially quality of life investments. I think it would be most impactful to our facilities investment strategy that looks at investing in those facilities that matter the most to us from an operational readiness perspective, and so we tend to focus on those.

And there is a big piece of quality of life such as barracks and — and quality of life investments there. So, we would seek to — to preserve it to the extent that we could recognize and that the service also has modernization requirements and priorities. And it would just be more of a rheostat, I think, that would probably delay and push out further into the — the program and certain key investments.

I hope that helps, ma’am.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you. It does. And just because you mentioned the — the housing — the prioritized housing. Last year, this committee provided a significant increase of over $250 million for the Navy and Marine Corps Family Housing. Reverting to FY ’22 levels would mean that Navy and Marine Corps family housing construction would be cut 77 percent from the enacted level.

I’d like for my colleagues to let that sink in for a moment. That absolutely disastrous cut would slow the pace of new construction of housing. And would prolong instances of costly or inadequate housing for military families. Those who have served on this committee over the last number of years, recall that we’ve had at least two hearings where we heard directly from servicemembers and the impact that the atrocious quality of their housing has had on their family life.

And we’re starting to move in the right direction, so if we start to slow that down, which would be pretty dramatic under those proposed cuts, then obviously retention and recruitment are going to be impacted. I do want to just ask you and Judge Carter covered these, the PSYOP, and I do want to ask you about sexual assault in the military.

Thank you. Thank you. In our recent quality of life hearing, I asked about the troubling trends in sexual assaults in the military. Given the importance, I just want to follow up on — on the — on the evidence from the 2021 Workplace and Gender Relations survey of military members regarding servicemembers trust in the reporting system.

So, what progress has the Navy and Marine Corps made on that issue? I want a detailed explanation about what changes have been made, the implementation of the Independent Review Commission’s recommendations and what more is being done to improve the trust? Because I mean, if you have a process that you design to ensure that people — that we can really get a handle on this problem, but your servicemembers don’t have trust in it, then it’s useless.

EDWARD BANTA: Ma’am, thanks very much for the question. I’ll take the initial stab at it here, so. As I think my counterparts will say, sexual assault has no place in the Marine Corps completely counter to our ethos and values and we’re working hard to get after it. We are, in fact, implementing the Independent Review Commission recommendations.

We’ve stood up the Office of Special Trial Counsel. Brigadier General Woodard assumed that position in January of this year. And we’re actively hiring out those positions that are critical to his ability to implement that accountability measure. In ’23, we’ve — we’ve — we’re spending $46 million to hire 369 additional staff, so that’s sexual response — sexual assault response coordinators, victim advocates and equal opportunity advisors.

We’re also investing in education from the recruit depots all the way through professional military education at every rank. We’ve also standardized the cyber training so that those who are providing the training are giving the consistent message across the entire force at every opportunity. Where we could potentially use help, so even though we have $102 million in FY ’24 and just over $500 million across the profile, $560 million across the fit up. Trying to hire to some of these positions is challenging, so we are working with the Department of the Navy and OSD to potentially seek direct hire authority to assist us with those measures.

And in terms of trust, I think it gets back to just communicating with our Marines, letting them know — and family members, letting them know that we have these people in place, that they have the trust of their — of their commanders as well as this Office of Special Trial Counsel to — to hold offenders accountable.

I hope that helps, ma’am.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, ma’am. Thank you very much for the question. As Ted said, sexual assault has absolutely no place in the United States Navy. A lot of the same type of investments, one thing I want to highlight that Ted brought up is hiring the right people and making sure that we get those right people in place. One of the things that we’ve initialed is working with academia and doing some studies to figure out how to bring those folks on to work.

And also how to be competitive in that market to ensure that we’ve got the right people at the right place. The other thing that Ted talked about, that’s a huge initiative for us is a training at all levels. At our Command leadership school in Great Lakes, in our senior enlisted academy to ensure that that training, it starts there but it doesn’t stop there.

It makes sure that it gets all the way through the ranks all the — all the way down to the deck plate. And then, I would say finally, ma’am, that probably the biggest challenge — or not the challenge, but one of the things that you see in our quality of life is to ensure that, you know, the facilities are up to standards and that they are properly met.

And that this is a consideration as we look at building back better going forward. That is something that I think that, you know, when we look at generating a quality of life for our sailors, something that absolutely has to be in that metric and has to be measured. And I think that you’ll see that as we look at unaccompanied housing and we start looking at some of the other things that we’re doing.

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.

JOHN CARTER: Mr. Valadao?

DAVID G. VALADAO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you all for taking the time to be here today. Ms. Berger, a quick question. Earlier this year, California Energy Commission approved funding for the Navy Electric Vehicle Pilot program and electrification blueprint studies for several Navy and Marine Corps facilities. Given the issues we’ve had in California over the last few years, especially this past summer, we’ve had some energy issues there.

We’ve had times where we’re not even supposed to turn our air conditioning on, plugging in vehicles. Now we’re seeing the governor come out and start to actually push for more electric cars, semis. And for anyone who’s been around one of those large semis, they do pull a lot from the grid. What energy production storage projects are you looking to support these projects?

When we look at this type of system, I mean, we don’t want to put ourselves in a position where we’re — we’re starting to see a threat to our national security where our vehicles aren’t functioning and — and moving or the ability to even get them plugged in and producing because of — of some of our great issues.

MEREDITH BERGER: And Congressman Valadao, thank you for the question, the attention. For us, energy resilience is mission assurance and that is the foundation of how we approach this. You mentioned the California Energy Commission and we are an early and steady partner on some of the initiatives that they’ve done. You mentioned some of the earlier strains on the grid.

Labor Day comes to mind when I think about some of the heat waves that came through California. And I’ll share with you an example of partnership on energy with the California Energy Commission where both Navy and Marine Corps were able to step up and give back to the grid to create that relief. So, through partnership at the Marine Corps Air Station, there is a microgrid where we are able to generate and store energy.

And so, when the utility providers were looking to manage against a blackout or to manage a rolling brownout, the Marine corps is actually able to flip the switch, give energy back to the grid to prevent that from happening. So, to your point, first and foremost, we create that assurance. And then, we manage towards what the pool will be. There’s more infrastructure work to do, but it is happening in a way that is cognizant of what that looks like.

And I will turn to my colleagues to see if they have anything to add.

EDWARD BANTA: Thanks ma’am. Thanks, Congressman, for your question. So just to build upon what Secretary Berger mentioned. So yes, the microgrids that we are developing are important investments in the resiliency of our installations. And as Ms. Berger said, will allow us to ensure continuity of power during periods of crisis regardless of the of the cause, as well as provide power back to a local grid or decreasing our demand, which allows them to focus on local communities.

We’re also working on electric vehicle supply equipment studies at our installations. We’ve got seven of ten complete that will help identify where the real challenge areas are in terms of that electrical infrastructure. So, as we complete those, we’ll start investing in to the infrastructure itself to include charging stations.

We’ve currently got 118 permanent charging points in place, primarily in California as well as 27 of the portable beam arc solar chargers at 15 separate installations. So, I think we’re making some good investments, particularly in California. Miramar, our Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at 29 Palms and then most recently, an investment in a microgrid up at our Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport using the ERSIP [ph] program, so I hope that helps, Congressman.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, thank you very much for the question. Currently, we have an ERSIP project for Naval Base San Diego, 8.6 million to look at place in a microgrid at Naval Base San Diego. One of the things I’m very proud of, I had the opportunity to be the commanding officer of Naval Base San Diego and understand these challenges firsthand.

We work very closely with SDG&E and the surrounding community of San Diego. Our ships obviously draw a lot of power and can produce a lot of power. One of the things that we regularly did as the instability of the local surroundings, we would actually come onto ships power and reduce the grid to allow — to prevent brownouts.

But the one thing I want to highlight is these two things actually live in harmony. The microgrid, not only does it allow us to store energy and be able to put it back, but it also makes our base more resilient by allowing us to direct the power to the mission operate — mission impacted functions on the base to ensure that that continues.

Additionally, we’re doing studies. One I think has great promise. You don’t necessarily think about it, but if you’re in San Diego, you do. The consumption of water. One of the largest starting anchorages that you have is when pumps kick off and on. You’re in a water scarce environment, so how do we reduce the amount of those starts and stops of the — our water pumps and give back to the grid and take the load off of the local structure?

So we’re — we have great hope in that. That’ll help us continue to build a resiliency plan, particularly in the Southwest.

DAVID G. VALADAO: And when you say the pumps starting and stopping, I mean the technology has been around for a while. I mean, you got variable speed, you got — I think it’s called soft start. We’ve put some of those even on our farms, so is that something you guys are just starting to implement or if you develop something different?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, it’s actually twofold. It’s to implement that, but also how do we place that into our — our — our base controls basically to time when those coming out. A base wakes up at 5:00 in the morning. You see the spike in energy consumption. Can we move that? You know, use this technology to move that start and level that off, so you’re not having the large — a larger starting amperage.

It’s the same thing in the evening. If we can drive down to zero in the evening like the Marine Corps is doing, then I think there’s some tremendous opportunity there. Absolutely, to leverage the technology, but it’s in how you inform that technology and how it’s going to be leveraged to drive down the starting amperage.

DAVID G. VALADAO: All right, well, my time’s expired, so thank you, sir.

JOHN CARTER: Mr. Bishop?

SANFORD BISHOP: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me welcome again our witnesses. Assistant Secretary Berger, Admiral Williamson, General Banta. Let me first start with Secretary Berger. The built environment now benefits from various innovative materials that the commercial industry widely uses. For example, Wal-Mart is building its new headquarters campus out of mass timber and realizing several strengths and sustainability benefits.

Cross laminated timber has been included in the unified facility’s criteria since 2016. As a result, five privatized Army hotels consistently saw construction speed up by 37 percent. Construction labor hours reduced by 44 percent. And on site construction traffic reduced by 90 percent while exceeding resilient standards and sustainability goals.

Despite these lessons that were learned seven years ago, the department has not used cross laminated timber in its MILCOM facilities. Can you describe the Navy’s efforts to incorporate CLT in its MILCOM projects? And secondly, I understand that the Navy has been late submitting its report required by the pilot program when using sustainable materials in MILCOM projects in FY ’22 NDAA Section 2861. Can you provide us with an update on the Navy’s implementation of that pilot and whether it will use mass timber in this demonstration?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman Bishop, yes, we — we think it is critically important to make sure that we are incorporating sustainability into our — our build. On the report, I need to get us status on that. And I would be glad to do so. As far as using the cross laminated timber in our projects, we do have two opportunities to do sustainability pilot syncs to Congress where we are building out on those.

And we have the opportunity to explore using cross laminated timber in one of our future sustainability projects. And I’d be glad to update you as we move through that process. We are — we are working with the Army on that and to make sure that we are moving forward to give that a good test in terms of how we use these sustainable materials and so please allow me to come back to you on that update.

I’ll note more broadly that the point that you made in the question of, we are making sure that we are using materials that are going to make enduring the investments that we put down when we are using these appropriated dollars. Sustainability is not only making sure that our infrastructure and the way that we are building is standing up against increasing impacts such as strengthened storms or extreme temperatures, but also making sure that we are making an investment that is for the future sailor and marine.

And so, we look at sustainability in that broadly. And as the chief sustainability officer for the Department of the Navy — excuse me, I keep a close eye on that. And let me make sure my colleagues have a chance to comment as well on their efforts.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Sir, thank you very much for the question. I think that, you know, when I took this job, one of the things we talked about is having a consistent five-year plan. Sustainability of our installations is absolutely vital, but having a consistent resourcing and made available will get us so far. We will look at anything that’s to your point that’s faster, cheaper and meets all the requirements, not only laminated timber, but also tension fabric for example and 3D printing.

Not only to I get the benefit of meeting the requirements, for example, tension fabric, now Salinas, California seismic standards and also the Dade County Miami hurricane standards. I can put it up in 18 months at a 10th of the cost. It’s durable. And it’s also exportable, particularly when you look at how we’re going to operate into the future.

3D printing, 30 percent savings along just in utility cost. I think all of those things we’re willing to look at to maximize our buy on power so that we build our bases back better.

DAN BISHOP: Mr. Banta?

EDWARD BANTA: Congressman, I think I could just add to Admiral Williamson by saying that we are certainly interested in any construction materials or methods that would make us more sustainable and also faster, less expensive and more expeditionary frankly. So, as we look at expanding into the Pacific, particularly as part of a global positioning network, there may be opportunities for using things like tension fabric structures as well as construction scale 3D printing to get after some of our requirements.

Thank you, sir.

SANFORD BISHOP: Thank you. My time has expired. Thank you very much.

JOHN CARTER: Mr. Rutherford?

JOHN RUTHERFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank all of our witnesses today. Thank you for being here. And — and thank you particularly Secretary Berger for the — the brief conversation that we had the other day. That — it was very valuable at least from — from my standing. And as — as we discussed, many methods of shoreline repair projects fall under MILCOM projects, which as this committee knows can often be a long time coming and very competitive.

But speaking with you and I want to look forward — and I look forward to working with you on this, would you talk to the committee a little bit about your idea on some of these shoreline erosion prevention projects and how we may get them done in a more expedient fashion?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, Congressman. I also thought the time was — was very nice, so thank you for it. And I — I know that in Florida, for example, out at Blount Island, there is a shoreline project that — it takes a long time to be able to work through the traditional funding pieces, but one authority that Congress has — has given us that we’re at the front end of but has a lot of potential is the other transactional authority.

And so, as we think about how to apply that authority, it helps us to move with speed. It helps us to move with precision towards the objective of what the project is. And so, as we think about one that is targeted more towards a resilient objective, in the case of the shoreline, there’s an opportunity to move quickly to innovate and to think about how to use our dollars better and get the result that we are after faster.

And so, I would love, love to continue to think about how we explore that to — to make sure that we achieve everybody’s objectives, most importantly getting after our problems.

JOHN RUTHERFORD: Yeah, I know the Marine Corps support facility at Blount Island is very excited about this new idea on how to get this done, I hope.

EDWARD BANTA: Congressman, we share are. And I think as you know, we had two specific projects down there on the riverfront that were submitted as minor construction. And unfortunately, when the bids came back, they exceeded the threshold, so now we’re looking at having to go back and resubmit it as a MILCOM project which just is a longer, more time intensive process.

So, to — to the extent that we can leverage other transactional authorities and get to this faster, we are certainly in agreement and concur with that. Thank you, sir.

JOHN RUTHERFORD: Well, thank you very much. I think this is a great way to expedite that and stop. Because that erosion is significant, so. Admiral Williamson, the — the basic allowance for housing is critical in our privatized military housing. In the BAH range — rates have changed dramatically, particularly in some areas of the country due to inflation and just rising cost of living.

And then, when you go back and look at NDAA in fiscal year ’15, we cut servicemembers to 95 percent of the BAH and they were to pick up the other five. Now — now they’re, you know, living with this increased inflation, cost of living. Can you tell me your take on the BAH levels right now? Are — are they adequate really for — for our members?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, thank you very much for the question. Obviously, you know, providing quality housing for our sailors and their families, you know, as has been mentioned is direct correlation to retention, recruitment and mission readiness. And so, our housing professionals work very closely with the members in local areas to ensure that we understand what the market value is. We participate annually in a BAH analysis that generates the income necessary for a family member in Jacksonville, for example, to be able to do that.

The other thing that we do, this analysis also informs our ability where we have a high demand but low — low housing opportunity. For example, Fallon and China Lake, California. You know, we work with the partners there and very — we’re growing at both locations. And we have 170 new homes — 72 new homes going in at Fallon and 16 at China Lake to meet that demand signal.

But to answer your question, sir, we’re very aware of the problem. We stay on it. And I do think that we’re getting after making sure the sailors and their families have what they need to live in any environment.

JOHN RUTHERFORD: Okay, thank you. And I see my time has expired. Mr. Chairman, I’ll yield back, but I’d sure like to follow up on some of this. Thank you.

JOHN CARTER: Thank you. Mr. Zinke?

RYAN ZINKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Madam Secretary, thank you for your service. I know it’s not easy from experience. So, the secretary of the Navy had some interesting comments the other day. He said his number one priority was climate change. Do you also share those views?

MEREDITH BERGER: I prioritize the threats that we see in terms of weather, temperature, water —

RYAN ZINKE: Do you prioritize climate change as — as — as — as a — as a primary objective. He said it was his number one priority.

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, countering that threat is the context.

RYAN ZINKE: I appreciate that. You mentioned sea level rise, how far has the sea level risen in the last hundred years?

MEREDITH BERGER: We have monitors throughout the ocean, and I would be glad to get you that data.

RYAN ZINKE: Well, I can share that data with you. It’s a 2017 report from the Department of Interior and multi-agency. I would suggest you read it because it says between a few millimeters and a few centimeters. So, are you using some other planning factor when you’re looking at developing infrastructure for climate change?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, we use a series of planning factors based on historical data and other conditions. And we have seen historic flooding water rise in other —

RYAN ZINKE: In the last hundred years, do you know how much is the temperature — or the — the sea has risen? Because you’re using historical data, I’m just — I’m just asking. Because I asked that same question.

MEREDITH BERGER: I — I’d have to go and get you the data. I don’t have it.

RYAN ZINKE: For information, there’s over 200 models in a thousand variables. So on — on EV, SO are you aware that China produces about 62 percent of the EV materials for batteries, lithium, cobalt, etcetera?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, I’m thankful for the CHIPS Act, which has helped us to look at other alternatives for that.

RYAN ZINKE: There is alternatives. At the moment, it’s 62 percent and rising. And I’m sure you’re also aware there’s a critical minerals that China has the complete — the complete run on germanium and others. So, on — on the EV, are we using some other EV material other than from China, has we go through and look at our batteries?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, there’s tremendous industry innovation. And I am —

RYAN ZINKE: What — what country is producing it?

MEREDITH BERGER: It’s —

RYAN ZINKE: You say we’re moving forward on EV. I’m just curious if you say we have alternate sources of EV lithium, cobalt, nickel. What sources would those be

MEREDITH BERGER: Sources of alternatives for —

RYAN ZINKE: Critical minerals and materials necessary for EV transfer, the batteries. You’re saying you’re going forward and putting batteries on. My question is energy independence. I’m wondering about energy independence and sustainability when materials and components come from China.

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, I think that you misunderstood what I said. We are — we are going forward with that research and integrating it into our consideration and making sure that the —

RYAN ZINKE: But you’re also implementing it. Are you executing it? Your EV?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes.

RYAN ZINKE: So, you’re executing it. So, you’re not good it planning, you’re executing. My question to you is where are the materials coming from that you’re executed and using the batteries from, and the critical components from the EV? Because I believe they’re from China, unless you have some of their data, I don’t know.

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, I think that your point is that we need to make sure that we have a secure supply chain, which I agree with.

RYAN ZINKE: My point — my point is, is it’s a national security issue. If China controls the preponderance of critical minerals and the elements that are critical in the EV both in — in the battery and material, then I would suggest before we — we jump into that, we look at our — our vulnerability in the supply chain.

Secondly, is biofuels real — real quickly. General, I’m concerned about our — our fuel storage in the Pacific, so without Hawaii, what are our options? And are options included in your budget for storage of fuel in INDOCHINA?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir, thank you for the question. The other part of my job is logistics. I think it’s important to look at — when you look at Redhill and the fuel that’s there and moving that fuel out. Distributed Maritime Ops and Expeditionary Advanced Base ops, particularly across an AOR that big 6,000 by 4,000 square miles.

I think having that fuel distributed closer to the point of need for sailors, marines, airmen and soldiers —

RYAN ZINKE: Does the budget outline where the fuel is going to be distributed and asked for funding to do that?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: There is resources, sir, but I think we get to a classified set very, very quickly there. I’d be happy to come over and talk to you about that. We work very closely with INDOPAYCOM and their master plan for Theater Posture and PDI. You know, the specific locations of where that’s being moved, I’d be happy to come over and —

RYAN ZINKE: Well, there’s a short time, but on the second round, I’ll — I’ll ask more specifics, but I’m concerned about what we have afloat and what we have on shore and I’ll work with you. Because our job — I view my job as a supporting commander, so my job is to support you and make sure that you have fuel distribution and that we’re ready.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Roger that, sir.

RYAN ZINKE: Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

JOHN CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Zinke. Ms. Lee?

SUSIE LEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks for all of the witnesses being here today. I wanted to talk about a key facility for US national security, the Naval Air station in Fallon. This is a fixture that serves the Navy’s premier strike warfare as the premier strike warfare training facility and the only one that allows the entire carrier wing to conduct comprehensive training.

A top priority for my home state of Nevada for our nation is continuing to support Fallon’s unparalleled range complex and the Navy training mission, especially given the pressing needs to ensure our readiness in the Pacific. We cannot afford anything short of fully supporting Fallon’s training mission. Vice Admiral Williamson, I wanted to ask you, do you — how you believe a reduction in spending to fiscal year 2022 levels would impact the Navy’s readiness and ability to meet mission demands in the Pacific and at critical installations like Fallon?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Ma’am, thank you very much for the question. I think it would have a dramatic impact on our ability to fill a mission capable fleet. Specifically to Fallon, as you know, we’re looking at expanding that because it’s the one area where carrier wing’s special operations forces can actually do the tactical training necessary to be ready.

That impact, I think, would have a direct — would result directly in us not being able to expand that range to meet those mission — those mission requirements. Additionally, I think, you know, the question was asked early, I think it would cut my military budget by approximately half, my military construction, which would impact PYSOP, which is the counterparts that are aviation.

It would also have a direct impact on our sailors and their families. I think we have four CDCs scheduled in the next year along with numerous investments and our economy housing. So, ma’am, I think, that the projects at Fallon, the land acquisitions at Fallon moving forward would be at jeopardy. And we’d have to reprioritize our budget to be able to get after that.

SUSIE LEE: Thank you. You know, following up on the CDC, you know, across the country ensuring access to reliable, affordable childcare for our military members is huge and a top priority. Especially we have Creech Air Force Base in southern Nevada as well as Fallon has. They both emphasized the need. I know this — these needs exist across the Navy and Marine Corps as well.

And would you Assistant Secretary Berger, could you and Lieutenant General Banta, could you outline the steps that the Navy and Marine Corps is taking to support military families and to expand off post daycare options and flexibilities for child care?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, Congresswoman Lee and incredibly important and foundational to taking care of people as you note. So looking at a variety of ways that we can partner, first A good example is out at Point Loma in California, we were able to partner with some unused space to increase that footprint. As Admiral Williamson has noted, we are making efforts to — to move against the number of children that are actually on the waitlist and make sure that we are filling those needs.

There is an opportunity as child care is — is a challenge that the whole nation faces. And so we are looking at how we can partner at the state level and the local level to make sure that we are taking advantage of standardizing what that need looks like and helping more care workers to be able to meet that need along with being able to pay them that competitive — excuse me, competitive wage, and then be able to make a more supportive environment that will help to enable that.

SUSIE LEE: Thank you.

EDWARD BANTA: Congresswoman, thanks very much for the question. So just to reiterate, providing quality affordable child care for our families is absolutely important. I mean, it directly supports readiness. So we operate 58 facilities across the Marine Corps. Most are in pretty good shape. Staffing is a challenge and we continue to struggle to — to hire sufficient staff to man those facilities.

If we were able to do so, it would dramatically reduce our waitlist. In terms of being able to provide additional opportunities off base in particular, we fund a community child care fee assistance program, started back in FY 22. It helped about 1000 families to gain access to care off base when it wasn’t available on base.

And I believe there’s a pilot there offering on base as well for community childcare to augment that capability that we offer through our CDCs. So moving forward, we just continue to appreciate the continued support and funding for our child care programs.

SUSIE LEE: Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. I’m over my time, so I’ll yield.

JOHN CARTER: Ms. Bice.

STEPHANIE BICE: Thank you Mr. Chairman, and certainly thank you to the witnesses for being with us this afternoon. I am proud to represent the Oklahoma City metro area which houses Tinker Air Force Base. And I know many of you may be surprised to know this, but there is a Navy installation on Tinker Air Force Base in the middle of Oklahoma where there is no water, but it is home to nearly 2000 sailors and makes up the Navy strategic communications Wing 1 also known as TACAMO. As the witnesses know, the unit plays a critical mission in safeguarding our national defense by ensuring the security of communications between the commander and she — and commander in chief in much of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

My question is this. I see in the Navy’s budget request that you have included MILCON spending to build up the infrastructure for the development of the replacement to the E6 TACAMO aircraft. Do you have everything that you need in place at Tinker And how can this committee help in continuing to support that very vital mission?

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, ma’am. Thank you very much for the question and I am very familiar with that base. I was the last commander of Navy region Midwest. To answer your question specifically, right now what we’re in the process of doing is our strategic laydown. And so particularly looking at the pacing threat called China.

As we begin to understand the requirements, what we’re doing is looking at the specific laydown areas to include Tinker Air Force Base and the Navy component on there to ensure that we have, again, lessons learned out of PSYOP. If I understand the requirement that I have the right resources and planning and development to meet schedule scope and costs, so that we’re ahead of mission date.

You mentioned we have an investment in this request. Is it Pax River for training facility — I’m sorry, a maintenance facility and Pax River as we continue to understand more about the requirements, particularly not only in Tinker but probably on the West Coast of the United States, be more than happy to come back and talk to you about that, but we’re taking all aspects of the requirements, not to mention just the platform, but also we talked about CDCs, the health care for the families housing.

All those things have to be accounted for — for the 2000 individuals in Oklahoma City.

STEPHANIE BICE: Do you have a timeline on when you sort of are anticipating that you’ll be looking at moving forward with —

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, ma’am. We’ve already started moving forward. The analysis is started and so that’s why you see the first investment in Pax River. We do that through what we call capability chains, understanding the flow not only of the platform, but also the sailors and the families through those bases to the point of need.

And that — that analysis is well underway, ma’am, and I’d be happy to come over and talk to you in detail about it.

STEPHANIE BICE: That would be great. I appreciate that. And then I just want to follow up. You know Ms. Lee brought up the CDC challenges that we’ve seen across the country. I had the opportunity to participate in an exchange with Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs to visit her community and certainly the bases there to find out about some of the challenges.

And it’s listed that you know San Diego being one of the biggest, I think concerns with child care. I appreciate your focus on that. I think for Oklahoma City, it may not be as big of a concern, although it still is. But if we’re talking about making sure that our families have readiness, availability, then that child care is incredibly important.

And certainly for those especially higher income areas, that may be a challenge. So I’m glad to see that, that is a focus for — for our service members. And I would just offer up to the other thing that we hear across the board is, and you mentioned this general answer that finding workforce for those child care facilities tends to be a real challenge.

And I think that’s something else that we need to be thinking about is how can we incentivize or recruit and retain those individuals that are providing services.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yeah. Ma’am, would love I’ve been dying to say this. FY 24 fully funds our CCD, CC, CDC program. To your point about being innovative, recruiting and attracting. Currently right now, we’re paying about $5 above the national wage rate to attract the people. This is — this is not just a Navy issue. This is a whole nation issue.

You mentioned San Diego, our fleet concentration areas are definitely the locations of need, but the innovation not only with the increase in the pay but also if you’re a CDC worker and you have a child, we offer a 50 percent discount for the first child and 20 percent after that. In addition to that we have partnered with universities, for example, Utah Tech and North Carolina State University.

For people that are in school that want to take a summer sabbatical and work in our C — CDC s during the summertime, which are our high need rates for moves and etc., which we tend to do, that’s almost doubled. We expected to double this summer. And so absolutely we have to be innovative. And then the other thing to your point about the fleet concentration areas, the capacity is just not there.

And so that’s going to require investments. We have two next year in the Hampton Roads area, which will give us 600 seats. We have an additional two, one in [inaudible] and one in Point Loma that gives us another 372 seats. And we have 11 additional CDCs planned across the fitted for our fleet concentration areas to get after that need.

STEPHANIE BICE: Mr. Chairman, if I just may one final comment, it’s been noted a couple of times during this hearing that there is a move to go back to FY 22 numbers. I think that — that’s inaccurate when it comes to the defense spending. The goal of course is to try to — to hold the defense spending flat. And so I want to make sure that that’s noted for the record.

So Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

JOHN CARTER: Thank you. I think we’re going to do another round. I’m going to add a little humor here, something the general said. He reminded me of something that happened to me in the courtroom. A lady was being put on probation and she had stabbed her boyfriend 48 times. But he lived, so they were putting her on probation.

But as part of her probation, she was going to have to pay restitution for the hospital bills that her boyfriend acquired which was about $7,000. And so her lawyer was questioning her and he said, ma’am, now you realize you just told the judge you’re going to pay restitution of $7,000. She said, yes, sir.

He said you realize that all you have is — is your — basically your government money, you get for your children, about $400 a month. He said — she said, yes, sir. I know that she said Now you understand you’re not telling me you’re going to pay it. You’re telling me you’re going to make a stab at it. When he said that, I remembered that because she never got it, but everybody else in the courtroom.

Got it. Okay. I’m going to start back. I got the opportunity to go watch a 3D printer operate and it’s either actually quite exciting. I mean, they move very rapidly once they get the form built up. It’s Katie bar the door, it’s going up and going up good. I watched — I got to visit the finished product and it was very, very nice.

I’m very interested in these alternative ways of doing things quicker. Is the Navy looking at these advanced manufacturing? Have you made any attempts or the Army built something on one of our bases and they were very pleased with it, and what barriers are there to using these technologies to advance the speed at which we get things done?

MEREDITH BERGER: Mr. Chairman, I don’t know if you saw us all leaning for, for the talk button and which is a good sign for the capability. I was — I was recently out in Texas and got to see one of the companies that is in your home state that is exploring this exact option and it does — it moves faster. It is more resilient in terms of hurricane and seismic standards and gives us a lot more flexibility for the speed in getting to that capability.

Army set some great examples as you noted and we’re at the front end of using that capability, but certainly one that helps and there is a market forming which also helps. And then I know that a lot of them are looking at more of our expeditionary environment so that way we can move forward and move quickly and let me turn over to — to both of my colleagues who I know who are paying close attention to this as well.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Actually, I have actually been to Texas and seen the same thing. I think it’s a tremendous opportunity there, particularly tied to the one of the previous questions about operating in the Pacific. The ability that — the expeditionary capability that brings for us to quickly construct like you said, once we understand the requirements get that program.

It’s an amazing capability. Not only that, but the advantages from resilience and insulation for energy consumption, etc. You know we’ve even challenged them. Is it possible to build out a material that causes no harm to the environment, and they’re looking at those. So I think there’s tremendous opportunity there.

Not only expeditionary, but also in CONUS. We are following very closely with the technology and look forward to taking advantage of it. And by the way, we’ve also been working with XWIK [ph], which is the people that set the standards for our UFC. And those are being baked in now. So we’re hopefully to get that across the finish line real soon and maybe take advantage of this technology.

EDWARD BANTA: Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for the opportunity to comment. So absolutely in addition to everything that — that Rick mentioned and Secretary Berger, we see great promise in the prospect of construction scale 3D printing. And I’ll mention something that I saw about a year or so ago that’s a little bit different from what you were talking about.

And this is the University of Maine Advanced Structure — Advanced Composite Structures Center that 3D printed a lateral connector. So basically you could put two 22-foot containers on this. You still needed a propulsion unit to move it around, but it was something that could get bolted together. It was made very quickly, relatively low cost.

And if you lost it or if it was a tradable, it wasn’t a big deal. So it may not be the exact solution we’re looking for. But I think it shows the promise of where we’re going and some potential applications beyond just buildings or things like that.

JOHN CARTER: I know that I’m not just — you both saw it in Texas, but there’s a lot of people competing in this area. So it’d be a good competition too. Well. Thank you. Mr. Bishop.

SANFORD BISHOP: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and let me just revisit some areas with regard to what are reportedly proposed cuts from the other side of the aisle. It’s my understanding that there are some who plan to spare proposing cuts for actual defense. But let’s look at the non-defense discretionary and I’d like for each of you to comment on how that could possibly impact our national security and our military.

If we go back from — if the 2024 budget that were to be adopted incorporated the cuts taking us back to 2022 with respect to non-discretionary spending only not just military but non-discretionary spending –non-defense discretionary spending cuts to education, for example, affecting the opportunity for our young people to get the — the STEM training that is so necessary for competing with our adversaries like China health care.

And I understand from my recruiters that we’re expending extraordinary sums in having to pay disability to military members who’s — who had poor nutrition growing up. And of course, their bone density wasn’t sufficient to withstand the — the rigors of either the training or once they got in. So it resulted in some medical problems, the nutrition and the health care transportation with, for example, the lack of inspections of miles and miles of railroad.

And of course, a lot of the defense logistics supplies are transported by railroad as well as air traffic problems. And we’re experiencing a lot of near-misses now with our air traffic and our food safety. If we don’t have — if we cut the budget and we have food safety issues with a lot of the — and as well as the inspections of our prescription drugs, all of this is not directly defense, but it’s not defense.

How would that impact each of you and the services and how in your opinion would that affect our national security if we were to go back to 2022, which is about a 22 percent reduction across the board?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman Bishop, the — the theme that I heard in the other places that you — that you listed are — these are some of our key partners. And so I can’t speak to their — their budgets. But I do know that this is a place that we partner with our communities. And these are some of our outside the fence line places where we do have dependencies and so it would create a consideration in terms of the inputs that come into the Navy and Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy fence lines, if you will.

And so there’s a dependency.

SANFORD BISHOP: We don’t have adequate food safety, the supplies, the food that you provide to the men and women who are our service members and their families through the commissary and of course the active-duty personnel wherever they are in the world, if that food is not adequately inspected to be safe or if the medication, the prescription drugs that they need the medicines, if that’s not, will that impact our national security and our troops and their families.

MEREDITH BERGER: These are essentials, Congressman Bishop, that, that there is a dependency on. So we have food that comes from outside our — our installations. We — we recruit from the population that depends on a lot of these pieces. And so there is — there’s certainly an interdependency in terms of the — the — the other parts of the entire country’s budget and — and what they are asking for.

SANFORD BISHOP: And for training for the — the military active-duty folks, are the recruiters really, really crying wolf when they say that the recruits, the kids are too fat to fight or they are — have bone densities that will not withstand the training and so they have to drop out and or declare some people ineligible because of that.

Will that affect our — our — our — our interest?

EDWARD BANTA: Congressman, so building upon what Secretary Berger mentioned, certainly there are dependencies and interdependencies and I would say that recruiting yes, is a very challenging environment right now. We’ve been putting more resources towards it. Thus far, we have been able to make our recruiting goals, but I suspect they would become increasingly challenging if we saw cuts to other of our partners upon which we depend for some of those — those programs.

So, yeah, recruiting is — is job number one for us and we want to make sure we’re successful at it, sir.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Just everything that Ted said plus and I think that to Ms. Berger’s point about our dependency upon those things on the other side of the fence line to generate a ready force. Obviously it’s a combination of a lot of things. Also you mentioned medical food, one of the attractions of I think coming into the military is to understand that that is, you know, those things will be provided.

So any impact to that I think could consequentially have a direct impact on recruiting.

SANFORD BISHOP: I think my time has expired.

JOHN CARTER: Thank you, Mr. Bishop. Mr. Vallejo.

DAVID G. VALADAO: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Berger, in your testimony last year, you noted the Navy was working on a review of unaccompanied housing facilities and a ten-year plan to address those facilities that are in unsatisfactory condition. Is the review complete and can you tell us what you’ve seen so far?

MEREDITH BERGER: I will — I will note that just on — on top of the review that you asked about that we recognize that in a community housing requires a lot of attention in terms of making sure that we get to that foundational need. The ten-year review is one that we have gone through and I will let Admiral Williamson talk to the details of what came out of that review.

But unaccompanied housing is — is one that we need to pay very close attention to and take some of the lessons that we have learned from a few years ago when it came to some of our family housing. And that is the — the advocacy, the attention and staying on top of that piece.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. Thank you very much for the question. We are — yes, sir. We are in finishing the way forward in the investments. The investments you see in 23 and 24 are a reflection of our learning so far and that is to invest in to the unaccompanied housing that actually has useful life. What we’re developing right now is what the plan is to generate capacity, in particular, our fleet location areas where we have the required MILCON in some locations, which you’ll see.

We set up a CFT to do the analysis of those investments and also maybe a combination of PBV housing. I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to see Pacific Beacon in San Diego. 1883 beds. It’s absolutely beautiful. There’s a swimming pool on the ninth floor. It is on Naval Base San, Diego. It is what our sailors deserve.

I think there’s an opportunity to expand that as well, but what you see in our budget are a sustainment in our projects to put back into the barracks. The other thing that we’re looking at is looking at just condition is that truly the right metric. One of the things that we’re looking at is a livability piece to measuring our unaccompanied housing, for example, wired internet in Wi-Fi, should that be also a part of the quality of life for our sailors?

And we’re baking that in. And so we have across the — we have increased our RM up to almost $250 million a year and we’re looking at investing in unaccompanied housing construction and construction as well. And I’d be happy to come over and talk to you and give you the details of that plan.

DAVID G. VALADAO: All right. The Navy’s fiscal year 24 budget includes 165 million for the Navy and 201 million for the Marine Corps to repair, renovate housing for unaccompanied, sailors and minors’ marines. Based off your review of the unaccompanied housing facilities, how much of more investment is needed to address remaining housing maintenance backlog?

MEREDITH BERGER: I’ll turn quickly, but I just wanted to echo and emphasize that — that privatization authority is one that we’ve really seen such good results on. And so as we think through this, the ability to do more of that will enhance the quality of life, will allow us to get after some of these concerns and put those dollars in places where they count, especially for our sailors and Marines who are living there.

EDWARD BANTA: Congressman, thank you for the question. So we have 672 barracks in the United States Marine Corps. Roughly 84 percent are in good or fair condition. We still have 16 percent that are not and we know that we need to get better and that — that number fluctuates over time given investment levels and how things degrade.

So we are requesting one new barracks this year, Marine Barracks, Washington. We plan to renovate 13 more and if we had an additional $155 million in restoration modernization — modernization funds, we could do 12 additional barracks. You mentioned what is the — the true scope and depth of the problem?

If we were to look at trying to get all barracks back to condition code, basically FCI of 1 or 2, that would be roughly $3 billion. And that’s a long-term multifaceted approach, but we recognize we have more work to do and we appreciate the continued support of congress towards that end. Thank you, sir.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir. We’ve got a lot more work to do that same standard. 60 percent of our barracks currently meet Q1-Q2, 40 percent done. The RM investments that you see laid forward is to get after 11 different unaccompanied barracks in predominantly fleet concentration areas and also an expeditionary locations. We — our investment plan going forward looks at a combination of three things.

It looks at vesting back into the infrastructure that has useful life, getting that back to standard. That’s through your restoration and modernization. It’s also MILCON to get rid of — we’ve got some very old, which no one’s living in, but we’ve got to get rid of and replace. PBV as Ms. Berger talked about, I think is a tremendous opportunity.

Like I said, in San Diego and Hampton Roads area, we use there very well. And then the last part of it is once we get it back, it’s the increased sustainment dollars to make sure that we keep them where they’re supposed to be. And those — but those numbers are reflected in our budget, sir.

DAVID G. VALADAO: All right. Thank you. My time is expired.

SUSIE LEE: Thank you. I wanted to chat a little bit about Fallon and the expansion of the training range, which was a long time coming and took a lot of negotiation with conservationists and our tribal community. And finally, got it done. But the president in his budget request for Fiscal Year 24 includes funding to — to support two tribal liaison positions for this training range complex.

And Assistant Secretary Berger — Berger, could you speak to the importance of these liaison positions for furthering the relationships between the Navy and the local tribes, particularly as the Fallon range modernization continues?

MEREDITH BERGER: Yes, Congressman Lee. And I will actually be out this weekend to celebrate Earth Day with some of our tribal partners there, which I’m really looking forward to. But the — the position that you note is critically important and we saw that in making sure that we got this number one priority, which was the modernization of a critical training range to ensure this capability as we focus on The Indo-Pacific region and what we need there to win.

So these tribal liaisons that that are out there at Fallon that we were able to partner with helped us to make sure that we were communicating clearly well consistently and in a way that acknowledged the critical importance of these partners and neighbors that we have on these lands. I mentioned that we are looking at the access agreements for — for shared lands.

There is a lot of history there. There’s a lot of potential in our future and roles like these help to make sure that we are keeping the promise that we make every time that we are in any community and it is that we are a part of it, that we approach it with understanding and partnership and that we make a Commitment going forward to keep that promise.

And so roles like this are important because of the commitment that it represents to the communities that are critically important to making sure that we can assure our mission.

SUSIE LEE: Absolutely, yeah. We just designated some significant tribal land in my district as a national monument, so honoring the — the spiritual and cultural importance of these lands and maintaining those relationships is so incredibly important going forward. And I wanted to ask in light of pending budget cuts, could you — which could well strike funding for these liaison positions?

Could you — how would this jeopardize the station’s relations with the community and its overall mission here in Fallon?

MEREDITH BERGER: When we talk about the commitment that you and I just discussed and the critical importance in understanding, it is — it is not just Fallon, but it is relationships that we have everywhere. Specifically at Fallon, it means that we break faith with people who have made a tremendous commitment to us and to whom we have made a great commitment in furtherance of that mission assurance and in furtherance of making sure that we are keeping every promise that we have made.

And so it would be breaking faith with people who are enabling our — our sailors to be able to train like they fight, which is pretty important to us.

SUSIE LEE: Yes, so much more significant goes way beyond Fallon. It goes across the entire service.

MEREDITH BERGER: And yes, because it sets an example for the way that we work productively together.

SUSIE LEE: Great, thank you. I’m — I’m — I’ll yield.

JOHN CARTER: Mr.

RYAN ZINKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think we pretty much established — we have no viable plan to secure critical minerals and — and the materials necessary to drive the EV. Not at present. I understand the chips might be in the future, but today between now and ten years, not a whole lot of room. So let’s talk about the life cycle on the other end of it. So what’s your plan for when batteries have ended their life cycle, where are you going to put them because right now 80 percent of the solar cells are going into landfills across the country?

Do you have a plan?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, I want to make sure that I am — I’m stating clearly we agree which is that we need to have security in the supply chain. I hear you loud and clear and I think that that is critically.

RYAN ZINKE: And the supply chain goes from the beginning to mining, sourcing, processing, manufacturing to the end to life cycle. And I’m asking does your budget have any — any line item? Any mention of what are you going to do in the batteries are finished with their life cycle because you’ve made a commitment to go EV. So I’m asking you on your supply chain before you made a commitment, what are you going to do with the batteries?

MEREDITH BERGER: Well, congressman the entire country has — has made a commitment. It’s the direction —

RYAN ZINKE: So you don’t have a plan? I mean it’s pretty easy, yes or no. Do you have a plan and is the plan in the budget to recycle or properly dispose of batteries?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, yes. Along with the rest of the country, we are working with industry to —

RYAN ZINKE: Okay. Let’s ask about fuel. Admiral, the Navy still is the largest user of fossil fuels.

RICKY WILLIAMSON: Yes, sir.

RYAN ZINKE: And Madam Secretary, what’s your guidance on biofuel, biodiesel?

MEREDITH BERGER: We are a fast follower of industry where they are looking at the synthetic aviation fuels —

RYAN ZINKE: I believe you work for Secretary Mabry.

MEREDITH BERGER: Secretary Mabus, congressman.

RYAN ZINKE: And are you reinstating the goals for biofuel biodiesel in the fleet?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, we are a fast follower of industry which is looking at sustainable aviation fuel and will make sure that —

RYAN ZINKE: What’s the price differential between a gallon of biodiesel and diesel today?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, I don’t have those numbers with me.

RYAN ZINKE: Is that also in not in your budget then on added cost? My understanding it’s 8 or 10 times?

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, we are watching what industry is doing to make sure that we are making the sustainable aviation fuel considerations for military.

RYAN ZINKE: Is cost a part of your — of your part of your decision matrix?

MEREDITH BERGER: I’m sorry?

RYAN ZINKE: Is cost a part of your decision matrix and biofuels?

MEREDITH BERGER: We consider cost in every decision that we make.

RYAN ZINKE: Is it a priority or is it — or is it — where is it Rack and stack?

MEREDITH BERGER: When we make funding decisions, congressman, we make sure that we are looking at the best use of that dollar. And that means making sure that we are looking at risk, sustainability, and making sure that we are putting every time a sailor marine in the best position possible, which is why we put mission first.

Part of that evaluation is to understand how a sustainable aviation fuel which industry is developing could fit into our mission requirements and military standards which are different.

RYAN ZINKE: Are you spending money now in biofuels acquiring, using transporting biofuels, biodiesel?

MEREDITH BERGER: We are watching what the industry is doing to develop —

RYAN ZINKE: So you’re not using it. Are you using it now or you’re not using it? Are you using biodiesel today in the fleet?

MEREDITH BERGER: Not that I am aware of.

RYAN ZINKE: And there’s no plan to use biodiesel in the fleet. What’s your plan? I love plans, but we know that biodiesel is in magnitudes higher. We know that — that provides an additional operational cost and is because we’re rushing to EV, we’re rushing to biofuels as I see it. And you’re telling me you’re not using biofuels right now.

Right now is what you’re saying or biodiesel. I’m just — I’m just curious and if you — if you are, what’s the plan? Because I assume you’re going to use it within the next couple of years and that would be a budget line somewhere and you’d have to have the facilities for it.

MEREDITH BERGER: Congressman, let me make sure that there’s time for an operational response, but let me first state that we are making sure that we are looking across all of our options because at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we have a competitive advantage. And increasingly it is making sure that we are working against the things that we know that other people are using as advantages.

So we want to be careful that we don’t get caught into any sort of confusion on how we make sure that our sailors and marines are equipped. And I’ll turn over to the general and the admiral.

EDWARD BANTA: Thanks, secretary. So congressman, I honestly I can’t answer your specific question about whether we are using biofuels today. I know that we are very interested in reducing our demand signal on operational energy in order to increase range, endurance, and in effect lethality on the battlefield forward. So any technologies that enable us to do that to reduce the amount of fuel we’re using whether through battery technologies and electrification or just things like simply as simple as anti-idle technology on new tactical vehicles are of interest to us. I hope that’s a bit.

RYAN ZINKE: I appreciate it. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not centric on — on fossil fuels. I’m just centric on American energy, and it has to be reliable, effective, and abundant. And I’m concerned that we’re getting — going on down a path that we don’t have a life cycle. We don’t have a supply chain that — that is free from China or we don’t — we haven’t figured out what to do with the batteries when they’re done.

And if we’re going to move to — to biofuels, then that needs to be incorporated in the budget because right now, biofuels are magnitudes higher and — and then the Navy uses a lot of fuels and Marines do. So, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate and I yield back and no doubt, I’ll have some questions that will send you and thank you gentlemen and secretary.

JOHN CARTER: [inaudible]

Source: United States Navy

The Constellation is the first ship of the Constellation-class frigates awarded to Fincantieri Marinette Marine in 2020.

“USS Constellation and the Constellation-class frigates are a critical next step in the modernization of our surface ship inventory, increasing the number of players on the field available globally for our fleet and combatant commanders,” said Secretary Del Toro.  

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti joined Secretary Del Toro during the historic occasion. 

“This ship will be critical in putting more players on the field,” said Franchetti. “The Constellation-class frigate, named after the USS Constellation – the first of six frigates authorized by the Naval Act of 1794 and the first in-class designed and built by American workers – will ensure the free flow of American commerce by sea.” 

The ship’s sponsor is Melissa Braithwaite, the spouse of former Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite, who named the ship in 2020. 

“I am truly honored to be here as the USS Constellation sponsor. It is one of the greatest honors of my life,” said Melissa Braithwaite. “Being a Navy wife and Ken’s long service in the Navy, today, I had the honor of truly belonging to the Navy myself.” 

During his remarks, Secretary Del Toro thanked Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers for his leadership, pointing out that the state’s shipbuilding industry was integral to the national maritime statecraft efforts to rebuild commercial and naval power.  

“This yard is teeming with activity—Americans from all walks of life coming together to build warships in a demonstration of our industrial might, and showcasing the talents of the skilled workforce that our nation must expand during this critical period in our world’s history, said Secretary Del Toro. 

“After having helped support some of the efforts to update and expand Fincantieri’s facilities to meet the needs of an effort of this size, it is great to be here now to celebrate these projects and see how this hard work is paying off,” said Gov. Evers. “This contract to build these frigates is a great opportunity for Wisconsin to showcase our rich shipbuilding and maritime history and cement our role as leaders in this industry.” 

The Constellation-Class Guided-Missile Frigate (FFG 62) represents the Navy’s next-generation small surface combatant. This ship class will be an agile, multi-mission warship capable of operations in both blue-water and littoral environments, providing increased combat-credible forward presence that provides a military advantage at sea.  

More information on our Constellation-class guided missile frigate program can be found here. 

Read Secretary Del Toro’s full remarks here. 

Source: United States Navy

In recent years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has embraced the promise of additive manufacturing (AM) to help address materiel readiness and resiliency, especially for deployed forces. This potential – for AM to serve as a logistics and readiness multiplier – was discussed by an expert panel of U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and industry representatives on April 10 during the final day of the Sea-Air-Space Conference in National Harbor, Md.

Retired Vice Adm. Ann Rondeau, president of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), served as moderator for the panel, titled “Additive Manufacturing: Creating a Warfighting Advantage through Materiel Readiness.” 

As Rondeau pointed out, while AM is a relatively new technology, the underlying concept – creating or modifying parts at the point of need to remain mission ready – is a familiar one for Sailors and Marines.

“This is not a culture that we do not understand,” Rondeau said. “This is not a topic new to the United States Navy or the Marine Corps. Manufacturing while you’re on the go is what we do.”

She also noted that the thought of using AM in an operational or contested logistics environment isn’t new to NPS students or faculty. In 2019, the NPS Warfare Innovation Continuum did an entire year of study on logistics in contested environments, called “Resurrecting War Plan Blue,” and the idea of innovating and manufacturing at sea and AM came up frequently.

“We look at these things for a number of reasons,” said Rondeau. “Concepts lead to capabilities, which lead to adoption. And it all does lead to developing leaders who are educated to employ them, in this case, additive manufacturing efficiently and effectively.”

Rondeau was joined by U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Forrest Poole, Assistant Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics (Logistics Division), and Matthew Sermon, executive director of Program Executive Office (PEO) Strategic Submarines for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA).

Also participating in the panel were Jesse Boyer, an Additive Manufacturing Fellow at Pratt & Whitney who shared his perspective about the defense industry, and U.S. Navy Lt. Zachary Vrtis, an NPS Ph.D. student and member of the school’s Consortium for Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education (CAMRE).

The DOD Additive Manufacturing Strategy aims to modernize national defense systems to improve performance using AM-designed equipment; increase materiel readiness to rapidly prototype and produce direct parts, reducing the risk of obsolete hardware; and enabling warfighters to employ innovative solutions on the battlefield through AM capabilities. 

While the hour-long conversation did touch upon the DOD’s efforts, panelists also addressed how their specific organizations are employing AM for naval forces. 

Poole first talked about how the Marines are constantly exploring how to improve operational logistics.

“The Marine Corps is laser-focused on getting after that expeditionary aspect of how we sustain forces forward,” said Poole. “We think of Okinawa, we think of what we refer to now as the Stand-In Force, the SIF, and how we’re able to not only project, but sustain those forces. AM happens to be one way that we do that.”

As examples, Poole cited two deployable AM systems – the XFAB (Expeditionary Fabrication) system and the Tactical Fabrication (TACFAB) kit, both developed in coordination with the Navy – that Marines can use to carry out needed maintenance in a forward environment.

While Poole expressed his eagerness to see how AM best supports the Corps, he also added that his most important expeditionary logistics resources are his Marines – and empowering them to pursue innovative solutions to any problem that may arise in the field.

“I don’t necessarily need a lot of Marines, or Sailors serving with Marines, who have the same capabilities as these gentlemen up here,” said Poole, referring to his fellow panelists. “I just want them to think about different problems. And if we can do that – and we are, I think we’ve been very successful with that – if we can do that, then the sky’s the limit.

“If the Marines are empowered and enabled to be able to do those things downrange, then there’s nothing we can’t do.”

Like the Marine Corps, the Navy’s submarine community deals with its own unique deployed logistics requirements. Submarines are underway for extended periods, with few or no port calls and limited replenishment opportunities. Additionally, most critical parts required by submarines must meet stringent manufacturing requirements and safety regulations.

Sermon, who is responsible for revitalizing the Submarine Industrial Base, has identified areas where AM can help support submarine construction, shorten the logistics chain and reduce wait times for parts – all while preserving the submarine community’s high safety standards.

“We are not the manufacturing nation that we were 40 years ago,” said Sermon. “We must have advanced manufacturing of all types, and additive is at the fore of that for us.”

Specifically, Sermon cited the need to 3D print a large number of submarine parts made from six different metals, with the goal of expediting delivery of critically needed components.

“We’re focused on these six materials that cover almost 30,000 parts on submarines. They cover parts where we have significant late issues. They cover parts of our industrial base – how we make parts today where we have significantly less capacity than we did when we built Ohios from 1979 to 1997,” he added, referring to the Ohio-class SSBN.

Sermon did offer the caveat that parts required under the Submarine Safety Program (SUBSAFE) are not yet ready to be 3D printed at scale. However, for certain submarine components – those not exposed to sea pressure or reactor temperatures – Sermon said that AM could be used to produce parts faster and with a greater capacity. And he added that testing is ongoing for materials which will allow for printing of parts which meet SUBSAFE standards.

“We’ve had incredible work with the technical community, SEA-05, Naval Reactors, working together,” Sermon said. “I’m not worried about us getting there from a manufacturing readiness and a technology readiness perspective. We will get there. We have the right team, we have the right partnerships, we’re going to drive to material maturity.”

The defense industry is responding and working with the Navy, Marine Corps and other services to evaluate specific AM needs and requirements, and how they can be met with existing AM technology. Given the wide range of AM methods and materials, Boyer emphasized the need for providers to meet with customers and the end user to determine which AM modality works best.

“We do need to review those applications, be able to review them with that customer, and provide the right solution for you,” said Boyer, who has worked in the AM field for more than a decade. “AM is not a one-size-fits-all in many aspects.”

Boyer recommended that the AM process should be “de-convoluted” to allow providers and customers with the best overall picture of how AM methods and requirements can mesh. He also urged AM consumers to become better educated on how AM processes can work.

“I would encourage everyone to get involved in, you know, standards committees, such as ASTM, ASME, ISO, initiatives like AM Forward, America Makes,” Boyer said. “I’m not expecting anyone to be an AM expert at the end of the panel, but really just informed AM users.”

Vrtis spoke about his work with CAMRE, which recently opened a new Advanced Manufacturing Center at NPS to explore and expand AM education and research in support of the Navy and DOD. A doctoral student whose research focuses on applications of AM technology, Vrtis also cited the value of education at NPS, and encouraged expanding student participation and learning on AM technologies and applications and their potential throughout the logistics chain.

“Students like myself, when they come to NPS, they can learn the processes, the types of techniques that Mr. Boyer and Mr. Sermon touched on – where AM is appropriate and where it’s not,” said Vrtis. “And that’s a lot of what we talked about at the AM Summit that followed the ribbon-cutting, with our partners from NAVAIR, NAVSEA, and the other TYCOMs there as well.

“With that education piece, it’s crucial that students that go to NPS learn as much as they can about AM, to be proponents for it when they go back out to the fleet, and to the rest of the Department of the of the Navy, and where else they may go, and to be the champions for it, but to understand where it can be used and where it cannot be used.”

In addition to his research, Vrtis is involved with CAMRE’s efforts to test AM technology in the operating environment, at sea and ashore, including the upcoming SALVEX, Trident Warrior and RIMPAC exercises, as well as concurrent training of Sailors and Marines in the operation of AM hardware.

“We’re going to be training Marines, we’re going to be training Sailors, we’re going to be training Naval Reservists. They’re going to be operating them under our expertise, making sure that we print parts that are applicable and creating some great new success stories,” Vrtis said.

Poole expressed his appreciation to Vrtis, CAMRE and NPS for helping to facilitate opportunities for Marines to learn more about AM technology – and to all his fellow panelists for how it can benefit the Corps as a whole.

“I think what you’ll see is the Marines come up with ideas, just all kinds of ideas of how we could implement something like this,” said Poole. “And some of it might work, and some of it might not work. But, you know, as long as we can fail fast and fail often and fail now so we can get better later on, I think it’s just tremendous.”

The Naval Postgraduate School provides defense-focused graduate education, including classified studies and interdisciplinary research, to advance the operational effectiveness, technological leadership and warfighting advantage of the Naval service. For additional information, visit NPS online at https://nps.edu.