House Armed Services Committee: Department of the Air Force FY2025 budget request (April 17, 2024)

6:58 e e committee will come to order uh today we continue our FY 25 budget hearings with the Department of the Air Force uh I thank our Witnesses for being here and for their service to our nation uh the fy2 budget request for the Air Force and the space force um represents about a 2%

7:59 % increase over fy4 but when you account for inflation that increase is actually a cut and that means tough decisions had to be made about what programs to cut and what level of risk to absorb and like we heard from the Army yesterday it means the Air Force and space force are forced to absorb a lot of risk in the near future as they try to keep U delivery of out-year capabilities on track for the air force that means hundreds of aircraft are grounded on any given day due to insufficient funding for spare parts it means divesting 130 aircraft in FY 25 to save operating costs and it means cutting the plan buys of new Cutting Edge fighter aircraft for the space force it means delays in replacing Legacy systems with more advanced and resilient systems it means not uh we're not making Investments we need to replace current air missions with new more survivable spaced base

9:01 platforms and it means we're not acquiring the counter space capabilities at the pace we need to fight and win in space that's a problem because China's military modernization isn't slowing down they've already outpaced us with a larger Navy soon they'll have a larger Air Force and in space China is rapidly filling new capabilities designed to prevent our Joint Force from operating it's important to fully understand how much risk our services are taking on on as a result of this budget and what that means for our ability to deter China Russia and our other adversaries General Saltzman I was glad to see the space force release its commercial space strategy since 2013 this committee has been consistent in urging the department to take more advantage of commercial space back then it was just satellite Communications but in the last decade we have seen an explosion of opportunities in the commercial space sector in these times of limited budgets leveraging those

10:02 commercial resources will be even more important than it has been in the past it will help us increase our capacity and our resiliency I'm also interested in hearing more about the plan to move the core space mission from the air guard to the space force especially how the plan will not cause guard personnel and units to move out of affected States and how the space Force's new Personnel system could benefit the those Guardsmen who CH who choose to not transfer finally this committee will be closely monitoring progress on the modernization of our nuclear Triad while the B21 and lrso programs continue to make good progress the Sentinels uh Sentinel programs none mcer breach is very concerning this committee understands how unique and challenging this program is the Air Force hasn't undertaken a project like this since the deployment of the miniman in the 1960s nevertheless the department must do more to anticipate challenges and overcome them early when they merge when

11:04 emerge we need to get this right as Chinese and Russian nuclear arsenals continue to grow the need for a modern and flexible nuclear Triad only becomes more acute with that I yield to my friend the ranking member for any opening statement he may have thank you Mr chairman I think the chairman did an excellent job of summarizing exactly the challenges in uh the area of our Witnesses today I want to thank uh the secretary and our uh two uh Chiefs of Staff joining us this morning but I mean best way to sum it up you have to modernize an incredibly tight budget environment um and I want to compliment all three of you for the work you've done to try to address that challenge to really look at it holistically and make a big change to reflect the great power competition that you're facing and what does that mean for how you need to develop the force going forward um and I know the budget environment makes that even more difficult but that's what we have to do modernize within whatever budget is that is presented to us um so I think the leadership on that has been enormously uh helpful and I appreciate that and I want to just sort of foot

12:05 stomp a couple of the points the chairman made one on the being able to divest of Aging platforms that aren't serving our purposes anymore that are driving costs that's the only way we're going to be able to afford and to modernize in the way that we modernize um also do want to hear from you gentlemen about your personnel challenges it's been a theme across the services um recruitment has been difficult um we have our um task force on quality of life issues that Don Bacon Chrissy Hulan did an outstanding job leading that tries to present you know a better offer for our service members and to meet the challenges they face but do want to hear how how that's working uh within the Air Force and the space force uh on the space force it's just so crucial to everything we do information systems are the heart of literally everything we do in defense um and you know space is the Lynch pin of all of that so I echoed the Chairman's remarks about how important it is uh to put up the best systems develop our counter space capabilities and crucially on the last point the chairman made uh on partnering with

13:06 commercial entities that is our great advantage in this country uh whatever the Chinese may be doing with their their defense they do not have our Private Industry our our level of innovation even today um if we can partner with those Innovative companies with those new technologies particularly in space and information systems that gives us the ability to meet the the rather steep challenges that we face um and lastly I do want to also emphasize the last point on the nuclear problem you know when we're looking at a tight budget and we're looking at the cost of the Sentinel program right now I sincerely hope that as you're looking at the options as is required when a nun mcer breach happens that you really aggressively look at all of the options and just like with your modernization effort you move forward out of past thinking to say okay what are we facing today and how do we meet those challenges I hope you do the same when you look at the future of our nuclear Triad and where it makes sense to spend spend the money because you know all the

14:08 money we're spending there could be spent to help deal with some of the challenges that you're facing in terms of updating the platforms and meeting our our space needs and our air needs so I hope you will consider that with that I yield back I thank the ranking member uh now I'd like to introduce our Witnesses today we have the honorable Frank Kendall Secretary of the Air Force General chance Saltzman chief of space operations and General David Alvin is the chief of staff of the Air Force thank you all for being here U we will start with you secretary Kendall you have recognized thank you Mr chairman uh chairman Rogers ranking member Smith members of the committee General Saltzman General Alvin and I thank you for the opportunity to testify today on Department of the Air Force fi25 budget submission Department of the Air Force budget submission supports the national defense strategy we appreciate the committee's support for the FY 24 ndaa and the recently enacted FY 24 budget your efforts to secure timely passage are deeply appreciated as you are aware the six-month delay has had a real impact that time cannot be recovered but

15:10 at least we can now move forward with our urgent modernization priorities as I've testified before this committee repeatedly time is my greatest concern we are in a race for military technological superiority with a capable pacing challenge our Chris is gone we are out of time as we have briefed the committee at a classified level the pacing threat MO stey forward I want to go off script for a moment to make two points one is I want to recognize uh the the tremendous achievement of our Airmen and Guardians and our entire Joint Force and our partners over over the weekend and engaging all those targets that Iran all those systems that Iran threw at Israel it was a remarkable accomplishment um I want to make one other point about it though what Iran encountered was a highly contested environment and what we face with China is a highly contested environment and what dedicated to and what we are all dedicated to here is ensuring that the US never has a result like Iran had in it in its attempt to attack Israel that's what's driving a lot of what we're doing that's why it's so important to move on from Legacy

16:11 systems that weren't designed for that type of environment to ones that are designed for it and are capable of coping with that uh continued failure to provide ontime authorities and Appropriations will leave the Air Force and space force inadequately prepared we know the committee recognizes this we appreciate your strong strong bipartisan support our f25 budget request complies with the fiscal responsibility act we are requesting 217 billion for the Department of the Air Force including 188 billion for the Air Force and 29 billion for the space force the budget reflects an increase of about 1 and a half% a little lower than you said chairman over the enacted FY 24 budget and does not keep Pace with inflation as you noted or with the 7% publicly acknowledged growth of China's military budget to stay within the levels of the fisical respons ility act the daff had to adjust our previous plans the daff 25 budget request seeks to preserve the momentum behind our modernization efforts particularly the work on operational imperatives that we initiated that this committee supported

17:12 in FY 24 in order to preserve modernization we have marginally reduced procurement in the Air Force and have sustained our foundational Accounts at levels we deemed acceptable but no more because the space force budget is dominated by research and development accounts we have haded marginally reduce the pace and scope of our space force modernization efforts our first priority in the National defense strategy remains defense of the Homeland the department of the Air Force primarily supports through investments in domain awareness Air and Space defense early warning and cyber space defense programs our second priority is to deter strategic attacks against the United States our allies and our partners the department budget request prioritizes nuclear modernization to maintain a safe secure and effective nuclear deterrent notably The Sentinel ICBM program has experienced unacceptable cost and schedule increases and is currently undergoing a non mcer review Department of the Air Force will work closely with the committee as that review reaches its conclusions the third priority is to

18:13 deter aggression and be prepared to prevailing conflict when necessary Department of the Air Force needs immediate and significant capability monitorization to keep Pace with the growing military capabilities of the PRC the daff operational impaired is and closely related cross cutting operational enabler continue to guide our monitorization program our budget request includes 6 billion for these efforts finally the fourth National defense strategy priority is to build a resilient Joint Force and enduring advantages this budget requests invest to ensure that we can recruit and retain the force we need so that our Airmen and Guardians and their families have the quality of life they deserve and can serve to their full potential as we have brief the committee the department is also currently undertaking a department-wide effort to reoptimize to meet the demand of great power competition the intent is to minimize both cost impacts and Personnel or unit movement under this initiative we will work closely with the committee as we develop detailed plans we do not anticipate any significant impact on the fy2 budget and we have not requested

19:14 funds for this purpose the daff also deeply appreciates the committee's support for the dod quickart initiative that was enacted last year in the ndaa department of the Air Force has obtained approval from the secretary of defense for two programs that will be ini initiated under this new Authority they are a more resilient National position navigation and timing capability and C3 battle management for moving Target indication time matters but so do resources the United States is facing a competitor with national purchasing power that now exceeds our own a challenge we have never faced in modern times China is actively developing and expanding capabilities to challenge strategic stability attack our critical Space Systems and defeat our ability to protect power especially air power conflict is not inevitable but it could happen at any time J alv and I just returned from a trip to some of our key bases in the Indo Pacific we should all be very proud of our men and women serving In Harm's Way and doing doing everything they can to deter and be ready for a conflict unlike any we've seen before the da 25 budget is focused

20:17 on addressing these realities we commit to working with the committee to secure timely enactment of this budget thank you for your uh your uh attention and we look forward to your questions thank you thank you Mr Secretary General Salman you're you're recognized chairman Rogers ranking member Smith distinguished members of the committee thank you for your continued support and for the opportunity to testify on the space Force's posture for fy2 as the space force prepares to celebrate its fifth birthday we are wholly dedicated to the work of forging a service purpose-built for great power competition space has never been more critical to the security of our nation and the success or failure of The Joint Force depends heavily upon the capabilities we present it is our responsibility to contest and control the domain to defend us space capabilities and to protect the Joint Force from space enabled attack gaining and maintaining space superiority is the purpose for which the space force was established with about 3% of the Department of Defense budget the space force oper offers a tremendous value

21:18 proposition for the nation every dollar invested in space brings asymmetric returns but that means every dollar cut creates asymmetric risk against a near-peer adversary space superiority is the lunge pin without it we cannot deter conflict without it we cannot provide vital effects and without it we cannot protect the Joint Force until we have built the infrastructure to achieve space superiority the space force is a work in progress the space Force's theory of success includes three parts avoiding operational surprise denying the benefits of attack in space and conducting responsible counter space activities the space force budget request is designed to support the national defense strategy by building training and equipping the forces the nation needs to perform each activity preserving freedom of action in space while deterring and denying adversarial objectives avoiding operational surprise requires us to maintain an accurate understanding of the space domain at all 88.3% of our budget is dedicated to this

22:20 aim operating across disaggregated sensor Frameworks the space force provides the maximum information possible to decision makers from the Tactical to the Strategic level denying the benefits of an attack in space demands that we make any attack against us capabilities impractical and 43.4% of our budget is devoted to this objective investing in resiliency for missile warning and tracking satellite Communications position navigation and timing hybrid architectures and proliferated constellations impose a hefty cost on aggression finally responsible counterspace activ ities describes the mechanism by which the space force can tests and controls the space domain the fy2 budget dedicates 24.7% of the space force budget to space superiority within the constraints of the F fiscal year 25 space force budget reflects hard choices to maintain Legacy space Services preserve current Readiness but it also sh slows the

23:21 Fielding of a modernized force addressing these challenges depends on Guardians that are trained and ready to meet high-tech demands of space op operations for that reason I would like to personally thank the committee for its support for the space Force personnel management act this will be a major Force multiplier in the space force efforts to modernize the way we recruit build and retain Talent thank you for the opportunity to discuss the space Force's fy2 budget and posture and even in the face of accelerating threats the space force Remains the preeminent military space organization in the world and with the support of this committee our Guardians will preserve and expand our strategic advantage and we will step up to meet our pacing challenge so long as you continue to trust and invest in your space service the space force will respond with unparalleled value for the nation I look forward to your questions thank you General Saltzman General Allen you're recognized good morning chairman Rogers ranking member Smith and distinguished members of this committee today I'm proud to represent the 677 th000 total

24:22 Force Airmen serving our nation I want to thank you for your unyielding support not only to those Airmen but to their amilies as well I'd like to open by stating my immense pride in the exemplary performance of our Armen this past weekend as part of a joint and Coalition effort they successfully thwarted the massive Air Attack by Iran on Israel's home soil their professionalism and skill turned a potentially catastrophic event for Israel into a strategic defeat for Iran and his proxies as we look across the Strategic landscape we find ourselves in a time of significant Consequence the simultaneous demands of strategic competition with an aggressive and increasingly capable PRC and the persistent acute threats from around the globe require the Air Force to maximize the Readiness of today's forces while adapting our structures and processes to offer the best opportunity to Prevail in an environment of enduring great power competition time is not on our side the fi25 Air Force budget reflects difficult choices we've made trade-offs to keep the Air Force operational

25:22 Readiness today at the minimum acceptable to meet the nation's demands while seeking to preserve the previous Advan in modernization the Air Force budget also invests in the Air Force's most precious asset it's Airman to ensure they Remain the decisive Advantage upon which the nation depends strategic deterrence is a key priority for our national defense strategy and the United States Air Force remains committed to the recapitalization of our nuclear force we are actively supporting the process triggered by the nun mcer breach of the Sentinel program and will continue to pursue the path of a safe secure reliable and effective ground leg of the nuclear Triad well into the our ability to support the national defense strategy priority of deterring aggression and prevailing conflict Demands a modern Air Force that is connected to the Joint Force and can close multiple kill chains in minimal time to control the tempo of a complex flight with a peer competitor to that end the f-25 proposal fy2 proposal continues investments in the F-35 and the F-5 ex albeit with few then

26:22 preferred quantities dictated by the constraints of the fiscal responsibility act we remain committed to the advanced battle battle management system and the Next Generation air dominance family of systems particularly collaborative combat aircraft which will allow the Air Force to deliver the affordable Mass required to be effective against a very PRC we're also committed to Building forward basing resilient enough to enable continued sorty generation even attack to arrest the decline in our Readiness we have proposed modest increase investments in flying hours and the weapon system sustainment funding to support them while prioritizing investments in critical infrastructure in both physical and cyber our Airmen are and always will be the decisive factor in any conflict our Air Force faces and we are committed to their health development quality and quality of life we have made significant progress thanks to congress's support to increase base pay adjust basic allowance for housing and subsistence to account for macroeconomic factors there's still work to be done during our recent trip

27:23 to the indopacific secretary Kendall and I saw dedicated Airmen eager to accomplish their mission despite infrastructure degradation caused by natural disaster and persistent environmental challenges as well as limited access to healthcare enjoyed by most conus basis the job of your Air Force has not changed since its Inception support the defense of this nation through credible deterrence and unmatched combat prowess to preserve that level of deterrence we must maintain our Readiness today modernize our Force for tomorrow and provide the absolute best support to our Airmen success on any Battlefield is a team effort so I want to thank members of Congress and this committee for your past and continued support thank you and I look forward to your questions I thank all the witnesses for their statements and recognize myself questions secretary kennel and the others can cannot pitch in if they want to but we've talked about the the tight fiscal Top Line and that there's going to be some the risk that you have to assume uh making these numbers work

28:24 particularly when it comes to our ability to effectively deter China uh Russia and Iran can you talk briefly about some of the risks that you're assuming with this yeah I outlined it in my opening comment a little bit but first thing is that we have the most powerful military in the world and we're going to continue to have the most powerful military in the world so we are able to meet the requirements of our combatant commanders and provide them forces that they would need both in normal operations and in a contingency um but that's being challenged of course by China in particular uh and that's a lot for us to do simultaneously there are a lot of commitments the United States has around the world so we have basically what we have done under the constraints of the physical responsibility Act is to fund the current force uh personnel with an adequate raise uh maintaining quality of life for people maintaining the force structure basically that we have at a level which we think is acceptable risk a floor below which we really do not want to go um that leaves us with a certain amount of resources for

29:24 monitorization and and modernization is D divided between procurement and research and development so there's a force you have which we have at the level where we can accept the risk we're taking a little bit of risk in procurement we're scaling that back modestly from what we had we had previously planned in order to get on with the modernization the R&D part of the budget which we have to get to to remain competitive the I see the risk increasing significantly over time I've watched China modernize for about 20 years now uh they're building a military designed to defeat the United States that is the purpose of their military and we have got to respond to that and we've got to do it aggressively and as fast as we can so from my perspective getting that monitorization funded and moving it Forward is the highest priority but in the meantime we have to take care of the F force and we do need to recapitalize a reasonable rate to address the midterm risk so that's overall the balance that we're trying to strike thank you General Saltzman I understand there are approximately 580 Air National Guardsmen in Six States in DC that are currently perform that currently perform the federal space

30:25 mission for the space force under title 10 Authority I understand the administration proposes to transfer these Personnel to the space force is it accurate that under your proposal these 580 Personnel will have the option to transfer to the space force if they transfer they will still report to the same Duty station no units will be removed out of the effective State and choosing to transfer could provide these Guardsmen with a better system of benefits under the space Force's new hybrid Personnel structure thank you chairman for question and and it is true I think the best way to take care of these missions and the people that are currently doing them in the Air National Guard is to integrate them into the space force uh with the authorities granted by Congress through the sfma we now have the ability to manage part-time personnel and when I evaluate the missions that are currently in the Air National Guard there's no reason to change those unit structures the Personnel the makeup of part-time be seamless from a mission standpoint and from a Personnel standpoint great General I'm interested in hearing how um

31:27 how you plan to put into action the new commercial space strategy and specifically how you plan to change the requirements process so that the commercial products and services are considered thank you again uh we're excited about the commercial space strategy as we've known for a long time it's one of our asymmetric advantages in the US is the the power of innovation and that engine of uh Ingenuity that's in the commercial industry and especially in space in this time and so we wrote the commercial space strategy around four lines of effort uh intended to uh get the most out of it trying to uh create more collaborative transparency we have to know what the commercial offerings are uh in order to take advantage of them and the commercial industry has to understand what our challenges are to best prioritize where they invest and how they can present capabilities to us uh for inclusion into our architectures uh operational and Technical integration we we can't just think about this purely as adding capacity we have to start thinking about them as filling some gaps and being fully integrated both

32:27 technically and operationally into our systems the the third line of effort is risk management we have to understand what we should preserve organically as inherently governmental Services we don't want to mess Miss on those no fail missions and so we're we're taking a very deliberate approach to assuring we pull the right kinds of capabilities in and then lastly we have to secure the future there's so much work being done looking out into the future about what space could offer and so we want to make sure we're prioritizing our S&T dollars to go after the highest payoff Technologies across industry uh to fill gaps in the future for the space force great thank you I yield time uh to the ranking member thank you Mr chairman a lot to ask about I'm just going to focus on one set of questions in a moment but I really want to emphasize what secretary Kendall said in the opening I think what we saw in the Iranian attack on Israel is a really good way to frame your challenge and the broader challenge of the overall military which is we have to make sure that whatever we have can actually get in and hit our targets

33:28 while at the same time defending against it that is an incredibly complex web as we saw I mean we had you we had jet fighters up there taking out some of the missiles um you know electronic warfare is a huge part of this you know blocking signals using drones it's incredibly complicated and it's all about staying one step ahead with the technology so to General saltzman's point on the last thing about you know using our our Innovative capabilities to do that that's what we're trying to invest in and where we really need to to put our Focus the one thing I want to drill down on in full disclosure Mr G Min cannot be here today which I know breaks your heart um but but he asked on on on his behalf that I drill down a little bit and also I am genuinely concerned about it on the Sentinel program when we're looking at you know the budget challenges that we have and I share the Chairman's frustration but at the same time you know we have a trillion dollar you know deficit we have a $33 trillion debt you know we we have to live within the budget we have does the trial ad still makes sense given the amount of

34:31 money that is going to have to go into reupping and in short of that are there Alternatives that could be less costly because I believe the nun mcer breach has the Sentinel program roughly 35 to 40 billion do over budget I would ask you the leading question what could you do with $40 billion um but I won't because I know you could do a lot with it but as you look at this I hope you seriously consider what is the true value of the landbased leg leg of the Triad and what's it going to cost to try to maintain that is there a more cost effective way to do that and secretary Kendall General Alvin I'd like you both both to comment on that I first of all I am recused on the program because of a prior industry Association um but I can talk about the Triad in general yeah there I I did have an opportunity to talk to Congressman gy at length about this the other day so we had had a preamble for this um the Triad uh has served us well for many decades it has kept us from a nuclear war for a

35:31 very long time uh you cannot put a value price tag on that the ICBM ICBM leg of the Triad um is the most responsive leg of the Triad it is probably the when you what you try to do with a Triad is force an adversary to confront a problem for which there is no easy solution um if you take out one leg there are other two other legs even if you take out two legs the third leg still has a lot of structed power that you can't ignore and the three legs have different characteristics the submarines have good stealth characteristics and good survivability because of that the bombers have more flexibility in terms of how they're used and the and the icbms are on alert and ready to go in large numbers at a moment's notice that combination provide presents a very difficult problem to an adversary and again it is serviced well the other part of your question about Alternatives um I I did the Milestone a decision for Sentinel and we knew there was widespread uncertainty about the cost at the time now that uncertainty is sort of coming home to to to to to to

36:32 confront us now when a program has a 50% cost increase you have to go relook at the value proposition and the number c process requires us to do that I'm not directly involved uh under secretary Le plan is running that and my my under secretary and acquis acquisition executive are participating in it um I do think we have to be open-minded about the Alternatives okay and I'm sorry interrupt you to drill down on just one one thing I got that point I may not get to General Alum but on your on your on your Triad argument I I don't find that overwhelmingly persuasive okay if we have three legs we better well why not four or five okay yes the more leg you have theoretically the better off you are um that doesn't necessarily answer the question of why this particular leg in this particular situation actually puts us in a better position to defend when it is stationary and just a big fat Target so we got to do better than just saying well the more legs the better well at a certain point no so we got to get a more specific answer and I think General Al in here why is this leg

37:33 helpful other than just being another leg the risk of a preemptive surprise attack that decapitates us or takes out our nuclear force becomes much higher if there's no ICBM link if the stealth of the submarines is broken and the bombers are caught on their bases you don't have anything left we I'm I'm an old cold warrior I spent 20 years fing this working on this problem um we we've looked at tons of scenario we've looked at all sorts of different opportunities possibilities the Triad provides the most stable configuration uh and it would be I think a lot of risk more risk than we should accept to take that I am out of time I want to respect the chair I General Alvin you and I can talk about this offline thank you gentleman from South Carolina Mr Wilson is recognized thank you very much Mr chairman and indeed as I was happy to meet with each of you as we came in always I'd like to point out my appreciation of the Air Force I grew up with that uh my dad was in the Flying Tigers the 14th Air Force uh he served in India he served in China kunang

38:35 Shuan uh I was really grateful to grow up in the shadow of Charleston Air Force Base and so I uh anytime I visit the holy city uh it's um always uplifting to see the number of aircraft there uh and around the world additionally I'm very grateful with Jim Congressman Jim kurn uh Congressman Ralph Norman that I uh represent a adjacent bases The Joint uh Airbase McIntyre at East over South Carolina and Shaw Air Force Base of course uh and sumra South Carolina and so uh your service to me is uh very very important and significant and I see it firsthand um with that I share the concerns of uh chairman Mike Rogers and that is secretary Kendall the legislative proposal 480 effectively does an inrun on the gubernatorial Authority for consent over the transfer of their National Guard units your proposal disregards the governor's purview to make the best decisions for their state setting precedent for

39:36 federal overreach on guard issues for years to come as a 31-year Guard veteran myself I know that you can count on the guard as it operates uh effectively today with this would your proposal allow the department to relocate guard assets within the without the approval of State Governors and if so does this not wave the federal law requiring governatori approval before any modification of guard units and assets within their jurisdiction um thank you for your your your question first of all the guard is enormously important to us I've gotten to know the guard I was a reservist in the Army I've gotten to know the guard much better in this position and I've come to really value the contribution they make to National Security very professional very capable Force um this issue of the the very small number it turns out to be between 5 and 600 of people out of over 100,000 people in the guard that we need to integrate with the space force more fully we created the

40:36 space force as a very small uh organization designed to take on the role of a service which is a very big thing to ask it to do and it needs to be as lean and as tightly uh structured as possible so that it can do those functions uh just last year this committee supported the the space force uh personnel management act which took the reserve who were space people and is now in the process of moving them into the space force as part-time or full-time space force people that process is going very smoothly um we need to do the same thing for the very small number of people that are that are in the guard that are in the same situation to give unity of command if you will to the space force and to allow them to manage that small number of people only about 10,000 total uh is effectively as possible to do their very important Mission the reaction from the guard quite frankly has been over the top on this I mean I read an article this morning by the head of the Guard Foundation that this was an existential threat to the guard we're talking 500 and plus people here we're not talking an existential threat no one is

41:38 suggesting dismantling the guard uh this is a s generous a dominous exception to our our norm and it's necessary to make the space force effective as it needs to be um I'm I'm sorry this has become such a politicized issue it should be a very straightforward issue Frank we we love this space force in fact I want to give chairman Mike Rogers credit that he that it exists uh but uh the the presence of moving uh guard units without the governor's being uh uh in approval is a real concern and general Alvin and I'm grateful to represent the Savannah riversite where a significant amount of plutonium pits uh for nation's nuclear deterrents are produced and we know we need to upgrade these and we they haven't been upgraded for like 60 years and so we have a two-side solution uh with Los alen most uh and we know that China is uh conducting the largest military buildup in peacetime history um what is the significance of any delay of our plutonium pit um

42:40 production well actually I will yield on the technical nature of that to the N say and others but I think anytime we are looking at modernizing our nuclear force any delays to that I I can't give you a specific but it certainly would degrade our ability to modernize I can't put the specifics on that after yield to Ana to that but delays are bad well and indeed hey it's deterrence that we need and and and and that's exactly what uh each of you are providing and with the leadership of chairman Rogers and our other colleagues even uh the ranking member uh we are working together uh on behalf of our country for you thank you i' yield back thank the gentlemen J not recognize gentlemen from Connecticut Mr Courtney for five minutes thank you uh Mr chairman and thank you to all the witnesses um secretary CLE you've talked quite a bit publicly about um sort of the challenge right now we have with early warning um platforms the e3s are getting old um the economic business case for you know extending them uh is pretty weak um the E7 is a really uh

43:44 promising more than promising uh replacement Australia is already flying them uh I think we're selling some already to the UK um sort of where Aus is now in a situation where the other two countries are ahead of us is there something this committee can do to help accelerate either you know through um multi-year authorities or um AP to sort of get the the timeline uh shorter so that we can start Fielding these uh e7s and where we are with E7 is we're still in negotiations with the prime contractor to try to get to an affordable uh price we think is reasonable we're getting closer I'm hopeful that we will get there soon as a result those negotiations going on longer than anticipated we've Tak 1 E7 out of the budget and sub at a year um it's one of the cuts in procurement this year driven more by the fact that we couldn't get to an acceptable business deal I think the odds are pretty good that we will get there uh hopefully not too distant future we have looked at ways to try to accelerate the program uh I spent some time with the program

44:45 office on that personally we because of the I'd have to go into a lot more detail than we have time for but because of the way the program is structured it's very hard to find ways to to remove schedule from the program uh it is an important program it plays very well in our in our war gaming uh and make make a contribution has a lot more capability than the than the awax does the other thing that's happening in that world in general though is the shift towards more dependency on Space uh we're also moving forward with moving Target indicators primarily for surface targets ground targets right now but also at some point for for Airborne targets as well uh the what the threat is doing is reaching out the longer and longer ranges to engage particularly our high value aircraft like an awax or an E7 or a jars type of aircraft and we have to respond to that and part of the response to that is to move some of that capability into space and have a mix of of capabilities to confront confront an adversary with well anything you know the offer stands you know in terms of if if

45:45 there's ways that we can help um you know through the acquisition authorities you know we're we're definitely on standby um following the Air Force Special Operations Command v22 ospry craft off the coast of Japan in November of last year we've had some pretty extensive briefings on the state of the investigation and what the joint Services have decided as a course of action um I understand there may be a new set of inspection standards and processes to ensure safety precautions are taken into account prior to flight um you know I would just say I think it's really important that when the time comes when the Air Force and the other services sort of roll out the the plan and they they're back sort of authorized to fly again I I just think it's really important and I think you understand this just to have as strong a public um message about the fact that you know we're going to do things differently to to to make these the confidence in this program and I just wonder if you could comment on that uh General Alvin would comment also but the we're both in

46:45 contact with General Barn fine the commander of our special operations forces who and he has a very uh thoughtful thorough process in place including public interface as he works his way through getting the aircraft back in the air they're cleared to fly again but he's working through a process of ensuring that every one of those aircraft is individually ready to go and doesn't have a problem and that's taking a bit of time I think the other services are moving forward as well maybe a little bit more quickly than we are but the soft aircraft the Special Operations forces aircraft fly in a more difficult environment than the the Marine cors in many cases or the Navy aircraft so we're we're being a little more cautious even than the other services are do you want to add anything secretary pretty much handled it but to the point of the the differences in Mission uh that's something that we shouldn't walk past I the difference between how the Marine Corps and the Navy uh operate uh their v22 aircraft and how a ASO does a lot of these more complex it's not only uh more complex and perhaps challenging to the airframe but also to the air crew as well so understanding that entire system

47:46 uh and ensuring that that is safe and effective is is general b finds uh it's it's his number one remit I think he's doing a fantastic job but your your point congressman is exactly right as we get that rolled out what we need to do is ensure that we rebuild that confidence and have uh a defensible clear message that says what we're going to do and how we're going to do it and also be able to define the differences between the three different services to show that they're not inconsistent even though they may not be on the exact same time I mean that's what the Navy did with McCain and Fitzgerald afterwards and again I think that you can see you know that really worked in terms of just the there was a change in process and and I think uh again there's a lot more confidence and how destroyers are being deployed I'll yield back Mr chairman gentleman yields back chair un recognized gentleman from Virginia Mr Whitman well thank you Mr chairman I'd like to thank our Witnesses for joining us today secretary Ken i' like to begin with you the US Air Force Base budget and then the ukom unfunded requirements lists both call for additional counter small uas capability at US Air Force

48:49 installations as I see things unfolding we see counter small uas and really Ling Munitions not having much distin they are becoming the same thing we saw recently very disturbing Trend at Langley Air Force Base where because of a large number of uas that were in that airspace langle had to close down just to make sure that we were able to defend the operations that were going on there uh as I watch how missions are developing you see the Army missile defense Mission you see the Air Force Airbase air defense Mission uh and it looks like to me that there's a lot of commonalities there uh can can you give me an idea about uh how do you look at those different requirements and who's responsible for what mission is are there clear lines of Distinction there and uh do you think that based upon where we are today are our Air Force bases adequately protected um we have a wide range of threats to our air bases uh they vary by theater quite a bit uh different in the

49:50 Middle East or in Europe or in the Pacific um in the Pacific in particular what China's been acquiring ing is a variety of missiles Precision missiles ballistic and cruise and Hypersonic designed to attack our air bases and that's the threat that really drives us more than anything else right now uh in in the Middle East and to some extent in Europe we're faced with small uavs more uh we have to deal with all of these the the way the department is approaching this is that um the Army is generally the lead for research and development on small UAV problem and we're participating in that we contribute to that and our full full full-fledged members and we are funding some uh improvements to our air bases for security that I was just at several of our Middle East air bases where we have systems deployed today because of that threat um as you go up the chain a little bit and the threat and start worrying about cruise and ballistic missiles then systems like Patriot come into play what what we need and there's a large study that's going on for over well over a year now led by the army that we're participating in to try to

50:52 come to an optimal solution for air-based defense against a whole range of threats what what we need in particular is a highly costeffective way to engage those cruise and ballistic missiles and those hypersonics yeah and there's some promising Technologies in development which we think have potential to do that um we we will have to make some decisions in the department about for structure and what our priorities are to acquire those but I think it's an important part of uh Airbase resilience that we have to address our our whole concept of operation in the Pacific is called agile combat employment which assumes that we don't stay on a single base to abort missile attacks we move around to different bases and make it harder for the other guy but you still need defenses and you need defenses that can be where you're going to be uh to to be effective all our war gaming says that's a necessity so we're not where we need to be yet but we're on the path hopefully to get there that be great thank you Mr secretary uh General Saltzman I wanted to um get your perspective because today what we're

51:52 seeing is is a massively increasing uh capability on the commercial side of space that's that's a good thing there's uh lots of constellations going up in different uh orbits lots of different capabilities there and that commercial capability to me seems to be a perfect opportunity to augment the capacity and capability and mass that we have on the military side of things in fact I think that that actually has to be codified because I think it's that important for the future of the United States space force and our space assets uh can you speak to the importance of the caser program the commercial augmentation space Reserve program how you see it today what you think the future is for that and what do you think needs to go into the structure of that to make sure we can capture the incredible things that are happening on the commercial side of space and do that at the speed relevance thank you Congressman I couldn't agree with you more uh we definitely need to leverage what's available to us in the commercial industry for space the cazer program I

52:53 think is is a is a classic example where we you know we've used this in the air force uh prior to it the idea is about uh how rapidly can we expand and augment our capabilities in time of Crisis or conflict and as you know a lot of the a lot of the pre-work the planning how will we integrate the contractual work that needs to be done with the companies to make sure that we're primed to execute at the speed of need is really what is at the heart of the cazer program do the work ahead of times account for it in planning see what the requirements are which of those requirements can be met by the commercial industry and then start talking about contract negotiations before we even actually sign a contract so that we are ready and Prime to put that excess capacity in place when we need it very good J CH I recognized gent from California Mr carbahal thank you Mr chair in addition to my district uh being home to some of the best wines in the world it is also home to vanderberg space Force Base the West Coast Range

53:55 there has been a rapid growth in the commercial space industry especially with the increased launch Cadence at both space force ranges General Saltzman and secretary Kendall does the increase in commercial launch Cadence benefit our National Security even when those Rockets are not carrying DOD payloads I'll start with a yes and turn over to General salsman to give you more details Congressman absolutely uh Congressman you know that the more we use the infrastructure the more we can offset and defr some of the costs associated with especially with on the commercial side as we use the commercial launch facilities they continue to develop uh the rocket Technologies the launch Technologies uh we enhance the experience and the competencies of all those that operate the range do the spacecraft integration that's necessary for launch uh and in the end the real benefit is the more you launch the more we are driving the cost per pound to orbit down and this is one of the most beneficial things that the commercial industry has done for us in the launch Enterprise is drive that cost to orbit

54:56 down so that we can start to explore different kinds of constellations in different orbits to do different kinds of missions thank you uh that question was important because in California I know there's permitting uh decision making that is going on right now and the national security issue can't be further underscored that's why I asked you that question thank you so much the increased Cadence will result in bottleneck unless additional payload processing is added to the range infrastructure General Saltzman the fiscal year 24 budget included $880 million for a payload processing facility that is supposed to go to vanderberg can you provide an update on this project including any timelines involved I I can get back to you on the specifics but I haven't heard anything that says there's any delays uh and that and or that the money is not being spent so but I'll get back to you specifically great thank you so much I was really pleased to see the space force commercial space strategy was finally released I think this is a great roadmap for better leveraging our nation's space

55:57 industry General Salzman how does the CSS work in coordination or build on the commercial space office and does fiscal year 25 budget request help build out commercial integration capabilities as outlined in the CSS thank you again uh in addition to the standard services that we've been buying for years satellite Communications with about 1.2 billion in the the budget uh launch Services is about 2.2 billion uh but we've added about 400 million to bring some non-traditional kinds of data and services to Bear the commercial space office Commercial Services office that's the one who's kind of the front door to collaborate with industry and figure out what is the best military utility for these Commercial Services uh and I think we're on a good path the commercial space office falls under SSC so they have the lead to explore uh that's what when we say collaborative transparency in the commercial space strategy that's what we're talking about getting out with industry figuring out what services are are most beneficial to the

56:58 government and working closely with them to fill gaps and expand our capacity thank you General Salman one last question for you with the proliferation of the commercial Leo constellations it should be easier than ever to get to Tactical surveillance reconnaissance and tracking data to out out to the combat commands and Warf Fighters I believe this service is the space force should be providing how will CSS help get Tac SRT into the hands of com combat commands and what challenges do you expect to run into while integrating this commercial capability again I couldn't agree more with you there's a lot of capacity a lot of capability that's available to us in this SRT Mission area uh SSC has a number of demos that are going on right now to explore exactly the best way to spend our dollars on those capabilities uh and the joint commercial office is also exploring how best to incorporate space data uh into our overall archit Ure again with the focus on meeting those

57:58 combatant Commander requirements that sometimes can't be met through a normal intelligence process uh operational planning products uh that don't require the level of analytics that traditional intelligence products do there's a lot of room for improvement there and SS is dedicated to getting that great secretary kandall I look forward to you visiting Vander brick space force space in the near future with General Saltzman look forward to hosting you and showing you not only Paradise but the great capabilities at Vander brick space for space I think I'll try the wine also Senator we'll have some good wine for you as well Mr chair I yield back gentlemen yields back chair and I recognize gentleman from Georgia Mr Scott thank you Mr chairman uh secretary Kendall I know that the uh decision has been made on the a10s and that as I understand it we're going to devest 56 aircraft this coming and my question is are we talking with other countries whether they be NATO Partners or treaty countries that may be interested in that aircraft to transfer it to them yeah I'm

59:02 not aware of any Act of Interest the the I one country at least has expressed some interest but the problem is once the once that aircraft goes out of the US inventory there won't be any base of support for it so any country that picked it up and tried to sustain it would would have a very hard time it's also a very old aircraft they're about 45 years old they are placement parts are very hard to obtain they're old but they're effective but I just as we look to devest things it seems to me like there's a whole lot going on around the world where um I understand we're moving in a different direction more technically Advanced but you know it would have sure been nice for Ukraine to have them two years ago uh Ukraine hasn't expressed much interest I think they rightfully are be concerned about their survivability I I agree but I I I think if two if they'd had them two years ago it made it may have made a difference I I would just suggest that as we as we devest things um we we we're running A3 trillion doll deficit over the last 365 days we're now 34 trillion as

1:00:03 we devest things I I understand it's the right decision for the us but globally I think we need to make be at least meeting with other people that share our interest and our values and and while it might not be the right weapon system for us it's certainly better than the systems that they had we'd be perfectly happy to have those conversations we we do transfer excess defense articles we just transferred some C130 for example to the Philippines which they're very appreciative of sure so one of the other aircraft that's been divested is the jars uh from Robins Air Force Base I think the last one left in November 23 um General Alvin the abms system uh it is going to take its place and then some uh what are your goals for abms or are you own are you staying on track with the timeline uh what can we do to help with uh the Air Force Mission and the abms mission at Robins Air Force

1:01:04 Space yeah thank you for that Congressman I I would say that uh the advancement in the advanced battle management system and really across what we're referring to is the the C3 battle management has has has really started to accelerate largely due to something secretary Kendall did u a year and a half ago now with the putting an integrator in across all those systems that's putting together the arch it's a complicated thing but when you put it together having all of the architecture understanding what the pipes are what the nodes are and how it all fits together and for it have to have the ability to work with the other services so it can truly integrate into the joint into the joint environment that that is where we've been making progress I we have we are now seeing uh some instantiations of that we are seeing um in the uh Homeland defense area some of the the cloud-based command and control is now moving to uh four or five different uh defense sectors we are deploying I believe we have now as many as 20 this year of these distributable

1:02:05 Air B a battle management nodes so this idea of moving to a distributed architecture to do what we had done before is is progressing along there will continue to be bumps along the road but I feel very confident in general cropsy and the team that he has uh mixing the technical folks with the operators uh side by side step by step to ensure that we we build this once right the first time I um just just one suggestion I I am concerned that there's not enough dialogue across the different branches with u abms and the intent and the use of it uh I had the discussion with um some people in the army that would be dependent upon it and they were not aware of of the system um and that would uh just be my suggestion that we we need to be yeah Congressman I couldn't agree more and I would say that their convergence and the Navy's overmatch uh we are certainly partnering with them we we probably you can't communicate on enough but I would

1:03:05 say across services and I would uh you know look over to my my my sister servers over here in the space force that's where we we're building the daff Battle Network it's not just I'm talking about people that wear green more than absolutely and bl and they're they are solving different problems they're looking at different uh solving a a single kill chain but they have to be integrated Congressman you're exactly right PE people at the ranger regiment were not very familiar with the program is my concern and they obviously all of the branches are going to be dependent on it so with that I yield I appreciate all of you gem Miss times expired chair and I recognize gentle lady from Pennsylvania Miss holahan thank you Mr chair and thank you gentlemen uh secretary and Generals for joining us today uh yesterday I believe it was yesterday we had a very similar hearing but with a army um and at the beginning our chairman and ranking member and many of us during the course of the hearing asked uh appropriate questions about the president supplemental that's now been sort of on the back burner for the

1:04:06 better part of six months and the impact and implication of not having passed it yet and the impact in implication of when it does hopefully pass at some point uh to you all I would ask the same question because I'm sort of surprised that uh I'm one of the junior Chipmunks here that it hasn't come up yet uh what is what are your thoughts about the president's supplemental and its urgency what H is not happening because it hasn't happened and what will happen if it does happen um I can give you a quick response but I think we got two members of The Joint Chief staff here and I think should hear from them um I watch this obviously very closely we're very heavily engaged in support to Ukraine in particular uh they desperately need the help and we look at uh the numbers and the way they're exhausting uh air defense weapons and ourour amunition and so on they need the help uh they have they have the war right now is not going in the right direction it's largely because they haven't gotten that assistance the

1:05:06 supplemental is needed there it's also needed for Israel and it's needed for Taiwan so it's very important package that needs to be passed I'm let the my colleagues talk about their perspectives well we we certainly uh with the impact of being able to to reimburse some of the the Munitions and the things that we have supplied we we look very closely as uh uh the the request comes uh for different types of Munitions to ensure that we don't deplete our own stock piles but in that every time we do that we we incur a little bit more risk but we understand this is part of integrated deterrence integrated deterrence is being able to support our partners and so we do not have to commit to in the case of Ukraine in Article 5 sort of situation so we we from a Pure service perspective uh we are very interested in you know if if the supplemental were to be passed we would be able to replenish some of those or or have maybe newer munitions stocks with those there are some uh there are some monies that we're looking for with the presidential draw down Authority that we are doing some sort of cash flowing and if we don't get that then we're going to have to make some decisions at the end of the year

1:06:06 with respect to Readiness I know the Army probably yesterday had more to say they they are doing quite a bit cash flowing as well and I've talked very closely to my counterpart Randy George and they they also have issues with their risk at towards the end of the year in the operation and maintenance accounts if they don't get the supplemental pass thank you they've covered the topic pretty well I would just add that sometimes we get caught up in the tactical side of things and Munitions and replenishment uh but there's some strategic messaging here too as well as withd drawing our support so I think it's we have to consider it all from tactical all the way up through strategical 100% uh and thank you gentlemen for that that response uh transitioning into my fear which is my fear that is that if we don't do the right thing here the implications for us and for our troops could be uh catastrophic and speaking about our troops and the quality of life of them and the recruiting and retention of them um I'm uh one of the people who participates in fact the ranking member of the quality of life panel and we've just put out quite a big report on that and looking forward very enthusiastically to working on you on the various pillars that are um provided

1:07:07 there and and suggestions listed there very briefly in the time I have left there were five categories not surprisingly service member pay spouse employment Child Care housing and Health Care uh very quickly if you wouldn't mind mentioning kind of which one of those resonates most with you at this point in time uh and how you're you're currently prioritizing the funding in area the Department's looking at it just came out recently I had a chance to look at it also um a couple of things we are doing in reflect on our 25 budget the 200% of poverty for basic needs allowance for example uh we obviously support that uh the one that I think we're going to look at very closely is the 15% pay raise for junior enlisted we have given a 15% pay raise over the last few years when you add the totals to the last few years um when you look at how resource could be applied to imp to influence quality of life of our people we think there may be some more efficient ways to do that to utilize those same funds so anyway I know there'll be a conversation between you and the department as we look at this in more detail and get back to you so

1:08:08 that's just preliminary reactions you also resuming with me is of course the housing issues as well and I think uh we are making progress on that I I I saw some other recommendations I also have to fully digest and and to be able to to advise the secretary I think we are um I don't want to compare to other services I think we have leaned a little bit more further forward I think there's ways to go though as well uh that's one that resonates with me is as we understand the fluctuation in housing this is really a partnership uh you know we cannot afford uh nor do I think you want to have the military supplying housing for all uh of its members and so being able to have uh a closer communication with the communities to be able to adjust to those macroeconomic factors faster than we do now I think is going to be key because I think weed I appreciate you thank you so much I yield chair I recognize gentleman from Tennessee Mr dejar thank you chairman secretary kandall uh the department of the Air Force published the assessment of the Air Force test center in 2022

1:09:08 which found that 300 million of facilities sustainment restoration monitorization projects have not been funded uh can you describe the impact and operational risk associated with such an extensive backlog and how would failure of our critical test infrastructure impact modernization efforts for everything from to hypersonics to F35 upgrades we we are managing the the risk associated with our installations at a level which um we think is acceptable but it's not great the I look at that as we look at our with the foundational accounts that we fund including facilities uh we're funding I think at 1.6% of replacement cost we'd like to be 2% um what that leads to is slow deterioration and eventually you end up doing emergency repairs only in some our installations another very Sant fact there is that we have about 20% excess capacity in our installations in terms of real estate holdings so we have the burden of having to carry that and I know that there's no interest in a Brack

1:10:09 from this body but we do need to take a look more fundamentally frankly at our installation posture and try to address it address it as a whole okay last year in response to the issue outlined in the assessment of the Air Force test center Congress increased uh fsrm by roughly 30 million above the president's budget uh requ his budget request in order to start chopping away at that $300 million backlog and to ensure that the infrastructure was well positioned to support future endeavors would you support a similar increase this year um I'm in support of the president's budget I think our request is within the F and that's that we've we basically have given uh the Congress a balanced set of Investments across the department taking everything into consideration General Salzman I would like to commend the department for the work that you have all done to unleash Private Industry to further National Security interest in the space domain uh watching the progress made over just the past decade has been incredible however not all the elements of the federal government appear to be on the same page when it comes to this issue I constantly

1:11:09 hear from your industry partners that they are being burdened with the slow-moving bureaucracy be it through Environmental Studies with EPA or launch re-entry licenses through the FAA how are you working with other agencies to ensure that they are working as quickly as you all are to support the critical work that space force is supporting we're intimately engaged with all of those agencies uh the speed of Licensing is is something I hear routinely from industry uh and so we reach out every time we hear this we try to figure out exactly where the the bottleneck is or exactly where a policy can be shifted to try to streamline the licensing aspect of it so we're working closely with our inter agency partners okay staying on the topic is space I want to get your thoughts on nssl uh the nssl phase 3 is a long-term strategy that will help shape the space industry over the next decade at the same time new buzzing around a potential Ula sale has created some uncertainty in the short term and will certainly impact the space Force's calculus how does the department view a potential sale or merger of a major launch provider in

1:12:10 awarding phase three bids well you know the strategy itself is all about assured access to space uh maximizing the number of providers uh to minimize the risk associated with losing assured access to space uh I'm very pleased with the phase three strategy that it has onramps and off ramps so that we can pull people in when they're ready to to support the launch Enterprise uh and I think that that having that flexibility in the strategy can account for any uh shifts in the market okay and uh for secretary Kendall and general Alvin um I wanted to give you both the opportunity to share an update from the aot test last month at Reagan test site what did you all learn from this test the test was successful um um we are evaluating what what to do with arrow and what the future of our Hypersonic portfolio will be overall and we'd have to go to a classified setting to talk about that Congress is so is we heard last year the program was dead is it moving forward what can we expect to see in the future

1:13:11 um we'd have to talk about that in classified so okay are you chair I recognizes the G lady from Michigan Miss Lin thank you Mr chairman um good to see you all thank you for being here um uh thank you for making the point secretary Kendall in your remarks or ahead of your remarks about the importance of contested contesting the airspace being prepared for the events we saw last weekend um and I couldn't agree more about our need to contest the space when it comes to up the Potential Threat from China and as you know uh now chairman uh CQ Brown said in front of this committee that um uh China could achieve air superiority over the United States and Allied Air Forces as as soon as 2035 so you're right to raise it um my my questions um uh unsurprisingly to you will connect back to my home state of Michigan um uh and just to review the bidding uh you know we got word that the Air Force was

1:14:12 going to remove the a10s from Selfridge Air Force Base um in January of this year um we're very thankful that you publicly announced the decision to base 12 KC 46s at Selfridge um Air Force Base we appreciate that decision um but I I as you know um michiganders who have worked on or near Selfridge are very focused on getting a fighter Mission there so I just want to hear very clearly as I think you've stated publicly before that just because we got those refuelers doesn't mean we're precluded from any future basing of fighter aircraft which you know michiganders will be fighting hard for uh your delegation is very consistent I just testified Senator Peters actually had the same question um you are not precluded from another fighter Mission but but the reason we put the the the KC 46 there was to offset the fact that we are taking out the A10 so I don't want there to be confusion about right and I don't think any michigander is happy that we're replacing a fighter Mission with a

1:15:13 refueler mission so we're looking for refuelers and a fighter Mission not refuelers instead of a fighter Mission but we'll we'll fight that battle another day um in in relation to that issue um I co-led an amendment last year in the ndaa that requires the Air Force to submit a fighter recapitalization plan that report was unfortunately due on March 30th today is beyond March 30th um can you help us understand when we'll get that plan General Alvin and I have reviewed the final draft it's very close to coming over it should be over here soon as we finish coordination on okay um that report is very important to a number of us both in the house and the Senate to understand your planning and I think per your comments if if we want to maintain um a strong deterrent against China we need to make sure we have fighters in the air that can do that and Fighters at the ready to do that um there will be a number of us who are working on a bill in this year's ndaa which will say before you can retire fighter aircraft you must must show your

1:16:14 math on on on your plan um so we are are taking this to the The Next Step um but your plan and helping us understand the strategy would give us more confidence uh in for some of us who are are watching these things um change um separately on the issue of pasas the chemical um that um has contaminated a number of uh drinking water systems and groundwater systems around our current and former bases in Michigan um since I've been here I've been hammering on this issue because we've got communities that literally can't drink the water um and they have their you know location right next to a base um uh the Department of Defense which I worked at for seven years has fought us every step of the way and now the EPA has officially changed the standards on past in drinking water um some of the areas around our military bases particularly a scota military base cannot drink their water please tell us what you plan to do to now live up to the federal standards

1:17:15 um that you you all claimed were the reason why you couldn't clean up these sites well we were all waiting for the standards the standard has been announced I think it's four parts per trillion which is very stringent compared to what we've been using the the um the next step is to evaluate that the impact of that will be we're going to prioritize communities where drinking water is most affected so we'll be we'll be working with communities as we go for forward with that um I think we have something like on the order of $100 million in the budget in 25 to address this but that's the tip of the iceberg we it's going to take a lot more than that to remediate the sites that are effective so we we've already done assessments uh we're going to see what the the standard means now in terms of remediation requirements and then we're going to move forward with those I appreciate that some of these communities have been waiting upwards of 10 or 15 years so while it may be a new standard to us as of last week um it is not a new issue for people who literally have to buy their own water and I would ask for a bit of an attitude change for the folks who are on the ground um who

1:18:16 have been fighting us tooth and nail and who now need to accept reality and help us clean ladies times inspired here I recognize a gentleman from Nebraska Mr bacon thank you Gent for being here I've enjoyed working with all three of you I do got to point out though that I did go to air Commander Staff College and ntional War college with General Alvin he was always top of the class he was a top athlete and it never he never looked like he worked hard so we just can't figure out how he does it um with that though I do got a couple comments and concerns uh the Department of Air Force is requesting $262 billion but what I'd like the committee to understand $45 billion of that is passed through spending not going to the Air Force going to totally unrelated agen that's about 17% of the Air Force budget now I think this clouds division of some of us and others that look at budgets of just how much the Air Force is getting I think it ex it exaggerates that appearance of how much money the Air Force has I sure wish we could correct uh that process secondly I want to note that as per gross domestic product we're

1:19:16 spending the second lowest on defense in our history going back to World War II so we our spending levels are significantly low lower than the Norms going back from going back to World War II and I we see it in this year's budget we're looking at a 1% increase and you figure an inflation it's about a 2% cut to what we we need to be doing this is at a time we got China Russia acting the way it is breaking all the Norms in Ukraine we have Ukraine or Iran just fired 330 projectiles into Israel so I'm concerned I don't think we're going the right way so my first question is to secretary Kendall at what point is our Air Force space force too small to deter China to be to be be direct about this Congressman bacon the uh my concern is more about quality than quantity um we are taking out some marginal uh for structure of our oldest aircraft we're divesting some more this year um but getting to the Quality we need to be

1:20:16 competitive is really my first priority we talked earlier about contested environments and um having adequate technological capability to succeed in in a contested environment is really first for us we we don't want our aircraft to be Canon fod we want them to be successful uh we want our Airmen to be successful so we're trying to move in that direction as quickly as we can I I think that General Alvin should talk about the size of the Air Force I think that uh you deserve to hear his opinion on that but that that's where I am thank you secretary thank you Congressman I think um secretary is exactly right it's easy for us to fall into the um numbers for numbers and and it's a it's an easy way to do it to count but but as you know you've been in combat you understand that uh the platform is only as good as the crew and it's also um only as good as the munition that it has on board which has to be sophisticated enough to reach the the target but also it has to have a sensor that can tell you where the target is and Those sensors need to be in a place where they can be resilient we also have to have the path to get

1:21:17 there we also have to have the place where that aircraft can recover in a contested environment all those things go together and I think it might be increasingly unuseful and unhelpful to start understanding the capability of the Air Force by just counting Tails uh you know there there is you know that the phrase that says you know quantity has a quality all its own it's only if it's effective and capable otherwise that's just a larger quantity of the aircraft that you're losing if I may interject though last year we said we were seven fighter squadrons short of what we thought we need but if you look at the budget we're going to cut about 10 more squadrons so I would say there is some numbers that that we need I mean we don't need f35s all over Iran or Middle East to shoot down you know stuff over Jordan for example I need to ask one more question I'm going to cut out a few because I want to yield some time here to Sam Graves if I can but the air air combat command says they need 22 EC or EA 37s for the Far East fight and we only have 10 are are we G to have a plan to get to 22 I this General Alvin I think when we look at um again

1:22:19 it's the what is the risk of having less than 22 versus is having not enough of the ability to have the Munitions so you can have all the the jamming that you want but if you can't get the Munitions through so I I it sounds like a a quibbling answer but quite frankly I try and look at the entire system so the capability of 10 and also we look at the platforms that we're using for those EA 37s they're starting to be diminished in their their uh reproducibility and so you find yourself looking too far into the future to diminishing Supply and those sort of things but I think looking at it systematically trying to say if that 11th or 12th or 13th e37 is that more important than some other of this system that enables us to complete the kill chain I just put on acc and pay comps that they need 22 for the kinds of cyber stuff they can do but I'll let it go with that I don't to leave you much time Mr Graves but I yield 20 seconds to you I don't think that's enough time okay so I'll back here now recognize G from Massachusetts Mr keting sorry thank you Mr chairman last week uh the Supreme

1:23:20 Allied Commander General kavi uh was here in front of this committee and he gave I think testimony that was uh I think historic in nature uh he was commenting on what was going on in Ukraine and he and he said at this moment moment not weeks from now but at this moment he could not uh overstate the gravity uh of what's facing uh our effort in Ukraine right now uh and the effort of the Ukraine military so uh he also said that in his his three decades of study andies and tactical studies and his work as general uh he found uh one thing that was extremely important he said if one side has the ammunition and the other side doesn't the side with the ammunition wins uh I think in modern day uh Warfare uh I think it's a fair statement I want to ask you I think you could say uh as

1:24:21 the ground is now drying up in Ukraine and the muddy season is over uh and the offensive and the illegal war of Putin uh grinds forward on the ground I think it's a fair statement to say the side that has air superiority uh always wins two and the doesn't uh can you comment on tactically how critical this moment is not in not anything that this doesn't have to be classified to to go down this road how critical is this moment where you having that kind of ground war where they're seeding territory now uh that that tens of thousands of uh ukrainians gave their lives for and the strategy on the ground how important it is where the United States which is uniquely situated by the way uh the ammunitions and the air uh assets that are necessary are uniquely uh ours our allies don't have what's necessary at this moment so can you tell us how critical this moment is not weeks

1:25:24 in terms of uh moving on uh the $95 billion Senate Security package which passed the Senate by the way with a 70 to 29 bipartisan support how critical is that to move on right now uh in terms of the fact that air air subar imbalance is so great and how does that affect things on the ground uh Congressman I'm not going to try to uh provide a stronger professional opinion than General cavi he's he's intimately familiar with the I'm watching the intelligence I think we all are the the my colleagues are on the joint staff um but to your early comment a summary of what you said about weapons and air superiority it's about resources the side with the resources is going to win here and Ukraine just doesn't have the resources and Russia has been applying them there's a big imbalance there and the price for us of this when you think about the fact that we have almost a $900 billion defense budget to provide for deterrent

1:26:25 and that if we fail to deter Russia effectively here for a few billion dollars what that means in terms of the consequence all that other investment is essentially wasted if we don't succeed in aggress and succeed in in defeating aggression here that's what's on the table and and it is an urgent need from everything I have seen I'll stop with that and let Chiefs make comment generals again I would also yield to to General Cavo and also I've been in touch with the US safy Commander General Hecker as well who's understanding uh sort of the air picture you know better than I can from from DC and in Washington but it certainly is the case it's a different type of air battle now obviously when you're talking about uh it's very heavily uh electromagnetic spectrum heavy area and and drones are involved but it's still if you can have the advantage from the air it it is critical and and the secretary's point is the right one though it's overall resources to be able to formulate a battle plan that is executable especially in the springtime here when the fighton is going to pick up when it dries up it's going to be key overall I

1:27:27 think is a critical word that you use because without this air superiority frankly uh winning isn't going to be possible General do you want to comment on if we hear from uh General cavoli routinely uh I agree with his assessment I agree with what you heard him say as well uh we recognize that we're in a unique time frame uh a land war of this size in Europe just has not happened for generations and if we don't respond properly it could only get worse and I think we just have to recognize what it is we're standing for what we def what we choose to defend and stand up and support it and well I appreciate uh what speaker Johnson's trying to do moving forward uh even if he's successful that's going to be weeks and weeks and weeks before we get something on the president's desk if we do it all uh we have to act now and it's urgent and thank you for reinforcing that I yeld back gentleman's time expired chair I recognize a gentleman from Indiana Mr Banks thank you Mr chairman uh General Alvin after falling short in 2023 for

1:28:28 the first time since 1999 in your recruitment goals the Air Force is on Pace to reach those goals for 2024 what changed well thank you for that Congressman uh we really attacked this aggressively uh when we saw the downslide uh happening and we looked at several things we looked at our policies to ensure that they were uh they were still um relevant uh we looked at some things maybe we were being overly restrictive of so we did a clean sweep of that a couple things that were sort of as easy as falling off a log why if we if you can uh decrease the time it takes to have a um someone who wants to be naturalized become a citizen that attracts people in if you can understand uh the the height and weight measurement that was required to even be considered and you can relax that to where it's uh consistent with the rest of the dod standards those are some simple things we did uh but some other things that we're doing to follow up on that is we're ensuring um that we can have the recruiters do more of the pounding the shoe leather time and not doing as much

1:29:28 admin time so there were several things we did a little bit more targeted marketing reaching out to other things so it was really attacking on all fronts and I think that plus the fact that we're coming out of covid and people were starting to wake up again and we are engaging we put uh notes out to our wing commanders to get out to the community so people can actually see what their military can do for them I think it was the the um the compilation of all of those things that put us on the right path and now we're making Mak sure that we just don't um rest on those Laurels and we're looking into the future to make sure we can sustain that would you say the Air Force has loosened its standards I would not say loosened it standards at all as a matter of fact I'll give you the example I talked about the the the body fat composition and people think the body fat composition is a different standard we had a body fat composition uh restriction before we'd even consider someone coming into basic training even though we had Advanced our basic training better nutrition better Fitness when we put those standards back to DOD standards we enable another 4,500 recruits to be able to come in we have done longitudinal studies on those and

1:30:29 of those only one did not make it all the way through so we're making sure the standards and the quality sustain while we're actually opening the aperture to more Americans who can serve different story for the Air National Guard uh Still Still below our recruitment goals what are we doing to fix it well the Air National Guard is also making gains they had a little bit longer way to go so part of the the issue with the Air National Guard is the we've had pretty high retention rates uh in the United States Air Force in the active duty and some of that affiliation is how they get their their numbers up as well but they have increased uh 31% from over last year so where last year they were well short this year I think they're going to be they're targeting to be within 5% of the goal their Air Force Reserves is going to be either within 1% or they're going to make the goal as well so across the board uh we're actually making progress can you quantify how far off we are with Air National Guard the Air National Guard right now is on a path to be within uh 5% I get that I got a to get the exactly what that raw number turns out to be but they're within 5% of their goal secretary Kendall are we uh do you have any advice uh on what we can

1:31:31 do to fix that the Air National Guard recruitment numbers no we've been working this very hard uh ever since we started realizing we were going to be below our Target uh year before last um I want to give General Alin a lot of credit he ran a task force as the vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force at addressed an awful lot of these issues we also just put more resources at it uh we have increased the in our 25 request we're increasing the amount of money for the guard for recruiting a lot of what we're seeing is just lack of familiarity with the military uh people don't have the same exposure they once did so we're trying to reach out and get into communities much more uh make make people understand what we offer I think there's some misperceptions about that that we're trying to to fight against uh I've never been terribly concerned about this because I've always felt that we had management tools at our disposal to address the problem and if we just put more resources on it and we're thoughtful we were going to work our way out of it and that's exactly what's been happening so I'm I'm reasonably comfortable with I'm very happy with the progress we've made actually particularly with the active in the in the reserve and the guard is not very far behind I think we're going to be

1:32:31 okay on this secretary has the Air Force um prevented uh itself from recruiting from military children of military uh uh families or service members veterans has that ever been an intentional not that I know a lot of our people come in because they're they've experienced the military through their family life so I think we have a fairly significant proportion of people that come from that background we encourage that yeah you you would agree General absolutely the biggest source of military recruitment are the children of military absolutely that's right Congressman so thank you I yield back before I go to the next member I want to pause and recognize the presence of one of our former colleagues former chairman of the Strategic forces subcommittee and my friend Jim Cooper of Tennessee welcome back my friend good to have you Mr Kim you're now recognized thank you Mr chair good morning thank you all for coming on out

1:33:31 uh as I was reading through your testimony you know your joint testimony uh you all um emphasized and pointed out just the development of hypersonic missile capabilities by both uh China as well as Russia I guess I just want to ask you are we prioritizing enough Hypersonic defense capabilities and the development of of those I mean when we're seeing that rise I know we are investing in our own capabilities when it comes to Hypersonic but what about the defense side of things I'm trying to get a better understanding of where we're scaled to given this very concerning um defense against hypersonics is important to us because there are a lot of hypersonic weapons potentially targeting our air bases in particular um the responsibility for that that largely falls on the missile defense agency and on the Army what we are doing to contribute to that in particular is our space-based missile warning system that we're we're

1:34:32 deploying which will support an overall architecture of hypersonic defense particularly against some of the intermediate and longer range threats and general Saltzman could address what we're doing there that's moving forward pretty quickly um I understand that the Army recently is um or MDA has recently awarded a contract or is about to for for an Interceptor that will be more capable against some of these targets so that's that's a work that I don't think is moving quite as fast as we we'd like to see in an ideal Ideal World yes sir about $3 billion in fy2 devoted to what we're calling the proliferated proliferated warf fighter space architecture and it's not just that we're putting more sensors up Those sensors are more capable and actually give us some tracking capabilities and so the precursor to missile defense is missile warning and that's what we're putting in place yeah and I would also add that uh over the past several months uh there's been an ongoing study analys of Alternatives that should come out in June on airon cruise missile defense of the Homeland that's been Department of Air Force LED that study and it's really broken it down into three areas that you

1:35:33 really need for uh Aaron crw missile defense you need the sensors and then you need the affectors degrade them kill them whatever and then you need the command and control structure so we we have been able to look at each of those elements that's going through uh an analysis of alternatives to determine the exact architecture to be able to put those together and as general salsman said the missile warning missile tracking is a key part of that sensor but that analysis of alternative should be done in the next couple months on the architecture and then we'll look at building out the pieces to that to to have a better defense against cruise missiles hypersonics and others yeah thank you for that um you know I'd love to be able to keep in touch with you all about this and I know that there's limitations what we can talk about in this kind of setting but you know in in other opportunities I I'd like to have a better sense especially when it comes to the maneuverability uh that that really sets us apart from other types of challenges so I understand the warning and the tracking but you know how do we think through the tracking as well as the interceptors uh when we're talking about something that with that kind of velocity uh but also that kind of maneuverability and I'd like to have that sense I I want to just switch gears

1:36:33 to you another type of of threat obviously we've talked a lot about cyber security uh in the past and the and the challenges on that front um The Joint Base of my district Maguire Dix Lake HSE is home to the 140th cyber operation Squadron um you know those cyber operators are performing these kind of critical work for the defense of our country every single week um and I I guess I'm just trying to get a sense from you how do we better support our cyber operators in the Air National Guard and the force overall so that we can try to make sure that this is rising to the level that we need to I'm trying to have a better sense of you know how are these pieces fitting together in minds our cyber capabilities are really critical to our operational success overall and frankly whether we're we will even be able to get into the fight because of the potential for cyber attacks one of the things we've done under the reoptimizing for GR power competition set of initiatives is we're elevating the 16th Air Force which was under air air combat command to be a direct reporting command it'll be the the AF cyber if you will the Air Force component of the Cyber command but it

1:37:35 will also have responsibilities for the Air Force as a whole um so we're trying to strengthen our capability there we're also creating warrant officers in that field and we are creating new units uh we're putting new units together that are dedicated to that that function I my expectation is that will expand that in the future uh we're moving in that direction now but I think it's going to grow even more uh I just saw a defense science board report on the Cyber threats that we Face to our infrastructure and I think we have to do things to address that as well so it's a very high priority and I think the guards ideally position to play an important role in that you we'll be able to tap into people who are doing you know similar functions basically in the in the Civil world and then have them available to bring into the military in a crisis I think that's going to be very valuable to us it's a great way to get that expertise okay great thank you I yeld back gentlemen yields back cheer not recognizer gentleman from Florida Mr Gates the F-35 is our Signature Air Force platform what percentage of them are fully Mission capable

1:38:37 today Mr secretary Congressman if you give me a second I'm GNA pull out my card and give you an exact answer okay Havey to your your eyes are probably better than mine 5% is the number we have for Avail operational availability full operationally capable 55% AV do you think that's a good number or a bad number I think that's not a good number failing I wouldn't put it quite in that category I'd ask General Alvin to comment on that it's a number we'd like to see something yeah well the reason I ask the reason I ask is because we got we got testimony that is a little contrary to that Lieutenant General Schmidt head of the F35 program gave testimony to the tal subcommittee at Hask and that's and that testimony was that as of February of 2023 so a little over a year ago only 29% were fully capable I I think we need to talk difference between operational availability okay and Mission capable

1:39:39 okay so how many are fully Mission capable today I do not have that number but I I would not uh dispute uh what the JP has in front and I would look 29% so fully Mission capable 29% you have no basis to dispute that but you don't really know if it's true true or false I have no basis to dispute it but I I I would like to so you would agree that 55% is like a d the 29% is definitely failing right for fully Mission capable but the missions that they can accomplish I I go I go meet with the folks at the 33rd at egund Air Force Base in the district I represent and they're doing a lot you know there's a lot of of mission there but like even the guys who are also at egund doing test they end up being at the very end right and I totally get why you want your operational squadrons to be the most capable but then test gets put to the end and then we're not meeting our needs like I just think anyone watching this one would be surprised that you General don't know the exact percentage that are operationally capable and two I

1:40:39 think people would be surprised that it's 29% and this GAO report uh that I found on breaking defense.com that I seek unanimous consent to enter into the record um it it says that the reason we are not capable is because you guys at the Pentagon have given too much power to Lockheed Martin and its subcontractors for the for sustainment do you believe Lockheed Martin has been given too much power on on the sustainment of the F35 I believe that loed Martin has more power than in some other weapon systems they do have the contracted Logistics system that was part of the procurement plan that was put in place 20 some years ago well right I mean but it's not working if if the if the lock Martin built the F35 we only can only 29% of them are fully operationally capable right now we've all agreed that's failing so now the question is why is it failing and this GAO report says the reason it's failing is because the fox

1:41:42 is watching the hen house because the very contractor builing the taxpayer for this platform is now in a position where they can't sustain it do do you have a basis to disagree with that conclusion I have a long history with the F35 and uh I inherited the program I came into it in 2010 it was a few years in production at that point and the first time I saw the program laid out uh the schedule for it and so on and when the decisions and points are going to be the question I ask and I'm going to quote myself who's running this program the government or locked Martin that was a that's a quote from 2010 I think you have your answer Mr secretary we the and it was originally set up under under a philosophy of management called total system performance which essentially gave to the prime contractor complete control of the program we did not acquire the intellectual property to allow the government to come in and step in and control the program it sounds like we are still fighting that problem today well right but that is such important testimony for us to hear I

1:42:42 hope every member of the committee heard that the government isn't running this program locked Martin's running this program that was a question I asked well it sounds like you got the answer what's the answer to the question Mr secretary cuz only 29% of them are operationally capable we took a lot of steps to try to get that under control I once imposed a production contract on locked I dictated a price to them because we couldn't get a negotiation done I did a unilateral contract uh let them take me to court if they wanted to they chose not to um put in place program managers who were very firm with the contractor and insisted on performance uh we've had some conversations with the current head of the jpo and uh we've had conversations with the CEO of lock I appreciate those conversations I've always found you to be the truth tell you're always very honest with the committee in straightforward the problem is the tail here is wagging the dog and it's not going to get better unless there's accountability for the fact that their planes don't fly I yield back gentlemen yields back chair and not recognized gentlemen from North Carolina Mr Davis thank you Mr chair uh first and foremost I would like to thank our

1:43:42 Airmen who have served us well in The 335th Fighter Squadron kick butt defending our Ally Israel over the past weekend and I'm extrem L proud of that thank you to our Witnesses who are here today Mr secretary it's good to see you I'm in this uh fiscal Year's budget there's a plan for the Air Force to eliminate one Fighter Squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and we've been talking about this well over a year now with many mixed messages along the way uh there was a report requirement regarding the force structure rationale due to the Congress to the due to the committee on April 1st which we did not receive we then move forward to inquire about the report again and I was anticipating and hoping to get the report by this meeting today which we did not receive what's causing the

1:44:42 delay uh the the report's in final review and coordination General Alvin and I have both looked at a final draft we should have it to you very shortly Mr secretary if it's in final draft we're hitting print on the the the page here the computer whatever we're doing can you share with us since it's on the way what criteria been used to determine taking away a squadron at C more Johnson Air Force Base it's a longer conversation about the mix of the fighter force uh the cost effectiveness of every element the the set of capabilities we have to have uh and the and the cost of any monitorization that would be required to keep keep the aircraft current and then of course total resources available to the department so we we have for some time known we had take Mr secretary I look forward to seeing this report soon really soon and yes or no uh do you believe when there is a required report and you're submitting a budget that the report maybe could help inform us I I do agree with that you'll have the report

1:45:44 shortly a loss of 520 jobs at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base would have a tremendous impact on our community in eastern North Carolina most of the counties in our state are ranked tier one counties which are the most economically distress Congress has told the Air Force to modernize I get it if we can still uphold our national security interest in investment decisions then should we consider I'm just asking should we consider the impact of the decisions on the local communities we do consider that impact when we make these decisions how was that that considered in this process well we try overall to minimize those impacts some unfortunately sometimes they're unavoidable can you tell me the median income in Wayne County of seamour Johnson Air Force Base I I cannot Congressman you don't know can you do you realize this is one of the most impoverished counties in the state in eastern North

1:46:45 Carolina in a region our congressional district we're 421 median income I look forward to seeing that report are there Alternatives when we look at what you're rolling out here to bring other missions to Seymour Johnson to replace the jobs that'll be lost to take care of the impact of this community at this time I'm not aware of an alternative we have looked for that we try to do that do you care about this community of course I do Congressman can you tell me then the plan that is in place to consider the impact for any alternatives that you can bring to this community when we do these decisions we look at a range of Alternatives we try to do everything we can to protect the interest of the community but I'm asking

1:47:47 clearly to you right now what's the plan for just considering to roll out looking at alternatives for this commun whenever there's an adjustment like this we try to work with the community to make it as painless as possible yeah what efforts have taken place in this community right now this the first I've heard any there was any effort to reach out to the community can you tell me specifically I'd have to get you that for the record Mr secretary I can tell you this I love the Air Force I served in the Air Force I take great pride in my service in the Air Force and I believe you know that but I also believe that if we can maintain our national security interest we really have to look hard at the decisions that are being made and I'm not satisfied today with your answers are your back Mr chair the gentleman from Florida Mr Waltz is recognized for five minutes

1:48:47 thank you uh Mr chair Mr secretary is struck by a state stat you just made and I just want to touch on representative Gates's concern about readiness I'm the chairman of the Readiness subcommittee I mean I understand there is a quality over quantity argument um but the basic issue is if they can't fly that's a I mean that is a strategic failing on our part and I think the Pentagon has become so focused on I know it's a balance I know there's a pendulum swing but on making these kind of handmade bespoke Hightech Ferraris but sometimes you need a flee to pickup trucks and you certainly need whether they're Ferraris or pickup trucks that can operate in the desert and can operate out in the corrosive environment in in the Pacific so let's talk about some of your pickup trucks the Air Force owns and operates dod's

1:49:50 largest Fleet of commercial derivative aircraft crap they use commercial Parts this Mr secretary is a bag of bushings this bag of bushings Stamped Out by machinists don't need a high don't need a you know they need a high school uh uh diploma so not not anything Hightech about this all of this bag is compliant with the FAA specifications how much do you think the Air Force pays for this bag of bushings I don't know congressman $90,000 this is a $90,000 bag of bushings that you need for any jet turbine engine just to operate so the exorbitant cost due to DOD only buying commercial parts from the oems which is essentially Soul source is literally driving us out of business I mean the interest on our debt alone is now exceeding for the first

1:50:51 time in American history the entire defense budget we can't afford it anymore so with FAA compliant Parts it I mean you cut the cost in half or even more so my question is why can't I mean these are commercial birds out there by the way let's it has all kinds of implications for contested Logistics when you can access commercial Parts in the middle of a of a war potentially in the Pacific why can't we use FAA compliant I mean it's it's this safe standard leader in the world why can't we do that I don't know a reason why we couldn't I'm familiar with some of the issues you're trying to raise here from my previous position yeah I know you are so I'm asking you yeah defense Logistics agency used to report to me that's where we do a lot of our our our parts acquisition um and we we had an issue when I was there with people gouging us basically charging us too much for parts um and we ended up I

1:51:52 thinking Court over it the um what can we just in the interest of time Mr secretary come back to us how can this committee help you fix that we literally can't afford the modernization the recruiting the basing everything we need if we're paying $90,000 for a bag of bushings I work with Dr lean on this because it's a it's a it's a systemic issue and again most of the parts buying is done through D um but you have the largest Fleet of commercial birds that well right you don't you've got the Ferraris but these are the pick up trucks we should just be able we have to be able to do is challenge the prices we have to have knowledgeable buyers who can understand when they're getting a ridiculous price and go in and ensure that they get let's work together on that I just need in the interest of time I just want to move again uh to the recruiting and the Genesis Program I have here uh a uh a quote that was given during the air and space forces Association air Warfare uh Symposium that basically says if you do the math you're somewhere in the ballpark of 56

1:52:52 600 folks that we could have likely brought on if they weren't waiting on a medical approval right and now you have a program that digs into medical records and so a kid who took ADHD meds because maybe his parents got divorced when he was 14 or 15 now can't get approved somebody who wants to serve uh I I I think we're trying to solve one problem and then we've created a whole others and I want to work with you on that to let's fix the Genesis system and how it is affecting you and then just my question remaining you are the only service that in your proposal proposed a cut in junior Roc and high schools do you think that Junior RC and high schools getting to this gen Z getting to him early about service leadership discipline followship is helpful I I junior rgc is a valuable

1:53:54 program I'm not aware that we made a cut we may have for some reason I'd have to go back and and get back to I look forward to working with you on that as well you get a better Citizen and you get a recruit the gentleman's time has expired the gentle woman from Hawaii Miss Tuda is recognized for five minutes thank you Mr chair you know last summer I had the privilege of traveling to Japan Okinawa Taiwan Guam and the Philippines with the chairman and ranking member and many of my colleagues on this committee and of course we made our traditional stop in Hawaii during that stop however I was surprised uh by a briefing on the unacceptable state of the Hickam ramp and the continued challenges the Hickam side of joint based Pro Harbor Hickam experiences as part of their joint basing relationship with the Navy um from what I understand the Hickam ramp is in in in an unacceptable state that reflects years of budgetary neglect and the cost of getting it back to operational Readiness is jaw-droppingly high I know that the Air Force and the Navy have had many conversations about the right path

1:54:54 forward since last summer we got an update from your team about the latest developments and it seems like there is a lot still to be determined and we're just shy of one year since this issue was first raised to this committee's attention when we were on site I am concerned however given the focus on quickly reoptimizing for great power competition that the necessary maintenance and Improvement to the hicum ramp does not appear to be in the fiscal year 2025 budget request or in the funded priorities list Mr secretary am I looking at this right um if this is a priority where is it and if so would you please explain to me how the Air Force is working to address these issues with the hium ramp and who's going to pay to fix this problem uh thanks for your question General alv and I were just there and get a chance to look at the condition of the ramp personally um uh the team there has laid out good plan to move forward and we have had a lot of discussions with the Navy the Navy has funded upgrade to the ramp my understanding is that there's $79 million in in the period starting in 25

1:55:55 through 30 to fix the ramp and connecting taxiways so that's budgeted and programmed as I understand it now and I'll just verify that to to make sure it's correct yeah that's what we understand with with the Navy doing that but we also did the secretary's Point uh we talked to the sort of the Airfield Authority you know Colonel obiano there gave us a fairly in-depth brief about what needs to be done and now so we are following up on that trip to be able to ensure that we we we continue to work the chadri our installations and environment uh assistant Secretary of the Air Force has been really driving this hard with this Navy counterpart but now understanding if there are other memorandums of agreement to where we can have different authorities to make sure we can help control the pace of how that ramp gets gets fixed uh we're going to do that so when can we anticipate operational Readiness based on your conversations with the Navy just given you know our our proximity to the Indo Pacific our strategic role that we play uh it's very concerning I think it was concerning for the leadership of this committee to see the condition um of the

1:56:56 ramp so when do we expect operational Readiness to be in place well again the the this is military construction so the military construction has to have the planning and design get to 35% planning and design it needs to get to 35% planning and design before I could even consider putting it on my unfunded priorities list so it is going through that that uh process now with the Navy and we're going to look at uh who you know how fast to move it based on the uh maybe the the sequencing and the phasing of the of the design and the milcon but that that's us working with the Department of the Navy well my humble suggestion is to pick up the pace in terms of the urgency because if we truly want to be ready in the Indo Pacific you cannot have conditions like this existing um so thank you for that and we will continue to to be in conversation with you and the Navy about this you know I think the issues with Hickam are illustrative of a broader quite frankly set of infrastructure sustainment challenges in the Indo Pacific and the reality of distributed operations requires relying often on infrastructure

1:57:56 in less than ideal conditions all in a non-permissive contested environment and so Mr secretary how is the Air Force managing and adapting to the risks inherent and infrastructure sustainment challenges in the in Indo Pacific General Alin I got to see a lot of that firsthand we visited tinan which is one of our our our our hubs our spokes rather our more remote bases that we're in the process of clearing and repaving so that we can use that strip um under the operational imperative initiatives from two years ago which the committee supported and funded starting largely in 24 we do have a lot of money uh allocated to to this purpose upgrading our facilities in the region so that they can support the operational concept we have agile combat employment so we're moving forward we're not moving as fast as I would like to I think as you would either we are moving forward on that's a set of initiatives designed to address those problems we're well aware of them thank you and I know I'm just about to run out of time so I will put this in as a question but I would like for you

1:58:56 to expound a bit in your posture statement you talked about challenges imposed by the fiscal responsibility act especially in the procurement and research and development and I would like for you to just talk a bit more and elaborate on how those budgetary constraints also impact investments in sustainment not recogniz gentl from Texas Mr Jackson thank you Mr chairman thank you for our Witnesses for being here today I appreciate your time um gentlemen the Air Force faces the difficult task of extending aircraft like the B-52 and the t38 that first flew in the 1950s while simultaneously developing new state-of-the-art aircraft like the B21 and the t7 these new platforms take time to develop but our Air Force needs to get these new aircraft into the hands of our Airmen sooner than later General Alvin last year I asked General Brown about the t7 Red Hawk program and how we can get past the delays which have plagued this trainer uh he said he was focused on the Air Force training pipeline because he needs Airmen to be ready to train and fight and that he had gathered the

1:59:56 applicable groups in the same room to align their focuses and work on the issues of the t7 yet here we are again this year talking about t7 delays due to Parts quality and supply chain issues sliding the delivery further to the right and backing up more and more Airmen in the pipeline and creating an even even greater pilot pilot shortage as you know the t7 will replace the agent t38 Fleet at Shepard Air Force Base as part of the euron NATO joint uh Jet Pilot training program which uh is of course based in my district uh this problem isn't only going to affect us Airmen is my point here our NATO allies that participate in Pilot training in witto Falls are very concerned about the impacts on their militaries as well we have a responsibility to get this right and it seems like this issue isn't getting the attention it needs from the Air Force in my opinion the original initial operational capability for the t7 was supposed to be this year 2024 but now the Air Force is looking at the second quarter of FY 28 General Alvin I'm going to ask you the same question I asked General Brown last year what is the Air Force doing to overcome these

2:00:57 delays and help our industry Partners get the t7 to Bases like Shephard Air Force Base uh base more quickly and how are we ensuring that we end this never ending cycle of bad news on our new platforms like the t7 trainer aircraft can you commit to me here that we will get these uh we will get these Jets to Shephard Air Force Base as quickly as we possibly can uh Congress I'll I'll start with the end one yes as soon as we possibly can uh we continue to work with Boeing and t7 unit it's now in flight test so we continue to move on and as a former test pilot I I I would hesitate to say that that guarantees things are going to go smoothly sometimes you do find things in Flight tests that you hadn't uh before there there's a bit of the way that it was developed too with the digital engineering being a bit new that that might cause new issues there may it may allow us to C to go through testing more rapidly but uh what general Brown said he held to there we did put the right people in place we are having a laser focus on it trying to get past issue one at a time with the t7 to ensure that we can get bring that on as soon as possible now in the meantime we

2:01:57 also understand as you said Congressman we need to ensure that the t38 can remain viable through then and so as part of my unfunded priority list I had uh what the teams do uh is I had our team go through a couple of Sprints to look at what are the things that move the needle the most with respect to supplies to keep those j85 engine to keep that refurbishment happening so we can keep that which is a long poll in the tent for the t38 so we're trying to tackle it on both ends to be able to work with Bo to accelerate and to do whatever we can to keep that t38 flying so we can keep that pipeline of uh Airman American and Allied and partner Nations as well well I'm committed to working with you on that I think that we're headed for conflict somewhere in the world pretty soon and we need to be we need to be ready to go and we're not uh the Air Force was the first service to start with the Nel Improvement program on its Fleet of cv22s and it serves as a prime example of how targeted investment can yield exceptional results from the data that has been provided to my office the Nel Improvement program has saved $10,000 maintenance man IRS to date and has improved the ratio of man hours to flight hours by 200% um the Air Force's

2:02:58 decision to invest in this program and ensure we have the most capable inventory of airframes on the flight line for our service members is a model I believe the other services should uh should follow and move expeditiously to adopt while improving the quality of aircraft for the service member it's also saving crucial resources at a time when budgets are going to be heavily constrained General Ain while I realize that um our time here is limited I would like to ask if we could find a time for you to come by my office at some point in the future and discuss with me in detail what your plans are for the fleet of B22 aircraft in the Air Force and for the next generation of uh tilt rotor aircraft uh we we're manufacturing the the b28s as you know in in my district Bell Helicopter in the Army program which I've been a big proponent of and I'd like to see the other services follow that as well however with the time we have here today General iin how do you envision the role of the CV cv22 when we think about indopacific theater and what operational capabilities does it provide to our force that are difficult to replace well Congressman I will tell you that uh in the uh aftermath of the accident and now

2:03:59 getting those back to flying again General bound is doing a comprehensive review and as part of that we are looking into all those things from getting them back to Flying which is most important safely and back operating to look into the future of the cv22 so Congressman I definitely take you up on your offer to be able to talk about that and the future how we anticipate going forward with the cv22 at the conclusion of that comprehensive review which should be in the next two months time fired here and I recognize a gentleman from Texas Mr VZ uh thank you Mr chairman uh I wanted to ask General Salman General Alvin have y'all ever heard of the term pseudo fitis okay you've heard of the term pseudo fitis I wanted to to ask you because a lot of people uh don't know about this but it's a skin condition that uh for people that have ingrown hairs mainly in black men and so when they shave it can cause pain and discoloration you can see discoloration under my neck right now I love a good shave but you can see this discoloration that's under my neck right right now uh and I wanted to just ask you what are the current policies regarding shaving

2:05:00 waivers in the Air Force and the and the space force and what sort of accommodations are you looking at and I want to be 100% clear I mean I I have a high school senior I tried to get him to join the core Cadets at A&M he wasn't interested uh and so I believe in military service and understand the uniformity that you're trying to get everybody to be the same and you shave their hair so I'm I'm not trying to change that I respect that and understand why that needs to be in place but this is obviously a very you know serious issue and has affected men's careers I uh have a pastor in my district that I'm trying to help we're doing casework for him right now trying to help him because of his discharge status uh because of this issue that he had uh with shaving and so just wanted to get a better understanding of how these waivers work well Congressman we we do have more recently we we've sort of raised the awareness of the waiver process and so that if if you have that condition and you go to see the the the medical professionals there at the U medical

2:06:00 treatment facilities they provide you they Grant you the uh the verification that that's a medical condition and you're granted the waiver and I I believe the the number of of Shaving waivers for this particular condition I'd like to get you the exact numbers but it's gone up by a by a a degree of I would say almost 50% increase in the past several years because of the awareness of that and so we have an increased number of Shaving waivers we have an increased number of those who are now complying with the uh waved ability to have a beer are you pretty confident that it's not affecting uh people's careers and and discharge that have yall looked into that because even though someone may get a waiver you also want to make sure that there may be someone else that's not resentful of them getting getting the waiver because you know and we deal with this sort of stuff on this committee all the time there's always a group of people that well this it's been this way for a hundred years and I don't understand why we got it you know what I mean and and and so when trying to work through that that sort of thing can be a career impediment to someone being able to

2:07:01 advance and so is it something that everybody is embracing and understanding the importance of these waivers yeah Congressman I I would say it is I would also say it's a work in progress because along the same line there's also an increase in in requests for religious accommodation uh along the same lines and so uh my my not my concern but my interest as the chief is to ensure that we respect that and we honor that so not only do we ensure that those who uh who qualify for those actually achieve those uh the exceptions to policy and the waivers but we also make sure that others aren't exploiting it yeah so we need to make sure on both sides of that J zman yeah I think J Alin said it just right the key is one is having a good process to Grant the waivers expeditiously and appropriately and then second is remove any stigma uh and make sure that those people that are accommodating are still respected and there's there's no adverse impacts that's start start of that is sensitivity towards it and then second it's about training and education to make sure everybody understands the situation yeah and you feel pretty

2:08:01 confident about the educational process being able making its way through the rank so everyone has an understanding of it I I like the way General Alin said I think it's a work in progress because we got to reach the entire group of people but uh I think we're making the right strides okay good good as and as far as you know there hasn't been any recent discharges uh that anyone has faced because of this issue okay good good Mr chairman I yield back you gentleman yields back chair I recognizes the gentleman from Alabama Mr strong thank you Mr chairman and ranking member Smith and I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here secretary Kendall earlier this week I sent you a bipartisan letter uh that I co-led with strategic forces ranking member Seth Molton expressing our strong support for the national security space launch program ensuring that the United States has and maintains uh assured access to space and uh is more important now than it ever has been I know this is a bit

2:09:02 early to expect a response uh since we only shared the letter two days ago but since you're here might as well go ahead uh can you speak to the importance of the National Security space launch program and to the benefits that are provided by utilizing block buys and encouraging robust competition with in the launch industry uh carsman strong thanks for your letter I have seen it um and I appreciate the support the the the the current program was put in place originally about 10 12 years ago by myself and general palowski in the air force uh and it was designed to provide assured access to space and to provide for competition and to bring new entrance in we we went from buying Rockets to buying launch services and the the thing that has happened over those years includes the emergency of more more launch providers that we can tap into so General Salzman outl outlined that earlier the the phase three uh that is currently in competition is designed to open up the

2:10:02 aperture even more uh and to take advantage of that the savings have been huge the the competition that we've has happened has allowed us to bring a new entrance and force prices down it's helped to encourage a lot of innovation uh and it's taking advantage of what's been going on in the commercial world so I think that the program overall has been a huge success thank you know North Alabama is proud to host several companies which contribute to the success of nssl um uh including blue origin along with um uh just refurbished the historic Apollo test stand 4670 at Redstone Arsenal uh that was in partnership with the City of Huntsville Madison County Commission and it's great to have that test site uh back rolling for the uh testing of the be3 and the be4 engines United launch Alliance which has the largest rocket Factory in the world World in Decor Alabama with 2.4 million square ft under roof celebrated a near-perfect launch um of their new Vulcan uh the Vulcan rocket General Saltzman uh secretary Kendall the United

2:11:04 States leads the world in space exploration research and launch technology and capability much of this is to the thanks of hard work of thousands of alabamians uh that don't call Huntsville the rocket uh they don't call Huntsville Rocket City for nothing uh as uh this has been discussed to link today China is determined to overtake us dominance in space and advance in its own space program I'm concerned that uh the Chinese exploitation of our technology uh components and suppliers threatens our nation's well earned position of leadership and reliable access to and utilization of space one how is the US space force working to protect America's prominence in space as hard as we can there you go that's the short answer uh sir I I can't tell you how important that is and I appreciate the question uh we see the the execution of space capabilities as vital to not only the US military but

2:12:06 our broader economic interests in the country as well and to those of our foreign Partners U but we are now in a contested domain and we have to think about it differently so what used to be relatively simple to assure in space is now complicated so we building more resilient architectures to account for the fact that space is contested secondly our adversaries are using space against us and threatening The Joint Force something I can't stand for and so we're working hard to put counter space capabilities in place to deny our adversaries those advantages thank you how are we protecting against us intellectual properties from being stolen and used against us is there anything in place to stop or hold us companies accountable for taking uh adversary Investments are succumbing to adversary influence uh the short answer is yes there's a cious process that I think you're familiar with which reviews any business deals involve acquisition of us companies particularly by possible hostile uh uh ownership um we also use

2:13:08 uh contractual obligations to protect protect intellectual property and we we require cyber security protection by companies that we deal with to a certain level to ensure that their property is not as easily stolen um we we're under assault basically uh to by by China in particular but also to a certain degree by Russia and others to acquire our intellectual property it comes in the form of cyber assault it comes in the Cyber attack and uh uh it comes in the form of acquisition of companies to acquire the technology it comes in the in the form of uh illegal ways of buying through third gentlem times expired here not recogniz gentleman from New Mexico bque thank you Mr chairman thank you secretary Kendall and general man and Alin for taking the time to be here today with us I have the privilege of representing New Mexico's Second District home to Hollman Air Force Base in the 49th Wing where we train the next generation of F-16 fighter pilots and mq9 operating Crews now I'm not going to ask you directly about this but I did just want to bring this issue up with you today and for the record uh that we

2:14:10 recently lost uh over 50 mq9 contractors that are part of the pilot training program uh and we have heard conflicting reports both from base leadership and from the q9 contractors who are former Air Force pilots themselves about the operational Readiness of the mq9 program as it stands today at Hallman Air Force Base because of the loss of some of this uh uh this potential contract that was not renewed uh which we are still fighting for so I want to bring that up to your attention uh Hollman is also home to the high-speed test track it's one of the Department of defense's most valuable tools to test and evaluate Hypersonic weapons in March George Rumford of the test Resource Management Center testified before this committee and spoke about the questionable future of the 70-year-old asset that was originally designed to test airplane ejection seats he told us quote if we're really going to test hypersonics we're going to need a new track capability in our nation base leadership at Hallman is also e echoed a similar sentiment that the track is outdated and a new one is needed to meet the testing demands of

2:15:12 the future secretary Kendall and general Alvin the Air Force has considered proposals for the Reconstruction modernization or complete replacement of hman test track but we're not seeing any traction could you provide us an update on what the Air Force's long-term plans are for the future of this test track yeah we're aware of the importance of the track obviously it is a very important asset and there are concerns about its aging and its capabilities the test Resource Management Center for the secretary the secretary defense part of the uh uh under secretary defense for acquisition sustainment office is an early planning phases about what to do about hman uh one thing that's under consideration is a second track which would have some features that the first the existing one does not so it's under active uh review and consideration right now but it's still in the early phases of doing that I think thank you secretary and I appreciate uh updates to to our community uh in Alamagordo donana County and Otero County as to the future of the track itself uh in particular uh because it impacts jobs in the community but

2:16:12 also obviously with the emphasis and the budget request for Hypersonic testing we want to know if we're going to be part of the solution to test uh these weapons in the future uh second secretary Kendall and general Alvin um given hollman's ability to conduct control and competitive and repetitive Hypersonic testing uh what would it mean for the Department to lose access to this track it's it's an important research capability for US general I concur it's it's one of those that uh we certainly uh anticipate using into the future needing Hypersonic tracks those highspeed tracks it's it's not going to we're not going to be going slower thank you General with my remaining time I want to focus on housing issues at hman Air Force Space now we were proud to secure a 6% increase in housing allowance from 2023 levels for service members at Hollman but rural communities like Alam mordo continue to face challenges uh to meet our housing demands now I recently heard from base leadership that despite the improvements ongoing at Hollman we're still facing a housing shortage of about

2:17:13 1,100 people does the Air Force have plans to increase collaboration with the city of alam mordo with local nonprofits and with other entities to construct additional housing and if not what steps are you taking to address this issue to make sure that the Readiness of our uh Airmen and women and their families uh is met with uh the dignity that they deserve to have adequate housing and we'll work with the community to address that that concern I don't know that that's happened yet I I was not aware of the problem at H and or aloro specifically um there is a housing requirement market analysis going to be conducted this summer and I think we can use that as a basis by which to move forward with the community thankk you General thank you secretary I look forward to working with you on those issues and continuing to work with the base leadership at Hollman to make sure that I continue to be their Advocates and bring these issues to your attention uh Mr chairman I yield back thank you gentleman yields back chair I recognize a gentleman from Texas Mr latrel thank you Mr chairman good morning everyone and thank you greatly for your service uh General Alin this

2:18:13 might be for you or for the secretary um talk about the a10s which I don't know if that's a source of contention with you guys but I'm a big fan of the A10 platform and it if I'm reading it correctly we went from discontinuing the plane in the 2030s late 2030s to 2028 correct is that a fair statement yeah I don't think we ever had it late in the 2030s but yeah it it currently is by the end of 28 there'll be they'll 28 29 is when they will be uh divested I just want to be on record saying I think that is the worst idea as someone who laid in the dirt with that plane over top of my head protecting us I'll leave it at that but so are we cross trining the pilots that are flying the A10 platform and moving them over to air frames but for what I understand we are we are deficient of pilots in the Air correct we do we do have a pilot shortage on the staff level but we at to answer to your question con we actually are training the pilots and the maintainers and and quite frankly part of the maintenance and operators uh the pilot challenge that we have is we had intended the modernization plan to be a divestment and and a

2:19:15 modernization uh um scale and speed that was not working out very well for us well it's not well it's not because we are divesting too slow to be able to have the maintainers ready to work on the fifth generation platforms and those a810 Pilots to be able to fly those fifth generation aircraft so we we currently have a plan for every single one of those that are moving out of those to be able to if if it's if it's there uh at the base on the active duty side then we can move them we're very we're they're very mobile we can put them into the fifth generation platform if I'm hearing you correctly it's just a it's it's the process is slowing itself down not necessarily we have the ability to put the pilots in place because they most likely currently exist we can put the pilots in place and we are doing that on the active duty side it's a little bit simpler on the guard side because they are you know s fixed to their location they will have to transition to the to the Flying platform that replaces the A10 there but we are we have a plan for we are not planning on on having any of those Pilots or operators go unused okay uh Mr secretary you you coming down to my state here in

2:20:17 the very near future I'd be delighted to I thought you were going down to Texas A&M to see the hypersonics capabilities I'm headed to A&M Tonight Tonight mhm so you are coming I'll be there tomorrow okay well I I'm excited to if you wouldn't mind I'd like to meet with you after the fact to see to get your thoughts on what Texas doing in hypers Cape in that space uh and and it's I think none of us in here are Strang as to um where we need to be when it comes to hypersonics I'm happy to talk to you about that yes sir um can I talk to you about um the crypto mon ation issues that we're having in the Air Force and if I'm correct we're about a decade behind can you give me some can you create a warm and fuzzy for me that we are moving properly and that this isn't going to be a problem because I'm going to transition into General saltsman sir I did not mean to crash your office yesterday it was great to meet you unexpectedly but it's good to see you again today um secretary go ahead I think if you get into details you get classified pretty quickly on crypto modernization but um it was it was not

2:21:17 prioritized I'll put it that way for quite a few years while we were engaged in counter Insurgency and counterterrorism operations just wasn't important at the time so we got behind um recognize that about two years ago General Brown and I uh addressed it and we we've been funding crypto monetization I think at a a robust rate since then able most likely going to catch up so we don't have to have this conversation in the next couple we get reelected we're not going to have to have this conversation in three years well I hope not we need to actually get to the next round of crypto monetization because the threat's getting more wor more more Troublesome over time is there a good communication between the Air Force and the space force with the secretary by Within through so space force won't have these issues that the Air Force has kind of collected over the decade I think I'll let my colleagues answer that question I think we have a lot of close cooperation we're in all the same meetings to make sure we understand exactly what the challenges are we build our budgets together make sure they're synchronized so that we can roll out the capabilities in a comprehensive way okay I would just hate for us to walk into a dead end or fall

2:22:18 on a sword when we don't have to if the we could take lessons learned not only from the Air Force but the other services my my my Mantra secretary has been one team one fight one team one dream I like it okay thank you sir thank you all Mr SEC uh Mr chairman i y back uh before I go to the next one I want to be able to say I got the chance to tour Texas A&M uh their Bush combat development facility they're not only doing some really cool Hypersonic research out there but some directed Energy Research it's fascinating I'm a big fan of that and also the rail gun so there's just a lot of stuff Texas I've got a full day there they're going to show me all that I think you you'll come away impressed it's it's pretty impressive now we have Mr Horford of not Nevada is recognized thank you chairman Rogers and to the ranking member uh for this hearing uh secretary Kendall it's great to see you again and general Alvin uh congratulations on your recent promotion I look forward to working with you in your new position uh my district is home to Nellis Air Force and creat Air Force bases which combined host over

2:23:19 15,000 milit members and thousands of families who call Nevada home uh Jill General Alvin I've asked this question to secretary kindall and and your predecessor uh so I want to make sure I get your perspective on it as well what role do you see Nellis Air Force Base and Cree Air Force Base playing as part of our national defense strategy well Congressman thanks for that question because I think they're critical obviously NIS Air Force Base uh between the the Warfare Center the virtual test and Training Center uh and our shadow Operation Center where we're we're understanding how to uh integrate the advanced battle management system in the Next Generation C to put all those together as well as the Nevada test and training range and you have a nucleus for really some of the development of the concepts and the capabilities and tactics techniques and procedures for Air Force going into the future so that's critical the obviously we have the the right ramp space we have the right runways we have the right training ranges everything is set up there and with cre we obviously have the ability

2:24:20 uh to conduct the you know the the medium maltitude the mq9 and and and such those unmar vehicle operations between the two of them I think it's a it's quite critical to our future uh for the long term of the Air Force completely agree and we look forward to your leadership in that regard uh previously Airman and Cree Air Force Base received assignment and CIP pay to help encourage retention and offset some of the additional cost associated with being stationed at Cree Cree has submitted a new request for approval of assignment in cipe and it's my understanding that the Air Force is supportive of the request can you discuss any movement and efforts to award assignment incentive pay for Airmen stationed at Cree please I'll have to get back to that uh Congressman because there is a process if it's gone through the base it comes up to the major command and that comes up through the headquarters traditionally uh those requests are made in associated with association with uh underman units uh not enough manpower there but we will certainly look at the request coming for the base of the major command yeah and

2:25:21 it is because of the unique element of what they do it's not so much that there are fewer people it's that the unique elements of what they do and that they have to go home at the end of their deployment every single day and they need the wages to keep up with the cost of housing and child care and other demands so if we could factor that into the criteria I'd appreciate it access to Safe secure and affordable housing is another concern of uh the constituents that we represent as recruits consider military service the availability and affordability of adequate housing as a concern Nellis Air Force Base is among the installations with the highest levels of unmet housing need this time last year that unmet housing need meant that young Airmen were being released into off Bas community housing after 11 months it concerns me that since then the issue has only worsened with Airmen now being released after only 8 months I

2:26:23 don't have to tell any of you but 8 months is very short of the Air Force's requirements of 36 months time and Service uh so uh General and secretary can you speak to the importance of ensuring adequate housing availability for both Recruitment and Retention of our military members and what is currently being done to address the needs of our young unaccompanied Airmen at installations such as Nellis yeah it's a priority for us and we're making a substantial investment uh in that area in our overall budget for n specifically uh we just did a dorm Innovation there for about $4 half million dollar and we are working on um the potential to to address the dormatory deficit with additional construction so two dormitories at Nellis um are are being considered for milcon right now now those two replacement so you have the ren the renovation I know and thank you to the chairman and the ranking member for working with me on

2:27:24 the prioritization of those new dormitories but we have older dorms that are coming out so it's just like in public housing you're really not adding to the supply you're replacing Supply that has come off the market if you will so I really need leadership in the Air Force to understand this Dynamic the unique element at Nellis being off base is not a affordable and in some cases it's not safe it's not in the best uh interest of the Airmen and and their family and our National Defense so I would really encourage uh leadership to work with me in this regard and thank you to the chairman for your leadership as well gentleman times expired here I recognize gentleman from Colorado Mr lamber thank you Mr chairman uh thank you all for being here and what you do for our country General Saltzman I'd like to ask you about an issue a problem that has come up in our launch of National Security assets and especially

2:28:24 because it's indicative of a larger problem that we have um there is the certification that United launch Alliance is doing for the Vulcan they need a second successful flight to complete that certification process and they have a payload uh built by Sierra space of the Dreamchaser so everything was on a good track except the June date looks like it's going to have to slip 3 months to September because of a an environmental assessment that has to be done according to the FAA for not the re-entry um site at Patrick uh where it will land uh excuse me uh Kennedy Space Center but at vandenbberg which is a backup place now Vandenburg has been firing missiles for over 60 years and it was a backup I believe for the space shuttle or maybe

2:29:25 it was the actual I don't know which but uh it's been a backup or a uh a landing site as well as a launch site for all kinds of missiles over the years and yet the FAA is calling for a new environmental impact statement and you all were complaining rightfully so about how China is threatening to overtake us well this is a self-imposed wound you know we have these in what I believe are excessive regulations in this case environmental regulations that are slowing down a national security launch capability that's going to hurt our ability to get assets into space or slow them down and uh why are first of all I don't like these regulations being there in the first place but if they're there you've got to find a way to cut through the red tape and get the job done so why

2:30:26 why is this even a problem and why why are we facing these kinds of delays when we look at China and they're just moving so fast and overtaking us well I I appreciate the the question and the concern I I share the concern with some of the inter agency processes that we go through I can't speak in detail about the fa certification process on this I'm happy to dig into it we do this on a number of of of cases where we're trying to accelerate the licensing and certification of capabilities I'm happy to get back to you a more specific answer from the FAA would either of the two of you like to comment on this we'd have to look into the details of what you described I'm not familiar with it that that type of problem does come up and we have to work our way through as you said the red tape when it does you know there are various organizations with jurisdictions that that are affected by this I was just at bachik where SpaceX has been waiting to trck work with the Interior Department on some of the environmental concerns associate with launching there and it was a significant delay and so these

2:31:26 things are something we just have to work through under our existing uh set regulations well please work on this because uh it shouldn't be any mystery why China is overtaking us when we let government agencies snarl Us in red tape and uh sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns and cut through it you know you take a sword and just cut through the red tape so with that Mr chairman I yield back gentleman yields back chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida Mr Jimenez thank you Mr chairman and I um I I'm late because uh I was actually at a very interesting um hearing with the select China committee on space and the competition between China and Us in space and um I looked over the budget for for space force and it looks to me like the the the request doesn't even keep up with inflation the the increase of $400 million doesn't keep up with

2:32:27 inflation it's really a reduction in in your budget as far as really what's useful in light of the fact that that China is making unbelievable strides in space uh General are you are you okay with this with this budget request I think the budget is making solid uh advancements and the resiliency of the architecture that was our primary concern over the last couple of years is making sure we had that capability uh protected so we could assure the vital effects that the Joint Force requires is always there for them uh the counter space capabilities is where I think or the timeline is not to my satisfaction um it's it's simply it it just takes time to get from the R&D phase into fielded operations uh and resources can help with that but we had to make those tough choices to make sure that our existing capabilities uh would be in place and available to the Joint Force and now we're moving as fast as we can to put those counterspace capabilities in place you said you're not the budget

2:33:28 that you have that you requested is not what you would like for counter space requirements is that what you just said the the counter space capabilities that hold at risk the prc's ability to perform space enabled targeting is not where I'd like it to be we're still trying to put that in place as fast as we can does this budget satisfy the the requirements your requirements you would you think look because that's the whole game isn't it uh China is making these great strides in knocking us us off of space and if we lose space it really puts everybody else at risk so you know I'm looking at at your sector as being critical to our national security I mean obviously the Air Force but but really everybody else depends on you if we don't have you then a lot of the systems on the ground and the and you know on the oceans and the Seas and in the air are really at risk so I'm really I'm really concerned about the fact that

2:34:28 that uh you know the defense department is in effect cutting your budget at a time when you should actually be accelerating your budget and increasing a capability and increasing our ability to defend the space domain well I certainly appreciate you saying that I agree with you that space is a critical domain and will be critical to the Joint Force um I think there were some hard decisions that had to be made based on the F constraints uh I think we're doing everything we can to put those space capabilities in place as fast as possible well I would hope that the chairman uh would uh take this into consideration and that we uh we do something about it because I just I'm not satisfied with the budget request I'm not satisfied with reduction in the in the budget at a time when China is making unbelievable strides in space how many satellites do they have up in space right now the Chinese it's about 900 I mean 900 how many did they have four ago probably half of that okay are you also are you talking about directed energy um which I'm also

2:35:31 you know very interested in are you afraid that China is developing a first strike capability in space they're pursuing what I like to describe as six categories of of counterspace capabilities there's a groundbased version and an on orbit version of uh D destructive assets of uh RF Jammers and uh directed energy weapons and the PRC is pursuing weapons in all those categories to knock us out and then deny deny the the domain to us it's pretty clear that that's the case fair enough one uh one final thought I want to just follow up on uh on my colleague and and the the bag $91,000 worth of bushings that a machine puts out um Mr secretary we need to look at a better way to to um utilize commercial aspects um in our purchasing and uh it it actually makes no sense to me I know I know that this

2:36:32 bag here it's not OEM uh it's actually a a a FAA approved uh equivalent which is about onethird the cost and in in times of uh of budgetary constraints like we have right now we need to save every single Cent we can without compromising safety and with that I yield back thank you I thank the gentleman chair not recognized gentleman from Georgia Mr McCormack thank you Mr chair secretary Kendall um the assistant Secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition Frank calvelli recently expressed his excitement about the acquisition strategy for the third phase of the National Security space launch program which he describes as transformative and providing the most Rob robust launch capability ever how will this transformative launch acquisition strategy help us maintain our competitive advantage over China and Russia and is there Synergy with private organizations right now doing a bunch of

2:37:33 launches I know that in our space in our government and our private sector we've had a lot of synergy does that actually play into this transformative Technologies uh there is a lot of synergy um the the aquisition strategy that uh Mr Cal was talking about is Evolution from a strategy that I help put in place with the Air Force about 10 years ago which opened up competition and it took advantage of what was going on in the commercial world and we started instead of buying Rockets which we had done before that buying launch services and buying them opening it up to commercial competitors first one we certified was SpaceX they're still involved Ula was the incumbent um had essentially a monopoly for a long time and and immediately prices came down dramatically there's also uh spurred a lot of investment in technology so where we are today with the with the phas three as it's called which is currently working its way through sort selection we have a lane for our our most um

2:38:35 important payloads where we want to have very high Mission assurance and we want to have suppliers there who have demonstrated conclusively that they are going to be reliable suppliers great then we have a lane for for others for Less high priority uh missions which is going to be wider open to more participants uh Mr G opened up that first Lan with the the the higher higher uh priority payloads to three potential launch La launch launch uh providers and there are several who are available for the for the second Lan so I just want to point out I gota kind of continue moving here but I I I agree with you and I I love the fact that there's more competition driving the price down the quality up which is we love competition very effective I wish we had it for those bushings too General salsman uh you recently announced the space Force's goal of establishing a new space force Futures command can you share a little bit about the resource requirements for this new command and how it fits into the overall National Security strategy well I think the resourcing requirements are actually

2:39:35 going to be fairly modest uh we've been doing a lot of these activities but we've just been doing them in a very disaggregated kind of way uh we have our space War fighting analysis Center out in Colorado Springs which does some of the heavy data driven analytics for our Force designs but we didn't have a place that was actually focused on uh figuring out which techn Technologies to pursue what are the right operational Concepts to pursue and then a place where we could validate those using wargaming and modeling and simulation and so what Futures command does is it pulls those all under a single Commander that'll have responsibility for that end to-end Enterprise approach great and and secretary Kendall the Air Force recently announced it's plan to reoptimize its force uh based on global competition however shortly after where the defense Appropriations bill for fiscal year 24 was published citing concerns regarding the Air Force justification for organization which concerned me too uh do you have any concerns with the current plan to redesignate funding for this as Congressional special interests uh interject itself we we understand the

2:40:37 congress's concerns um and we're going to work very closely as as we develop detailed plans with the Congress and meet the requirements of the law u i I understand the the the nervousness if you will about moving uh people and organizations around and making fundamental changes we're going to try to avoid that we're going to try to keep the cost to a minimum uh but there will be some we're going to want to work with the Congress on that so I I don't have any problem with the provision and law that that was enacted and we're going to comply with it and we're going to try to lean forward to work closely with the Congress so that there's you know plenty of advanced notice about anything that we're thinking about doing what's the biggest challenge in reconciliation between those two uh maybe conflicting uh viewpoints as far as uh moving forward and reorganizing a way that's I don't see a fundamental conflict we we we tried to communicate to the Congress what we intended to do before we announced our decisions we hadn't planned all the details yet at that time we're still working on that and as we go through that we're going to work closely with the Congress great and general Alvin

2:41:38 I'll I'll talk to you offline almost out of time right now I would to talk to you about your medical stuff since near and dear to my heart as a former uh Navy ER doc we got some issues in the in the Air Force but we'll talk later thank you with that t gentleman from Guam Mr moand is recognized thank you Mr chairman uh secretary kle you provided our office with Typhoon marir recovery cost estimate thank you for that and in the statement there's approximately 1.3 billion in fsrm and 7.9 billion in milcom I assume this covers base housing and if so the economic benefit for my constituents would be great and it would reduce the Air Force Reliance on local housing markets that said can you please elaborate on some of the specific housing projects that involved with this line of accounting Congressman I'm going to have to get back to you on the record for that I can't go I'm not in a position to

2:42:39 go into the details on that um the what you just held up is our estimate for what we need to do as a result of typhoon maw uh D Al and I just there as you know and we saw you know some of that damage firsthand uh we were working within the department to put together a supplemental to try to address those those issues that we haven't been able to move that forward yet but we hope we can still do that um Guam is a hugely important base to us Anderson Airfield is very important to us there were a lot of plans to increase the capacity and the resilience of the base uh so we need to move forward on both of those fronts to get to where we need to be for such a critical Hub in the Pacific when those numbers come come through I'll be really interested to review I appreciate that and thank you for visiting the island as well uh next question General Alin the University of Guam has an army RC program which has produced amazing officers and leaders who have positively impacted our Island uh that said I wonder if there's any opportunity to expand an Air Force ROTC Branch uh would

2:43:39 you be able to speak on some feasibility of offering Air Force RC to our college students who attend the University of Guam yes thank you for that and and we certainly can of course our our Air Force RTC program is is run through air education training command air University uh but uh certainly we have 145 uh detachments across and so just an application from the UN from the University and a conversation will certainly be willing to take that on I I'll let the president know that and we'll send it your way I appreciate that thank you um secret Gary kle just a final question a major focus on the sustainment of our Armed Forces is recruiting efforts obviously and today we have Air Force Army Marine Corps and navy jrc programs on the island this leads to the patriotism of the people of Guam but leaning back into the air force can you briefly tell me about the about air University Flight Academy program tailored to the Air Force jrc and I believe you know so I believe this will

2:44:40 be a great program like this to provide extremely beneficial to the Recruitment and sustainment of the future Air Force for our people of Guam as well uh it's a program where people in uh uh Air Force JROTC can apply for opportunities to fly we've had one person from Guam I think take advantage of this it's been a few years since that was done uh but it's it's it's a good program and if you meet the requirements and so on um we'd be happy to include people from guaman additional people from guaman we have great Skies over in Guam to and little traffic so that would be a great program us as well I thank you um very much to the panel Mr chair i y back I think the gentlemen I think the witnesses uh as we have heard here today there are many threats and challenges facing our nation but I am confident that you gentlemen in the services you represent are up to the challenge and uh with that we are

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