Hearing of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee - The Military Construction Budget Request

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SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D-WA): Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for holding this hearing. I do not have an opening statement, but I will reserve my time for questioning. Thank you.

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SEN. MURRAY: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

As you probably know the decision on the KCX tanker recapitalization has been a very important issue to me and I have been asking a number of questions to get -- try and get more complete understanding of how that decision was made.

And I would like to know what role OSD played in the need of for military construction funds on that contract and wondered if you can tell me what interaction your office had in the evaluation and planning for the MILCON costs that are associated with the KCX tanker.

MR. ARNY: That was handled by the services during the execution and -- as part of the -- I know we and OSD -- I just got here -- but we and OSD had no interaction on that.

SEN. MURRAY: You had no interaction or anything, well.

MR. ARNY: Not that I know off.

SEN. MURRAY: Our budgets are extremely tight and we have got to be able to fully plan for the costs that are associated, and so we need some complete answers on the total costs of that contract.

The secretary of defense obviously, is responsible for proper planning for our military, so I do have a few questions that I would like you to consider. You may not be able to answer them but if you can get them back to me, I would appreciate it.

I'm told that the evaluation of MILCON costs associated with the KCX was normalized to the one base where the Boeing 767 and the Airbus A330 cost difference was the smallest.

It seems to me it would make more sense to have a complete and robust evaluation of MILCON costs for all KCX bases performed. Do you have comment on that?

MR. ARNY: No, I have to get back to you on it.

SEN. MURRAY: You have to --

MR. ARNY: All right, I just -- I'm not familiar with the issue.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay. If you could get back. I would like to know -- well, I do know that there will associated costs with either the 767 or the Airbus, but I would like to know how the difference in size and weight of those two tankers was considered in the evaluation when that was done, and what oversight DOD has on -- when a service is preparing for a major procurement.

So if you could -- if you can answer -- well -- and you probably don't know about the size and weight and whether that was in the evaluation, but maybe you can answer the question for me.

What oversight does DOA have -- DOD have when a major procurement is happening with one of the Services?

MS. JONAS: Senator, that would fall under the purview of our Under Secretary for Acquisition and Technology and Logistics John Young. We would be happy to have his staff get back with you on this particular matter.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay, do you -- you don't know if he had any oversight --

MR. ARNY: I know he was overseeing it, but I don't -- (cross talk.)

MS. JONAS: But we don't know the details of it.

SEN. MURRAY: All right. Well, if you could get back to me on the first part of that. And I also like to know about the participation of active duty National Guard, Air Force Reserves, all of them have individual needs of their own on in this contract and I would like to know whether the active duty and Reserve component provided cost estimates too on the Defense Department, if they were being considered, if you could find that out for me?

MR. ARNY: We'll do it.

SEN. MURRAY: And also I want to know about the construction costs for hangars, ramps, taxiways all of those things.

If you can let us know what -- whether that was evaluated and what those costs were associated with this contract.

MR. ARNY: We'll do it.

SEN. MURRAY: And finally, I did want to know if the dollars for the increased MILCON required to bed down the next generation tanker was included in the five-year budget plan, you might know that.

MR. ARNY: I will check on it for you.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay. All right, because I'm very concerned. I think because obviously, with this new tanker construction will have to begin in FY '09 or '10 in order to be ready for the first delivery of the tankers.

So this is something this committee needs to understand. So if you could please get that back for me. And I do have a couple of other questions in regards to that.

But I would really appreciate if you could get those questions back to me. It will have military construction impact force and I want to know if that was ever considered, what was considered, how it was evaluated, and what it's going to cost us?

Let me go to joint basing then. Obviously, I hear a lot about it McChord and Fort Lewis are in my state and I know it's not an easy undertaking. I was listening carefully to your comments on that.

I do understand the Air Force will have the supportive component at Lewis/McChord. But the airfield operations, from what I understand, are going to remain under the Air Force scope, so I wanted to know, does that mean that they are also in charge of the Ford Lewis Airfield operations?

MR. ARNY: Yes and no. We have -- in the case of the Army, the Marine Corps and the Navy, airfield operations is not considered and -- it is considered an installation function. So in the case of McGuire-Lakehurst-Dix both the Army and the Navy were happy with the Air Force running the airfield.

And as an old naval aviator myself as, you know, the squadron came in -- as long as somebody was there to pump fuel I didn't care if he belonged to the Air Wing or he belonged to the base, as long as somebody -- as long as there was an airfield that didn't have a big fat hole in it I didn't worry about it.

But in the Air Force their philosophy is different and airfield operations is truly core mission because deploy their whole air wings, the Navy deploys by squadrons and it's a different organization.

So what we did for those air fields is we said, okay for -- there are only three bases affected Lewis, McCord, Guam and Hickam -- Pearl Harbor Hickam.

In that case all of the real property -- the hangers, the flight line, the runway itself all that transfers to the lead service. So Fort Lewis will own all of the facilities.

The flight operations themselves for McChord will be run by the wing commander, okay.

SEN. MURRAY: What about the Fort Lewis airfield?

MR. ARNY: Now, Fort Lewis -- what we said is Fort Lewis the Army can still run it, or if the Army wants the Air Force to do it, it doesn't prevent it.

Right now, it's an option for the base. So the flight ops at Fort Lewis right now are being run by the Army. When -- now, the two bases are sitting down starting two weeks ago to --

SEN. MURRAY: You're telling me it's undecided.

MR. ARNY: It's -- it's up to them. It's up to them how they want to do it.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay. I also wanted to get your reaction to the fact that I have heard from some Air Force personnel that the Army is used to living their way and that the Army housing is substandard to the Air Force and wondered what you thought of that?

MR. ARNY: It's a difference between perception and reality.

The Air Force has always believed -- and as old navy guy, and my both sons are naval officers -- frankly, in -- prior to housing privatization, I probably couldn't disagree with you.

SEN. MURRAY: I didn't say Air Force personnel -- (inaudible.)

MR. ARNY: Well, I couldn't disagree with them. There was always a perception that -- the standard joke in the Navy was the Air Force goes to build a base, they build the officers club, they build the golf course, they build the exchange and then they come back to Congress to get more money to build the airfield. That was the standard joke.

But the -- we believe especially with housing privatization that the housing is standard across all the Services now.

That not withstanding, one of the biggest -- one of the most important efforts we have done over the past three years is to develop common standards of output of -- for levels of service.

SEN. MURRAY: I think whatever service you're in, you ought to get the same standard of living conditions.

MR. ARNY: And that's what we have done. And the joint bases -- and that's why we have had all the services together. They have all agreed these are the standards. So if at a particular base the standard for housing is lower, we are going to raise that standard.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay.

MR. ARNY: If the standard for service for childcare is different it is now going to be the same on the joint bases. So if you go from one part of the joint base to the other the standard will be the same -- (cross talk.)

SEN. MURRAY: Well, I think the perception of the Air Force personnel saying that to me is we don't want to go down to the Army standard. I think --

MR. ARNY: No, they are coming up that was a point. We all had to agree on --

SEN. MURRAY: I think that attitude needs to be, we are going to bring them up to our standard.

MR. ARNY: Yeah. Well, in any case sometimes the standard they thought was coming up to wasn't any different than the other standard, there was a perception, whereas the reality, we have all agreed on the what the standard is.

Whether its -- we have all agreed -- the Services have all agreed on the services we are going to provide

SEN. MURRAY: Okay. Thank you very much and thank you Mr. Chairman.

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SEN. MURRAY: Okay, well, I would like to go a step further. Would you be willing to recommend to the Army a step forward in developing, because they do have some hesitancy which I understand there as pressing them to at least explore the option of a pilot that they could test before they decide to move forward and workout whatever kinks there are. I'm sure there will be some.

Would you be willing to think about a pilot and would Fort Polk maybe be in a position to service one of those pilots?

MR. ARNY: Well, given the efforts that they have already made, I think, it's definitely a possibility and I would be happy to. Once the new installation deputy assistant secretary who is a former Navy facilities engineering command, so he has more familiarity with that thing.

SEN. MURRAY: And I understand that family housing would be at a greater priority than single housing. But I think that all housing and quality-of-life issues is very important with the volunteer force, and we're trying to retain the best and the brightest.

And I do believe that these quality-of-life issues is very, very important and to serve in Iraq, I understand that the housing in Iraq actually on the frontline is better than these soldiers have when they are at Fort Polk.

And that it is just not -- I just don't think that that is appropriate, so I appreciate that.

My second question, I'm going to ask it now, but it really is for the Navy. But because both Senator Hutchison and I are co-chairing something that starts at 11:00 o'clock, Mr. Chairman, and I have to slip out. I would like just to place this question to the record and if you, Mr. Arny, would like to respond that's great.

Perhaps the next panel could respond to this in my absence. We had as you know, you mentioned Hurricane Katrina, where we have been dealing with that now for three years. It will be the anniversary in August.

Right before Katrina, the BRAC commission visited New Orleans, and in their group tour of the country, and actually recommended that the Naval support activity be realigned.

The commission stated that if our state would put up some additional funding and the federal city project begun on September 30, of '08, the Marine forces' reserve headquarters was to be relocated at the Naval support activity base on the West Bank property.

The state of Louisiana has moved forward basically on that recommendation. I think if the entire BRAC commission, there were only two revisions, Mr. Chairman, on site when the commission came, and ours was one because we basically convinced them that their original recommendation would cost the government much more money than what our recommendation was, and they accepted it.

And they made the change. We were only one of two in the country. So this is following up on that sort of, you know, idea that our locals had; but the problem now is that the Marines that are saying that they are open to moving and the Coast Guard is making this, now they're headquarters, they are claiming that the burden that they're going to have to pick up is more than if they would sort of stay where they are.

Now where they are is unacceptable. I know you probably aren't familiar with this exact situation, but could I have your commitment to look into it and see if we could, you know, just make sure the Marines are getting all the information that they need so we can move forward under the recommendation actually of the BRAC commission.

MR. ARNY: Be glad to.

SEN. MURRAY: Okay, if you would, and we'll submit more questions along that line and I appreciate it because the final thing, Mr. Chairman, this federal city project is one of the very big projects that were just about ready to take off and Katrina and Rita hit, and the city was devastated. The great news is this West Bank facility had hardly any damage and was on high ground on the West Bank.

So it really is like putting a flag up for this whole region, as this federal city project comes together, Coast Guard and Marine Reserve sharing it, it's going to really realign our buildings very nicely and maybe use some of the older buildings that people are moving from to convert to some new opportunities for the region.

So it is more than just a base alignment. It's really helping the region to recover and I'd appreciate some special attention if you don't mind.

MR. : Glad to.

SEN. MURRAY: Thank you so much.

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