Hearing of the Senate Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee of the Armed Services Committee - Mark Up of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Hearing

I want to thank everyone. The Readiness and Management Support Subcommittee will come to order. The subcommittee meets today to mark up the original bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016. I want to thank Ranking Member Kaine. It has been a pleasure to work with you on this subcommittee and to work together. I also want to thank the staff who have worked very hard on this. The minority staff: John Quirk, Mike Noblet, and Ozge Guzelsu, as well as military legislative assistant Ryan Colvert. I want to thank the majority staff as well: Cord Sterling, Bill Greenwalt, Brad Patout, Jeremy Hayes, and Elizabeth Everett, as well as my staff: Brad Bowman, Rob Ganim, Ryan Clark, and Matt Reeder.

I am pleased to preside over this Readiness Subcommittee mark, which can occur in an open mark in a very transparent way. Before proceeding, I want to make a few comments about this mark. The Readiness mark seeks to prioritize operations and maintenance funding that is essential to military readiness while seeking to streamline and cut funding for headquarters management and overhead, which have grown dramatically. And then to use the savings to fund core readiness priorities and procure important combat assets, and we will discuss this further in the full mark.

The Readiness mark also authorizes $8.4 billion for military construction housing program, energy conservation, and other activities. And there is one project that is missing that I want to speak to which I have an amendment, which I will not be offering in this subcommittee, but will be seeking to bring forward and discuss in the full committee. And that is an amendment that I have that is co- sponsored by Senator Shaheen and Rounds.

At the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, there is a junior enlisted barracks that I had the chance to visit on Friday, and this is for our junior sailors. When they are maintaining the attack submarines, they can stay in these barracks for up to 18 months. Originally the Department of Defense had this as a priority in '15, then moved it to a priority in '16, and now they have it in '18. My amendment, which I will discuss in the full committee, would move it back from '18 to '16, and let me tell you why.

When I went there on Friday, I saw firsthand, number one, there is no fire suppression system for this barracks, and so I am worried about the safety of these sailors, junior enlisted sailors, should they try to leave the barracks and there is a fire situation. There is also no ventilation system. There is intermittent hot water where they have to sometimes take people out of the barracks and put them in local hotels, but obviously hot water is important if you are going to be someplace for 18 months and you would like to take a shower. In addition to that, there is mold that has been found in the walls, and you can imagine what that would do with a lack of any ventilation system. And then there is asbestos in the floors.

So I am waiting to speak this afternoon to the vice chief of the Navy, and looking forward to speaking to her about getting some clarity from the Navy that this is one of their unfunded priorities, and then we can discuss this in the full committee. I want to thank certainly Senator Shaheen and Rounds for co-sponsoring this effort.

I am pleased that the Air Force's budget does include a $2.8 million request to upgrade the flight simulator building at Pease Air National Guard Base to prepare for the arrival of the KC-46A. The Air Force has also included on its unfunded priority list a request for $1.3 million for the KC-46A trainer, and I am pleased that the mark authorizes these projects to allow the basing of the KC-46A going forward at Pease.

The Readiness mark also includes important acquisition reform provisions. In this era of growing threats and shrinking defense budgets, the old methods of acquisition and all of the information that we have all received in this committee of acquisition overruns are no longer sufficient, and I know all of us share this concern. We owe our troops the best equipment, and we owe hard-paying taxpayers -- hardworking taxpayers responsible stewardship of their dollars. So for that reason, I am pleased that the Readiness mark puts forward a significant number of historic acquisition reform initiatives that are designed to get our troops what they need more quickly, more efficiently, and in a cost-effective manner.

I am also pleased that the Readiness mark includes My Best Value contracting provision. Our troops who put their lives on the line for our freedom and security, when we are talking about their personal equipment that keeps them safe, the cheapest is not always the best, and we need to make sure that they have the best to remain safe. In combat as well as in training, quality personal protective equipment, like body armor and helmets, can prevent serious injuries and means a very big difference between life and death from those who sacrifice the most for our Nation.

We heard testimony at the beginning of the Readiness Subcommittee about the Department's request, one of the first hearings we had for another request for a base realignment and closure round. We saw with the 2005 base realignment and closure round that the Department -- that whole round cost a lot more than we anticipated, and we did not see the cost savings that we thought we would achieve from that.

So at a time when the Department cannot afford to fully fund key readiness requirements, I do not support giving the Department the authority to pursue a BRAC round. This mark does not authorize another BRAC round, and includes a provision that makes clear that nothing in the act shall be construed to authorize an additional BRAC round. In the past, the subcommittee has used the chairman's mark as the markup vehicle subject to amendment. The staff has briefed the markup recommendations in detail to the staff of the subcommittee members. Unless there is an objection, we will adopt the chairman's mark subject to amendment. There being no objection, it is so ordered.

Chairman McCain has expressed a concern that we ensure that when we ask the Department of Defense to provide a reporting requirement that we are thoughtful in doing so to ensure that they can focus on their core functions. Therefore, any member of this subcommittee who would like to adopt an amendment that requires the Department to prepare a report must make their amendment pending as we go through this subcommittee markup. At this point, I would like to offer Ranking Member Senator Kaine the opportunity to make an opening statement, and I thank Senator Kaine.

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