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

Well, thank you all, and I would like to thank Chairwoman Ayotte. It is a treat to work with you and your staff and the staff of the subcommittee. I thank everyone for their efforts.

Just a word of, you know, news about the real world consequence here as we begin. The Navy has informed us just recently that in the last hour or two that an F/A-18 Super Hornet that took off on the Teddy Roosevelt, which is deployed from Norfolk into the 5th AOR to support Operation Inherent Resolve, crashed today after takeoff. The pilots as we understand were both rescued alive, and the cause of the crash is unknown. But, you know, you would not necessarily know it from discussion here on the floor, but there is a war going on, and people are risking their lives every day. And we pray that the news about both these pilots being safe is, in fact, accurate.

I am honored to serve on this subcommittee and serve with Senator Ayotte and all of you. Our military continues to face a degraded state of readiness as we have heard over and over again in hearing after hearing both at the subcommittee and at the full committee level. And I believe that a continuation of sequestration level budget caps in Fiscal Year 2016 will make that problem worse over the years.

We heard from Retired General Mattis at the beginning of the year, and he said it best before SASC, "No foe could wreak such havoc on our security that mindless sequestration is achieving." And the fact that it is self-imposed makes me feel a little squeamish. If sequestration level budget caps continue in Fiscal Year 2016, disproportionate amounts will be taken out of operation and maintenance accounts, which falls heavily within the Readiness Subcommittee.

So I hope that we will work together in the NDAA, but certainly beyond the appropriations process to find a better way than the budget caps. If they remain in place, we will subject DoD to conditions that are not really strategically optimal to protecting the Nation.

The chairman's mark proposes transferring $38.9 million in O&M from the base budget into OCO to bring the base authorization below the BCA cap and avoid sequestration. DoD deserves a lasting solution to sequestration, not a temporary one. In the chairman's mark, there is a significant cut that I am disappointed to see, cutting O&M from the military services and defense-wide agencies by $1.7billion, a sizable cut for "streamlining" headquarters. And I think it is important that we kind of point out what that would mean. These cuts would take effect by next year and certainly have a negative effect on our defense community, including in Virginia. Secretary Carter has worked since 2013 to implement a long-term strategy that would reduce overhead in headquarters without causing large- scale layoffs or cuts to vital programs. Headquarters -- what "headquarters" means is either abrupt layoffs to DoD personnel or more likely cuts to programs because headquarters includes programs such as funeral honors for service members and veterans, suicide prevention, sexual assault prevention, audit support as we are trying to get audited financial statements from the DoD, the acquisition workforce as we are trying to form acquisition processes at the DoD.

These are all areas where we have worked hard, and there are ongoing reforms in this mark that we are trying to promote moving forward at the same time as we may cut the staff to do it. I would hope that we would not jeopardize our ability to move forward on these important reforms. During the full committee markup I am going to offer an amendment on this, but not here during the subcommittee. There are many readiness priorities in the mark that are very solid: increases in O&M funding for crucial programs aimed at restoring readiness, $401.6 million increase to O&M for depot maintenance, flying operations, cyber training, reducing insider threat attacks, very important, behavioral health counseling, and other important priorities. In the area of MILCON, I am pleased that we were able to pay for about $400 million worth of projects identified by service chiefs and combatant commands as priority unfunded requirements.

I am particularly pleased to see adding new fire suppression, fire station, fire safety at Quantico where all
Marine officers are trained and equipment concentration points at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. I also strongly support a provision allowing DoD labs, important DoD labs, to begin addressing long-term facilities deficiencies.

This subcommittee mark, the chairwoman led a subcommittee hearing on acquisition reform, and it is important to note that there are 50 different acquisition reform provisions in this subcommittee mark. This is a serious aspect of this NDAA, and that is laudatory to help us better reform our system, making it more agile and responsive, helping to control costs. And I am pleased to say in addition, the mark fully funds the President's request for environmental programs.

So to conclude, Senator Ayotte, thank you for your leadership as the chair of the subcommittee. You mentioned a lot of staffers, and I will not repeat all their names. But to the Readiness Subcommittee's majority and minority professional staff members who work so cooperatively together, to Brad Bowman, your military LA, and Ryan

Colvert, my military LA, and especially to the Readiness staff assistant, Leah Schuenemann, who put together the markup book, which without that, we would not know what to do sitting here.

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