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i 

80–757 2013

[H.A.S.C. No. 113–28] 

HEARING 

ON

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT 

FOR FISCAL YEAR 2014 

AND

OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED 

PROGRAMS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FULL COMMITTEE HEARING 

ON

BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE 

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 

HEARING HELD 

APRIL 16, 2013 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS

HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, California, Chairman 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

JEFF MILLER, Florida 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

JOHN FLEMING, Louisiana 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

E. SCOTT RIGELL, Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

JOSEPH J. HECK, Nevada 

JON RUNYAN, New Jersey 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi 

MARTHA ROBY, Alabama 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

KRISTI L. NOEM, South Dakota 

PAUL COOK, California 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

JACKIE WALORSKI, Indiana 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa 

NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., Georgia 

COLLEEN W. HANABUSA, Hawaii 

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

RON BARBER, Arizona 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire 

DANIEL B. MAFFEI, New York 

DEREK KILMER, Washington 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

WILLIAM L. ENYART, Illinois 

PETE P. GALLEGO, Texas 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

ROBERT L. SIMMONS II, Staff Director 

DAVE SIENICKI, Professional Staff Member 

PHIL MACNAUGHTON, Professional Staff Member 

AARON FALK, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2013 

Page 

HEARING: 

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, Fiscal Year 2014 National Defense Authorization 

Budget Request from the Department of the Navy ........................................... 1 

APPENDIX: 

Tuesday, April 16, 2013 .......................................................................................... 51 

TUESDAY, APRIL 16, 2013 

FISCAL YEAR 2014 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BUDGET 

REQUEST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck,’’ a Representative from California, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services .................................................................. 1 

Sanchez, Hon. Loretta, a Representative from California, Committee on 

Armed Services ..................................................................................................... 2 

WITNESSES 

Amos, Gen James F., USMC, Commandant, U.S. Marine Corps ........................ 8 

Greenert, ADM Jonathan W., USN, Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Navy ...... 6 

Mabus, Hon. Ray, Secretary of the Navy .............................................................. 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Amos, Gen James F. ......................................................................................... 126 

Greenert, ADM Jonathan W. ........................................................................... 101 

Mabus, Hon. Ray .............................................................................................. 57 

McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ .................................................................... 55 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Charts from ADM Greenert ............................................................................. 179 

CSBA charts ...................................................................................................... 181 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Mr. Bridenstine ................................................................................................. 190 

Mr. Langevin ..................................................................................................... 185 

Mr. Rogers ......................................................................................................... 186 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 187 

(1) 

FISCAL YEAR 2014 NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION BUDGET REQUEST FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF 

THE NAVY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, Washington, DC, Tuesday, April 16, 2013. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in room 

2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ 

McKeon (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ‘‘BUCK’’ MCKEON, 

A REPRESENTATIVE FROM CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

The CHAIRMAN. Committee will come to order. Before we start 

today, I think it is only appropriate that we pause for a moment 

of silence in remembrance of the victims of yesterday’s Boston attacks. 

[Moment of silence.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I know the thoughts and prayers of everyone in 

this committee and in this room are with the families and those of 

who have lost loved ones and those who have suffered injuries at 

this time. 

Thank you for joining us today as we consider the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget request for the Department of the Navy. I appreciate our witnesses’ testimony here today and their support of 

our naval forces. The Navy and the Marine Corps team continue 

to serve in a stressed environment. And in my estimation the fundamentals are unsustainable. 

The sustained surge that the Navy continues to employ to meet 

the combatant commander requirements have driven our force 

structure to the ragged edge. Surface ship deployments of 7 to 9 

months are the new normal. While the material readiness of our 

surface forces has shown some improvement over the last year, 

these improvements will be reversed as we begin to implement sequestration. 

As the Marine Corps they continue on a path of contraction, reducing to a force structure of 182,000 Marines. Their materiel readiness after a decade of war is at abysmal lows. At this force structure level and with this materiel readiness, the Marine Corps will 

be challenged to meet our global commitments. And make no mistake about it, these challenges will invariably lead to placing more 

and more of our service members at risk in future conflicts. 

Ironically, the sustained Navy force deployment model and Marine Corps force structure reductions will be further exacerbated 

with this administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget request. Instead 
2 

of adding ships and force structure to reverse this sustained surge, 

the Navy is preparing to accelerate the retirement of ships and reduce the combat force structure to an all-time low of 273 ships. 

This reduced force structure is in contravention to even their own 

goal of 306 ships and calls from the Independent Panel Assessment 

of the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review to support a Navy force 

of 346 ships. 

And the Marine Corps continues their general reductions. It will 

be further challenged as diminishing budgets threaten red-line determinations. Further aggravating this diminution of our force 

structure, Secretary Hagel has initiated Strategic Choices and 

Management Review that is expected to report out later this 

spring. This review will be used to inform the next Quadrennial 

Defense Review and will serve as a seminal document to inform 

other strategic documents and operational plans. Once again we 

are allowing our budget process to drive strategy, a dangerous direction for our Nation. 

My friends, our fiscal decisions have real consequences. Using 

the Department of Defense budget allocations as a tool in a grand 

budget bargain will only serve to further shrink our force structure. 

Our ability to project power in times of global instability will continue to atrophy. The risk that our marines and sailors will not return in times of future conflict will continue to grow. 

As America steps back, someone else will step forward. Now is 

the time for real leadership. I hope to do my part and reverse this 

general decline of our Navy and Marine Corps. I am pleased that 

our committee led the way during last year’s legislative cycle and 

provided the authority to retain four cruisers in fiscal year 2013 

that were slated for early retirement. 

I look forward to continuing this restraint on the administration 

to assure that our Nation is able to retain the program service life 

of our naval fleet. I understand that our committee, a reflection of 

our national ideals, is appropriately assessing the direction of our 

military. I think that we can lead from behind and quietly support 

weakening of our military, or we can seek to retain a military force 

that best serves the strategic interests of our Nation. 

I would urge the administration to share in my vision and ensure 

that our forces, if ever called to conflict, will not just win, but will 

strategically deter future aggressors from even trying to assess 

whether military conflict with the United States is a reasonable alternative. We cannot fail in this endeavor. 

Ms. Sanchez. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the Appendix on page 55.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. LORETTA SANCHEZ, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM CALIFORNIA, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And again, thank you 

gentlemen for being before us, Mr. Secretary, Admiral, General. In 

the interest of time I am not going to read the entire opening statement that Mr. Smith had. But I would like to say that today we 

are looking at the budget, the President’s proposal, which we believe is a responsible attempt to forge a grand bargain on the budget. 
3 

Some are unhappy with it because it reflects about $119 billion 

worth of cuts between years 2017 and 2023. First, let me remind 

you that this is a much smaller amount of cuts than under the current sequestration program. And secondly, the President’s budget 

also allows Congress and the administration to work together to 

make those cuts in a more flexible manner than under the sequestration law that we live under right now. And I also remind this 

committee that there were many who voted for that Budget Control 

Act. 

So it is really important for us to work together to make sure 

that we have a strong military, to make sure that our national security moves forward in these very trying times. But it is our responsibility to work together to try to make sure that we put the 

right amount of money to make sure that we are looking at our 

people’s need for this national security. 

Let me just say that I think we have to admit that we are not 

going to see increases in our defense budget in the coming years. 

Not under the financial circumstances that our country has. And 

we have been forced over the last 10 or so years, I believe, with 

two wars going on, to have seen pretty much, many increases. 

I mean we didn’t want to be in a war. We as Congresspeople 

wanted to ensure, most of us, wanted to ensure that our men and 

women in the field had the monies that they needed to insure that 

we would do our, do their job, they could do their job and we could 

bring them back. And Iraq finished last year. Afghanistan is in the 

future of the next year for a finish. 

And so in particular, I want to thank our Navy and our Marine 

Corps, all of it, from the very top, all the way to the young woman 

or man who is just getting into the corps or into the Navy. And we 

will work very hard, I am sure in a bipartisan manner, in this committee to ensure that you have the right resources and that we 

have the right policies that we can move forward and believe that 

our country is positioned correctly for the future, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And without objection we will include Mr. Smith’s total statement in the record. 

We have here today with us Secretary Mabus, Secretary of the 

Navy; Admiral Greenert, CNO [Chief of Naval Operations]; General Amos, Commandant of the Marines. 

Mr. Secretary. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RAY MABUS, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 

Secretary MABUS. I always depend on CNO for all sorts of things 

and this, this shows that, so let me start over. 

Chairman McKeon, Congresswoman Sanchez, first of all, to the 

members of this committee, thank you for your support of the Department of the Navy, our sailors, our marines, our civilian employees and our families. 

General Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and Admiral Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, and I could not be 

prouder to represent those steadfast and courageous sailors, marines and civilians. 
4 

No matter what missions are given them, no matter what hardships are asked of them, these men and women serve their Nation 

around the world with skill and dedication. 

In the past year, the Navy and Marine Corps team has continued 

to conduct a full range of military operations from combat in Afghanistan, to security cooperation missions in the Pacific, to disaster recovery operations in the streets of Staten Island. Sailors 

and marines have gotten the job done. 

As the United States transitions from two land wars in Central 

Asia to the maritime-centric defense strategy announced 15 months 

ago, our naval forces will be critical in the years ahead. 

This strategy, which focuses on the Western Pacific, the Arabian 

Gulf and continuing to build partnerships around the globe, requires a forward-deployed, flexible, multimission force that is the 

Navy and Marine Corps, America’s ‘‘away team.’’ 

Within this strategy, we have to balance our missions with our 

resources. We are working in the Department under Secretary 

Hagel’s leadership on our Strategic Choices and Management Review to assess how to deal with the budget uncertainty facing the 

Department as we go forward. 

He has directed us to review the basic assumptions that drive 

the Department’s investment in force structure, to identify institutional reforms that may be required, including those reforms that 

should be pursued regardless of fiscal pressures. 

As he said during his testimony before this committee last week, 

‘‘Everything will be on the table.’’ 2013 has been hard because we 

began the fiscal year operating under a continuing resolution that 

gave us little room to be strategic and to prioritize, limiting our 

ability to manage the Navy and Marine Corps through this new fiscal reality. 

Thanks to your efforts and your congressional colleagues, we 

have an appropriation for this fiscal year. But sequestration is still 

forcing us to make across-the-board cuts totaling more than $4 billion from our operation and maintenance accounts and about $6 

billion from our investment accounts. 

These cuts will have real impacts. We have prioritized combat 

operations in Central Command and deployments to Pacific Command. However, we have had to cancel a number of deployments 

to Southern Command. 

In order to maintain our priority deployments in 2013 and 2014 

and meet the Global Force Management Allocation Plan, funding 

shortfalls will cause our units at home to cut back training and 

maintenance. 

Pilots will get less flight time, ships will have less time at sea, 

and marines will have less time in the field. It will take longer for 

repair parts to arrive when needed. Our facilities ashore will be 

maintained at a much lower level. 

The Department’s 2014 budget request is a return to a measured 

budget approach, one based on strategy that protects the 

warfighter by advancing the priorities that I have referred to as 

the four P’s: people, platforms, power and partnerships. 

We are working to make sure our people are resilient and strong 

after more than a decade of very high operations tempo with programs like 21st Century Sailor/Marine. 
5 

With this, we aim to bring all the efforts on protection and readiness, fitness, inclusion and continuing with service together as a 

coherent whole. 

This encompasses a wide range of issues from preventing sexual 

assault and suicide to fostering a culture of fitness to strengthening 

the force through diversity, to ensuring a successful transition following 4 or 40 years of service. 

In the Marine Corps, we continue decreasing manpower to meet 

our new end strength of just over 182,000 by fiscal year 2016, but 

we are doing this in a way which helps retain the right level of 

noncommissioned officers and field-grade officers and their experience. We are also working to make sure that our sailors and marines have the tools and the platforms they need to do the missions 

they are given. One of the most important of these is our fleet. 

On September 11, 2001, the U.S. Navy had 316 ships. By 2008, 

after one of the largest military build-ups in our Nation’s history, 

that number was 278. In 2008, the Navy put only three ships 

under contract; far too few to maintain the size of the fleet or our 

industrial base. Many of our shipbuilding programs were over 

budget or over schedule or both. One of my main priorities as Secretary has been to reverse those trends. 

Today, the fleet is stabilized and the problems in most of our 

shipbuilding programs have been corrected or arrested. We have 47 

ships under contract today, 43 of which have been contracted since 

I took office, and our current shipbuilding plan puts us on track for 

300 ships in the fleet by 2019. 

The way we power our ships and our installations has always 

been a core and vital issue for the Department of the Navy. We 

continue to lead in energy as we have throughout our history. From 

sail to coal to oil to nuclear, Navy has led in moving to new sources 

of power and each time it has made us a better warfighting force. 

Today, from marines making power in the field to alternatives on 

land, on and under the sea and in the air, the Navy and Marine 

Corps are powering innovations that will maintain our operational 

edge. 

Building partnerships, interoperability and capacity and capability in our partners is a crucial component of the defense strategy. The strategy directs that this be done in a low-cost, small footprint, innovative way. That is precisely what the Navy and Marine 

Corps do. 

The process we used to craft the Department’s budget request 

was determined, deliberate and dedicated to our responsibilities to 

you and to the taxpayer. And like the House and Senate budget 

resolutions, we do not assume that sequestration will continue in 

fiscal year 2014. 

Mr. Chairman, the budget we are submitting supports the defense strategy, preserves the readiness of our people and it builds 

on the success we have achieved in shipbuilding. 

For 237 years, our maritime warriors have established a proven 

record as an agile and adaptable force. Forward-deployed, we remain the most responsive option to defend the American people 

and our interests. 

Thank you very much. 
6 

[The prepared statement of Secretary Mabus can be found in the 

Appendix on page 57.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Admiral. 

STATEMENT OF ADM JONATHAN W. GREENERT, USN, CHIEF 

OF NAVAL OPERATIONS, U.S. NAVY 

Admiral GREENERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished 

members of the committee. It is my pleasure to appear before you 

today to testify on the Navy’s fiscal year 2014 budget and posture. 

I am honored to represent 613,000 Active and Reserve sailors, 

Navy civilians and their families who are serving today. This morning, I want to address three points: our enduring tenets for decisionmaking, our budget strategy for 2013 and the subsequent carryover into 2014 and the course that we are on for 2014. 

Two important characteristics of our naval forces describe our 

mandate that we will operate forward where it matters and that 

we will be ready when it matters. 

Your Navy and Marine Corps are uniquely qualified to immediately respond to crises to assure allies, build partnerships, deter 

aggression and to contain conflict. 

Our fundamental approach to meeting this responsibility remains unchanged. We organize, man, train and equip the Navy by 

viewing our decisions through three lenses, or you can call them tenets, and they are warfighting first, operate forward and be ready. 

Regardless of the size of our budget or our fleet, these three tenets—these are the lenses through which we evaluate and we conduct each decision. 

Now, if you refer to the chart that I have provided in front of 

you, for each of you, you will see that on any given day we have 

about 50,000 sailors and about 100 ships deployed overseas providing forward presence. 

[The chart referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 

179.] 

Admiral GREENERT. There are orange bowties on the chart and 

they represent the maritime crossroads. Those are the key straits, 

the key ‘‘choke points’’ some call them, where shipping lanes and 

our security concerns intersect. 

A unique strength of your fleet is that it operates forward from 

U.S. bases and they are represented on this chartlet by circles. You 

will recognize those. 

But there are places, and these are provided by partner nations, 

and they are represented by squares around the world. 

These places are critical to your Navy being where it matters because they enable us to respond rapidly to crises and they enable 

us to sustain forward presence with fewer ships by reducing the 

number of ships on rotational deployments. These places are important. 

Now, when I last testified to this committee in February, we faced, in the Navy, a shortfall of about $8.6 billion in our fiscal 

2013 operations and maintenance account. 

Now, since then, thanks to the Congress’ efforts, we received a 

2013 appropriation in March. And, in accordance with our priorities and tenets, we plan to invest our remaining 2013 operation 
7 

and maintenance funds to take care of our must-pay items, such 

as payroll, leases, utilities. 

We will reconcile our 2013 presence with our combatant commanders. We will conduct training and maintenance for forces next 

to deploy and prepare to meet our 2014 Global Force Management 

Allocation Plan. That is our demand signal, that is our covenant 

with the combatant commanders. And we will restore critical base 

operations and renovation projects. 

Now, though we intend to meet our most critical operational 

commitments to the combatant commanders, sequestration leaves 

us with a $4 billion operations and maintenance shortfall and a $6 

billion investment shortfall in 2013. 

And this is going to result in our surge capacity—the surge capacity of fully mission-capable carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups, just to list the big ones—being reduced through 

2014. 

Now, further, we will have deferred about $1.2 billion in facility 

maintenance as well as depot-level maintenance for 84 aircraft and 

104 engines and that is just representative of some of this deferral 

that we will have to do. 

When you consolidate operations and maintenance and invest- ment shortfalls together, that leaves us with about a $9 billion carryover that will go into 2014 and that is what we will have to deal 

with right away. 

A continuation of sequestration in 2014 is going to compound this carryover challenge and it will go from $9 billion to $23 billion. 

That would be my 2014 challenge. 

Further, the accounts and activities that we were able to protect 

in 2013, such as manpower, nuclear maintenance, critical fleet operations, to name a few, they will be liable to reduction. 

Our people have remained resilient in the face of this uncertainty. And, frankly, Mr. Chairman, I have been amazed at our 

sailors and their civilians and their patience and in their dedication throughout all of this. 

Our 2014 budget submission supports the defense strategic guidance. It will enable us to maintain our commitments in the Middle 

East and our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. Now, we prepared this 

budget with the following priorities. 

Number one, we have got to deliver the overseas presence in accordance with the Global Force Management Allocation Plan. That 

is my demand signal. That is my covenant to the combatant commanders. 

Number two, we will continue near-term investments, ones that 

we started last year with your help, and continue this year into 

next year to address challenges in the Middle East and the AsiaPacific. 

And three, we will develop long-term capabilities, focus in on 

asymmetric capabilities, capabilities others don’t have, at the appropriate capacity to address warfighting challenges in the Middle 

East and Asia-Pacific and other combatant commander areas of responsibility. 

Our budget submission continues to invest in the future fleet. We 

take care of our people. We build ships and aircraft, and we will 

invest in research and development for new technology. We have 
8 

requested $44 billion in ships, submarines, manned and unmanned 

aircraft, weapons, cyber and other procurement, programs such as 

the SSBNX, that is the Ohio replacement [submarine] program, the 

Virginia-class submarine, the Joint Strike Fighter, Littoral Combat 

Ships, unmanned aerial vehicles of the tactical nature, DDG–1000 

[USS Zumwalt], and the P–8 [Boeing P–8 Poseidon], just to name 

the highlights. 

These investments that will deliver a fleet, as Secretary Mabus 

said, of about 300 ships—of 300 ships in 2019. And these ships will 

have greater interoperability and flexibility when compared to today’s fleet. 

We continue to fund important capabilities, such as the laser 

weapon system for small boat and drone defense, which will continue testing aboard the ship Ponce, here in the spring of 2014. We 

will deploy that soon. Also, in 2014, we will deploy on the aircraft 

carrier George Herbert Walker Bush, a successfully tested prototype 

system to detect and defeat advanced wave-combing torpedoes, a 

major vulnerability that we had reconciled. 

We continue to grow manpower, 900 in the net in 2014, as we 

focus on reducing our manning gaps at sea, as we enhance Navy 

cyber capabilities. And we will continue to address our critical 

readiness and safety degraders, sexual assault prevention, suicide 

prevention, sailor resilience, and our family support programs. 

So Mr. Chairman, your Navy will continue to ensure our Nation’s 

security and prosperity by operating forward to assure access to 

the maritime crossroads. We are going to be present where it matters, and we are going to be there when it matters. This budget 

places our Navy on a course which will enable us to meet the requirements of the defense strategic guidance today, while building 

a viable future force and sustaining our manpower for tomorrow. 

We appreciate everything you and this committee have done for 

our sailors and our civilians and their families. And we ask, again, 

for your support in removing the burden of sequestration so that 

we can better train, equip, and deploy these brave men and women 

in defense of our Nation. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Admiral Greenert can be found in the 

Appendix on page 101.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

General. 

STATEMENT OF GEN JAMES F. AMOS, USMC, COMMANDANT, 

U.S. MARINE CORPS 

General AMOS. Chairman McKeon, members of the committee, I 

am pleased to appear before you today to outline the 2013 posture 

of your United States Marine Corps. 

I am equally pleased to be sitting alongside my service secretary, 

the Honorable Ray Mabus, and my good friend and fellow Joint 

Chief, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations. 

For more than 237 years, your corps has been a people-intense 

force. We have always known our greatest asset is the individual 

marine. Our unique role as America’s premier crisis response force 

is grounded in a legendary character and warfighting ethos of our 

people. Today’s marines are ethical warriors, forged by challenging 

training and made wise through decades of combat. You can take 
9 

pride in knowing that as we gather here in this storied hearing 

room, some 30,000 marines are forward deployed around the world, 

promoting peace, protecting our Nation’s interest, and securing its 

defense. 

Sergeant Major Barrett and I recently returned from Afghanistan and—and can attest to the progress there. Marines have given 

the Afghan people the vision of success and the possibility of a secure and prosperous society. I am bullish about the positive assistance we are providing the people of the Helmand province, and I 

remain optimistic about their future. 

Afghan’s security forces have the lead now in most every operation we do. Our commanders and their marines assess the Afghan 

national security forces as over-matching the Taliban in every single way and in every single engagement. 

Speaking today as both a service chief and as a member of the 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, the foundations of the defense strategic guidance depends upon our regional stability and international order to 

underwrite the global economic system. Failing to provide leadership in the collective security of the global order will have significant consequences for the American people. 

Worse, a lapse in American leadership and forward engagement 

will create a void in which lasting security threats will be left 

unaddressed, and new security challenges will find room to grow. 

The reality of today’s security environment reveals the value of forward naval presence. With declining resources to address the 

emerging security challenges, neo-isolationism does not advance 

our Nation’s national interest. 

Forward deployed sea-based naval forces do, however. They support our proactive security strategy while remaining capable of 

shaping, deterring, and rapidly responding to crisis, all while treading lightly on our allies and our partners’ sovereign territory. 

Amphibious forces are a sensible and unmistakable solution in 

preserving our national security. Naval forces, and the Marine 

Corps, in particular, are our Nation’s insurance policy, a hedge 

against uncertainty, a hedge against an unpredictable world. A balanced air-ground logistics team, we respond in hours and days to 

America’s needs, not in weeks and in months. This is our raison 

d’eˆtre. It has always been that way. 

This year’s baseline budget submission of $24.2 billion was 

framed by our following service priorities. First, we will continue 

to provide the best trained and equipped marines and their units 

in Afghanistan. Second, we will protect the readiness of our forward-deployed rotational forces around the world. Third, we will 

reset and reconstitute our operational forces as our marines and 

equipment return from nearly 12 years of continuous combat. 

Fourth, as much as is humanly possible, we will modernize our 

force through investing in the individual marine first, and by replacing aging combat systems next. And, lastly, we will keep faith 

with our marines, our sailors, and our families. 

Ladies and gentlemen, your Marine Corps is well aware of the 

fiscal realities confronting our Nation. During these times of constrained resources, the Marine Corps remains committed to being 

responsible stewards of scarce public funds. 
10 

In closing, the success of your marines and your Marine Corps 

is directly linked to the unwavering support of Congress and the 

American people. You have my promise that during our economic 

challenges, the Marine Corps will only ask for what it needs, not 

for what it might want. 

We will continue to prioritize and make the hard decisions before 

coming to Congress. We will continue to offer a strategically mobile 

force, optimize for forward presence and rapid response. Your Marine Corps stands ready to respond whenever the Nation calls, 

wherever the President may direct. 

Once again, Chairman, I thank the committee for your continued 

support, and I am prepared to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Amos can be found in the 

Appendix on page 126.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, very much. As I mentioned in my 

opening statement, I am concerned about the general force structure reductions in both the Navy and the Marine Corps. The Navy 

has proposed a force structure of 273 ships in fiscal year 2014, and 

the Marine Corps continues to reduce their force structure to 

182,000 marines. 

Admiral Greenert, General Amos, when Admiral Mullen said we 

needed to cut $465 billion, I think, he gave the chiefs goals and targets that they needed to work on that $465 goal—it grew to be 

$487 billion. But you had about a year to come up with the new 

strategy. And that strategy replaced the strategy we basically had 

since World War II, being able to fight two major structures at the 

same time, to where now we say we will fight one and hold one, 

I believe. That is the current strategy. 

But Secretary Hagel said, I think about 2 weeks ago, that we 

needed now, with these additional cuts of sequestration to come up 

with a new strategy. And I would like to ask both of you, in your 

best professional, military judgment, can you talk about any redline issues that you will not be able to support during this review 

in the way of cutting the Navy from the 306 goal, although I don’t 

know when we would ever hit that goal, even, because we are 

much below that now and the 182,000 force structure of the Marine 

Corps. 

Could you, as you go through this process of coming up with a 

new strategy that Secretary Hagel has said we are going to have 

to come up with, could you tell us, at this point, any red lines that 

you will not be able to support? 

Admiral GREENERT. Mr. Chairman, as I look at the numbers, and 

I think you are talking, assuming a sequestration, $500 billion. 

First thing I do is, and most important, we provide forward presence. And it is—I can’t provide—I cannot meet the current Global 

Force Management Allocation Plan with those numbers. So I don’t 

know what number I would be at. It would be on the order of 30 

ships, you know, as I look at a balanced reduction in that regard, 

less than the number of ships that I have today. 

So, let’s say 250 ships if I am at 280 today. So when you take 

that and you just—and you look at what we have forward in our 

plans to go forward and what we rotate, it would be—I can’t meet 

the Global Force Management Allocation Plan that I have today. 
11 

But I would emphasize that our initiatives to operate forward, to 

forward deploy, to forward rotate, very important throughout all of 

this, because we get great leverage out of that. So number one, the 

Global Force Management Allocation Plan. 

Two, because I have to balance what the Navy in that regard, 

make sure I can meet the requirements today but build a future 

force, I worry about the industrial base. I worry about the ability 

to maintain two submarine builders so that we can have that competition. The same with destroyer builders, large surface combatants. The industrial base would be a great concern of mine. And 

I can’t reconcile right now, today, how we maintain the industrial 

base that we need today to maintain the different ship types in 

that future. It is just something I haven’t figured out yet. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me drill down just a little on that. The $487 

billion cuts that we are just starting to see, you could maintain 

those with that. 

Admiral GREENERT. Yes, sir. 

The CHAIRMAN. But the sequestration pretty well wipes it all 

out? 

Admiral GREENERT. Yes, sir. When you go from today, we look 

at where we are at today, and you say I want to know what your 

situation at roughly $50 billion for the next 8 years, 9 years, tell 

me about that. That is what I just commented on, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think not everyone, not everyone understands. 

Of course the people on this committee do and I think most of the 

people in Congress. We have had the $78 billion cuts with Secretary Gates and then the $487 billion, so what we are really talking about is this additional $500 billion on top of that at the same 

time which reduces us over $1 trillion over a 10-year period while 

we are still at war. General. 

General AMOS. Chairman, I can’t give you specific red lines because we have just embarked on this strategic choices, the review, 

about 30 days ago. We have got another 30 days left. It is based 

on a $500 billion sequestration. It is the law so we are proceeding 

down that path. So it is yet to be seen precisely what the results 

of that will be, because each service, as we come out of this, the 

Secretary of Defense and the service secretaries will, along with us, 

will make a determination where the Department of Defense is 

going to weight its effort. 

My sense is that the President’s strategy for the reorientation of 

the Pacific will probably remain a good strategy. I mean I support 

that. I like that. I think it is, I think I have said before this committee before, we are all a part of the development of that in support of the President and I still believe in it to this day. It is a 

function of how much you can do. It is a function of capacity. For 

instance, at the $500 billion it is not a matter of being able to do 

the same with less, and you are certainly not going to be able to 

do more with less. You are going to do less with less. I mean that 

is the reality of really $1 trillion worth of cuts. You lay that on top 

of the $200 billion worth of Secretary Gates’s efficiencies and you 

are about $1.2 to $1.3 trillion out of the Department of Defense in 

the last, just in the last 2 years over the next 9 years. 

So we are going to do less with less. That doesn’t mean we are 

going to do it poorly or we are going to do inadequately. We will 
12 

do it to the very best we possibly can. So when you ask what the 

red lines are, for me, it focuses as I come down, you know I am 

headed to 182,100. Now that is a result of the Budget Control Act. 

So we are going from 202 down to 182,1. 

With the Budget Control Act, we can afford 182,100. It is not exactly the number that Secretary Gates approved and Secretary 

Mabus 2 years ago when we did our Force Structure Review. But 

it is adequate and we can live with that. What will happen with 

$500 billion is that force of 182,100 is no longer sustainable. So you 

are going to come down. I am going to come down some number 

below that. And I don’t know yet how low that number is going to 

be. That number then will dictate the capacity to be able to be forward deployed, forward engaged. Those types of things that I 

talked about in my opening statement. 

The thing that concerns me the most is that at least a piece of 

the Department of Defense has to be that hedge force, has to be 

that crisis response force. I know I use that term, but America 

buys, people buy insurance for a reason, as a hedge against the unknown. That is what Admiral Greenert and I are, we are America’s 

insurance policy. We don’t know what is out there. We didn’t know 

what would happen in Boston last night. We didn’t know what was 

going to happen 3 weeks ago in Korea, in North Korea. 

We certainly aren’t sure how things are going to turn out in 

Syria. So you need some portion of the Department of Defense engaged or deployed at a high state of readiness. And that is us. We 

go below 400—excuse me, 182,000 and we embrace the full $500 

billion it is going to be, we are going to do less with less. There 

is going to be less of that. 

So I can’t give you a red line Mr. Secretary, excuse me, Mr. 

Chairman, but I hope that answers your question. 

The CHAIRMAN. Red line may have been the wrong terminology. 

Maybe what I should have asked was what, this isn’t a 

confrontational thing, it is based on, you are going to get a number 

and there are certain things you will be able to continue to do, certain things you won’t be able to do. And I am hoping we can have 

a full discussion when we come up with that new strategy—when 

you come up with that new strategy, that it will include increased 

risks that we are going to have to assume and things that we will 

not be able to do going forward. Thank you, very much. 

Ms. Sanchez. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again gentleman, thank you for your service and for helping us 

to try to understand where everything is. Let me ask you a quick 

question before I go to my prepared questions. I was out visiting 

several bases and commands during the break recently for the Congress. Visited several, a lot of Army, went to the 82nd of course, 

48 hours and they are on a plane somewhere going wherever we, 

you know, want them to or send them to. 

And it was very interesting because as I spoke to them, it became very apparent that in this year for this sequestration hitting 

them at their, at the real troop level, their cut was not what a lot 

of us on committee think, it is a 9 percent cut or it is a 10 percent 

cut. Mr. Chairman, but for them directly, the actual soldier that we 
13 

put on the plane that is going to go and drop in somewhere, it was 

actually a 35 percent decrease this year. 

So my first question to you is what does it really mean to the 

marine on the ground? Has he seen this 10 percent coming in, 

readiness for the future, what have you? Or are they seeing even 

deeper cuts because the further away you get from the Pentagon 

it seems, the more gets cut out of the budget. 

General AMOS. Congresswoman, that is a great question and 

each service approaches this just a little bit differently depending 

on what their responsibilities are with readiness. For instance, in 

the last about 3 months, I have moved those operations and maintenance funds that I had available to me, that I had the authority 

to move, I pulled them out of other accounts, maintenance accounts, sustainment accounts, and some training accounts for operational units, and pushed them into units that are poised and getting ready to deploy next. 

Some are getting ready to go into Afghanistan, some are getting 

ready to go on our ships. The Marine Expeditionary Units, some 

are getting ready to go around the world to various things. So their 

readiness, if you were to go to them, they would probably not see 

the difference. But if you went to their sister unit next door, or 

across the base, they would be 30, 40 percent down, the way that 

the 82nd is, the way you have described it. Because we have taken 

their readiness money, their training, their ammunition, their deployment to Twentynine Palms to train and prepare. We have 

taken that money away from them to prepare, to insure that those 

forces that are next to go, are in fact ready. 

So that is why I say each service is a little bit different. Our 

next-to-go forces are ready, probably wouldn’t see a difference. But 

boy I tell you what, you go across the base, and you are going to 

see the 30 to 40 percent. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Admiral, any comment to that? 

Admiral GREENERT. Yes ma’am a little perspective if you will, in 

our operations account. It is roughly a $40 billion account. And 

when we were, when we looked at the challenge for sequestration 

and the continuing resolution, that is about $9 billion. So of the 

$40 billion account, $18 is either exempted, kind of fenced, or already spent. So you are looking at $22 billion, that is where the 

money was. And you got about $9 billion. So 9 divided by 22. That 

is what it looks like in many of those accounts. 

So if you are the sailor that as maybe as Commandant mentioned, maybe the sailor that had deployed maybe recently, a pilot. 

Say what is new in your world? He says simulators. I just go to 

the simulator today because I am not flying. At all. And we had 

that for a period of time. Now we are off of that. Some ships we 

had to say, well you are not next to deploy, as the Commandant 

said, you are tied up. And so they go through routine training. And 

to them, it is a different world from what they are used to. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Chairman it is just, I think we really need to 

have a discussion among ourselves here before we talk to the rest 

of the Congress. Just about what this really looks like. Because it 

is one thing on paper but I think at the real operational level it 

is astounding some of the things that I heard. I really want to get, 
14 

I don’t want to take a lot of time, but I want to get to my main 

question that I had prepared. 

It deals with, gentlemen, women in combat. So Secretary Panetta 

and the Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously said, you know, I think 

Secretary Panetta at the time, put it best when he stated that not 

everyone will be a combat soldier but everyone is entitled to have 

a chance. And of course I have been advocating for that for a very 

long time. 

So I am confident that between Congress and the Department we 

can make the right steps. It is my understanding that the services 

are required to implement, to have an implementation plan no 

later than May of 2013, so can you provide this committee with an 

update of where that stands? Are you going to meet that deadline? 

What are the steps that you are taking towards opening some of 

those positions? And can the Congress, how can the Congress help 

you to ensure that we get the plan in place, that we go through 

the implementation as you see as it, as you have been talking and 

trying to deal with the new reality? 

General AMOS. Congresswoman, thank you for the opportunity to 

talk about this. I think it actually is good news and I would like 

to walk you through it. I am in agreement with you, we have had 

women in combat now for 12 years, probably before that in some 

areas that we are completely unaware of. So women risking their 

lives and their being out in the front is not new. 

We have got everything you said, with Secretary Panetta, we are 

on track, the service Chiefs are. We are in the United States Marine Corps. We have 335 what we call primary military occupational specialties. I am a pilot, I am a 7523, or at least I used to 

be, F–18 pilot. So that is my MOS [Military Occupational Specialty]. If you are an infantry officer you are an 0302, if you are 

an intel officer you are an 02. So we have got 335 of those; 303 of 

those right now are absolutely, completely open to women. 

So there is 90, 90.4 percent of all our occupational jobs are open 

to women. We had about 10 major units, amtracs [assault amphibious vehicles], our assault vehicles, artillery tanks, air naval gun 

liaison, and light area defense. We had these kinds of units and infantry and reconnaissance that are the primary units that are 

closed—been closed historically to women. 

We have opened up all of those for all intents and purposes with 

the exception of infantry and reconnaissance. And we are doing 

some work on that, and I will talk about that in just a second. 

But what we have done is we have gone back through and we 

said, ‘‘Okay, let’s go and let’s take those jobs that are already open 

to women but in other kinds of units, in aviation squadrons and 

units, let’s put them in there first. Let’s put the leadership in 

there, the officers and staff, NCOs [noncommissioned officers]. And 

let’s put them in there first, and they will kind of—they will kind 

of seed the bed, so to speak, and provide—excuse me, provide intermediate-level leadership so that when we start bringing our youngsters in, the ones right out of boot camp, they will have leadership 

in there. They will have a cohort. They will have role models and 

that.’’ 

So we have done that right now with the exception of infantry 

and reconnaissance. And what we are doing now in the rest of 
15 

those, the other remainder of those MOSs that are closed, 32, we 

are developing standards right now. And we should have those 

done, the goal is to have them done by the end of this June. 

So they will be—what we are really talking about is physical 

standards. Most of our MOSs don’t require anything more than our 

combat fitness test or our physical fitness test. I mean, to be the 

administration—being a fighter squadron, you just have to be able 

to pass the PFT [physical fitness test] and CFT [combat fitness 

test]. 

But if you are a tank gunner, then you really actually have to 

be able because you are in a tight spot. You actually have to pick 

up a, almost a 60-pound round that is behind you and turn it 

around and rotate it, shove it in the breach of a tank, and nobody 

can help you, because you are in there all by yourself in that part 

of the tank. So we are developing those—those physical standards 

and those 32 other MOSs. 

Quite honestly, we haven’t had those before. We have just said, 

‘‘Okay, guys, you just go to them,’’ and—and some guys can’t do it. 

And those guys we actually—they drift off to the barracks and they 

hand out sheets and they take care of the barracks and manage 

those kinds of things. 

To do what we want to do now, to set our females up for success, 

not to keep them out, but actually to, as much as you can, guarantee success, we are developing those standards, and they are 

going to apply to guys and gals all—that is what we will have developed by this June. We are going to test those for the rest of this 

year. And then our plan is to implement them in January of next 

year. 

So that will actually set the conditions to open up basically everything in the Marine Corps with the exception of infantry and reconnaissance. And what we are doing on infantry, and, I believe 

you are aware, is we have our infantry officers’ course down at 

Quantico. We have opened that up for our female lieutenants to go 

through. We have had four. We only get about 150, 140 lieutenants 

a year—female lieutenants a year in the Marine Corps. We are 

pretty small. 

And so far we have had four volunteers. They, along with probably about 40 or 50 males, did not make it through. We have another course that starts in July. We have five female lieutenants 

who will be graduating from our officer basic school down in 

Quantico. And we are excited about them starting. 

So I just need to get enough information in that area to be able 

to make, to my Secretary, a reasonable, you know, analytical recommendation, instead of just some hyperbole stuff. So I actually 

feel pretty good about where we are going. We are setting the conditions. And, I think, we are headed exactly where perhaps you 

would like us to go. 

Ms. SANCHEZ. Great. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With that, I will end my turn. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, I have tried over the last 4 years to join my voices 

with—my voice with those who realized the massive cuts we have 
16 

made to our national security over the last 4 years have been dangerous and unwise. But I am not going to revisit those battles this 

morning. 

Mr. Secretary, given these cuts and the dangerousness of the 

world in which we live, it is crucial that we have a viable partnership between this committee, your office, and the fine men and 

women who build and repair our ships. And we look forward to 

building and maintaining that partnership. 

Admiral, I think it would be fair to say that the last decade we 

asked a disproportionate sacrifice to our men and women who 

served in the Army and the Marine Corps. But with the reduction 

in land-based facilities, and the rising lethality of some who do not 

wish us well, I think, the next several decades we may ask a great 

deal more of our seapower and projection forces. 

And one of the most important components of that power will be 

our carrier air wing. So I want to focus my time on the planned 

composition of the carrier air wing today. You know, it has been 

argued that Iran and China are making major investments in capabilities to counter the Navy’s surface forces, in aircraft carriers, in 

particular. And if this is true, it would be a significant departure 

from past planning assumptions that maintain that the U.S. would 

be able operate in permissive environments where regional adversaries could not hold our carrier strike groups at risk. 

I want to put up a chart if we have it. And I think we have given 

you a copy of it. These two charts are CSBA [Center for Strategic 

and Budgetary Assessments] charts. And I know these are approximate ranges, and I don’t want to argue, particularly, the numbers, 

but I—under the guise of ‘‘a picture is worth 1,000 words,’’ if you 

look at this first chart on Iran, it shows that our strike capability 

for our carrier groups would really only reach about a third of the 

land space in Iran. 

If I could shift to the next chart, this one would show, based on 

the DF–21D [Dong-Feng anti-ship ballistic missile] published reports that has about 810 plus or minus nautical miles, as a stand 

off. If you look there, our F–18s and our F–35s really couldn’t even 

reach China’s soil unless we were prepared to put our carriers in 

a very dangerous position. 

[The charts referred to can be found in the Appendix beginning 

on page 181.] 

Mr. FORBES. So my question for you, Admiral—I mean, Admiral, 

is, given the developments in Iran and China’s defense strategy 

over the last 10 to 15 years, is the future carrier air wing properly 

balanced between range, persistence, stealth, and payload for both 

sea control and power projection missions? And what kind of questions are you going to have to be asking? And how can we help you 

with that? 

Admiral GREENERT. I think, the carrier air wing, Mr. Forbes, in 

my mind, is balanced. And what we need is, we need range. We 

need payload. We need electronic warfare capability, electronic attack capability, and we need stealth. And the air wing and air operations of tomorrow are carrier air wing, but with the arrival of 

the fifth generation, the F–35B, we will also have Marine air with 

that component to help supplement. So, I think, in my conversa-
17 

tions and dependent on the—what operation it is, we keep that 

thought in mind for both. 

But what I am talking about is the range. The range piece is important, and you have got to get—you have got to have access. So 

refueling is important. What am I talking about? I am looking at 

an air wing of the future of a Hornet, an F–35 Charlie, a UCLASS, 

which is unmanned carrier-launched aerial surveillance and strike. 

And that—my view, and as we have laid this out, that can provide 

surveillance, as well as strike, as well as refueling capability. We 

can’t, as you have shown up here on that chart, you have got to 

get there. And you have got to get back. And you have got to have 

enough fuel. 

So all of these are important. The electronic attack, I wouldn’t 

underestimate the importance of that as we look at the threat out 

there today and in the future. And that is the Growler, the EA– 

18G, as well as the F–35 Charlie. 

So, Congressman, we need all of that. It has to fit together. It 

has to work together on the carrier of the future. No one aircraft 

is going to do it all as we look out in the future. 

Mr. FORBES. And, Admiral, we appreciate that. We want to look 

forward to working with you on that. We know that is important. 

And, also, I appreciate you talking about the UCLASS. I think, 

that is going to be important to give you the range that you are 

going to need. And we want to help you with that, too. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. McIntyre. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to all of 

you for your great commitment and service to our country. 

Mr. Secretary, you have been a pioneer in biofuels for the U.S. 

Navy. And I greatly admire your work to make sure our national 

defense is not dependent upon foreign sources of energy. And I 

know in your testimony on page 33, you mention that the Department continues to develop drop-in advance biofuel initiative for our 

ships, aircraft, and shore facilities. And then you mention the Department of the Navy working with Departments of Agriculture 

and Energy. I know, as a senior member of both this committee, 

but also of the Agriculture Committee, the great work that you 

have done to pursue this course of action. 

I also notice on page 33 of your testimony, you state that there 

are no changes to our engines, aircraft, ships, or facilities needed 

to burn this type of fuel. And so, my question is, given the declining resources available to the services, how does the 2014 budget 

contribute to the Navy’s efforts to continue to achieve these goals, 

in terms of biofuels, so that you can continue to pursue this course? 

Secretary MABUS. Thank you, Congressman, and thank you for 

those words on making us better warfighters through the way we 

use power. 

And the first thing that you said is absolutely true. The big news 

about using alternative fuels is there is no news, that we use the 

same logistics chain. We don’t change a single engine. We don’t 

change anything about it. We simply put it in and burn it with normal avgas [aviation gasoline] or marine diesel. 
18 

The—I think, in these budget-constrained days, it is more important than ever to search out alternatives to our current way we buy 

fuel. In fiscal year 2012, the end of it, the Navy got an additional 

$500 million bill for fuel. This year, we are looking at an additional 

$600 million bill for fuel just because we have—the amount that 

oil went up was underestimated. Oil is the ultimate global commodity. 

And so, I think it would be irresponsible of us not to try to find 

a competitive, drop-in fuel that can—can do this. And our 2014 

budget and the budget stretching out beyond that gives us that 

ability. And—very much appreciate the support of this committee 

and of Congress in doing that, because it allows us to have a homegrown source of fuel that is not as susceptible to the price shocks 

that—Admiral Greenert talked about these choke points of some— 

somebody threatens to close the Straits of Hormuz and the price 

of oil goes up $10, $20, $30 a barrel. 

Every time it goes up a dollar, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps 

are looking at $30 million per dollar increase in additional fuel 

costs. So I think we are well on our way. I think we know where 

we need to head. And again, I appreciate the support of you and 

this entire committee and Congress in making sure this comes 

true. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Well thank you. Thank you for your forward 

thinking on that. In the remaining few seconds I have, General 

Amos, I am glad you mentioned the commissioning ceremony coming up at Quantico this Friday. I plan to be there to see that ceremony with some folks I know involved in that. And I have followed 

closely your training for the infantry and for those new commissioned officers. 

I wanted to ask you, does the Marine Corps have the resources 

you feel to meet its needs for the F–35B STOVL [short take-off and 

vertical landing] version of the Joint Strike Fighter? Are the problems you feel like with the lift fans resolved? And do you feel like 

the Marine Corps is being able to adjust to the potential shortfall 

given the budget problems in the production of the F–35Bs? 

General AMOS. Congressman, I feel pretty good about where we 

are right now. We have worked pretty hard as you know, in the 

last several years to fix those couple things that the F–35B that 

ended up on probation. Of course it has been off of it for over a 

year now and it is doing well. So I do feel good. I think the procurement rate, we have adjusted that as a result of fiscal reality. 

But we have laid that in over the lifetime of our current fleet of 

F–18s which are Legacy Hornets and our Harriers and we are 

managing that lifetime so that we will be able to bring in those F– 

35Bs as long as we are able to maintain a reasonable production, 

a sustainable, reasonable production rate. 

So I do feel good about it. I think the airplane is doing well. We 

have got 15 airplanes now. F–35Bs in the training squadron down 

at Eglin Air Force Base. It is a combined training squadron with 

us and the U.K. They have got two of their airplanes in there. We 

are training their pilots. And we just stood up last December, the 

very first fleet squadron out in Yuma, Arizona, VMFA [Marine 

Fighter Attack Squadron] 121. 
19 

So they are there. They have got four jets, by the end of this year 

they will have 16. They will be what we call initial operational capable by probably the third, maybe June, excuse me July or August 

of 2015. And we are scheduled to deploy which means they will be 

combat ready by the way, by then. And they will be ready to deploy 

or scheduled to deploy in 2017. If something happens around the 

world prior to 2017, this will be the only fifth generation airplane 

America has ready to go in an operational squadron. So I feel very 

good about it. We have been resourced and taken well care of by 

our bosses. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, thank you General. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Miller. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Is it my understanding, 

it was either Mr. Secretary or Admiral, one of the two, you had 

made this comment in regards to your budget request assuming 

that sequester will be resolved by 2014? Is that what I understand? 

Secretary MABUS. Congressman, what I said was that we put our 

fiscal year 2014 budget request in without sequestration, exactly 

the way that the budget resolution of Congress, of the House and 

of the Senate, did the same things. As we were developing that fiscal year 2014 budget request, it was prior to sequestration taking 

effect and as the Admiral said so eloquently, if sequestration stays, 

we are facing some serious, widespread problems, particularly in 

2014. 

Mr. MILLER. I think it is here. And I think it would behoove everybody to plan for it to go beyond 2014, because obviously there 

are wide differences between the House and the Senate as to how 

we resolve the budget issue out there. The House wants to do it 

through cuts, the Senate wants to do it through tax increases. Everybody wants to figure out a way to turn it off. I am hoping that 

the Navy is planning for having it as well as not having it. 

Secretary MABUS. Well this is part of the Strategic Choices and 

Management Review that we are undertaking in DOD [Department 

of Defense] right now, is for that range of options, ranging everything from full sequestration to no sequestration and how that will 

affect what all the services do and what we are able to do. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. That is all, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mrs. Davis. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of 

you and thank you so much for your great leadership. It is appreciated by the men and women, I know, that you work with and 

serve with as well as all of us here. 

Admiral Greenert, you mentioned the four areas that really detract as you said, and really make the bringing the vision forward 

difficult. And among those are sexual assault and suicide in the 

military. And I know there has been a great deal of focus. I want 

to particularly thank General Amos for his passion in trying to address the sexual assault area. 

But one of the things that we know about that is we have a number of civilian employees who are very actively involved and have 

been counted as partners as you work with this issue. How do you 

see the effect of sequestration on your efforts? Because with all the 

cuts that we are experiencing it is difficult to see how we might 
20 

be able to sustain the increases actually that you are planning for 

in these areas. If you could address and I don’t know, Admiral, if 

you want to address that and others. How we do that in those two 

areas. 

And the other thing I wanted to focus on just briefly, is how you 

believe that our partnership capacity is also undermined through 

our civilian furloughs and some of the cuts that we are seeing. How 

are we viewed by others as we move forward to try and address 

many of these concerns that you are talking about in terms of our, 

whether it is the rebalancing or the activities that we have in theater where we are partnering, where we are doing exercises, how 

do you see that being affected? 

Admiral GREENERT. If I may ma’am I will answer the last question first and then get to that. We spent a good bit of time talking 

with our partners. I was at the U.K. this week. Tonight I am leaving for France to talk to my counterpart and in 2 weeks I am going 

to the Asian-Pacific region to speak to many of it. And the whole 

idea is just to lay out for them what the situation is, and the significance. 

I gave you the chartlet and then I give them the chartlet. I say 

look, we will be forward, we will be in theater. What we are doing 

with exercises, ma’am, we are doing the exercises, all of them, 

internationally. But we are having to craft them in a different 

manner. There will be somewhat less. And we do what is right and 

what resonates with both of us. 

As we move to fiscal year 2014, we will look at it again with the 

combatant commanders and say, hey which of these is most important and let’s make sure we do those right. So that is, the international piece is a big focus of ours. But we have to communicate 

and relate with them. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Are we seeing our partners trying to pick up some 

of the perhaps the roles that we have been playing in the past? 

Admiral GREENERT. In some cases we are. In the case of say ballistic missile defense, there are two aspects to that. Someone has 

to look for the ballistic missile, somebody has to protect the force. 

They are picking up the I will protect the force ASW [anti-submarine warfare] exercises, we do see them pick up. Especially in 

the Asia-Pacific region, Korea, Japan, very interested in that regard, Singapore and Australia as well. 

If I may, the civilians, the sexual assault response and counselors are, and what we call upper tier, which means we want to 

exempt them from furlough. We will continue those hirings which 

we have committed to. As we move into fiscal year 2014, Family 

Readiness Programs, Sexual Assault Programs, my high priority. I 

would not, I would endeavor at every opportunity I can, not to reduce that. I have to get that right ma’am. 

Mrs. DAVIS. Thank you. 

Secretary MABUS. I want to reiterate that, Congresswoman, because this is a threat, this is a direct threat to our force, to our 

readiness, to everything that the force does and stands for. You 

know that General Amos, Admiral Greenert and I, if you ask if we 

are concerned about sexual assault, our answer is we are not concerned about it, we are mad about it. And we are going to get 

something done about it. I think we are beginning to learn what 
21 

happens. And we can’t afford to pull back against any threat but 

particularly one that is this insidious and internal. 

General AMOS. Congresswoman, we sat down to work through 

the effects of 2013 continuing resolution and sequestration, all of 

us began to rebalance where are we going to, where is our least 

priority, where is our highest priority. And in our service just as 

Admiral Greenert said, we are exactly the same. We took those 

programs, sexual assault, what we, in my service we have kind of 

begun to understand it is kind of all knit together under kind of 

behavioral health. All those things that deal, that are so critically 

important to the health and wellbeing of our corps. We put those 

to the top. So they are the last to go. And we are going to do our 

very best to not affect that. We can’t allow that, it is Wounded 

Warriors. They are up there, too. So we have to, we have to maintain that. So that means that some of the operational readiness, 

combat readiness will begin to get, we will pay for that to be able 

to keep those capabilities with some operational readiness as we 

start echeloning our way up as sequestration takes full grip next 

year. 

The building partnership capacity is training, it is building trust, 

it is relationships, it is working with our allies, it is reassuring. 

Those are the things that quite honestly, we do as a naval force 

because we don’t have a big footprint when we go someplace. We 

can often operate from the sea. That is going to be affected. It is 

yet to be seen exactly how much we work with the combatant commanders in their theaters to determine where their greatest priority is. 

But I mean I lost, the next year, under sequestration I will lose almost $700 million in operations and maintenance funds. So I am 

going to have to take some of this is going to have an effect on 

these forward-deployed forces building partnerships and building 

relationships. 

One last point on this thing, we have reoriented in accordance 

with the strategy more infantry battalions to the Pacific. In fact 

this fall, we will put our fourth infantry battalion in the Pacific. 

Having started with only one over there. We will have our fourth 

one, so we are actually, we are heavily invested. Sequestration. It 

will be a rotational force. I don’t have enough money to bring that 

battalion back home or the one before it back home. So I got to do 

my homework between now and then. I can get them there; I just 

can’t afford to get them back. 

The CHAIRMAN. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you very much for your service. I grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, and I have a firsthand experience of growing 

up with Navy personnel, and what extraordinary people that you 

work with and who protect our country, and then I have had the 

privilege of representing Beaufort County, Parris Island, Marine 

Corps Air Station, Beaufort Naval Hospital, and the Marine personnel I have had the privilege of working with are truly an inspiration and an indication of dedication to our country. 

General Amos, we understand the Marines will be needing to refurbish the existing M4s and M16s. What are your plans to do this? 
22 

Will you follow the Army requirements? Or will you develop your 

own path? 

General AMOS. Congressman, we do not have a program of record 

right now to replace the M4 or the M16A4. We like that weapon 

system. It is modularized. We have upgraded it for the last several 

years. 

However, we are joined at the hip with the Army. Our requirements team at Quantico works daily with the Army as they develop 

helmets, body armor, new weapon systems, and all that, so that 

neither one of us are surprised and we learn from one another. So 

right now, we are aware the Army is doing this. We are watching 

it. We are getting the same reports as they work through—work 

their way through this. Yet to be seen whether or not we are going 

to do this and yet to be seen whether or not we are going to jump 

onboard and replace our weapons. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. And, Admiral, my wife and I are very 

grateful. We have a son serving in the Navy. And so we know firsthand, again, the extraordinary personnel. What has caused the 

Navy to request an increase of almost 7,000 more sailors over the 

next 4 years from last year’s plan? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, things have changed, Congressman, 

over a couple of years. We are growing, and we are hiring. And so 

if I could summarize it, we had through OCO [Overseas Contingency Operations] individual augmentee process, we were presented over the last few years, we—our folks were funded. We had 

a number of billets funded, about 2,000. 

And so those individual augmentee, that requirement and that 

funding source has changed so now we are carrying that billet base 

in our manpower count, so that is 2,000 of that. We are building 

cyber warriors. That is almost 1,000. we are bringing new ships in. 

That is almost 1,200 right there. 

We are bringing new capabilities in, unmanned aerial systems 

and our Littoral Combat Ship, and preparing to bring the mission 

modules in. That is about 900. So those are the big chunks of those 

amount. 

Mr. WILSON. And you feel like there is sufficient funding for recruiting and retention? 

Admiral GREENERT. I do. Right now, our recruiting is going along 

fine. It is becoming more challenging. The economy is starting to 

change, but we are meeting goals, and retention is adequate. But 

trust me, Congressman, I got a microscope on retention right now 

with high op-tempo. 

Mr. WILSON. And I also want to commend you on the sand sailors who are trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, volunteers to 

serve in Afghanistan and off ships. And it is really, again, inspiring 

to see the people who you have recruited. 

Admiral GREENERT. Thank you, sir. To a person, they say that 

training has been effective and proper for them when they go overseas. 

Mr. WILSON. Excellent. 

And, Mr. Secretary, considering the significant variability associated with the budget and resulting force structure, is it premature 

to initiate a BRAC [Base Realignment and Closure] round? In 

terms of force structure and budget, what planning factors would 
23 

the Department use to determine appropriate infrastructure requirements? 

Secretary MABUS. Congressman, DOD has requested a BRAC 

round for fiscal year 2015, and I think it is appropriate for us always to take a look at these things, to take a look at what we are 

doing at each of our facilities, to make sure that they are still required, to make sure that they are doing things in the most effective and most efficient ways. 

I—when I was governor of Mississippi, I lived through a BRAC 

round. It is a stressful time. We recognize that. But I do think that, 

in this time of constrained budgets, we should at least take a look 

at what is possible and what needs to be done. The outcome of 

that, I think, that—you talk to General Amos and Admiral 

Greenert. We in the Navy have taken previous BRAC rounds very 

seriously. We have shed most of our duplicative and overlapping 

bases and services. 

So I think that where we are in the process is, we have done a 

pretty good job in terms of skinnying down and making sure that 

all our bases have the requirements and the—that they need. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. Larsen. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a few questions. First off, the committee will have an opportunity to support the EA–18G program as a budget submission for 

2014, because of the addition of 21 additional Growlers. And so I 

hope the committee will take that opportunity. 

But I think for the purpose of the background, General Amos, if 

you could start—and, General Greenert, then follow on—could you 

walk through the Marine Corps’ expeditionary electronic attack decision and then how that has now migrated to the Navy? 

And, General Amos, could you start with why the Marine Corps 

is getting out of the Prowler business? And then General Greenert 

can take over from—to discuss the expansion of the Growlers. 

General AMOS. Congressman, we are sundowning our—which 

means we are retiring—our four EA–6B Prowler squadrons that we 

have currently at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North 

Carolina. We will sundown the last one in fiscal year 2019. We 

start in fiscal year 2016. 

The airplane is simply out of service life. I mean, we began flying 

these airframes, the early version of these airframes in Vietnam, 

and then we got—we kind of came out of that and started building 

the one we have, and then we just added it and service lifeextensioned it. So it is out of Schlitz. So we are sundowning that. 

While we have done that, we have brought in electronic attack 

capabilities for the ground commander on the ground, so he can actually manage his piece of the battlespace to some degree fairly effectively, with electronic warfare fires from organic equipment, and 

we are bringing in some new equipment there. 

But I think the real replacement for us is the F–35B. Early on, 

when the decision was made to go to that aircraft, we did an analysis between what the organic system, the radar, the AESA, [active] electronically scanned array radar, provides, and the integration of the systems on that airplane with regards to electronic at-
24 

tack, and balance that against what we call the ICAP III [improved 

capability] version of the EA–6B Prowler, which is the Cadillac 

version we have now. 

Mr. LARSEN. Right. 

General AMOS. And it is about 85 to close—maybe 90 percent of 

what just the standard F–35 AESA radar and systems—has about 

probably 85 percent of what—of an ICAP III has. We are looking 

right now at fielding an electronic pod that will hang on the wing 

of the F–35B, which will take it past the capability of the current 

Prowler. So I think by the time we stand up our fleet squadrons, 

we will have that pod. It is already developed. It is just a function 

of integration. So we will be back in the airborne electronic attack 

business for the Marine Corps. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. 

And, Admiral Greenert, then, could you take it the next step 

there? 

Admiral GREENERT. Yes, sir. What we are talking about, 21 aircraft, as you mentioned, Congressman, and that will break down 

to two operational squadrons, and that will bring our expeditionary—the Navy’s expeditionary squadron. And as Commandant 

said, we are happy to take on this mission in the Department to 

five, so that would be five operational squadrons, one training 

squadron, and one reserve squadron. 

Congressman, in my view, the more I look into the electromagnetic spectrum, what we need to do in it, where it results in 

the future, where our potential adversaries are developing it, the 

electronic attack is huge and a major, major part of the air wing 

of the future, air warfare of the future, warfare of the future, including cyber. 

And so we are very pleased to be taking on this mission. This is 

going to be an awesome capability, and when you add the Next 

Generation Jammer, which is in our budget here, this will be a 

really very cutting-edge capability. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. Mr. Secretary, when Secretary Hagel was here, 

I discussed a little bit about the feast and famine nature of electronic warfare where sort of the conditions for famine are coming 

up as part of the budget picture. And I guess I would ask you, from 

a Secretary’s perspective, your ability to avoid famine on electronic 

warfare and what you plan to do—what is your plan to ensure continued investment in it? 

Secretary MABUS. Well, as both the Commandant and CNO has 

said, this is one of our critical capabilities, particularly in anti-access/area-denial theaters. And so I think that you are seeing some 

of the things that we are doing, putting in these 21 Growlers to 

stand up the two additional expeditionary squadrons, pursuing the 

Next Generation Jammer, so that whatever the platform is, we can 

carry that in and to the Commandant’s point. They have 35B having an electronic attack and electronic defense mechanisms on it. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Thank you for your leadership and your contribution to our national security. I—my question 

is going to be about sequestration, and it will be initially directed 
25 

to General Amos, and then I will look to the rest of you to comment. 

Mr. Secretary, I think in the response to Congressman Miller, 

you were indicating that the budget doesn’t assume that sequestration continues. And, you know, one of my concerns in our ability 

to try to offset sequestration is that I believe that we are in part 

where we are, here with sequestration going into effect, because 

Congress and the American public did not have enough information 

as to what the effects of sequestration would be. 

Now, I voted against this mess, because I believe that we would 

be right here, where there is no solution, implementation of a strategy that is detrimental to our national security, without a very 

good understanding of how to stop it. 

So one of the things that we need to do better—and we look to 

your assistance—is to be able to tell what the effects of sequestration will be so that there can be an understanding not only in 

Washington, but also, you know, across the country of how devastating this is and how it needs to be remedied. 

That pressure of—that the effects, as the President said, would 

be, you know, so detrimental that no one would allow it to happen, 

it is now happening. But we are not hearing a clear picture of those 

detrimental effects. 

And so I want to go first to General Amos, you know, it has always been our policy for the past two decades that we look in our 

planning and in our strategy that we would have an ability to fight 

in two wars, in two conflicts. 

The President’s strategic guidance, he recently indicated in his 

five major tenets, that his intention was to, ‘‘Plan and size forces 

to be able to defeat a major adversary in one theater while denying 

aggression elsewhere or imposing unacceptable cost.’’ 

That is a significant shift at a time, of course, when our world 

is not getting to be a safer place that we would look at a narrowing. 

Secretary Panetta made the following comments about the administration’s new strategic guidance at the 2012 Munich Security 

Conference in front of America’s major allies. 

He said, ‘‘We will ensure that we can quickly confront and defeat 

aggression from any adversary anytime, anyplace. It is essential 

that we have the capability to deal with more than one adversary 

at a time and believe we have shaped a force that will give us that 

capability.’’ 

So there is a conflict in the two statements as to what our capabilities will be. 

We now look at three rounds of cuts and with sequestration currently in place and the prospects that it might remain in place. I 

have become increasingly concerned as to what our force would 

look like under sequestration. 

So, General Amos, where we had initially the goal of being operating in two conflicts, the President now saying a focus of one conflict, I am concerned whether or not under sequestration we—that 

the Marine Corps would be able to support the Nation’s strategy 

if sequestration continued and beyond. 

Would we be able to function effectively in one conflict with the 

restraint that you have in funding and in capability? And, also, cer-
26 

tainly what do you see in future years if it is left in place? What 

does it do to the Marine Corps? You indicated $700 million in additional cuts. Could you please give us a picture of that so that as 

we try to advocate for sequestration to be set aside, we can have 

accurate information. 

General AMOS. Congressman, the truth is right now if you take— 

and you were to take a major theater war, what we called in the 

old days a major contingency operation, but what you were referring to, the Marine Corps today sits at 27 infantry battalions. We 

are on our way down to 23 as a result of the Budget Control Act. 

So let me see if I can set that in the context of a major theater 

war. The typical, what you would call the notional major theater 

war, and, of course, there is rigor behind this which I can’t get into 

in an open hearing, but is about a 19 battalion requirement of the 

United States Marines. 

So as we go down to—headed to 182,100, that would give us a 

couple of battalions over, you know, beyond if you just deployed everybody. That is actually pretty reasonable because there is going 

to be combat replacements and there is going to be a need for more 

Marines to replace those that are wounded and those that we lose. 

So there is really not a lot of slack. We become a ‘‘go to war and 

come home when it is over’’ force. We are a single MCO [major contingency operation] Marine Corps. 

Now it doesn’t mean that if we are involved in that and something else happened and somebody said, ‘‘Commandant, I will pull 

out my folks from Washington, DC, and we will bring everybody 

and cobble together because every Marine is a rifleman, we will 

send them.’’ 

But when you start talking about major combat and major combat units, we are a single MCO Marine Corps as we go to 182,100. 

That is 487. That is the Budget Control Act. 

You go to—we bring in sequestration and we will be down in the 

teens for battalions and we will be very, very strained to be a single MCO Marine Corps. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Secretary Mabus and Admiral Greenert and General Amos, thank you very much for your service and I appreciate 

the strong relationship that Guam has with the Navy and Marine 

Corps. 

General Amos, I was encouraged and appreciate the DOD positioning a THAAD [Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense] system to 

help protect Guam from possible attacks. And I am also encouraged 

to see DOD is providing funding directly related to the realignment 

of Marines from Okinawa to Guam. 

Can you provide me with an update on how the Marine Corps 

transition to Guam is progressing and what are the impacts of sequestration and how important is the Marianas region for joint 

training? 

And I would ask you gentleman to limit your answers. The committee is very strict with time. 

General AMOS. Congresswoman, we are operating out of Guam 

right now. We have got an infantry rifle company there today as 

we speak. We have had F–18 squadrons from Iwakuni, Japan, that 
27 

have come down, as many as three that have operated out of 

Guam. 

We have operated out of Tinian. We are trying to acclimatize 

ourself there. We don’t have any new facilities there. There is nothing that says United States Marine Corps painted on the outside 

of a building. 

So we are sharing facilities with the Air Force. We are living in 

places that we like to live, maybe others wouldn’t, but we are committed to Guam. 

If sequestration, when it hits, again, it is law, it is going to slow 

down the transition to Guam. It absolutely has to. It is going to 

slow down military construction money. It will slow it down. But 

we are still committed to go to Guam and I am bullish on it. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Now, this question is for Secretary Mabus or Admiral Greenert. 

I remain greatly concerned about the number of MSC [Military 

Sealift Command] and Navy ships that are sent abroad for repairs. 

I recognize that emergent repairs are exempt from Repair American provisions in Title 10. However, an annual report to Congress 

shows an alarming number of ships that are now being sent to foreign shipyards. 

Can I have your commitment that the Navy will continue to 

work closely with me to make sure the intent of Section 73.10 of 

Title 10 are upheld according to the intent of Congress? 

I recognize that budgets are tight, but sending money overseas 

seems very shortsighted to me. 

And do we have your commitment to an acquisition strategy that 

maintains a depot-level ship repair capability on Guam? 

Admiral, I think you would be the one to answer that. 

Admiral GREENERT. Ma’am, you have my commitment that we 

will comply with law, with regulation and with the intent not just, 

you know, the specific regulation. 

And as you and I have talked, I am real bullish, as the Commandant has said, on depot repair capability on Guam. If you look 

at my little chartlet here, you know, you put your little finger in 

the middle to balance it, it is Guam. 

It is right in the middle of all of it. So we have to have a repair, 

a refurbish, it is a base and a place and key to my strategy. 

[The chart referred to can be found in the Appendix on page 

180.] 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you. Thank you for your commitment. And 

my third question is to you, Admiral, as well. I note that the USS 

Freedom, the first LCS [Littoral Combat Ship] ship, is making its 

maiden voyage to the Asia-Pacific region and will ultimately end 

up in Singapore. 

There was a lot of anticipation having the ship make a port call 

on Guam. It is important for our allies to see us deploy our newest 

and most sophisticated equipment to this critical region. 

I know there have been some concerns about the ability to provide any repair or support to the ship as it is forward-deployed. Are 

there any lessons learned from this deployment to date that are 

worth noting? 
28 

Admiral GREENERT. There are, ma’am. And they are you have 

to—the ship has a unique capability. It is monitors all its operations very quickly. 

And the lesson learned is to get that information out so that in 

such a large region you are so—you know so much about this and 

that is the tyranny of distance in the Western Pacific so that we 

can get the parts where they need to be. 

And when we use the concept of operation of these ships in the 

future, we will have to have a network of logistics to respond very 

quickly to have the right parts in the right place because the crews 

are small. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Admiral. 

And, Secretary, do you have any comments on the build-up on 

Guam that I asked earlier? 

Secretary MABUS. We—consistent with the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] and the restrictions that were put in 

there, we are doing military construction, particularly for Marine 

Air in Guam that will be used regardless of what happens in terms 

of ramp space, in terms of hangars, things like that. 

As you know, we have got the supplemental environmental impact statement going. It will end in 2015 and we are marching 

ahead with the plan to relocate Marines from Okinawa to Guam. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Kline. 

Mr. KLINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here, for your service, for your 

testimony today and for your very frank and complete answers to 

our questions. It is very, very helpful. 

I am going to yield the remainder of my time to a new member 

of Congress and, therefore, this committee, fellow marine, Colonel 

Cook. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Congressman. 

General Amos, you talked about Americans—America’s 911 force. 

I just want to go over this one more time. As a marine and as a 

0302 infantry, the culture of the Marine Corps has always been 

about the mission, about ‘‘Semper Fi.’’ 

Unfortunately, I have gone through this drill in the past where 

budget cuts have gone right to the bone. And as an infantryman, 

as a person that commanded marines, it is really, really hurt us. 

The tempo of ops never seems to slow down, but it puts us in 

a very very precarious spot. In terms of having these expectations 

where if the balloon goes up, we got to go to war and, yet, are we 

going to be ready to be able to do this. 

I know you addressed this, but maybe I am trying to underscore 

the fact over and over again. We have done this before and we have 

paid the price in terms of being 100 percent ready whether our 

readiness was C1 or C2 and maybe the old C3 or C4. 

And can you—I know we are going down to 182,000, but I am 

concerned about the training, the readiness that all these tempo of 

ops things that we have listed that seems as though they never go 

away. 
29 

Do we have to be more realistic in terms of meeting this goal of 

being always ready whether it is as a second lieutenant with a bald 

eagle or sparrow hawk, which a lot of people in this room have 

never heard about, but a lot of people died doing those type of 

things? 

So if you could kind of address some of those concerns, my concerns on that, thank you. 

General AMOS. Congressman, we made a decision 3 or 4 months 

ago. I talked about it just a little bit earlier in my testimony, but 

it bears. To take money to assure that those forces, not only the 

ones that are already deployed, they are at the highest state of 

readiness. 

Those that are about to deploy will be at that same state of readiness. So that is my commitment to Congress, the American people 

and to the Marines. 

I will leave tonight. We will go spend the next 2 days at Camp 

Pendleton and I will talk to 5th Marines, 1st Marines, 11th Marines. I am going to tell them exactly the same thing. You have my 

promise that we will move money around, within our authorities to 

the best of our ability and H.R. 933 helped for 2013 to ensure the 

readiness of the forces that are getting ready to go. 

So that right now, as we sit today, is fine. But we are eating our 

seed corn right now for the readiness for those units that aren’t on 

the slate to deploy until next year. Maybe at the end of next year. 

Those that are just coming back. We are taking money away from 

their training. Taking equipment away from them. Taking money 

away from the sustainment of their equipment. And we are eating 

that seed corn right now to insure that I have near-term readiness. 

I am also taking money out of procurement, PMC [Procurement, 

Marine Corps], which is reset, which is modernization, to move it 

into readiness accounts. That is my job. My job is to be ready. I 

mean I really take that seriously. Just be the most ready when the 

Nation, people think that is cornball. But I suspect that you and 

I don’t. What is going to happen in 2014, as we move into the early 

parts of 2014, those units that are back here, I am talking infantry 

battalions and squadrons. 

Based on sequestration, the way we know it right now, those 

units that are back home and that are not in the queue to go will 

be less than 50 percent ready. Which means they will be C3 or 

worse. So if the balloon goes up, what are we going to do? We are 

going to cobble them together just like we did the 1st Marine Provisional Brigade and sent it with 5th Marines into Korea. We will 

do exactly that. But you are 100 percent correct and I am very concerned about it. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you very much for your explanation. It is scary 

but you are absolutely right, it is still ‘‘Semper Fidelis,’’ you have 

a mission to carry out and get it done. I yield back. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to compliment Mr. Cook on his questions, even 

though he represents a district from California, he actually hails 

from Connecticut which explains the brilliance of his presentation 

here. And also just want to thank all the witnesses for being here, 
30 

particularly Admiral Greenert and General Amos. Last time you 

were here I think there were 27 stars that were, in my opinion, 

laid out very clearly the damage that sequestration was going to 

cause. 

And although at least there was some partial response by getting 

the continuing resolution [CR] passed, clearly what we are hearing 

this morning is that you still have unacceptable risk, that you are 

still going to be forced to try and manage. And hopefully that momentum of getting the CR passed will continue in terms of getting 

some good decisions. 

For the record, I mean since 1985 when sequestration was first 

enacted after Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, Congress never let it go 

this far. And hopefully we will look at that past experience as a 

guide to avoid the dangers that you are presenting. 

I also want to congratulate or complement both you and the Secretary in terms of getting the 2014 second submarine in the Virginia-class program protected through the CR. That was a tremendous challenge over the last 14 months. And Under Secretary 

Stackley, again, I think has just been an amazing public servant 

in terms of trying to juggle all of these challenges with so much 

uncertainty that he is facing. 

In terms of sequestration again, one of the things that you were 

able to mitigate with the passage of the CR were the civilian employee furloughs. Again it was at that point projected to be 22 days 

of furloughs. The last reports I have seen is it is down to 7. Is that 

over? First of all, is that number accurate? And if it is, are we pretty much stuck with that furlough plan between now and the end 

of the fiscal year? 

Secretary MABUS. I believe the last announcement was from 22 

to 14 days. But I think the direct answer to you, is everything 

about that is still under discussion. That Secretary Hagel said if 

we can do better we will do better. And I know that everyone at 

DOD and particularly the three here testifying today, recognize the 

critical importance of our civilian employees and particularly to 

some of operations and the operational impacts that losing any of 

them for any amount of time would have on Navy and Marine 

Corps. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Well thank you. And I hope that people will continue to look at that again. I noticed, Admiral Greenert, you listed 

that as probably the number one priority in terms of mitigation. I 

just, a perfect example of it were the Groton firefighters from the 

Navy base who drove up to Maine in the middle of the night and 

literally turned that fire, the tide of that fire around. You know 

that is a skill that we need at all times. You looked like you were 

reaching for the microphone, if you wanted to say something? 

Admiral GREENERT. No, I am good. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And lastly I guess in terms of the SSBN [ballistic 

missile nuclear submarine] program which again both of your testimony identified as a must-do item. Again, I know the Navy has 

been trying to focus on trying to extract as many savings out of the 

requirements process. Can you give us any sort of update in terms 

of where that is headed and again, the sort of knife-edge schedule 

that we are on for 2028. 
31 

Admiral GREENERT. We are finding that we are very comfortable 

with the design. And what I mean by that, we do design, then test 

it. We are using the Virginia class as our benchmark. That is a 

very successful program and I thank you, Congressman, for the 

tireless effort you did, you worked in, you and your constituents, 

in this committee and others, to help us get that second SSN [nuclear submarine] in fiscal year 2014. 

But the Ohio replacement program is going apace. We will work 

through sequestration as I have stated, that is a very important 

program. We have got to stay the pace on that. So we are very comfortable with that. The Ohio class itself is performing well, so as 

we look at our plan out there toward bringing, sequencing down 

the Ohio class and bringing in the Ohio replacement, we are very 

comfortable. And the requirements review is going well. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And again I think the warning was issued the 

other day by the general in charge of strategic defense that we 

really can’t miss that date, right, in terms of deploying that first 

Ohio submarine, because we really start to have a readiness problem if that happens. Is that still the case? 

Admiral GREENERT. Yes sir, that is the case. Until, it is all about 

how many SSBNs are available and deployed and on alert. And 

those numbers remain the same. Until they change, that is our 

mandate and we are good on that. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Mr. Rogers. 

Mr. ROGERS. Thank you Mr. Chairman. First General Amos, I 

want to thank you for your professionalism and your candor in that 

last answer. I hope the President is paying attention to what you 

are saying. That was very revealing. 

My questions are going to be directed to Secretary Mabus and 

Admiral Greenert with regard to the Ohio-class replacement submarines. These submarines are being designed to meet potential 

threats seven decades from now. With regard to the missiles and 

the entire strategic weapons system, how is the Navy positioning 

itself within the FYDP [Future Years Defense Plan] and beyond to 

maintain the weapon system to meet the hull life of the Ohio-class 

replacement. How do you long the expect the D5 [Trident II missile] system to be sustained and what are we looking to replacement it? And when might this system be fielded? 

Secretary MABUS. Thank you Congressman, inside this FYDP we 

are looking at the D5 extension program which will take that 

weapon into the 2040s. We are also doing as Admiral Greenert said 

in answer to the previous question, the design, the R&D [research 

and development] work on the hull itself, on the replacement platform, on the Ohio-class replacement. 

And we do think that those two things are going along very well 

in concert. The common missile compartment that will go on the 

Ohio-class replacement, also goes on the British Successor class. 

We have been working very closely with our British allies. They 

are paying for part of this design and development. To make sure 

that it meets not only our schedule, but their schedule. And Admiral Greenert who is a submariner and knows far more technical 

things than I do about this, can add some things to that. 
32 

But where we are now we are on track, we are on schedule, both 

in terms of the platform and the weapons. 

Mr. ROGERS. It is to be fielded when? When will it be fielded? 

Secretary MABUS. The first Ohio-class replacement will go to sea 

in 2028, 2029. 

Mr. ROGERS. The current Ohio-based submarines have a finite 

service life. In fact, they are being pushed far beyond the service 

life of almost any submarine previously deployed by the U.S. Why 

is it important for the first Ohio-class submarine to be delivered in 

2029? Admiral. 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, as you correctly laid out, Congressman, 

the Ohio class has gone beyond its design life. We have had two 

extensions. Now we do this very deliberately and it is based on 

science, it is based on testing and engineering. And so far it is 

passing all that tests. The issues of concern are nuclear, it is the 

nuclear components that are irradiated, as well as the hull, exposed to seawater, goes up goes down, that is a lot of cycles. And 

we monitor certain aspects of the hull itself and the seawater systems. Going very well. 

But as a previous question indicated, we are signed up. Our 

mandate is to have a certain number of SSBNs available, available 

to deploy, and then deployed on alert. And we have to meet that. 

That is a national tasking. And that is why it is so important that 

we get this done on time. We are on track. 

Mr. ROGERS. What happens if it is not done on time? If you miss 

the 2029 target date that you are expecting? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, what you would have to do is, you 

would have to extend patrols in order to do the coverage and you 

could do this in the short-term, well you could. And the problem 

is downstream. Like a lot of these. There is an expected maintenance process. And during that time that you just described, that 

2029, all the Ohio-class submarines would be finished with all their 

overhauls. They would all be available. 

We would likely be using up, if you will, the Ohio replacement. 

You know those that were in place. If they were not ready, we 

would have to extend the Ohio class. And that goes beyond the design time we expected to have them into sea. So we would be into 

new territory. 

Mr. ROGERS. And how are you managing the cost on this replacement program? 

Admiral GREENERT. We are managing the cost of this replacement program by being very deliberate and very vigilant on the requirements that we put in place. And we are measuring frequently, 

how much is, what did we estimate this requirement be? What are 

the design engineers coming back with? If there is a cost growth, 

why is there that cost growth? And is there, can we descope, is 

there another materiel we would look at? And as Secretary Mabus 

said, we are doing this with a partner, so we have to do this very 

closely with the U.K. 

Mr. ROGERS. How have the costs been? Are y’all coming in on 

budget? 

Secretary MABUS. Congressman, so far we have taken more than 

$2 billion per boat out of the Ohio-class replacement and we are 
33 

continuing to come down. In—fiscal year—I believe, 2011, we wanted the number to start with a 4 to—— 

Mr. ROGERS. On that good note, I will shut up. 

Thank you very much for your service, and thank you for being 

here. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Ms. Hanabusa. 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. 

I would like to follow up on some of the questions that were 

asked earlier. And I think this is to Admiral Greenert. 

Admiral, you are talking about furloughs, and I think, you know, 

you said it is still fluid, and I believe the Secretary of the Navy 

also said that. 

I have read some reports, whether accurate or not, that the Navy 

and Marine Corps can actually do away with the furloughs. In 

other words, you have enough in terms of your, I guess, operation 

maintenance budget, or within enough flexibility there that you 

could do away with it. But this may be a question of whether the 

DOD as a whole would take one position. 

In other words, does everyone take 14 days, or does everyone 

take 7 days, when the Navy could and the Marine Corps could do 

with no furlough days? 

Am I correct in my understanding? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, what you are correct in is that the Department of Defense wants to approach this very deliberately fair 

across the board with all of our partners—our civilian—in my case, 

sailors. 

You are also correct, ma’am, that we did a number of evaluations 

that we fund with operations and maintenance, are civilian. And 

we looked at a lot of possible scenarios that we could use. As I have 

articulated, I got shortfalls across the board. The question is, what 

is the proper use of these funds, and as Secretary Mabus said, we 

are still just discussing that in the Department. 

Ms. HANABUSA. You also testified about the concept of an industrial base, which I think is also very critical. In situations, for example, like Pearl Harbor, which I represent, you would have if you 

take furlough days—and I was sort of calculating it. 

You know, we have, like, 5,000 employees—a rounded number— 

and if we were doing, like, middle of June, 14—14 weeks or 14 

days—5,000—if you were to give them furloughs, one a week, you 

know, you would have 1,000 employees—civilian employees off 

every single day. And that has gotta then affect the efficiency of— 

and our readiness posture more than anything else. 

So that is what I am also interested in, is that when you have 

that large of a contingent, how are you going to do these furloughs 

and not affect readiness substantially? And it is going to affect the 

whole industrial base, or whatever you want to call it, in terms of 

our ability to be ready, especially in the situations that we are now 

facing in Asia-Pacific. 

Admiral GREENERT. You have laid it out very well, ma’am, and 

that—again, we are in discussions. 

You take that and extrapolate that to aircraft depots, you extrapolate that to family service centers—you know, if there is coun-
34 

selors involved—and we have to tier this right. We have to compare 

that with operations money, you know, fuel, parts—other maintenance, if you will, and other support. And we gotta do this right, 

and that is what the Department wants to get right, and that is— 

we are still in discussion. 

Ms. HANABUSA. The other question I have is, we all didn’t expect 

sequestration to happen, but it has happened. And we are hoping 

on the 2014 budget, that somehow, sequestration will miraculously 

disappear. But what if it doesn’t? What is going to be the impact 

then? 

Is the 2014 budget sufficient to give you some movement? In 

other words, have you—is it plussed-up enough, so that if you take 

another hit like we are taking now—$10, $11 billion from Navy 

and Marine Corps alone—are you going to be able to withstand 

that? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, for me, as I laid out there before, it is 

$23 billion estimate; $9 rolling over from 2013, and another $14 

billion estimated. It could be a little bit more, a little bit less. 

And, you see, we put some things off in our investment accounts 

to get through 2013. We call that ‘‘cost to complete,’’ and that is 

the—kind of the—training materials, parts, documentation—things 

of that nature. Auxiliary gear that goes with ships’ aircraft. 

We said, ‘‘Well, we will defer that,’’ so that we don’t lose the aircraft as a result of sequestration in 2013. That is all going to come 

to roost somewhere. And if not 2014, well, when? 

But at those levels—at $23 billion, that is substantial and we 

can’t do that. So there will be real industrial base issues here, 

ma’am, and I am concerned. However, as mentioned, we are doing 

a strategic concept and management review. We are looking at 

what in that scenario you just described—do we keep more force 

structure, or hold on to more capability, reduce overhead, look at 

compensation and entitlements? What asymmetric capability do 

you want to keep instead of others, under that scenario? And that 

is what we are looking at now to help inform us. And we will work 

this summer to decide, what will we do in this case? 

Ms. HANABUSA. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. FORBES [presiding]. Thank you. 

Mr. Wittman is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Secretary Mabus, 

Admiral Greenert, and General Amos, thank you so much for joining us today, and thanks for your service to our Nation. 

General Amos, I wanted to ask you specifically about the amphibious combat vehicle [ACV]. Where are we in the progress of 

that vehicle? 

Looking at where we are in these fiscally austere times, can you 

tell us why the Nation should be investing in that particular vehicle? 

And then, looking to—ahead, how critical is the ACV for Marine 

combat operations going into the 21st century? 

And essentially, let us know, what are the baseline capabilities 

of the amphibious combat vehicle? 

General AMOS. Congressman, thanks for letting me talk about 

that important capability. 
35 

I have got two major programs in the United States Marine 

Corps. One is the F–35B and one is the amphibious combat vehicle. 

So if you were to ask me, ‘‘Okay, where do you want to put your 

money, that you are only going to be able to invest in two out of 

however many,’’ I would say those were the two. So that gives you 

a sense for how important it is for me, and for our Marine Corps. 

So, thanks for that opportunity. 

The Department of Defense—OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense]—did an amphibea—excuse me—an analysis of alternatives 

last year. They worked on it for the greater part of a year. Reported out last June, July, and that validated the requirement for 

a surface-born capability for marines to get ashore. When we come 

off an amphibious ship, we come off via air, the M–20—MV–22s, 

and that. And then we—and we come across the surface in tractors. 

Our tractor right now that we have, the amphibious combat vehicle, is going to—is going to replace—it is over 40 years old. By the 

time this amphibious combat vehicle comes in and it hits initial 

operational capability, it will be 50 years old, ours right now. 

So, we need it. So it is been validated. The requirement is there 

for 12 battalions worth of lift. We are only going to buy enough for 

six. 

So where are we? We have looked at this now since we canceled 

the EFV [Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle] 2 years—a little over 2 

years ago and to continue to refine the requirements. We know we 

are only going to get one more bite at this apple. 

So we have worked this thing. They came to me about 7 months 

ago. I looked at it, and I went, ‘‘Okay, put it back in the process 

again.’’ We have stood up a program office with a Ph.D. running 

it. 

Sean Stackley, the assistant secretary of the Navy for research 

and development—as he was said earlier, is a genius—he is helping us with this. We are a partner with General Dynamics and 

BAE to help look right now at a—what is the art of the possible 

for a high-water speed tractor? 

They are to report back to me around September or October of 

this year. We will make a decision, is the cost too much? And if 

it is too much, well, then we will go with what we call a displacement—a slower moving vehicle. And we will get on with it. We will 

have a source selection, and we will get on with building it. 

So, Congressman, it is very, very important to us. It is critical 

to the naval—or for the Department of Defense. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

I want to move and ask a question of both Admiral Greenert and 

again to you, General Amos, specifically about our amphibious 

class of ships. 

Where are we currently—where are we with the requirement 

going into the future? And can the Navy currently meet the standing requirement for a two Marine Expeditionary Brigade [MEB] lift 

requirement? 

And then also, can we meet that requirement going in the future 

with where we are going with the number of amphibious class 

ships? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, I support the requirement that the 

Commandant and the Marine Corps actually brought forward a few 
36 

years ago—33 ships. That is actually a fiscally constrained number 

of 38 to provide support for forcible entry for two MEB. 

Can we—the question is, you know, can you support that? Well, 

you know, we are in at around 30 right now—29, 30, 31—and if 

it ramps up, we eventually get to 33. 

There may be opportunity to get there sooner than later, but 

right now, early next decade with newer ships, if we get there. 

My near-term issue is, get the ships under construction out and 

into the fleet, and operating with the fleet as soon as possible. And 

keep those operated in the fleet at a high readiness level. 

The question is, how many—you know, how many ships do you 

need to have at what site, at what operation, at the right time? So 

there exists enough ships, but we need to be better. And I am endeavoring to do whatever I can to get there sooner to that next 

class of ship and get that in the fleet. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. 

General Amos. 

General AMOS. Congressman, I know we are working hard on 

this thing, because Admiral Greenert and I team up, and we work 

budgets—if not daily, certainly weekly. 

We work through this now, not only when we were both assistants to our service chiefs, but when he was a head of requirements 

and I was his—in the Marine Corps. 

We are working as hard as we can with the money that we have 

to get as many ships as we can. 

You are aware that we just commissioned the Arlington 2 weeks 

ago down in Norfolk, a beautiful ship. The flaws have been figured 

out in that San Antonio class—this is a wonderful ship. 

Admiral, Congress was good enough this year to give us some 

extra money so we could sustain two LPDs [Amphibious Transport 

Docks] next year and not retire them. 

You know, my shipmate is working to keep the numbers right. 

So I am content with the effort. I am never content with the 

amount of ships. You know, I would like to have 50, but I got to 

balance it against all our other requirements, and I have got confidence in the leadership in the Department of the Navy that is 

taking care of us. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. NUGENT [presiding]. Mr. Langevin is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary Mabus and Admiral Greenert and General Amos, 

thank you for being here, for your testimony and for your great 

service to our Nation. 

Obviously, we are in challenging times, both for the myriad 

threats that we face, and from the damaging constraints—the fiscal 

constraints that are confronting the DOD and the Navy today. And 

we on the committee appreciate the benefit of your insights and 

your testimony. 

If I could, I would like to turn to Virginia-class submarines to 

start off with. And more specifically, I know that a change in the 

funding trajectory for the Virginia Payload Module in the President’s fiscal year 2014 budget submission and so much of our undersea vertical launch capability is contained in the four converted 
37 

Ohio SSGNs [guided missile nuclear submarines] that we begin to 

age out. 

Can you speak to the importance of maintaining this program, 

as well as the capability that VPM [Virginia Payload Module] will 

bring to the Block 5 and beyond Virginia-class submarines? 

Secretary MABUS. Congressman, you very correctly identified the 

issue that is going to be facing us in the mid-2020s, mid to late 

2020s when the four SSGNs, guided missile submarines, begin to 

leave service. 

We have continued the work on the research and development, 

design work on the Virginia Payload Module because this is a crucial characteristic that we will need in our submarine force, not 

only for—to launch the missiles, the land-attack cruise missiles out 

of that, but to have these four large-diameter tubes that you can 

use for a myriad of missions for a very flexible things. 

And with the funding stream that we have going forward, we will 

have the—we will be where we need to be to make the decision in 

terms of putting the Virginia Payload Module into—to that block 

of submarines. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

If I could turn now to directed energy. First of all, I want to congratulate the Navy on the recent successful test of a high-energy 

laser that shot down a drone and other tests. 

Admiral, I noted with approval the Navy’s decision to deploy a 

directed energy system on board the USS Ponce—Ponce, I should 

say. And how does this deployment fit into the Navy’s plan to deploy high-powered directed energy systems in the near and mid 

term? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, what—first, it is about validating the 

CONOPS [concept of operations]. I call this, ‘‘Let’s get this system 

wet.’’ And so, I want to get it out to the Gulf, which, I think, is 

a really good Petri dish to lay in what are the effects of sand, air, 

heat, and, not only on the system itself, but on its support systems? 

How much power does it really take? Can—is latency an issue? 

And the Gulf has some interesting aspects of it from haze, from 

rain at different times. 

So it is really about the environmentals of that. And we will continue to test the system and see. The sailors find amazing things. 

And they come up with amazing ways to employ things when we 

give it to them. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Well, this is an area I have real interest in. And I see it can offer 

a host of benefits, not necessarily going to be a replacement for kinetic defenses, but certainly would be a great supplement to them, 

especially for ship defense and we have—and operating the 

littorals, especially as our adversaries are continuing to develop 

surface-to-air missiles and things that could further threaten the 

fleet. 

Let me, while my time is still—I still have time. Let me turn to 

cyber. Secretary Mabus, looking at the fiscal year 2014 budget, are 

we resourcing adequately in order to operate within the cyber domain and ensure our national interests are protected? And, specifically, does the Navy require additional authorities in order to educate, attract, and retain the very best cyber operators? 
38 

And if you could also, Mr. Secretary, with the guide to cyber, do 

you feel that we have reached the proper balance with regard to 

what capabilities and responsibilities that rest with 10th Fleet, and 

CYBERCOM [U.S. Cyber Command] and the regional combatant 

commanders? 

Secretary MABUS. Congressman, I do think that we are where we 

need to be and heading where we need to be in terms of cyber in 

this budget. We are growing cyber, as Admiral Greenert said. We 

are growing cyber in the Marine Corps, as General Amos said. 

We are growing cyber forces for our inclusion with Cyber Command through 10th Fleet, as you noted. And I will be happy to give 

you a much fuller answer in writing, sir. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. I would appreciate that. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Scott is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Gentlemen, thank you for being here, Secretary Mabus, and Admiral, General. 

Secretary, you mentioned in the last round of questions, looking 

forward into the 2020s a little bit. And I want to talk with you 

about that, as well. Because 2020 is the year that my son will be 

a freshman in college. And, I think, certainly from my standpoint 

when I look at national defense, and I know we all care about it, 

we look at it from the standpoint of, ‘‘What is going to be there for 

our children?’’ 

And here we are, taking cuts. We are canceling air wings. We are 

stopping the deployment of ships. We are furloughing civilians with 

the cuts that are coming. And I look at the world, and I think it 

is a much more dangerous place today than it was yesterday. And, 

I think, it will be a more dangerous place in several years than it 

is today. I think, we will have many more threats that we will have 

to be addressing. 

I want to ask you to all take a look at page 189 of the President’s 

budget, table S5. And this is where I have the real hard time coming to grasp with where this country is going to be when my son 

is a freshman in college. 

If we look at total spending, it will be up $1.2 trillion from now. 

If we look at non-defense discretionary spending, it will be up. If 

we look at Social Security, it will be up. If we look at Medicare, 

it will be up. If we look at Medicaid, it will be up. If we look at 

every line of the budget that the President gave us, in 2020, which, 

again, is a special year for me—it may be 2019 for some, it may 

be 2022 for others—everything is up other than defense discretionary spending. 

There is also another thing that is very special about that year. 

It is the year in which the interest payment on the national debt 

will exceed what we spend on national defense. And that makes 

the assumption that we are able to manipulate interest rates continually to artificial loads. 

So, I guess, when I—my question, Secretary Mabus, I don’t think 

we can defend this country with that budget. And, I guess, when 

we talk about alternative sources of fuel, I am a big fan of them. 

I think, we need them. I don’t want my Navy to be dependent on 
39 

foreign sources of oil, just like I don’t want my country to be dependent on foreign sources of oil. 

But—would you agree that the liability of our Navy being dependent on foreign sources of oil is similar to the liability of the 

American citizens and our economy being dependent on foreign 

sources of oil? 

Secretary MABUS. I am sorry, Congressman, I think that dependence on foreign sources of oil or foreign sources of energy in general, is not only a national security thing, it is a national energy 

security—it is a national security issue—no matter how we look at 

it. 

And that is the reason that we are trying to so aggressively pursue alternative forms of energy that are homegrown, that are not 

subject to these incredible price spikes. And I thank you for your 

support on that. 

Mr. SCOTT. And my question with that, Mr. Secretary, is right 

now the time to be buying as much alternative fuel as we are, or 

would it be more important to be able to deploy our fleet and keep 

our aircraft in the air and maybe just pull back a little back on the 

percentage of biofuels that we are paying? Because we do pay more 

per gallon for that fuel right now, if I am correct. 

Secretary MABUS. Two things, Congressman. Number one, I 

think it is more important now than ever to do it in this constrained-budget environment. In answer to a previous question, I 

said that in 2012, Navy got an additional $500 million in fuel cost. 

In 2013, we are looking at an additional $600 million in fuel cost. 

That is $1.1 billion. We don’t have many places to go get that. That 

is outside of sequestration. That is outside of the Budget Control 

Act. And so, that is what is causing our planes to operate less, us 

to steam less. So, I think, if we don’t come up with this. 

And, secondly—— 

Mr. SCOTT. [Off mike.] 

Secretary MABUS [continuing]. The price of that fuel—— 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. 

Secretary MABUS [continuing]. Is coming down dramatically. And 

I have committed that we will not buy operational amounts until 

it is absolutely, positively competitive with fossil fuels. And I am 

absolutely confident that will happen in the time being that we are 

looking at. 

Mr. SCOTT. Secretary Mabus, I appreciate that answer. And I 

have only got 10 seconds left. And if I may, if those of you who 

are—and I understand you are Presidential appointees—but if we 

look at 2020, the year in which my kid is a freshman, if the people 

from the DOD that come before us say the President’s budget is 

balanced, and we support the President’s budget, I—those of us 

that want to put the money back in there are going to have a much 

harder time getting it back in there. 

And I honestly don’t think that we can defend this country at the 

levels in 2020, when my kid is a freshman, that this budget has. 

And so, I would ask those of you to look at that chart, page 189 

of the President’s budget. 

I yield. 

Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Smith is recognized. 
40 

Mr. SMITH. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I apologize. 

Gentlemen, I was not here at the start of the hearing this morning. 

I had planned a speech some time ago at the Wilson Center before 

this hearing got scheduled. So I had to arrive late, but I have heard 

most of your testimony and certainly appreciate all that you are 

doing and the very difficult circumstances that have been described. I have met with all of you personally to discuss that. 

I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you go, you know, 

week to week, month to month not knowing how much money you 

are going to have, with the responsibilities that you have with that 

money. So we very much appreciate your diligence, your creativity, 

and your tireless effort to fund our national security in these very 

uncertain times. 

And, again, I will just reiterate that, you know, the sooner Congress can, you know, pass appropriations bills on a regular basis 

and get rid of sequestration and get rid of that uncertainty, you 

know, granted the number certainly should be higher in the budget, maybe long term than sequestration, but just getting rid of that 

uncertainty would be a huge step towards being able to help you 

guys do your job. So we will always emphasize that. 

On the biofuels point, just one quick thing. And I have a question 

on another area. But, look, we gotta generate alternatives. We 

gotta get to the point where if, you know, we have to buy oil from 

overseas at this incredibly high price, we can go, ‘‘You know what? 

We are not going to do that. We have got something else we can 

buy.’’ 

And you just don’t get there if you don’t develop those alternative 

sources, if you don’t make some investment in developing something other than oil, as long as we are always dependent on it, as 

long as oil can say, say, ‘‘Hey, well we are the cheapest. We are 

the best. So don’t bother with any of that other stuff,’’ it perpetuates the situation that puts us into this hole where we have to 

buy—we have to buy oil. And if we have to buy it from whatever 

country in the world, then we have to. If we have to pay, you know, 

$5 dollars a gallon or $150 a barrel, and we have got no alternative, that is where we are stuck. 

So I applaud you, Secretary Mabus, and, you know, in both of 

your services, you know, for the efforts to finally get us some kind 

of choice so we are not held around the throat by whatever the 

price of oil is and whoever happens to be selling it. 

The question is on base realignment, very controversial issue up 

here. Everyone freaks out at the very mention of the word BRAC, 

but when you listen to some of the restructuring that is going on 

in all of the services, because of budget, because of changing national security needs, it seems nonsensical to think that we 

wouldn’t be better served by restructuring in some ways. It is going 

to vary from service to service. But part of my question is to hear 

from both General Amos and Admiral Greenert, actually from all 

of you, on how you would, what needs would be out there to help 

you realign some of your bases, realign some of your force structure? 

And then also I am hoping and based on some private conversations that I have had with you, knew we could get there, part of 

what we can do here is also calm some nerves. That you are actu-
41 

ally particularly in the Navy, got a force structure that is not that 

far off from where it needs to be if we did a BRAC, we are not talking about closing big huge, major bases in the middle, you know, 

things that may have happened in the past. 

So can you give us a little reassurance that your structure isn’t 

as far off but also explain the need for at least some flexibility? If 

you could thread that needle, I would be curious to hear how all 

of you feel about base realignment. 

Secretary MABUS. Actually I don’t think I could do a better job 

of threading that needle than you just did. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. 

Secretary MABUS. I think that it is as indicated in the budget, 

that it is a tool that needs to be looked at in terms of flexibility 

going forward. I also think it is the answer to the previous question, that the Navy and the Marine Corps have taken previous 

BRAC rounds very seriously and have shed a lot of the duplication, 

a lot of the excess, a lot of the things that were not needed for our 

operations. And I do think that our force is now, we are growing 

the Navy. We are growing the number of ships. We are growing the 

number of sailors going forward. 

And this new defense strategy that was announced 15 months 

ago is a maritime-centric strategy and it is going to place more 

focus on the Navy and Marine Corps and on the capabilities that 

we bring to the country and to any possible fight. So I think that, 

in terms of, as we look at BRAC, you have to take all of those elements into account. 

We need to look at it but I think that there is some solace. I don’t 

know if you were here, but I did point out that as Governor I lived 

through a BRAC round and I understand the uncertainty and the 

concern that they cause. 

Mr. SMITH. General, do you have anything to add to that? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, for us sir, we will bring as we did last 

year, to you and to your staff, what we call the strategic laydown. 

And it is kind of the metamorphosis of ports, people, ships, aircraft 

and it kind of shapes the port as we bring new construction ships 

in, as we retire some. And as we rebalance to the Pacific as we say, 

as you know, we are going from 55 percent West Coast, 45 East 

to a 60/40. And so that has its own, if you will, realignment. Although it is subtle. 

Mr. SMITH. That is a matter of moving ships for the most part. 

It is not a matter of shutting down a base or you know, it is just 

moving them around, is that fair? 

Admiral GREENERT. That is right sir. And with that will come 

the supporting infrastructure. But as you said, are these major, no 

they are subtle. Over time, 10 years, it can appear major to some. 

We move an amphibious ready group to Mayport, it is a pretty big 

change to Mayport, as an example. We put P–8s in the Pacific 

Northwest in the Whidbey Island with Growler Squadrons, in the 

sum total it can be very big. 

If I may sir, though, what is very important to me, these little 

black squares on the chartlet that I provide, overseas, we get such 

leverage operating forward, being forward stationed. This is very 

subtle, modest changes that we need to support them. And the payback is huge. It is 4 to 1, it takes 4 ships to keep 1 forward. If one 
42 

is forward, you see the leverage, sir. And so I commend that to you, 

that that is important. We are evaluating our overseas laydown in 

the Navy and we will, we are going to reduce it as much as possible 

because it can get costly. And not put anything overseas that we 

don’t need. 

Mr. SMITH. A couple critical points there. I know a lot of people 

say, why do we have all these bases overseas? And we are in some 

places shrinking. I mean the Army I know is shrinking in Europe. 

There are a lot of places where it makes sense. But that is a huge 

point you just made about being present over there, means that 

you don’t have to do all this work back home to be ready to be 

present over there if necessary. 

I guess the other thing is, I think the Navy is on solid ground, 

and I’ll say this even though my good friend from Connecticut Mr. 

Courtney isn’t here, if we could just convince him that New London 

is fine, I think he might have a different attitude about BRAC. And 

New London is fine. It is a critically important part of where we 

are at. And I am just worried that members are looking at you 

know, stuff that happened 10 years ago that may have jeopardized 

them and getting in the way of what we need to do on realignment. 

And in some isolated cases, closures. Stopping the minor changes 

that are necessary, even though the underlying structure, particularly in the Navy and the Marine Corps is very solid. 

Now, General Amos, if you have anything you want to add? 

General AMOS. Sir, we are already pretty lean as you know, Congressman. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

General AMOS. So there is not a lot of fluff with regard to our 

bases. We don’t have a lot of them, and those that we do have are 

pretty well occupied. But to the larger issue, my personal opinion 

is where we are headed with 182,100 Marines, down 20,000 from 

where we have been, should be the floor. 

And I say that with regards to the future security environment. 

I mean there is absolutely no indication that things are getting any 

nicer out there. I mean just opening the Washington Post on Sunday you can walk your way around a geography lesson around the 

world. So as I look with my JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] hat on, I 

look and I go, okay well who is going to do this? Who is going to 

be out there, be present, forward, not at large land bases and stuff, 

but on ships doing the bidding of the Nation, responding to crisis? 

It is us. So that is why I say 182,100, I look at that and I go boy, 

this should be the floor of the Corps. 

Now I have said this before in this body and I have said it publicly. At the end of the day, when sequestration hits, if it is taken 

if it is adjusted, whatever it is, the Marine Corps will end up with 

euphemistically some pile of money to operate the Corps. And inside that I will build the most capable, ready Marine Corps that 

the United States of America can afford. 

But when I put on my other hat, my JCS hat on, we have got 

some business decisions as a nation to determine where we are 

going to balance our priorities. And where are we going to take our 

capabilities or perhaps most relevant over the next two decades in 

a resource constrained environment? Where are we going to use 
43 

those and apply those? That is where I think the Navy and Marine 

Corps team really gives you a bang for a buck. 

Mr. SMITH. We know you will do your best. And when you mention the dangerous world we live in, I have taken to doing a standard joke about I get clips every day as I am sure you do, about 

what is going on in the world. It always reminds me of the scene 

in ‘‘Roxanne’’ where Steve Martin buys a newspaper, takes it out, 

looks at it, screams, puts another quarter in, opens it up, returns 

the paper and shuts it. Doesn’t want to have anything to do with 

it. Make no mistake about it, there is a lot of dangerous stuff going 

on in the world and you guys see it every day, do your best to deal 

with it. And I thank you for that. 

I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. NUGENT. I thank the ranking member. Great comments. 

Mrs. Roby is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. ROBY. Thank you. And again thank you to each of you for 

your service and sacrifice for our country, we appreciate that and 

not just you but your families as well. So thank you for being here 

today. General Amos, I see in your posture statement that you request Congressional support to expand the Combat Center at 

Twentynine Palms, California, and extend the existing withdrawal 

of land for the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range in California as well as purchase private property to expand the Townsend Bombing Range in Georgia. So I just wanted to give you an 

opportunity to talk about why this is so important. 

General AMOS. Thank you. Let me start with one that, I actually 

know all three of them well. I have operated and trained out of all 

three of them over my time as a marine. So let me start on the 

East Coast, Townsend, which is just outside of Savannah. And it 

is used primarily by the Air Force that flies in and around South 

Carolina as well as the Marines that fly out of Beaufort. And as 

Congressman Wilson was talking about we have got F–18 squadrons, soon to be F–35 squadrons up there, as well as up in Cherry 

Point. 

The Townsend Range right now is, I use it a lot. I have probably 

operated out of there over 100 times. Very limited. It is nice, it is 

convenient. It is about 70 miles away from the air station. And it 

literally is the only range within that kind of proximity to be able 

to deliver air-to-ground ordinance. All we are trying to do is expand 

the property around there, not to drop live ordinance. But to be 

able to actually drop the new family of weapons, JDAMS [Joint Direct Attack Munitions Systems] and these kinds of things, not 

using high explosive heads on these things. 

So it actually will bring that range into the 21st century. Because right now we are flying 20th century weapons in there because we are restricted. So that is what that would do. 

If you go to the Chocolate Mountain area just outside of Yuma, 

we have been using that for decades. The SEALs [Sea, Air, and 

Land] use that, we share that with them. And it is the only place 

that we have in that part, the only place, that either the Air Force 

out of Luke or the Marines or the Navy have an opportunity to 

drop the entire array of ordinance in a live configuration. 
44 

The last place you want to do it for the first time is in combat. 

When you are actually trying to deliver a live piece of ordinance, 

it is very complicated. So all we are doing is ask that be renewed. 

And then the Twentynine Palms land expansion we have been 

working for 6 years, when I was a three-star, we started working 

it. It is a recognition that as we come out of Afghanistan and this 

counterinsurgency operation mindset, we need to get back to our 

bread and butter which is combined arms. We have asked for a, 

what we call a Marine Expeditionary Brigade-size force, which is 

three infantry battalions maneuvering on the ground with 

aviational logistics. And we need that land expansion to be able to 

do that. 

The record of decision, they made a choice about a year or so ago, 

saying that we could use both, not only a shared use area but a 

use that is specifically for us. So we are excited about it. We hope 

that that is able to come through and we ask for Congress’s support on it. 

Mrs. ROBY. Thank you very much. 

And Admiral Greenert, I was in Mobile 2 weeks ago and I had 

the opportunity to tour and spend time on the JHSV, the joint 

high-speed vessel, that is currently in production. And so if you 

could, would you just give us your vision about how you see use 

and utilization of this in your fleet? 

Admiral GREENERT. Thank you, ma’am. I will. 

The joint high-speed vessel, a catamaran, is about speed and volume, with fuel efficiency, if you will. So what we have is an opportunity. There will be 10 produced. We will deploy them. They will 

be forward-deployed, so on this little chartlet out there, they will 

be out around the world. Civilian mariners will operate them, but 

we will have a military detachment on board, somewhere around 

40 people. 

But what is extraordinary about it is it has got a lot of volume. 

You can move a lot of vehicles on board. So, as General Amos was 

saying earlier, how do we tailor the force of sailors and marines to 

do that. It is fast. You can put some armament on it and it can 

do counter-piracy operations, counter-drug operations. It can do 

things that we weren’t sure about whenever we started. 

It has a good medical facility, so it can do theater-security cooperation. So it resonates with Southern Command. It resonates 

with Africa Command. And it also has—can carry 300 soldiers or 

marines on board with gear. Now, this isn’t overnight. This is place 

to place. But if you are going 40 knots, you can get a lot of places 

in a short amount of time. 

Add on top of that, it has—its been—the backbone is in there for 

command and control. So it can direct operations. And I would see 

perhaps mine counter-measure operations, counter-smuggling, that 

sort of thing where you bring in small boats and direct them 

around. It is a pretty agile vessel, ma’am. 

Mrs. ROBY. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. NUGENT. Thank you. 

Ms. Speier is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you, Secretary Mabus, Admiral Greenert, and General 

Amos, for your extraordinary leadership on behalf of our country. 
45 

I would like to start, Secretary Mabus, by focusing on the Littoral Combat Ship program. Congress was initially promised a 

speedy, flexible, lightly manned and cheap ship. But as you know, 

we have discovered that the module concept is not as flexible as we 

thought it would be, and the manning requirements have had to 

be substantially revised, all of which is resulting in a ship that has 

doubled in price. 

It also concerns me that we have had problems with corrosion 

and doors that wouldn’t close. And I am very concerned that taxpayers are not getting the kind of ship that they should be getting. 

And I am wondering, from your perspective, is it time to re-think 

moving forward with the LCS? 

Secretary MABUS. Congresswoman, straightforward answer to 

your question is absolutely not. The LCS program had some problems in the early part of the last decade. But since I have been 

there, and I will give you a very quick snapshot, when I got there, 

we had one ship in the water of each variant. They were research 

ships. They were the first of the class. They were experimental 

ships. There was one of each class being built. 

We put three more out for bids and the bids came in absolutely 

unacceptably high. So I made the decision that while we wanted 

both versions, each one brought something unique. Both met all 

our requirements. And so they were going to have to compete based 

partly or primarily on price. 

Over the course of—and we would award one shipbuilder 10 

ships over 5 years. We would get a technical package from that 

shipbuilder. We would then award nine ships to a second shipbuilder to keep competition in the program, but only one version. 

The prices came down by 40 percent over the course of that competition. I came back to Congress, asked for permission, and Congress gave that permission to buy both ships. They are being 

bought under a block buy. They are firm, fixed-price contracts. We 

got 20 ships, 10 of each version instead of 19, and we saved $2.9 

billion on that program. 

Ms. SPEIER. All right, Secretary, let me ask you this. It has been 

reported that, and I quote—‘‘the boat deck configuration for both 

LCS types for launching and retrieving small boats can be quite 

dangerous and lead to injuries or fatalities.’’ Are you familiar with 

that? 

Secretary MABUS. One of the things that the CNO has done is 

as you begin to use these ships, and LCS–1 is right now on her way 

to Singapore in our first deployment overseas. As we begin to use 

these ships, and as the concept of operations begin to be developed, 

and as we begin to do things like boat operations or unmanned systems operations, and in the different weapons systems, that are ontrack today, exactly where we thought they would be for all three 

modules. 

CNO has set up the LCS Council, the Littoral Combat Ship 

Council, to take a look at any issues, come up with an operating 

concept and design, come up with the manning. And we still have 

the same core crew on LCS of 40. The weapons systems crew will 

be anywhere from 40 to 50. So we are still under 100 sailors on 

that ship. 
46 

As issues arise, this LCS Council takes a look at them, sees if 

it is a design issue; sees if it is an operational issue; sees how we 

can change it or mitigate it. The first ship of the class in any ship 

is going to have some of these issues. But I am confident—I am absolutely confident that we are meeting all those issues and that 

this ship is going to be one of the backbones of our fleet for years 

and years to come. 

Ms. SPEIER. Well, I am glad you have that kind of confidence. I 

am just reminded of the Air Force finally pulling the plug on an 

IT [information technology] project that cost over $1 billion, coming 

before Congress a number of times. Congress indicating its concern 

about it. They continued to say, ‘‘Oh, no, we are going to make it 

work even though it is now 12 years in the making.’’ And then finally, they pulled the plug. I just hope that we are not in that kind 

of position with the LCS. 

Secretary MABUS. Congresswoman, the LCS program today is 

one of our very best programs. It is coming in under budget. It is 

coming in on schedule. And it is coming in with capabilities that 

we have to have. 

Ms. SPEIER. My time is expired. Thank you. 

Mr. NUGENT. I want to recognize myself. 

General Amos, I truly do commend you in what you are facing, 

particularly as it relates to this fast reaction force that we need to 

have. And what I am concerned about, from—and Admiral 

Greenert you can I am sure respond to this also—but when the fact 

that the Marine Corps I believe thought that we should have 38 

amphibious warfare ships, amphibs, available to meet the demands 

particularly as it relates to our expeditionary brigades. 

But last year, if I am not mistaken, and correct me if I am 

wrong, we only had 22 of those ships actually available that were 

out at sea or could be at sea. How do we deal with that? Particularly—let’s forget about sequestration for a minute—when we have 

a need for the Marine Corps to have this fast reaction team, which 

I absolutely agree with, particularly when this is—and we have 

heard this testimony all day in regards to the fact that the world 

is not getting safer. It is getting more dangerous. We saw it in 

Benghazi, in Africa. 

How do we reconcile ourselves to the fact that with the shipbuilding that the Navy is talking about doing, where does that put 

the amphibs? I haven’t heard any discussion in regards to upping 

the ante as it relates to how do we support the Marine Corps and 

the mission that they have. 

Admiral GREENERT. Well, the way we deploy our ships and employ our ships is called the Fleet Response Plan. And what I will 

get you to is the numbers—why aren’t the numbers out there. So, 

the Commandant, and I agree with this, has a requirement—the 

Marine Corps has a requirement, the country has a requirement 

for 33 ships to support a two-MEB joint force—joint forcible entry. 

At any given time, we have a certain number of ships in what 

we call a ‘‘sustainment phase.’’ And it is almost a conveyor belt. 

You are in maintenance. Then you do basic training, integrated 

training and sustainment. And so the need for 33—we need to have 

30 ships—we commit that—available for a joint forcible entry operation at a certain time. 
47 

And that is the key. You have to have them there by day X in 

a scenario that we think is appropriate. And that is what we 

benchmark against. And so when you say there might be 20 ships 

at any time, I would say: ‘‘Well, how many can I have?’’ And we 

track this daily—how many ships can I have available if called 

upon by 60 days or 45 days? And they are, again, benchmarked to 

different operations. That is what we track it against. 

We are not there at the 33, and as I have spoken before, we are 

endeavoring to get there with the help of the Congress. We have 

two LSDs [landing ship, dock] through this fiscal year 2014. And 

we are working to build the amphib ships to get there. 

One of the items is, and if you said to me, ‘‘Hey, Admiral, what 

is your number one shipbuilding concern at this time?’’ It is completion of and integration of the ship—of our amphibious shipbuilding. 

Mr. NUGENT. General Amos, with 22 ships that were available 

last year, what position does that put you in in fielding the force 

that we need to have available at any given time? Because we don’t 

know—if we could plan exactly where we are going to be in regards 

to, you know, hostile actors against us, it would be great. But we 

have never been able to do that. I don’t see that happening. 

Obviously, you have come up with a number based upon possible 

hostile scenarios in regards to having those forces available to meet 

the demands that the President may set out. Where does that put 

us if, in fact, we only had 22 ships available last year? 

General AMOS. Congressman, the reality of availability for ships 

is a lot like airplanes. It is a lot like—a little bit better than my 

MRAPs [Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles], and my 

MRAPs are not doing bad in some cases; excuse me, MRAPs are 

probably doing better. But it is availability. One of the things that 

is happening that actually I think is a bright and shining light on 

the horizon is the new ships that are coming online. You remember 

when we built LPD 17, the San Antonio. It was the quality assurance issues and all that. It didn’t—there were issues with it. It was 

harder to get out of the blocks than it should have been. 

Those have been resolved. Two weeks ago, I think I said, and I 

don’t know whether you were in here, but I was down there when 

we commissioned LPD 24, which is the, you know the seven ships 

later on down the road, and it is just a beautiful ship, and everything works on it. 

So what we are doing is we have got a large deck being built at 

Pascagoula LHA 6, we have got LHA 7. I mean you could actually—it looks like a ship. We have got some in the FYDP that we 

are—that General—or Admiral Greenert and the Secretary of the 

Navy are buying. We are going to get newer ships. The availability 

will—just like an airplane, a new airplane, will actually be better 

than some of our 25- and 30-year-old ships. I anticipate the availability will go up. Because also, and I want to give credit where 

credit is due. My shipmate here has actually kind of put his money 

where his mouth is, so to speak. 

He has put money in ship availability to repair and maintenance. 

He is fixing some things that maybe should have been fixed some 

time ago, and he is working hard at it. So the truth of the matter 

is we are where we are, Congressman. If something happens, we 
48 

have never guessed it right as you said, something happens, we are 

going to put marines on anything we can. Even if it is that Italian 

cruise liner that was laying on its side off of the coast of Italy. 

We will right that baby and put marines on it, we will go to war. 

That is just what we do. But I am not trying to be funny here, but 

I am actually optimistic for the future. 

Mr. NUGENT. I am glad to hear that and I am glad to see the 

cooperation, not only between the Marines and the Navy, but all 

our service warfighters. One last question, and I hear this—I heard 

General, you say this, obviously our readiness, as it relates to those 

that are deployed, and those that are near deployment will be at 

the highest level. Obviously my concern is for all those troops that 

we have sitting around, where are they at in the mix? Because if 

in fact something happens, and we have to muster them all out, 

we want to make sure that they are ready to go, just like the guys 

that are ready to go, that are leaving for Afghanistan, or wherever, 

today. 

General AMOS. Congressman, the fact is they will not be as ready 

to go as those that we are training that are in the queue. It just— 

it is not going to be that way. I said a little bit ago that come January and February and March of 2014, those units that are not in 

the queue to get ready to go will be at a readiness rating of what 

we call, C3 and below. So, they are not as ready. They will go if 

the balloon goes, I just, I want to be clear about that. We will go, 

and we will turn out a good performance. 

But it will be painful. There is another—let me just give you 

an—not an anecdote, let me declare the truth of this thing. When 

the full effects of sequestration take place, as we roll into next 

year, if I take a look at my F–18 squadrons that I have. And remember I am flying, I have got legacy F–18 squadrons now, and 

we are trying to milk those along until we stand up the F–35s. 

Here are some numbers. We have 257 F–18s today that have 

USMC [United States Marine Corps] painted on the side of them; 

102 of those, 40 percent, are at depot-level maintenance as we meet 

here this morning. 

There are 23 that are scheduled to go into depot-level maintenance towards the third and fourth quarter of this year. Furlough 

happens. That is 11 percent of lost workdays in that depot. So I 

just—you know you need to understand that because what that is 

going to result in, it is going to result in more airplanes being in 

depot in an out of reporting status and not being repaired to the 

number of 125. 

So, 125 of 257 Hornets in the Marine Corps will be in, what we 

call, out of reporting status. So that is almost half. If you take the 

six squadrons that I have forward deployed in Iwankuni, in the 

Persian Gulf and on U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, that leaves—and 

then you take the airplanes out of the reporting status, out of that 

mix, I will have about, no more than six airplanes per squadron 

back home in the United States of America. That rates a 12-plane 

squadron. I grew up flying Phantoms when we would get 10 or 11 

hours of flight time per month. And we thought actually it was 

pretty okay. 

Those were pretty austere times. We are headed to times that 

will be less than that for those squadrons that are back home. 
49 

Mr. NUGENT. Just one comment, and then I am going to recognize Mr. Andrews. Just if you would, for the record, it is the—I 

think extremely important for this committee, but other Members 

of Congress to know exactly where we are going to be when sequestration, you know the ugliness actually hits us next year. Because 

if we don’t know that, what I am concerned about is that we have 

Members that are just going to kind of march along and say everything is going to be okay. Because what I am hearing, it is not 

going to be okay. And I want to make sure that every soldier, marine, sailor that we have out there has the best possible training, 

best possible equipment. As a parent of three soldiers, I want to 

make sure that they have the best possibility of surviving anything 

that we may throw them into, and the same goes for our marines 

and sailors. So I will now recognize Mr. Andrews. 

Mr. ANDREWS. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I thank you gentleman 

for your service to our country. Heartened this morning to hear 

that some of our Navy bomb personnel have been deployed to Boston to try to help with that situation. I know they will do a great 

job. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, then 

President Clinton talked about what had just happened. He said, 

the threat is not isolated. And you must not believe it is. We see 

that threat again in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 

New York, 1993, he was referring to. In the nerve gas attack in the 

Tokyo subway. The terrorist assault on innocent citizens in the 

Middle East. 

He said then, we see it even on the Internet where people exchange information about bombs and terrorism even as children 

learn from sources all over the world. He goes on to say that, like 

the vigilant generations that brought us victory in World War II, 

we must stand our ground. In this high-tech world, we must make 

sure that we have the high-tech tools to confront the high-tech 

forces of destruction and evil. Pretty prescient given some of the 

things that have happened since 1995. Something else has happened here in the last 10 years that is not your responsibility, it 

is ours. 

Not yours, it is ours. For every $100 we were spending in 2004 

on research and development, we are now spending $85.00. If you 

adjust the spending for inflation in the RDT&E [research, development, test and evaluation] lines, we are about 15 percent shy of 

where we were 10 years ago. Now again, that is because of decisions people on this side of the podium made, not that you made. 

I wonder if you could tell us in this unclassified setting, given the 

rules that we have, what we are giving up in that 15 percent? 

What research and development aren’t we doing today, that you 

think we should be doing today that would protect us against risks 

that perhaps we can’t see 10 or 20 years down the road? What are 

we giving up? 

Secretary MABUS. Congressman, I think the statement that you 

made that we just don’t know what those risks are going to be. We 

don’t know what is going to be required. And I think more than 

what specific R&D that we are giving up, is we are stretching out 

the time. We are having to—we are not being able to turn as fast 

in some of the R&D capabilities that we have. 
50 

And it is one of the things that we are fighting, working hard to 

protect the most. Because two things give us our combat edge. One 

is our people, and the amount of responsibility that we push down 

and expect great performance, and get every single time. 

But second is our technological superiority. And because of that, 

in the budgets going forward, we have tried to the maximum extent 

possible to protect and in any case that is possible, increase research and development into new cutting-edge weapons, like the directed energy weapon. 

Mr. ANDREWS. What are we doing we can talk about in an unclassified setting, about electronic pulse shock? In other words, 

something would take down our computer systems. What are we 

doing about that potential problem? 

Admiral GREENERT. Well what, we are looking at hardening 

what we have. In other words, that they can recover. That the systems can withstand in an EMP [electro-magnetic pulse] and then 

recover. So you have kind of hit the nail on the head, Congressman. Okay, so we are doing something to undo in a defensive nature, what is done to us. I would comment, I would like to see more 

investment in asymmetric capabilities that we have. Things that 

we are unique on. The Secretary mentioned one, people. To make 

our people more effective at what they do. 

And the Commandant is all over this for the Marine Corps. The 

electromagnetic spectrum to me is somewhere that we have fallen 

behind. We did it purposely because we had no equal in that arena, 

and we were unchallenged. Well, we are challenged today, and we 

are behind. So I would like to see a lot more in there. The undersea 

domain is ours. We have it, we own it, we have got to keep it. We 

need unmanned autonomous vehicles, but we need the propulsion 

system in there. It is coming along slowly. 

Mr. ANDREWS. I see my time is almost expired. I appreciate that. 

I would simply say, and it is probably appropriate to say this given 

the fact that only two members I think are here now. Everybody 

here has their pocket speech about base closings and how much 

they deplore them and how terrible it is. And I don’t relish base 

closings. I have been through them in my district. But the members of this committee have to take an honest look at the tradeoff between excess overhead. And look, everybody thinks the excess 

overhead is in somebody else’s district, I get that. 

But we have to take an honest look between excess overhead, 

and what we are giving up by losing the RDT&E edge that I think 

is perilous to lose. And I appreciate the fact you are struggling with 

limited dollars. We have made that decision, not you. But this is 

an area where I think we will deeply regret not staying current, 

not staying ahead of the rest of the world if we don’t make some 

unpleasant choices about base structure. I appreciate your time, 

and attention. 

Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Andrews, thank you very much for your comments. Secretary Mabus, Admiral Greenert, and General Amos, we 

really do appreciate you appearing in front of this committee. On 

behalf of the chairman, seeing no other members present, the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:48 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
A P P E N D I X 

APRIL 16, 2013 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

APRIL 16, 2013 

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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LANGEVIN 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Secretary Mabus, looking at the FY14 budget, are we resourcing 

adequately in order to operate within the cyber domain and ensure our national interests are protected? Does the Navy require additional authorities in order to educate, attract, and retain the very best cyber operators? 

Additionally, with regard to cyber, do you feel that we have reached the proper 

balance with regard to what capabilities and responsibilities rest with 10th Fleet, 

CYBERCOM, and the regional combatant commanders? 

Secretary MABUS. The FY14 Budget sufficiently resourced Navy’s aggressive and 

balanced approach to build our cyberspace operations capability. Navy is committed 

to providing nearly 1750 personnel in support of the U.S. Cyber Command (USCC) 

Cyber Force Model build through FY16. These forces will be allocated to support 

National, DoD, Combatant Command and Service operational requirements, and 

will be trained to USCC standards. In addition, Navy is committed to the improvement of Service-specific cyberspace capabilities (e.g. Computer Network Defense 

afloat) with a corresponding workforce that is balanced in both manning and skill 

levels, and equipped with the necessary tools to achieve success within the cyber 

domain. 

The Navy continues to coordinate with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

USCC, and the National Security Agency to develop standards to recruit, train, and 

position the cyber workforce to make cyberspace operations a key component of maritime operations. Navy has also taken advantage of its unique ability to leverage 

the operational forces across the Information Dominance Corps to aggressively increase capacity, capability and expertise in the cyber domain in support of National, 

Theater, and Fleet missions. Because of these efforts the Navy does not require additional authorities. 

A rapidly evolving cyber environment, unconstrained by global boundaries, creates 

unique challenges to traditional military warfighting integration, synchronization, 

coordination and deconfliction. As such, Navy’s operational arms at Fleet Cyber 

Command/Commander 10th Fleet and Fleet Forces Command continue to work 

closely with USCC and regional Combatant Commanders to build and support a 

common understanding and appropriate balancing of cyber capabilities and defined 

lanes of responsibility. This will ensure efficient and effective operationalization and 

employment of Navy’s cyber forces across the spectrum of military operations. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Admiral, can you speak to the investments the Navy is making 

in Unmanned Undersea Vehicles, and what those mean to the Navy’s ability to persist in the restricted environments of the future? 

Admiral GREENERT. For Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicles 

(LDUUVs), the Office of Naval Research (ONR) invested $42 million toward Research and Development (R&D) in autonomy and endurance in FY12. PB13 contained $45 million for ONR, and $7 million for Program Executive Office Littoral 

Combat Ships to commence acquisition activities focused on the conduct of an Analysis of Alternatives. PB14 includes $39 million for technology maturation and $12.2 

million for acquisition. $33.8M has been invested in research, development, test, and 

evaluation to date for the Littoral Battlespace Sensing-UUV system while PB14 contains $9.6M for procurement. For the Persistent Littoral Undersea Surveillance 

(PLUS) system, $9.0 million has been invested for maturation and fleet transition. 

Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (UUVs) are a critical component of the future Navy 

Force. They augment manned undersea platforms by conducting dull, dirty, dangerous, and distant operations, thus freeing up more valuable manned assets for 

higher priority missions. UUVs provide capable, minimally manned, and relatively 

low cost alternatives to operate forward through persistent undersea operations, including: 

• Reduced operational risk (i.e., removing the warfighter from harm’s way). 

• Improved situational awareness in forward areas or an Anti-Access/Area Denial 

environment since they can reach areas inaccessible to manned platforms. 

• Operation of missions in areas inaccessible by manned platforms or especially 

hazardous to personnel. 
186 

• Operation of lower priority missions that allow manned platforms to focus on 

higher priority tasking. 

• Delivery to Operational Commanders of greater tactical flexibility in scheduling 

(reduced number of) assets. 

LDUUV’s long endurance, advanced autonomy, and multi-mission modular capabilities allow it to operate autonomously or provide support to manned undersea systems. PLUS’ persistent undersea presence provides valuable Anti-Submarine Warfare information to Combatant Commanders. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Admiral, battlespace limitations within anti-access/area-denial environments are likely to place a premium on particular assets, technologies, and 

competencies, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region where there is a significant proliferation of submarines, advanced tactical fighters, and ballistic missiles, as well as 

many electronic warfare challenges. Can you speak to how the Navy is resourcing, 

training, and investing in research and development in order to meet those challenges, particularly with regards to directed energy, undersea warfare, and advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures? 

Admiral GREENERT. We continue to evolve our systems and tactics, techniques, 

and procedures (TTPs) to counter predicted threats in anti-access, area-denial (A2/ 

AD) environments. 

For directed energy, the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR’s) Solid State Laser– 

Quick Response Capability (SSL–QRC) is currently being deployed. SSL–QRC will 

support the ONR Solid State Laser Technology Maturation program which will develop and demonstrate a 100kw or greater laser prototype. The first demonstration 

of this program will deploy on USS PONCE (AFSB–I) in 2014. 

For Undersea Warfare the Navy is acquiring and fielding a number of different 

Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (UUV) systems: the Littoral Battlespace Sensing 

(LBS) UUV and Glider, the Surface Mine Countermeasure Knifefish UUV, and the 

Mk 18 Mine Countermeasure UUV. The Persistent Littoral Undersea Surveillance 

(PLUS) System will add to our Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) capability. The 

Large Displacement UUV (LDUUV) will be a modular, long endurance autonomous 

platform capable of conducting multiple missions to include: intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; minesweeping; and ASW. The Navy’s biggest challenges 

in the full development of UUVs remain endurance, autonomy, ship integration, and 

energy certification. The Advanced Undersea Weapon System (AUWS) will be designed to deliver and distribute targeting sensors or autonomous weapons into 

chokepoints or channels to neutralize maritime threats for extended periods. ONR 

supports research to improve anti-submarine surveillance, detection, and attack capabilities against quiet adversary submarines operating in noisy and cluttered shallow water environments, enabling new undersea weapon TTPs and training. 

ONR’s Naval Air Warfare goal is to develop technologies, TTPs, and training to 

expand Naval weapon system stand-off ranges and reduce engagement timelines to 

enable rapid, precise, assured defeat of moving land, sea and air targets. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ROGERS 

Mr. ROGERS. Secretary Mabus and Admiral Greenert, has the Navy programmed 

funds to participate in the interoperable warhead W78/W88 life extension study 

being conducted in partnership with the National Nuclear Security Administration 

(NNSA) and the Air Force? 

a. Do you have any concerns with NNSA’s ability to successfully execute this program? 

b. Will the program preserve an option to conduct a straight W88 life extension 

if the interoperable warhead option fails to happen? 

Secretary MABUS and Admiral GREENERT. The Navy is requesting funding in the 

PB14 submission to support this study and is reviewing reprogramming options to 

commence this effort in FY13. 

The Department of the Navy supports the Nuclear Weapons Council decision to 

consider an interoperable warhead in the W78/88–1 Life Extension Program (LEP) 

study. This effort has fiscal and technical challenges, but has the potential to 

achieve long-term national cost savings. 

The Navy’s current planning efforts reserve the option to develop a standalone 

W88–1 LEP. This option would not need to start until the early 2020s. 

Mr. ROGERS. Secretary Mabus and Admiral Greenert, the joint explanatory statement of the conference report accompanying the FY13 NDAA requires the Navy and 

Air Force to brief the congressional defense committees later this year on efforts 

that can be jointly undertaken and cost-shared. Do you see opportunities for stra-
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tegic collaboration or commonality between the Air Force and Navy for sustainment 

of ballistic missile capability in the long-term? 

a. How might this reduce cost across the Service’s respective ballistic missile programs? 

b. Would commonality between the two ballistic missile programs increase risk 

that a technical failure would ground both Navy and Air Force ballistic missiles simultaneously? Have these risks been assessed? How [would] DOD manage such 

risks? 

Secretary MABUS and Admiral GREENERT. Yes, there are potential opportunities 

for strategic collaboration or commonality between the Air Force and the Navy for 

sustainment of ballistic missile systems, and we are investigating those opportunities. Navy and the Air Force are both addressing the challenges of sustaining aging 

strategic weapon systems and have begun to work collaboratively to ensure these 

capabilities are retained in the long-term to meet our requirements and are seeking 

opportunities to leverage technologies and make the best use of scarce resources. 

The Navy and the Air Force have established an Executive Steering Group to identify and investigate potential collaboration opportunities and oversee collaborative 

investments for sustainment of our strategic systems. As a part of this effort, technology area working groups have been established to study collaboration opportunities in the areas of Reentry, Guidance, Propulsion, Launcher, Radiation Hardened 

Electronics, Ground Test and Flight Test systems, and Nuclear Weapons Security/ 

Surety. 

A) While we are in the initial stages of addressing collaboration opportunities, we 

see potential to reduce costs in the future. Navy is also assisting the Air Force in 

investigating the potential for including commonality in the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) follow-on as a part of the ground-based strategic deterrent 

(GBSD) analysis of alternatives (AoA). B) We are assessing the spectrum of potential commonality with the goal of using commonality where appropriate while ensuring essential diversity where needed to reduce the risk of a technical failure impacting both Navy and Air Force ballistic missile systems. 

Mr. ROGERS. Secretary Mabus and Admiral Greenert, the Ohio-class replacement 

submarines will provide the nation with its critical core of sea-based deterrence capability until at least 2080. These submarines are being designed to meet potential 

threats seven decades from now. With regards to the missiles and the entire strategic weapon system, how is the Navy positioning itself within the FYDP and beyond to maintain the weapon system to meet the hull life of the Ohio-class replacement? How long do we expect the D5 system to be sustained and what are we looking at to replace it? When might this system be fielded? 

Secretary MABUS and Admiral GREENERT. The Navy is extending the life of the 

Trident II (D5) strategic weapon system (SWS) to match the extended service life 

of the current OHIO Class SSBNs. The OHIO Class was extended by 12 years (42- 

year service life) and will begin decommissioning at one SSBN per year in 2027. The 

D5 Life Extension (LE) program will maintain this strategic weapon system in service until at least 2042 and, pending additional analysis, possibly as far as the 2060s. 

The D5 LE program is executing on schedule and within budget. The program 

consists of the purchase of 108 new missiles and alteration kits to modernize the 

remaining inventory with a new guidance system and missile electronics components. Additionally, the Navy has continued to fund the low-rate production of solid 

rocket motors to prevent the age-out of the current inventory. The D5LE is scheduled to meet initial operating capability in 2017. 

Plans to support OHIO Replacement long-term requirements will be developed in 

the future. As the D5 LE program is fielded within the SSBN fleet, the Navy will 

further analyze the SWS service life. In parallel, the Navy is evaluating follow-on 

program replacement options in collaboration with the Air Force. These efforts will 

help ensure that the Navy continues to provide the required strategic capabilities 

to maintain the sea-based leg of the triad. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Mr. WITTMAN. Secretary Mabus, what are the operational impacts of civilian furloughs on fleet maintenance activities particularly in light of civilian hiring freezes 

and reduction to overtime work? 

Secretary MABUS. Furloughs, combined with the ongoing hiring freeze and overtime restrictions, will have an extended impact on Fleet maintenance capacity. 

The combination of the civilian hiring freeze, overtime restrictions, and 11 furlough days at the aviation depots is expected to delay the delivery of approximately 

66 aircraft and 370 engines and modules from FY13 into FY14. This equates to 80% 
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of a carrier air wing and will result in fewer aircraft ready for tasking and a commensurate reduction in flight hours for non-deployed units. Recovery of the delayed 

work will drive additional unbudgeted costs. The Naval Shipyards have been exempted from the furlough, but capacity is still being impacted by overtime restrictions and the hiring freeze. This capacity reduction will result in maintenance availability completion delays. 

If the hiring freeze continues through the end of FY13, it will prevent the Naval 

Shipyards from hiring approximately 1,030 production artisans and engineers. FY13 

capacity would be reduced by 87,000 man days, resulting in a two month delay for 

one Aircraft Carrier maintenance availability; a two month delay for one Ballistic 

Missile Submarine maintenance availability; and a total of eight month delay for 

two Fast Attack Submarine maintenance availabilities. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Secretary Mabus, in light of the fact that the Navy has spent the 

last six years operating a significant part of the force above a long-term sustainable 

tempo level, as the DOD draws down in Afghanistan and re-balances to the Pacific, 

a predominantly maritime environment, will the Navy be able to sustain its operations and meet enduring GFMAP requirements with base funding? And, by doing 

so, what risk will you assume? 

Secretary MABUS. Navy will source 100% of SecDef adjudicated requirements. 

Force capacity prevents sourcing 100% of Combatant Commander (CCDR) demand. 

Navy uses base funding to sustain the presence ordered in the Global Force Management Allocation Plan (GFMAP) base order. Operations beyond the base order 

will delay maintenance periods and decrease training opportunities, effectively reducing the long-term readiness of the force. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Admiral Greenert, can you briefly describe the plan for the replacement of the aging TAO and LSD class? What is the current vision for these platforms? Additionally, can you please touch on whether there is any consideration for 

hull commonality in future designs or commonality in ops and sustainability with 

the HM&E of the ships with what is currently operated in the fleet? 

Admiral GREENERT. An Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) is in progress for the LX(R) 

program to evaluate alternatives for the hull-form to fill capability gaps due to upcoming LSD 41/49 class ship retirements. The operation of the LX(R) platform will 

be consistent with the existing Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit 

missions. 

Two of six options currently being evaluated in the AoA utilize existing hull-forms 

in the fleet today: an LPD 17 variant and an MLP variant. Both of these options 

could provide some commonality throughout the amphibious fleet. 

The AoA is expected to be complete in August 2013. Until the AoA is complete, 

it is too early to speculate on any details of HM&E commonality between LX(R) and 

existing assets in the fleet today. The preliminary and contract design phases will 

offer additional granularity to analyze LX(R) HM&E system commonality. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Admiral Greenert, you have now started to begin the needed scheduled maintenance on our fleet. (1) Are there any ships that you anticipate completely skipping a planned maintenance period, if so what is the long term impact 

of that decision? And (2) Do you plan to have the ships available to deploy and 

maintain the needed forward presence for the foreseeable future, perhaps the next 

5 years? 

Admiral GREENERT. Navy does not intend to completely skip any planned ship 

maintenance periods. Navy’s PB14 request, including projected OCO levels, fully 

funds ship maintenance to execute all planned FY14 availabilities. It also funds the 

revised Class Maintenance Plan requirements to reset the material condition of surface ships undergoing docking availabilities in FY14. 

We plan to fund and execute the final eight scheduled FY13 surface ship availabilities supported in part by reprogramming currently under review by Congress. 

Any deferred FY13 availabilities will be reconsidered for scheduling and funding in 

FY14. While this might create a bow wave of maintenance that could take years 

to recover and higher costs to complete, this is preferable to completely skipping 

availabilities. 

Navy will deploy fully ready forces to the Combatant Commanders in support of 

the FY14 Global Force Management Allocation Plan (GFMAP). While the uncertainties of the ongoing sequester and future budgets could significantly impact our Operations and Maintenance funding levels, we will continue to prioritize the readiness 

of deployed and next-to-deploy forces. Any degradation to operational readiness will 

be taken in non-deployed forces to the maximum extent possible. This will best preserve our ability to support the adjudicated GFMAP in the near term, but will impact our capacity to respond to contingencies or to emergent Requests for Forces. 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Amos, how do you measure readiness and what impacts 

will sequestration have on the Marine Corps’ ability to maintain acceptable readi-
189 

ness levels? Can you briefly describe the current risks you are accepting in the force 

to maintain a combat ready expeditionary force? 

General AMOS. The Marine Corps measures the long-term health and readiness 

of its force by balancing resources across five broad pillars: 1. High Quality People; 

2. Unit Readiness; 3. Capability and Capacity to Meet Requirements; 4. Infrastructure Sustainment; and 5. Equipment Modernization. Maintaining balance across all 

five of pillars is critical to achieving and sustaining Marine Corps readiness. Given 

the impacts of sequestration, the Corps is being forced to take actions to preserve 

its short-term readiness at the expense of long term sustainment, investments and 

readiness. Most recently I have been forced to transfer facilities sustainment funding to support critical operations and equipment maintenance accounts. Over time, 

these actions will create an imbalance across our readiness pillars that result in 

both near- and long-term readiness deficits. 

As the nation prepares for an uncertain future, its expeditionary Marine forces 

provide a highly-utilitarian capability, effective in a wide range of scenarios. Marines remain a cost-effective hedge against the unexpected, providing a national ‘‘insurance policy’’ against strategic surprise. The Marine Corps remains responsive to 

its Congressional mandate to be the ‘‘most ready when the nation is least ready.’’ 

As such, we will preserve the readiness of our Marines engaged in combat—we will 

keep deploying units fully manned, trained and equipped—and we will do our best 

to have the resources necessary for the next mission while preparing for the future. 

Despite the constrained funding resulting from sequestration, the Marine Corps will 

meet near-term commitments for deployed and next-to-deploy forces, however we 

will continue to take risk as this comes at the cost on non-deployed Marine units. 

Currently, 65 percent of non-deployed units are experiencing degraded readiness 

due to portions of their equipment being redistributed to support units deploying 

forward. While necessary in times of crisis, this commitment of our ‘seed corn’ to 

current contingencies degrades our ability to train and constitute ready units for 

their full range of missions over time. Unbalanced readiness across the force increases risk to timely response to unexpected crises or large-scale contingencies. We 

will continue to emphasize our reset and reconstitution efforts that cost-effectively 

restore combat equipment and return it to units for training. 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Amos, how imperative is the reset and reconstitution of 

the Marine Corps? How does your reset plan support the new strategic guidance’s 

directed role for the Marine Corps? How will reset be impacted by sequestration? 

How long will it take to recover? 

General AMOS. The Marine Corps plays a special role in protecting our Nation. 

We are America’s Crisis Response Force—the Nation’s insurance policy. We must 

always be ready. For most of the past decade, the Corps has been engaged in combat operations that have placed a tremendous strain on our ground equipment. For 

this reason, resetting and reconstituting our Corps remains my top priority—we 

must swiftly repair and modernize equipment, while divesting obsolete inventory. 

These two complementary efforts, reset, and reconstitution are inexorably linked 

and must be conducted without operational pause. It is imperative that we align reconstitution with reset actions, force structure requirements, acquisition plans and 

maintenance strategies. 

Our Reset Strategy fully supports my strategic guidance to maintain a global crisis response capability that ensures readiness of ground equipment. Although the 

purpose of the Reset Strategy is to create unity of effort across the Marine Corps 

with respect to equipment reset planning and execution from Afghanistan, it similarly supports my direction to quickly rebalance to the Pacific, and ensure reset and 

reconstitution actions are oriented to protect the long-term health and readiness of 

the warfighter. 

With respect to sequestration, potential deferments and cancellations of planned 

maintenance could negatively impact readiness and operational capability. This situation could also result in a reduction and delay of equipment procurement contract 

orders. While we remain on schedule with our reset plan for the remainder of FY13, 

sequestration impacts in FY14 and out could reduce depot workload capability, impact planned procurement actions and cause delay of reset. Such a delay would 

hinder the Marine Corps’ ability to ‘‘reset and reconstitute in-stride’’ by FY17. 

The Marine Corps has a statutory responsibility to be the most ready when the 

Nation is least ready. As such, we will preserve the readiness of our Marines engaged in combat—we will keep deploying units fully manned, trained and 

equipped—and we will do our best to have the resources necessary for the next mission while preparing for the future. 
190 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BRIDENSTINE 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. I am concerned about the recent cancellation of multiple ship 

deployments to the U.S. Southern Command Area of Responsibility. Is sequestration 

the driving factor behind these short-term cancellations? Does the Navy plan to increase its presence in SOUTHCOM in the future? Please describe the Navy’s longterm laydown for SOUTHCOM. 

Admiral GREENERT. Sequestration is the driving factor behind recent cancellations/curtailment of FY13 deployments to SOUTHCOM. Six deployments were cancelled and one unit redeployed early. These seven deployments represent 50% of the 

FY13 Secretary of Defense ordered Navy deployments to SOUTHCOM. 

The Global Force Management Allocation Plan (GFMAP) is a Joint Staff led process to determine sourcing solutions to Combatant Commander Requests for Forces 

(demand). Navy, as part of a larger Joint Staff led effort, is currently evaluating potential Sequestration-related impacts to the FY14 GFMAP. 

Long-term sourcing to SOUTHCOM is difficult to predict. Combatant Commander 

demand for assets routinely exceeds Navy’s capacity to source. SOUTHCOM’s Request for Forces must be evaluated against global Combatant Commander demand 

and global priorities, and the Service’s capacity to source these requests as part of 

the GFMAP process. 

In the future, new platforms like the Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV), the Littoral 

Combat Ship (LCS) and existing Patrol Coastal (PC) ships will operate from bases 

like Mayport, FL to support the partnership development and maritime security 

missions that we perform in SOUTHCOM today. Use of ships like these will enable 

the Navy to maintain a more persistent presence, while high end ships (e.g. destroyers or amphibious ships) are drawn to more challenging missions in other theaters. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. How much money do you project the E2–D Advanced Hawkeye 

multiyear procurement will save taxpayers? Please also comment on what threats 

make the procurement of E2-Ds so important? 

Admiral GREENERT. PB–14 includes a Multi-Year Procurement for 32 aircraft 

(FY14–18) that saves the Navy an estimated $522.8M and stabilizes the production 

line to support an efficient E–2C to E–2D Fleet transition plan. 

Procurement of E–2D is important because, in the past decade, Anti-Access Area 

Denial (A2AD) threats have increased as a result of accelerated advanced weapon 

and platform development, the introduction of low-observable technology and supersonic weapons, and advances in research and development for electronic jamming 

equipment to deny or deceive U.S. Navy detection capabilities. The E–2D APY–9 

radar has advanced waveform and Space Time Adaptive Processing (STAP) techniques that provide enhanced surveillance and tracking against advanced threat aircraft and sea-skimming Coastal Defense Cruise Missiles (CDCM), which are a rapidly growing threat for our Carrier Strike Groups (CSG). E–2D also provides persistent, elevated track data as part of Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air 

(NIFC–CA). NIFC–CA extends the range, accuracy, and lethality of Navy fires, specifically for our Aegis ships with the SM–6 missile and for our F/A–18E/F aircraft 

with the AIM–120 missile. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. As a member of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, I’ve spent a lot time monitoring the progress of the F–35 acquisition 

process. The function of oversight committees, of course, is to focus on things like 

cost, schedule, and performance. However, I think sometimes we miss the forest for 

the trees. Can you both remind us why the Joint Strike Fighter is strategically important? How does the capability fit into long-term U.S. defense strategy? 

Admiral GREENERT. The F–35 Lighting II will enhance the flexibility, power projection, and strike capabilities of future carrier air wings and joint task forces. The 

F–35 Lightning II program will provide a transformational family of next-generation 

strike aircraft, combining stealth and enhanced sensors that enable the aircraft to 

be more combat effective and survivable. The F–35 will be a ‘‘day-one’’ capable 

strike-fighter that enables combatant commanders to attack targets day or night, 

in all weather, in highly defended areas of joint operations. 

The Department of the Navy will leverage the 5th generation capabilities of the 

F–35 to enter into the battlespace further than other aircraft in an Anti-Access/ 

Area-Denied environment to fuse multi-source data, process that input and link actionable targeting information to integrated, joint (and sometimes combined) 

warfighters. With its all-aspect low observable design, internal weapons carriage, 

and fully fused mission systems, the F–35C will complement the capabilities of the 

F/A–18E/F Super Hornet is a necessary part of the future carrier air wing. 

Mr. BRIDENSTINE. As a member of the Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee, I’ve spent a lot time monitoring the progress of the F–35 acquisition 

process. The function of oversight committees, of course, is to focus on things like 
191 

cost, schedule, and performance. However, I think sometimes we miss the forest for 

the trees. Can you both remind us why the Joint Strike Fighter is strategically important? How does the capability fit into long-term U.S. defense strategy? 

General AMOS. The F–35 JSF is the next generation strike weapons system designed to meet an advanced threat, while improving lethality, survivability, and 

supportability for our tactical aircraft fleet. The JSF will be the cornerstone of a 

multi-mission joint force possessing improved mission flexibility and unprecedented 

effectiveness to engage and destroy both air and ground threats. The F–35 is designed to participate in a wide variety of operations from routine, recurring military 

activities to Major Theater War. The short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) 

F–35B is the centerpiece tactical aviation aircraft needed to support our Marine Air 

Ground Task Force (MAGTF). Our requirement for expeditionary tactical aviation 

capabilities has been demonstrated repeatedly, most recently with forward operating 

bases (FOBs) in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). The F–35B surpasses our current generation of aircraft in combat effectiveness and survivability in the current 

and future threat environment. 

The capability inherent in a STOVL aircraft allows the Marine Corps to operate 

in harsh conditions and from remote locations where few airfields are available for 

conventional aircraft. The F–35B is also specifically designed to operate from amphibious ships—a capability that no other tactical fifth-generation aircraft possesses. The ability to employ a fifth-generation aircraft from 11 big-deck amphibious 

ships doubles the number of ‘‘aircraft carriers’’ from which the United States can 

employ fifth-generation capability. The expanded flexibility of STOVL capabilities 

operating both at-sea and from austere land bases is essential, especially in the Pacific. The Marine Corps will leverage the F–35B’s sophisticated sensor suite and 

very low observable (VLO) fifth-generation strike fighter capabilities, particularly in 

the area of data collection and information dissemination, to support the MAGTF 

well beyond the abilities of current MAGTF expeditionary attack, strike, and electronic warfare assets. Having these capabilities in one aircraft provides the joint 

force commander and the MAGTF commander unprecedented strategic and operational agility. 

Marine Corps alignment with the security demands articulated in the 2012 Strategic Guidance for the 21st Century is enhanced by the F–35’s advancements in capabilities that do not exist in today’s legacy fighter aircraft. The vastness of the Pacific and the diversity of challenges make the reach of the F–35 fleet a key element 

for our 21st century Pacific strategy. 

Æ