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| <title> - [H.A.S.C. No. 114-114] The Department of The Navy 2017 Operations and Maintenance Budget Request and Readiness Posture</title> | |
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| [House Hearing, 114 Congress] | |
| [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] | |
| . [H.A.S.C. No. 114-114] | |
| HEARING | |
| ON | |
| NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT | |
| FOR FISCAL YEAR 2017 | |
| AND | |
| OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS | |
| BEFORE THE | |
| COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES | |
| HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES | |
| ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS | |
| SECOND SESSION | |
| __________ | |
| SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS HEARING | |
| ON | |
| THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 2017 | |
| OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE BUDGET | |
| REQUEST AND READINESS POSTURE | |
| __________ | |
| HEARING HELD | |
| MARCH 17, 2016 | |
| [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] | |
| U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE | |
| 20-066 WASHINGTON : 2016 | |
| _____________________________________________________________________________________________ | |
| For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office, | |
| http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, | |
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| SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS | |
| ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman | |
| ROB BISHOP, Utah MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam | |
| VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri SUSAN A. DAVIS, California | |
| AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut | |
| ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York, Vice JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas | |
| Chair TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois | |
| FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey SCOTT H. PETERS, California | |
| MIKE ROGERS, Alabama TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii | |
| CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York BETO O'ROURKE, Texas | |
| RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona | |
| BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio | |
| SAM GRAVES, Missouri | |
| STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma | |
| Margaret Dean, Professional Staff Member | |
| Vickie Plunkett, Professional Staff Member | |
| Katherine Rember, Clerk | |
| C O N T E N T S | |
| ---------- | |
| Page | |
| STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS | |
| Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate from Guam, Ranking | |
| Member, Subcommittee on Readiness.............................. 2 | |
| Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, | |
| Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness............................ 1 | |
| WITNESSES | |
| Howard, ADM Michelle J., USN, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, | |
| U.S. Navy; VADM Philip H. Cullom, USN, Deputy Chief of Naval | |
| Operations for Fleet Readiness and Logistics; and VADM John C. | |
| Aquilino, USN, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, | |
| Plans, and Strategy............................................ 3 | |
| APPENDIX | |
| Prepared Statements: | |
| Howard, ADM Michelle J., joint with VADM Philip H. Cullom and | |
| VADM John C. Aquilino...................................... 32 | |
| Wittman, Hon. Robert J....................................... 31 | |
| Documents Submitted for the Record: | |
| [There were no Documents submitted.] | |
| Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing: | |
| Mr. Scott.................................................... 47 | |
| Ms. Stefanik................................................. 47 | |
| Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing: | |
| [There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] | |
| THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY 2017 OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE BUDGET | |
| REQUEST AND READINESS POSTURE | |
| ---------- | |
| House of Representatives, | |
| Committee on Armed Services, | |
| Subcommittee on Readiness, | |
| Washington, DC, Thursday, March 17, 2016. | |
| The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:37 a.m., in | |
| room 2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert J. | |
| Wittman (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. | |
| OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE | |
| FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS | |
| Mr. Wittman. The Subcommittee on Readiness of the House | |
| Armed Services Committee. I want to thank everybody for joining | |
| us today. And our hearing today is going to be on the Navy's | |
| 2017 operations and maintenance [O&M] budget request and | |
| readiness posture. | |
| This is the final of our series of four hearings on the | |
| services' budget request and readiness postures. This week, | |
| Admiral Howard, you testified before the Senate Armed Services | |
| Committee that sequestration, in your words, is the ``greatest | |
| threat to our future readiness. It has a ripple effect for us | |
| through the years.'' | |
| Today, I look forward to hearing how the Navy's budget | |
| request enables a readiness recovery plan and where we continue | |
| to take risks calculated in terms of both risk to the force and | |
| risk to the mission. | |
| I would like to welcome all of our members and the | |
| distinguished panel of senior Navy leaders present with us | |
| today. This morning, we have with us Admiral Michelle J. | |
| Howard, U.S. Navy, Vice Chief of Naval Operations; Vice Admiral | |
| John Aquilino--I will get it right--don't worry, Admiral--U.S. | |
| Navy, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans, | |
| and Strategy; and Vice Admiral Philip H. Cullom, U.S. Navy, | |
| Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Fleet Readiness and | |
| Logistics. | |
| Thank you all for testifying today, and we look forward to | |
| your thoughts and insights on these important issues. The | |
| purpose of this hearing is to clarify the Navy's choice for its | |
| budget requests, to address funding priorities and mitigation | |
| strategies, and to gather more detail on the current and future | |
| impacts of these decisions on operations, maintenance, | |
| training, and modernization. Most importantly, does the Navy | |
| have the resources it requires in order to improve its state of | |
| readiness? | |
| Once again, I want to thank our witnesses for participating | |
| in our hearing this morning, and I look forward to discussing | |
| these important topics. | |
| And now I would like to turn to our ranking member, | |
| Madeleine Bordallo, for any remarks that she may have. | |
| [The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the | |
| Appendix on page 31.] | |
| STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE FROM GUAM, | |
| RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for | |
| calling this hearing. | |
| And I would like to also welcome Admiral Howard, Vice | |
| Admiral Aquilino, and Vice Admiral Cullom. I want to thank you | |
| all for your service to our great Nation and for being here | |
| today. | |
| This is the fourth and the final service-oriented hearing | |
| that we are holding in this subcommittee to examine the fiscal | |
| year 2017 budget request. We have heard several common themes | |
| echoed by commanders in your sister services. And I will be | |
| interested to hear if they ring true from your perspectives as | |
| well. | |
| Budget constraints and continued funding unpredictability, | |
| resulting from years of sequestration and continuing | |
| resolutions [CRs], have hampered the ability of the services to | |
| man, train, and equip the forces they need to fill critical | |
| mission requirements. | |
| We have also heard how installation readiness has been | |
| compromised and long-term projects have been shelved in favor | |
| of more pressing needs. This has secondary and great impacts | |
| and will create more significant funding requirements for | |
| military construction in the years to come. | |
| And, as I have mentioned before, I do remain concerned | |
| about depot-level maintenance capabilities, including dry-dock | |
| capabilities in the Western Pacific. I believe these | |
| capabilities are lacking, and the Navy is not investing enough | |
| to support its forward deployed fleet in the Western Pacific. | |
| We have these requirements and we must make the right | |
| investments, as this is a key to readiness in the region. | |
| In particular, I have serious concerns about the Navy's | |
| assessments and will continue working to ensure that our | |
| forward deployed assets have quality and secure maintenance | |
| that American workers and equipment provide without losing | |
| weeks of presence. Through our discussion today, I hope that we | |
| can gain a better understanding of how the Navy plans to | |
| maintain readiness through personnel, training, and | |
| infrastructure improvement. | |
| So, again, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you, again, for | |
| your service, and I look forward to hearing your testimony. | |
| And with that, I yield back, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mrs. Bordallo. | |
| Admiral Howard, I have been told that you will be making | |
| one opening statement on behalf of all the witnesses, so please | |
| feel free to proceed. And, as a reminder, your written | |
| testimony has already been made available to the members and | |
| also will be entered as an official part of the record of | |
| today's hearing. | |
| STATEMENT OF ADM MICHELLE J. HOWARD, USN, VICE CHIEF OF NAVAL | |
| OPERATIONS, U.S. NAVY; VADM PHILIP H. CULLOM, USN, DEPUTY CHIEF | |
| OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FOR FLEET READINESS AND LOGISTICS; AND VADM | |
| JOHN C. AQUILINO, USN, DEPUTY CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS FOR | |
| OPERATIONS, PLANS, AND STRATEGY | |
| Admiral Howard. Thank you, Chairman Wittman. | |
| Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, and | |
| distinguished members of the committee, it is my honor to | |
| represent the thousands of Navy sailors and civilians who | |
| sustain operations around the globe. | |
| I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the current | |
| state of Navy readiness and the projected changes to that | |
| readiness with the fiscal year 2017 budget request. This budget | |
| submission provides the resources for our deployed forces and | |
| supports our continued readiness recovery efforts. | |
| This submission also contains the hard choices and | |
| tradeoffs we made to achieve future warfighting capability. In | |
| a design for maintaining maritime superiority, the Chief of | |
| Naval Operations [CNO], Admiral Richardson, has challenged the | |
| Navy team to meet the demands of our mission along four lines | |
| of effort. | |
| First, the readiness funding account directly contributes | |
| to the line of effort strengthening naval power at and from the | |
| sea. Navy readiness organizations are actively engaged in | |
| efforts to meet the second line of effort to achieve high- | |
| velocity learning at every level by investing in our sailors | |
| through new and reinvigorated training programs. We support the | |
| third line of effort, to strengthen our Navy team for the | |
| future, by employing innovative training methodologies to | |
| accelerate productivity of new shipyard employees. | |
| Lastly, we strive to expand and strengthen our network of | |
| partners in order to meet our most critical challenges. We have | |
| reached out to industry to address our shipyard and aviation | |
| depot workload. Our budget request supports this design and, if | |
| executed, will result in continued operational excellence | |
| throughout our Navy. | |
| The demand for naval assets by the global combatant | |
| commanders remains high. And Navy continues to provide maximum | |
| sustainable global presence. Supporting this posture requires a | |
| commitment to protect the time and funds needed to properly | |
| maintain and modernize our force. Full recovery of the material | |
| readiness of the fleet is likely to extend beyond 2020. Stable | |
| funding, improvement in on-time execution of ship and aviation | |
| depot maintenance and steady state operations are required to | |
| meet our fleet readiness goals. | |
| As we proceed on the road to recovery for our afloat | |
| operational units, we continue to do so by taking conscious | |
| risk in the maintenance of our shore infrastructure. To | |
| mitigate impacts ashore, Navy has made difficult decisions and | |
| focused on items directly tied to our primary missions. | |
| As a tradeoff, Navy continues to postpone much-needed | |
| repairs and upgrades for the majority of our infrastructure. | |
| Continued shortfalls in our facility sustainment will | |
| eventually have effects on our at-sea readiness model. Failing | |
| to plan for these necessary investments will continue to slow | |
| our future recovery. | |
| We are still paying down the readiness debt we accrued over | |
| the last decade, but more slowly than we would prefer and at | |
| continued risk to our shore infrastructure. Powered by | |
| exceptional sailors and civilians, your Navy is the world's | |
| finest, and we are committed to retaining our superiority. | |
| This budget represents a margin of advantage over our | |
| adversaries. That margin could be lost if we do not achieve | |
| stable budgets. We will only maintain our status as the world's | |
| greatest navy with constant vigilance, dedication to restoring | |
| our readiness, and a commitment to sustained forces around the | |
| globe. | |
| I extend my thanks to this committee for your efforts and | |
| continued support. Thank you. | |
| [The joint prepared statement of Admiral Howard, Admiral | |
| Cullom, and Admiral Aquilino can be found in the Appendix on | |
| page 32.] | |
| Mr. Wittman. General Howard, thank you. I appreciate all | |
| the hard work the Navy has done in restoring readiness. | |
| My question along those lines is, as you look at the Navy's | |
| readiness recovery plan and how it defines setting the | |
| conditions for readiness recovery, a couple of different | |
| elements come to mind. First of all is, can you lay out for us | |
| the timeframes and when you will get to full-spectrum | |
| readiness? I think those are important to understand the steps | |
| we need to take and how long it takes for us to get there. | |
| Secondly is, along the way--and you--the Navy has assumed | |
| some risk in previous years. On the path to restoring | |
| readiness, there will also be some core functions where you | |
| assume some risk. If you could, lay out where you see risk | |
| being assumed and what you are doing to manage that, in the | |
| best way possible, as you are re-establishing readiness. | |
| And then thirdly is, the fiscal year 2017 budget that you | |
| spoke about provides you the resources in the readiness | |
| recovery. Does that do enough for you to get back to a state of | |
| full-spectrum readiness as quickly as you believe is attainable | |
| by the Navy? | |
| Admiral Howard. Thank you, Congressman. | |
| In order to talk about the timeframe, I need to explain how | |
| we invest in our forces in order to maintain a ready fleet. We | |
| have a fleet where we prioritize the readiness of the units | |
| that are forward deployed and the readiness of the assets that | |
| are going out the door. | |
| We generate forces that are fully prepared to do the full | |
| spectrum of operations. And so for us, it is as if we have this | |
| team of assets but, like every good team, we have a bench. And | |
| that bench is the assets that are the next ready to go or the | |
| assets we have if we ever have to get into a war fight. We | |
| refer to that bench as our surge capability. | |
| So we invest to make sure that, as people are required to | |
| do their daily operations, they are ready. Where we have made | |
| choices, our ability to surge, that bench, has become smaller. | |
| We have lowered the readiness of those assets and, in some | |
| cases, the readiness was lowered because we consumed that | |
| readiness. | |
| Over the last 10 years, we have operated at a higher | |
| operational tempo and we have had more ships out there. And we | |
| have had ships out there for much longer deployments than we | |
| had seen in the previous 10 years. It was not unusual for ships | |
| to be on 9- and 10-, and get extended sometimes, to 11-month | |
| deployments. | |
| And so, then, as those ships came back, we had to start | |
| working our way through getting them through maintenance. And, | |
| as we operated longer and harder, then the work we needed to do | |
| in the overhaul started to increase. | |
| With this budget, we will start working through the | |
| maintenance requirement to reset the force. The force will be | |
| fully recovered sometime just outside of the FYDP [Future Years | |
| Defense Program]. But there is another piece that is really | |
| important for the Navy to recover their readiness. We are | |
| required to still operate but, in order for us to get to an end | |
| state where the entire fleet is recovered, we have to manage | |
| the amount of fleet that is out. | |
| So we have determined that we can have about one-third of | |
| the fleet out and about while we are maintaining and then | |
| training the rest of the fleet but that, in the end, when you | |
| look at a 36-month, from maintenance-to-deployment cycle, it | |
| means our deployments need to be at about 7 months in order to | |
| get those ships back, to get to maintenance, in order to have | |
| the time to train the crew back up for the next deployment. | |
| So we have gone to an Optimized Fleet Response Plan [OFRP], | |
| where we will deploy the ships in 7-month deployments. And we | |
| have to be disciplined and hang onto that plan in order for us | |
| to get to recovered readiness. | |
| And then I would like to allow Admiral Cullom--see if there | |
| is anything--other specifics he would like to add. Thank you. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir. | |
| What I would like to add on the--because on the second part | |
| of your question you asked about what the risk areas were. And | |
| one of the principal areas, as we try to support as many of the | |
| things that we can forward, is what do we have back home where | |
| we can take a conscious risk in, a deliberate risk, and be able | |
| to utilize those to be able to ensure that whatever goes | |
| forward, in support of our sailors and marines, actually is at | |
| that high-end and capable of full-spectrum. | |
| So, where we have taken a lot of that risk, really, is in | |
| three areas on the shore--the recapitalization of the shore, | |
| maintenance of the gear that we already have out there and, in | |
| some cases, the operations as well. | |
| Now, we have tried to protect the things that are really | |
| important, things that are important for our personnel--the | |
| child development centers and unaccompanied housing for our | |
| personnel. We have also tried to put a great focus on the | |
| nuclear enterprise, because those things are essential for | |
| actually contributing to the operations out there. | |
| Anything that is fully supportive of those things, | |
| communication centers, you name it--all of those things have a | |
| great sense of priority for us. And we try to garner our | |
| dollars in the shore area, in those areas to the critical | |
| infrastructure, the critical components within the critical | |
| infrastructure and then, in that way, try to keep those things | |
| at the highest level we can. | |
| We are monitoring every facility and every component within | |
| those facilities as well and then listening to the operational | |
| commanders out there, the fleet commanders, to make sure that | |
| we are not neglecting things that are essential for rebuilding | |
| that readiness--in the shipyards, in particular. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Well, thank you. I appreciate you kind of | |
| laying out how the Navy does readiness in the tiering method to | |
| where the forward deployed units are ready to go, 100 percent | |
| ready, and then, as they come back, they go into a down mode | |
| and then a pre-deployment mode, so we appreciate that. | |
| The Optimized Fleet Response Plan, I think, is critical to | |
| make sure that that is followed, and I couldn't agree more. And | |
| I understand the world gets a vote in that, so. | |
| But doing that not only helps in the infrastructure of the | |
| fleet but it also helps, too, in the retention of sailors | |
| because there is nothing worse for a Navy family, then, to say, | |
| ``Hey, listen we are planning on a 7-month deployment'' and, | |
| guess what, it turns to 8 months or 9 months or 10 months. | |
| So, to make sure we keep those great sailors and their | |
| families, I think OFRP will go a long way to do that. So, we | |
| appreciate you laying that out. And, obviously, it takes a | |
| while to mitigate the risk that you assume for those units that | |
| come back and are waiting to get into the pre-deployment cycle. | |
| And, as you said, that surge capacity, then, has a | |
| different aspect to it if you are looking at it as far as what | |
| you can project forward as far as force. | |
| So we really appreciate that. And I want to come back and | |
| ask you some questions. I want to dive in a little bit more on | |
| the infrastructure issues because I think they are important | |
| too, which is where you have assumed some risk and what we are | |
| doing to rebuild that back into our readiness recovery plan. | |
| But, with that, I will go to Ms. Bordallo. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | |
| General Howard. Did I say General Howard? | |
| Admiral Howard. Yes, ma'am, but I get paid the same. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Admiral Howard, it is right here in my notes. | |
| Since 2006, the Navy has nearly doubled the percentage of the | |
| fleet assigned to overseas home ports which, among other | |
| effects, results in economic losses in the United States | |
| shipyards as maintenance work shifts overseas. | |
| How has shifting the maintenance workload abroad for ships | |
| homeported overseas impacted the United States shipyard health | |
| and productivity? And in addition to economic losses, what | |
| risks to national security are accepted by having integral | |
| maintenance completed by foreign workers in overseas shipyards? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, although we have shifted our fleet, | |
| the sad news is, the size of our fleet has actually gotten | |
| smaller when you look at the last 15 years. On 9/11, we were | |
| probably at well over 300 ships and we are at 272 today, ships | |
| and submarines. We are working our way back up to a recovery of | |
| 308 ships. | |
| The strength of the Navy is our mobility, and we still do a | |
| lot of our repair work in our fleet concentration areas. For | |
| the health of the shipyards, we have recognized the functional | |
| workload has been going up. | |
| And then, this last year, thanks for the support from this | |
| committee and others, we have started--we have gone on and | |
| continued to hire up to 3,500 shipyard workers. And we have | |
| also, for our aviation side, continued to hire the artisans in | |
| order to do aircraft depot work. | |
| When we have a ship that is overseas, we have different | |
| maintenance models for those different ships. So some of the | |
| ships do come back stateside for work. Some of them we have, | |
| U.S. workers are on flyaway teams that go out to do the repair | |
| work of the ship. And then, in some cases, particularly for | |
| voyage repairs, if it is too difficult for the ship to get back | |
| stateside, we will, of course, have to work with our allies to | |
| make sure that those repairs are done. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Yes. Well, what about the security aspect? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, whenever we go into port, whether it | |
| is for repairs or anything else, we are very conscious about | |
| the security of the ships and the assets. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Well, even if they are allies, still, we are | |
| going into foreign shipyards with foreign workers. What would | |
| be the reason? Is that because of the lower wages and the cost? | |
| Admiral Howard. So, ma'am, when we are working our way | |
| through maintenance, just like here, stateside, for | |
| maintenance, we competitively bid out these contracts. We are | |
| required to be responsible stewards of the taxpayers' money and | |
| make sure that we get good repair work for the appropriate | |
| cost. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Admiral, I have another question for you. | |
| The Navy's fiscal year 2017 budget is predicated on three | |
| enabling legislative initiatives in order to free up funds to | |
| recover readiness. | |
| Now, how will the Navy respond and recover readiness if the | |
| Congress does not agree to deactivate a carrier air wing, | |
| induct seven cruisers into phased modernization, or eliminate | |
| the National Defense Sealift defense? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, first of all, I appreciate the | |
| dialogue and the conversation in this area. | |
| So, for example, let me start with the cruiser | |
| modernization. This is one where, when we look at the | |
| requirement for 88 large surface combatants, which is part of | |
| our force, our most recent force structure assessment, we tend | |
| to think about the size of the Navy just across the FYDP | |
| because we are having a budget discussion. | |
| But in the end, that 308-ship Navy and the different ships | |
| with the different missions--we need to have that across the | |
| future Navy as well. | |
| And so, I know you are aware, we put out a 30-year ship | |
| plan. We keep our ships for 30, 40, or 50 years. | |
| What we see is based on when we built the ships and how | |
| many we bought at one time. We were starting to see a bathtub | |
| in our large surface combatants out in the 20s and 30s. | |
| We now have 11 carrier strike groups--the potential for | |
| that, with 11 carriers. The cruiser is primarily the air | |
| defender for the carrier. So we realize we can keep 11 cruisers | |
| online, one for each carrier strike group, and then place 11 | |
| into a modernization cycle. | |
| So then when those first, the ones that are still online, | |
| go offline, that cruiser that has been modernized and upgraded | |
| will now take its place. Then that allows us, then, to extend | |
| the service life of half of the cruisers out across the 40s | |
| preventing that bathtub. | |
| In the end, just with that one program, the cruiser | |
| modernization program, if we do not get congressional support, | |
| we would be looking at trying to generate $3 billion across the | |
| budget in order to pay for those cruisers instead of having | |
| them modernized, trying to keep them as active units. And that | |
| will impact other areas, potentially our readiness account and | |
| our personnel account. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Thank you, Admiral. | |
| I have another question, but I am going to--I know you | |
| are--the vote is coming up, so Mr. Chairman, I yield back. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. | |
| We will now go to Ms. Stefanik. | |
| Ms. Stefanik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| And thank you to the panelists for being here today to | |
| testify and for your service to our country. | |
| Today, as you are well aware, America's Navy faces major | |
| issues like longer deployment schedules while managing a | |
| shrinking fleet, the volatility of the ship repair industry, | |
| and the ongoing strike fighter inventory management challenges. | |
| So, as our Navy and our sailors are facing great fiscal | |
| constraints, I am concerned with the new Unisex Uniform | |
| Initiative, which will not only burden the Navy with an | |
| estimated $7 million bill but, on top of that, only our female | |
| sailors will be encumbered with out-of-pocket expenses | |
| collectively totaling $4 million, a hefty price tag of $400 per | |
| individual female sailor. | |
| Wouldn't you agree that this money would be better spent on | |
| necessities like household costs, groceries, and utilities? And | |
| do you think it is fair that only our female sailors are | |
| encumbered with this out-of-pocket $400 cost? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, I have been in the Navy a long time | |
| and have gone through many uniform changes over my lifetime. | |
| And, in this case, the uniforms will be phased in, just like | |
| they are phased in so that we look at not trying to make the | |
| sailors, all at once, pay for the costs. But then that allows | |
| them--as their older uniforms get through wear and tear, they | |
| were going to have to buy another uniform anyway, and then we | |
| move them into the newer uniform. | |
| The Uniform Initiative, to get us to have a common | |
| appearance--I need to let you know that when I was a midshipman | |
| at Annapolis and I was in my whites, that looked very different | |
| from the men. I didn't understand why. | |
| I also came into a Navy that initially didn't have trousers | |
| for women. And it is just a pure functional aspect of actually | |
| going to sea and being able to do the job that there are | |
| certain uniforms and the way they look have got to support all | |
| of us, male and female, so that we are safe at work. | |
| Ms. Stefanik. Admiral Howard, I understand and I am very | |
| thankful for your service and leadership to your country. | |
| But I am concerned that there was a 71 percent | |
| dissatisfaction rate among the Navy's own test group with these | |
| proposed changes. Does that concern you that 71 percent of our | |
| sailors do not support this initiative? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, I will have to go back and look at | |
| that. I do know that the one uniform, the pilot on the chokers, | |
| was very well received. But I will go back and look into the | |
| dissatisfaction rate, absolutely. | |
| Ms. Stefanik. I would like to follow up with you on that. | |
| Admiral Howard. Absolutely. | |
| Ms. Stefanik. So I appreciate that. And then I want you to | |
| explain to us today--and you touched on it, but what is the | |
| operational necessity that these changes reflect? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, the issue of good order and | |
| discipline, when you think about--and it is--I wouldn't phrase | |
| it in operational. I would phrase it in our service and who we | |
| are, as culturally, and who we are as an ethos. | |
| The sense of uniformity and being a part of a team is | |
| central to all of our military. And then, for me, it is the | |
| functionality of the uniform and making sure that it is | |
| appropriate for both our men and women, that they can do their | |
| job, specifically. | |
| Ms. Stefanik. So is there an operational necessity? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, for all of us, for our uniforms, | |
| they identify who we are, and they are part of---- | |
| Ms. Stefanik. But specifically the changes--no, not just | |
| the uniforms, but the proposed changes--is there an operational | |
| necessity that is driving these proposed changes? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, when we talk about uniforms and | |
| operational necessity, I am not sure that is the way to frame | |
| the question. | |
| Ms. Stefanik. Okay, I appreciate that. I look forward to | |
| getting your response on---- | |
| Admiral Howard. On the dissatisfaction rate? | |
| Ms. Stefanik [continuing]. On the 71 percent | |
| dissatisfaction rate among our Navy sailors. | |
| Admiral Howard. Yes, ma'am. | |
| [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix | |
| on page 47.] | |
| Ms. Stefanik. And I yield back. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Ms. Stefanik. | |
| We will now go to Mrs. Davis. | |
| Mrs. Davis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank | |
| you all for being here. | |
| And, Admiral Howard, of course, I have to say, we greatly | |
| appreciate your being such a strong role model and have | |
| attained this position. It is quite remarkable and we | |
| appreciate it. | |
| I wonder if you could talk a little bit about sort of | |
| translating some of this to our constituents and certainly even | |
| to some of our colleagues that are in other committees. | |
| We know that readiness really doesn't have a constituency. | |
| And on this committee we have really had an opportunity, I | |
| think, to look at readiness, probably more than in other years | |
| that I have been sitting here on the committee and been in the | |
| Congress, since 2001. | |
| And how would you, in as quick a way as possible, give one | |
| example of why it is so important for us to focus on readiness | |
| but, more than that, to fix the budget mess that we are in? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, the lifeblood of our Navy is our | |
| people. And the sailors deserve assets. The ships they serve in | |
| have got to be ready to fight. The gear they have has got to be | |
| ready to fight. | |
| And they have to be trained to be ready to fight. And they | |
| deserve no less than the best in quality that we can provide | |
| them. So, in some ways, those sailors who represent every | |
| State, territory and, honestly, countries from around the | |
| world--we have sailors who are not U.S. citizens. They have | |
| given---- | |
| Mrs. Davis. Many actually. | |
| Admiral Howard. Yes. They have committed to this Navy and | |
| to this Nation to protect the Constitution. But, as I have | |
| traveled and I have looked at the individual elements of | |
| readiness, I am astonished, just as our sailors are, from | |
| around the country. When you look at the shipyards, we think of | |
| them as being on the coast. But then, you look at all the parts | |
| that go into ships, those, also, are from around the country. | |
| And there are some--I went to visit Milwaukee Valve Company | |
| in Wisconsin. And I went there because I read about them in a | |
| newspaper article. They make most of the valves for our | |
| carriers. It wasn't until I went there, in Prairie du Sac, | |
| Wisconsin, that I found out they make most of the valves for | |
| all of our amphibious ships. | |
| And they make 2,000 valves for each of the Virginia-class | |
| submarine. This is a treasure in the middle of the Nation. And | |
| those public workers--those, literally, are making a difference | |
| to my Navy by what they produce. | |
| And so we are the sons and daughters of this entire | |
| country. And readiness means that we are ready to fight and we | |
| are ready to operate. And our sailors deserve no less. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Ma'am, if I can add one other point to | |
| that? | |
| Mrs. Davis. Yes. | |
| Admiral Cullom. If we fail to properly support readiness | |
| for our sailors, in the event of a crisis, then the units that | |
| are on that bench, they may end up being called to deploy on | |
| very short notice, almost immediately, in some cases, or it | |
| will take us additional time to be able to prepare those forces | |
| to go respond. | |
| And what does that really mean? It means risk to our | |
| mission, accomplishing it safely and properly. And that risk to | |
| the mission translates directly back to risks to our people. | |
| And so that is the importance for our sons and daughters | |
| from everywhere around the Navy that come from every State and | |
| territory. And that is why we owe it to them to do that. | |
| Mrs. Davis. Thank you. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Thank you, ma'am. | |
| Admiral Aquilino. Ma'am, if you don't mind, I think the | |
| best answer is we are ready to take whoever you would like out | |
| to see the fleet in action. And that is, I think, the best way | |
| to understand it, although no constituency is what is required | |
| to put a Navy to sea. | |
| Today your Navy is 272 ships, as the Vice Chief said. I | |
| will tell you that, as we sit here right now, 148 of them are | |
| either forward deployed, forward stationed, or underway | |
| training. That is, 54 percent of your Navy, as we sit here | |
| today, is operating. And the best way for people to understand | |
| that is come out and see, and we can help you with that if you | |
| would like. | |
| Mrs. Davis. Great. Thank you. I think that we are going to | |
| move on, because we are trying to get some more done. | |
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman, appreciate it. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mrs. Davis. | |
| We will now go to Mr. Russell. | |
| Mr. Russell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| And thank you, Admirals, for being here today. | |
| What do you see as the greatest threat to readiness? I | |
| would be curious of each of your opinions. | |
| Admiral Howard. I would like to start, Congressman. Thank | |
| you for that question. | |
| For the Navy, particularly because we are capital ships, we | |
| need stable budgets. We sometimes are required to purchase in a | |
| multiyear. But I will tell you, when we sequestered in 2013, we | |
| not only had to cancel deployments--I was down at fleet--we had | |
| to delay the deployment of the Truman to generate savings in | |
| our O&M account, and then we had to delay maintenance. And | |
| having our ships repaired is at the heart of readiness. | |
| So if we cannot get out of--underneath this shadow of | |
| sequestration, and then if we end up sequestering, that will | |
| have a terrible impact on our operational ability. But we also | |
| need stable budgets and so that we can plan and build ships for | |
| the Navy of the future. | |
| Mr. Russell. Thank you. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir. And what I would add to what the | |
| Vice Chief said is that--what she mentioned about sequestration | |
| and what happened with that. As you all well know, the money | |
| came from all the wrong places, and that had second- and third- | |
| order effects that have followed us for a number of years after | |
| that. The stability of the budgets is very critical and | |
| important as well. | |
| But another very challenging footnote to all of this, as | |
| well, is the continuing resolutions, because if we are unable | |
| to be able to quickly move ahead each year on a budget, then we | |
| are waiting until way too far into the year and then we end up | |
| sub-optimizing where that money can ultimately go in a whole | |
| range of different accounts. | |
| And so we could--we certainly appreciate what you are | |
| trying to do to help us in that regard, and thank you for the | |
| question. | |
| Admiral Aquilino. And, sir, I will give you the operational | |
| snapshot of that, is, again, your Navy, based on those numbers, | |
| we are not only trying to reset readiness, but we are doing it | |
| in stride. | |
| So no peace dividend where everybody came back and we are | |
| trying to get the ships fixed. We are still deployed at | |
| virtually the same rate we were during the height of the two | |
| wars with less numbers of ships. | |
| So the challenge is in understanding how the Navy is trying | |
| to reset readiness while, at the same time, understanding we | |
| remain forward. We are providing leadership options in time of | |
| crisis. We are providing deterrence against increasing number | |
| of adversaries, I would say. We are assuring and reassuring our | |
| allies. | |
| So all of those things, if you understand how we are | |
| operating, that will help you get to, I think, the financial | |
| answers that the Vice Chief and Admiral Cullom gave. | |
| Mr. Russell. And I appreciate those answers. That was my | |
| own experience in my decades in the service that the budgets | |
| commanders end up having to have knee-jerk reactions. You are | |
| one-third into the year before you have any kind of spending, | |
| then you are rushing to waste the dollars to try to catch up. | |
| It has a lot of volatility on the warriors. | |
| With regard to those convulsions, as we continue to take | |
| risks with our Nation's defense, I believe, beyond our | |
| ability--I will say it--I think we are cutting too deep. I | |
| think we are putting our Nation at risk. | |
| How do we retain the sailors that have the experience? We | |
| can't create them overnight when we see emergencies happen. | |
| Sailors and marines, soldiers, will have to stay alive long | |
| enough until the Nation can catch up to them. | |
| And that, typically, historically, from tricorne hats to | |
| today, has taken about 2 years. How are you mitigating this and | |
| trying to retain the best sailors' experience in these cuts and | |
| have you been able to address it? | |
| Admiral Howard. So, Congressman, we are, in terms of where | |
| we are in our end strength, in a slightly different place then | |
| our counterparts. From the time 9/11 started over the last--the | |
| first 10 years, our Navy actually came down in size. As I said, | |
| we were above 300 or well over 300 ships. We were at 14 | |
| carriers. And now we are down to 272 ships. | |
| Our force size came down as well, several thousand people. | |
| We have stabilized at around 322,000 to 324,000 people over the | |
| last few years. And we are projecting we are probably going to | |
| stay at that. And then, as we build up into a 308-ship Navy-- | |
| with this budget we should be at 308 ships by the end of the | |
| FYDP--then we might have some changes in that force structure. | |
| So, right now part of this is, as Congressman Wittman | |
| pointed out, stable deployment cycles, steady state | |
| predictability to our sailors is very important--that they, in | |
| an operational tempo, that they can have the proficiency but it | |
| doesn't exhaust them. | |
| And then, in terms of actual retention, we started looking | |
| at this a couple of years ago and came up with ``Sailor 2025.'' | |
| We are a technologically focused force and, for us, when the | |
| economy is good, our nuclear powered engineers, our aviators, | |
| all of our engineers have other options where they don't have | |
| to deploy and get separated from the family. And, quite | |
| frankly, they will get paid more money for the skills, these | |
| wonderful skills and education that they have. | |
| So we have looked at the quality that we provide of life | |
| and service that we provide our sailors and have looked at | |
| education programs, internships outside of the Navy where they | |
| can get some experience and bring innovative ideas back into | |
| the Navy. | |
| For quality of life, we have expanded child development | |
| center hours. You will appreciate this. We finally have started | |
| to expand our fitness centers so that the sailors can go in at | |
| any time, and we are working our way across the fleet. And then | |
| we have gone to a 12-week maternity leave to allow our sailors | |
| to manage parenthood and that work-life balance. | |
| Thank you for the question. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Russell. | |
| We will now go to Mr. Courtney. | |
| Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| And thank you to the witnesses. | |
| And, Admiral Howard, your testimony kind of lays out the | |
| balancing act that the Navy has right now in terms of | |
| shipbuilding, operations and maintenance. | |
| And then, I think, sometimes it is hard for people to | |
| decipher exactly where the hit is. But I would like to just | |
| sort of focus on pages 5 and 6 of your testimony, which is on | |
| the shore infrastructure, which, Admiral Dixon Smith was here | |
| earlier this year and, again, sort of walked us through--how, | |
| with MILCON [military construction] you have had to really sort | |
| of prioritize where those dollars are going, more towards | |
| implementing construction for new systems and new platforms as | |
| opposed to sort of the regular blocking and tackling of MILCON | |
| in terms of the shore infrastructure. | |
| So I wonder if you could just kind of talk about that a | |
| little bit because, again, I think it is important for members | |
| and also people watching this to realize that there has really | |
| been this sort of trend where that kind of MILCON has kind of | |
| paid the bill over the last 5 or 6 years or so. And so maybe | |
| you could talk about that a little bit. | |
| Admiral Howard. Thank you, Congressman. | |
| So our MILCON has--our military construction dollars has | |
| gone down as we have tried to get to a balanced budget. And so, | |
| where we would completely recapitalize, that forces us to make | |
| a priority list. And then the items that go to the top of the | |
| priority list are going to be the items that are for the health | |
| and safety of the Navy or the larger community. So we realize | |
| there are going to be utility services or water treatment | |
| plants that are going to have to be replaced. | |
| Then, sometimes, when you get into facility sustainment, an | |
| HVAC [heating, ventilating, and air conditioning] system might | |
| have to be replaced for the health of the people, and then the | |
| warfighting effectiveness goes. So if we have a runway that is | |
| ashore that is used for training before people go out to sea, | |
| that runway will take priority. | |
| But then there are other items that, as the dollars--we | |
| know work needs to be done, whether it is reworking quarters | |
| for our sailors, training facilities, all those--we are | |
| accumulating a backlog of work, because we don't have the | |
| dollars to get at it. | |
| And I would like to have Admiral Cullom provide some more | |
| specifics. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir. | |
| What I would like to add to that is that, as you were | |
| pointing out, where we are at, and that is that area where we | |
| have taken a portion of that risk and we have triaged where | |
| that goes. And I think Admiral Smith may have talked about this | |
| a little bit in his testimony. We are at the lowest point since | |
| 1999 in terms of the funding to it, but, where we prioritized | |
| it to, were the things that the combatant commanders need out | |
| there. | |
| So whether it is in Djibouti or in Guam or in the coastal | |
| campus in California, Seal Beach; things in San Diego; | |
| Keflavik, Iceland--those are all things that the combatant | |
| commanders have specifically asked for. | |
| New platforms--as we are bringing the new ones online, we | |
| have to have the facilities for those. So we have taken a great | |
| priority for the Growler, the maintenance hangars for that. F- | |
| 35, obviously, needs some things to support it so we are | |
| putting priority to projects there. The Triton, the unmanned | |
| systems, they need similar types of things. | |
| And then the next one is kind of utility upgrades because | |
| those are things that, when they go bad, they go bad very | |
| badly, and you have fires and you destroy lots of things. So we | |
| are really trying to focus on ensuring that we replace those | |
| things that we know and MILCON projects that upgrade power | |
| plants at PMRF [Pacific Missile Range Facility] out in Hawaii, | |
| up at Balboa, Sasebo, Bangor, a number of things there. | |
| And then shipyards--and shipyards have a very high priority | |
| because we can't really do our job unless those shipyards are | |
| able to be as efficient as they humanly can, because that is | |
| how we are going to get that reset of those, the capital ships, | |
| done. | |
| So we focused very heavily on not only the public yards, | |
| which we have in Bangor and Bremerton and Portsmouth, to do a | |
| lot of refit facilities and fix things that--a lot of that | |
| infrastructure is very, very old. | |
| And then, finally, things on weapons of mass destruction. | |
| We have a training facility that we needed to do there. So that | |
| is where that first tranche of it went. After that we have many | |
| other things on MILCON projects, as the Vice Chief articulated. | |
| Mr. Courtney. Great, thank you. | |
| Again, I am not being critical at all. I just think it is | |
| sort of helpful to sort of lay it out so people can understand, | |
| while we are not in the same environment for MILCON that we | |
| were when I first came to Congress back in 2006 and 2007. And | |
| this is helpful. | |
| So, I yield back. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. | |
| We will now go to Mr. Scott. | |
| Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | |
| Ma'am, gentlemen, thanks for being here. | |
| And one of the things that I think we don't talk about | |
| enough is the fact that the U.S. coastline is our largest | |
| border, and that is the most likely place that we would be, I | |
| believe, attacked from. I think it would be unlikely for an | |
| enemy to come through Canada or Mexico without our ability to | |
| certainly see it coming and address it before it got to the | |
| U.S. It is the Navy that protects that coastline. | |
| And I think we should talk about that more, and how big | |
| that coastline is and just how much of the sea that you have to | |
| guard to protect Americans. | |
| Admiral Cullom, you answered this question a little bit, | |
| but if you could speak again to the fact, the uncertainty | |
| creates as many problems, if not more problems, as the actual | |
| funding reduction and the lack of timeliness and what the | |
| continuing resolutions have done with regard to the | |
| inefficiencies. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir. Thanks for that question because | |
| I, hopefully, will explain a little bit more about what those | |
| uncertainties were. What we have seen happen---- | |
| Mr. Scott. In fact could you speak, also, to specific | |
| examples of--can you give us specific examples in that, of how | |
| it hurt your mission requirements? Thank you. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir, absolutely. | |
| One of the clearest examples I think I can bring to that is | |
| that--two, I will give you. One is on ship maintenance. So when | |
| we have these uncertainties and we don't yet know how much we | |
| are going to have to deal with and we have had to cancel--like | |
| we did during sequestration--cancel availabilities until we | |
| would have clarity on that. | |
| We have tried to do what we can, which is to do the | |
| preplanning for those availabilities, because it will | |
| eventually have to happen. Now, they will change. The longer we | |
| wait, if we don't do it when we are scheduled to actually do | |
| it, then there is going to be a lot more growth of additional | |
| work. There is going to be more rusting out of deck plates and | |
| tanks and things like that. So that will change, but getting | |
| that work done puts it on a shelf. | |
| But, if we wait too long, then we will actually not have | |
| the physical time to actually do the jobs that we need to do to | |
| actually be that part of that resetting of the force after 10 | |
| years of war. And when we only have the opportunity to bring | |
| ships into a shipyard about once--into a dry dock once every 8 | |
| years--pretty important that we get those things done | |
| absolutely right. So that is a shipboard example of it. | |
| On the shore side of the house, with our facilities | |
| sustainment and our restoration and modernization accounts on | |
| the shore, if we have the uncertainty of not knowing whether or | |
| not we have the money to be able to do that, then we can't | |
| start those projects until much, much later in the year. | |
| When that ends up happening, then we, likely, will miss the | |
| opportunity to actually start that project. And you either have | |
| to execute what you can, which is to pave over a runway when | |
| you know you really need to go back in and do a dry dock. | |
| Mr. Scott. One of the things that we talk about is full- | |
| spectrum readiness, and that is certainly one of our goals. | |
| With regard to your aviation level of readiness, where are we | |
| in regard to full-spectrum? I know that you have given some | |
| indications of timelines that it would take to actually get to | |
| full-spectrum but the question I have is, when do we expect the | |
| readiness level to actually begin to improve? | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir, I will take that one. | |
| And this is one, I think, when you have heard the Vice | |
| Chief testify before and the CNO testify with the Commandant-- | |
| we are locked at the hip, on aviation readiness, with the | |
| Marine Corps on this because, as a Department of Navy, we have | |
| to manage this together. And that challenge is a pretty big | |
| one, as you have clearly articulated. | |
| There are a lot of moving pieces to getting that to the | |
| right place. You have aircraft that are on the flight line, you | |
| have other aircraft that are going through depot and through | |
| the FRCs [Fleet Readiness Centers]. You have to get parts to | |
| the right place at the right time, so the parts accounts have | |
| to be balanced right. We watch these things. The Naval Aviation | |
| Enterprise watches it very, very carefully to ensure that we | |
| are getting those things at the right place. | |
| We are--each of the type/model series of aircraft, if it is | |
| a strike fighter aircraft, if it is an FA-18, a legacy Hornet-- | |
| we have a lot of hours on those aircraft. We have to make sure | |
| that those are able to get done on time. The Commandant, I | |
| think, spoke quite a bit about his rotary aircraft and the CH- | |
| 53s, and those are a real challenge, too. | |
| To the full-spectrum piece, those things have to eventually | |
| be able to get those back onto the flight line for the training | |
| to rebuild the bench piece that the Vice Chief talked about. | |
| Everything that is going out there is ready, and it is ready to | |
| the degree it needs to be and they are firmly right. But it is | |
| the ones that are on the bench that we need to be able get that | |
| training time back for the pilots so that they could be | |
| prepared. | |
| And that is also key, to that point, when she said it is | |
| after 2020. But so many variables, so many type/model series | |
| and they have to integrate with the shipbuilders. | |
| Mr. Scott. What percentage is on the bench may be the | |
| better way to phrase the question then. We are, obviously, not | |
| at full-spectrum. Are we at 50 percent? Are we at 60 percent? | |
| Is that a number that can't be disclosed in this setting? And | |
| then my question is, obviously, it takes many, many years to | |
| get back to full-spectrum, but, if we stay under the current | |
| budget scenario, when would it actually begin to improve? | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, sir. That is a very challenging | |
| question because there are so many pieces to it, because, to | |
| give you the detailed answer that that deserves, if we could | |
| take that for the record---- | |
| Mr. Scott. That is fine. | |
| Admiral Cullom [continuing]. And provide that answer for | |
| you, sir. | |
| [The information referred to can be found in the Appendix | |
| on page 47.] | |
| Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your | |
| service. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Scott. | |
| Mr. Gallego. | |
| Mr. Gallego. Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Vice Admiral. | |
| Part of this strategic planning guidance for developing | |
| next year's budget includes disaggregating large, costly | |
| platforms to smaller vehicles that are capable of achieving | |
| military tasks. | |
| And, I apologize; I am going to have to ask that, for you | |
| to--for you all to answer quickly because we have votes. While | |
| large capital platforms will always be necessary, I am | |
| concerned about future operational environments that could hold | |
| them at risk such as the advancement in cruise missile | |
| capability by some of our potential adversaries. | |
| So the Navy's budget continues to be pressurized for the | |
| traditional stock. I would like to know how it can better | |
| achieve distributed fire power. In a broader sense, I am also | |
| asking what our capital stock will be worth in another 15 to 20 | |
| years and if we are moving quickly enough to diversify our | |
| capabilities. I mean, whoever wants to take that. | |
| Admiral Howard. All right, thank you, Congressman, for that | |
| question. So you got to the crux of the challenge of this very | |
| budget, this capability versus capacity question. And if you | |
| look at where we invested--looking at an anti-access/area | |
| denial, you will see that we invested in electronic warfare | |
| improvement. We invested in buying more of a greater mission | |
| capability missile in the SM-6. | |
| And so we looked at programs that would improve the | |
| capabilities of our platforms to fight in that environment, and | |
| we will continue to invest in those areas. Is there a capacity | |
| to have more of that and modernize more quickly? Yes, there is. | |
| But in the end, as we are trying to balance, we could not buy | |
| all of what we wanted to get. | |
| Mr. Gallego. Okay. | |
| Admiral Howard. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Gallego. And following up on the last question, do we | |
| really--do we need to rethink our capacity requirements like | |
| the target of reaching 308 ships or is this just a numbers game | |
| that takes into account the demand signals from our geographic | |
| combatant commanders? Or is it a top line ship goal reflective | |
| of a strategic purpose of, this is how many ships we need to | |
| accomplish our world missions? | |
| Or, in general, my concern is that the capabilities are not | |
| adequately being met because we are picking arbitrary numbers | |
| that aren't really reflective of our national security need. | |
| Admiral Howard. So the Navy goes through a force structure | |
| assessment and it accounts for all of those factors that you | |
| talked about. What is the current demand? What is the | |
| operational plans of the combatant commanders? How are we | |
| postured? And then what do they need to win in the war fight? | |
| And then that also accounts for the shipbuilding industry | |
| and the capacity to build ships. So the last baseline force | |
| structure assessment was in 2012. It had an update in 2014, and | |
| the CNO has directed that we quickly look at that. | |
| And the last view came up with 308 ships as the right | |
| number to meet the current demand signal and provide mission | |
| capacity for the combatant commanders but then also have enough | |
| surge capacity to be able to win in a war fight. | |
| So we are going to relook at that and make sure that is the | |
| right number. I will tell you, my sense is, when you look at | |
| the--between now and the last couple of years, with the | |
| resurgence of Russia, China is still a main issue; North Korea, | |
| which, for us translates to ballistic missile defense, one of | |
| our homeland defense missions; and Iran--it is quite possible | |
| we will be looking at a requirement for a greater number. | |
| But also, particularly for Russia and China--China building | |
| an undersea fleet and Russia modernizing a fleet--I think it is | |
| quite likely that this requirement of 48 SSNs [attack | |
| submarines] might also go up. | |
| Thank you for the question. | |
| Mr. Gallego. Thank you, Admiral. | |
| I yield back my time. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Gallego. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Chairman, may I make a quick announcement---- | |
| Mr. Wittman. Of---- | |
| Ms. Bordallo [continuing]. Before you recess? | |
| Admiral Cullom, you are retiring, is that correct? | |
| And this is your last hearing? | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes ma'am, I believe this will be my last | |
| hearing. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Well, good luck on your retirement. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Congratulations. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Thank you, ma'am. | |
| Mr. Wittman. I will ask the witnesses to indulge us. We | |
| have a series of votes that is going on right now. It will take | |
| us approximately 15 to 20 minutes to pursue that series of | |
| votes and then come back. So we would ask your indulgence to | |
| hang in there with us because we would like to finish with a | |
| few more questions. | |
| Admiral Howard. Absolutely, Congressman. Thank you. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you. We will recess and reconvene in 20 | |
| minutes. | |
| [Recess.] | |
| Mr. Wittman. We will reconvene the Subcommittee on | |
| Readiness of the House Armed Services Committee. I would like | |
| to thank our witnesses for their patience and indulging us so | |
| we can go to the floor and accomplish our voting duties. So we | |
| appreciate that. | |
| I did want to ask you to elaborate a little bit on the | |
| infrastructure issues. As you know, we had some previous | |
| hearings about the importance of infrastructure and facility | |
| support in helping the Navy and the other branches generate | |
| readiness. | |
| And I understand that, in many of the areas, where you look | |
| to accept risk may be in some of those particular projects, | |
| MILCON and others. But I do want to ask about some of what I | |
| think are fundamental elements of infrastructure maintenance | |
| which should fall outside of a MILCON project. | |
| And I just met with some folks the other day at the Norfolk | |
| Navy Yard, and they were concerned about just basic elements-- | |
| bathrooms not working, childcare facilities being just | |
| inundated with children, more than the capacity for them to | |
| deal with them. And, to me, those are critical elements for the | |
| workforce. If they are looking at those basic elements then, to | |
| me, there is a fundamental issue there. It is more than the | |
| elements of MILCON. | |
| There are some MILCON issues there with leaking roofs and | |
| those sorts of things and buildings. And I understand trying to | |
| prioritize those things on the Navy's list, but I do think it | |
| is fundamental, as you talk about not just our sailors but also | |
| our civilian workforce that are there, maintaining those ships. | |
| I would like to get your perspective on how you see the | |
| laydown of the Navy pursuing these infrastructure projects-- | |
| both MILCON and, obviously, I know you are accepting some risk | |
| there, but also some of the basic maintenance elements that, I | |
| think, are critical to everybody across the Navy family. | |
| So just want to get your perspective about how those issues | |
| are being addressed. | |
| Admiral Howard. Thank you, Congressman. | |
| So, we have had to prioritize over what has direct | |
| warfighting effects and then, obviously, for our shipyards, | |
| that has direct warfighting effects. We have a mandate to | |
| invest about 6 percent into the shipyards. And this last fiscal | |
| year, we are probably going to hit 8.1 percent. And we have | |
| budgeted in 7.1 percent, and that is where you get out repairs | |
| for dry docks, caissons, infrastructure upgrades in the dry | |
| docks. | |
| And then we do have this backlog of administrative | |
| buildings and other facilities that we have knowledge that they | |
| need repair, but we continue to--that list continues to grow as | |
| we focus on the direct warfighting aspect. | |
| In some of the quality of life issues, though--I do want to | |
| address that separately--so, for example, with the child | |
| development centers. We recognize this is a huge quality of | |
| life and an ability for someone to be able to work and know | |
| their kids are taken care of. And so that was the impetus | |
| behind us, and we--this is also in the budget to extend our | |
| child development centers. | |
| We started last year, as a pilot, and we are working to get | |
| that through all our fleet concentration areas focused on--we | |
| are, we have been looking at some of our members have 90-day | |
| wait lists--how do we get those wait lists down. | |
| And we have found some of that can be done by working with | |
| all of the other services and making sure we understand who is | |
| applied where and who is accepted and making sure children are | |
| enrolled as quickly as possible. | |
| And then, the same--providing more hours can sometimes | |
| alleviate some of the strain--the same with our fitness | |
| centers. But, yes, we have been taking risk in the next tier | |
| level down support facilities. And we recognize that that is | |
| eventually going to come home to roost. | |
| And then I would like Admiral Cullom to give a few more | |
| specifics. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Admiral Cullom. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, Mr. Chairman. | |
| To add to that, in addition to the MILCON that we had | |
| talked about before and as the Vice Chief said, these other | |
| accounts whether they be the facilities restoration and | |
| modernization, sustainment of the facilities, or the base | |
| operations support--and those are the big three other | |
| components that we have--every one of those accounts, we have | |
| taken risk in. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Yes. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Now, again, we try to triage the risk that | |
| we take in those accounts so that we don't end up having things | |
| that are very essential and important for our sailors that do | |
| not represent the standard to which we want to have them be | |
| able to have they and their families live by, particularly for | |
| things like childcare and the housing. | |
| Now, that said, by the risks that we have taken there--and | |
| the Vice Chief talked about what that backlog is--that backlog | |
| is about $5.6 billion of backlog, and that will grow. It will | |
| continue to grow if we maintain these levels, continue to have | |
| to take this risk, by about $600 million a year. So we will | |
| just keep adding to that. | |
| Now, what that really means, to be able to triage down to | |
| maintain our systems as best we can, is that we have to put it, | |
| again, to where those facilities are the most important to | |
| sustain and to help our operations. | |
| And so, again, we concentrated very heavily on shipyards | |
| because we know how important they are to the mechanics of just | |
| being able to get, to make OFRP work---- | |
| Mr. Wittman. Yes. | |
| Admiral Cullom [continuing]. And to be able to get those | |
| ships back to sea. But it isn't just that, it is also about the | |
| sustainment that we have to do to the runways and airfields and | |
| the dry docks as well. And those things kind of fall into that | |
| restoration and modernization accounts. | |
| And we, again, have prioritized to the ones that most | |
| support the operations. Now what that really leaves is a whole | |
| bunch of other things. There are administrative facilities and | |
| other places that will, in fact, have to go to a different | |
| standard. | |
| Now, many of us that have been in the Navy a long time | |
| remember where that was in the late 1970s or early 1980s, and | |
| it was very challenging. And so we know that is the ground, | |
| that is where we are headed to, if we have to keep going this | |
| direction for very long. | |
| Mr. Wittman. I think those are important points. When we | |
| did our hearings on infrastructure and facilities support, one | |
| of the issues that was brought up by the installation | |
| commanders, like places at Oceana, is when you are needing to | |
| put aircraft in the hangars and aircraft hangar space isn't | |
| available because of leaks in the roof or malfunctioning or | |
| non-functioning fire suppression systems, then your ability to | |
| generate aircraft readiness, to make sure they get in for | |
| routine maintenance, gets affected. So you see the direct | |
| effect on readiness there, and that is that scenario where I | |
| understand trying to manage risk there. | |
| But when it gets to that level and then another situation-- | |
| these are just examples--but where, Oceana, we had electrical | |
| failure with the lighting on the landing areas there. So now | |
| landings and takeoffs get delayed now for about an 8-hour | |
| period as they fix that. | |
| Now that is--and you know how that goes with flight | |
| training and all the elements that have to take place, when you | |
| back that up. And although 8 hours for the normal person | |
| doesn't sound like a lot, that creates a wave all the way | |
| through the training regimes and getting those aircraft out | |
| there, and then that is time lost that you never make up. | |
| And that is one of those areas of readiness that, we know, | |
| if you lose 8 hours there it takes 16 hours to regenerate the | |
| readiness that you lost in 8 hours. And that is just a | |
| microcosm of what happens across the spectrum. | |
| So I would really encourage you all to let us know, because | |
| many times readiness is associated with manning. It is | |
| associated with training. It is associated with maintenance and | |
| operation. | |
| But what we tried to do this year is to point out that | |
| infrastructure and facility support is a readiness generator, | |
| and where we are falling behind there has a direct impact on | |
| readiness. So, as you all look at how you assume risk there, | |
| please point out, at any opportunity you can, both to members | |
| here on the HASC [House Armed Services Committee] but also | |
| elsewhere, that that backlog, that $5.6 billion backlog gets to | |
| a point to be insurmountable. | |
| And, again, it is another bow wave, too, where even if we | |
| got to a point to say, ``Okay, let us put $5.6 billion into | |
| that,'' the capacity is not there to direct and operationalize | |
| that money to be able to restore that readiness. So you have | |
| not only resources that become a detriment, but it is time and | |
| how do you actually get that money applied in a reasonable and | |
| efficient way to actually get these things done. | |
| So that becomes a concern for us, too, if you get that | |
| backup in work. So I would encourage you to let us know, and we | |
| will make sure we continue to stay in touch with each of you | |
| about where we see and hear these inadequacies. | |
| And I understand that you are doing the best you can to | |
| pull out the roll of duct tape and the chewing gum and try to | |
| keep things together as much as you can, but we all know that | |
| that only goes so far and it doesn't buy as much time as we | |
| would like. | |
| So we have to make sure that we get to the bottom of this. | |
| And we are trying to focus on that as far as part of our | |
| readiness efforts. | |
| I appreciate what you all are doing and we will continue to | |
| make sure we have a dialogue on that. | |
| So now I want to go Ms. Bordallo. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. | |
| And it seems that all I have heard for the last few weeks, | |
| months, is readiness, readiness. It is the focal point of our | |
| military and, without it, there wouldn't be anything, I guess, | |
| to speak of. And we certainly wouldn't be able to be in a | |
| position to match a challenge anywhere. So it, truly, is really | |
| very, very important. | |
| So for any of the witnesses here, I want to ask this | |
| question. If operational tempo were to increase, due to greater | |
| requirements for operations in the Pacific area of | |
| responsibility, for example, to what extent would the Navy have | |
| the current readiness capabilities to meet the needs? | |
| And we will start with you, Admiral Howard. | |
| Admiral Howard. So ma'am, one of the things that is | |
| happening, as you are aware, is the rebalance to the Pacific. | |
| And if I could just step back and talk about that a little bit, | |
| strategically, because I also have found that when I speak | |
| publicly, some of the thought process over just rebalancing to | |
| the Pacific, I am getting challenged on. | |
| So we have talked about a changing environment. And I will | |
| say that, when you look at Department of Defense, five new | |
| challenges--China has remained, an emerging Russia, North | |
| Korea, Iran, and counter violence--I point out, if we think of | |
| those as the five new challenges, four of them are in the | |
| Pacific. | |
| Because people forget about Russia, our strategic | |
| relationship with Russia, our nuclear deterrence, and they are | |
| moving their new SSBNs [ballistic missile submarines] out to | |
| the Pacific. And so it is important for us to continue this | |
| rebalance--move 60 percent of our assets either to the West | |
| Coast route, and move new capability out there. Now, as some of | |
| the new capability comes out there, how we maintain and how we | |
| do that, we are changing processes. | |
| So, as we move that out there, we manage and look at how we | |
| keep those ships or aircraft and the newer aircraft up. The | |
| fleet commander is thinking ahead to the future and, due to the | |
| size of the Pacific, he is thinking that instead of a more | |
| traditional type of maintenance capacity, we may need to have a | |
| more mobile type of maintenance capacity. But in the end that | |
| might translate as we roll more out there, more maintenance | |
| capacity out there. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Vice Admiral Cullom, would you have comments | |
| to make on that? | |
| Admiral Cullom. Yes, ma'am. | |
| To follow on with what the Vice Chief just said about the | |
| mobile maintenance capacity and the look that the fleet | |
| commander is looking at out there, as we do that, we will have | |
| to be much more agile and much more responsive to be able to | |
| handle all those different situations with the assets that we | |
| have. | |
| And to do so, we have been doing a lot of experimentation | |
| and prototyping of things. We have new vessels that are going | |
| out there, nontraditional type, auxiliary type ships, and those | |
| are the vessels formerly called the Joint High Speed Vessel, as | |
| well as the mobile landing platforms, the ESDs and EPFs. | |
| And those vessels give us the capability at the routine | |
| day-to-day type of operations of things that occupy a lot of | |
| the fleet commander's time, the ability to be able to handle | |
| some of those challenges with those vessels. And so if they can | |
| be able to do that in, as we call them, the Phase Zero | |
| operations--as that OPTEMPO [operations tempo] goes up. | |
| Now, very different story when you start talking about | |
| crisis--and then maybe we will shift that down the table here | |
| to Admiral Aquilino--but that, then, requires a different | |
| operation with those other USS ships and present a different | |
| challenge. | |
| But I think the mobile maintenance capacity, how that | |
| lashes up with our distributed lethality that we are talking | |
| about, I think, are going to be very critical things for the | |
| future for us, and we are looking at all of those. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Vice Admiral Aquilino. | |
| Admiral Aquilino. Yes, ma'am. | |
| We are deploying right now. The presence that is being | |
| deployed by the Navy is currently at our maximum sustainable | |
| rate. So, as the chairman said before, the world gets a vote. | |
| The CNO and the Vice Chief have developed this model so that we | |
| are not only providing presence forward, but we are building | |
| surge capacity to respond to conflict and crisis when that | |
| occurs. | |
| So what I would say is, if something needed to be surged, I | |
| think where we are is we are in a pay me now or pay me later. | |
| If a conflict were to occur, we would take a deficit in | |
| readiness and push those forces forward to win the fight, | |
| understanding that we would then have to reset and build that | |
| readiness after the fact. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Very good, all right. | |
| I have another question, Admiral Howard. While the | |
| Optimized Fleet Response Plan included certain assumptions with | |
| regard to maintenance and timelines, the unexpected increase in | |
| maintenance timelines appears to be having a negative effect on | |
| ship readiness. Is OFRP still a sustainable model that will | |
| ensure future readiness of the Navy, and what risks are we | |
| taking by maintaining this plan? What would be the effect of | |
| further maintenance delays? | |
| Admiral Howard. Ma'am, we have to be able to plan in order | |
| to get to maintenance periods that we can plan for and then | |
| eventually get to on-time execution. | |
| So the point of the OFRP and understanding that 36-month | |
| cycle and how much operational availability we can generate was | |
| then to be able to, one, lock in those maintenance periods and | |
| get to the most efficient and effective use of the supporting | |
| shipyards. | |
| So the issue, then, of our shipyards not always able to | |
| come in on time, some of that, is directly attributable to how | |
| we have been operating the fleet in the past. | |
| As we open up the ships, we discover additional work | |
| because we have engendered more wear and tear to the previous | |
| OPTEMPO, and then we have a decision to make. Do we fix it | |
| right then and there, or do you just close it back up and wait | |
| until the next maintenance eval? And if we choose to fix it | |
| right then and there, because it wasn't work we planned for, | |
| that ends up costing us more to fix it right then and there. | |
| But you want to have a ready ship, and so those are the | |
| choices. | |
| We have to work more closely, I think, and look at the | |
| processes of how we plan and prepare, particularly with our | |
| private partners, and get that planning process down and get to | |
| a more predictable understanding of what we think is going to | |
| be the state of the ship before it goes into the yards, and | |
| then that will get us to a better on-time execution in the | |
| schedule. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. | |
| And one further question. The OFRP strives to rotate ships | |
| in the carrier strike groups and amphibious readiness groups | |
| through maintenance while ensuring an adequate presence and | |
| additional response force should a contingency arise. Now what | |
| is being done to guarantee the health and readiness of our | |
| support ships, including the oilers and the supply ships? And | |
| is there a need for a similar program aimed at providing | |
| security and stability to this section of the fleet? | |
| Admiral Cullom. | |
| Admiral Cullom. Ma'am, I will take that. | |
| For the support ships, their maintenance model, currently, | |
| is and has been for many years, very different because of the | |
| civilian mariner component that is involved with them. We have | |
| been watching that actually very carefully with regard to the | |
| aging of those ships, and that is across both the CLF [Combat | |
| Logistics Force] ships as well as those ships that are part of | |
| the larger ships upon which we can draw for sealift. | |
| And we are looking at some innovative things in terms of | |
| how we are going to go about recapitalizing those ships as well | |
| as the maintenance that they get. For right now I think it is | |
| those ships are probably--over time, you are going to see some | |
| fairly significant changes to those. | |
| And the MLP [mobile landing platform] and the EPF are--EPF | |
| and the ESD are examples of how that auxiliary force is | |
| actually changing a fair amount--going to ships that are | |
| aluminum construction, no longer steel construction, things | |
| that can go up much faster than the older ships; in some cases, | |
| smaller, but with huge amount of cube [cubic space]. | |
| To get back to your real question, which is really about do | |
| we need to do an OFRP for them, I think, because of the way | |
| those things are accrued and the way they are matched up, | |
| probably not. But we are certainly looking at ensuring that we | |
| reset and restore that fleet in much the same way that we are | |
| looking at resetting and restoring the USS hulled ships. | |
| But their training cycles really end up defining why the | |
| OFRP is so important, the way it is, and the fact that you are | |
| actually adding together components from the aviation side, to | |
| components from the ship side, to, in some cases, components | |
| from the undersea side and land side, to bring all of those | |
| together for ARGs [amphibious ready groups] or for CSGs | |
| [carrier strike groups]--very different for our CLF and our | |
| sealift ships. | |
| Ms. Bordallo. Thank you very much, and I want to thank all | |
| the witnesses today. It has been very interesting and you have | |
| given some very concise answers to our questions and I do | |
| appreciate it and thank you for your service, and I yield back. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you Ms. Bordallo. | |
| I do want to conclude with one final question, and that is | |
| concerning our amphibious force structure requirements, looking | |
| at what the Navy has done and looking at those under today's | |
| conditions. | |
| There have been some changes to strategic guidance. There | |
| have been some operational plans, or OPLANs, that have been | |
| revised and updated. Can you give the Navy's perspective on | |
| where our amphibious force structure needs to be in light of | |
| current conditions? | |
| Admiral Howard. Thank you, Congressman, for the question. | |
| So in our force structure assessments and then working with | |
| our Marine Corps partners, we have said that we are looking at | |
| a need for 38 amphibious ships. We currently have 30 ships on | |
| the rolls. With the 12th LPD [amphibious transport dock] that | |
| we have added, we are looking at 32 ships in fiscal year 2017, | |
| growing to 33 ships in 2021. | |
| The Commandant and CNO have agreed that 38 ships is the | |
| need. And, with 34, we accept some risk so that if we, | |
| depending on how we were postured, obviously would probably be | |
| able to generate 30 out of 34. | |
| We continue to increase the amphib structure, presuming | |
| budgets hold stable. The plan is, continue to increase the | |
| number of amphibious ships. But, once again it is, when you | |
| look at our ability to build ships, it is a slow climb. | |
| The other real challenge we are going to have is the Ohio | |
| replacement. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Yes. | |
| Admiral Howard. So right now, as that submarine comes | |
| online, if the Navy is required to fund that out of our own | |
| budgetary account, it will literally swallow up the entire ship | |
| construction account and have impact on the rest of our | |
| conventional force. So even the Commandant has said that, if we | |
| cannot determine a way to get to that strategic asset outside | |
| of the DON [Department of the Navy] account, that obviously | |
| will have an impact on our ability to build new amphib ships. | |
| Thank you for the question. | |
| Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Admiral Howard. You bring up a | |
| great point and that is why I think it is incredibly important | |
| to have something like the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund | |
| where we can fund it outside of the shipbuilding budget. | |
| We understand, by the time that boat gets to the fleet, it | |
| will be approaching $6 billion in costs. And if we fund it or | |
| it is decided to be funded in the shipbuilding budget, the boom | |
| you hear will be the ship building budget exploding, not a | |
| missile being launched from one of those new Ohio-class | |
| replacement submarines. So I understand where we need to be, | |
| and we pursued that last year. | |
| Unfortunately, it got short-circuited in the omnibus budget | |
| bill, but I can assure you we will continue that effort. We | |
| think it is indeed a national program. It just so happens that | |
| the Navy operates the ship but it is a national asset that is | |
| part of that triad, and we still think the triad has | |
| particularly important significance in nuclear deterrence. | |
| And I understand the Air Force is also pursuing their Long- | |
| Range Strategic Bombers so some have suggested that that ought | |
| to be funded the same way. And we don't necessarily have any | |
| heartburn with that as long as the resources are there. We are | |
| going to do that in a deterrence fund, whether you call it sea- | |
| based or not. There are enough resources there. And then that | |
| creates the proper focus. | |
| As you said, you put it into a shipbuilding budget. In the | |
| normal ways that those things happen, is to put it in the | |
| shipbuilding budget and say here is $3 billion, Navy come up | |
| with the rest. | |
| And we know that there are not those dollars that are | |
| resting in other operational accounts, so what will happen is | |
| there will be delays, long delays, in shipbuilding programs. | |
| And some of them are locked in so there is not a lot of | |
| flexibility in doing--in what you can do with some of those | |
| programs. | |
| So that means any other program that is not locked in now | |
| gets pushed, not just a little bit to the right, but way to the | |
| right, to the point where it is outside the FYDP or any other | |
| forward-looking document to even hope that we are going to get | |
| to the point of building those ships. So I agree with you. | |
| Getting amphibious ship decisions on LX(R) [dock landing | |
| ship] locked in and then making sure we lock in ORP [Ohio | |
| Replacement Program] outside of the shipbuilding budget, I | |
| think, creates a long-term certainty and stability for the Navy | |
| as far as building ships and making sure the capacity is there | |
| with the fleets. | |
| So I appreciate your bringing that up because it is an | |
| extraordinarily important part of what we need to do to make | |
| these pieces fit together. | |
| So I appreciate all of our panelists today. Vice Admiral | |
| Cullom, thank you for your service. Admiral Howard, as always, | |
| thank you, and thanks for the great job you do there on the | |
| Board of Visitors at the Naval Academy. We appreciate your | |
| passion there and what you add there, which is significant, and | |
| so we appreciate that. | |
| And Vice Admiral Aquilino, thanks so much for your | |
| leadership and all the things that you do. | |
| You all truly have best interests of your sailors at heart | |
| in making sure that we not only have the Navy of today but the | |
| Navy of the future. | |
| So thank you again, and if you have anything else for the | |
| record, please don't hesitate to enter it with us; and if there | |
| are no further questions, we hereby adjourn. | |
| [Whereupon, at 11:18 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| A P P E N D I X | |
| March 17, 2016 | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD | |
| March 17, 2016 | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING | |
| THE HEARING | |
| March 17, 2016 | |
| ======================================================================= | |
| RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT | |
| Admiral Cullom. Naval Aviation is currently experiencing a Ready | |
| Basic Aircraft (RBA) gap of more than 300 aircraft on the flight line. | |
| At this time, Naval Aviation is meeting approximately 77% of the RBA | |
| requirement. The Fiscal Year 2017 President's Budget request will | |
| incrementally increase the number of aircraft on the flight line in our | |
| most challenged type/model/series (T/M/S). With steady funding and | |
| consistent OFRP deployment schedules, the RBA gap is projected to | |
| recover by 2020. You will see full-spectrum readiness improvements as | |
| soon as those available assets appear on the flight line in significant | |
| numbers. [See page 16.] | |
| ______ | |
| RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MS. STEFANIK | |
| Admiral Howard. The 71 percent dissatisfaction rate from wear test | |
| participants applies to feedback on the original Alternate Combination | |
| Cover (ACC) prototype. Alterations were made based on wear test | |
| feedback, and an improved, more comfortable variant was selected and is | |
| currently available for purchase in Navy uniform stores. Other uniform | |
| component changes have met with favorable opinions. For example, almost | |
| 90 percent of respondents liked the appearance of the new female | |
| chiefs' and officers' Service Dress White (SDW) Choker Coat. | |
| These uniform changes create savings for the individual Sailor, the | |
| Navy, and the taxpayer. Enlisted personnel are paid an annual clothing | |
| replacement allowance (CRA) to cover the cost of required uniformed | |
| items. The SDW Choker Coat and ACC will only apply to Chief Petty | |
| Officers (E-7 to E-9.) The savings for the SDW Choker Coat against the | |
| current coat is estimated at $85 per item and the savings for the ACC | |
| is $20 per item. In the future, this will be result in a reduced CRA to | |
| the individual servicemembers at a total savings of $122K annually. | |
| Additionally, personnel who purchase these items prior to the expected | |
| replacement rate of three years will benefit from the lower cost of the | |
| replacement uniforms. | |
| Officers receive a one-time payment of $400 to offset initial | |
| uniform costs but are otherwise required to pay for their uniforms. The | |
| new components will be an out-of-pocket expense to female officers | |
| estimated at $300. If an officer has to replace one of the new items, | |
| they will pay less for the new components than they would for the | |
| previous versions. Price varies by rank for the new cover due to added | |
| detail for senior officers. For example, at the O5-O6 level, the | |
| officer would save approximately $50; while at the O1-O4 level, the | |
| savings would be about $20. [See page 9.] | |
| [all] | |
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