Army Posture: FY27 Defense Authorization Request & Future Years Defense Program

those conversations we've had and b the the guard and the reserve components when we look at cintcom when you look at the at the border when you look at a lot of the missions that the united states army has undertaken since i have been in the role the the guard and the reserve play an incredible role in that and um under both formerly general george and under general when we talk we talk very specifically about resourcing everyone at the same time obviously with budget constraints that's not possible to technically do simultaneously but what we don't want to do is we don't wanna model out in how we roll out new equipment to the force this idea that they are anything other than an equal participant and oftentimes carrying the exact same burden when we go to conflict and so we very explicitly are hoping to upgrade them to things like next-gen c two and give them new equipment as we roll it out to the broader force

you and i have talked about this before um And, uh, as you know, the Humvees are made in Indiana, a lot of really good jobs and workers that make the Humvee. Um, it's important to Indiana, but it's also important to uh, it uh, the army, especially uh, to the reserves. The army transformation initiative transitions the Humvee away from the active component. At the same time, more than half of the Adjutant Generals have asked that Congress fund modernized Humvees. What what role can the Humvee play for the army reserve and guard across a wide range of missions like disaster relief and homeland security?

Um, I I would say, Senator, the the Humvee has been an incredible asset for the US army for decades. Um, and what we are not trying to say is that it will no longer have a role. Um, we are trying to balance that out with other assets, but there are all sorts of things. One of the vehicles that we were able to make autonomously driven was a Humvee. because it's drive by wire just like the isv you can upgrade these things very quickly and use them for all sorts of purposes that if you were thinking about a non-autonomous vehicle that constrains its use case in a way that once you're able to do all of these things with open architecture systems the humvee is going to be able to help us on the border it's going to be able to help us with natural disasters it's going to be able to help us in a lot of theaters where it may still have a lot of relevance even if it's not the one stop solution anymore

can you give us a quick update with the last forty seconds i have left on on how the transition is going

um which transition sorry

just overall um uh um uh the overall army transformation initiative just give us a progress report

from the humpik at the ice camp got it yes sir so um we are about one year in right now it was may of last year when we did it um i i try to look for leading indicators that it's actually working i think the first one is if you and i invite anyone on our committee to actually go talk to soldiers i think that they would say right now feels very different the army feels like it's moving quickly i think if you look at what we're doing with our data on our business system side or if you look at where we're doing this operation jailbreak but it's been occurring before those are all good if you look at the new m one e three the flora um the the different systems that we are procuring they are all open architecture and these are the types of platforms and assets that can change in the future in a way that we just historically have not thought about it

my time has expired

thank you senator

thank you senator banks senator peters I mean, Central Cali, I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, um, gentlemen, thank you for being here today. S- Secretary Driscoll, the electronic proving ground, it's uh near Fort Huachuca, provides a very unique electronic warfare testing capability, uh, largely because it has very favorable geography, protected airspace surrounded on all sides by um, terrain, And because of that, we've got an ability there to conduct very aggressive, uh, electronic warfare and jamming tests with minimal interference that goes beyond the area. This is the kind of testing we need to understand how our systems would perform if we were up against near-peer adversaries. And that's why I've been kind of frustrated by the Army's lack of communication regarding changes that are already underway at EPG. We've tried to engage with the army mult- multiple times. My office has learned about staffing reductions and mission impacts after they've happened even though we're trying to communicate with um the leadership. Um so we're trying to proactively engage, but we're not getting the response that we would normally expect. And it's one of the army's per- premier facilities for EW and spectrum operations. So, when the army reduces capacity there without clearly articulating some kind of long-range plan it raises real questions about how these decisions align with the army's stated uh priorities with regards to modernization. So, I'd just like a commitment from you if, if um, if we could work with your office to try to, you know, figure out what's going on and make sure that the decisions we are making are in the best interest of the army.

Uh, Senator, absolutely, and, yeah, just to go back a step, um, one of the things we've tried to model out in the last eighteen months is, uh, ultra-responsiveness, ultra-transparency, ultra-clarity, both to the private sector, to our larger defense partners through the primes and the smaller MIDS, and then also to all of you. And so, uh, I apologize that we haven't been faster and more clear, but we will remedy that.

All right. All right. Thank, thank you. And then, on another subject, i'm a bit concerned about the army's direction here on aviation you know this year you're spending four billion dollars next year you're requesting half of that your requests includes zero ah sixty four apaches zero chinook block twos and one uh sixty black hawk and while i understand the intent of the army transformation initiative i'm also concerned that we're divesting in some capabilities that feel a critical requirement. We talked a little bit about this, you know, general about learning the correct lesson from the, you know, former conflict, and we've gotta be really careful here. Um, and we don't have a validated, you know, replacement for these systems. A reasonable path forward, I think would be to sustain army aircraft we have, and use their capacity until we integrate new technologies. But instead we're facing a budget request that leaves congress no assurances that the army and especially the national guard will not suffer from a significant capability gap uh in its ability to move people and weapons cargo but also put you know fire you know down range especially with regards to the apache it's also i'm concerned that we might be repeating a mistake that we saw with the air force and the a ten where the service spend years arguing it could retire the platform, only to realize that there's a critical mission need and nothing to fill it. And then suddenly, with extra cost now, extend the aircraft's life after the industrial capacity and its sustainment challenges have gotten worse. Um, once production lines and suppliers and workforce capacity disappear, rebuilding them can be rather costly and time-consuming. And this budget I think threatens the health of the defense industrial base in that regard. Industry has been very clear that foreign sales on these systems are not enough to sustain the production lines past maybe the early twenty thirties. Um, we've also been hearing from some small businesses, I heard one that says hey the writing is on the wall here, and it wants to get out of the business of supporting army helicopters, so that could be something you're gonna have to deal with. But, Mister Secretary, you continue to say that the Apache, Blackhawk, Chinook have a role, and need to be modernized. But the budget doesn't actually get us there. So, can you explain, I I know I'm over my time here. Um, you know, how do we how do we do this and sustain these systems under this existing budget request?

Um,

You can now supplement your answer on the record also, but. go ahead and try to answer briefly.

Perfect. Absolutely, Senator, so uh our intent and we've uh uh as you rightly pointed out tried to say on the record a number of times excuse me these systems will be in the army's life for a very long time what we are trying to do is get out in advance of the number that we will have at total as we start to bring on things like flora what does that ideal balance look like and so that's what you see reflected in the current budget i think um we are optimistic that fms will make up a lot of the cases to keep these lines on. sorry

but still in the budget you know right now one black hawk zero apache zero chinook and the fms thing from our as as my office has looked into this it just doesn't seem like enough to sustain the helicopter industrial base so thank you i'm sorry i'm over my time

Uh, thank you for that observation, Senator. Uh, Senator Slotkin, I'm sure you were as delighted as I am that Senator Rosen has appeared. Um, and Senator Rosen, you're recognized for five minutes.

Thank you, Chairman Whitaker, uh, for holding this hearing. Sorry, Senator Slotkin. Anyway, um, thank you, Secretary Driscoll, uh, General Lanay for testifying today, uh, uh, for the classified briefing, which was, uh, uh, terrific. I appreciate your service. I wanna talk a little bit about duty status reform because as evidenced in recent operations the National Guard has evolved from a strategic reserve into a consistently operational force the reserve components are now relied upon at unprecedented rate a pace for overseas deployment and state emergency activations, often with a disparity of entitlements depending on their duty status. Reserve component soldiers experience the bureaucratic inequities of no fewer than twenty nine, twenty nine different and cumbersome duty statuses, which prevent them from receiving the same pay and benefits as their active duty counterparts performing the same duties so secretary uh Driscoll there is a DOD legislative proposal to fix this issue that OMB has not yet cleared for Congress to consider and this is really hurting our our guard and so in the meantime, what specific initiatives is the army considering to modernize and consolidate these duty statuses, number one, you're gonna reduce administrative burden, you're gonna improve pay and benefits continuity, and better support our Guard and Reserve soldiers and how are you gonna support duty status reform? It is critical for retention, uh, taking care of our Guard and Reserve and retention of our Guard and Reserve.

Yeah ma'am, first off,

Yeah.

uh thanks, thanks for recognizing the, uh, incredible, um, uh commitment and impact that

yeah

that all of the components for the special reserve and and uh uh and guard are are playing right now uh across the globe uh we are taking a look at this we're we're tied in uh with the department as they're as they're looking at this uh broadly as a as a entire department uh not just an army alone

thank you it it is really critical secretary driscoll i i think we have to do it across uh agency across uh services, but it's really important and it's hurting our garden in Nevada and of course across the country.

And Senator, they just hand handed me a note saying it just cleared OMB.

It just cleared, well there you go,

So,

and that's how fast I asked the question,

uh

got it done,

There it, there it is, ma'am.

and that's how and there and there we go. Well thank you for that, you made my day.

Of course, and I would just follow up really quickly and this is a very boring thing we don't reference often but our business systems like the duty status matters a lot,

Yes.

but it's also our business systems are failing our soldiers.

Yeah.

And so, um, th this is the back-end of how they get paid and how they get their benefits,

That's right.

and how we treat the care for them and their families.

It That's why I brought it up as my number one question.

Uh, we are trying to optimize it all.

Thank you. I wanna quickly in the time I have left talk about the cyber workforce. Uh, the FY twenty-four NDA included my bipartisan legislation authorizing the army to create a civilian cyber security reserve to provide cyber comm with qualified civilian personnel for search capacity ensuring the US government has the cyber talent needed to respond to malicious activity uh information and systems i'm the ranking member on cybersecurity uh security committee here and so to both of you can you provide a status update on the army's implementation of the civilian cyber security reserve and um to the secretary can you also add given that cyber personnel are often able to earn significantly higher compensation outside of government service what authorities or compensation reforms does the army need from congress to better compete with the private for elite cyber talent um how are you measuring that and what can we do to uh to help

um senator this is a topic near and dear to my heart um yeah we will follow up with your office on a more um timely cyber security reserve update and so we can provide you an update on where it is more broadly speaking what authorities would we need um i think when you actually look at the threat from a peer or near peer take china as an example and their ability to tie in their cyber talent into their research universities and their private

mmm yeah

um companies we as a nation do not have something like that um and all that guarantees is that we will not be able to keep up what we do have is if you look at our models um from open ai and google all of those are first class best in uh class

and

but we need the human beings to be able to operate them

and so i want you we're gonna do the mark in a few weeks and as ranking member on cyber i know senator rounds and i might prefer but what really like to have that update from you if you could talk about that in general there's just a few seconds left if you wanna talk about it at all otherwise i'm going to uh uh yield to senator slotkin

yeah i i concur with with secretary ma'am and uh we'll follow back up with you on on where we're at on meeting

thank you the sooner the better that way we have some good input for the mark in a may less than a few weeks now thank you thank you mr. chairman

thank you thank you senator rosen senator slotkin

great you're almost done if you're if you're to me

There there is a vote on, but I think we can we can both make it.

Thank you. Thank you. I know. I'm paying my dues here. Um, so two very different questions. Um, you know, thank you, I I know Senator Peter said this too, but thank you for coming to Michigan last year, coming to see Northern Strike, um, biggest multi-domain exercise east of the Mississippi. Um, and thank you for coming to Detroit as well to see some of the tech innovation we have going on. Given our manufacturing base, we really feel we can increase the number of military missions and contracts that we have coming through Michigan. Um, and um, we talked, you know, you came and talked to a bunch of our our defense contractors in Macomb County about the army transformation initiative. And while we want deeply to modernize, um, you know, there are certain things, since we do land vehicles, where we're kind of on the losing end of that experience, so we're trying to find other areas. Um, and I think where we're poised to really break out and become the nation's leader, is on drone, R and D, and manufacturing. Um, and, you know, drones are becoming ubiquitous. I was just looking at where we had some deadly tornadoes. They did search and rescue via drone. Um, people are looking for their lost pets as a service now. You can hire a drone service. Um, uh, you know, we wanna um be poised but what are the other things you know and and we are very happy I should say just early this year the army designated one of our facilities up north as the first drone testing site in the country so we feel like we're ready to really like take this to the next level um how should we be thinking back home briefly about um advanced manufacturing using the capabilities that Michigan in particularly in particular has to serving the next generation of of army soldier

um senator the the i think your state in particular with its deep rich manufacturing history um can help us solve a problem that globally we are still gapped as a a human species but then specifically the united states army for conflict the these larger group three group four group five drones um when we when we compliment uh the russians and we compliment the what we really mean is they're they're very good at building the smaller ones the larger ones the types of drones that will one day be able to supplement or someday far in the future replace things like the apache are much larger much more difficult to build require a lot of deep expertise and a lot of um investment and so that is a place i think when when we look out at the assets we as a nation have we think michigan and camp grayling uh can help us um refine what we're working on and help expand it and scale it.

Yeah, well, we we wanna be good partners in that and, you know, we're the arsenal of democracy and and have a rich tradition of of, you know, being there when our country needs us, so would love to talk to you more about that. Um, break, break, separate topic. You were up in um at Camp Grayling, um, eh which is Grayling, Michigan, which has, like other military communities, had a problem with PFAS contamination. Um, and um, I met via Zoom with a bunch of local community advocates. These are folks who are deeply supportive of the military presence. This is not um, just like we have in in other Air Force and former Air Force locations in Michigan up in Oscoda. These are people who believe in the mission, but they can't drink their well water. The lake that Camp Grayling is on, Lake Margarith, like people can't, you know, they can't drink the water in that area. There's concerns when there's They can't let their kids or their dogs touch that foam. So it's a real, it's a real thing, and the the the army does have a responsibility. There was a twenty million set aside by the army to clean that up. And early this year, um, we got the word that they wanna do more testing before they engage in any clean up. Um, and I just, we've had, I've seen this movie with the Air Force. Um, and I just am asking your commitment Um, uh, we understand that testing may need to go on for the rest of this calendar year, but that is often been used as a way to push off and never take responsibility, when people are literally having to buy their own water or get it provided to them. So, can I get your commitment that you'll look at this particularly, and that we will not be on, go beyond twenty twenty six for that additional testing, so these people have some remediation, some clean up of their wells.

Uh, I commit, Senator, following up with your office with a very clear answer. I don't know the specifics of the timing of the testing. Um, but but my my experience has been we don't intentionally do those things to delay. So, um, I will check in and we will follow up.

Yeah, I think there's been generations of folks on, again, not just army, other services, but this is not the beginning of this movie, right? It may be new to you guys, it's not new to these communities, and would just ask for your commitment to follow up. Any of us, if we had a a home on a lake would wanna be able to have our kids swim there safely and drink the water. So we just appreciate you looking into it.

Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am.

Thank you.

So just like in how long has this been um a a known problem?

You're better. So both in uh army communities and in former Air Force base up in Ascoda, um years and years and ye- at this point it's gotta be over a decade. Um we have i- some Michigan residents who have more PFAS in their blood than any other human beings on earth. So, and again, these are dedicated communities who love the military, um, but can't like send their kids to certain summer camps cuz there's so much contamination in their local lakes. So, um, this was an issue I'm big on in the House and I continue to be hammering it in the Senate. Would love your help, Mister Chairman.

Thank you. Senator Duckworth.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Secretary Driscoll, I appreciated um our meeting yesterday. Thank you. Uh, especially when you committed to providing the families of the DCA crash victims to findings from any army investigations without any additional administrative hurdles. From my seat on both this committee and Commerce, Science and Transportation, I look forward to working with you to implement necessary forms to make sure that our airspace is safe, both for the flying public, but also for our war fighters as well. Um, I do want now to turn to the army's organic industrial base. In my state, Rock Island Arsenal is home to critical manufacturing of munitions and equipment. the joint munitions command which delivers munitions to the battlefield and the army sustainment command which drives the army's logistics enterprise, to name only a few of the arsenal's critical functions. So, as I mentioned to you, I was very concerned to hear in March that the army was suddenly reassigning employees who manage our munitions and sustainment in the middle of a war. Over the past two months, I've heard from constituents who, instead of focusing on their missions, were thrust into personal turmoil by the army Through a hasty personnel campaign, in March as many as a hundred and fifty-five civilian workers at Rock Island, many of whom are veterans themselves, were told, and I quote, w- w- that they were surplus employees, an end quote. And they were left in limbo for weeks, worried that they would lose their jobs, with many only being able, being told later, much later, weeks later, never mind. Some of these so-called surplus employees were given only two to five days to accept a job out of state, and uproot their families or face termination from civil service. Two to five days, that's it. Two to five days to make a life altering career decision. I don't think this is how we should be treating our patriotic career civilians. And my constituents are worried about the still uncertain merger of two critical commands the joint munitions command and the army sustainment command, and what it means for their jobs and their missions. Secretary Driscoll, do you commit to notifying me and this committee before any additional work for

um senator to all of your remarks it was helpful meeting with you yesterday um those populations we aspire to do what was right we aspire to be thoughtful um giving two to five days is um probably not sufficient for that decision in hindsight and so uh my commitment to you is after meeting with you i went back talked to the team and we will try if we have to do similar um have similar conversations to uh give more time and more grace for people to make these big decisions uh to your question senator we will do our very best to include you in your office in any sort of hiring that we have to do for rock island

any will you contact us um before any uh uh before it actually takes place

um

especially if you're terminating beaten people

senator i'm not intending to pause unnecessarily i'd um i i'm trying to think through the process of we had to get rid of one individual because of some sort of

no i i mean i mean like an effort for your yes

generally you're the spirit of your question yes

ok thank you uh shifting gears to another issue the domestic misuse of the military in american cities and the taxpayers waste that has gone with it months ago president trump claimed that he mobilized five hundred national guard men to reduce crime in chicago his words but they never set foot in chicago they stayed confined to bases in illinois because federal courts and and our supreme court found their deployment illegal and cost taxpayers twenty one million dollars in the process. But President Trump's obsession with misusing the military in American streets is not over. And he in fact often threatens to deploy the guard for political purposes, from saying he might send him to airports, to lamenting he should have had them, and these are his words, seize the ballots in twenty twenty. So this is not hypothetical, he said that. And don't forget, thousands of guardsmen are still in Washington DC, under no valid mission, and are, and also are doing so at great taxpayer expense. In fact, For fiscal year twenty twenty seven, the president is requesting six hundred and five million dollars for DC deployment of the National Guard. Just outside the walls of this building, guardsmen are forced to be away from their families and jobs, to rove around the city in packs of six, bored, picking up trash, or gardening. All while the National Guard has actual missions to train for, like responding to natural disasters or preparing for combat. And I'd like to discuss some of the ways the army could better use the six hundred and five million that

Yes.

Well, for six hundred and five million dollars, the army could fund eleven times the pre-position stocks for repair parts and supplies in Japan and Korea than it had last year. That's what six hundred and five million dollars could pay for. I'll give you another example. Yes or no? Do you agree that soldiers and their families deserve access to affordable health care?

Yes.

For six hundred and five million that, for that DC deployment, the army could provide fifteen thousand one hundred and twenty-five military families, IVF treatments. Instead of misusing the guard to stoke his ego, President Trump could keep his campaign promise and I quote, these are his words, he wants to pay for all costs associated with IVF treatments for our heroes. I urge Congress to invest these funds where it really matters. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Duckworth. I'd like to thank our witnesses for their testimony. Twenty members have been um able to ask questions during this open hearing for the information of members. Questions for the record will be due to the committee within two business days of the conclusion of this hearing which is right now. We are adjourned.