on c-span2. >> okay. we went right to-- okay. well, i think that's the tone for what we want to talk about today. so welcome, everyone, with that to our first readiness subcommittee hearing of 2024. hopefully, he will be able to join us. we have a new member joining the subcommittee this year, representative gooden of the 5th district of texas. i look forward to working with him and hopefully when our other subcommittee members free up from their obligations, we can get everybody over here, but i look forward to working with all of you as we go

forward through this next year. unfortunately as you can see from the photos today's topics is not a new issue, infrastructure across the department and the services continues to age and the deteriorating conditions at military facilities, obviously, have brought us as you well know. the neglect, the disrepair, the underfunding of our military facilities doesn't just harm our operational readiness capability, it does have significant impacts on everything from quality of life, our service members, to sustainment, to their ability to innovate, their ability to do their jobs. i am going to spend another couple of sentences here to underscore the most recent and

most glaring example of the problems with our aging infrastructure. this gao report where we're just showing these photos from on the conditions of barracks across the military apartments, i hope has been a real wake-up call for our leadership. we just had reports yesterday of a cockroach investtation -- infestation where we had to remove marines out of the barracks and the committee takes things seriously and it's something that we should talk about today for the public to hear that the leadership of the pentagon takes it seriously and what the heck we're going to do about it. i know ranking member garamendi and i sent a letter to

secretary austin last year stating our bipartisan commitment to conducting oversight, finding solutions to these problems because poorly maintained and neglected barracks can-- i mean, common sense would aggravate the recruitment and crisis that we're currently experiencing. disrepair at barracks facilities, however, is only one of the symptoms of the underlying chronic problem. facility, budget line, ssrm budget lines are routinely underfunded in the budget request every year. these budget lines are used as pay forward and budget programming requests, via the fy24 ndaa, this subcommittee amount for ssrm above the president's request to mitigate

this issue. underfunding for modernization causing deteriorate and causing the conditions to accumulate, which is where i think we are today. the consequences of that scenario is bleak enough. infrastructure issues are prevalent at our innovation and our testing facilities. we rely on rdt infrastructure and dod lab to advance the concepts and capabilities that we need to be able to compete with our adversaries and we have to be prepared for these conflicts. these national facilities are critical to that effort and frankly are often overlooked by the department, by the military department. so thank you for coming today. i think this is a conversation that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians deserve and that the public deserves to hear.

i hope you can speak to how we can work together on solutions for transparency in the use of smr funds and address our aging infrastructure. with that i'll now recognize member garamendi for his opening remarks. >> mr. chairman, exceedingly pleased you've made this the first hearing of this year. well, here we are. here we go again. everything is important except maintenance of our facilities. we've been banging this drum for a long time and we'll have to continue to do so. we've made some progress, but not where we need to be. we've increased the facilities sustainment restoration lines annually and then we go about reducing the money throughout the course of the year and it's diverted to other tasks. i must say the problem is not

only at the department of defense from time to time, it's sitting here in congress. specifically last year about 13 billion dollars, 13 new f-35s were funded from fsrm funds. we did that and so, we set our priorities. the photos you put up on the screen are illustrative and we could probably fill several books as we look across the entire military at the barracks and the quality therein. and unfortunately, barracks is just one part of the problem. so while we have to have safe and adequate housing and we'll begin to bang away at that, it's a definite recruiting problem. and want to show young men and women we have places for you to

live. look at this and come and join the military. not likely to do it. so, and the lavatories, mr. chairman you spoke to the lavatory issues and that's certainly a major part of the problem. we will not know if the equipment works, as the newest idea has merit if we don't have labs that are capable of handling and managing the necessary testing of those ideas and facilities. so what are we going to do about it? well, we did something about it with the family housing. we wrote into the ndaa, the law of the land, that the base commanders fitness report will in part be based upon his or her attention to family

housing. so it's on the checklist. you want to move up the ranks, then you're going to have to take care of family housing. it appears that maybe this is a lesson some of us learned in our childhood from our parents. you're going to be held responsible for making your bed. if you don't, you're going to get in trouble. in this case, we ought to add to that requirement that the base commander be held accountable and responsible for barracks and if there are testing facilities and other facilities on the base, in other words, the base commander be held responsible for the quality of the maintenance and efficiency of the facilities itself. i don't know of any other way to do it. we could pass laws. we could do anything, but if you want to move up in the ranks and this is something you have to pay attention to if you are a base commander, or any other specific role at the

base. i'll let it go at that. i would ask that my statement be entered into the record because it was wonderfully written by a terrific staff and i just skimmed over it. without objection. >> without objection. >> yield back. >> thank you, mr. garamendi. i'd now like to welcome and introduce today's witnesses, each of our witnesses are for their respective departments and assistant secretary of defense for energy installations and environment, we have with us again honorable, the honorable brendan owens, honorable rachel jacobson, honorable meredith berger, and honorable robbie.

we'll move over to you for your testimony. >> and i am going to echo ranking member garamendi, i'm pleased that this is the first meeting this committee is having this year. thank you for the opportunity to discuss department of defense infrastructure, particularly government-owned and government controlled housing and the investments we're making to improve niece critical mission enablers, our installations are the foundations of the national security posture and i look forward working with the committee to continue aligning our policies and resources for the national defense strategy and the safety, productivity and quality of life of our personnel. more than two million, work, train, raise their families, these places are central to are

their military experience, affecting their health, mental health and retention in the force. it's therefore, national security imperative and our moral obligation to ensure our operations are resilient. their housing has the greatest quality on their life. and the dod failed in many instances that the housing honors the commitment of the service members and their families and enables them to bring the best versions of themselves to their missions. these were highlighted in the gao report of september of 2023 documenting poor living companies in some unaccompanied housing and we appreciate the gao's work to acknowledge we have a lot of work to do. we look at the recommendations this year.

fy24 nda positions and the recommendations have been instrumental in shaping the priorities of a tiger team we stood up earlier this month. tiger team will focus on new configuration and habitability standards and providing accessibility, reliability of uh metrics, standardized preventive maintenance plans and identifying opportunities for quality of life and resilience. the department recognizes that our service members are impacted by far more than just housing. our entire infrastructure portfolio, works, bases, schools, commissaries, hospitals, parks, child development and more should be configured and maintained to improve quality of life and help our people thrive. over the past five years the department has invested in 14.6 billion a year for new facilities. 15.3 facilities to maintain and repair buildings and infrastructure and $2 billion a year on environmental restoration and conservation efforts.

despite this investment, a significant gap persists between installations and conditions today and the quality standards that are expected, deserved and best support fighter readiness. not only face a growing $134 billion backlog, but many facilities need upgrades to meet evolving requirements and preferences. and this is true in areas prone to extreme weather and hazards as aging and failing facilities are far more vulnerable to these threats. we can and must do better. continued infrastructure challenges or failures negative live impact the quality of service life of service members. this will in turn affect their abilities to carry out their missions and exacerbate the readiness that the department faces. therefore, we must accelerate making sure they're prioritized to have the greatest impact and to that end we're working with the military department three lines of effort to guide our infrastructure investments. first, adopting human senate

requirements to help us create environments not just meeting utilitarian needs, but productivity and health and camaraderie. apartment miesing our footprint to assure that it's aligned with the needs of people of their missions and third transforming how we manage our portfolio, a management strategy to help target investments that has the greatest return on investments. your continued support and partnership will be critical for our efforts to improve quality of life for our service member, their families and the civilian work force and we look forward to working with you, as we transform approach to our infrastructure investment. thank you and look forward to your questions. >> ms. jacobson, please for your testimony. >> thank you, chairman wal

waltz, ranking member garamendi, and the committee for talking about the infrastructure. first want to say our hearts go out to the families of soldiers who died in jordan. it is a sad, but important reminder why we do what we do. the need for all soldiers to live and work in safe and healthy environments remains at the very top of our priorities. we recognize the linkage between the quality of our facilities and the ability to retain a ready force. with respect to family housing, the army has made real progress. our oversight of housing providers has increased significantly and we are now preparing to institute a standardized quality assures, quality control maintenance program that will be applicable at all installations and we're making sure that they fully understand and take advantage of the rights that congress has given them. with respect to barracks, army

shares the concern of congress as reflected in the 2024 ndaa that need and concrete measures must be taken to address our failing barracks, especially in the wake of the september gao report. we welcome the codification of these measures into law and we look forward to working with congress and with the offices of secretary of defense to make sure they are meaningfully executable within realistic time frames. in sum, the army will make it work. our commitment is evidenced by our proposed investment in permanent party barracks which now exceeds $1.5 billion per year across the future years defense program and when adding all barracks types across all components, active, guard and reserve, it hovers at approximately 2.1 billion dollars a year across that same

time frame. a number much factors have contributed to the current situation, namely the sheer size of our inventory, the growing backlog of deferred maintenance, the large facility and permanent party bases and ineffective practices. we're applying a multi-pronged strategy to solve this problem. first, we will maximize every dollar we spend on barracks. our funding must be focused on bringing as many barracks as possible out of poor and failing categories. we will take full advantage of the new authority congress has given us to replace barracks that are beyond repair using restoration modernization funding. this approach to inventory capitalization will save time and money so we thank congress for that authority. also, the army has already committed to increasing our investments in sustainment. this funding will be used for large scale projects such as

roofs and h-vac systems. the goal is to bring as many barracks as possible into good condition and keep them there. second, we will build a robust work force of trained civilian barracks managers. we will no longer ask soldiers to perform these functions as collateral duty. third, we are taking a hard look at changing the way we do business. this includes how we design our barrack spaces to give soldiers better living experiences, it includes examining our assignment policies to determine whether more soldiers should live off base and it includes a robust business case analysis of barracks prioritization. the army is ready to move forward with the privatized junior enlisted barracks project at fort irwin and that will go a long way in helping us understand how and where privatization might be

beneficial. underlying each of these efforts is the need for reliable data. the army will examine our data bases to make sure they reflect current, real world conditions as accurately as possible. we need to have good visibility into how we're spending our resources. obviously, much work is needed to improve barracks. the army has made great strides in understanding the scale of the problems as well as the resourcing needs. now is the time to roll up our sleeves and fix the problem. we look forward to working with congress to make improved barracks a reality. i look forward to your question. >> thank you, miss jacobson and ms. berger for your testimony. >> thank you for inviting me to come talk today about our housing and aging infrastructure. the majority of our infrastructure, whether barracks, utilities, our public shipyards, not in the shape

that it should be. as an institution we have allowed these assets to degrade over time, we have identified and deferred risk and allowed that risk to accumulate and compound. we have been paying the bill with quality of life and readiness. i'm grateful to the sailors and marines who have raised these issues with me and with department leadership, to the government accountability office for creating formal reports and recommendations, and to congress for your attention and for codifying requirements. your intent in the ndaa language is loud and clear and your goals for our sailors and marines are the ones that the department shares. we've got some efforts underway. we've made some meaningful progress and we've got some significant work left to do. today marks a big step forward for the marine corps. the assistant commandant

directed the wall to wall inspection of barracks and told them to report back. if your barracks have issues, get out there and own it, he says. what we're doing across the department of the navy, we're getting out there and we're owning it. i talk about infrastructure in support of critical missions and chairman, i heard this in your opening remarks. a sailor or marine recruited and retained, healthy, safe, supported and trained with a physical space to do the work of our national defense, will return infinitely more values than the dollars that it costs, but it will cost a lot to get it right. and a good maritime fighting force always keeps their eyes on the horizon, we cannot simply accommodate the circumstances that we have always known. we must also anticipate the environment and requirements.

the department of the navy has advocated for and accelerated opportunities that will yield increased quality of life and competitive advantage. these include using the congressional pilot authority for unaccompanied housing in two fleet concentration areas, san diego and norfolk. we're also running a pathfinder project on free wi-fi and barracks in norfolk as we increasingly hear and believe this recent is a fundamental requirement for quality of life and operational success. we see resilience and efficiencies saves dollars and makes sense and there's a difference between historic and old. at this critical moment, and ranking member garamendi, i heard this in what you were saying, it's leadership by action is paramount. thank you for yours and we provide the infrastructure to

support our sailors, marines, civilians in all of our critical missions. i look forward to to your conversation today. thank you. >> thank you, ms. berger. >> chairman waltz, ranking member garamendi, as a former air force pilot i have lived in housing. to privatized housing. my firsthand experience how they impact. and no issue is more personal to me than this one. i consider it my sacred obligation that members have save communities to live in,

communities befitting of their service, that's why i welcome feedback on the recent gao report on unaccompanied housing and i take the findings very seriously. the department is committed to working with the gao to look at the two facilities they visited as well as the broader feedback impacting communities across our installation. upon my confirmation in march my first action was to get to our installations and hear from service members and families eye to eye. i visited approximately 25 installations and conducted over 40 rund tables with our personnel. i've personally inspected their homes and dorm rooms together to direct feedback. my visits included installations that have been recently affected by typhoons like in guam or okinawa and others recovering from hurricanes like tindell air force base. my next action was to get to work and planning the right investments for the future. i'd like to extend my gratitude

to the subcommittee for your generous support and guidance on this front. the department is planning the largest dorm investment program in over a decades 1.1 billion through fy22 through fy26. it's nearly triple. the dap plans to invest in three new dormitories, fy24 to fy28 to address shortfalls and recapitalize facilities. more broadly planning restorations at approximately 60 installation, 23 alone in ny24. our dorm master plan is critical to this, and the greatest need for our service members. the department's infrastructure council chaired by myself provides general officer oversight on everything from investments to implementation to policy initiatives like our dorm leadership program, community partnerships and new privatization models that

mr. launch us into the future. we're pulling out the stops to address gao findings. we're also accelerating efforts in privatized housing and i can sum up our efforts in three words, oversight, accountability and where appropriate, endorsement. with the support of congress, the department has implemented a tenant bill of rights, as well as watch list and performance improvement penalties. and we have resident advocates on base to represent our service members alongside the chain of command. how serious we take this approach, they held accountable for 58 millions to address mold problems in 560 units and more are on the way and held accountable for 600 payments to address health and safety

issues totalling 60 million in cost, but there's more work to be done and we recognize that. finally, we have entered into a new era of great power competition in which the impact of infrastructure has become more crucial to the mission. our adversaries have committed to using kinetic and nonkinetic means, whether conus or abroad we have to make sure they're resilient, survivable and ready to make the demands of more sophisticated threats. if appropriated, we'll put the funds to task by employing innovative approaches and technologies to build more resiliency at installations like patrick and vandenburg air force bases where partnerships with state and local entities are mission and building the space port of the future and focused on resiliency in the indo-pacific and a microgrid in the air force base in okinawa.

during a recent typhoon capabilities ensured the base weathered the storm without a single power outage. these could be the victory in a competition, a competition we dare not come in second place. once again, thank you for your support of our airmen and guardians and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, mr. chaudhary. i want to get back to the issues and look, i understand mr. owens and for all of you, for the department. i mean, we have, by my count, 500 installations, 500,000 buildings, 9,000 unaccompanied housing facilities that we're trying to fund and manage here.

the gao visited just 10. i don't even know what they would have seen if they could have gone to all of them. i don't think anybody on this committee or any of you were expecting our service members to live in the taj mahal, that's expectations, but this is disgusting, this is unsatisfactory. i don't know, would any of you want your children in any kind of these conditions with mold, with feces, with broken sewage lines? i wouldn't. do you think anybody who is in these facilities, i mean, again, this is just a small, small sample of what we're managing or telling their high school buddy or their cousin or whom ever, this is the service you've got to join? i can tell you as a veteran, i think i can speak for most members for all of us here, you're overseas, you're deployed, you come back home, you want a washing machine and

a dryer that works. you want a decent facility to go back to and i don't-- i can't imagine what this is doing to unit morale. so, here, just a couple of questions. number one, and i will start with you, mr. owens, looking across the department, who was fired? who was held accountable? several of you put accountability as a key part of your testimony. who was fired? what base commander? what facility manager? what overseer from an oversight standpoint. was anybody relieved or fired because of this? >> chairman waltz, i'm not aware of anyone who was. >> do you find that acceptable? i mean, a hallmark of military leadership of any leadership is consequences when you fall short, much less having our soldiers, sailors and service members living in this.

>> yes, sir, i totally agree with that and i think that the strategy that we're putting in place, the accountability that you've placed on us-- >> but no one from the secretary, down to your level, down to the services, down to the base commander, nobody is then actually held accountable, correct? no one has actually been released or fired? >> not that i'm aware of. >> i would submit to you that that may be a critical part of the problem because that sends the signal that this is unacceptable. we are-- we received fy25 budget request details. when we receive them, excuse me, i know they're forth coming, but i think given the situation that you all agree that we're in, can we expect to see fsrm budget lines funded to

100% of the requirement? >> i'll go with-- i mean, across the department, but obviously, down the services, can we expect to see that or not? a quick yes or no. >> the army with respect to barracks, yes. >> fsrm across. it's one thing if you're in a clean and safe environment where you're living, but you have to go to work, right? >> of course, of course. >> across the board, fsrm, yes or no, 100%. >> we're still working out the budget for fy25 and haven't determined yet the fsrm for all. >> i would say that we're still in final, but making sure that everything is execuexecutable, absolutely. okay, we'll pull the thread on that in a minute, the executable piece. >> yes, as we go through the details, but we understand that mission requirements is something that we're focused on

in the air force, especially with great power competition, so the answer is yes, however, tough choices are driving us in that direction and funding is becoming a critical resource, one that we need to stay in touch of. so yes. >> i mean, this sounds like -- this feels like ground hog day. and we have a lot of members that have a lot of questions, so, i won't abuse my time here, but one of the issues that gao highlighted in this report is a lange of visibility into how smrm funds are allocated once it gets to the installation. for the sake of time, across the department, mr. owens, how are we going to deal with that? do you agree it's a concern and then how are we going to address the issue? >> i agree that it's a concern. and thank you for that question. i think it gets some of the things that we're implementing with sr24 funding, and the same

management system, asset level evaluation rather than a portfolio level evaluation, that gives us the ability working with comptroller to understand the ramifications of the decisions that get made when the fsrm money, and if and when it's programed. right now we have an understanding of the macro level program at the portfolio level, but we don't really understand, and i think these barracks, pictures, really do highlight the ramifications of the unknown risk that's taken when you deprioritize specific investments in specific facilities. the sustainment management system that we're working with the military department to deploy is going to give us the ability to look at a seattle -- an asset level and understand what that is, and better account for the risk we're taking when we reprioritize funding away from that.

in this situation that you've pointed to here, it's easier to see at a more granular level and it's much more obscure, which is where we are right now, when we're looking at a plan replacement value for the entire portfolio. >> okay. i would ask you to seriously think about one concept. i would like to get the department of defense, as we've done with housing to the extent absolutely possible out of the hotel management business. we have private sector entities that do it incredibly well at scale all over the world and they would certainly go out of business in a second if any of their facilities looked like this. when i'm talking about the assistant commandant in the marine corps and he's trying to figure out how to get them better trained to oversee h-vac

systems. i want those marines better trained to do bad things to bad people and not managing buildings. we have entities in the united states of america that can do this incredibly well and i think we've broke and lot of-- figured a lot of things out on the housing side and i would ask you and i'd ask you to come back and see the ranking member and i on how we're thinking about -- there's pilot programs out there, but enhancing our public-private partnerships in the barracks and other spaces, i just think that that makes them kind of common sense. thank you. manking member garamendi. >> thank you, mr. chairman. well-said, well-put, good questions all the way around. i was sitting here kind of almost laughing out loud when you asked the question about will they fully fund? history is usually informative for the future. each of you testified that the

needs are exceptionally larger than the annual appropriations and requests for appropriations. so, you all nicely danced to the chairman's question, but the answer is, no, you will not be requesting full funding to meet all of the base requirements updates, but you're going to do the best you can and we appreciate that. a couple of things, i'm going to very quickly on the housing side of it, the chairman ended his comments looking at the privatization of the barracks issue. now, this is an issue that we need to take up, mr. chairman, because we can make it happen. right now, there's limitations on what each of the departments can do, we need to tell them to get on with it in the next ndaa and give them the authority to do so and along the way we should require that they pay careful attention to all of the problems that were created in the family housing over the

previous 30 years and to avoid those and hire some really good real estate lawyers because you're going to be up against some really good real estate lawyers who manage to screw the government the previous three years on the family housing. so, that's something we can do here and we should see to that. i'm going to move off in a different direction maybe. let's talk about psyops, progress or lack thereof updating our maritime facilities. if you would, ms. berger. >> ranking member, yes, we are undertaking a once in a lifetime recapitalization that we intent to make a not once in a lifetime again. this is -- and this is a place where some of our most mission critical infrastructure has hit

the near sentry mark and we're seeing the impacts all around as we look forward, we're looking towards how we put that dollar down and make it count. among the four shipyards we are taking lessons that we learn in applying them forward, both through the management of the bases. as you noted earlier, where that is part of the place where we are putting lessons applied going forward and also looking at requirements and anticipating the fire departments that we will be operating in and so we can be more predictable in what is a costly and critical endeavor. >> thank you for bringing to your attention, and the committee's attention, we've dealt with this over the last decade, ongoing issue when you're talking multi-billion dollars to upgrade the shipyards. labs, the test facilities and

the facts that they are antiquated and insufficient and in many cases ill-maintained. >> thank you for the question, ranking member and i think that the lab facilities and our detainee facilities are a microcosm in many ways the situation that we've found ourselves with barracks. have dilapidated or underfunded facilities, it makes it difficult to recruit or train the best talent that we need in order to do the critical missions and conduct the research. so we're committing right now to work with our r and e team, our partners to help them ought utilize 1805 authorities by this committee and see the readiness challenges and long-term challenges with underfunding these facilities. >> okay, let's go down the wide. air force on the testing facilities, what do you need? what are the shortfalls.

>> that you, congressman, garamendi. >> i'll start with the labs, we have the labs and keep them that way and make sure we're applying cutting edge technology in how our labs are operated and the facilities themselves and we appreciate the authorities congress has given us. last year the army invested $237 million in labs and almost half of that was directed to infrastructure projects because we appreciate the infrastructure of the labs is critically important. if respect to our organic industrial base as i'm sure you're interested in knowing about, we're undergoing, as you know, an enterprise-wide modernization at 23 of our sites. it's going in phases because obviously this is a very large undertaking, but we're not just modernizing our facilities, but our manufacturing processes and our work force and we're accelerating production of critical ammunition as well.

>> we could probably well spend several hours of hearing going in depth on the arsenals, on the munitions and lack thereof, i'll let it go on that. >> we'll get a follow. >> thank you, mr. chairman, we're definitely going to have to do that. quickly on the labs all the way down and then i'm going to sound -- be finished. go ahead, labs, testing facilities. >> very quickly, grateful for the new authority and we'll work with osd to make sure that we contribute to that way forward, specifically we have increased our funding from 2 to 4% in reserves to have more of na funding to reinvestment in infrastructure and lastly, we take advantage of opportunities when we do suffer an impact from another event such as at china lake with the earthquake to make sure that we are restrengthening what we are building back. thank you. >> thank you, ranking member. three areas that i want to

touch upon. one, eggland air force base, we're doing a tremendous amount of drone work to keep us on the leading edge and so i've looked at those facilities there, they need updated. they get funded by rdt and e dollars and we look forward to supporting that with you. and other two points at edwards air force base where i recently visited they're doing innovative things, one on transportable hangars, a lot of test growth going on coming up over the next 10 years and they are beating that metric of mill con and the delays by getting transportable hangars, using fsrm. so it's been critical to that through rdt dollars and these are classified facilities as well that can meet our needs so we're looking to innovate. these are fantastic facilities and the third is an update i received on a rocket lab at

edwards air force base where we're going to look at corrosion at high pressure vessels in that facility that degraded the past 30 years so now we're looking into public-private partnerships working with rep garcia to see what we can do with the space community to upgrade the facilities. thinking outside of the box, coming up with new ways of solving these problems, and focused on going forward. >> one final question, mr. chairman, if i might. one of the critical air bases that we have is travis air force base, gateway to the pacific, it is endangered by a group of investments that want to build a new city in the open land directly to the east of the base. if that initiative succeeds, the base will be seriously impacted by a new 400,000 person facility right up to the edge of the base. your attention to that would be appreciated. i know the base commander's concerned and i'm certainly

concerned since i do represent travis. your attention to it and the air force's continued effort to try to find out where the $800 million came from to buy 50,000 acres of land surrounding the base. so, if you'll pay attention to that. with that, i'll yield back. >> thank you, five minutes of question. >> thank you, chairman waltz and ranking member garamendi. thank you to the witnesses testifying here today. so as we've heard today already, the housing infrastructure of our defense department facilities are critical to the national security of our great country. the installations are the facilities from which we project power. american strength can reach into all geographic regions and theaters of operations throughout the world and just as important, the subcommittee must work to ensure that our military families have quality homes so our service members are free to focus on lethality

execution of their lawful duties and mr. chairman to your point not focused on fixing on the h-vac systems. with the strategic importance of these, i want to be sure we're considering the whole of the military. appears most of the statements are active components of our military. as a proud member serving southern minnesota with a strong heritage in folks that served in our national guard, it's important to talk about the totality of our military, so, this is important and a significant portion of our military reserves in that component. after the fact, this is a detrimental impact on readiness. so my question is pretty simple, it's pretty straight forward and start with mr. owens and see if we can get an answer there. the reserve centers, national guard armory utilized by the guard and reserve are they

properly considered in investments and if so, how? >> thanks for the question. in terms of what you mean by properly considered, like as in relation to the rest of the things that we are-- that we're dealing with? >> specifically, you know, so we've heard already a lot about the housing, really just give me a flavor of what is being considered, how are we looking at the guard, the reserve and the-- specifically armories in regards to the aging infrastructure and needs that we have there. >> i'm coming to deferring to my service member colleague. >> congressman, the garden of reserves a huge component of what we're doing not just on barracks and facilities, but also just on a way of life for guards and reserves. we want to make sure that we retain that incredibly important force. a good portion of our funding

for barracks going forward in the next five years will go to guard and reserves and i personally engage on the projects for guard and reserves. i've been working very closely with the team in massachusetts on a cape cod project, mill-con project right now and keenly aware and want to make sure that they have the best of the best. >> our navy marine corps reserves are using the same infrastructure and so as we're considering where we are making investments, it is certainly integrated because of how integral it is to our training and all of the other elements that we have talk about with regard to readiness for the reserves. >> thank you for the comment and question, and i'm heartened to hear your words on this topic because the air national guard base in minneapolis is place where i learned about air power and it excited me about

pursuing my career in the air force and congratulations on selection on receiving new c-130 aircraft, too, i remain extremely connected to the minnesota guard and all they do for the nation. on your question, i just returned from attending northern edge, which is a large total force exercise that is conducting extremely important multi-domain training. their facilities are facilities that are in my portfoliowell and one of the most innovative points about it is they just broke ground on an all new hangar and the great thing and innovative piece about that is that their hangar holds multiple weapons systems, not just one weapons systems, it's a common hangar so that was an innovation made by the guard itself, with help from state funding. so understanding how the guard addresses infrastructure is something that the active duty can learn from and i'm going to stay engaged on that subject

particularly when it comes to infrastructure. so you have my commitment that i'll continue in that journey. >> thank you, and mr. chairman, i'll just close with this, you know, the piece resonates with me this morning is accountability. after showing some of the pictures and having the honor to travel the country and see some of these facilities, i mean, we can do better, we must do better. this is not a partisan issue, this is an american issue and we owe it to our servicemen and women to do better. absolutely. >> thank you for that mr. finstad. i can't imagine a resort or hotel manager that wouldn't have lost their job if osha or anybody else inspected and found those kind of conditions. with that, let's go to to the great state of hawaii. >> thank you, mr. chair.

two basic questions one local, one global. this is about the navy water system in hawaii and while this is happening in hawaii sadly, we know the state of the facilities, we know it's likely happening across the country. miss berger, i'm concerned about new complaints and reports on the navy's water system in oahu, having sheen and taste of their tap water. roughly 50 complaints of tap water and air quality from navy water users. unfortunately, we've had similar reports of this last fall when tested water samples had a handful of home yielding trace amounts of diesel in the drinking water. while the chemical signatures don't correspond with the jet fuel stored at red hill where we had 19,000 gallons emptied in the drinking water impacting service members and civilians. it's disturbing we're talking chemical traces in our drinking water and the bigger question,

where is this possible contamination even coming from. now, the public deserves to know. our service members and their families deserves to know that their water is safe and clean to drink. and urgently get to the bottom of this and make sure that people know that the water they drink and give to their families is safe. miss berger, what is the navy doing for the causes behind the alarming water quality issues. do you have a timeline when we can expect some real answers and more importantly, what have we done to inspect and harden our aging infrastructure that likely led to these leaks? >> congresswoman, we're concerned, too. anytime that we hear that there is a report of something that is wrong, especially when it comes to water, we are taking action and responding and so first i'll tell you about what the navy is doing since we

heard these reports. as you note, there are about 50 that the department of health has identified for everybody that we can directly respond to, individually, we have gone to the home or location identified. we have gathered information from the reporting individual or family. we have provided bottled water and we have done testing to ascertain what the levels are in the water. significantly, we have seen that every indication is below the 266 level of tth, which is what the department of health and epa have identified for safe drinking water standards, but there is something wrong and so we need to see what is causing people to report that they are having an impact. the navy has put together a team of scientific and communication experts so not only can we do the science research, but also make sure that we are sharing the information with people. so the department of health and

environment protection agency and navy have set up a swarm team to look at the analysis-- or excuse me, to look at the data gathered and analyze to make sure we are understanding what the source, potential impacts, both over the course of time and in aggregation can mean. we do not have all of that information yet, but in the interim, as we get information and can share with people what we are doing, we are posting on our website. we have phone numbers where people can call and gain information if they're interested. >> and i appreciate that, miss berger, unfortunately, i have a limited time. i want to harp on what you said, the pth petroleum, in our cooking and bathing water we don't know what lower levels of tph in the drinking water. something we don't expect to find when we pick up water to drink or give to our child

what, it means service members and families, and that's a big concern. as we go forward, i want to make sure that we are he consistent in the treatment of residents. publicly it was reported residents said their home was told by the military that their home was not on the navy water line, denied long-term monitoring by the navy and then reversed course a few weeks later, again, eroding trust and confidence at the end of the day the navy has people's best interests in mind both service members and civilians. i would actually charge whether it be the pictures that we've seen or the water those in hawaii are forced to drink, and challenge to you live in those homes ap give that water to your children and family knowing do you feel safe? it's below the tph level, but the end of the day if there's a sheen on the water and a smell from it, would you pick up that glass and drink it and similarly would you live in the

housing structurals that sadly our service members and their family are forced to live in domestically and overseas. and i'd like to direct some questions to the overseas installations and the state of the facilities there, and what we do to improve quality of life and safety and health for our service members as well as to be respectful citizens in another country. >> without objection. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, and to ms. higgins who has been a real leader and champion of quality of life of our service members. >> thank you, mr. chair. and thank you to just everyone who came today to testify before our panel. it's been a great privilege to sit on the quality of life task force for congressman bacon and ms. hoolahan and hear time after time what men and women need, paying, and compensation is number two, housing and health care, i'm happy to hear

your passion and i have children that serve and thinking about them at everything that we do. i wanted to take a minute to advocate for oconus. and visited japan okinawa and they looked at us, in 10 years we can't do the mission we need to do if we don't put time and money into the infrastructure. and i was just at a base that, what's going on is it staying, moving? but the marines there are still there, they're still 67 miles away from china. we have to continue to focus on those oconus housing and infrastructure issues. they don't have people like us that represent and can speak about what those bases need so please be their voices for them. i represent virginia beach so i have naval air station oceana, the east coast master jet base.

and it is pathetic. i get frustrated and angry every time and tell the base, i'm the worst secret shopper, go to the commissar i and makes me madder every time i go. there's a lot of room for improvement and i know you share the concerns. i wanted to take a minute and turn to something positive. secretary berger and i have worked together many times and come to my district. thank you so much for your advocacy. one of the things that i talked about the first time i think we had one of these readiness committees, was the fact that we had our junior enlisted moving into unaccompanied housing and paying for wi-fi and that connectivity piece is so important, as a nurse practitioners, and health care provider i've been focused on that as well. ...

thank you so much for providing pilot program for the navy about getting our servicemen and women access to free wi-fi. could you please speak about how you did that? i know you've come up with some creative ways for funding and really think inside the box which is what i think we need to do right now. >> certainly, yes. thank you for the attention to our infrastructure and to some of the most pressing needs of our sailors and our marines, and a what you share the credit with fleet forces and the regional command and vocal commands there who all to get on board and made it happen. it is the nwr funding, so very fitting in terms of what we mean when we talk about nwr and ensuring that were providing our

sailors with what they need. so we have about 4000 sailors right now who will have access to the wi-fi and we recognize that this is something that will help them to access education, to stay connected with family as you noted. there's everything from mental health commission success that will come as a result of this. and so we expect to continue to demonstrate the value here. nwr funds going a bunch of different directions of course, and as is one of our theme for today there are a lot of demands on some pots of money. so as we recognize this is a foundational requirement for our sailors and marines, then i would assure to other members as well, it is something would like to be able to continue to provide in a very reliable way. >> thank you. i would love to see that pilot program expanded to the navy and other dod.

along the same lines think inside the box we talked a lot about privatized housing. i'm a big fan. i think the public-private partnership explorations but the privatized pace, i would love to see those programs expanded. mr. owens, can you talk about your plan for expansion? that's certainly a direction i think we need to pursue. >> i appreciate the opportunity. on the previous point on wi-fi, last week we got to agreement the rest of the military departments have the authority to exactly what the navy did so thanks to the navy for leading out on that. on the privatization, the need is huge. all of the tools, anything in the toolbox need to deleverage for us to get after. privatization and the jury will the lessons we can about the process over the last 25 years are certainly a piece of that. but yes, we're absolutely at that as a critical aspect to get after the show to.

>> iq. are reimport. my time is expired. i yield back. >> thank you, ms. kiggans. ms. escobar from texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and mr. ranking member. and many thanks to our witnesses. ms. jacobsen it's wonderful to see you again. you have been really wonderful to the military installation that i have incredible privilege to represent, fort bliss, the second-largest military installation for our nation. so it's great to see you. and thank you all very much for your service and for what you're working on. i sure all the same concerns that my colleagues do. this is my third term in congress and this has felt like such a chronic issue. obviously didn't happen overnight. it's been something that is been chronic for a long time, and if he is like one of the toughest nuts to crack. so i have a couple of questions,

just given what i have heard over my years in congress. are there any specific programs for initiatives aimed at addressing feedback and concern some servicemembers regarding housing conditions? that feedback, when i have had quality-of-life roundtables, one of the consistent issues that comes up is that many of our servicemembers don't feel heard. that is something i hear over and over and over again. so i guess we'll start with you, mr. owens. just thoughts on how this concerns are fielded and whether, how we act on them. >> thank you for the question. i think in terms of the world to get after this i want to thank the members here and congress in general for the provisions in fy 24 ndaa that enable us to do more of that, requires to do more of that. that feedback is incredible to

understand what i was sitting on the pentagon's spending on issues that will not resonate with fix problems that are servicemembers are having right now. so we do have periodic check ends, monthly check in with my assistant secretary counterparts. counterparts. we have also stood up biweekly unaccompanied housing check ends with my counterparts to make sure we are increasing the level and about the feedback we're getting through those loops. we all rely on and we are relying on surveys that are going out periodically and i will at the military departments talk through those. but i think we can do better, a lot better and we can utilize strategies and technologies that are not necessarily reliant on proactive response to a series of questions about what matters to you today. the army did a a barracks sury and to think a lot of information was illustrative y don't think it's a most effective way, the most direct

way to take polls of the climate right now. we're exploring various different technologies and strategies that are going to be able to help us shorten that cycle time and really be on top of these issues proactively rather than writing this, and then have to reassess, have to be statistically parsed and sliced and diced so we can then make action which takes longer than needed to. we are trying to get at this multiple different way. >> thank you. >> it's wonderful to see again and such a pleasure to work with you on all matters. we did conduct the survey. that was referenced in gao report but aside from multiple choice questions and so forth, we asked for the comments. reading this, it's was eye-opening reread them across the board from secretary lahood across the board. the other thing we've done is recently convened a barracks summit of all that didn't vote soldiers directly, some of the

primary members of the barracks on the command sergeant majors. we asked command sergeant majors to reach in and get input from the soldiers so that we could give the soldiers a better living experience, not just on the surface of what is going to make their lives better. all of us to a person and army senior leadership when we visit any installation we need an visit with soldiers but we ask them questions. we look at the conditions of the rooster we try to really ascertain how we can help them. >> thank you so much. ms. berger, in the remaining 32nd. >> in addition to my colleagues have said i will add that we include technology. so qr code so we can actually register an account for timestamp affiliate with any complaints as will the marine corps initiative that it mentioned earlier where there tl be a wall-to-wall investigation which will involve conversation results all which will help us make informed decisions. >> thank thank you so much. i'm out of time. thank you all so very much.

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, ms. escobar. and mr. moylan who was really been a tremendous add to this committee and given his unique and critical needs in guam. over to you, mr. moylan. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member. ms. berger, thank you for coming to my office the other day. appreciate our conversation and i do appreciate you coming often to guam as well. your attention there is really well received and in no, we have a critical mission for the united states. guam is the most forward in our indopacom area. with the marines come on over which we welcome wholeheartedly and building the camp is going well. of course this critical need for -- and guam already. and our concern of course this already we are relying pelletier on the housing market to satisfy what we need to get going, to

provide for our families and military families as well. but ultimately it pays the price of residential housing for our committee community, such a small island. so give us your perspective on the portion of housing that will be needed outside as well with the marines come on over and what's the consideration that you're looking at with the local residents, this affect the will have on the housing market with the residents of guam. >> thank you for your hospitality and your office, and when i had the chance to visit guam. as you note, it is an island of small place. is really the ultimate defense committee. in a lot of ways the such interdependence on the ecosystem, and the marine corps as they're moving forward is not taking that lightly.

you note camp blaz is moving along but there's also the community of it, and so the marine corps and navy is going toward making sure that we do a housing assessment out on the market. that will be complete in march, so very soon. the work is ongoing as we speak and i will be able to give you with fidelity what that impact looks like. but we're taking into account a lot of the things that we talked about in terms of requirements for talent to be able to build if there's a need for builds in the final consideration as we think that in permitting, other places, really the holistic look so the work is ongoing. i will come back to you when it is complete this spring, and we're doing it with the cognizance of the perspective that you provided. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much.

mr. owens, guam, where faced with many storms and we recently had that typhoon and were still recovering from that as well. and it really had an impact on the construction that we desperately need to get going. especially the housing construction that we need there as well. so members and and i we havn to secretary austin requesting clear construction strategy to be developed and submitted to congress. we haven't heard feedback from that yet. that's concern for us and especially now with the fy '25 budget we are working on. will the department be providing a response on how will the fy budget, fy '25 budget request account for typhoon mawar damage? >> thank you for the question, and appreciate the folks here at what is devising thank you for all the work that went into making sure the visa extension was in the fy '24 ndaa. we understand that before we can

program all of that, or processed available. some have to be putting that to good use. in terms of specific responses i want to get back to on the schedule but over the course of the last several months we have stood up a series of governance structures within the department of defense, putting undersecretary the navy as the sole point of accountability for all the issues that are being dealt with, to make sure that we are prioritizing, first of all, cataloging, prioritizing and sequencing the work that needs to happen. terms of the work of our team is been doing, our infrastructure council that is under our office is currently at the tail end of filling out the entire, the entirety of what the full need of all of the different initiatives the need to happen there look like. we are feeding that up to the guam strategic oversight council

for digestion and privatization. out of that comes the . >> they get. just critical time and we really want to get that money out to use. one final question for you, just a few seconds left. i'll call it is so import for us on guam. the cost of living is asked in high. we got deducted. it was how it was measured. we really need that back can you tell us we look at that and bring it back for? >> i be happy to work with our partners in pnr to work on that patient. >> thank you very much. they key to the panel. mr. chairman, i yield back. thank you. >> thank you, mr. moylan. and over to mr. davis from the great state of north carolina, a state that i feel like i've literally walked with a very heavy rucksack. in tiny. overview, mr. davis. >> thank you for walk in north carolina, mr. chair. to the ranking member and to all of the guests, witnesses are here today, thank you so much for taking the time to join us

and to provide us these important updates as it pertains to the state of our escalation infrastructure. want to travel back to north carolina some day to see -- seymour johnson air force base. as they are often challenges that outpost on a basis in terms of health risks. one of the things that stood out to me when i visited seymour johnson air force base was the deteriorating and particularly fiscal fitness center, fitness center. and as we talk about recruitment, retention, readiness, for fitness center itself to pose a risk, potentially to members, what steps are we fighting that the department is taking to try to

address and particularly aging physical fitness and equipment infrastructure that puts military personnel and their families at risk? >> representative davis understand that's a question for me pgh yes. yes, i'm sorry, mr. johnson. >> first and foremost safety is a number one priority for men and women in uniform. so addressing safety concerns on the spot is the responsibility of the installation commander. i will take a note of that. i was not aware of a safety issue so i will make sure take that baton and look into that for you, if that's okay i will get back to you on the details of that to include our plan for recovery. second, if it's in infrastructure issue itself, will make sure that we take a look at it at the facility. we have a number of models especially for fitness centers

that we been utilizing across our installations to generate opportunities, to update, if funding is not available in a milcon, we know some wings that are realizing operational energy savings. in our portfolio we have opportunities to realize those savings and give those savings back to the unit itself. so this could be a candidate for that opportunity, but if you would love would like to take the back and focus on the fitness center at seymour johnson and give you a well groomed plan to move forward with. >> absolutely. i did that when other follow-up. in particular. i remember when i was there going over to the child develop an center, because part of the roof was falling apart. while i was there, i know this could not have been planned well, i'm out look at the roof

and a four-year-old child comes up to the wind and waves at me with the biggest smile. but when i think about broadly speaking child development centers, i mean, how are we prioritizing them trying to get through this process? realizing the challenges that, you know, are posing so many military families? >> thank you for that. so once again on the safety peace, if there's a safety issue at our child development center, and needs to be addressed that day. we cannot make, we cannot wrestle with any sort of ambiguity with that particular issue. i will check back on the bbc as well make sure we are addressing it. more broadly, the department of the air force is embarking in addition to the 1.1 billion in dormitory investments, another

600,000 in 19 different cdcs. we are planning if appropriated to move forward with a large program to upgrade our cdcs. could be anything from renovation to building all new ones. we have several scheduled plans. we are aggressively going to get at this particular problem. we will look and see, i can get back to you on what the plans are for the cdc at seymour johnson and i'll take that back, but if that's okay with you but i just want religion of the department is committed to broadening out investments in cdcs going forward. >> and mr. chair, i would just end by saying i do appreciate the dedicated were added to understand the challenges and definitely i look forward to connecting again, and thank you for your continued service. i yield back. >> thank you mr. davis. mr. wilson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank each of you for your service, and at a special appreciation. i served 31 years myself anthony

military service is very uplifting. all due to my wife, we have for macs uncensored and iraq and afghanistan for over and over again we are seeing the positive side and in particular my navy doctor son served in naples, italy, and one of the benefits is that we now have three grandchildren who speak italian. so hey, i just want to again thank you for what is being done. i'm very grateful to represent a fort jackson. we saw some trails we need, the chairman to come and bring his rucksack, and so, and representing fort jackson and also nearby shop. the proverbial question is always a delay in having repairs. what is the department doing to ensure that maintenance requests are responded to, mr. secretary haaland's, in regards to timing? >> i think i would sir, i thank you for the question. i think i start representative

wilson by pointing to the work that we are eager to get after relative to sustained benefit structure and system which gives us the ability to have asset level assessments so that we can understand what the ramifications of delay are better than we can right now. at a portfolio level, like i said earlier we understand the sort of macrolevel challenge and the money problem, but to the specific, to the specific example that representative davis gave about a failing roof in cdcs i agree that that is not the thing that we can let sit for even a couple of hours. so the asset management approach will give us the ability to rack and stack of these issues in a more deliberate and responsive way. >> it just so, the health and safety would really appreciate expediting in every way. additionally, secretary

jacobsen, indeed reliable energy is a critical asset to ensure mission continuity at installations. in your statement you mentioned the arm is working with privatize partners to increase housing sustainability and reduce installation energy consumption. what has department done to consider other energy sources? and take interest in small modular reactor. >> speak you have energy security, reliability, you would have come i can list 100 things. a great thing about a small reactor i can see as so helpful in the territory of guam. when i think of how beautiful that territory is and mr. moylan and i have discussed this indeed, the beautiful beaches of guam, hawaii has copied this, and we need to have energy security. but guam i can see energy

security for military installations like fort jackson. so what are the efforts being made to multiple energy sources? >> congressman, thank you very much for that question. it's an important one and i, too, am a a big believer in exploring nuclear option tire installation of a possible. i stood up a multidisciplinary working group so that we can be prepared assuming we get our leadership approval to move forward with exploring a request for proposal. i know the air force is a little bit ahead of us, to place a small modular reactor one of our bases. we're not quite there yet but will he get every issue. where is a feasible? what of the licensing requirements? what of the needs? what of the politics surrounding it? but we, too, agree that our energy future must include nuclear energy. >> obviously grateful last night to meet with the energy minister

of romania, and they are taking a lead of the country of romania on small modular reactors and i just see such an opportunity that could be so beneficial for military installations, for energy independence and security. that has to be secure, to, with the perimeter. all of that is in flex so the small modular reactors to me would be an ideal way of addressing. because i'm very, very concerned with the number of terrorist who come into our country across the border that we have just got to offer military installations secure so that when as the fbi has said an attack is imminent, we would have energy security. with that, i yield back. >> thank you, mr. wilson. and for five minutes questions, mr. veasey.

>> mr. chairman, i want to thank the battle for being here today to answer questions and about something that is really important. in 2021, i took my first codel to fort hood, the first one went after covid. one of the things we look at when we're at fort hood was the living conditions. we had some good off the record conversations with enlistees and junior officers. one of the areas that they consistently pointed out was how challenging it can be, particularly when you're trying to raise a family for child care needs and things like that for some cities that have adequate housing supply. that is nearby so that puts a lot of pressure them to perform up to where they need to. and that also when it comes to living, i know who to talk about the aging housing issue. i know we can get this updated but wanted to continue to talk

about just prices for military families or i wrote a letter last to secretary austin urging the dod to allow families of our effort to buy groceries and of household goods from commissaries at cost because in addition to housing, those things around food, round shelter, around childcare, all those, they all type into the board's of housing, too. so i just really want to urge you to look in those places about that topic with housing. and in light of today's military recruitment challenges, we know all of the saints have to be addressed. we've seen the photos where people have depicted being live in subpar living conditions in barracks. when you go to visit they will tell you about a lot of the housing on the bases is older and need to be updated. not just because it's old, but because of safety reasons as well that needs to be updated.

has your organization, anybody can answer this, has your positions taken steps to proactively manage and mitigate the public perception around these challenges, particularly with a lot of the recruits are potential recruits have heard a lot of these stories? >> i'll take a first step and then asked my counterparts to join in. i want to thank representative davis and strickland and escobar for the work they put into it on the quality of life panel. that stood up. in response i think to a lot of the concerns that you just expressed, that has created a companion effort within dod, this is being led by a legislative affairs team that includes personnel and readiness, includes acquisitions and sustain it. and we have a regular set of meetings where we are focused on looking at the total, the total quality of service that we are providing across all of our

department. we are incorporating many of those things that was owned as a process, as part of that quality of life engagement that we've had with that subcommittee into the tiger team where stanley cup housing because getting out of his issues, dressing them is something that he think we can do better at. while we're fixing the problem we can also make sure we're highlighting the places were called to serve something we can be proud of and to think the navy privatize unaccompanied barracks in san diego are a great example that we can hold up and say this is where we think we're headed. >> congressman, with respect to family housing the army has been very much out front in letting those companies know that if they are not fulfilling their obligations, we will hold them in default of their leases. and withhold their incentive payments until they get there.

i've personally issued default notices where circumstances recorded because conditions were unacceptable and were not being addressed adequately. with respect to barracks, we are unfolding a huge program to get a barracks as many as possible into good, quality, to take them out of the so-called bad quality poor and fitting into good, quality and keep in there. we are going to make sure that our dollars are invested wisely so that our soldiers have good living experience of. >> thank you. let me just say this in closing, that in addition to the housing, to address the aging infrastructure village to housing, and a talk of some of the other challenges as well. please look at as prices, particularly for military personnel at a station on the west coast. because even if you receive about, when she get there, gas is five, six dollars a gallon by two was in some circumstances

can it just eats it up. i had a family that was a district that were stationed at edwards air force base, and what we all the time about how people were having to live in rvs because even with a bump, they still could not afford to have housing around here. so thank you. >> thank you, mr. veasey. we have, we are about to have votes called. let's have a follow on question and then i request. -- i just -- we had conversations last year and also with the service secretaries about as a look at michael graves, as a look at resiliency on our bases, giving chinese made infrastructure out of our supply chains. i know that is a congressman pocan issue. i fully recognize that.

but we cannot have year after year administration after administration siding our number one adversary who is openly talking about replacing the united states, the decline of the global hegemon, the decline of democracy, the decline of western values, the rhetoric that we are seeing coming from chairman sheikh, coming from the ccp and create dependency in our infrastructure on the chinese communist party. so can you each talking about what you were doing? and i would ask for specifics last year and was we understand it's an issue, were looking at the issue. i get it. what are we doing in line with language that was in this ndaa? and if you disagree with the need to have domestically produced energy supplies, , even if they are back up supplies, let me know.

we could have conversation off-line. what i will just start a departmentwide, mr. owens. >> thank you, chairman waltz. i wish we had more than five minutes to talk about this issue because you are right. how critical it is to our energy security and national security. from the standpoint of the way that we are partnering, we have partnerships with our industrial base policy counterparts. they are focused on battery supply chain can look it on joint and friend showing. part of the industrial base strategy that the just released earlier, last month was focus on that and the work that the rest of the whole of government is doing on the federal consortium for advanced batteries and onshore and friend shoring production capacity for those batteries is something that we are very engaged in. and i would say that the reason we're so directly engaged, this is not a problem for tomorrow as

a buildup the new energy infrastructure. it's a problem today for hundreds if not thousands of citizens of rely on batteries that are not produced in places that have secure supply chain. one specific example i can give is the enforcement of buy american provisions and a power purchase agreement that we just concluded with duke energy. i think that is a type of thing we can be able to guide dod dollars in the direction of u.s. manufacturing, and something that increases the demand signal for the market, number one, but also make sure that we are sending the larger signal to the rest of the nation that we are driving these issues forward. >> take you for that, mr. owens. i think that's heading in the right direction. we will continue to push from the committee's standpoint in terms of accelerating helping

you do that because you're actually right. the department can create a demand signal that domestic producers can fill. from the services perspective, anything to add to that? i welcome specifics. >> i will start, here's a specific. if you were going to for a particular contract and my particular portfolio, you are going to get down selected if that's it, you're out. >> now we're talking. that's great. thank you. then i just have a request for both you, mr. chaudhary, forgive me if i mispronounced your name earlier, and ms. jacobsen and mr. a once. we have probably the most high-profile child development center at camp simons at eglin air force base. frank and i don't think this committee with the senate and conference should be really wrestling over a cdc. either it is safe to be and

operate and be on the camp giving its proximity to a range or it's not. but parsing, we have a church there. we have a playground there. but we can't have a child development center there. i think just all kinds of bizarre distinction sought ask you guys to resolve this issue. it's either safe to be there and special operators need a place of the don't have to come the families don't have to drive hours to drop off of their kids. and they will be prioritized, which they will not be in town, so to speak, or they are not. so if we can get that resolved this year, that would be, that's just by request of you, that would be fantastic. so thank you. ranking member? >> mr. chairman, thank you for bringing up the energy issue. we were going to go by that. you brought it up it mr. owens, you spoke to the bike america

requirements. it is a huge loophole in the department of defense for requirements here we need to close that. if we were able to enforce the buy america requirements, then the chairman's concern about chinese batteries and the like we will move past that. because they will have to be made in america. or friends, friendly countries nearby. thank you for bringing that up. energy issues, resilience and we talked about that. we can go on for several hours. i noticed we don't have several hours. we may have just a few seconds. i've asked each of you to share with me, and also request that you share with the chair and the staff specific requests that you need in this coming ndaa to carry out the task that you have described to us that you want to do. housing, energy, installation

come on and on. we're going to go working on the ndaa next month. so i think i set march 15 is my deadline. the chairman may have a march 1 deadline. we need to know which you need to cure after desperate with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, ranking member garamendi. and with that, the hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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