 to possible floor proceedings and also the possibility that any one of our colleagues may object to proceeding past 12 o'clock noon. So this will require us ending the open session at my 11 a.m. and then moving immediately to a closed session at SVC 217. I ask that members strictly adhere to the five-minute timeline and I will tap on my gavel to remind people. In that spirit I will submit my opening statement for the record, Senator Fisher. Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would submit my statement for the record as well. Thank you very much Senator Fisher. Let me recognize Secretary Kendall. Mr. Secretary. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Chairman Reed, Senator Fisher, members of the committee. General Saltzman, General Alvin and I thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the Department of the Air Force's FY25 budget submission. The Department of the Air Force budget request supports the national defense strategy. We appreciate the committee's support for the recently enacted FY24 budget and your efforts to secure timely passage. As you are aware the six-month delay has had a real impact. That time cannot be recovered but at least we can now move forward with our urgent modernization priorities. As I have testified before this committee repeatedly, time is my greatest concern. We are in a race for military technological superiority with a capable pacing challenge. Our cushion is gone. We are out of time. As we have briefed the committee in the classified level the pacing threat moves steadily forward. We appreciate the opportunity to have a classified session today Mr. Chairman as well. Continued failure to provide on-time authorities and appropriations will leave the Air Force and Space Force inactively prepared. We know the committee recognizes this and we appreciate your strong bipartisan support. Our FY25 budget request complies with the physical responsibility act. We are requesting 217 and a half billion for the Department of the Air Force which includes 188 billion for the Air Force and 29.4 billion for the Space Force. The FY25 budget reflection increase of about one and a half percent over the enacted FY24 budget and does not keep pace with inflation or with the 7% publicly acknowledged growth of China's military budget. To stay within the levels of the FRA the Department of the Air Force had to adjust our previous plans. The 25 budget request seeks to preserve the momentum behind our modernization efforts particularly the work on operational imperatives that we initiated that this committee supported in FY24. In order to preserve modernization we have marginally reduced procurement and we have sustained our foundational accounts at levels redeemed acceptable but no more. Because the Space Force budget is dominated by research and development accounts we have had to marginally reduce the pace and scope of our Space Force modernization programs. Our first priority in the national defense strategy remains defense of the homeland which is a part of the Air Force primarily supports through investments in domain awareness, air and space defense, early warning and cyberspace defense programs. Our second national defense strategy priority is to deter strategic attack against the United States our allies and our partners. The Department of the Air Force 25 budget request prioritizes nuclear modernization to maintain a safe secure and effective nuclear deterrent. Notably the Sentinel ICBM program has experienced unacceptable costs and schedule increases and is currently undergoing a non-McCurdy review. The Department of the Air Force will work closely with the committee as that review reaches its conclusions. The third national defense strategy priority is to deter aggression and be prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary. The Department of the Air Force needs immediate and significant capability modernization to keep pace with our growing military capabilities of the PRC. The Department of the Air Force operational imperatives and the closely related cross cutting operational enablers continue to guide our modernization program. The FY25 DAP budget request includes 6.1 billion for these efforts. Finally the fourth national defense strategy priority is to build a resilient joint force and enduring advantages. This budget request invests to ensure that we can recruit and retain the force we need so that our airmen and guardians and their families have the quality of life they deserve and can serve to their full potential. As we brief the committee the Department of the Air Force is also currently undertaking a department wide effort to re-optimize to meet the needs of great power competition. The intent is to minimize both cost impacts and personnel or unit movement. We will work closely with the committee as we develop detailed plans. We do not anticipate any significant impact on the FY25 budget and we have not requested funds for this purpose. The DAP also appreciates the committee's support for the DOD quick start initiative that was enacted last year. The Department of the Air Force has obtained approval from the Secretary of Defense for two programs that will be initiated under this new authority. They are a more resilient national GPS position navigation and timing capability and C3 battle management for moving target indication. Time matters but so do resources. The United States is facing a competitor with national purchasing power that exceeds our own. A challenge we have never faced in modern times. China is actively developing and expanding capabilities to challenge strategic stability, attack our critical space systems and defeat our ability to project power, especially air power. Conflict is not inevitable but it could happen at any time. General Alvin and I just returned from a trip to some of our key bases in the Indo-Pacific. We should all be very proud of our men and women serving in harm's way and doing everything they can to deter and to be ready for a conflict unlike any we've seen before. The Department of the Air Force FY25 budget request is focused on addressing these realities. We commit to working with the committee to secure Tommy and Ackman to this budget request. Thank you. We look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. General Alvin, please. Good morning, Chairman Reid, Senator Fischer, and distinguished members of this committee. Today I'm proud to represent the 677,000 total force airmen serving our nation. I want to thank you for your unyielding support, not only for those airmen but for their families as well. I'd like to open by stating my immense pride in the exemplary performance of our airmen this past weekend. As part of a joint coalition effort, they successfully thwarted the massive air attack by Iran on Israel's home soil. Their professionalism and skill turned a potentially catastrophic event for Israel into a strategic defeat for Iran and its proxies. As we look across the strategic landscape, we find ourselves in a time of significant consequence. The simultaneous demands of strategic competition with an aggressive and increasingly capable PRC and persistent, acute threats from around the globe require the Air Force to maximize the readiness of today's forces while adapting our structures and processes to offer the best opportunity to prevail in an environment of enduring competition. Time is not on our side. The FY25 Air Force budget request reflects difficult choices. We've made trade-offs to keep the Air Force's operational readiness today at the minimum acceptable to meet the nation's demands while seeking to preserve the previous year's advances in modernization. The Air Force budget request also invests in the Air Force's most precious asset, its airmen, to ensure they remain the decisive advantage upon which the nation depends. Strategic deterrence is a key priority in our national defense strategy and the United States Air Force remains committed to the recapitalization of our nuclear force. We're actively supporting the process triggered by the Nun McCurdy breach of the Sentinel program and will continue to pursue the path of a safe, secure, reliable, and effective ground leg of the nuclear triad well into the future. Our ability to support the national defense strategy priority of deterring aggression and prevailing in conflict demands a modern Air Force that is connected to the joint force and can close multiple kill chains in minimal time to control the tempo of a complex fight with a peer competitor. To that end, the FY25 budget proposes continued investments in the F-35 and F-15EX, albeit with fewer than preferred quantities dictated by the constraints of the Fiscal Responsibility Act. We remain committed to the advanced battle management system, C-3 battle management, and to the NGAD family of systems, particularly collaborative combat aircraft, which will allow the Air Force to deliver the affordable mass required to be effective against a very capable PRC. We're also committed to building forward-based resiliency enough to enable continued sortie generation even while under attack. To arrest the decline in our readiness, we have proposed modest increased investment in flying hours and the weapon system sustainment funding to support them while prioritizing investments in critical physical and cyber infrastructure. Our airmen are and will always be the deciding factor in any conflict our Air Force faces, and we are committed to their health, development, and quality of life. We have made significant progress thanks to Congress's support to increase basic pay, adjust the basic allowance for housing and subsistence, to account for macroeconomic factors. There's still work to be done. During our recent trip to the Indo-Pacific Secretary, Kendall Lysot dedicated airmen eager to accomplish the mission despite infrastructure degradation caused by natural disaster and persistent environmental challenges, as well as limited access to the healthcare enjoyed by many Kona spaces. The job of your Air Force has not changed since its inception. Support and defend this nation through credible deterrence and unmatched combat prowess. To preserve that level of deterrence we must maintain our readiness today, modernize our forces for tomorrow, and provide the absolute best support for our airmen. Success on any battlefield is a team effort. I want to thank the members of Congress and this committee for your past and continued support. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, General Salsman, please. Chairman Reed, Senator Fisher, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for your continued support and for the opportunity to testify on the Space Force's posture for Fisca Year 25. As the Space Force prepares to celebrate its fifth birthday, we are wholly dedicated to the work of forging a service purpose built for great power competition. Space has never been more critical to the security of our nation, and the success or failure of the Joint Force depends heavily upon the capabilities we present. It is our responsibility to contest and control the domain, to defend U.S. space capabilities, and to protect the Joint Force from space-enabled attack. Gaining and maintaining space superiority is the purpose for which the Space Force was established. With about three percent of the Department of Defense budget, the Space Force offers a tremendous value proposition to the nation. Every dollar invested in space brings asymmetric returns, but that means every dollar cut creates asymmetric risk. Against a near peer adversary, space superiority is the linchpin. Without it, we cannot deter conflict. Without it, we cannot provide vital effects. Without it, we cannot protect the Joint Force. Until we have built the infrastructure to achieve space superiority, the Space Force is a work in progress. The Space Force's theory of success includes three parts. Avoiding operational surprise, denying the benefits of attack in space and conducting responsible counter space activities. The Space Force budget request is designed to support the national defense strategy by building, training, and equipping the forces the nation needs to perform each activity, preserving freedom of action in space, while deterring and denying adversarial objectives. Avoiding operational surprise requires us to maintain an accurate understanding of the space domain at all times. 8.3 percent of our budget is dedicated to this aim. Operating across disaggregated sensor frameworks, the Space Force provides the maximum information possible to decision makers from the tactical to the strategic level. Denying the benefits of attack in space demands that we make any attack against U.S. space capabilities impractical and self-defeating. 43.4 percent of our budget is devoted to this objective. Investing in resiliency for missile warning and tracking, satellite communications, and precision navigation and timing. Hybrid architectures and proliferated constellations impose a heavy cost on aggression. Finally, responsible counter space activities describes the mechanism by which the Space Force contests and controls the space domain. The FY25 budget dedicates 24.7 percent of the Space Force budget to space superiority. Within the constraints of the FRA, fiscal year 25 Space Force budget reflects hard choices to maintain legacy space services and preserve current readiness, but it also slows the fielding of a modernized force. Addressing these challenges depends on guardians that are trained and ready to meet the high-tech demands of space operations. For that reason, I would like to personally thank the committee for its support for the Space Force Personnel Management Act. This will be a major force multiplier in the Space Force's efforts to modernize the way we recruit, build, and retain talent. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Space Force's FY25 budget imposter. Even in the face of accelerating threats, the Space Force remains the preeminent military space organization in the world. With the support of this committee, our guardians will preserve and expand our strategic advantage and we will step up to meet the challenge of our pacing threat. So as long as you continue to trust and invest in your space service, the Space Force will respond with unparalleled value for the nation. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, General Soltman. Mr. Secretary, we have been endeavoring for the last several years to replace the E3 ALACS aircraft, which has certainly served well, but is reaching its limits. Could you fill us in on the progress towards getting the E7 in the air to replace the E3? We're still moving ahead with the E7. It's funded in the 25 budget. We had to slip production of one aircraft a year to the right. The price that we got from the Prime came in much higher than we had anticipated. We've been involved in negotiations to try to get it down. We have come much closer, but we're not really at closure yet, so we have some additional work to do there. So I'm anticipating maybe being optimistic here, but hopefully that we'll get to an agreement very shortly and then be able to move on with the program. We're still committed to the program, but we've got to have an affordable aircraft. The Australians, among others, have the E7. Our version would be more sophisticated or quite different. It would have to include all of our communication systems and so on. So there are a number of modifications from the original E7, which is several years old, that have to be made to meet our requirements. That's part of the problem with the cost. Thank you, Mr. General. Alvin, a significant part of the life cycle course of an aircraft is sustainment costs. I think around here our first reaction is to stick a shock. You mean at course X, but we don't realize how much it really costs to keep flying. For example, the F-35 is, I think, about $39,000 for our flying. Can you tell us what progress the Air Force has made in reducing the life cycle cost of the F-35 system in particular? Thank you, Chairman. And of course the F-35 will be the backbone of our force into the future. So having it sustainable is certainly required for us to be able to afford it and all the others things. The Joint Program Office has been undertaking this, what they're referring to as a war on readiness, trying to understand each of the individual elements and segments that are driving the cost out. And I think that that program is underway. We expect to see some results from that in the very near future. The other thing is that when you purchase the new weapons systems, you also have to purchase the contract logistics supply system as well, which adds a bit of additional cost to it. So digging into that and understanding how we might be able to transition to this performance-based logistics is another way into the future. As you know, we've been working back and forth with the Prime on how to do that. We couldn't come to a conclusion that was satisfactory for both sides to be able to have all of the things that we needed. So we are going to re-enter that as well to ensure that in the future we can have a performance-based logistics system that will drive down the cost of sustainment as well. And there's been a determination, I presume over time, that a contract-based sustainment is more efficient than uniformed sustainment by military personnel. That was certainly the premise when they put into the CLS. And so now we're looking at adjusting that to the current environment, how we may be able to adapt to ensure that we can get some of the efficiency and affordability, but also the operational responsiveness that we need. Thank you. General Faustman, your chief task is to provide the trained and equipped space force guardians. And can you sort of give us a sense of what are the obstacles you're facing in that? Thank you, Senator. The conditions have changed radically in space over the last 10 years or so. One of the analogies Secretary Kendall and I use is it's akin to going from a merchant marine and transforming into a U.S. Navy. That requires different equipment, that requires different training. And so what we're working on currently is advancing the training of our guardians. We've invested in fiscal year 25 about 438 million dollars to enhance the training infrastructure. This includes new simulators, new ranges, aggressor forces to simulate the threat, all to give them realistic training for the competitive environment they're going to face. But maybe more importantly, and certainly more in terms of investments, is giving them the equipment they need, resilient architectures that are going to be more capable, more effective in the contested environment, and looking for the counter space capabilities to deny an adversary the ability to use space-enabled targeting against our joint force. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony. Senator Fisher, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, gentlemen. I share with many of my colleagues a deep concern regarding the future of the United States Air Force. Spiders, bombers, tankers, and cargo aircraft are in constant rotation around the world, ready to combat any threat. I understand that we must modernize our forces and divest when it makes sense to do so. However, many of the aircraft that the Air Force has requested to divest in this year's budget, such as the F-15Es, are among the most combat capable with expensive upgrades and thousands of flight hours remaining on the aircraft. In the event of conflict, we need not only capability, but also capacity. Not every place in which the Air Force is expected to operate is a high-end threat environment. I'm especially concerned about the impact of these budget caps on the space force. Whose programs form the backbone of every other service's combat capability. Communications, command and control, and guidance for weapon systems all rely on space. And more vital mission sets are expected to move to space in the near term, though not fast enough to justify such rapid divestment of airborne programs. Yet this budget request does not include the resources necessary for the space force to grow its capability at scale and at the speed of relevance. Indeed, your request for space force is $600 million less than what the department requested last year. General Salsman, in your opening statement, you stated, quote, the space force lacks similar tradeoff options, forcing delays in needed systems, especially counter space systems, end quote. I'm concerned about the level of risk we're accepting by delaying development of these systems. If Congress were to provide additional funding for development of these counter space systems, would you be able to execute that funding? Yes, ma'am. We have a series of programs that are still in R&D, but there is a good solid program that with additional resources, we would be able to accelerate and deliver capability in this fight up. We've also heard a lot about what the Air Force is doing related to re-optimizing the great power competition, General Salsman. What does that look like for the space force, please? Thank you for that. We're very excited about the re-optimization. And like I started in the previous question to Senator Reid, it's about recognizing that the environment has shifted and that we have to train differently. So we have re-established new advanced training standards for our guardians to be able to respond in this contested environment. We've also created a new force presentation model which creates both the time and the tools for our guardians to be able to train against this adversary. Most importantly, probably most recognizable, you'll see the establishment of a space futures command. This is in recognition that there is a great many efforts that we're going on in science and technology, in operational concepts, new missions, and we wanted to make sure we could get our arms around that as quickly as possible and really focus delivery of the right kind of systems with the right prioritization in time so that we can continue to have an enduring advantage over our threats as we go into the future. Thank you, sir. General Alvin or Secretary Kendall, what are additional updates that you can share in this setting on new developments in the B-21 program? The B-21 is moving forward. I'm always very careful about saying positive things about programs and development. They all have risk. But at this stage, the B-21 has been performing close to original scheduling and costs and delivering capability. It's in testing. We just had the milestone C approval to enter low-rate production. So the program is moving forward. At this point in time, at least, we're pretty happy with the progress. Great. Thank you. General Alvin, it's my understanding that one of the changes at the Air Force Nuclear Weapon Center is establishing that two-star general as PEO for international ballistic missiles. What benefits will this bring to the Air Force's capability to help them execute that Sentinel program? Well, thank you, Senator. And this is really part and parcel to what things we're looking at with the re-optimization. Understanding, keeping the main thing, the main thing. Nuclear deterrence is a cornerstone of our national defense. And so the ability to oversee at the right level with the right authorities to do integration of the ICBM leg of the triad is very important. So elevating that to the two-star level gives more seniority and more authority to be able to integrate the nuclear material management and all of the systems that will be able to support the ICBM leg. We think that's going to be pivotal, regardless of what comes out of the Nunn-McCurdy review. Going forward, that ground leg of the triad, that recapitalization is going to take years upon years. And so we want to ensure we have the right level of leadership and oversight to see this massive program. Correct. We need to make sure we have what we need and continue to move forward on that program. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Fischer. Senator Hirono, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for testifying today. This is for General Alvin. The Agile Combat Employment Strategy requires the appropriate posture and supporting infrastructure at locations throughout the Pacific. For example, just last week, the Air Force awarded a $409 million contract to rebuild an airfield used during World War II on the island of Tinian. General Alvin, does the Air Force have the appropriate forward air basing it needs to execute Agile Combat Employment? And are there plans for more reclamation efforts at Pacific airfield similar to Tinian and the runway upgrade of Basel, the island of Luzon? Well, Senator, thank you for that question. And Secretary Kendall and I were there about two weeks ago. We're on the island of Tinian, and we're certainly it holds not only a historic place, but it also is going to be part of the future as far as our Agile Combat Employment Scheme of Maneuver. So direct answer to your question, Senator, is we're on the path. We have the Wing Commanders and the Commander Pacific Air Force with a very strong understanding of what it takes to do Agile Combat Employment, and they continue through their wing level exercises to sort of to build that out, at least intellectually and conceptually. And as we continue to fight for the resources to do that, we do have designs on several of these clusters, these spoke bases to include Tinian that the Secretary and I were on. You mentioned a couple of the other ones, but building out not only the runway, but the necessary, not overly necessary, just what we need to operate those hub and spoke locations. We have a ways to go on the funding, but we are we're designing the requirements prioritizing them. And we do intend to exercise to ensure we have everything we need to execute that scheme of maneuver that's going to be required. It's part of the or maybe the major part of the reason that we need to have that these facilities in the in the Indo-Pacific is because of recognizing that China is definitely having they're reaching out to a number of these island nations to influence them. Is that one of the reasons? Senator, that's correct. We want to ensure that we have the agility and be able to complicate their targeting calculus to ensure survivability and success in that theater. Thank you. I support your effort. Secretary Kendall, last year's NDAA included a provision directing the Secretary of Defense to conduct a feasibility study regarding the advisability of transferring all covered space functions of the National Guard to the Space Force. The results of this study have not been released, but I am concerned that you are already pursuing apparently or DOD is a provision in this year's NDAA that would move all space missions out of the National Guard. So how does this how does this change? By the way, I think it's important for us to actually have the results of this analysis and I would hope that the analysis is always also including outreach and the input of these National Guard units that are performing some of the space functions. I am sure you know, Mr. Secretary, there are about a thousand National Guardsmen in states not just Hawaii, there are about a hundred, but in California, Colorado, Florida, New York, Ohio, Alaska. So while that study has not even been completed, I hope that you have out have gotten reached out to these National Guard units, have you, and conducting this study that we do not have the results of yet? The study is in final draft. First of all, let me just say that we deeply value the units that are part of essentially our space capabilities. We're looking at which ones will be covered under the Act. Consult the General Assaultsmen and we've looked at the functions of those units to see if they fit into the Air Force or Space Force architecture more appropriately. Most of them do fit within the Space Force or a couple that I think may be more appropriate in the Air Force, but they're all valued and they're all important. We want to have them continue to serve. We are looking at how to best make that happen. General Assaultsmen and I are both very strongly of the opinion that the right way to do that from the point of view of national capability and for the ability to manage the Space Force is to bring those units into the Space Force, ultimately under the Space Force personnel management act that was just passed by the Congress last year. The Space Force is incredibly small and it was designed to be lean and mean, I guess, as a way to put it, to be very efficient in how it operated and to have its minimal amount of bureaucracy associated with it. And we're very grateful that this committee and your colleagues on the other side of the Hill supported the Space Force personnel management act. It allows the Space Force to have full time and part-time people in it and to be very flexible in how it manages people. So we want to bring these guard units into that same structure and that's clearly, from the point of view of the Space Force, the best solution. Mr. Secretary, I'm glad to hear that, although transferring these units into the Space Force might mean transferring these part-time people who are located in all the states that I mentioned away from their states and other functions, so I have a concern about that. And, you know, General Salesman just testified today that it is very important in terms of the recruiting and retention of the people who are going to be doing these functions, so I have concerns that of the movement. I do have other questions, Mr. Chairman, that I will submit for the record. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Ronald. Senator Ronald, please. Mr. Chairman, do I could have one minute to respond to Senator Ronald? Yes, the only one minute you'll get. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There's no intention to move anyone. There's some concerns out there that I think are overblown. People will basically have stability if they transition. We're doing this now with some of the reserves. There are about a thousand people in the reserves essentially that are going to be moving under the Space Force Personnel Management Act. We're going to handle the space car people the same way, basically. So they would have stability and they would be able to continue to serve in the way generally that they currently would serve. So there should not be a lot of concern about dramatic changes as far as any of them are concerned. So, General Salesman, may I add a quick word on that? Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. That helps clarify the issue very much. Senator Ronald, please. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Kendall, General Alvin, General Salesman, thank you for your service and thank you for being with us today to share your testimony. I'd also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the actions of the pilots and air crews of the 494th and the 335th fighter squadrons who perform so magnificently over the weekend. We are all proud and humbled by their clear excellence and to the entire joint force for the job they did in responding very, very quickly. Secretary Kendall, given the events over this past weekend, it seems clear to me that there is no substitute for military hardware and that divesting platforms in the short term to pay for future capabilities is not necessarily the most desirable option or choice. Congress must fund the department at levels commensurate to the global threat environment. Broadly speaking, in this open setting, where does your FY25 budget assume the most risk? If I were to look overall at the Department of the Air Force's budget, I'm most concerned about the pace at which we're moving forward in space, particularly counter space. I'm not uncomfortable with where the Air Force is in terms of force structure or capabilities globally. We have a large Air Force and it's very capable. It's not as large as it once was, but we have a lot of units and the two you mentioned I think did a fantastic job, but we have a lot of other units could do very similar things if called upon to do that. Our average aircraft is about 30 years old and we need to move forward with the next generation of capabilities as quickly as we can. On the Space Force side though, as General Salzman mentioned, we're going from a country that had space capabilities designed to operate in space with impunity and very little in the way of counter space capabilities. So we are moving from a merchant marine-like arrangement to a military naval force arrangement, which means we've got to have resilient assets in space that will survive and attack and provide the services that are so important to the Joint Force and we've got to protect the Joint Force from the similar systems that the other side has that would threaten us and target us. So we need to do both of those things and those are transformational capabilities compared to what we currently have in the Space Force for the most part. So my greatest concern again is time and moving forward as quickly as possible with the kind of space capabilities we need, particularly counter space. And I guess just to follow up on that and once again I suspect this is one that all of you would probably participate in responding to but ISR is critical and right now we've got platforms that do a great job but they're not necessarily space-based. Space-based is critical long-term but it would appear that right now we're still building those ISR capabilities for the combatant commander to have in order to finish that kill web. General Alvin, would it be cleared, would you at least in your professional military opinion, would you share with this committee where we are right now with regard to our ISR platforms that the combatant commanders are requesting at this time? Absolutely Senator, of course you know intelligence surveillance reconnaissance absolutely critical to be able to to close those kill chains and have the situational awareness that combatant commanders need. I would say that where we are is we're in a transition. I think there's a there's a comfort with the level of the capacity that airborne ISR has been able to provide and during our transition to space air mix I think it is from General Alvin, I'm going to cut right to the chase on this. Fair to say we are assuming risk in this transition. Senator I would say we assume risk in any of the transitions. We are trying to manage that risk through the platforms we have retaining the platforms that we have through the RQ-4 through 2029 and and those that we have in the airborne layer until we get more resilience through the spaceborne layer because that is where the future is. Thank you. General Alvin also with regard to the family the B-21 family right now the actual platform itself we've ordered or were prepared to purchase 100 would you say that that is the minimum number needed of the base platform? It certainly is the future of our bomber force before 100 is the program of record I think we're not going to reach that number until probably the mid 2030s and beyond and before we commit to that as being the platform beyond that I think there are other technological advancements that we would see to be able to augment that and have a better mix because as you know there they're also there's a price to pay for them they are going to be very capable but the 100 sir is the minimum that is a program of record absolutely thank you thank you mr chairman thank you senator rounds let me recognize senator king please thank you mr chairman mr secretary you began your testimony talking about the non-McCurdy process and Sentinel very expensive program designed years ago make the case for the ground-based leg of the triad I should mention that I'm recused on Sentinel itself but I can definitely answer your question about the arm based leg for as long as I've been in this business about 50 years the the country has relied upon the triad from nuclear strategic deterrence it presents an adversary with a very difficult problem if it's contemplating an attack against the United States the the ICB laying in leg in particular which is our largest and most responsive leg of the triad presents a dilemma because if it's attacked it basically can be very responsive and respond immediately with a large-scale counterattack the submarine part of the fleet provides a more secure reserve if you will that is smaller in size but more survivable and then of course the bomber leg provides additional flexibility and the ability to present an adversary with another way which way it can be attacked that triumvirate that that triad has been enormously effective at preventing a nuclear war for more than half a century almost approaching a century now at one point I think you could have had a debate when the only nuclear powers were Russia in the United States and our arsenals were declining that we could have gone to some other arrangement but the thing that's happened in the last few years that really reinforces the need for the ICBM leg is China's breakout and their their expansion of their nuclear nuclear force which is certainly China's China's making huge investments in a land-based China is making a large investment and they're going to an inventory within the next few years that is comparable to that of the United States and Russia so for the first time in our history we're going to live in a world in which there are three large-scale nuclear powers that's a very dangerous world and I think reducing our capability reducing our options in the face of that would be a serious mistake and of course the fundamental of our entire defense policy is deterrence exactly in order to maintain deterrence the ground leg is is an important factor thank you when we buy a major weapon systems b-21 f-35 do we acquire the ip and what i'm leading to here is the ability of our military to 3d print parts so that we're not subject to a long supply chain delays and also potentially additional cost do we have the uh i believe that every every hangar should have a 3d printer and every navy ship should have a 3d printer so that we're not tied to that uh long tail of of parts what's the what's the status of our acquisition of the ip so that that can be effectuated our history is mixed on ip acquisition the f-35 is a good example of a program where we didn't do that it was acquired initially under a philosophy of total system procurement which essentially left in the hands of the prime contractor a lot of control of the program makes it very hard to upgrade it makes very hard to make changes and do them in a cost effective way and to take advantage of competition our more modern programs generally are built where we acquire the initial property we need to control uh both upgrades and maintenance so that we have a lot more flexibility in how we manage the b-21 is being done that way the n-gad program is being done that way it it it's one of the lessons we've learned very painfully over our history and acquisition i'm not sure that we always get it right today but my i'm not doing acquisition anymore i'm a different role now but my guidance when i was doing that was that when we still have the benefits of competition we need to get the intellectual property rights we're going to need for the life of the program and we can get reasonable prices for those rights at that time and then be in a position to manage the program effectively going forward that that's the way we should be doing this i can't say that we do it in every case thank you um general salsman we may need to talk about this in a classified setting but you use the term denying the benefits of attacks in space secretary kendall used counter space clearly we're we're playing catch up in this situation and is there anything you can say in the open setting to provide some reassurance that we're not totally vulnerable in space right now uh yes senator thank you for that the the f y 25 budget i think continues to advance us on a pretty uh solid timeline for adding resilient architectures to the critical missions like missile warning satellite communications data transport and so i'm pretty comfortable with where we're headed in terms of denying the benefits of an attack on our systems uh to some degree uh the problem again as the secretary mentioned was the fact that the prc in particular has built a very robust space-enabled targeting system and continue to do so at a very rapid rate and so scaling up to develop not just the type of counter space capabilities that we need but the quantity of those capabilities to hold those targets at risk is where we're falling behind in the timeline we're not just moving as as quickly as i think we should thank you general havin i'm going to submit this question for the record but i would like some thoughts from you about the transition assistance program and how it's being implemented in the air force i worry about the transition process from active duty to veteran status very dangerous moment and uh so you don't need to respond now but i'll look forward to your response on that question thank you thank you mr. thank you senator kings senator tovill please get more in gentlemen uh general salsman um the f y president's f y 25 budget contains a new program for space access mobility and logistics it's only 20 million dollars what's your plan for this sir that that type of money is used to study to figure out if there's military utility and so for example if we we are looking at a concept called dynamic maneuvering if we can have unlimited fuel in our spacecraft because we had the ability to service them on orbit then we can have more dynamic orbits which are harder to target that's the concept that's the idea but we really need to evaluate that to figure out if there's serious military utility there before we invest heavily in a program and the 20 million dollars gets us along that line yeah 20 million dollars for five years that's not a lot of money i mean is that going to get the job done i i believe we'll have the answers to our basic questions on military utility with that and then we can make a determination as whether we need more funding yeah how's your recruiting and retention we're doing great uh we still get thousands of applicants for hundreds of positions and we're we're above 90 percent in terms of the people that we want to retain so i i'm not you know convinced that that's going to last forever and so we're working hard to make sure we provide our guardians with high levels of challenges and opportunities to enhance their own competencies to make sure we can retain that workforce thank you secretary kindle uh recently uh i guess you've decided to cut in half the mh 139s and we've got one or two i think we've got eight total eventually coming to Montgomery maxville what's your plan on this i think max will has one already and another uh later this year and then the full eight about a year after that uh we did cut the buy back we cut it from about 80 to about 40 and the reason for that was that the threat change in the areas in which we expect to operate are changed so it's a fairly expensive special purpose helicopter that isn't doesn't have that much utility in some of the theaters where we'd have to operate given the threats are there and there are a number of other assets and in many cases can be used for personnel recovery so we basically downsized it to have what we think is a reasonable force to meet our needs given the changes in the threat that's been the fundamental driver yeah i was at tindall air force base recently how's that coming that was a disaster what happened to tindall but we're rebuilding it back is it coming along pretty good um i'd have to get your detail answer for the record but yes is is a basic answer your question a lot has been put into the tindall to restore it yeah thank you uh general alvin um f-35s we're putting a lot of eggs in the basket on this uh are we getting enough line time knowing the cost of f-35s of operating and maintaining well senator we're certainly trying to manage that to get as many as we can you know we uh as the weapon system sustainment accounts and the flying hour program accounts are very much interrelated and so as we try and drive down the cost of what it costs to sustain that we can put more of that into flying hours no pilot thinks he or she ever has enough flying hours well we certainly are augmented that with our synthetic training uh our joint synthetic environment is also helping us understand the things that we don't necessarily want to do in open air because security uh i would say though that every pilot wants to fly more of what we're trying to manage that well to keep that proficiency up to keep up with the pacing threat we want to make sure our pilots are safe obviously um in the uh confrontations we've been having lately is f-35 been used that you know of the f-35 has been a part of some of the the recent ones like over the weekend it was not it was not uh required for that capability actually wasn't in the theater but the assets that we had in the theater uh they they come through requests from um the combatant commander and we provide the assets for which uh they request and those were satisfactory uh in that permissive environment in the highly contested environment the contested environment that is really where this fifth generation capability the f-35 provides today but even more so into tomorrow with the tech refresh three and block four capability upgrade capabilities general has our recruiting and air force recruiting air force is doing quite well it's it's really improving on the active duty side we actually just uh recently increased our goal and we think we're going to make that increased goal on the reserve side they're going to be within one percent they think they may actually make it as well the national guard had a deeper deficit to recover from i think last year they were well below they're going to be within five percent so we're gaining on all fronts we're certainly not resting on our laurels in the 25 budget we asked for another uh 50 million to be able to distribute out to uh to more recruiting centers to have more uh digitization of records and things so we can also have the recruiters do more recruiting rather than just admin work so we're not giving up that we've got it all licked right now but we certainly are on the right path we're increasing numbers so what you said yes what percentage you know well i would say right now we are a goal math and public well the what percent of the goal the air for the active duty air force tonight right now reaching 100 percent of its goal 101 percent quite frankly which allows us to bank a few the reserve's 99 percent in the international guard about 95 percent thank you thank you thank you senator tovaville senator pete please thank you mr. chairman gentlemen welcome it's good to see all of you here today secretary kendall and general alvin as you know this uh past january the air force announced that self-ridge air national guard base will be received 12 new kc 46 refueling tankers in 2029 and i just want to say i don't think i can emphasize enough how grateful i am to the air force so for making this announcement certainly a very big deal for our area and the community is uh is very excited to receive these critical refueling tankers that will continue to play a really a tremendous strategic role for us for for decades to come at the same time and i've talked to both of general alvin and secretary kennel i also remain committed to securing a future fighter replacement for the retiring a10s that are currently flying at self-ridge the air force basing announcement clearly stated at the time that the kc 46 decision does not preclude self-ridge from quote being considered for a future fighter aircraft mission or other potential missions in the future and a quote and i just like both of you if you would reaffirm and commit on the record that self-ridge is still in consideration for a future fighter basing decision at some point secretary kennel uh 100 beers thank you uh self-ridge would be in consideration for future fighter basing decision potentially but at the current time we don't have uh an option to do that and the reason we made the program active solution to put the kc 46 there was in part at least because of the divestiture of the a10s so those those two are linked together our general policy is to replace a flying mission that is divested with a like flying mission where we can if we can't do that we try to apply it with an another flying mission and then if we can't do that we try to replace it with an enduring mission and in case of self-ridge the the kc 46s are basically to replace uh the combination of the kc 135s and the a10s and in the future we may be at a very different place general alvin mentioned in his opening statement the cca's that we're acquiring uh we don't know the final inventory number there but we expect it to be large so there's a possibility there and we're looking as we build our 26 budget at our overall fighter modernization plan overall so there is a possibility in the future but none that we can point to right at this time sure alvin do you want to add any to that comment i just answered specific question it does not preclude but the secretary's really laid it out with respect to the basing uh decision and criteria right but doesn't preclude future as we continue to work and general alvin um uh and i appreciate the time that we took yesterday or last week rather to uh to meet and as part of that conversation we discussed the critical importance of the collaborative combat aircraft which secretary kennel just referred to uh we also talked about a potential pilot program to study drone operations in medium and high intensity airspace which right now is problematic with unmanned aircraft this pilot program would allow the department of defense to experiment with existing unmanned systems like the mq9 reaper uh to pave the way for the employment of future platforms like cca so my question for you sir is what benefits and lessons learned uh would the air for would the air force gain from this kind of pilot program and would you support a pilot program of that nature uh thank you senator i certainly would i think as we look forward uh the arc of where the uh the contested environment in which we're going to need to fight that that arc is is one that requires us to to really investigate all the options for how we maintain survivability at the right risk to be able to penetrate to be able to survive and to be able to close these kill chains and it's increasingly become apparent to me that there's there's uh ripe for study how we do it in the uncrewed area we're we're developing the autonomy as well we have a current program in parallel that we're looking at the length of the the the portfolio to which you can put autonomy in these collaborative combat aircraft as well as how we utilize and base them so we're trying to go as fast as we can into the human machine teaming play yeah if i could build on that we we discussed uh last week the importance of the kc 46 refueling tanker uh as well as the need for some out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to collaborative combat aircraft and employment as part of that discussion you mentioned the possibility uh possibility of employing kc 46s as a command and control node for future cca aircraft uh you know i understand uh those decisions are in the very early stages but what steps would the air force need to explore this kc 46 and cca command and control concept senator i think the first step that we need to do is to to get better situational awareness on the kc 46s and that's something that we're we're looking into very strongly general minahan has done some experiments out in the into pacific showing that if you just have a c2 node the ability to communicate in ways that the tanker right now can't that starts your ability to have a more resilient command and control network now whether that next step is to go from just being a communications node relay to actually doing airborne battle management is something that can be investigated but the first start is to ensure that you have a connectivity of your mobility platforms in the way that you didn't before that opens up the opportunity to do more than just being comms relay but maybe doing more command and control right thank you appreciate thank you senator peter senator schmidt please thank you mr chairman uh secretary kindle a sort of follow-up on senator peter's question um missouri's home to white man air force base um and the 442nd fighter wing um is there and the 810 um you know the air force is moving on from the 810 uh and that'll be really come to fruition in four years um you know it has some really experienced um pilots and maintainers and um we're already starting to see the retention issues because there hasn't been a follow-on mission um what can you tell me today about how you're approaching that because there are some options but there's really just not been a lot of movement i don't think we have an option yet for the hn replacement can i make a suggestion yeah 15 ex would be a great option well we'll take that under consideration okay okay um secondly um rose crans which is in st. joseph missouri uh is home to the aging fleet of of c 130 h's um interestingly um and you know some have said that the last round was pretty political this are where they went and i just want to make the point um rose crans trains people from all around the world for example the indian air force comes in with their c 130 j's to be trained by the folks at rose crans who have h's from the 1980s there have been eight you know appropriated in this next round so i guess just for for either one of you where do you see this headed uh senator the uh those eight that were appropriated certainly go through the the basing process and the candidate bases i understand that the rose crans is going to be considered as one of i believe four candidate bases for those it obviously it meets the criteria that's the first part in the strategic basing process and it does meet the criteria obviously because we're flying one through each other but the expectation is it will be under consideration uh the director of our air national guard bureau works closely with secretary on on making those decisions but it should be in the consideration let me just tell that i delegated the last c 130 j basing decision to the head of the the air national guard uh and i will probably do the same with this one okay um secretary kindle i do want to ask you i sent a letter to secretary austin you know asking for some accountability with these with these de i positions that have found their way throughout the pentagon in our in our armed services um secretary kindle do you know how many de i positions exist in the air force full-time positions um it is a relatively small number senator we're in the process of complying with the law and we'll comply with it i think the due date to have this done is about the middle of june if i remember right so we'll get you the exact well the answer is 70 70 um the navy has 18 the army has 19 those are 18 and 19 too many as far as i'm concerned but 70 what do these people do all day long like i'm i'm asking what do these de i coordinators do all day long 70 of them in the air force um i think i thought the number was higher than that actually well that's full-time position so maybe i am actually very curious now what you're gonna what your report might show but 70 full-time positions what do they do um they oversee programs that are in that area they oversee our training in that area they are responsible for some of our data collection that's related to that we did two disparity reports in the department that were started before i came in and probably shortly afterwards they're responsible for that those reports showed pretty significant disparities and results of things like the criminal justice system uh in promotions and command selection rates and then senior school selection and those pointed us at actions we could take to try to address some of those concerns okay well i look they had they have done i think valuable work okay well i look forward to your your full report and i could make a suggestion how you could be a real leader for the country you should fire them all every single one of them it's so divisive and senator tuba tuba was talked about recruiting the elephant in the room is the truth is that this is dividing our folks in the military by race it is taking us backwards it's cultural Marxism in somehow you're you know you're here today defending this so you know i've got legislation to give them all you could take a real leadership position by firing everybody tomorrow that'd be great i do have time for one quick question i know that we're moving a lot of is our capability to space and i'm generally supportive of that but are you guys concerned at all that we're maybe moving too quickly away from some more traditional capabilities just as a quick comment on i think we have a fundamental difference of opinion about d i we do are we certainly do um with regard to is our we are moving we are transitioning to space because of the vulnerability of some of our airborne platforms a wax and j stars are great examples of that the same is true of some of our uavs on an on a material vehicles that operate uh can't operate in a contested environment we will always have a balance between airborne capabilities and space based capabilities we want to confront our adversaries with a more difficult problem than just having to deal with one of those but because of the range at which uh in the sophistication of which our adversaries are reaching out to engage some of those platforms they're pushed back so far that they can't be effective in many cases or they have to operate in a way which limits their effectiveness in order to be survival survivable so we're moving a lot of that capability in the space and we're doing it with the resilient architectures that general saltzman talked about earlier thank you sir but senator warren please uh thank you mr chairman our military is the best and the strongest in the world so it's no surprise that foreign governments have been recruiting both active duty and retired officers the washington post found that hundreds of foreign governments have hired hundreds of retired officers from saudi arabia to libya to the united arab Emirates general alvin is there a national security risk when our trained military personnel work for foreign governments senator certainly is so retired officers working for foreign governments could endanger our military competitiveness that's why we require retired officers who want to work for foreign governments to receive approval from their military service and from the secretary of state now we tightened up that process last year in the national defense authorization act but there are still some loopholes in this space for example active duty service members are allowed to start negotiating employment with foreign governments before they leave the military general alvin could allowing active duty airmen to negotiate work on behalf of another government while still wearing their us uniform post risks to our national security well senator there's while they're still in uniform they are still subject to the policies the restrictions and the ucmj i understand that but they are also permitted to negotiate with foreign governments for their future employment and what i'm asking is does that potentially pose a conflict of interest that threatens our security at least potentially i i'm say potentially could yes all right i agree you know we need to strengthen our rules so that active duty personnel aren't selling their services to foreign governments while they're still in uniform there's another loophole that we need to close last year the air force issued a memo raising concerns about china's recruitment of both current and recently retired air force personnel like pilots maintainers and other technical experts that have a lot of insight into us air tactics now in many cases these individuals are hired by private entities and actually may not know that they are signing up to work for a foreign government and our laws required uh requiring retired personnel to get approval before working for a foreign government are much less clear if the officers are hired by a private company that's doing work for that foreign government general alvin from your perspective are we in a better position to protect classified information and us national security when we know if a retired officer is working for a contractor that works for a foreign government senator we are and i think as you know my predecessor uh now chairman brown put out that notam really to raise awareness and also to serve as a deterrent yes both of those both of those i think are having good effect the uh our afos i uh is getting good reports back but it's not only about educating um those within the force but also the mandatory now as you transition out yes also we're making sure we do that as well and i appreciate that and treat this as awareness is raised on this you know these arrangements can pose serious conflicts of interest and in fact the air force rejected two retired generals requests to work for an azure by johnny cargo carrier because it would raise concerns about potential conflicts given previous contact contracts the air force had awarded to the airline so last year i secured a position a provision in the senate version of the national defense authorization act to require work on behalf of foreign governments even indirectly through a private company to be approved by the u.s. government i think it is foolish not to use our national security expertise to help retired service members identify if their potential employer is asking them potentially to break the law here so i look forward to working with my colleagues and the air force to close any additional loopholes that allow foreign governments to target and exploit our service members thank you all and thank you in particular general alvin for your work in this area thank you senator warren senator orange please thank you mr chair and thank you gentlemen very much for your service to our nation and to your teams as well we appreciate you being here today and first secretary kendall we know the iowa national guard is really important to me and so i'm going to address to you some of the questions coming from our great iowa air guard secretary kendall when the national guards 185th air refueling wing in susan iowa converted from its f16 fighters to the kc 135 tankers way back in 2003 the united states air force said that they would upgrade the airfield at the iowa national guard facility now the 185th air refueling wing might nothing confirmed but might lose its mission because the runway which has not yet been upgraded here we are 20 plus years later is insufficient for the kc 46s which will eventually replace the 135s so secretary kendall why do you feel it has taken so long to begin the airfield expansion and do i have your commitment to work with the national guard to assess the runway upgrade situation at the iowa national guard facility in susan city thank you senator we have started the architecture engineering activities associated with three projects at the airfield and i think the congress has been notified of that so we're moving forward with with those upgrades there's a runway repair project at 45 million runway extension at 47 million and an aircraft parking apron at 45 million they're not all the way through the process yet this is the earlier phases but the process has begun and we will work with you on that okay can you outline maybe the time frame that we might see some of that work done walk me through that assessment and when we could actually see work begin i'll get you the details for the record but essentially we have to get to a 35 design percent design maturity before we put a milk on project in so we're in the earlier stages of that process and i'll get you the dates as to one different phases of it might be completed okay thank you so much secretary and i do understand the importance of of transitioning to a more capable aircraft like the 46 um do we also have your commitment that any change uh to the 185th air refueling wings mission set will be on pause until a full and proper mil con assessment is completed i'm not aware of any changes that would be what would occur in the interim i'll double check that and get back to you on that but i'm not aware of it thank you secretary it's just important that i get that on the record so again we've got such a great unit the 185th has been so engaged around the globe we want to make sure that they are taken care of so secretary kendall as we're now in an era of great powered competition the urgency of modernizing and recapitalizing our air refueling and strategic airlift capabilities is absolutely paramount and if you could walk us through how you are ensuring our transition from the older kc 135s to the newer 46s is conducted without compromising mission readiness essentially as we retire 135s we're replacing them with with 46s on a one-for-one basis generally speaking it's not always exactly the case we're trying to make sure we have a smooth transition so that we don't have a gap in capability for the tanker fleet and we're required to maintain the tanker fleet at a certain level so we have to stay within those statutory constraints okay thank you in general alvin um soft continues to play a vital role in strategic competition particularly in a regular warfare so what is your view on the role of the air force special warfare and afsock and great power competition and future conflicts thank you for that senator right i think they're doing a tremendous job in really adapting that's one of the things special operations has always done they've really adapted to the missions that have been laid out in front of them but in their transition really also to great power competition they have adjusted some of their afsees to be more relevant and so the uh what was the special operations weather team now they're more special reconnaissance and they are they are part of this newly formed special tactics team which includes the the combat control teams the para rescue the tactical air control party and now these strategic reconnaissance they're really forming uh sort of the way that they did when when they used to be in the old great power competition understanding how to operate ahead of main force elements in in this case in a more electromagnetic spectrum contested environment they are really doing some pathfinding work in helping to find those take their niche capabilities and do things at speed and agility that maybe the the standard uh conventional forces can do i think i'm really impressed with how they're moving along yeah thank you general and i was excited to learn from you about the air force special reconnaissance um airmen and airwomen and and we appreciate their service it's a great opportunity for them and for us thank you mr chair uh thank you senator aren't senator kelly please thank you mr chairman and secretary kendall general alvin general saltsman thank you for being here today secretary kendall and general alvin i want to thank you for your continued collaboration uh as we secure a long-term future for davis montan air force base in tucson during last year's hearing i asked you about the stand-up of the new power projection wing at dm and i'd like to follow up on that today and also follow up on uh senator erne's um discussion with you general alvin in the last year we brought new search and rescue and advanced electronic platforms to dm and i'd like to hear any updates on the power projection wing that you can provide so general alvin uh starting with you you've just embarked on this ambitious plan to re-optimize the air force for great power competition a key component of this is the creation of deployable combat wings the power projection wings provides just such a force for air force special ops command can you talk about the wings overall import importance in the air forces strategy yeah thank you for that senator in some ways some of the things that the special operations community have been doing have been a bit of pathfinders with our deployable combat wings reorienting to where you have the ability to train with support teams in garrison in the way you expect to deploy with that unit together training together doing uh individual training then consolidated training certification training all those things are paving the way and this with this power projection wing at davis montan it is oriented towards the endo pacific so not only in its structure is it designed to be able to address the pacing challenge but in its orientation as well and i think uh there will be lessons that we learn in the the structure and the makeup of those sort of wings that will apply to the larger air force right thank you and secretary kendall your new strategy strategy here is ambitious and i support your efforts but there are a lot of moving parts here and still a lot to be done to get all the units in place at davis mothan can you provide assurances that you will still be able to manage all of these movements and stick with the timeline to stand up the power projection wing uh senator we're going to do everything we can to make that happen uh right now we're on track the side activation task force was out there in february as i think you know and the eis is on track for completion in 25 through quarter 25 those are kind of the governing uh events so i think we're moving forward on on schedule but we'll continue to monitor that and make sure that we do so you're not anticipating any new delays not at this time and and do i have your continued commitment here to ensure full transparency on this process absolutely senator we'll work closely with you on and if any issues come up would you please bring them to my attention as soon as you possibly can yes i will thank you and on um electronic warfare secretary kendall um it's a ew is a cornerstone of any modern conflict and it's only going to increase in importance as we prepare for great power competition the air force and do d need to continue to focus on electronic warfare because achieving ew superiority is going to be the key to getting air superiority i'm encouraged by systems like the new compass call airplane that's being deployed at davis mothin but also the new f 15 ew systems but i'm also concerned that our training ranges aren't able to replicate the threat sufficiently and if we want to succeed in the endo pacific we need to ensure that our military is prepared for operations that are realistic because of the training being realistic the emitters available for training and our ranges aren't quite realistic enough to fool a fifth generation aircraft this is so it's no way to train for pacing challenges in my view the exercises and the training we do should be the hardest thing we do here so what then it's when it's time to fight we're more than ready to go and it's imperative that do d expand its training ranges to provide more realistic training achieving that level of readiness is going to require coordination across the branches that's why i've advocated for do d to assess the capacity for testing and training of ew operations and identify areas where multiple ranges can be used to simulate the pacific deterrence initiative for example at the fort wachuka electronic proving ground with its restricted airspace favorable terrain access to frequencies and spectrum and bands of spectrum and the authorities required to conduct ew training it offers great potential for advanced and dynamic electronic warfare testing experimentation and training so secretary kendall how important is it to find opportunities for realistic ew training and how can the air force benefit from ew testing and training in in an environment like fort wachuka it's critical senator i haven't looked up for wachuka specifically uh jim walden may have some information on that but for nellis and for j park in alaska uh and for the exercises i think you're aware of that we really see where she's on in the pacific uh having ability to emulate both the threat and the space and time constraints that are applicable against the pacing challenge are really important to us so if wachuka offers some additional opportunities there we'd be happy to pursue those it's yeah i'm not familiar exactly with what we're doing there what it what it offers is it's got geography uh it's it's a ball you can emit at orders of magnitude i think a couple orders of magnitude uh power compared to what you can emit on the barry go water range so it offers you know f-35s can detect the sensor at a much greater range more realistic training thank you sir we'll take a look at it uh let me recognize now senator budd thank you mr chairman and good morning gentlemen secretary kindle we've spoken at length regarding the air force budget my concerns with the air force planned investment of fighter aircraft including the f-15e strike eagles from seymour johnson my state of north carolina so i'm deeply concerned about what a growing fighter capacity gap could mean for the fight in the endo pacific but also as was made clearer with this past weekend our fighter aircraft are also playing major roles in other regions including us central command every single day so i'd like to turn to you general alvin for just a moment again thank you for being here uh the committee heard from the commander of endo paycom this year and just recently in fact that there is a role for strike eagles in scenarios in the endo pacific and the head of north com also told this committee the f-15e is in many ways unmatched air to ground and in many ways um it's unmatched air to air it also has a phenomenal radar that can pick out low and slow moving and it's got a great radar cross section which is useful for drones and other threats like cruise missiles it was the 335th squadron at north carolina seymour johnson air force base to prove that out on sunday when they helped shoot down dozens of drones fired at israel from iran the supreme allied commander of europe told the house armed services committee last week that strike eagles and i quote figure heavily in his plans at ucom he also said it would be very important not to have a gap between the retirement of one aircraft and the arrival of the next most recently the chairman of the joint chiefs agreed with these assessments of the f-15e and asserted that it is indeed a very capable aircraft general alvin do you agree with these officers assessments of the capability importance of the strike eagles and scenarios across the combatant commands yes or no sir i i absolutely do agree with those assessments i would offer that those assessments are part of first of all i i want to echo uh what you said about that what happened over the weekend brilliant cruise uh skill and courage that skill and courage in those those aircraft also had a connection with the command and control system brilliant stuff done in the aoc and air battle management system and all of those systems are what made it successful and so the platform is very capable but it has to have the systems around it in order to be effective and combat effective and so going into the future we would imagine that that platform is going to have to fire weapons longer range that range has to have target custody for that munition to be able to track the target all the way it needs to be able to be to defend itself in that theater it needs to be able to have basing from which it can move around all those things are what is going to make it successful against the pacing challenge so that capability in and of itself is is very impressive but when when you're in a fiscally constrained environment we try and manage how many of those and those with respect to other platforms what is the mix of the entire system beyond just the the weapon and the aircraft to make it effective against uh in the highly contested environment against the prc but it's a highly capable aircraft thank you general and i'll just note that many of those including those that see more johnson have been upgraded or soon to be upgraded or can be upgraded to be useful into the 2030s or 2040s secretary kindle turning to you sir where is the fighter roadmap required by the india we've heard secretary that's sitting with you it's in final review should be over here shortly sir we look forward to receiving that report when should we expect the congressionally required report on divestment of f-15 aircraft and will it be compliant with section 131 of last year's india right now our plans are to take out additional f-15 to use in the out years but of course we will be complying with the current law and our 25 budget is consistent with that hopefully in compliance with 131 of last year's india thank you mr chairman i hope the committee takes note of the testimony it's received this year and seriously considers prohibiting divestment of the f-15 strike eagles particularly 26 f-15 strike eagles next year thank you sir thank you very much senator budd uh senator rosen please uh thank you chairman reid for holding this important hearing i'd also like to thank secretary kindle general alvin and general salzman uh for testifying today and of course for your service to our country so secretary kindle i really appreciate i know we've had so many meetings but i really appreciated our phone call last week and i just want to take a moment to emphasize the importance of the nevada air national guard and their mission which they do so well not only does 150 second air lift wing and rain i'll provide rapid global mobility and are currently preparing for deployment but they're also they also protect the homeland by fighting those horrific wildland fires in nevada and throughout the west with legacy the c-130 h's this mission is extremely dangerous as they fly heavy low and slow over these fires and challenging mountainous terrain upgrading to the c-130 jays would provide increased power and cargo capacity for fire retardant which would result in increased flight safety and of course firefighting capability so secret mr secretary now that the f y 24 defense appropriations acts has provided funding to procure eight additional c-130 jays funding that i fought to secure can i have your commitment to seriously consider reno when making a basing decision due to their obvious operational need uh yes i think we're appreciating with that uh basing selection and i believe rena was one of the uh one of the units being considered thank you and can i have your commitment that the air force will strongly consider location and the mission served in particular regions of the country when making their basing decisions to ensure that the air national guard is best equipped to respond to these emergencies i think we have a list of basing considerations that will be consistent with what we've done in the past thank you i want to move on now to housing and our dorm shortages because nellis increase we actually uh uh senator kelly is talking a little bit about nitter over there at nellis but in nevada home to nellis increase air force bases i've observed firsthand the unique challenges that each base faces particularly when it comes to affordable housing and dorm availability for our airmen and our guardians given the widespread and distinct nature of these shortages across the department in the air force a one size fits all solution it's really insufficient to address the issues so secretary kendall what additional authorities if any could be granted to service secretaries to um address the current housing and dormitory shortages thereby improving really the welfare and readiness of our personnel across the force um we are looking at some innovative ways to do that through public private partnerships in various forms the navy has a project in san diego i think which is an example about to do that i'm not aware of additional authorities we need at this time but if there are any then i'll i'll get back to you with that thank you appreciate that i'm going to stay on you and stay on creche air force base a little bit we love creche and um with the experimental operations unit considering creche air force base as the eventual deployment of the collaborative combat aircraft i'm going to say cca that's a little bit easier we must address the complexities of the new systems basing decisions about where to house these systems needs considerations beyond again conventional requirements such as employment options infrastructure adaptations airspace control and of course electromagnetic spectrum availability so given the challenges posed by these new systems could you elaborate on the variables that the air force might that you might be considering in the cca basing decision and specifically what unique characteristics and complications might we anticipate a center that works going on now to decide what what the considerations will be we're a little bit early in the process okay uh creaches i think uh a very reasonable candidate however thank you thank you well i'm going to move on we're going to keep out on creche in particular but now this is well to general alvin um you know the sacrifices each one of you really know the sacrifices and challenges that airmen and their families make during their permanent change of station and one of the difficulties that is really challenging for us is a finding and accessing child care at each new location and so you know child care remains one of the most needed services for our military members but it's still in such short supply it's too expensive and difficult so currently um general and your role as chief of staff of the air force what can you do to um help increase access to affordable child care that's flexible particularly creche they go 24 well all of them they go 24 7365 we need some help out there well thank you senator and i couldn't agree with you more a lot of times we put things into into a bin that called quality of life or the set it's it's actually writing this issue as well to make sure that our our airmen can focus on the mission at hand understanding that they they know that their families and children are well cared for specifically i think we what i can do as chief of staff is continue to advocate for the programs at the department of air forces really are already undertaking with respect to uh going above and beyond uh staffing those child development centers that we actually have we've increased the staffing through the incentivization of a hundred percent uh of a reduction free for the first child 25 percent offer the other children for those who are working on staff there that has actually increased our staffing from 61 uh 63 percent to 81 percent so that's helping staff the existing one but to your point senator um specifically in some of these non-traditional areas where you have not a normal business hours this requirement the increase in uh family child care centers though the ones that the so the ones that can be done at home or those that are actually certified to do such we've increased funding and incentives for that up about 21 percent from where it was in fy 23 so we continue to do that and in other areas for for uh facility restoration and modernization we put a lot of money into that as well and on the milcon side overall sometimes we just need more facilities on milcon side we have had uh 35 milcon projects under consideration uh rd 11 of them are already in appropriation and and and design or and and delivery the other 24 in design well thank you i look forward to continuing to work with you on all of that thank you thank you senator roesman senator carrie me please thank you mr chairman thank you gentlemen for your service and for being here um i look forward to the next session as well uh the classified section um no no hearing with the air force would be complete without me sort of jumping on board with some of my other friends who've asked about isr secretary kendall i'm going to go in more from the reoptimization plans that were released in february and my office has sent an rfi asking about how the new air force structure might affect the 319th reconnaissance wing and grant forks specifically i mean this is a very high demand air force base with very few people and and assets um these how do i guess to put it pointedly how do these low density high demand units like like the global hawk wing and grant forks um or other isr units for that matter around the air force fit into the plan for reoptimization i just and i just add you know i mean i read all 12 pages on the airplane this morning there's not a mention of isr there's lots of mentions you know 16 of china rpc a anyway no isr in 12 pages so how does how does grant forks fit into reoptimization um it doesn't directly the reopt the reoptimization of great car work competition is largely about focusing our readiness units on readiness creating units that are focused on the future and sustaining advantage over time developing our people some of the things we're going to do in terms of their skill sets and so on their their readiness for that kind of conflict and also some changes in the secretariat so specific units are not directly addressed as we form units of action that are either deployable or fight in place or are supporting there may be some changes on the margin as a result of that that's work that is going to take place over some time there is no direct correlation between what we're doing under reoptimizing and specific units okay but we do have plans let me i understand but but maybe not specific units but isr at large is not not even mentioned as a priority where it used to be always mentioned as a priority isr is a very high priority under our operational imperatives and under cross-cutting operational enablers it's a very big part of our modernization program to the separate from the optimization as we talked about earlier we're moving a lot of our isr capacity into space because our airborne platforms many of them are too vulnerable to attack they're not survivable enough we want to keep a balance we want to keep some airborne platforms and some space based capabilities as well we have we have requirements to have isr for less contested environments more benign environments as well as highly contested environments so we're trying to have a balanced mix of capabilities and sustain that while we move forward some of our legacy capabilities if you will are less valuable to us against the pacing challenge or just not effective against the pace you know i understand all that modernization is important everywhere and in every in every mission and space is obviously critical to it obviously i'm i have a bias for space but i also have talked to enough people both in space and especially cocoms especially recently especially very recently who are frightened to death about the gap between their ability to find a target identify a target hit a target today or over the course of the next few years and the day that space is not so vulnerable that um that it can stand alone general oven did you want to speak to that and then i do have a question about yeah the only thing i add to what the secretary said is specifically within we're optimistic for great power competition we are lining our wings in order to be able to deploy how we expect to fight so there will be three different types of wings one will be deployable combat wings one will be in place combat wings think think uh missile wings but the other are combat generation wings and these are very very important and this is where the 319th falls in it it needs to be able to generate the combat power that can fall into a wing because you're not going to deploy the entire wing at once that wouldn't be it that would be uh for some of the other types of wings so while isr may not be mentioned specifically there is neither is probably air mobility or neither is maybe air refueling those are the parts of their they're called the combat generation wings because they will feed into the larger deployable construct but we wouldn't expect the entire 319th to take to be able to go and deploy the entire wing because it's such a hdld asset right it needs to be able to be distributed all across so that's why it's part of these combat generation wings and i'm ready to talk at length and i'm going to go over my time yeah and as am i so real quickly then i speaking of modernization i'll just cut to it i mean we picked up some rumors in the last couple of days that the commercial engine replacement program might be in some doubt um of course the rent that'd be the reengineering of things like the b52 which has only been around about 60 years and we expect it to be around another 30 or so just just confirm for me that that's just a vicious lie that somebody's spreading then i'll be happy now the commercial the reengineering of the b52 is proceeding if that's what you're asking about that's what i'm asking thank you it's a proceeding appreciate thank you mr chairman thank you senator grimace or cotton please secretary kindle general alvin thank you for appearance today i want to add my uh congratulations to the brave men and women of the fours who were involved in the defense of israel over the weekend uh to include two former senator cotton defense fellows bud and rowdy i'm told i'm told i'm not supposed to say anything more than that but i'm glad to see that their skills are not atrophy while there were decimals up here for me now it's very important uh that we not just have our own capabilities but that we train our foreign partners and capabilities we can't be everywhere all the time at once so i want to respond to senator warren's questions general alvin about retired flag officers supporting foreign militaries um i have a slightly different perspective i think it's a great thing when america's retired generals and admirals go overseas take the skills and the knowledge they've learned and help train foreign military partners to be more proficient to be more respectful of the laws of war to be more professional in their own services so far from taking steps to restrain retired flag officers serving under contractual relationships with nations like saudi arabia united arab Emirates or emerging nations in eastern europe who are recent nato uh members i think we should encourage it general alvin i don't know what you plan to do in retirement maybe plan to go fishing all the time but if you want to do that i think that'd be a great thing for you to do and this committee carefully considered that matter last year in our markup and those markups aren't public you don't know what happened but this is a serious debate then and senator warren called one of these measures a loophole it's not a loophole it's specifically how we wrote it because we think it's a good thing for our retired flag officers to be advising partner nations whose militaries may not yet be as skillful or as professional as ours but whose militaries we should want to be a skill for professional ours so general alvin can i get your commitment that we will continue to ensure retired flag officers can in fact work with partner and allied nations yes senator i i certainly don't want to wade into the how the legislative process worked but i think that the that those two positions are not necessarily mutually exclusive which is why we have the approval process there are only certain nations against which you are disapproving those we wouldn't understand which those are but there's still that stop gap is it requires the approval of the sector and secretary state in order to do that so i believe that stop gap it helps to mitigate your position is from senator warren secretary kindle you look like you had something you wanted to add on this yeah as long as i think we're talking about apples and oranges here i think senator warren's concerned about very understandably pilots who are hired by china for example indirectly through what let me just stop let me stop you there because we're not talking about apples and oranges she raised two different topics i do want to say i am concerned about the second topic she raised which is the practice of not just american but western train pilots mechanics maintainers and others going to work often indirectly through private military contractors for say china in south africa let's say and that is something we definitely need to crack down on and something that that we took steps with senator kelly and i've worked on this challenge as well we need to make sure that all those those pilots and those maintainers and mechanics that we have trained are not using their skills that the taxpayers paid for to indirectly or directly help our adversary so i'm glad to hear that you're counseling all those people as they leave the service to be aware of their obligations i mean i frankly think should be strictly prohibited if not made a crime to work for a foreign military like china's that contrast to her first point which is again military officers usually flag officers sometimes field grades going to work for friendly nations like saudi arabia or jordan or the united arab Emirates some fruits of which we saw over the weekend so i just want to say it's good when they go to work for pro-american countries it's bad when they go to work for anti-american countries it's pretty simple i don't see what the complication is here we don't have any disagreement with that sir thank you um one final point since we're talking about making sure that foreign partners have strong capabilities so we have to carry the load everywhere secretary kindle general all of them you know that a top priority for senator bozeman for me is the four foreign military military sales training mission at ebbing international guard base in fort smith arkansas um we know that they're still working out a few things in terms of the construction in the airspace secretary kindle you've committed me in the past on several occasions you're going to make sure that this stays on time and that we have the sound of freedom return to the river valley later this fall can i get your commitment again given whatever the latest developments are and you're in that that is still going to happen on time this fall uh before i give you a commitment about on time let me go double check and see exactly where we are i know we're moving forward on this and i i haven't had any reports that were there were just flipping schedule but i haven't either but you never know when you're dealing with the real world of building this thing or moving that thing i i just don't want to have not dealing with the real world but the bureaucratic world of red tape so i just want to make sure that you've got a sword over the gourdian knot you're ready to cut if you have to we will do whatever we can to stay on schedule absolutely thank you thank you senator cotton senator moeller please thank you mr chairman and thank you general sussman secretary kindle and general alvin from being here um and uh for everybody that's your support staff that we know that it does have you lifting behind you thank you for setting through this hearing i uh obviously showed up late so i'm back and clean up here secretary kindle i just want to tell you thank you for your attention to the cadet that you and i visited about it seems like it's working out i i know that seems like a small thing for what you deal with but it's important and i appreciate you taking the time to visit with me but it's good to hear senator thank you i'm glad it's working out i hope hope one day you get a meeting you'll understand why uh why i want to do everything i can a great great young man and like i said you guys your attention really pushed things he's been through quite an ordeal and he's doing really well it's encouraging this is an amazing story yes it really it is um i uh secretary secretary kindle i want to stay with you for just a second um less i i know you you're up against the budget and ideally uh everybody at the table right now you guys would like to have as many airframes as you possibly can in the air uh because of budget overruns uh from with the e sevens you know we're we're divesting and to invest i think that's the term you guys are using uh is that correct general alvin i would say to modernize yeah divest invest modernize but we're going from i mean just what's on your all's docket right now you're going from 250 airframes to 91 airframes we know during the time of war attrition plays a huge role um we've got our new planes that are coming out this you know double the cost at 2.5 billion dollars per plane that's going to be in the air um and we're talking about the maintenance of the e threes which is why we're bringing them out of the sky uh if i understand correctly the chairman and i we were at um uh tinker air force base this last saturday and friday both and they brought up the concerns about being able to continue their mission they say you know we'll do it was handled to us but just to keep their mission capabilities right now it takes 16 16 planes in the sky that's to carry the current mission there's going to be a lack between the delivery of the e threes and the e sevens uh we're not even talking about our fighting jets right now but just in that frame alone what are we is it just about the money while we're divesting ourselves with so many airframes and going to so few and it seems like we are in a pretty interesting times right now and i i'm really concerned and i'm not trying to just get on to you and tell you how to do your job i'm saying what do we what do you need from us how to just mathematically looking at this doesn't make any sense so senator i think specifically with the e three they're starting to divest themselves this is one of those we're just just in order to keep them flying is a challenge and we also the the capabilities that we're anticipating going to be in the future that this is the constant that we have share with ryan to understand uh how we maintain the readiness for today and still not leave my successors or my successor successor in in this seat saying why don't you have an air force that can compete with you know where china is right now and so we're trying to skate to where the puck's gonna be with china at the same time preserve the readiness and so this is some of the challenge that we have and and uh so that managing this readiness is is is never is never easy but i will tell you that um at some point the the statement of you know quantity has a quality on its own it's only good if that quantity can survive it's only good if that quantity can be effective now we saw over the weekend it can be effective against one type of adversary in one type of environment in one area but in order to meet what our national defense strategy wants us to do in the highly contested environment against a peer adversary um some of those capabilities it really is just you have more quantities that might be left in the bottom of the pacific ocean we need to ensure that those crews can survive they can execute their mission so that's where this tension between retaining enough for today and preserving enough for the pacing threat and i totally understand that uh and when we start talking about you know what's going down to e-3s they they refer to us as the motors um which i know frames airframes can be upgraded with new motors put on the side of them constantly uh is it even a possibility you don't have to answer that i'm just trying to think outside the box but still yet when we start talking about just sheer numbers we start looking at what our adversaries are doing they're coming out with planes with a lot less technology on them but the sheer numbers can overwhelm what we have and when we're dropping this many airframes we are not going to have the numbers and i don't care it's like a drone swarm i don't care what you have in defense eventually they're going to start poking through because ours do end in the bottom of the pacific and we cannot replace a 2.5 billion dollar plane fast enough senator the problem we have is that these aircraft e-3s are a really good example um i was on one at nellis a couple of years ago it was built in 1972 sure uh the radar on it is an absolute radar basically and our crews are working very very hard to try to keep these airplanes operational uh and it's a really uphill fight so by retiring some of the e-3s we're able to free up some parts at least keep some of the remaining aircraft more operational um but but they're not effective against the basing threat and they're going to die very quickly they just don't have the resilience or the capability to survive so we've really got to get to the next generation so keeping airplanes around that are going to be ineffective and essentially um very vulnerable to attack in early stages of the conflict this is not putting us in a better position but and german i'll wrap up right here excuse me but the gap between the delivery of the new plane and the old plane is what has me concerned we're we're divesting faster than we're getting in and the cost runs continue to go mind blowing over cost i mean double at some point the math actually doesn't add up either but how are we going to keep the mission capability there the all the way through the transition i mean we haven't even got to the air guard that we're going to be losing and not be able to control that our homeland by divesting of them too but i there's a real concern there and i know that's a lot more to unpack than what we have time here but i i i don't want to be proud of the problem and i don't want to try telling you how to do your job i want to work with you to make sure that we can stay mission capable so i look forward to working with everybody here's thank you again for your time really appreciate the work that thank you sir thank you senator mullen senator soloman please thank you mr chairman gentlemen thank you for your testimony today uh mr secretary i want to compliment you uh you've been one of the voices it's uh put it pretty bluntly about the challenges with china and we need to be ready actually for a war with china if they choose to do so um so i appreciate your uh your directness on that let me ask so um you know this is a tough question for all of you general it's a tough question for you the president uh talks a big game on the challenges and then four years in a row he puts forward a inflation adjusted cuts to the department of defense four years in a row that's the biden legacy now he always expects us to boost it up the left wing of his party doesn't like defense spending so they you know double digit increases in every other federal agency i think this year seven and a half trillion but once again uh the biden administration the commander chief says nope you guys get a cut shrinking the army shrinking the navy shrinking the marine corps this budget right now does that i don't think it shrinks the air force but do you think inflation adjusted cuts to the department of defense is what shijian ping and putin um should be seeing i mean is that how you prepare for war or enhance deterrence by cutting you guys uh senator we've been very pleased to have significant increases in the air force budget department the air force budget uh 23 and 24 in particular the uh the two-year budget deal that we have you know does limit us under the physical responsibility act in 25 but i mean in general i'm in and look these are hard questions for you guys i know because i know our military leaders you go in there you fight for a bigger budget o and b the president they tell you sorry i'm going to increase department of interior by 25 percent you guys get a cut but in terms of our adversaries china's building out a huge military they keep saying seven percent increases we all know that's not true i was in a classified hearing i'm going to just mention it because the d and i and the d i a had the lieutenant general won't get back to me they actually said in that hearing it was a class right here i'm just going to publicly say it was about 700 billion that china puts towards its military uh all in it's a pretty big number i think the american people should know that which is why i'm saying it right now but what do you think in terms of our adversaries um when they see defense cuts what do you think that does for deterrence we're continuing to move forward senator with our modernization program not quite at the rate that we'd like to have this year because of the physical response uh responsibility act but we are moving forward uh we are trying to manage the risk across time with the current force the more immediate force and the future force but i think we are at acceptable risk with the budget that we were representing to the college let me uh turn to one of my favorite topics billy mitchell the father of the u.s air force called alaska the most strategic place in the world i appreciate the air forces focus on that um on our state and how important it is there's been a significant build up in in alaska we have over a hundred fifth gen fighters located in alaska now um the air forces f y 25 budget request 250 million for the joint integrated test and training center at jaybear this represents a significant new training capability in how it will enable the air force to plug into live fire exercises at jay park probably the most advanced training range in the world um to give pilots across the u.s military and unrivaled training venue can you uh just talk a little bit about why that j.i.t.c. is so important but that's to you general as well yeah with the center i'll start by saying it's uh like like many of our uh sort of fifth generation capable test and training centers it it's providing the opportunity to to test advancements in a synthetic environment in ways you couldn't actually do it in the physical environment but with this increase we are able to look at the models for how we believe that the that the threat is going to act we take these models we can validate them in the j park which is like the integration of these two between the live environment and the synthetic environment it allows you to test some hypotheses in maybe a place where you wouldn't want to the adversary to see you in open air so that's a top priority in our um preparation for china conflict absolutely and when you can replicate those through the j park modernization that we're doing with those emitters then you can have a better chance of looking at those models validating those and maybe tweaking them back in and between the two the synthetic and the live you get better than either of them individually when you can connect them let me ask one final question my time's out but mr chairman if i may um uh we've been back and forth this committee me the air force on tankers and the strategic importance of having them located not just in one place in the lower 48 i was a little bit disappointed that after many years to go back and forth with air force leadership the the final decision was well we're gonna put all our tankers in the lower 48 at certain bases i can't remember which ones but seems to be more of a budget driven idea than a strategic driven idea mr secretary you and i and the previous chief of staff of the air force who's now the chairman of the joint chiefs got to a resolution on that where we say well we're going to be bringing more kc 135 tankers to aisles and how are we doing on that and i want to make sure in this hearing you're still committed to that it seems like that timeline has kind of moved to the right and um it's really important not just for alaska but for the strategic ability to move aircraft anywhere in the world but particularly to the end of pay com theater if there's a conflict uh senator you know the capability is important to us but as you're aware and we've discussed we have an issue with housing but i also said that we're trying to address and we were concerned about the quality of life of our people that we have to assign there so that's an issue that we're working as we as we try to move forward on the tankers i think well you're still committed to move those tankers there as you and i we have to address the situation for our people as part of that process are you walking this commitment back to me mr secretary um i don't think so senator okay you've committed to this to me like several times so it's a little disconcerting we're going to work on the housing issue but can i just get a commitment again i got it from the heck is the chairman of the joint chiefs now to be for kc 135's at aisleson and we haven't changed our plans as far as i know do you have anything to add to that and i think we're still in the same place but we knew we do need to address this issue general senator that is still on our plan senator but as we were just at aisleson as well we know we do need to ensure that we don't have the air crew and the support going up there is as though it's an austere location because we know the quality of life we need to be able to retain those families up there as well so the plan is as it's written hasn't changed but the determination of how and when we get housing quality life is going to be dispositive on on how fast the pacing can can go up that thank you thank you mr gentlemen thank you for your testimony at this point we will recess the open portion of the hearing and reconvene in sdc 217 uh let's try to be there about between 11 05 and 1110 which will allow for a moment to re recollect and refresh with that i will adjourn the open portion