 off to my friend and colleague, Mr. Garamendi. So I just want to thank our witnesses for coming in again. I want to thank you for your time and participation in today's hearing. We'll continue what I think have been constructive discussions on military construction, on housing, on infrastructure, environmental energy programs, as well as base and facility accounts. It is a broad topic, obviously, but these issues are critical to our warfighters and getting it right is critical to our overall readiness. So this FY25 budget request included $17.5 billion and authorizations for more than 120 new construction projects. I look forward to discussing how these efforts help meet our force posture goals and support our operational efforts. However, building the new facilities, as we've discussed in the past, is only half the battle. Modernizing and maintaining our existing facilities to meet future requirements must also be prioritized. I remain concerned about funding for facilities, sustainment, restoration and modernization, FSRM. Maintenance of existing facilities is chronically neglected to pay for other priorities. Disrepair of military facilities has had significant impacts on everything from quality of life of our service members to sustainment and innovation we've talked about in our last hearing sustaining our labs in particular. So I'm not going to rehash those previous comments about the unacceptable state of our barracks. We're not going to flash up what were despicable, frankly, photos of mold and feces in our service members' living quarters. Assistant Secretary Owens, I appreciate your discussion of dealing with that GAO report and its recommendations and your statement. But I do look forward to further discussion during questions about how this budget request, I hope, really starts taking a serious bite out of this issue. I'm interested in your perspectives also as we've discussed on privatization and learning lessons from housing and how we're going to apply that to barracks and whether it's a key piece of the solution here. On the operational side, the department is not far along as we should be given the threats on the environment and we need to posture accordingly. And finally, we have to ensure that our installations, I just I really can't believe we have to continue to discuss this, but we have to ensure our installations are not reliant on energy supplied by our enemies. Recent defense bills have highlighted the threat posed by our reliance on Russian energy, particularly at our UCOM installations, yet, frankly, the department has dragged its feet on adhering to congressional mandates. And I am particularly concerned with this administration's focus on climate change is a national security priority and how that could impact our operational priorities. I support efforts to increase resiliency, of course, but climate change policies can't be an end in and of itself that ignore operational realities. We have to remove China in particular from the supply chain of our energy resilience efforts. So thanks again to all our witnesses for being here. I look forward to your testimony and over to you, Mr. Garamendi, for your opening remarks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Looking at our witnesses, we've been here before, haven't we, but there's much more to discuss. I will continue our conversation as we work through the myriad of issues facing our portfolio. We ask ourselves whether we have the right balance between the COCOM requirements and service priorities. As a subcommittee with the oversight over both military construction and the majority of operation and maintenance budgets, we must ensure that service requirements such as barracks, renovating unaccompanied housing, modernizing our nation's research programs, development testing, evaluation infrastructure on and on that we do not continue to sacrifice those for the so-called higher priorities. Our investments in the Pacific's will be worthless if we cannot recruit and retain talent. How can we expect to do that when we continually send the message that our most precious resource, our people, are our last priority? I'll go back to the statement Chairman made about barracks a moment ago. Resiliency is another area in which this committee has been focused for years. Whether it's ensuring our installations are resilient to hurricanes, wildfires, ice storms, earthquakes, or building resiliency into our installation's power sources to guarantee that the basis from which we execute critical missions and project power can perform those missions in the event of power interruptions, whether natural or man-made. To date these efforts have been overwhelmingly bipartisan. Another area of bipartisanship has been the department's operational energy programs. These programs seek to increase the range and on-station time by lowering the fuel consumption and providing more survivable weapons systems less dependent on contested logistical lines. We learned that lesson in Iraq, Afghanistan. We're watching it play out in Ukraine and will absolutely be a factor in the Pacific's. That's why I was a bit disappointed. No, really disappointed that the FY24 defense appropriation contained a significant mark against what it characterized as wasteful climate change projects. I just crossed out three lines here, Mr. Chairman, to avoid conflict. So I'll just go on. Because the cost avoidance and increase of on-station time for our operational energy programs also has the ancillary benefit of lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Those programs were targeted for these cuts. That microgrid was going to allow our installations to island for perhaps 10 days or more, continuing the installation's critical missions unerrupted. It too might be cut if it happened in some way to update an old, inefficient diesel generator. Over the years, this subcommittee has endeavored to dismantle the faults and ultimately dangerous idea that programs can be either good for readiness or good for the climate. Actually, they can be good for both. And I think we proved that in many, many ways. And I would hope that we would continue to do so. Finally, I would be remiss if I did not note the significant continuing investments in my favorite subject, the Sentinel, ground-based strategic deterrent system that are contained in the President's budget request, despite the ongoing non-McCurdy process. It's no secret where I've been on this program, skeptical to say the least, since it is a major mil-con issue it is before this committee. I find it particularly galling that the President's budget request continues to invest billions, including 700 million in military construction funds, when we're only midway through the mandatory, statutory mandate to review the Sentinel program in whole and then make a decision about how we continue. I guess maybe I just disagreed with the President. Does that make you happy, Mr. Chairman? Thank you. With that, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Garamendi. Appreciate the candor. And over to our witnesses, we have the Honorable Brenda Knowins, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, the Honorable Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy, and Environment, the Honorable Meredith Burger, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations, and Environment, and the Honorable Ravi Chaudhary. Excuse me, I got it wrong. I thought I got it right last time. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Energy, Installation, and Environment, and over to you, Mr. Owens for your opening remarks. Thank you, Chairman, and I agree with your statement earlier about the fact that these discussions have been both constructive and critical for the warfighters. Chairman Walts, Ranking Man, Bergeramendi, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the President's fiscal year 2025 budget request for the Department of Defense Energy, Installation, and Environment programs. We appreciate this opportunity to engage on how this budget request supports our efforts to address the issues we discussed a few months ago, particularly quality of life issues for our service members, as well as other critical priorities within the portfolio. When we spoke in February, I discussed how we were working with the military departments on three lines of effort to guide our infrastructure investments, adopting human-centered requirements, optimizing our footprint, and transforming our portfolio management. The department has codified these priorities into the resilient and healthy defense community strategy, which will ensure that our spaces are healthy, safe, functional, resilient, and enhance the quality of life and readiness of our service members, their families, and the civilian workforce. The RHDC lays out key strategic enablers that underpin these efforts, and we look forward to sharing with this committee and working in partnership to deliver on these quality of life improvements. Together, our efforts will drive changes across the defense infrastructure enterprise and ensure that it is managed as a strategic asset to promote the well-being of our total force. To that end, we are requesting $15.6 billion for military construction across the department. This includes $1.8 billion for facilities that will enhance and support quality of life, including child development centers, unaccompanied housing, healthcare and dining facilities, and schools. To provide ongoing support for our existing facilities, the department is requesting $13.6 billion in facilities' sustainment funding and $6.3 billion in restoration and modernization funding. To ensure these investments are optimized for readiness and quality of life, we're working with the DOD components to transform our military construction processes and adopting a sustainment management strategy to support consistent and sustained delivery of high-performing assets. For housing specifically, we're requesting $2 billion for family housing construction, operations and maintenance, and nearly $1.1 billion for unaccompanied housing projects. These investments synchronized with the efforts of the Tiger team we established in February will support our efforts to enhance our oversight of the portfolio. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we're all committed to getting after it. Reliable, adaptable and resilient energy remains essential to military capability and readiness, and we're requesting $3.8 billion for installation energy and $3.5 billion for operational energy to enhance resilience and ensure the department is postured to fight and win in contested environments. But a resilient, mission-ready installation is much more than just what's inside the fence line. Partnership with the communities that support our installation is critical, as is responsible stewardship of the environment. I'm pleased to note that we have begun our transition from AFFF firefighting foam to PFAS-free alternatives, and the military departments are executing plans ensuring a safe transition that does not degrade readiness. We are requesting $1.6 billion for our environmental cleanup programs to support our efforts to address risks to human health and the environment from past DOD activities, including nearly $300 million for PFAS cleanup. While we are making progress, EPA's new drinking water rule will significantly increase the amount of PFAS-impacted drinking water that DOD treats, both as a water purveyor and under its cleanup program. These efforts, in addition to PFAS-related cost increases to other programs, will require significant resources over the coming years, and we will rely on our partnership with Congress to address these new requirements. As we continue to ensure our installations are healthy and resilient places that support our readiness of our current and prospective service members, we greatly appreciate your sustained attention to and support for these critical priorities. We stand ready to work with this committee to continue aligning our policies and resources to support the national defense strategy and the readiness and quality of life of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians, and their family. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. Owens. Ms. Jacobson for your opening statement. Thank you, Chairman Walts, Ranking Member Garamendi, and distinguished members of the subcommittee for inviting me to present the Army's Fiscal Year 2025 budget for installations, energy, and environmental programs. The readiness and resilience of our force starts with providing our soldiers and families with high quality places to work and live. We must also ensure our installations support reliable and modern infrastructure systems. Working with Congress, we will continuously refine our planning and programming to make sure we have adequate funding to tackle these issues. From nine new barracks, buildings, to four child and youth centers, the Army's Fiscal Year 2025 budget request will improve our soldiers and families' quality of life. Our budget request also includes important investments in operational facilities, including in the organic industrial base that are critical to ensuring our soldiers are trained, equipped, and ready to defend our nation. Our 2025 budget request will allow the Army to continue to address significant risks to our energy and water infrastructure. Through conservation, innovation, and collaboration with third parties, the Army is upgrading our installation utilities infrastructure, but much more needs to be done. The Army recognizes that we have a sizable backlog of deferred maintenance needs for hundreds of thousands of buildings. This deferred maintenance, which emerged over the course of many years, has serious repercussions, as we have seen with barracks. We welcome the congressional focus on these issues, as evidenced in both the 2024 NDAA and the recent quality of life report. Simply put, any increase in our inventory of poor and failing barracks for any reason is unacceptable and must be reversed, and barracks that are in good condition must stay that way. That is why the Army is requesting 100% of the funding required for barracks sustainment. We are also taking a number of steps to improve the soldier experience in new and renovated barracks, both in living spaces and communal areas. To build ready installations of tomorrow, we must consider resiliency today by modernizing how we construct and operate our buildings. It is important to think critically during the design phase of a building, how it will function efficiently and perform under adverse conditions throughout its life cycle. For example, early consideration of a building's location can mitigate environmental risks, such as flooding. Constructing with more durable materials will help the building last longer and reduce repairs and maintenance costs. These upfront considerations will make our buildings more resilient and ready to support the Army of the future. The Army's 2025 budget request also reflects operational energy and research development initiatives that will give our Army a competitive advantage over our adversaries. From exploring options to hybridize our fleet to building mobile and modular expeditionary energy systems, investing now in operational research and development will promote readiness tomorrow. Tactical vehicles of the future will go further, operate longer, be less detectable in the contested global environment, and they will reduce our logistical tail by avoiding the need to haul fuel convoys across the battlefield. We must also ensure that contamination emanating from our installations does not pose health risks, both on or off base. The Army welcomes the regulatory certainty in the newly promulgated Safe Drinking Water Act standard for PFAS and we stand ready to comply. Through the investments reflected in our FY25 budget request, the Army seeks to improve soldiers' quality of life and operational effectiveness. We look forward to working with Congress to build and maintain the installations of the future. Thank you and I look forward to your questions. Thank you for your opening statement, Ms. Jacobs and Ms. Berger for your opening statement. Chairman Walts, ranking member Garamendi, and distinguished members of the panel, thank you for inviting me to come talk to you today about our FY25 budget request. We're grateful for the focus of this subcommittee and the House Quality of Life Council's report which reflects actions that uphold a sacred trust, to take care of our Marines and sailors the way that they take care of us, to fight and win the Department of the Navy requires ready, reliable, and resilient installations and that includes the buildings, systems, environment, and assets that comprise them. The majority of our infrastructure, whether barracks, utilities, or our public shipyards, is not in the shape it should be. As an institution, we have allowed these assets to degrade over time, we have accumulated and deferred significant risk, and allowed the risk to accumulate and compound. And the adversary always has a say. Whether we're talking about kinetics and components or water and weather, we've seen increased external impacts that reduce our ability to be resilient and respond, with the emergent urgent frequently overtaking the enduring important in a constrained funding environment. No matter what the cost, excuse me, no matter what the cost, the cost is readiness and our sailors and Marines shoulder the consequences. As I talk about the EINE portfolio, I often talk about communities' critical infrastructure and climate action, what I'm talking about are people, our power projection platforms, and making sure that both are ready, resilient, and survivable. This is mission critical. A sailor or Marine recruited and retained that is healthy, safe, and trained with a physical space that supports the mission will return infinitely more value to our water fighting force than the dollars that it will cost. Lockstep with my Navy and Marine Corps teammates, we are prioritizing projects that assure mission with the funds we receive. The Navy and Marine Corps are taking steps to improve how we resource these critical requirements through the installation investment plan and the facilities investment strategy, respectively. These efforts inform the development of the Department of the Navy's 30-year infrastructure plan, which looks at the interdependencies among projects through mission assurance in order to prioritize and sequence necessary investments in the infrastructure, both natural and built, that keep our people safe and project power around the globe. A budget, and Mr. Chairman, you make this note often, is an investment in institutional values that happens over the course of years. A fiscal year budget request puts executable priorities in place to build on the past and anticipate the future and keep on task in the time in between. While we do not include milcon for Barracks or CDC's in this year's request, we gratefully moved faster on the Barracks and CDC's Congress fold forward last year, and we anticipate eagerly the 13 CDC's and 10 Barracks that will come across the fit up. In between, we use our FSRM to its highest and best use. The Department of the Navy is focused on the essential warfighting, readiness, and quality of life support that naval facilities provide. From the Marine Corps Barracks 2030 and their wall-to-wall inspection just completed, the Navy's decisive investment in the shipyard infrastructure optimization program to strengthening relationships with communities, tribal, and indigenous partners, and enhancing quality of life and resilience via improvements to energy, water, and wireless. We are using authorities and policy to make our appropriations go farther. Above all, we strive to ensure that we are good stewards of every appropriated dollar. The Marines recently completed a third-party audit that lasted two years, which qualified them as the first service that has received an unmodified audit opinion in the Department of Defense. The Marines are leading from the front. The audit shows that we are accountable for the dollars spent. Our Navy and Marine Corps respond when the nation calls. Around the globe, around the clock, our naval forces are where they need to be, when they need to be there, because of the critical readiness enablers across the EIA portfolio. I'm grateful to the sailors, Marines, civilians, and their families who answer the call and to you for supporting them. They're trusting us to get it right. Thank you for the chance to work with you to do just that. Thank you, Ms. Berger. Appreciate your opening statement. Mr. Chaudhury, over to you. Chairman Walts, Ranking Member Garamendi, and members of the Readiness Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Department of the Air Force's energy, installations, and environment programs for FY25. The Department recognizes that we are in a decade of consequence, an era of great power competition in which the impact of our installations has become crucial to our ability to project combat power. Our adversaries have committed to using both kinetic and non-kinetic means to cripple infrastructure nodes. As Secretary Kendall recently stated, we are out of time. Whether in the conus or abroad, we must ensure vital infrastructure at our installations is resilient, survivable, and ready to meet the demands of more sophisticated threats posed by China or even Russia, who have demonstrated their ability and intent to weaponize energy resources in their aggression against Ukraine. First, I'd like to thank the members of the Readiness Subcommittee for your support in meeting this imperative. Our FY25 budget focuses on ensuring we can equip our airmen and guardians with the tools they need to effectively execute their mission. More importantly, we owe them modernized facilities and quality housing that is befitting of their service. Last year's initiatives marked the beginning of a transformative strategic effort at the department designed to ruggedize our installations for integrated deterrence and resilience in the face of great power competition. To maintain our cadence of modernization programs, we are requesting a total daft milcon investment of $3.45 billion through the FY25 President's budget. This is $371 million more than the FY24 requested amount. Pending passage of an appropriation, these milcon funds will support combatant commanders in their most critical requirements to include bed-down of new weapon systems like V-21, F-35, C-130J, and T-7 aircraft. This effort also includes large-scale investments in Indo-Pacific like Tinian, where we will be applying agile combat employment techniques that complicate the targeting solutions for potential adversaries. We are also securing critical investments at our Space Force installations. We are mission-ready, resilient facilities are integral to the Space Force's readiness and effectiveness. Our Spaceport of the Future program, which optimizes range costs and launch throughput, will receive $77 million in milcon, primarily for planning and design and $84 million in operations and maintenance. Upon my confirmation in March, I made it my personal mission to ensure our airmen, guardians, and their families have housing befitting of their service. I visited over 30 bases and conducted detailed focus groups with our youngest airmen, guardians, and their families to garner their feedback. As a former Air Force officer and pilot, I have lived in military housing to include raising a family during the transition to privatization. My service has given me first-hand knowledge of how housing can impact quality of life for our personnel. And as a concerned parent of an Air Force officer candidate, I can tell you that there is no issue that is more personal than this one. That's why I'm proud to share that in FY25, the DAF requested $1.1 billion for housing, dormitories, and child development centers to include all new dorms at joint bases in Virginia and Texas. This is part of a $1 billion FSRM investment from FY22 to FY26 to improve the condition of our dormitories. It nearly triples the investment over the previous five years and is the largest dorm investment in over a decade. Additionally, as the Department of Defense's largest fuel consumer, the Air Force is implementing groundbreaking approaches to improve operational energy efficiency. One of these initiatives is our blended wing body aircraft, a novel new aircraft design projected to lower fuel consumption by 30%. We are also investing in advanced winglets, engine blade coatings, and 3D-printed micro vanes that will reduce fuel used by millions of galleons. Once these and other projects are fully implemented, we project annual fuel savings of 75 million gallons, roughly $300 million in savings. Increasing our range and endurance will have a crucial impact in operations in the Indo-Pacific where the tyranny of distance can have a dramatic impact on our geostrategic position in the region. Finally, we recognize that in the high-end fight, our installations can no longer be considered a sanctuary. As a result, we are transforming our installations with all-new resiliency initiatives designed to reduce electrical grid stress, bolster cyber resiliency with microgrids, and new energy storage capabilities. We're also pursuing redundant power sources like geothermal, small modular reactors, and wind. These capabilities are designed to harden installation infrastructure and enable commanders to fight the base for extended periods. As an example, Kadena Air Base recently installed a microgrid funded by energy efficiency savings. This capability ensured full power on the installation during a typhoon, a testament to the resiliency that can be achieved when we invest in innovative technologies. I'll close with a quote from General Henry Hap Arnold, who declared in 1941 that air bases are a determining factor in the success of air operations. I agree and add that investments in our installations today could prove to be the margin of victory in great power competition, a competition in which we dare not come in second place. Once again, thank you for your support of our airmen and guardians, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chaudhry, and I'll go ahead and kick off the questions and for the interest of time, and members, stick to the five minute for both of us. That's okay with you, Mr. Guillermini. So let's talk about UCOM and our bases that are still running on Russian gas, which I just find mind blowing that we have to talk about this and that frankly, that Congress is having to push the department on this. One would think that this would be something the department would be pushing itself on, but nothing like a good visual that shows the supply chain and our bases in Baumholder, in Heidelberg, in Hohenfels. This is a joint issue in Stuttgart, Aviano, Vicenza, Ramstein. I mean, even our bases that house the NATO are running on Russian gas, and I know there's been some efforts, but what is really amazing, actually the Washington Post just had some good investigative reporting. It's now being exported through the Black Sea, going into refineries in Turkey and Greece, and then voila. It's now no longer Russian provided oil and gas. It's now NATO gas, but at the end of the day, the dollars are going to fuel Putin's war machine. So this is a much more complicated issue than just giving Ukraine the munitions it needs. We're fueling Russia, taxpayer dollars are fueling Russia's war machine, and we have a pretty amazing vulnerability. So since this is truly a joint issue, Mr. Owens, we had language in FY23, NDAA, all we asked for was a plan to get us off Russian gas in the next five years, and we still don't have the plan. So what's the status, Mr. Owens? If you could speak more broadly, why do we have, I know we're relying on local grids, but we're doing a lot of kind of backpacking here on base resiliency. And to my friend, Mr. Garamendi's point, here's a perfect example of where a climate agenda and an operational agenda, you get two for one. You're off of gas, you're off of oil, and you get an operational resiliency, and gee, you start impacting Putin's war machine for which we're asking the American people to keep digging, digging deeper and deeper into their pockets to combat against. Over to you. Well, I certainly appreciate your focus on this issue. Last week, we did a swing through UCOM, AFRICOM. We met with leaders in V-Spot and Stuttgart and at Ramstein, and this was a significant point of conversation everywhere we went because of the types of graphics that you're showing right there. One of the things I am encouraged by is that this is not something that, when, this is not at this point something that OSD is bringing up and catching our installation commanders and their energy folks off guard. They are leaning in and they are sighted on this issue. It is a challenge as they look at how they engage in the operations of their buildings, in the resilience of the installations themselves, and in the way that they're posturing themselves to bring the energy resources that they need increasingly closer to the fence line. I was encouraged by one particular conversation I had with the energy team at Ramstein that was looking outside the fence line and looking to really partner with the utility providers. Sir Owens, just in the time I have, I appreciate that you're having conversations and looking at it. The law asked for a plan to change this. Not next month, I mean five years to change this dynamic. What is the status of this committee receiving this plan, particularly as we continue to spend billions of our constituents' dollars? Can you imagine if I took this to one of my town halls right now as we're talking about billions and billions going more to Ukraine and that their money is basically fueling the other side of the war through our bases and oh by the way making our service members vulnerable. So what's the status of the plan I need to move on to another topic? The plan's under development. I'll come back to you with a specific... It's late. So what's the... I'll be happy to come back to you at a later date with a timeline. I'd appreciate an answer this week at least with a timeline. Understood. At least with a goal. Thank you. And I had an amendment in the last, the 24 NDAA, again I can't believe that Congress needs to push this weaning our clean energy programs off of Chinese Communist Party production. So can you speak to what the department's proactively doing to encourage investment domestic and or allied for that matter, energy capabilities and production sources? I'll stick with you Mr. Owens. These are really department-wide issues. Agreed. And thank you again for raising this point and giving us an opportunity to engage around this. We have been working through the interagency, through the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries with our partners in industrial-based policy to onshore and friend-shore the critical production of the energy resources that we are going to be reliant on. One other thing that I'll highlight is that in a recent CFE procurement that DOD and the military departments engaged in, we did hold the developer accountable on made in the USA solar panels. So we are leaning forward and really focused on making sure that we are doing everything we can to send the correct market signals so that these companies that are leaning forward domestically are going to be rewarded. Great. That's positive news, final question. And I know Mr. Garamendi, I went over my own rule here, but this is critical because of the years and years of backlog and deferred maintenance. So now that we have the FY25 request, can you confirm that FSRM lines were requested to meet 100% of the requirement for unaccompanied housing? I'll go to each service. For the Army, the answer is yes. What about what would be the cost for the Army to address the backlog? It would be multi-billions. I don't have the exact numbers. Can you come back to the committee with that number? Yes, sir. Thank you. Ms. Berger, 100% unaccompanied housing. For the Navy, yes. For the Marine Corps under the capital planning tool, it's a deviation from 100% to make sure that we are applying all of those funds to include demo. And so as we do an assessment, we make sure that we're applying it across the board in a way that puts every dollar where it counts. The capital planning tool, which I'd be happy to come brief you on, looks at a sustainment in a different way. And so we have Navy sustainment at 100% and a different approach that I would give you a full every phone when there's more time under the Marine Corps' capital planning tool. So that's not 100% of the requirement? Or we don't? There are items on the UPOL this year that we could move left with more opportunity. A little bit of sequencing was off, but we're trying to make sure that we are moving it forward with what we did request to keep going forward. I'll take that as a yes for Navy and a no to be explained for the Marine Corps. Yes. Air Force. Oh, I'm sorry. And please come to the committee with what the backlog number is. Thank you. Chairman, we're at 100% on unaccompanied backlog of $46 billion. We're going to get at it with by tripling our demo, demo rate. And when I say backlog $46 billion, that's the total of all of our assets. So we're going to get at that by reducing or reducing our inventory and utilizing privatization to reduce the denominator so that those backlogs go on. So turning over things with privatization activities allows us to reduce that backlog, but also we're roughly quadrupling our demo from roughly $30 million a year to about $140 to $160 million per year across the Fed up. Okay, great. That sounds smart, but that is a pretty astounding number. Over to you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thank you for that line of questioning. And if the witnesses could provide to the committee a specific information on your plans for the privatization expansion for both accompanied as well as unaccompanied housing and how you might carry that out. We know we have a scoring issue on a lot of that, but please come with as much detailed information as you could. I wasn't going to go back into the Sentinel. However, Mr. Chandra, I shall read your statement and you say that the need remains to recapitalize the over 50-year-old ICBM system. The Nunn-McCurdy process specifically designed to answer that question. Is it needed? What are the alternatives? What will not be done if we spend the $130 billion? I think I may have shared with you the $130 billion cost of the Sentinel going forward does not include the weapon systems themselves, that is the bombs and the pits and so forth. So that would be added and that's probably another $20 to $30 billion there. However, the cost of a B-21 is about $700 million. Simple math would indicate you could almost get 180 B-21s if you did not spend $130 billion on the Sentinel. Just something to think about for deterrence purposes. I think I'll go back to local issues. After all, the encroachment issue is a very real one. We've talked extensively about Travis Air Force Base, a new city being built next to it and so forth. I appreciate the Air Force very quickly coming forward to assist in trying to figure out when the world's going on there. However, Secretary Jacobson, did you know you have a problem at the Matko facility? You do. Overlooking the Matko facility, which is the principal way in which the military will move munitions from the West Coast of the United States, presumably further west, overlooking directly within a few hundred yards of that facility, which is a very high security secret facility, is public land, excuse me, private land, that could become a development and could easily see exactly what's going on at Matko, which I suspect our adversaries would like to know. So let's pay attention to this issue. It's not just the two that I've raised, Travis and Matko, but it goes beyond most of our bases. And I would suggest there are strategies that we could use, principally the purchase of easements, not necessarily the purchase of the land, but rather the purchase of the easements and let the landowner then maintain the land. So I let that one go there. We do have a problem, Ms. Berger, Mirror Island, that we clean up. I'll use this as an example of cleanups that need to be done most everywhere for every department. Mirror Island, we're looking to transfer the land, but we've got to finish the cleanups. You and I talked about this in detail. I won't take much time here to raise the issue, but please get on with it. We want to get that transfer done, get that land off the military books. There's more to be done there as the Navy tries to figure out how to and where it might repair more ships that are likely to be in the Pacific. For the other assistant secretaries, please keep in mind this issue is really worldwide. And you did talk, all of you, about the PFAS and the issues there. I'd be very interested in hearing the technology that you intend to use to meet those requirements, those cleanup requirements. I'm not sure that that really exists. With that, I think I'll let it go, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the hearing. Oh, excuse me, I've got 20 seconds. Mr. Chaudhry, $700 million is a down payment on the one of the most expensive milcon projects ever, otherwise known as the Sentinel silos command control on and on. Do you have any notion of what is the actual milcon expenditure over the next decade or so? Ranking Member Garamendi, we are currently letting the non-recurty process connect their analysis. We will have a number of facility folks. One of my staff members will be engaging on that process, and we'll be looking at that very subject. So we look forward to reporting to you what the results of that are and what the future projections are in facilities. We do anticipate an all transparency for it to grow, as you know as well. But we'll let the non-recurty process execute that analysis and give us a report. I'm not sure we've ever seen a real baseline number, but yes, we do need that specific information. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Chairman, I recognize that Mr. Moerland for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Berger, thanks for visiting my office. Once again, appreciate it. Now the Navy leaders have relayed me the importance of preparing the breakwater, and I've been told that this piece of infrastructure is at risk of failing, which in turn would destroy Guam's civilian harbor. However, the breakwater is also very important to the Navy. So could you please explain why fully funding a repair of the Guam breakwater is the Navy's number two unfunded priority? And it was very nice to visit with you as well. And this is an unfunded priority because of timing of it. And so we weren't able to get the submission in the right way, but the $600 million that you see there, as you rightly noticed, for where the Navy has a shared ownership of that breakwater. And so this would be funding that we would be able to obligate within the year and be able to move forward and execute on to make sure that we are taking care of the infrastructure that supports not only the Navy's work, but is shared in the space of the government, the community, and then go forward. We'll have some challenges. I will note that we will prioritize as we think about materiel, the support of workers in construction. Thank you to all of Congress for making sure that we did have the extended H2B visas, which helps as we think about how to manage work across Guam that we will need to do, but a priority and one that we will be able to execute on a funded. Thank you. You also answered my second question, but my third and last would be, Secretary, a centralized energy storage system is necessary to provide steady shore power for the Virginia class submarines on Guam. Investing in the power grid infrastructure would also support resilience for the island civilian population and reduce the amount of load shedding my constituents experience. Would you advocate the Department of Defense enter and negotiate partnership with the Guam power authority to install a centralized energy storage system sufficient to meet such a critical need and in general could more be done to work with the Guam power authority? Yes, yes, Representative Moylan, we've seen some very good results of exactly the construct that you describe. A near example is in Hawaii, where we've been able to combine resilient and renewable energy with battery storage to ensure that not only the mission has the energy that it needs, but also the community has the energy that it needs and it works exactly as you say by working with our utility, our energy providers. And so this is something very recently my office representatives went out to spend time with Guam power and make sure that we understood both the requirement and the way forward and certainly something that we are learning more about considering and eager to continue working with Guam power to make sure that we are thinking together on that and I would welcome the opportunity to show you some of the places that we've had successes. Thank you for the invitation and thank you to the panel. Mr. Chairman, I'll yield back. Thank you. Thank you so much and I was happy to hear the chairman mention our labs. Certainly if we are going to continue to attract the best and brightest, we need cutting edge research facilities. But I'd like to talk a little bit about the increased rate and severity of natural disasters. Due to the changing climate, they're impacting our installations, our readiness every year, impacting our national security as a whole. So I understand that in the FY24 installation resilience and energy accounts, they were targeted as we heard from our ranking as, quote, wasteful climate change programs. And yet, as we've heard in many hearings over the years, including on this committee, these programs are critical for building both energy and extreme weather resilience and mission assurance at our domestic installations and developing operational energy programs that increase on station time and mitigate contested logistics challenges with near-peer competitors. So first, Secretary Chaudhury, then Secretary Jacobson, could you talk about how these cuts could impact readiness? Thank you, Rep. Cheryl. Appreciate it. And I would say, and I would bring it to your home state of New Jersey, where we are installing and investing in a microgrid using an energy service performance contract. At that location, the power demands at a joint base, as they have become a joint base, I've experienced it myself because I was stationed there many, many years ago and flu C-17s out of that location. But the partnerships required also required a tremendous amount of understanding of the layered power structures within that installation. And installing a microgrid will allow you to do a number of things. One, it allows you to add energy storage capability. Should the lights go out due to grid stress, it allows you to have key redundancies that allow you to keep power moving. Second, it allows you to island from the local community. If a civil unrest is being disrupted by unfriendly adversaries, then you can island from that location and then get the jets out of town. As you know, C-17s are key to mobility and activating our response in any threat, anytime, anywhere. So getting those jets out of town is critical. By having a microgrid, you can get those jets out of town because you can island from other disruptions, store your power, and then get the jets out of town, and then resume operations. The other, and then once you have that installed, you can train to that standard. You can conduct energy resilience readiness exercises that allow you to find gaps, understand where critical redundancies need work, and evaluate yourself. And that all incurs in conjunction with resiliency programs, not to mention operational energy programs when if you add small 3D printed microvanes to the side of a C-17, you could save millions and millions of gallons of fuel, and that builds agility for the fight. So all these things in both portfolios add up to the criticality of building resiliency and how those climate funds can benefit our readiness going forward. Thank you so much. Certainly in a state like New Jersey, which is withstood Superstorm Sandy, and we see attacks on our pipelines from foreign adversaries, so you can imagine an attack on our grid having those microgids and the resiliency they provide as well as you were suggesting being able to meet some of the logistics challenges with some of these technologies is something I hear requested from many of our services. Ms. Jacobson. I thank you very much for that question. And just to address also your interest in labs, and I know we talked about this last time, I just want to report that in our five-year program, we do have a substantial investment for Picatinny Arsenal, so I'm glad to report that. Our investment, which some have tagged as climate change investments, and therefore were reduced from the FY24 budget or eliminated, I should say, they're about readiness. It's about resilience. Congress has directed us in previous legislation to maintain ready and resilient installations, and that's what this is about. The vulnerabilities to our power are not just from severe weather. Sometimes they're from man-made vulnerabilities. There was a shooting at a substation at Fort Liberty that caused a loss of power to 45,000 people for several days. We can't afford to lose power. If we lose power, we lose training. With respect to severe weather, if our bases are inundated by flooding, for example, as was West Point last summer in a very severe storm, or West Point was the epicenter. West Point lost power. At this point, over $200 million of damage and counting. So this is about keeping our bases resilient and ready to train. Operationally, again, everything we're doing operationally for hybridization and potentially future electrification of our tactical vehicles. Not now. It's operation. Right now it's research. It's meant to improve combat efficiency. It's meant to save fuel. It's meant to make sure that our vehicles of the future are silent, are faster, don't have a heat marker, and make the warfighter more ready. We would never ever compromise effectiveness of our mission ever. Thank you, Ms. Sherrill. Mr. Scott. Mr. Troudry, I represent Moody Air Force Base in Val d'Ast, I also represent Robbins Air Force Base in Warner-Riven, Georgia. It's one of the three depots. And as you know, these are extremely important parts of our organic industrial base. And my question gets to just the general base infrastructure at these organic industrial bases are aging. And what is the Air Force doing from a strategic standpoint with regard to the base infrastructure at those depots? Thank you for the question, Rep. Scott. I really appreciate your question. I was actually stationed at Robbins Air Force Base at the depot in my career, so I understand the value of what the depots provide. You can't win a war without the type of sustainment capability that our nation provides, and our three depots provide that. I was there through the transition, where in the C-5 depot workload came to Warner Robbins, and what a great boon that was, those incredible hangers that overlay and accommodate overhaul work now being operated on C-17s is absolutely critical. The amount of work that goes on at our depots is critical to our nation, and so that's why the Air Force in FY-25 is going to be investing roughly 700 million in infrastructure at our three depots. I believe the portion that goes to Robbins is roughly 230 million. I can double check and get that to you, but I had a chance to visit Robbins in the fall and looked at some of their industrial capabilities. One of the areas that concerned me was there were a number of boilers there that are at the end of their life. They've been rehabilitated and replaced. Several of them have been replaced, but the replacement did not go as well, so I'm going to check into that and look at the health of that because I think it's absolutely crucial going forward. We'll move on to you, Mr. Secretary. As we talk about these military construction projects, even if it's simply the replacement of a boiler, it seems to take us significantly longer than it takes the private sector to get anything done in the DoD, not just in the area of construction, but pretty much anything. I think it took the Army 10 years to pick a pistol out. Is that right? Somewhere around 10 years, and yet most of the guys, if they have the choice of what they carry, they carry a different one than the Army picked. Anyway, five years to turn the lights on from start to finish on a construction project, what is the Department of Defense doing to shorten that timeline? There are a number of initiatives that we have underway, starting in 2018, I believe, was the first time when our office started to look at milk on reform as a significant opportunity to improve on turn time for projects. That includes re-looking at the way we do cost estimating, re-looking at the way that we do programming, re-looking at the way that we are pushing forward with the core and with AFKEC to ensure that we're driving on those things. I'd be happy to come brief you on specific things that our office is doing to get down to really details. Let me ask it another way then. So in the states with commercial buildings, sometimes not as big as what we have at DoD, but sometimes they are, dorms would be an example of something that a college campus would build that we sometimes would build. We have hotels at Fort Moore. Are we looking at the ability to allow the private sector to design, build, and lease back to us? They seem to be able to do it in a much faster, more efficient manner. Have we looked at allowing the private sector to build and own the building and lease the facility back from them for a certain period of time? I think you've picked two good examples. One with unaccompanied housing, dorms, barracks, and one with temporary lodging facilities. I think the Army has done an excellent job of privatizing their lodging facilities and I think that that is a case study in terms of how we can leverage private sector speed and efficiency to deliver those projects. I think to ranking member Garamendi's and Chairman Maltz's earlier comments about privatization for unaccompanied housing, we are definitely looking at how we can get after that and decrease the bed, the dollar per bed unit costs that we are experiencing, have experienced traditionally. All right. My time's expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Scott, Mr. Vasquez from the great state of New Mexico. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all the witnesses for taking the time to be here today. I have the privilege of representing New Mexico's second district home to Hallman Air Force Base in White Sands Missile Range and as the only member of New Mexico's delegation to serve on the Armed Services Committee, I have a vested interest in all of New Mexico's installations. But today, I want to talk about fixing the problem of unexploded ordinance on tribal lands in places such as the Pueblo of Isleta, which is in my district, just outside bordering Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. Tribal members have been unable to use over 35,000 acres of their own sovereign land for decades due to the amount of unexploded ordinance left by the Department of Defense. Now, this includes lands that the tribe would like to use for farming purposes, for infrastructure building, for road building. So this not only impacts their ability to use their own natural resources and access significant cultural sites on their land, but it poses an economic hindrance to their advancement as a sovereign nation and poses an imminent safety risk to their community. Now, the department has taken some steps in the right direction by creating the Native American Lands Environment Mitigation Program to clean up UXO on tribal lands. But the department, and this is what I've heard directly from the tribe, has failed to provide the partnership and the resources necessary to clean up these UXO on tribal lands. Mr. Owens and Mr. Chattery, how can the department do a better job of honoring the American Lands Environmental Mitigation Program and supporting tribes like the Pueblo of Isleta to prioritize cleaning up UXO and other contaminants to keep these tribal communities safe and able to use their own sovereign lands? Thanks for highlighting this issue. And I think that one of the things, and for highlighting NAILMP as a program that we have established to do exactly what you're saying, our budget request for environmental cleanup programs this year is $1.6 billion. I don't have the breakdown of how much of that goes to NAILMP. I'm happy to come back on that and provide that information. And then to work specifically on with the constituents that you're talking with to be able to make sure that we're resourcing that program and in the place that is needed. Thank you, Mr. Owens. And if possible, we'd love to facilitate a meeting directly with tribal leadership so that we can get some type of timeline. For this very last, this very large swath of land that's very critical and important to them considering how small some of these tribal territories are. Absolutely, thank you. Mr. Choudhury. The only thing I'll add is you have my commitment to work with tribal nations to make sure that we're partnering in the right way. We're engaging and I look forward to meeting with you on this topic as well as visiting if I need to. Thank you so much. My other question, and New Mexico has a legacy of both contamination but also because of our nuclear legacy and missile testing. We have not just UXO, but of course we're dealing with the issue of RICA and uncompensated victims of nuclear testing in places in my district right around the Trinity site. But we're also seeing now today is increased PFAS contamination. In fact, there was a recent study that just came out that showed PFAS contamination in almost 100% of New Mexico's waterways. And a lot of this is attributable to Department of Defense activities at places like Kirtland, which had its bulk fuel facility jet fuel leak discovered in 1999 and we're still trying to figure out how we're going to clean that up today and how we're going to fund that today. Mr. Owens, Mr. Choudhury, what is the status of the Air Force's efforts to work with local partners on the ground and agencies and communities to continue to clean up of these contaminants? I'll start generally and then as Dr. Choudhury talked specifically to the Air Force piece, but with the release of the new maximum contaminant limit for PFAS, EPA put out last week, this is a sea change in terms of the way the department needs to engage around this specific issue. So we have been working in anticipation of this rule coming out for the last eight months to be postured to be able to understand the scope and scale of the challenge that we now face with these lower MCLs. And we have been working in partnership with the military departments to put together that plan about how we're going to address these in a prioritized way. And I think that that is a, it's going to be a significant long-term, decades long-term challenge that we need to get after consistently and in partnership with the military departments and working with Congress to get the funding to be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. Owens. I appreciate that. And for the record, I'm also asking this committee to include the reauthorization and expansion of RICA to include New Mexicans in the FY25 NDAA. Thank you all for your great work and your dedicated service to our country. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Vasquez. And in the interest of time, since votes have been called without objection, I'd like to change the clock to three minutes so that I believe that'll give us nine minutes. We've got 10 minutes remaining, and then we can hoof it over there, Mr. Kuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, as you know, my district spans all eight of the major Hawaiian islands, including Maui, which experienced the horrific wildfires last August. The Department of Defense played an essential role in supporting initial relief efforts and ongoing relief efforts. And I would just like to mohalo, especially the Army Corps of Engineers and so many who worked on behalf of our community. At the same time, the fires have spread a broader awareness of the challenges of pre-disaster mitigation and post-disaster recovery across our communities. And as one of the largest landowners in Hawai'i with significant local impacts, people are looking at the Department of Defense as an important partner to help the efforts going forward to rebuild and recover. So my questions today relate to local opportunities by which the Department may be a helpful partner to our communities, while also improving installation resilience, readiness, and quality of life. Dr. Tradri, as you know, the fires destroyed thousands of homes on Maui, making worsen already tight housing market that was challenging for locals to afford. That is also true for several dozen Department of the Air Force personnel and contractors assigned to the 15th Space Surveillance Squadron on the island of Maui tasked with essential space-related missions. In this worsening housing crisis, we have heard anecdotal reports that Maui residents unaffected by the fires are losing their leases. Given that Department personnel on Maui were known to have challenges with securing housing prior to the fires, I am concerned about their situation after the fires. Dr. Tradri, has the Department of the Air Force considered or will the Department consider creative housing solutions, including acquiring and developing government-owned housing on Maui, to help provide housing stability for its personnel and contractors on island and to not further burden any of the private inventory we have for our residents? Repticulator, thank you for that question. The answer to your question is yes. I believe my team is taking in further record to make sure that we take a look at all the housing options. We have a number of opportunities and capabilities within our quiver to address housing issues across our Department of the Air Force. One of the victories that we've had is at Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, where we partnered with a local community, established partnerships and intergovernmental service agreements that allow us to do that. That doesn't mean I wouldn't rule out a potential government housing opportunity, but what I would ask for your assistance with is to work with your team to better understand what the tailored needs are within that particular market and then come up with a solution that works for our members that are serving there and doesn't impact the community. Absolutely. We look forward to working with you on that. Just to touch upon one other issue, one of the reasons why the fire in Lahaina was so deadly was limited road access once blocked, made it very difficult for entire neighborhoods to evacuate quickly. And so I would like to talk about Kole-Kole Pass, Kole-Kole Road, situated on Army and Navy property. Kole-Kole Road cuts through the Waianae Mountain Range and in a hypothetical disaster on the west side could be a crucial evacuation route for those communities. However, while there is a standing agreement permitting use of Kole-Kole in emergency situations, the road is not in proper condition to support a major evacuation. I know I cannot go on further, but Ms. Jacob, Ms. Berger, I hope we can work with your departments to improve Kole-Kole Road for maintenance and safety so that we can use this as a way to quickly evacuate our residents in times of need. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I wanted to ask some questions about some switching station issues that we've had in Fort Worth. And I was hoping that Ms. Berger, that you could answer specifically. Could you first explain why an electrical switching station is critical for base operations and mission readiness, and how does it support the overall functionality and security of a military installation? Yes, Congressman Visee. Most broadly, energy is going to keep the lights on, keep everything working to make sure that the base can accomplish mission. So my staff recently visited Naval Air Station 4. They were in town. Some of the DC staff weren't in town recently. And the installation commander mentioned their most pressing issues obtaining a new electrical switching station. The current station's infrastructure is very old and shuts down and causes power outage and water supply issues and wasn't sure if you were aware of that. I have become aware, yes, Congressman. And given those concerns, can you commit to working with my office? They'll collaborate some sort of a plan to address those outdated switching station issues. We need to obviously make sure that nobody's safety is compromised and that the base can do everything that they need to be able to get done to address that. Absolutely, yes, sir. And you create the critical connection that we see why resilience is so important for our bases. So I'm very, very eager to work with your team on the onsite team to make sure that we are scoping something going forward. And this is another example of why energy resilience is so important for our installations. Absolutely. Thank you very much. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Visee, Mr. Panetta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Garamendi. Thank you for allowing me to join you today. I want to, the three of you, I'm focused on Ms. Berger right now. So you guys can just kind of zone out just to let you know. I want to thank Ms. Berger for her help, push forward the new Naval Innovation Center at the Navy Postgraduate School in my district, 19th Aggression District of Monterey, California. You've worked very closely with Secretary of the Navy, Secretary del Toro, on the Naval Innovation Center, the NIC as I call it, which is part of his initiative to propel innovation by transforming how the DoD leverages the private sector and DoD Innovation Hubs to bring capabilities quickly. Our adversaries understand that one of our greatest challenges is bringing solutions to the battlefield quickly. And innovation is deterrence and directly affects the credibility of the United States to forestall China from taking aggressive action against Taiwan, deter Russia from expanding the conflict in Europe, and defending allies in the Middle East from Iranian aggression, as you know well. The NIC will create innovative solutions by enabling interdisciplinary teams to curate experiment and collaborate on cutting edge technologies. Industry and other partners will work side by side with the Navy Postgraduate School's 1500 plus U.S. and international students to address strategic competition and regular warfare. Now Ms. Berger, we appreciate all of your efforts with the Secretary to accelerate the construction of the NIC, including securing the planning and design funds for FY25 and FY26 prioritizing the completion of the 1391 form, which outlines the funding and intent of the center. Accelerating the environmental assessment review and the Secretary highlighting the center recently, even at the Reagan National Defense Forum. One quick question, because I have limited amount of time, what can I, what can Congress do to support the center's inclusion in the Navy's FYDP for FY26? So Congressman, first we plan, then we go forward. So as, as you know, we've got a 25 million in there for P&D. And then from that informed and scoped way forward, we come back and we make an informed request. And so first, first our planning for sure. But as you note, there are so many assets and benefits that come from our Naval Education Enterprise, specifically at the Naval War College. And so we learn from the history. We act in the present and we anticipate the future so that we are creating the best warfighters. The same is true of our infrastructure. And so as we build forward, we build towards that environment in a resilient, sustainable using the materials, the water, the energy, all of the things that we want to prioritize as we move forward. So you will see the planning that mimics the warfighters that we are trying to create. And in five seconds, anything else that I can be doing to make sure that the Navy stays on track? We are on track and we will make sure we're staying in close touch with you. Outstanding. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. He'll be back. Thank you. Thank you to our witnesses and the preparation that goes into this. I used to be in the Pentagon preparing for these hearings. I think it's an incredible important part of our system that I now have a new appreciation for. But thank you. The hearing stands adjourned.