Hearings to examine matters within the jurisdiction of the Assistant Secretaries for Energy, Installation, and Environment in support of the Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.
Senate Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support
2025-06-25
Source: Congress.gov
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Transcript
Subcommittee hearing is now in session. I want to begin by noting that this committee is focused on readiness. Today, although unfortunately you're not reading about it in the press or anything, marks the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, which is a real lesson in American readiness. that I think we in the Senate and hopefully in the armed services continue to learn from today because that was a outbreak of that war was a real lesson and hard knocks in terms of readiness and it's something I think we all need to remember and of course to the remaining American veterans of the Korean War we want to thank them for their service. I've never liked the term the Forgotten War. I think it should be called the Noble War because it was the United States coming to save a country from a communist invasion, many of whom we didn't know, and young Americans sacrificed in enormous ways. 37,000 killed in action. And we in our country, unfortunately, barely even talk about that war. So I wanted to begin by that. Our committee, meets today to receive testimony on the department's military construction, energy installations, environmental and base closure programs in the review of the defense authorization request of fiscal 2026. I would like to welcome Assistant Secretary Marks to his first hearing since his recent confirmation. So, Mr. Secretary, welcome. and congratulate you and look forward to working closely with you in this very important role for our military and the Pentagon.
I also thank the other esteemed witnesses for being here today and for their continued service to our country. Each of you play an important role in ensuring our armed forces are ready at a moment's notice to defend our country. But right now we are facing problems and challenges that are detrimental to that objective. While our personnel are the backbone of our military, the installations are what bring them together. Simply put, our decaying facilities are causing significant issues with regard to our warfighters, and the locations and resilience of our bases could serve as a detriment to our national security during wartime. With that in mind, I want to discuss our current basing posture in the Indo-Pacific in the context of dispersal, survivability, and logistics, including for bulk fuel and energy requirements. I believe we have over-concentrated our basing and force posture in the Indo-Pacific at places like Guam, and we should look for opportunities to both disperse and harden these facilities, make them more resilient, and position ourselves to better support operational and strategic maneuver in a contested environment in this critical AOR. I would like to hear from each of you on the implementation of the FY25 National Defense Authorization requirement to achieve 4% plant replacement value by 2030. This requirement came after a lack of priority from the services that led to crumbling infrastructure in many areas across the United States and the world. This has only driven up the cost and damaged service readiness. We must take immediate action to mitigate this damage for many of these facilities throughout the world.
As Chairman Wicker said during the Air Force posture hearing, this is the law of the land. I would additionally like to discuss any updates each of you have in improving and maintaining unaccompanied housing. The poor living conditions, which unfortunately include sewage overflow, mold, mildew, broken windows, decrease the quality of life and readiness for service members, mostly junior enlisted, and their families, which of course negatively impacts readiness across the services. We must ensure that our service members are not living in barracks that do not meet the standards set by the Department of Defense. Additionally, your thoughts on the department's work in operational energy and how these systems can transform the modern warfighter are crucial to this committee's work on contested logistics. Finally, I would like to hear from each of the witnesses about your future priorities since the department did not release the future year's defense program budget through 2030. We are still waiting for that. The challenges we are facing today are the result of years of pushing these problems aside, kicking the can down the road. We must work together to modernize our infrastructure, to give our country and our troops the best footing possible for any contingency that is thrown their way. Again, I want to thank the witnesses for attending today. I look forward to each of yours testimony. And with that, I want to thank my ranking member, Senator Hirono, and ask her for her opening statement. Thank you, Chairman Sullivan.
I want to thank each of our witnesses for your years of service, and to the many hardworking civilians in your respective organizations, I thank them. This subcommittee remains focused on ensuring that the Department of Defense is equipped not only to meet today's operational requirements, but also to strengthen the long-term resilience, readiness, and well-being of our military installations. And I appreciate your engagement on each of these critical issues. I have been very focused on infrastructure, and I'm glad that the chair recognizes the importance of modernizing and repairing our infrastructure, which we have not done a very good job on. And I want to begin by expressing concern regarding this department's ability to deliver timely, efficient, and cost-effective infrastructure. Construction delays and cost overruns undermine readiness and public trust.
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