[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H.A.S.C. No. 111-181]
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S EFFICIENCY INITIATIVE
__________
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD
SEPTEMBER 29, 2010
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
One Hundred Eleventh Congress
IKE SKELTON, Missouri, Chairman
JOHN SPRATT, South Carolina HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON,
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas California
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
SILVESTRE REYES, Texas MAC THORNBERRY, Texas
VIC SNYDER, Arkansas WALTER B. JONES, North Carolina
ADAM SMITH, Washington W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
LORETTA SANCHEZ, California J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina JEFF MILLER, Florida
ROBERT A. BRADY, Pennsylvania JOE WILSON, South Carolina
ROBERT ANDREWS, New Jersey FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
SUSAN A. DAVIS, California ROB BISHOP, Utah
JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island MICHAEL TURNER, Ohio
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN KLINE, Minnesota
JIM COOPER, Tennessee MIKE ROGERS, Alabama
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia TRENT FRANKS, Arizona
MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas
CAROL SHEA-PORTER, New Hampshire DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado
JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut ROB WITTMAN, Virginia
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania DUNCAN HUNTER, California
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona JOHN C. FLEMING, Louisiana
NIKI TSONGAS, Massachusetts MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado
GLENN NYE, Virginia THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina CHARLES K. DJOU, Hawaii
MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
FRANK M. KRATOVIL, Jr., Maryland
BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama
SCOTT MURPHY, New York
WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
JOHN GARAMENDI, California
MARK S. CRITZ, Pennsylvania
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma
HANK JOHNSON, Georgia
Paul Arcangeli, Staff Director
Andrew Hunter, Professional Staff Member
Roger Zakheim, Professional Staff Member
Caterina Dutto, Staff Assistant
C O N T E N T S
----------
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS
2010
Page
Hearing:
Wednesday, September 29, 2010, The Department of Defense's
Efficiency Initiative.......................................... 1
Appendix:
Wednesday, September 29, 2010.................................... 47
----------
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2010
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S EFFICIENCY INITIATIVE
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck,'' a Representative from
California, Ranking Member, Committee on Armed Services........ 2
Skelton, Hon. Ike, a Representative from Missouri, Chairman,
Committee on Armed Services.................................... 1
WITNESSES
Carter, Hon. Ashton, Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition,
Technology and Logistics, U.S. Department of Defense........... 6
Cartwright, Gen. James E., USMC, Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Department of Defense.................... 9
Lynn, Hon. William J., III, Deputy Secretary of Defense, U.S.
Department of Defense.......................................... 3
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Carter, Hon. Ashton.......................................... 71
Cartwright, Gen. James E..................................... 76
Connolly, Hon. Gerald E., a Representative from Virginia..... 81
Lynn, Hon. William J., III................................... 55
McKeon, Hon. Howard P. ``Buck''.............................. 53
Skelton, Hon. Ike............................................ 51
Documents Submitted for the Record:
Joint Forces Command Transition Planning Team Nondisclosure
Agreement Form............................................. 85
Legal Analysis by the Department of Defense's Office of
General Counsel of the Applicability of Section 2687 of
Title 10, United States Code, to the Disestablishment of
JFCOM, NII, and BTA........................................ 89
Letter from Linda T. Johnson, Mayor of Suffolk, Virginia, to
Hon. Ike Skelton Regarding Disestablishment of USJFCOM,
Dated September 24, 2010................................... 96
Memorandum by Hon. Ashton Carter on Better Buying Power:
Mandate for Restoring Affordability and Productivity in
Defense Spending, Dated June 28, 2010...................... 105
Memorandum by Hon. Ashton Carter on Better Buying Power:
Guidance for Obtaining Greater Efficiency and Productivity
in Defense Spending, Dated September 14, 2010.............. 111
Memorandum by Hon. William J. Lynn III Regarding the Policy
for Communication with Industry, Dated June 21, 2010....... 129
Memorandum by Robert Rangel, The Special Assistant to the
Secretary of Defense, Regarding the Joint Forces Command
(JFCOM) Disestablishment Working Group, Dated September 1,
2010....................................................... 132
Statement for the Record of Stan Soloway, President and CEO,
Professional Services Council.............................. 134
Written Testimony of Hon. Robert F. McDonnell, Governor of
the Commonwealth of Virginia, Regarding Defense Department
Budget Initiatives......................................... 144
Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:
[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]
Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:
Mr. Bishop................................................... 179
Mr. Conaway.................................................. 180
Mr. Forbes................................................... 171
Mr. Garamendi................................................ 170
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers........................................ 180
Mr. Skelton.................................................. 163
Mr. Thornberry............................................... 168
Mr. Wittman.................................................. 180
THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE'S EFFICIENCY INITIATIVE
----------
House of Representatives,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC, Wednesday, September 29, 2010.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in room
2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ike Skelton (chairman
of the committee) presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. IKE SKELTON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MISSOURI, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
The Chairman. Good morning. Welcome to the House Armed
Services Committee hearing on the Department of Defense's
efficiency initiative. We have with us three distinguished
witnesses: Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn, III,
the Department's chief management officer; Dr. Ashton Carter,
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and
Logistics; and General James E. Cartwright, United States
Marine Corps, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The topic of the hearing discussed is one of the most
important we will consider this year, and will be particularly
important next year, when the committee reviews the President's
budget request for fiscal year 2012. The topic is the
Department's effort to wring billions of dollars of efficiency
out of its operations.
Let me begin and end this hearing with one clear overriding
message. I think I speak for the overwhelming majority of our
committee, regardless of party, when I tell you I do not
support cutting the defense budget at this time. The national
security challenges this Nation faces around the world dictate
that we maintain the recent growth of our ground forces, the
Army and Marine Corps, we modernize our Air Force, and that we
grow our Navy. To do this, we must continue to grow the base
defense budget for some time to come.
I think I also speak for the committee by saying that we
all want to eliminate waste within the Department wherever and
whenever we find it, and I commend the Secretary of Defense and
his able support team, well represented here today, for making
hard choices that have too often been avoided.
Now, as you all know, this committee hasn't agreed on every
decision made, nor should we, but we do respect the leadership
being demonstrated by the Department of Defense. The
Department's efficiency initiative is the most comprehensive
effort of its kind in almost 20 years. Across the board, the
committee stands ready to hear the Department's case. In the
area of acquisition reform, we believe the Department's
initiatives are very much aligned with the policies this
committee has advocated for years, and which were recently
clearly expressed in the report of our Panel on Defense
Acquisition Reform. In other areas, we look forward to better
understanding what the Department is proposing and what savings
will be achieved.
When it comes to jointness, insourcing, and information
technology, this committee has longstanding interests and
concerns that may not align as clearly with the Department's
proposals. As long as I have served in Congress, this system
has worked one way: the administration proposes, and the
Congress disposes. This year and next will be no different.
So gentlemen, your task today is to persuade us that the
initiative is not part of an agenda to cut the Defense budget,
and that it is consistent with this committee's longstanding
priorities in a number of critical areas.
I turn to my friend, my colleague, the gentleman from
California, Buck McKeon.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Skelton can be found in the
Appendix on page 51.]
STATEMENT OF HON. HOWARD P. ``BUCK'' McKEON, A REPRESENTATIVE
FROM CALIFORNIA, RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Lynn,
Secretary Carter, General Cartwright, good morning and welcome
to each of you. We have been looking forward to your testimony
on the Department's efficiencies initiative for some time. I
hope that you will be able to provide members of this committee
with detailed information regarding the Secretary's proposed
measures and to allay the concerns that many of us share. As
elected officials, Members of Congress have a responsibility to
ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not wasted on
inefficient, wasteful, or redundant programs.
I agree with Secretary Gates we must scrutinize Defense
programs to ensure that we are generating the most bang for the
buck, and that we must concentrate our limited resources on the
highest-priority programs.
Furthermore, I view it as the responsibility of the Armed
Services Committee to exercise the same discipline on an annual
basis through our Defense Authorization Act to shift funds from
poorly performing programs to higher national security
priorities and promising technologies for the future, such as
missile defense and means to counter anti-access threats.
But as with most things, the devil is in the details.
Unfortunately, although we have requested more information,
both verbally and in writing, the Department has failed to
fully respond. My first concern is where we find $20 billion a
year in cuts in the midst of two wars, without also cutting
back on required weapons and services needed to meet the
threats of today and tomorrow.
Secretary Lynn, you have already announced that at least a
third of the savings will come from within the force structure
and modernization accounts, the same accounts the Secretary is
attempting to grow. We have seen that setting arbitrary targets
for cost savings, as appears to have happened with insourcing,
can frequently not yield the expected results. How do we avoid
those pitfalls here?
Second, I am extremely concerned that no matter what the
intentions of the Secretary may be, the Administration and some
in Congress will not allow the Secretary to keep the savings.
This summer, the White House supported a teacher bailout
bill that was funded in part with defense dollars. Once these
savings from this efficiencies initiative are identified, what
is to stop them from taking this money also?
We are already seeing impacts of this summer's cuts. For
example, some of those funds were intended to rectify an
overdraft in the Navy's military pay accounts. Once those funds
were taken, the Navy was forced to take the money from aircraft
procurement accounts. What is the result? It is going to take
longer to buy the external fuel tanks our Super Hornets and
Growlers need and to upgrade training simulators. Even worse,
it will cost the taxpayers more money to buy those fuel tanks
because we won't be able to take advantage of a negotiated bulk
buy. So much for efficiency.
Secretary Gates appears to share my concern. In August, he
stated, and I quote, ``My greatest fear is that in economic
tough times that people will see the Defense budget as the
place to solve the Nation's deficit problems to find money for
other parts of the government. I think that would be disastrous
in the world environment we see today, and what we are likely
to see in the years to come,'' end quote.
Third, with respect to acquisition reforms, most of these
appear to be consistent with congressional direction. I would
like to learn more about the Department's plans to set cost
targets for new weapon systems. Congress supports analytical
tradeoffs between required capabilities, time to the
warfighter, and costs. However, our requirements must be
determined by the future threat environment, not simply by our
budgets.
The Department will have to convince members of this
committee that these efforts will not weaken our Nation's
defense. To that end, we must fully understand the rationale
behind each decision and potential impact of every cut. Case in
point: Who within the Department of Defense will be responsible
for ensuring our commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq have the
correct number and mix of military forces if the Department
eliminates the Joint Forces Command?
Thank you for your willingness to provide this committee
with the information we require to conduct thorough oversight
and support the Secretary's efforts to grow our investment
accounts.
I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeon can be found in the
Appendix on page 53.]
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman. Secretary Lynn, you
are on.
STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM J. LYNN III, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Secretary Lynn. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman,
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you and present testimony and
discuss the Department's efficiency efforts. What I would like
to do, if it is acceptable, Mr. Chairman, is enter my complete
statement into the record, and summarize it briefly for you.
The Chairman. You may, without objection.
Secretary Lynn. During a speech in May of this year at the
Eisenhower Library, Secretary Gates outlined how in order to
maintain and modernize America's key military capabilities at a
time of war and fiscal pressure, the Defense Department would
need to fundamentally change the way it does business. The
reason is this: to sustain the current military force
structure, which we must do given the security challenges the
country faces, requires the equivalent of real budget growth of
2 to 3 percent. The overall Defense budget, however, is
projected to rise in real terms by about 1 percent, and the
Department cannot and should not ask Congress or the American
taxpayers for more increases unless and until we have done
everything possible to make the dollars we already have count
for more.
Bridging the gap requires culling the Department's massive
overhead costs and structure, the ``tail,'' and directing them
to our fighting forces and modernization accounts, the
``tooth.'' This is not an effort to reduce the defense budget.
This is about shifting resources and priorities within the
existing top line. That requires reducing the Department's
overhead costs by targeting unnecessary excess and duplication
in the Defense enterprise.
This effort, moreover, is not just about the budget, it is
also about operational agility. We need to ensure that the
Department is operating as efficiently and effectively as
possible. The Secretary has directed us to take a hard look at
how the Department is organized, staffed, and operated, how we
can flatten and streamline the organization, how we can reduce
executive or flag officer billets and the staff apparatus that
supports them, how we can shed overlapping commands and
organizations, and how we can reduce the role and number of
contractors.
Since the Secretary's speech in May, DOD [Department of
Defense] has embarked on a four-track approach toward a more
effective, efficient, and cost-conscious way of doing business.
I will briefly touch on our activities in Tracks 1 through 3,
and then spend a little bit more time on Track 4.
On Track 1, the Secretary directed that the military
services find more than $100 billion in overhead savings over
the next 5 years. The services, however, will be able to keep
any of the savings they generate to invest in higher-priority
warfighting and modernization needs. This effort is underway
now, and we have already begun to review the services'
submissions. The fiscal 2012 budget will reflect the results
when it is submitted to Congress in February.
On Track 2, the Department is seeking ideas, suggestions,
and proposals regarding efficiencies from outside normal
channels. We have solicited input from experts, from think
tanks, from industry, and from the Department's external
boards. We have also established a DOD suggestion program to
solicit our employees' ideas. The Department is willing to
consider any reasonable suggestion to reduce our overhead.
With regard to Track 3, the Department is conducting a
broad review of how it is organized and operated in order to
inform the President's 2012 budget submission. This Track 3
review focuses on affecting long-term systemic improvements in
several key areas of DOD operations. Dr. Carter will address
those in more detail in his opening statement.
With regard to Track 4, which was announced on August 9th,
we are addressing several specific areas where the Department
can take action now to reduce inefficiencies and overhead.
These steps are intended to jump-start the reform process ahead
of and separate from the normal programming and budgeting
cycle.
In particular, they represent the Secretary's lead effort
to reduce headquarters and support bureaucracies, military and
civilian alike, that have swelled to cumbersome proportions,
grown overreliant on contractors, and become accustomed to
operating with little consideration of costs. Though all of
these efforts will result in measurable savings, an equally
important purpose is to instill a culture of cost-consciousness
and restraint in the Department, a culture that sets
priorities, makes real tradeoffs, and separates unrestrained
appetites from genuine requirements.
There are eight major initiatives that reduce support
contractors, headquarters personnel, senior executives, and
flag and general officers. They also include efforts to reduce
boards and commissions and to eliminate redundant intelligence
organizations.
Finally, Track 4 involves several organizational
disestablishments. The last decade has seen a growth of new
offices and organizations, including two new combatant commands
and five new Defense agencies. The Secretary concluded that the
Joint Forces Command, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Networks and Information Integration, the Joint Staff's J-6
Directorate, and the Defense Business Transformation Agency no
longer effectively satisfy the purposes for which they were
created. Some missions and tasks that each perform remain
vital, but can be managed effectively elsewhere. Other
functions that each perform are either already performed
elsewhere or are no longer relevant for the operation of the
Department.
We are mindful that the recommended actions will have
economic consequences for displaced employees, their families,
and their communities. The Department is committed to work with
the affected communities, and will devote significant attention
to the challenges employees face during this time of
transition. We have asked Dr. Clifford Stanley, the Under
Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, to take direct
responsibility for this aspect of the Department's planning in
order to ensure we take the steps necessary to help impacted
employees with appropriate assistance and support.
In closing, Mr. Chairman, I understand that some of these
reforms may be controversial and unwelcome to some people both
inside and outside the Department. No doubt many of these
changes will be stressful, indeed wrenching for the
organizations and employees affected. But I would ask the
members of this committee and the Congress as a whole to
consider this reform agenda in terms of our responsibilities as
leaders to set priorities and move resources from where they
are needed least to where they belong: America's fighting
forces, the investment in future capabilities to support those
forces, and most importantly, the needs of our men and women in
uniform. This is what Secretary Gates and President Obama are
proposing, and we urge your strong support.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss this initiative,
and I welcome your questions.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Lynn can be found in
the Appendix on page 55.]
The Chairman. Thank you very much. Before I call on
Secretary Carter, I ask unanimous consent that Representative
Connolly sit with us at our hearing and ask questions after all
members of the committee have had their chance to ask
questions. And I ask the same of Mr. Scott, Bobby Scott, from
the great Commonwealth of Virginia, for the same. So I ask
unanimous consent for both Mr. Connolly and Mr. Scott.
Without objection, so ordered.
Secretary Carter.
STATEMENT OF HON. ASHTON CARTER, UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR
ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Secretary Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
McKeon, distinguished members of the committee. I also thank
you for the opportunity to join Deputy Secretary Lynn, General
Cartwright today to discuss Secretary Gates' efficiency
initiative, and in particular one piece of it for which I have
responsibility.
As part of his broad initiative to improve the American
taxpayers' return on our investment in national defense,
Secretary Gates and Deputy Secretary Lynn tasked me to improve
the Department's buying power in the way we acquire critical
goods and services. Specifically, the portion of the budget
that I am addressing is that $400 billion of the $700 billion
which is contracted out for goods and services. The other $300
billion, just to remind you, we spend within the walls, so to
speak, of the Department of Defense on the uniformed and
civilian employees, their salaries, their benefits, and so
forth, and the buildings and installations within which we
work. That is $300 of the $700 billion. The other $400 billion
is spent outside the walls, so to speak, of the institution on
contracted goods and services, that $400 billion in turn about
equally divided between the procurement of goods and the
procurement of services.
We estimate that by targeting efficiencies in both of these
areas we can make a significant contribution towards achieving
the $100 billion redirection of defense budget dollars from
unproductive to productive purposes sought by Secretary Gates
and Deputy Secretary Lynn over the next 5 years, a significant
contribution.
The Department can only meet this goal, however, if we
fundamentally change the way we do business. To put it bluntly,
we cannot support our troops with the capabilities they need
unless we do so. Our challenge is to sustain a military at war,
take care of our troops and their families, and invest in new
capabilities, all in an era when Defense budgets will not be
growing as rapidly as they were in the years following 9/11;
Last year we identified savings in the Defense budget by
canceling unneeded programs, programs that weren't performing,
that we had enough of, or whose time had passed. We will still
need to do that, but now we must find savings within programs
and activities we do need and do want.
The Department must achieve what economists call
productivity growth. We must learn, as the way I have put it,
to do more without more. Productivity growth you see in the
commercial economy when you go and you buy a computer this year
and it is a little bit better than last year's and maybe even a
little bit cheaper, and yet we are too often in the position of
coming to you every year with exactly the same product and
explaining to you why it costs more this year than it did last
year. We would like to see some of that productivity growth
that we see elsewhere in the economy within the defense
economy.
On June 28th, I laid out a mandate to the defense
acquisition workforce and the defense industry describing how
the Department could try to achieve better buying power. On
September 14th, after months of work with the Department's
senior acquisition professionals, industry leaders, and outside
experts, I issued specific guidance on how to implement that
mandate.
I would like to submit, Mr. Chairman, both the June 28th
mandate and the September 14th guidance, and the charts which
accompany them, for the record.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on pages 105 and 111.]
The Chairman. Without objection.
Secretary Carter. We are now in implementation mode, taking
each of the 23 principal items in that plan and putting them
into practice, the very same teams that compiled them.
The September 14th guidance contains 23 principal actions
to improve efficiency organized in five major areas, and I
would like to just highlight a few of the actions we are taking
in each of these areas and give some illustrative examples.
Mr. Chairman, to address the point you raised in your
opening statement, I think you will see that many of the
specific actions we are taking are not only consistent with,
but some were inspired by the work of the subcommittee of this
committee that deals with acquisition reform. So I think you
will find a lot of consistency there.
First, as we begin new programs like the Ohio-class SSBN(X)
[ballistic missile submarine] replacement, the joint family of
systems for long-range strike, the Army's Ground Combat
Vehicle, and even a new Presidential helicopter, we will be
establishing affordability requirements that have the same
force as high-priority performance requirements like speed,
firepower, or bit rate. And Congressman McKeon, to your point,
the objective is to have the design trades to which you
referred be those which identify the key design parameters, and
then be able to plot how the cost of the system varies as those
parameters are varied, not in order to have less military
capability but to understand where we can change the design in
the direction of affordability without in fact compromising
important military capability. That is the purpose of doing
those design trades, and that is a discipline we need to have
and we haven't had enough of.
We will also insist that our acquisition professionals and
suppliers plan according to what programs should cost, not
according to self-fulfilling historical estimates of what they
will cost, as if nothing can be changed in how we do business.
We are already using this method to drive down costs in the
Joint Strike Fighter program, the Department's largest, and the
backbone of tactical air power for the U.S. and many other
countries.
Second, to incentivize productivity and innovation in
industry, we will strengthen the connection between profit and
performance in our business practices. Among other things, we
are exploring ways, through contracting and financing vehicles
and a pilot superior supplier incentive program, to reward
contractors who control their costs and demonstrate exemplary
performance.
Third, we will remove obstacles to effective competition.
Last year the Pentagon awarded $55 billion in contracts that
were supposed to be competitive but for which only one bid was
received, usually from an incumbent. Yet simple changes in how
we structure evaluations and work with industry have been shown
to reduce by 50 percent the incidence of single bids by
incumbents.
Additionally, we will promote real competition for
competition is the single most powerful tool available to the
Department to drive productivity. We must stop deluding
ourselves with the idea that directed buys from two designated
suppliers represents real competition. We are already cutting
down on directed buys with the Navy's Littoral Combat Ship,
where we have set in place real competition that will save more
than a billion dollars in the next 5 years alone, with
additional savings expected over the life of the LCS program.
Competition is not always available, but the evidence is clear
that the government is not availing itself of all possible
competitive situations.
Fourth, and this is an area where I think we especially owe
a debt to the Subcommittee on Acquisition Reform because of its
focus on this question, we will more aggressively manage the
over $200 billion we spend annually on services, such as
information technology and knowledge-based services, facilities
upkeep, weapons system maintenance, and transportation. When
most people think of the defense budget they think of ships and
planes, but more than 50 percent of our contract spending, as I
noted earlier, is for services. Believe it or not, our
practices for buying such services are even less effective than
for buying weapons systems.
Fifth, we are taking steps to reduce unproductive processes
and bureaucracy by reducing the number of OSD [Office of the
Secretary of Defense]-level reviews to those necessary to
support major investment decisions or to uncover and respond to
significant program execution issues, eliminating low-value-
added statutory processes, and reducing the volume and cost of
both internal and congressional reports as appropriate.
Changing our business practices will take time and require
the continued close involvement of our industry partners. We
also need your support, which is essential to the success of
this endeavor. We have every reason to believe that the
efficiencies we seek can be realized.
First, we have established reasonable reduction targets.
Second, we are focused on specific savings of the kind that
I described.
Third, it is reasonable to assume that after an era of
double-digit budget growth there is fat that has crept in and
that we can find savings.
And finally, President Obama, Secretary Gates, Deputy
Secretary Lynn, you on this committee, both Houses, in fact, of
Congress, in legislation both last year and this year, have
shown that you expect it and the American taxpayers expect it.
The alternative, also worth considering, is unacceptable.
Broken or canceled programs rather than managed programs,
budget turbulence, uncertainty for industry, erosion of
taxpayer confidence in the care with which we spend their money
on national defense, and of course especially lost capability
for the warfighter in a dangerous world. So we not only can
succeed, but we must.
I thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Secretary Carter can be found in
the Appendix on page 71.]
The Chairman. Thank you, sir. General Cartwright, welcome.
STATEMENT OF GEN. JAMES E. CARTWRIGHT, USMC, VICE CHAIRMAN OF
THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
General Cartwright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Representative
McKeon, distinguished members of the committee, and thank you
for the opportunity to discuss the Department of Defense
efficiency initiatives.
A few points of context. We remain a Nation at war, and
that is not lost on us. Troops are deployed around the world,
many engaged in combat. We are committed to ensuring these
troops are properly supported.
Second, DOD is a bureaucracy that has not fully adapted its
processes and constructs to the information age, as Dr. Carter
just described. We must be able to adapt with increased speed
in order to ensure we remain competitive. In an era of rapidly
evolving threats, our success depends on our ability to adapt
quickly.
Third, DOD is cognizant of the Nation's financial
situation. We do not expect budgets to grow at the rate they
grew over the last decade. When developing grand strategy, it
is the first duty of the strategist to appreciate the financial
position of his or her nation. We demonstrated this
appreciation during last year's weapons systems portfolio
changes and earlier this year in the process to release our
strategic reviews.
The Secretary's efficiency initiatives are aimed at seeking
the same effect in our organizations. These initiatives are not
a cut, but rather a shift of resources from overhead to the
warfighter, increasing the tooth-to-tail ratio.
Regarding the disestablishment of Joint Forces Command,
JFCOM has helped to accomplish the primary goal for which it
was established, to drive jointness throughout the military. We
must continue along the positive vectors regarding joint
activities as directed in the Goldwater-Nichols legislation. We
must also improve initiatives to strengthen efforts in the
interagency and combined arenas. It is our goal to reduce
unintended redundancies and layering, to more clearly align
operational responsibilities with service, train, and equip
functions in order to reduce inefficiencies as forces are
presented to combatant commands. At all the COCOMs [combatant
commands] we must consolidate functions where appropriate, and
where functions are retained, move toward a construct of
combined joint interagency task force organizations and
centers. The combined interagency aspects are a critical
component in establishing baseline capacity and surge
expectations of the force. As the cyber domain continues to
grow in importance, the Department will look to ensure lines of
authority and responsibility are clear and adaptable. We intend
to focus cyber operations in Cyber Command. We will align
policy and oversight activities in a strengthened DOD Chief
Information Officer.
Finally, we must align cyber requirements and cyber
acquisition to maximize support to the operational activities.
Given the expanding role and criticality of information and the
networks that hold and transmit that information, we need to
manage DOD systems in the cyber domain as we do any other
operational system. To ensure our success, IT [information
technology] systems must have the proper architecture and
capability to ensure adaptability and innovation.
Further, our architecture should enable collaboration
throughout the joint interagency coalition and commercial
partnerships that we engage in. The free flow of information
among these players is integral to our strategies. The
Department's information systems must extend to the tactical
edge and must work when others do not.
I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of General Cartwright can be found
in the Appendix on page 76.]
The Chairman. General, thank you very much. I have spent a
great deal of time and effort over a period of years pursuing
jointness. I was in on the ground floor in 1982, an effort that
was begun by Richard White of Texas. I introduced legislation
in 1983. My first bill abolished the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
That is when I found that none of them had a sense of humor.
But the House passed, on three different occasions, legislation
to create jointness, and in 1986, with a new chairman in the
Senate, Barry Goldwater, and the able assistance and leadership
of Bill Nichols of our committee, a bill was passed into law
called Goldwater-Nichols, which created, in fact, jointness.
Now, it took some time for the joint culture to come about,
but it did. The services saluted and did well, and I to this
day wish to compliment all those, present and past, who helped
create the jointness based upon the law that we passed known as
Goldwater-Nichols.
So that leads me to my first question, Secretary Lynn, if I
may. The Joint Forces Command is a subject of elimination. If
that comes to pass, who within the Department will have as its
central mission the job to advocate and develop and disseminate
joint operating concepts, doctrine, and training? Would we be
throwing away all of the efforts that began with Goldwater-
Nichols should that happen? I am very concerned about where
that will go, how much thought has gone into that, and will our
military be better off as a result?
But answer the first question, Secretary Lynn. Who assumes
that duty?
Secretary Lynn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We, too, recognize
the importance of jointness in our training, in our doctrine,
and in our operations, and appreciate the role you played in
the 1980s, and Goldwater-Nichols, and the subsequent events.
And as you indicated, those efforts have been successful in
changing the whole culture of the Department. The COCOMs
operate very differently than they did during the first Gulf
War, when jointness was not adequate. The services operate very
differently than they did in the 1970s and the 1980s in the
actions that led to the Goldwater-Nichols legislation. We do
think that since the Department is in a different place that it
is possible to eliminate the Joint Forces Command, to eliminate
this four-star, billion-dollar headquarters, but retain the
culture of jointness.
You ask where the leadership will come from. The leadership
will come from the Joint Staff, the leadership will now come
from the services and the COCOMs themselves because of the
efforts of Goldwater-Nichols, because of the work of the Joint
Forces Command. The joint doctrine, training, and operations
will continue to be a strong part of the Department.
The Chairman. Where does it go again?
Secretary Lynn. As I said, the leadership, in terms of
training and doctrine, much of it will come from the Joint
Chiefs and the Joint Staff. But the place that we are in is
fundamentally different than the one that we were in the 1970s
and 1980s and into the 1990s. We have a much stronger joint
culture inside the military departments and the military
services themselves, and the combatant commands inherently
operate jointly and have a joint ethos as part of how they
operate.
The Chairman. All right. Our committee has asked for a
range of information on how the Department reached the decision
to disestablish the Joint Forces Command. Thus far we have not
received the information. Mr. Secretary, when will the
information be forthcoming?
Secretary Lynn. Mr. Chairman, we have provided I think
briefings to the staff, we have provided an extensive----
The Chairman. No, no, I am not talking about briefings, I
am not talking about information, sheets of paper.
Secretary Lynn. Pieces of paper. We have provided, I think,
an extensive legal opinion on the relevance of the BRAC [base
realignment and closure] legislation, we have provided the task
force memos, and will continue to answer the committee's
questions and provide the documentation and the material that
the committee needs. As the task force moves into the
implementation phase, there will be much more material
available for the committee.
The Chairman. Have you provided everything for which we
have asked?
Secretary Lynn. I am not sure the committee would agree
with that. We have been trying to be as responsive to the
committee's questions as possible, and we are going to continue
to do so. If there is specific pieces of information that you
think we need, I am happy to follow up--that you need, I am
happy to follow up for the record.
The Chairman. For the record, I would like to receive the
copy of the memorandum for Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff; Director, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation;
Subject: Joint Forces Command Disestablishment Working Group. I
would like to have a copy of that piece of information, please.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 132.]
The Chairman. Mr. McKeon.
Mr. McKeon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I alluded in my
opening statement, it is critical that the Department provide
this committee with as much information as possible about its
plans to improve efficiencies, where cuts will come from, where
reinvestment will occur, and the impact of each of those
changes in terms of current and future operations. This is no
more true than in the case of the proposed closure of U.S.
Joint Forces Command. The standup or closure of a combatant
command deserves close scrutiny. It represents a major
organizational and functional shift within the Department, and
a significant change for the workforce.
To that end, on August 10th, during a briefing to HASC
staff and Members' staff by Secretary Hale and other senior
leaders, several documents were requested regarding the closure
of JFCOM [Joint Forces Command]. By the end of the month, no
such information had been provided.
Now, the chairman just asked about some of that. I want to
be even a little more specific. On August 31st, I, along with
two of my ranking members, Representative Randy Forbes and
Representative Rob Wittman, sent a letter to Secretary Gates
requesting the same information. Nearly a month later, just
yesterday we finally received a reply.
I want to thank Secretary Gates for responding, and to
thank you for any role that you may have played in providing
additional information. However, not only was the response
extremely tardy, but it was incomplete. My colleagues and I
requested the DOD General Counsel's legal counsel about the
applicability of the BRAC law, a copy of the recommendation and
analysis provided by senior staff to the Secretary of Defense
regarding the closure of U.S. JFCOM, any business case analysis
conducted relating to this initiative, finally, terms of
reference provided to the task force charged with implementing
closure of U.S. JFCOM.
Now, we received the General Counsel's legal opinion and
the terms of reference for the task force, but not the senior
staff's analysis, nor any business case analysis.
Secretary Lynn, will the Department immediately provide the
committee with the requested materials?
Secretary Lynn. Mr. McKeon, let me address the business
case issue because it has come up repeatedly. The decision to
disestablish or to recommend disestablishment of the Joint
Forces Command was not based on a business case; it was based
on a military rationale. It was based on a review of the
Unified Command Plan and what the central purposes of the Joint
Forces Command were, the provision of forces, joint training
and doctrine, joint experimentation. After 30 meetings on those
subjects with his senior military leaders and his senior
civilian advisers, the Secretary concluded that those missions
no longer justified a four-star, billion-dollar command, and he
so recommended to the President.
So it was a military rationale that caused the Secretary to
recommend the disestablishment of the Joint Forces Command, not
a business case.
Mr. McKeon. So nothing regarding any business was involved
in the decision?
Secretary Lynn. The Secretary looked at the growth of the
Joint Forces Command. It tripled over the last decade, with no
fundamental change in its mission. So that caused him to look
at that military rationale, and we are now engaged in a review
center by center, function by function as to which centers and
which functions need to be retained and where they would be
retained. In that review, the results of which we will provide
to the committee of course, we are looking at the business
case----
Mr. McKeon. May I ask when?
Secretary Lynn. As we develop the courses of action and the
recommendations. It will be over the course of the fall.
Mr. McKeon. I think probably one of the problems the
committee, or at least myself as a member of the committee are
having, is the things we have asked for are late in coming or
incomplete in coming, and we can't seem to get an answer as to
when we will get those things that we have asked for. And then
you tell us that you have made decisions, you are moving
forward like we have no say whatsoever or no way to deal with
this. And it leaves us somewhat frustrated. I think you can see
from both the chairman and myself the questions we have. I am
not saying that we are against this. It is just that we haven't
seen the rationale or the total--we don't understand totally
the why and the wherefor. And we still have questions about
that. And when I asked when or if you will immediately give us
this information, what is the response? You started talking
about that it is not a business decision, it was a military
decision. Okay. So you made no business analysis. Is that what
I am understanding?
Secretary Lynn. No. What I am saying is that there was a
military rationale. I tried in my testimony to summarize that
rationale. We will try and provide you--I understand you want
more material on that. We will try and provide that.
Mr. McKeon. I understand that you made----
Secretary Lynn. I am trying to say that on the issues of
the budgets and how much savings there will be, which is I
think what you mean by a business case, that is being developed
now. We think we will be able to save a substantial part of
that billion dollars. We have not developed all of the
recommendations that lead to the savings. We have developed the
rationale that caused the Secretary to recommend
disestablishment. The second phase is then to review which
pieces stay, which pieces go, and what the net result in terms
of savings are. When you are saying business case, I think that
is what you want. I am saying that is underway right now, and
we will provide it to the committee.
Mr. McKeon. Okay. So what you said is you made no business
decision. You think that as time goes on you will look for
savings, and that is probably what we are talking about when we
ask for business information on it.
Secretary Lynn. I am trying, I guess, to understand that is
where you are going.
Mr. McKeon. I am not too articulate.
Secretary Lynn. You are very articulate, I think.
Mr. McKeon. But some of the things we are asking, let me go
back then to--well, eventually I guess we will get something
about the business analysis. But what about the military
rationale document? Could we get that?
Secretary Lynn. Well, we think we have answered that
question in the testimony, in the briefings, in the material we
have provided, in the legal opinion. But I will go back to the
Department and see if there is more material or a fuller
explanation that we can provide if the committee thinks it
requires it.
Mr. McKeon. This committee, Mr. Secretary, is the most
supportive of the military in Congress, the members of this
committee, and we are not trying to be obstructionists. We are
supportive of what you are trying to do. We just need to
understand more fully where you are coming from. There was a
lot of rationale to set up JFCOM, and now you are saying there
is a lot of rationale to eliminate it. The chairman asked who
is going to take over that responsibility of jointness. And you
said, well, we are in a different place now and I guess we
don't need it anymore. We just need to understand that more
completely.
Let me ask another question. I share the Secretary's
concern that the growth in the Department's top line is
insufficient to address the future capabilities required by the
military. One percent real growth in the defense budget over
the next 5 years is a net cut for investment and procurement
accounts. This is not just my view. The independent, bipartisan
QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] panel appointed by Congress
recognized this fact. The co-chairman of that independent
panel, Bill Perry, the Secretary of Defense under President
Clinton, and Steve Hadley, the National Security Adviser under
President George W. Bush, echoed the concerns of many on the
committee. Their report rightly states that our Nation cannot
afford business as usual, and warns of a potential train wreck
coming in the areas of personnel, acquisition, and force
structure. Significantly, the report offers a realistic view of
the global security environment: that maintaining and growing
our alliances will place an increased demand on American hard
power and require an increase in our military's force
structure. With that in mind, I am fully supportive of efforts
to identify unnecessary overhead or low-priority programs if we
can translate that savings into force structure and
modernization accounts. But we cannot be naive.
Secretary Lynn, what specific commitments, if any, have you
or the Secretary received from the administration that they
will not attempt to harvest this savings for non-defense
spending, and that they will oppose any attempt by the Congress
to do so? And secondly, should you be successful in reinvesting
$100 billion over the next 5 years into force structure and
modernization accounts, how much more funding will be required
to see sustained growth of 2 to 3 percent in these accounts?
How do you propose to achieve this growth?
Secretary Lynn. Well, answering the last question first,
Mr. McKeon, the $100 billion number comes from what we think it
takes to get from the 1 percent top line growth to a 2 to 3
percent growth in the accounts that you are focused on, the
force structure and the modernization accounts. That is how
that calculation was done.
We have the support of the administration for the budget
plan that we have presented of 1 percent real growth, and we
have been trying to get the support of Congress. Of course we
haven't heard the final bell on that yet.
I guess I would come back, Mr. McKeon, the challenge here
is that everyone supports our effort in general, supports
reform in general, but has problems with each of the particular
recommendations, such as the Joint Forces Command, to eliminate
redundancy, to take out layering, to take out headquarters. I
understand these are tough decisions, but if we don't make
these tough decisions we will not get that $100 billion.
Mr. McKeon. Well, you haven't given us any savings yet for
JFCOM. You said you haven't done a business analysis yet to
come up with any savings. That was a military decision. So to
count that in the 100 billion is probably not----
Secretary Lynn. Well, fair enough. Before we submit the
budget in fiscal 2012, there will be savings coming from this
initiative.
Mr. McKeon. Okay. We are hoping there will be. We haven't
seen that analysis yet. We are just assuming at this point that
there will be some savings generated.
Secretary Lynn. And it is a fair question to get that
analysis before you judge it.
Mr. McKeon. And that is what we asked for back in the
letter, and that is what we would still like to see.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
The Chairman. As I understand it, you don't know how much
you would save in efficiency by elimination of that command?
Secretary Lynn. We don't have the net number yet. We know
it costs about a billion dollars to operate that command every
year, and we know we are going to eliminate portions of that,
the headquarters and some of the other functions, and that will
save some money. And we will provide that analysis, I think
what Mr. McKeon called the business case analysis, as we
proceed this fall.
The Chairman. As I see it, Mr. Secretary, somebody is going
to have to ride the shotgun on jointness. I think that is a
given. The services could very well resort to stovepipe
activities without that joint doctrine being enforced one way
or the other. That really worries me.
Secretary Lynn. I understand. Let me ask General Cartwright
to comment on that, if I may.
The Chairman. By the way, Goldwater-Nichols almost didn't
include your job, General Cartwright, but we got it.
General Cartwright. I am sincerely appreciative.
Congressman, you know, as we looked at this activity, I
tend to be much aligned, and we have had many conversations
over the years about jointness and the incentives that drive us
to joint, and we were clearly in need of getting more
horsepower behind building in jointness to our force when we
moved to the construct of Joint Forces Command. That was clear,
and it was clear particularly in the areas of essential
training, the essential task lists that we work with, which we
call military essential task lists. These are the things that
the units use to train their people and certify their people in
their functionality. But they were doing it to service METLs
[military essential task lists] rather than to joint.
So one of the first tasks that we had to have when we stood
up Joint Forces Command is we had to have sufficient horsepower
in the command, authority aligned and able to say this is what
we want you to do. And to develop those joint operating
concepts, which we worked so hard on for the latter part of the
1990s, along with the essential task lists necessary to certify
a unit joint.
About 3 years ago, we started to transition the
responsibility to certify those units to the services, because
those training activities, the essential task lists had been
developed, and the concepts, and the services were in fact
demonstrating both through their infrastructure, the training
ranges, the capabilities, that they could in fact do this and
would do this and saw the value in it. That was the heart of
why we needed Joint Forces Command, why we needed that four-
star to actually be there to drive this.
I am not saying joint and the journey to joint is done, but
the hard work that we put into building those training
regimens, building those training ranges, building the
distributed modeling and simulation that bring these forces
together and allow us to do our work has by and large been
accomplished. The question is how do we sustain it? And I agree
with you, who is responsible? Who gets up every morning worried
about is this force going to stay joint?
We are working our way through several courses of action
that are associated with that. It is going to have to be
somebody. Somebody has to be accountable for that activity. We
are working on that. We have several options that we are going
to develop, and we will provide the committee with the results
and with those choices and with the analysis that we perform.
But at the end of the day, I am where you are: somebody has to
get up every morning believing they are in charge of this.
The Chairman. That is an excellent answer. However, there
should have been an answer in place before announcing to
disband this particular command, don't you think, General? You
announce you are going to get rid of it and then we will find a
replacement. Come on.
General Cartwright. Mr. Chairman, we understand and we
believe that when we looked at it as the Joint Chiefs and made
our recommendation to the Secretary that we could in fact draw
down from a four-star command to some other organizational
construct. However, in the development of what we are doing, in
the business case and all of the other elements of this
activity, when we look at the full range of courses of action,
status quo is an option. It is an option that we will fully
investigate as to whether or not it is the option or it is not.
But we are also looking at a full range from status quo to
breaking down into agencies, other commands, assumption by
other commands, divestiture completely. That full range is
going to be considered as we develop this case and present our
options to the Secretary. I do not feel because the Secretary
set an objective of eliminating Joint Forces Command that that
option is removed from us in consideration.
Now, quite frankly, we believe that we will be able to in
fact reduce below a four-star command this activity, but it is
still on the table.
The Chairman. Well, I thank you for that. I hope you will
keep in mind that the services by nature will go back to the
stovepipe doctrines of the past, and there needs to be a joint
activity to make this a continued success of jointness.
Mr. Ortiz.
Mr. Ortiz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, General Cartwright, I
know that you have huge responsibilities and serious
obligations, but, as I said before, in the same boat, so do we.
You know--and I think that the Joint Forces Command--
correct me if I am wrong--came about because of the lessons
learned during the first Persian Gulf. And the reason that at
least this Member is a little leery is that we established a
base in Ingleside, Texas, because of the lessons learned during
the Persian Gulf, which was mine warfare. That base has since
been closed, has been moved someplace else at a huge cost
because where they moved did not have the infrastructure. This
is why sometimes we are leery as to what is going on, all these
studies. And, you know, when we want to buy something and we
know that we need it, the longer that we wait, the more that it
is going to cost.
But, you know, Secretary Gates has stated that there will
be a 10 percent reduction in service contracts for each of the
next 3 years. And my question is, 10 percent of what? What
exactly--is everything being considered for the cuts?
Historically, since I have been here, civilian personnel
freezes have led to increased contracting out by huge numbers.
What mechanism is being put into place to ensure that
contractors will not simply be substituted for civilians? And I
believe in contracting out when it makes sense, but, in many
instances, it doesn't make sense.
And I would like to hear what your overarching plan is, to
include operational energy as part of your broader review of
efficiencies, and also to hear what steps DOD is taking now to
get cutting-edge technologies to the theater to change the
culture and to reduce our demand for fuel.
I know I have given you three questions, but--anyone that
would like to tackle these questions.
Secretary Lynn. I am going to ask Dr. Carter to address
your operational energy question. There is quite a lot we are
doing, and it is within his office. But before I do that, let
me answer your question on consultants.
I think Secretary Gates had exactly the same perspective
that you had, that often when we freeze civilian personnel, as
has happened in the past, it just causes growth in what we call
service support contracts. And what I mean by that is basically
contracts which provide staff augmentation to government
workers. I am not meaning people who do depot maintenance or do
functional responsibilities related to warfighting. These are
staff augmentees.
And they have grown in the last 10 years by about a factor
of three. Secretary Gates thinks that growth was largely
uncontrolled, in some cases perhaps unintended; at least, it
wasn't centrally directed. The reductions that he is directing,
the 10 percent per year, is intended to rein that back in to
try and get some more sense of balance between government
workers and service support contractors.
We certainly need both. We cannot operate without
contractors. But we do think that we have gotten out of balance
over the last 10 years. And so we are working to restore that
balance as we go forward and as we look to reduce overhead in
the Department.
Let me ask Secretary Carter to address the energy question.
Secretary Carter. Thank you. Very important question. And I
am delighted to say that, finally, our director of operational
energy, Sharon Burke, was confirmed a few months ago. So she is
in the seat now--a very important role.
And I will give you a few examples of the kind of problems
that she is looking at. A few weeks ago, I was at Bagram Air
Base at the fuel depot, where fuel trucks come in, and we
basically buy at the gate. We are paying $4.28 a gallon--not
bad--at the gate of Bagram Air Base for fuel, much of which is
trucked in through Central Asia through mountain passes and so
forth. A great example of a logistics effort to decrease the
cost of operational energy--that is, energy at the operational
end.
Down in the Kandahar area, we are doing installation of
tentage there so you are not air conditioning a tent, which
anybody could realize is an inefficient way to do business.
So we have learned a lot about operational energy, and Ms.
Burke is really pushing that forward.
May I also take the opportunity--Congressman Ortiz, you
talked about getting cutting-edge technology to the theater. If
you read my directive to the acquisition workforce that I
indicated--that I issued a couple weeks ago and indicated I
would put in the record, it says that achieving these
efficiencies described in this memorandum is your second-
highest priority. Your first-highest priority is to support the
ongoing wars. That is my charge to the acquisition workforce.
And you see this in the MRAPs [mine resistant ambush
protected vehicle], in ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance], and everything else we are trying to do, make
sure that people realize it is not just about buying tomorrow's
weapon system that is efficiently and effectively high-end, but
also about supporting conflict that is ongoing.
I just wanted to make that point because I feel very
strongly about it.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Bartlett.
Mr. Bartlett. Thank you very much.
Dr. Parkinson noted that, as the British Navy became
smaller and smaller, the Admiralty, their equivalent of our
Pentagon, grew larger and larger. He also noted that an
organization consumes energy with internal communication. And
the larger the bureaucracy grows, the more of its energies are
consumed with internal communications. And he noted that, at
some point, a different point for different types of
organizations, they become so large that essentially all of
their energies are consumed with internal communication and
nothing gets done outside.
Our Defense Establishment has not escaped these inherent
characteristics of bureaucracies, and so it is very important
that we take a look. And thank you for doing that.
The question is, is the current suggestion of doing away
with the Joint Forces Command--which--problem might be solved
by other means, by the way, that we might need to discuss--is
it possible that this suggested cure might be worse than the
disease?
Because his district is so impacted by this, I would like
to yield the balance of my time to Mr. Randy Forbes.
Mr. Forbes. I thank my friend from Maryland.
And, General Cartwright, I thank you for being here, but I
am not going to ask you any questions for two reasons. The
first one is because we have basically seen what this
Administration does to people in uniform who disagree with
them.
But, secondly, Secretary Lynn wasn't completely forthcoming
when he said that the Department was soliciting ideas from
people about all of these issues, because what wasn't disclosed
is you had put a gag order or a nondisclosure agreement on the
people doing this in the Joint Forces Command, where anybody
that disagrees with you can't even talk to Members of Congress
or couldn't be here today to talk about these issues.
And, Mr. Secretary, I ask you this question this morning:
Who do you serve? Who do you work for?
Secretary Carter. Sir, the President and the American
people, through him.
Mr. Forbes. If that is the case, then you had made the
comment that President Obama and Secretary Gates were
supportive of these reforms. Is it your testimony today that
President Obama has signed off on the reform proposal to shut
down the Joint Forces Command?
Secretary Lynn. No, sir. As we discussed yesterday morning,
the Secretary made that recommendation----
Mr. Forbes. So then you misspoke when you said that the
President and Secretary Gates--this is Secretary Gates's
proposal.
And the second thing I would ask you is this: You said to
the ranking member that it was fair, a fair question, to get
the analysis before you judge it. If that is the case, did the
Secretary get the analysis? And if he got the analysis, why in
the world won't you give it to this committee to look at it?
And let me just go back and say this. Look, this should be
a debate, as my friend from Maryland said, about whether we
should shut down the Joint Forces Command, other efficiencies,
but we can't have that debate because you have just refused to
give us the information.
Some of us may disagree. My friend from South Carolina, my
friend from Texas, my friend from Florida, they all might
disagree and think it should be shut down or not. But we can't
have that debate because you have refused to give us a
scintilla of evidence.
You know, the Pentagon has woven a tapestry of silence that
is deafening to the sounds of liberty itself. The end doesn't
justify the means.
Let's just look at some of the facts. You have had 11 years
of testimony out in the public, of written analysis that we
could look at for joint forces and jointness and the Joint
Forces Command, and you have had 90 days of backroom meetings--
and they have all been backroom. And when you talk about
meetings, it could be just two people talking with each other.
And you talk about these 30 meetings. But you have refused to
give us one bit of the evidence.
And when you come in here, you are blending apples and
oranges. You say there is no business case, yet it was the
Business Board recommendation that we all first heard about
this closure. So the Business Board is making military policy,
not business decisions.
And then on the first briefings that you came in, you said
you didn't know what the cost-savings were. Shouldn't you have
at least looked at those cost-savings before you made the
analysis? We all know from BRAC that sometimes you guys come in
here and tell us all this money we are going to save from
shutting down facilities and it ends up costing us more money
rather than saving money.
And you say it is a philosophical decision, but it is not a
philosophical decision to the folks who are losing their homes
right now in Virginia to the $250 million deal that didn't
close last week because of your decision, to the restaurants
and businesses that are shutting up because you didn't make
that decision.
And my time is out. Mr. Chairman, I will look forward to
asking some more questions when I get my own time.
Secretary Lynn. Mr. Chairman, I need to respond to a couple
of those points.
The Chairman. Go ahead.
Secretary Lynn. First, Mr. Forbes, the recommendation the
Secretary made--and you correctly described it as a
recommendation to the President. He has had extensive
discussions with the President about that recommendation and
all the recommendations he has made. But with regard to the
disestablishment of the Joint Forces Command, the President has
not yet made a decision.
The Secretary's recommendation was not based on the Defense
Business Board. The Defense Business Board is an independent
and parallel activity that came to the same conclusion. But the
Secretary's decision, his recommendation was based on his
consultation primarily with his military advisors. These were
not meetings with one or two people in the room. These were
meetings with the Chairman, with the Vice Chairman, with the
chiefs, with senior civilian advisors, with the commanders,
both incoming and outgoing, of the Joint Forces Command.
With regard to the rationale, this is a two-part exercise.
The rationale to recommend disestablishment was based not on
the economics but on the military rationale. And I won't--I
have gone into that in some detail. I won't repeat it. But I
know you will have another chance for questions, and we can do
that then.
The savings--there is a billion dollars. I am sure we will
save a substantial part of that billion dollars, and that will
be the business case. And we will provide that to the committee
when we have it. We have provided to the committee the military
rationale for the recommendation for closure.
As a bottom-line point, Mr. Forbes, I fully understand this
is a very, very tough decision. It is particularly tough for
the area around Norfolk. We are going to work very hard to work
with those people to help that adjustment.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Lynn, you have not done that. If you are
going to work hard with them, you could have at least taken
their calls from the Governor, you could have at least given
them some information. And you still stonewall us today. But I
will ask my questions in just a couple of minutes.
Secretary Lynn. I met with the Governor, as well as
yourself, yesterday morning and will continue to do that.
The Chairman. Mr. Taylor, please.
Mr. Taylor. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I am going
to yield my time to Mr. Nye and claim his time when it is his
turn.
Mr. Nye. Thank you, Mr. Taylor, for yielding.
Thank you, Chairman, for holding this set of hearings.
Secretary Lynn, you said that this was a military decision,
not a business case decision, and that this is essentially a
military, not a civilian, decision. I disagree. I just want to
say, I agree with my colleague, Congressman Forbes, and with
Senator Webb, who yesterday said, essentially, this, at the
end, boils down to a civilian decision, because it is going to
be made by the President on a recommendation by the Secretary.
But, just talking about the military side of things, I want
to read quickly a quote from the former commander at JFCOM,
Admiral Hal Gehman, who said, ``I disagree with the Secretary
of Defense's message that jointness in military operations has
been achieved and the job is done.'' He goes on to say,
``Gates's decision to close JFCOM is abandoning a decades-long
effort initiated and supported by multiple Secretaries of
Defense and Chairmans of the Joint Chief of Staff to ensure
maximum effectiveness of our Armed Forces.''
Aside from hearing from General Cartwright yesterday
morning at a meeting we had and in testimony today, this is the
only other military expert that we have been able to have
access to to hear his thoughts on the issue. So I think it is
fair, at the very minimum, to say that there is some
disagreement or different points of view on the military side
here.
Now, we understand, at some point, we have to come to a
decision on what to do on this issue. I accept that. But I do
want to say, I strongly share Chairman Skelton and Ranking
Member McKeon's skepticism in the secretive nature of the
discussions that have gone on in the Defense Department on this
issue, particularly on something that has the kind of impact
that potentially disestablishing a four-star command could
have.
And I have to tell you, I get the feeling that the
Department doesn't seem to believe that there is a role for
Congress in this decisionmaking, given the fact that the
recommendation has already been announced.
I will concede the point that you--today I think we are
moving forward, actually--have said you agree that an analysis
needs to be done. And when I say analysis, I am talking about
what disestablishing the command or what any other route that
we might end up taking would cost, how much it would save, what
the specific effects would be on our military, and how we would
ensure to carry out those important functions that even the
Secretary has said he knows JFCOM does. He said there are some
important functions there that need to be carried out.
What I am concerned about is the fact that the Secretary
has made the recommendation before the analysis is done that
even you have said today is an important part of the
decisionmaking process on where to go here.
What I want to ask you is if you will commit to including
us, not just as a committee--but the Virginia delegation and
the Governor has made many requests to sit down with the
Secretary of Defense face to face--if you will make a
commitment to arrange that meeting, to allow us to have the
input in this analysis process that you have described before
implementation would proceed with this proposal.
Secretary Lynn. Thank you, Mr. Nye.
As we discussed yesterday morning directly with the
Governor and yourself and some other members of the delegation,
we will, indeed, ensure that the Governor and elected members
of the Virginia delegation have an opportunity to meet with the
Secretary sometime this fall before final decisions are made on
implementation. And we will solicit your views and open a--make
sure we have a channel that the information that you think
needs to be before the Department before we made that decision
indeed is before the Department.
Mr. Nye. Well, I appreciate you saying that, and I
appreciate your recognition that we should have a role in the
process. I have to say, I am unhappy with the performance of
the Department to date in terms of involving us in that
discussion. I will say, I am happy to note now that you have
offered to include us more rigorously in the analytics before
any decision is implemented, and I thank you for that.
I just want to close by saying--and reminding the other
members of this committee--and I think you have had an
opportunity so far to get a little bit of a flavor of, kind of,
where this committee is on the decisionmaking process here--
reminding the other members of the committee that the proposed
closure of Joint Forces Command represents, based on a number
that we have been given by the Department previously, only one-
quarter of 1 percent of the Secretary's plan to realign $100
billion in defense priorities.
And, as we provide oversight over the Secretary's plan, we
will demand strategic cost-benefit analysis of those decisions.
Because it is our job to provide oversight over the DOD, and it
is also our job to our constituents back home to ensure that a
large DOD brush doesn't sweep away thousands of jobs in our
district without proper justification and without rationale.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
Let me say, Mr. Secretary, that I am deeply concerned that
the years of creating the joint culture and the enforcement
thereof could go down the river and be lost. And, as long as I
am chairman, I am going to do my best to make sure that that
culture stays and that it is enforced.
It has come at too much effort, not just by Congress, but
by so many outstanding leaders who wear the uniform. They made
it happen. And I don't want to see that slip away. And if I
have any message for you, Mr. Secretary, I hope you understand
that.
Secretary Lynn. I do understand it and share the objective,
Mr. Chairman. As we discussed, we are not sure the Joint Forces
Command is the right conduit going forward, but appreciate
there may be differences about that.
The Chairman. Mr. Forbes, your regular time.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I would like to request unanimous approval to
submit to the record a statement by the Governor of Virginia, a
statement by the city of Suffolk, Virginia, and also questions
that we have requested that be asked by the Department.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on pages 144 and 96.]
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Chairman, I also have enormous respect for
you. And one of the things that frightens me about Secretary
Lynn's testimony today is he specifically says he didn't
believe there was any risk of reverting back to the pre-
Goldwater-Nichols Act of jointness. I think there is a huge
risk.
You might not be concerned about all of the cost to the
Commonwealth of Virginia. I don't expect Members here to be
concerned. But we should be concerned about this: The number-
one news story on the day this was announced in the communist
Chinese press was the closure of the Joint Forces Command and
how it was going to help them because their number-one weakness
when they are working with the Russians has always been
jointness.
Secondly, it is coming to a theater near you. If they can
do this process here and not have any kind of openness and not
include anybody, they will do it anywhere across the country.
The third thing is we have just sent a message out to all
of our partners across America: You better be careful when you
deal with the Department of Defense, because don't count on
them being open and having a process. If they just decide they
are going to close something, they will make that decision and
get the analysis later.
And I wanted to go back to what I was talking about, Mr.
Secretary, with this cloud of lack of transparency, that you
guys have pulled down the drapes in the Pentagon. Last year--
and I understand why, because we haven't really, as a
committee, held you accountable to that.
Last year, you issued a gag order that prohibited any of
the individuals at the Department of Defense from even talking
to Members of Congress about the ramifications of some of your
cuts. We had hearings that were cancelled because people
couldn't come here and testify. And what did we do about it?
This committee did nothing.
When you refused--the requirement you had by law to give us
a shipbuilding plan so we would know what you were doing with
building ships, and we asked you in every way we could and you
just refused to do it, what did we do about it? We didn't do
anything.
When you were required by law to give us an aviation plan
and you just refused to do it and we asked you and asked you
and asked you and you just failed, we didn't do anything about
it.
You have had 11 years of testimony, analysis supporting
Joint Forces Command. You make 90 days of backroom meetings,
and you come in here and give us conclusions but no analysis,
what are we going to do about that? Not a scintilla of
evidence.
You wouldn't respond to Members of Congress, both the
Senate and as Republicans and Democrats. My friend, Congressman
Scott, has been right with us on asking this. He has had the
same kind of problems that we have had.
The Governor of Virginia, you met with him yesterday. You
went 7 weeks and wouldn't even return his telephone calls to
just sit down and say, ``What are you doing, and how are you
doing it?''
Yesterday, at the so-called meeting that you had with us,
you wouldn't let the press come in. We asked you to let the
press come in. You took our telephones away, any recording
devices. And there wasn't any classified information or
anything that had executive privileges, but you just don't want
the public to know some of this information.
You have issued a gag order to the personnel in Joint
Forces Command, refusing to let them talk if they have a
counteropinion to yours. And one of the questions I would have
for you today is, will you give us a copy, will you give the
chairman and the ranking member a copy of that order that you
made them sign, that nondisclosure agreement, today?
You know, at some point in time, Mr. Chairman, enough is
enough. We need the analysis, and we need the effects. I think
this is the time.
And, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, we so respect
both of you, but today we will be sending you a letter that is
going to be signed by Democrats and Republicans, and not just
people from Virginia, requesting that we have backed up, we
have drawn a line in the sand, we have said, ``Please give us
this information''; you have refused. We have backed up again
and drawn a line in the sand, and you have just refused. We
have backed up again and drawn a line in the sand, and you have
refused.
And, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, we are going to
request that, if they keep pushing us against this wall, that
this committee issue a subpoena to them, requiring this
information be given to us, because I think it is right for the
American people.
And, Mr. Lynn, I will just close by saying this: You may
work for the President, you might work for the Secretary of
Defense, but you do work for the American people. They are the
ones that pay your bills. They are the ones that send their
sons and daughters to fight our wars. And they have a right to
know this information. And we ought to be able to give them
this analysis and put it on the table, because, as the chairman
said, we can't afford to go back.
And we need, as part of Congress, not to have to come with
our hat in our hand, pleading for you to give us crumbs of
information. We ought to be able to come to you and you give us
the analysis and the information so that we can do the due
diligence--we have to have an oversight function to protect the
greatest military the world has ever known.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of
my time.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
Dr. Snyder.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Secretary, do you want to respond to
anything Mr. Forbes had to say?
Secretary Lynn. Just a couple of things. Thank you, Mr.
Snyder.
One, I think, Mr. Forbes, the one thing we are agreed on, I
do work for the American people. That is what I said in
response to your answer, and I hope you weren't implying that I
said something else.
Just on a couple of the factual points, we have provided
the committee with the shipbuilding plan; we have provided the
committee with an aviation plan. I know you would have--the
committee would have liked it in the first month or 2 of the
administration. We didn't have people confirmed. We provided it
when we built it. There was no plan when you requested it. We
built it over the course of the first year, and we have
provided it now to the committee.
Dr. Snyder. Mr. Chairman, because I always like to hear
what Mr. Critz has to say, I would like to yield the balance of
my time to Mr. Critz.
Mr. Critz. Thank you, Dr. Snyder.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, obviously, I had some questions that I was going
to ask, but, after listening to Mr. Forbes's testimony--you
know, I go back to the briefing that we received that says the
DOD indicates that, though some analysis was done leading up to
the decision to eliminate the command, the detailed plan for
doing so will be developed over the upcoming year.
And it is frustrating, because if we are working together
and good decisions are being made, certainly we are going to
agree on them. But I think I can understand the frustration is
that, if we are not included in any of these decisions but we
are the authorizing committee, it sort of gets a little dicey
as to what do we support, what don't we support, are we working
together for the American people.
But quickly, my question would be, you know, going back to
1993, when President Clinton and Vice President Gore came in,
they reinvented government, and a lot of civilian Pentagon
employees were eliminated over that time, and most of that was
sucked up into contractors. But, during that time, the O&M
[operation and maintenance] budget stayed pretty consistent
with the ECI [employment cost index], with inflation. It has
been those last 10 years, though, that it has been pretty
extensive, how it has grown.
So my question to you is, when you are looking at this
shrinking of the Defense Department, are we shrinking on O&M,
are we shrinking on procurement? What is, sort of, the split on
how that is going to be addressed?
Secretary Lynn. The focus of the Secretary's initiative is
on what he has described as overhead. Now, much of the overhead
is in the O&M account, but not all of it. And so we have asked
the services and all the defense agencies to put forward
proposals to develop $100 billion in overhead cuts and to shift
those resources into the warfighting accounts. That will
probably lead to some restraint in the growth of the O&M
accounts, but how much I couldn't tell you right now.
Mr. Critz. So there is really no general idea that 90
percent of it is coming out of O&M and 10 percent is coming out
of procurement. There is really no idea.
Secretary Lynn. The focus is on overhead. We are going to
evaluate the specific proposals, and then it will fall where it
does in the budget.
Mr. Critz. Okay. So when you are looking forward and you
are looking to cut your budget, where does the Future Combat
System fall in this debate?
Secretary Lynn. Well, the Future Combat System is an Army
modernization system for its fleet of vehicles. The Secretary
restructured that last year, feeling that it was not focused
sufficiently on the lessons that we had learned coming out of
combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly with respect to
IEDs [improvised explosive devices]. And that is now being
restructured.
The lead element of that is a Ground Combat Vehicle, which
will probably be the first element out of the restructured
program. And Mr. Carter could go into more detail on that, if
you would like.
Mr. Critz. Well, I am--we just saw that the future combat--
or the Ground Combat Vehicle, there is going to be a rebidding.
So is that part of the savings that we are looking for going
forward, or what is the plan here?
Secretary Carter. With respect to the Ground Combat
Vehicle, which is one of the elements of what used to be Future
Combat Systems, the RFP [request for proposals] that the Army
issued several months ago we have pulled back because it did
not contain the right acquisition strategy.
I think the intersection of GCV--I am sorry, Ground Combat
Vehicle--and the efficiencies initiative lies in the area that
I described earlier, particularly the affordability-as-a-
requirement idea. So, as we look at the Ground Combat Vehicle,
just like the Navy has done with SSBN(X), as the Army looks at
the Ground Combat Vehicle, we are looking at each element of
the design, all the drivers of the design--internal power, the
number of troops that the vehicle can carry, the hardness of
the vehicle, gunnery, and so forth--and looking at the way in
which each of those requirements drives cost, and making sure
that we are making the right tradeoff--that is, at the point at
which we are getting a diminishing return of military
capability for continuing investment, that we cap the
requirement at that point.
Doing that for each of the design parameters on the vehicle
and thereby getting a well-rounded overall design so that the
vehicle that we put out an RFP [request for proposals] for, for
the technology development phase, which is our next step, is
one that the Army is actually going to be able to afford when
it comes time to buy it. Seven years to first production
vehicle, then a period of production. You can look out at the
Army budget at that time and say, what else are they going to
be doing? They are going to be doing light vehicles, heavy
vehicles, in addition to this armored vehicle. They have other
investments to make. And we want to make sure that we are
building a vehicle that is, in fact, affordable, while also
having the military capability they want.
The savings on that will be--you can think of in two
categories. One is that it may be that the resulting design is
one that allows us to spend less over the next 5 years than we
had originally planned. In which case, that is a savings that
can be part of the $100 billion. But I think, for that
particular project, the body of the savings will be in the out-
years, when it comes time to design a--or to procure a vehicle
that is better designed for affordability than would have been
the case if we had followed the RFP 4 months ago.
Mr. Taylor. [Presiding.] The chair recognizes the gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Conaway, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Conaway. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here this morning.
I am going to talk about something besides Joint Forces
Command. My antenna went up when I heard, I guess on August
9th, that Secretary Gates's scheme was to cut overhead--and
back office those kinds of things--in order to adjust these
numbers, and specifically mentioned the Business Transformation
Agency and NII [networks and information integration], as well,
as being redundant, inefficient, inexplicably worthless, and on
the chopping block for this $100 billion nut.
A couple of questions. Did you come up with $100 billion as
a goal, or did you build a case from the bottom up, saying,
``Here are these things,'' and you just got to the $100
billion?
How does eliminating all of that back office, particularly
BTA [the Business Transformation Agency] and others--have you
look me in the eye with a straight face and tell me you are
just as committed to getting auditable financial management
systems in place and audited financial statements for the
Department of Defense as you were before this happened? Because
it looks like you have taken the team that was on the field to
do that and said they weren't going to get there.
So my question is that--the issue is, one, do you think
telling the American people--the confidence to the taxpayers
you mentioned earlier, Mr. Lynn, is helped or hurt by the
Department of Defense having audited financial statements? In
other words, is the Department better able to look them in the
eye and say, ``Your money is being spent the way we think it is
supposed to be spent''? Or, ``Just trust us''? You know, ``We
don't need audits. We are the single-largest entity on the face
of the Earth, from a spending standpoint, and audits are not
needed. You can just trust us that we will spend this money.''
So how do you defend the law that none of you will be here
when it happens, that it is, you know, 2017, that is required
for the Department of Defense to be audited--none of you guys
will be here, and so we won't be able to hold your feet to the
fire or have any kind of a penalty for you because you didn't
get there. And so the passive-aggressive, you know, ``Yeah, we
are going to get there; yeah, we are going to get there; but it
is going to be somebody else's job'' is frustrating to me.
And then to have you say, ``Well, we really don't need the
BTA, we don't need a focus on getting the financial statements
audited''--can you help me understand how you are still going
to keep it as a top priority for the Department to get audited
financial statements and, at the same time, not commit
resources to getting that done?
Secretary Lynn. There are a couple of questions embedded
there. Let me--if I could just take the first one, you asked
where the $100 billion came from. We have discussed that with
Mr. McKeon. It was a calculation of, what does it take to get
our warfighting accounts to 2 to 3 percent real growth----
Mr. Conaway. Well, I would ask you to give me that math
because I am not following it. But go ahead.
Secretary Lynn. Okay. I am happy for the record to provide
you how the math----
Mr. Conaway. That is fine.
Secretary Lynn. That is--we can provide you the
calculation, but that is where the $100 billion came from. It
wasn't a totaling of proposals. It was a target based on what
we thought we needed to get warfighting accounts to 2 or 3
percent, which is what history tells you need to continue
upgrades, continue supporting training and personnel.
Mr. Conaway. Okay.
Secretary Lynn. The bulk of your question, though, was on
audited financial statements.
Mr. Conaway. And sustainable systems.
Secretary Lynn. And sustainable--well, that is where I was
going, actually.
Mr. Conaway. Okay.
Secretary Lynn. The most important piece is not an audit,
in my mind. The most important piece is the management
information systems that the audit just provides a test of.
Mr. Conaway. Right.
Secretary Lynn. And we are committed to that. It is, as I
am sure you well understand, given your background, it is
somewhat different than it is in the private sector. The goal
here is not providing information to investors. The goal is
ensuring the taxpayers' money is well spent, that the
stewardship is there.
For that reason, we have focused our initial efforts on
upgrading management information systems that have to do with
budgetary resources. That is the--we are trying to focus on the
most important information because, as you indicated, this is a
mammoth job, and so we want to start with the most important
piece. And we are continuing to do that. The Comptroller, who
has the----
Mr. Conaway. Mr. Hale and I have had this conversation. The
focus on the data you use, and you are--it is not getting
there. You are not getting there. So--but go ahead.
Secretary Lynn. Well, that--if we are not getting there, we
probably ought to have a discussion, because that is indeed
what we are trying, and I am sure that is what Mr. Hale told
you. And as you indicated, Mr. Hale has the lead for this. This
is the Comptroller's lead. The Business Transformation Agency
plays a contributory role, in terms of some of the business
systems.
It was the Secretary's conclusion not that it would hinder
audited financial statements, is that the BTA became an added
layer when Congress added the position of Deputy Chief
Management Officer, to which the BTA reports, that there was no
longer a need for a senior official--the DCMO is an Under
Secretary-level official--and a defense agency.
So we are going to fold the responsibilities underneath the
DCMO [Deputy Chief Management Officer] directly, and we think
we are going to get some overhead savings by combining the
senior official with the defense agency. And that was the
conclusion. It was not a rolling back of our commitment to
audited financial statements.
Mr. Taylor. All right. The chair recognizes the gentleman
from New Jersey, Mr. Andrews.
Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for your testimony.
I think what Secretary Gates has to say is
characteristically necessary and correct. And I want to be a
supporter of his in his efforts to bring some rationality to
this exploding budget. So I appreciate the work you are doing
on his behalf, and I appreciate his position.
A little unsolicited advice. As you have heard from Mr.
Nye's concerns, Mr. Forbes's concerns, you will hear from Mr.
Scott, anytime we make some kind of reduction or change in this
budget, it is very difficult to do. You are living that every
day. I think it is especially important to do so in a way that
is procedurally defensible in every respect.
The concern that I would express, having heard from my
colleagues about this, about the Joint Forces Command is, you
know, a decision announced August 9th, given the cycle of when
Congress considers appropriations bills, when it considers
authorization bills, is unfortunate.
I think when you are going to make decisions like this, you
should follow either of two tracks: You should either do it in
the budget presentation so the normal process can work its
course. Or you should call for another BRAC, and, imperfect as
that process is, I think it has gained some credibility.
So the hard decisions that you have ahead of you I think
will become more achievable if you follow some sort of regular
order.
The second thing I want to chime in on is what my friend
from Texas, Mr. Conaway, just said. The legislation he and I
worked on together that the committee unanimously approved, the
floor nearly unanimously approved, which hopefully will be
enacted as part of the authorization bill, does place great
emphasis on these financial audits. And I think that you will
gain credibility with the public and with the Congress when
these audits are done. I think it will permit us to discover
areas where we can, in fact, achieve efficiency without risking
in any way, shape, or form the security of the country.
I wanted to ask you your opinion on the following question.
Any of the three of you would be fine.
The waste--the major weapons systems bill the President
signed in May of 2009 was predicated on the premise that--or,
the GAO [Government Accountability Office] report that we had
overspent by nearly $300 billion, and I think it was 17 major
weapons systems.
What do you think a plausible goal is in terms of reducing
outlays in future major weapons systems? In other words, if we
could unscramble the egg, from the GAO report, in theory it
would have saved about $300 billion. What do you think we will
gain, in terms of avoiding cost overruns, if we properly
implement the WASTE TKO (Weapons Acquisition System Reform
Through Enhancing Technical Knowledge and Oversight) law the
President signed in 2009?
Secretary Lynn. It is hard----
Mr. Taylor. Would the gentleman yield, sir?
Mr. Andrews. Yes.
Mr. Taylor. Just hold up, and you are going to get your
remaining time.
They have just announced a motion to--a vote on a motion to
adjourn. I am going to--it is the chair's intention to continue
the hearing. So those of you who need to go make that vote, do
so, but we are going to continue the hearing.
Thank you very much, Mr. Andrews. We will give you back
that half a minute or so.
Mr. Andrews. Of course, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Lynn. It is hard to set a target other than that
we should bring in the programs on cost and on budget. I don't
know--you hate to set a target that I am going to fail by so
much.
I think, under Dr. Carter's leadership and with the
committee's legislative assistance, I think we have put in
place things that are going to allow us to do that. We are
putting far more contracts under fixed-price incentive terms
rather than cost-plus terms, which give a convergence of the
incentives of both the contractor and the government now to
bring it in at the price that was originally quoted because we
are now sharing the risk if we go over.
Dr. Carter has introduced things that are making schedule a
key performance parameter, because, indeed, it is loss of
schedule that is one of the most common causes for cost
overruns. So we want schedule, not just performance, to be
important.
We are trying to--I am happy, Dr. Carter, if you would like
to expand on those.
We are trying to put in place the things that will bring
that GAO number down. The target is to bring it to no cost
overruns. I understand--I am not naive--that is a very
ambitious goal, but that is the goal.
Mr. Andrews. Dr. Carter, would you like to comment?
Secretary Carter. Just to echo what the Deputy Secretary
said, it is an edifice we build brick by brick. I will give you
a few examples of recent bricks.
The Joint Strike Fighter program, which we had to tell you
last fall was an aircraft that--in 2002 we had told you it
would be $50 million per aircraft in 2002 dollars. And our
current estimate, which was a credible estimate, a so-called
will-cost estimate, was $92 million per aircraft.
And I think Secretary Gates, Deputy Secretary Lynn, and I
look at that number and say, no, we are not going to pay that,
we shouldn't have--let's see what we can do to get that number
down. We are working with the performers of the work to do
that. We are making some progress in that regard.
And just in that regard, as a result of that progress, I
think the services have been able to reallocate from money they
thought they might have to spend on Joint Strike Fighter over
the next 5 years some $580 million, which is a contribution to
that $100 billion.
Another example----
Mr. Andrews. Yes, it is a good start, yeah.
Secretary Carter. Another example: the F/A-18 multiyear, on
a $6 billion contract, now about $5.3 billion because you
allowed us to procure those aircraft on a multiyear basis; $600
million over the FYDP [Future Years Defense Program] that will
not have to be spent and can be reallocated from that.
Essentially, the overhead at the plants that make the F/A-
18 as a consequence of them not being able to plan on a
multiyear basis, that overhead can be plowed into warfighting
accounts--just exactly the principle that Secretary Lynn has
been talking about, and Secretary Gates----
Mr. Taylor. The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Wittman.
Mr. Wittman. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
I want to jump right in, since my time is limited, and talk
about the decisionmaking between the recommendation to close
Joint Forces Command.
First of all, I think there is a tremendous lack of
transparency there. It took us over 7 weeks to get a response
back from the Secretary. Ranking Member Forbes, Ranking Member
McKeon, and myself requested that. And when we got the letter
back, it just restated the initial decision and had in there a
justification as to why this didn't fall under BRAC. And I
noticed using the term ``disestablish'' JFCOM, rather than
``close'' JFCOM. I noted a parsing of terms.
It seems like, to me, that as we look at this process,
first of all, we were told, ``Well, this is an efficiency
effort. We are going to be looking at this to look at where we
can obtain efficiencies.'' But we are told that there was no
efficiency analysis or cost analysis about closing JFCOM; that
is yet to come.
And then we were said, ``Well, really, it wasn't a business
decision. It was really a military decision.'' So when we
asked, ``Well, tell us the strategic analysis behind that,'' we
were told, ``Well, we are in the process of doing that. We have
some operational documents out there that talk about how
jointness is going to be continued, but, strategically, we
haven't figured out who is going to do this job, how it is
going to be done. So none of those details have been put
together.''
And then we said, ``Well, let us understand a little bit,
then, about the process.'' And you said, ``Well, we had over 30
meetings.'' And we said, ``Well, it would be nice to know what
happened in those 30 meetings.'' It is amazing to me how 30
meetings can take place at the Pentagon, there isn't a single
note, there isn't a single proceedings anywhere about those
meetings that you can divulge to us. Boy, I tell you, I would
love to know a little bit more about how those meetings take
place there and how you can have no proceedings there, nothing
that we can get our hands on to understand what goes on there.
So you can understand why we are a little bit frustrated by
the lack of transparency, the lack of understanding about a
decision of this magnitude and, as the chairman so rightfully
pointed out, the effort that went into providing a framework
for jointness and a decision of this magnitude without the
transparency, without this body understanding--and, Secretary
Lynn, you lectured us on the responsibilities of a leader.
I would say that your responsibility as a leader is to
provide that information so that we, as a Congress, can do our
duty and our duty to the people that have elected us to make
sure we understand the decisions, understand the implications
to this Nation of those decisions. So I appreciate that
lecture. I would say that the responsibility cuts both ways and
that the Pentagon also has a responsibility back to the
Congress, to divulge back to us clearly how that decision was
made, what the underlying information is there.
And my question boils down to this. It seems like this
process is wrought with inconsistencies, is wrought with lack
of information being disclosed to us. Even at one point, when a
meeting was had, Christine Fox said that this was a
philosophical decision. So we are going from it is an
efficiency effort; no, it is a military decision; no, it is a
philosophical decision, without any transparency to understand
exactly what is going on.
And my question is this: I want to know historically about
how these decisions are made. Can you tell me other instances
where decisions are made of this magnitude where you do the
analysis afterwards, where you do a post-decision analysis
instead of a pre-decision analysis? Can you tell me when that
focus has been, in the past, on saying we will do the analysis
after we make a decision or after we make a recommendation?
Secretary Lynn. Mr. Wittman, I appreciate the fact that you
and other members of the delegation feel that we should have
gotten you more information, we should have gotten it to you
faster. As I discussed with Congressman Nye, going forward--we
met with the Governor yesterday morning, with yourself and some
of the other Members. We will ensure, as I discussed, that the
Governor and those same Members get the opportunity to meet
directly with the Secretary. We will seek your input----
Mr. Wittman. Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, that is
not the question I asked. The question I asked was, can you
tell me when in the past decisions have been made like this,
with the lack of analysis prior to the decision and without
that being able to be divulged?
Secretary Lynn. I was addressing some of the preamble that
you had before that, but let me jump to your question.
The Secretary made his decision with enormous input from
the military and the civilian advisors that he had. As we have
had discussed, his reasoning here was on: What is the military
purpose for this command, and is it still valid today?
The conclusion he came to, based on the advice he received,
was: No, the purpose had been served in some cases, could be
accomplished by other organizations in other cases, and was
duplicative in cases such as force provisioning, and the Joint
Forces Command wasn't needed in that role.
For those reasons--and he received a lot of input to that
decision from his advisors in the meetings that you correctly
summarized--he made his decision.
As we have discussed with other members of the committee,
once he has made that decision, the question then is, how much
of the billion dollars would be saved? And that is a decision
by what would be retained and what would not. We are not going
to eliminate every component of the Joint Forces Command, nor
are we going to keep every component. We are going to go
through a thorough analysis, which we will share with you, as I
discussed with Congressman Nye, as to what needs to be kept and
what needs to go. At the end of that process, we will have the
complete case that you desire.
Mr. Taylor. The gentlewoman from California is recognized,
Mrs. Davis, 5 minutes.
Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your all being here. This is difficult, very
difficult. And I certainly understand the concerns of my
colleagues.
I wanted to shift for a second in the more personnel-
health-care arena, because we are talking about jointness on
the one hand. And in the House defense authorization, there is
a provision that would create a permissive authority to
establish a unified medical command.
Given that the Center for Naval Analyses predicts that such
a move would save approximately $294 million a year, we
actually were surprised that the Department opposed strongly
that section of the bill. And it is also true, of course, that
there haven't--I don't think any of the politically appointed
positions have been filled within Health Affairs.
So I am just wondering what objection to the unified
medical command you have and that you have encountered. You
know, what is the, I think, considerable pushback to reject the
House proposal that we think would save significant savings?
Secretary Lynn. This is--as the congresswoman knows, this
is a long-running debate over a command versus an agency and
how we treat our health care.
I actually think that we ought to have, as the Secretary
has indicated, a completely open mind. That second track I
indicated was outside input. I think we should consider all
possibilities as we look at overhead savings. Although we have
had questions about it in the past, I would assert to you that
we should take a look. In the new fiscal circumstances we face,
we should look anew at that proposal.
Mrs. Davis. Is there any sense--can you give us any idea
what kind of management structure, in fact, you might be
thinking about that would be quite different from what we have
today?
Secretary Lynn. We don't have--I don't have any proposals
to discuss in terms of changing the military--the medical
management structure for the Department, at this point.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. I think a lot of issues have been raised
about other commands or other installations that might be--you
might be thinking about closing. Is there anything else that
you might share with us of other commands, at this point?
Secretary Lynn. I mean, I think the Secretary has said as
part of his direction to the services that, if they think there
needs to be changes in installations, they should suggest that
in their submissions. But we have not gotten to the point that
we would request a BRAC. That would be just input. So what we
are--we are not to a point of looking at closing bases or
installations, at this point.
Mrs. Davis. Okay. Thank you.
Let me just turn, then, to an important personnel issue
that affects the men and women across our country and,
certainly, across the globe. And recognizing the strides that
have been made in MWR [morale welfare and recreation] and,
certainly, in family support assistance programs and Military
OneSource, as we are looking to efficiencies, what would you
say--how would you articulate the efficiencies in family policy
that are being envisioned right now? And how are these
efficiency studies going to impact our policies as it relates
to the men and women and their families that are serving today?
Secretary Lynn. I think the Secretary would be interested
in any proposals where we could deliver the same services to
our military families in a more efficient way. I do not think
he would look favorably on proposals that would reduce the
support to families, at this point. It is not quite part of the
direct warfighting, but I think the Secretary believes it is
equally important.
And that would not be, I think, the avenue that the
Secretary is looking to go down. He is more interested in the
things, frankly, we have been discussing: delayering,
eliminating headquarters, reducing bureaucracy. I think in
terms of benefits for military families, that is not the
direction he is looking to, in terms of making shifts in
resources.
Mrs. Davis. Uh-huh. I appreciate that because, as you know,
we really are in unchartered territories, as our men and women
return. And I don't think we really have quite got our heads
around what that is going to mean. I appreciate it.
And very, very quickly, I mean, people have raised the
issues of insourcing, outsourcing. And I think one of the
things that I am hearing out in the San Diego community is a
concern from businesses that a number of their positions and
their people, highly qualified people--they use the word
``poaching,'' that the military is essentially, you know,
finding them--it is not that hard to find them--and bringing
them in. And they think that, you know, this could create an
imbalance down the road.
I just want to express that to you, that that is being
heard. And I wonder if you have any comment.
Mr. Taylor. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Coffman.
Secretary Lynn. I guess not.
Mr. Taylor. Oh, 10 seconds.
Secretary Lynn. We do hear reports from the field. We need
to follow up and make sure that all the steps that are taken
are appropriate and that the government isn't doing anything
inappropriate in seeking the goals of getting more expertise
into the government. That is certainly not the objective of the
insourcing program.
Mr. Taylor. The gentleman from Colorado.
Mr. Coffman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright, thank
you so much for your service to our country and your testimony
today.
I certainly respect the comments of Congressman Randy
Forbes from Virginia in terms of the process and that maybe it
wasn't the best process that you used in arriving at your
conclusion.
But I want to say this, as somebody who has served in both
the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps and
served in both the first Gulf war and the Iraq war, and that
the 15 intervening years between 1990 and 2005, between my
service in the first Gulf war and the Iraq war, there has just
been a quantum leap in terms of jointness in our military. And
I think that it is something that today is ingrained in our
military culture. So I think that you are right to evaluate
whether or not we still need the Joint Forces Command in light
of the extraordinary changes and progress that our military has
made.
Let me go to a couple of other issues. First of all, on the
insourcing/outsourcing issue, it seems that Republican
Administrations want to outsource and Democrat Administrations
want to insource. And let me just say that maybe there is a
compromise between the two, and that is effectively managing
contracts. And I am not sure that we are doing that right now.
And I think we need to do a better job, before we make a
decision about insourcing, in effectively managing the
contracts that we have.
And just a couple more quick issues, and then I would love
your response.
I think that one area that we could actually derive a
savings and increase the effectiveness in our military--and it
is not, certainly, a subject of our discussions yet today--is
the fact that I think that our personnel system in terms of
promotion is too rapid. And I think that our members of our
military are not getting enough experience in their respective
time and grades. And I think that we would improve our
warfighting skills and save in the operating budget if we
would, in fact, slow this promotion process down.
And, with that, I would refer to--defer to any of you for
comments.
Secretary Lynn. On the issue of managing service contracts,
we in fact agree with you, and a significant part of Secretary
Carter's initiative earlier this month was improvements in that
regard. Let me ask him to describe those for you.
Secretary Carter. There are a number of those that have to
do with improving our tradecraft, getting a better deal, better
value for the $200 billion we spend on services. But
specifically to the insourcing question raised twice, a couple
points. First, yes, it has gone back and forth from time to
time. I think the important thing to bear in mind is one size
doesn't fit all. Some things it is beneficial to outsource.
Mowing the lawn at the base. Why should the base commander have
to figure out how to get the lawn mowed? There are people who
do that for a living, and it is much more efficient to do that.
When it comes to contracting officers, pricers, systems
engineers and a systems command, you really want to have in the
government people who have those skills. And what lay behind
the Secretary of Defense's insourcing initiative for the
acquisition workforce, which is ongoing and which he has
indicated is not being curtailed because of the efficiencies
initiative, was less to save money, though on average it can be
the case that a government employee fully loaded costs less
than a contractor, the point was to get within our walls and on
our side of the table the talent that we need responsibly to
spend $400 billion in contracting goods and services that we do
every year.
So are we poaching? I mean we do go to the open market and
ask people to come and join the ranks of government. They come
from some other job. I am delighted when they do come. I will
tell you I talk to these people. And what we have on our side
when we recruit is the mission. We don't have money, we don't
pay a lot, our buildings aren't steel and glass, you know, they
are wood and mold, and so forth, but we have the mission, and
that is, particularly for young people--what really gets them
hooked is the idea that they are going to be contributing to
national security.
Mr. Coffman. Let me just interrupt one point. But you also
have a personnel system that rewards mediocrity in the sense
that it takes an act of God to fire somebody, and that
definitely needs to be reformed. Go ahead.
Secretary Carter. I agree with you, and that in fact is
something that Secretary Gates emphasizes all the time, and
another thing that we are trying to address in the course of
the workforce initiative.
Mr. Taylor. The gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney, 5
minutes.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank
the witnesses for their testimony today.
Dr. Carter, in your testimony I think you sort of framed
the fact that just setting aside all these percentage numbers,
increase, decrease, I mean the fact is we still have to deal
with the challenge of the alternative of broken or canceled
programs or ones that work. And I think really that really
should be the outcome that we are all trying to together
achieve. And in the short time that I have been here, seeing
the Presidential helicopter and the Zumwalt destroyer program
just sort of collapse under their own weight, you know, that is
not a rhetorical point that you were making in your testimony.
The program that we have been keeping an eye on over the
last year or so is the SSBN program, which as you point out,
has been endorsed by the QDR, Nuclear Posture Review, and was
included in the 30-year shipbuilding program, but there is no
question that the price tag which the Navy was, you know,
assuming was one that was going to potentially challenge the
surface ships of our Navy. And again, it appears from your
testimony that already just within the last few months, I mean
there has been some progress made in terms of that milestone A
cost reduction.
You know, I guess the question is, you know, that reduction
has nothing to do with the fact that this administration is
still committed to moving forward with SSBN, which I appreciate
if you could address that point, and secondly, that the
capability that has been identified in terms of that program
and our national security need for a sea-based deterrent also
is not being compromised. It is really about trying to, again,
not end up with another Zumwalt program that 10 years, 20 years
down the road, is going to be unsustainable and really affect
our ability to defend ourselves as a Nation. So I was wondering
if you could address that point.
Secretary Carter. I think that is accurate. It is more a
question of how than whether. On the other hand, if you don't
get the how right you can get the whether wrong, if you are
following me. And the helicopter is an example of that. So we
don't want to get ourselves in a situation with SSBN(X) where
we design a submarine that we know we won't be able to afford.
And the Navy has done, I think, an excellent job in the last
several months of going through all the design drivers for
SSBN(X) and looking at where the change in one of the design
features or one of the requirements that drives the design
features can be changed in such a way that the cost of the
submarine is reduced without sacrificing in any way essential
military capabilities. And this kind of disciplined systems
engineering job really does work. They have managed to reduce
the estimated cost of that submarine by 16 percent already. And
it is very plausible that they will get down to the 27 percent,
which is the target. And if you consider that this is a project
that is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the
next 20 years, if you are talking 16 percent, $27 billion in
costs you won't have to pay, that is a significant engineering
achievement. And it will bring the submarine in at a price that
the country will afford. It won't be one of these programs that
collapses of its own weight.
Mr. Courtney. And the timing of that milestone, given the
fact that the design work is really just sort of commencing at
this point, I mean really is consistent with all the
acquisition reform models that this committee endorsed, which
is to not get ourselves into a position of design-build at the
same time and wasting money. And again, I think what you have
described is something that fits well within the schedule that
your budget is embarking on. And as you said, long term that is
going to create some relief for the Defense budget without
sacrificing any of our country's deterrence, which again is
something that is I think--again, has been embraced by this
administration. I mean again, there is no compromise that is
being made as far as this initiative regarding those goals
which were set forth in the NPR [Nuclear Posture Review] and
the QDR.
I just wanted to at least underscore and emphasize that.
Secretary Carter. Absolutely, it is consistent both with
the NPR and QDR, and very much with the intent of the work of
this committee in the area of acquisition reform, particularly
at the beginning of the program lifecycle.
Mr. Courtney. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Taylor. The gentleman from Utah, Mr. Bishop, 5 minutes.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, this is an
important issue, which is why many of us are staying here a
little bit longer. I want to go into another area of weeds, if
I could, for just a moment.
First of all, General Cartwright, thank you for being in
Utah recently. The wife of my Legislative Director thanks you
very much for her purse. And we will just leave that issue
right there.
Mr. Carter, if I can talk to you, though, specifically
about it, I have been appreciative in the past of your
understanding of industrial base issues, especially as we
talked about solid rocket motors, when other agencies outside
of the Department of Defense and the White House were clueless
about the entire issue. I want to address, because I am
concerned, especially when we are talking about a $100 billion
cut when recapitalization is yet to be completed, concerned
about another industrial base, and this one is small turbine
engines. The weapon of choice that we have is basically the
cruise missile, Tomahawk, Tactical Tomahawk air-launched cruise
missile. We have those because the industrial base produces
them at a low cost with a very high-efficiency small turbine
engine. Yet one of the proposals to cut the Tomahawk
procurement and to zero out R&D [research and development] on
the supersonic cruise missile definitely puts that private
sector in danger of maintaining that industrial base and losing
the expertise we have to keep those programs functional.
So the three questions I do have specifically for you, is
the small defense turbofan industrial base something that your
office has specifically identified as a defense industrial base
concern?
Secondly, what can we expect to see from your office or DOD
in the way of specific actions to address an industrial base
concern if it indeed has been identified as such? And finally,
with Russia and India announcing sometime back they are jointly
fielding a supersonic cruise missile, is it wise for this
administration to pull back R&D at this particular time? And is
that, once again, something that was a specific point of
discussion in making your decisions on zeroing out the R&D on
the supersonic cruise missile as well as cutbacks in
procurement of Tomahawk?
Secretary Carter. Thank you, Congressman. I think I can
answer all three of those questions. Certainly to the first
question emphatically, yes, I am aware of the issue that the
end of TACTOM [Tactical Tomahawk] production occasions. We have
specifically identified it as an industrial base issue. And I
should say industrial base issues are, as you noted, very
important. Deputy Secretary Lynn has identified that as an area
of great importance to the Department and expects us to pay
attention to it, and we are. I don't know the actions that will
come out of that review yet.
Mr. Bishop. Secretary Carter, let me in the interests of
time just direct you here. If you could write what the actions
will be, submit it to us later on, that would be fine.
Secretary Carter. Will do.
Mr. Bishop. If, though, you could answer the question on
the Russian and Indian activity, was that a part of the
consideration? Did you discuss that before making this
decision?
Secretary Carter. Yes. Not those specific programs, but the
global situation and the other--and the investments that we
will need to make in stand-off weapons. We know we will need to
make investments in stand-off weapons. They are being
considered as part of the long-range strike family of systems
work that is going on. They may well result in other kinds of
new stand-off weapons programs. And it is for that reason, it
is to protect that option that the industrial base is so
important. So that if we do choose that option again in the
future, we will have the industrial capability to produce the
engines.
Mr. Bishop. Thank you. I appreciate your concern for that
base. Too many people have the naive idea these bases can be
just turned on and off like a spigot.
Congressman Taylor, thank you for allowing me to get that
question, and I yield back.
Mr. Taylor. General, we recently had a classified briefing
on the roller situation in Afghanistan, and the need to deploy
them in a more expedient manner. One of the things that came to
light, and I am trying to stay within the confines of the
classified nature of that, was that the SPARKS II [self-
protection adaptive roller kit system II] roller is made
overseas, and that the date for all of them being delivered is
several months off. One of the things that is delaying the
arrival of all of them is that in the purchase of this we did
not get the technical data package. I would hope that one of
the revisions that your organization is looking into making is
that any time our Nation pays to develop a weapon, that as a
part of that contract that we will own the technical data
package for that product, and that if we feel like a supplier
is taking too long to deliver that product then we, as a
Nation, will have the right to take that technical data package
to another supplier if need be in order to get that program
delivered in a more timely manner.
I don't think as a citizen, any citizen of this country
wants to see a single soldier, sailor, airman, or marine lose
their life or limb needlessly because we are waiting on someone
who has the exclusive rights to that information to take too
long to deliver it.
I would welcome any of the Secretaries' or the General's
thoughts on that, but most of all, I want to hear your
reassurance that going forward that any time we are spending
the Nation's money to develop a product that we are going to
own the technical data package to that product that we paid to
have delivered.
Secretary Carter.
Secretary Carter. If I may, I am very aware of the SPARKS
roller issue. They are being destroyed at a rate larger than we
had anticipated.
Mr. Taylor. And for the sake of the public, the good news
is when the roller is destroyed the vehicle behind it is not.
Secretary Carter. That is exactly right.
Mr. Taylor. But the bad news is then we have to get another
roller to theater in a hurry.
Secretary Carter. That is exactly right. And I agree with
you about technical data package. You and I have discussed that
in the context of the Littoral Combat Ship competition. And I
will just note that in the spirit of amen to what you said,
that in the document that I issued 2 weeks ago, that of the 23
items in that, one is specifically to improve the way that we
acquire technical data packages. We need to learn what our
rights are in that regard and also how to value them so that we
can carry out the transaction, appropriate transaction with
industry. So I agree with you completely.
Mr. Taylor. Okay. With that, the chair recognizes the
gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Nye, 5 minutes.
Mr. Nye. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you yielding
time to me earlier. I just wanted to follow up with a couple of
thoughts and questions.
Secretary Lynn, you heard from a number of members of the
committee today the notion that this process is hard, the
process of finding savings to reallocate within the Defense
Department is a challenging one, but that having the committee
involved and using the regular 2012 budgeting process is
probably the best route to do that.
Now, what I wanted to ask you was, and I know that the
Secretary has said most of the decisionmaking he intends to be
done during that process, and I think you have backed that up
today. I am curious to know if you can give us, shed any light
on why Secretary Gates decided August 9th was the right time to
sort of preannounce a certain segment of those decisionmaking
and not to--noting the fact that we have had some discussion
about the fact that an analysis of Joint Forces Command, for
example, of how this could and would be done and what the
options would end up being has yet to be done, why August 9th?
Why not wait and just do this as part of the regular process?
Secretary Lynn. I think Secretary Gates felt a strong need
to jump-start the process to establish that this was going to
be an aggressive process, that this was going to be a process
that he was going to be involved in personally, and that he
wanted to start by establishing what he has called a culture of
savings. And in particular, he focused on the areas of
headquarters, of staffing, general officers, senior executives,
redundancy, extra layers. And he wanted to take steps that were
really more management steps that he could take immediately to
try and establish the path ahead so that as we go forward with
the budget the rest of the building would follow on and be
equally aggressive.
Mr. Nye. Okay. Well, again, I just want to encourage you in
the strongest possible terms to do this process within the
regular established order. I think you will find that your
ability to work with the Congress on it will be greatly
enhanced if we have an opportunity to be part of that process.
I want to say and again recognize that you have said today you
intend to include us in that analysis process before any
decisions are implemented. Thank you for that.
I also want to know that General Cartwright has said today
that during that analysis at this point all options are still
on the table, and essentially the status quo is one possible
option for the outcome of that analysis. One possible option.
We may reach another conclusion. But that is still on the table
as a possible outcome. And I appreciate the fact that we will
be allowed to be involved in the analysis and the process going
forward.
But one last thing I want to make in terms of comments, and
I want to follow up on something that Mr. Wittman asked about,
he asked you have you or can you give us an example of when a
decision was made without an analysis, which we agree needs to
be done, you know, sort of the cart before the horse idea? I
can tell you I can think of one. And that has to do with the
recommendation to build a fifth U.S. carrier homeport in
Mayport without the analysis done to support that decision.
Now, I say this just to say, and for the record, given the
fact that we are going through a difficult decisionmaking
process of how to save money, cut down on overhead and
reallocate it within the Defense Department, I will be very
surprised and dismayed if during this 2012 budget process that
we have coming up the Defense Department again, having stated
that we have got to find savings in overhead, especially things
that are redundant and duplicative, asks for money to build a
billion-dollar port facility in Mayport that is by its very
nature duplicative and redundant.
I don't need an answer from you. I just wanted to state
that for the record. Again, this is a tough process. I
recognize that you all have very difficult work to do here, and
so do we, and I appreciate the fact that you have recognized
that today. To be honest with you, I think that recognition was
late in coming, but I am happy to note that you have agreed
that we should be part of that process going forward. I look
forward to working with you in taking a very good business
case, if you want to use that word, military look, but an
analysis of the best decisionmaking that we can make going
forward on the contractor issue, on Joint Forces Command, and
all the other efficiency questions that we have to solve
together. Again, I thank you for being here.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. McKeon. Will the gentleman yield? You have a few
seconds left.
Mr. Nye. Yes, I do.
Mr. Taylor. Eighteen to be exact.
Mr. McKeon. I just want to clarify what the gentleman has
indicated in his statement and in his earlier statement, to
reiterate or to confirm. What I hear him saying is that you
have committed to involve the Congress in the decision to
disband or to eliminate JFCOM. Or are you agreeing that you
have already made the decision, you will make the decision, the
Secretary will make the decision, the President will make the
decision, and then you will include us in how you carry out
that decision?
Secretary Lynn. The Secretary has made his recommendation
to the President on disestablishing Joint Forces Command. The
President has not yet made his decision. And I have committed
here with Congressman Nye and others that as we move forward on
the implementation of that decision, should the President
affirm it, we will work with the committee and the Congress in
making those implementation decisions.
Mr. McKeon. Okay. It just sounds like I hear you saying
maybe he misunderstood or maybe he thought that you were going
to involve the Congress in the decisionmaking. But rather that
is already done and it is just now the implementation.
Secretary Lynn. I think I would end up saying again what I
just said.
Mr. McKeon. All right. And I want to make sure that you
like that answer. Thank you.
Mr. Taylor. For the benefit of the committee, they have
just called a vote on the adjournment resolution. So it is the
chair's intention to keep this going for another 10 minutes.
That will be followed by two 5-minute votes. That will make the
hearing approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes.
So having said that, in the 10 minutes that remain, the
chair intends to recognize Mr. Wilson of South Carolina.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being
here today. Secretary Lynn, I share the concerns of Congressman
Forbes. Thus far, your testimony is that the Joint Forces
Command decision was made as a result of several ad hoc
discussions among senior DOD officials. I know these officials
have reviewed some documents that outline their military
rationale for the decision. Knowing that there has been
documentation considered, I request those documents, print and
electronic, used as a basis for the military decisions to be
provided to the committee.
Additionally, my question is to Secretary Carter. The
National Guard and Reserve forces have been instrumental in the
global war on terrorism, and I know firsthand of how successful
and capable our Guard and Reserve are. I served in both for 31
years, and I have four sons currently serving in the military,
three in the National Guard. However, Guard and Reserves still
faces shortages of proper equipment for training and for use in
theater.
How are the proposed acquisition reforms going to affect
the Guard and Reserve?
Secretary Carter. The piece of the efficiency initiative
that I was describing will affect the procurement of equipment
irrespective of the ultimate customer, but I think the burden
of your question about equipage of the Guard and Reserve in the
future would be better answered by General Cartwright than by
me.
Mr. Wilson. General. Thank you.
General Cartwright. As we work through these efficiency
activities, the intent is to get to a better ratio of what we
are calling tooth to tail, but to get those forces that are
standing in order to go support either the global war on
terrorism or any other activities that may be identified either
on the Federal side or on the State side. The question is can
we afford, through these efficiencies, to get sufficient
equipment to outfit everybody with the best capabilities that
we have? Or are we going do that in some other way? In other
words, are there going to be shortages that we are going to
have to manage? And if so, how we manage them? The idea here is
to generate the resources so that we don't have those
shortages.
Mr. Wilson. Great. And you personally, I want to thank the
Marine Corps. I represent Parris Island, Marine Corps Air
Station, Beaufort Naval Hospital. I am very proud of the
Marines.
At this time, I yield the balance of my time to Congressman
Forbes of Virginia.
Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Wilson. Mr. Secretary, would you
agree to provide to the chairman and the ranking member a copy
of the nondisclosure agreement that you have required people at
Joint Forces Command to sign?
Secretary Lynn. I am not directly familiar with those
nondisclosure agreements.
Mr. Forbes. If there is one, would you----
Secretary Lynn. But I will explore whether there is one,
and I will report my findings to the chairman and ranking
member.
Mr. Forbes. And if there is one, will you give them a copy?
Secretary Lynn. Yes.
[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix
on page 85.]
Mr. Forbes. Can you tell us, is it your testimony today
that you provided to this committee all of the written analysis
that was given to the Secretary of Defense to make his decision
to close the Joint Forces Command?
Secretary Lynn. We have provided the committee----
Mr. Forbes. Just need to know yes or no, all the written
information. If you have, yes. If you haven't, no.
Secretary Lynn. We have provided the committee the
analysis, the rationale----
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Secretary, I don't have much time. I am
just asking have you provided all the written analysis that was
given to the Secretary of Defense to this committee? If you
haven't, it is okay. I just need to know.
Secretary Lynn. I am going to have to--you are going to
have to let me answer. We have provided the committee a body of
material that supports what the Secretary----
Mr. Forbes. That is not my question, Mr. Secretary. In all
due respect, I am asking have you provided this committee with
all of the written analysis that was provided to the Secretary
of Defense to make the decision to close the Joint Forces
Command? Yes or no? It is pretty simple.
Secretary Lynn. We have provided the committee with the
material that supports the decision that the Secretary made.
Mr. Forbes. I am asking if you provided the written
material that was given to the Secretary, all the material that
was given to the Secretary for the Secretary to make his
decision.
Secretary Lynn. I have answered the question.
Mr. Forbes. No, you haven't. You said you provided
analysis, but that could have been back-filled analysis. I am
asking have we gotten all the written documentation that was
provided to the Secretary?
Secretary Lynn. The Secretary has provided you the material
that----
Mr. Forbes. That he thinks we should have?
Secretary Lynn [continuing]. That supports his decision. I
will go back and see if there is more material that we can
provide you.
Mr. Forbes. So what you are saying is you don't know, as
you are sitting there, whether there was more written
information given to him or not?
Secretary Lynn. I am saying that I will explore as to
whether there is more material that we can provide you to try
and help you with this decision.
Mr. Forbes. Do you know if there was any more written
material, Mr. Secretary, as you are sitting there testifying?
Secretary Lynn. I am sorry, I didn't hear you.
Mr. Forbes. I am saying do you know whether there was more
written material given to the Secretary than was provided to
this amendment?
Secretary Lynn. I am saying that we will provide you--we
provided you with a body of materials.
Mr. Forbes. Mr. Secretary, my time is out. You are not
going to answer the question, so I would like to have him
provide us with the information, and I yield back.
Mr. Taylor. The chair thanks the gentleman. The gentlewoman
from Guam, Ms. Bordallo, 5 minutes.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Lynn, it
is good to see you again, Secretary Carter and General
Cartwright. Let me divert slightly from the topic of today's
hearing and bring up concerns about the military buildup in
Guam, and they certainly are issues of cost efficiencies if we
get the buildup done right.
The Record of Decision was signed by Assistant Secretary of
the Navy Jackie Pfannenstiel, and while the ROD [Record of
Decision] delays the final decision on the location of a firing
range, it states a preference to acquire land on the east side
of the island, on a bluff above the Pagat historical and
cultural site. I remain extremely skeptical that such a land
acquisition deal can be struck with the Government of Guam.
So with that in mind, can you outline what steps the
Department is taking in regards to meet Marine Corps training
requirements? Has the Department considered Tinian Island or
some of the DOD land on Guam that could be used?
And again I want to repeat I am skeptical that a deal can
be struck, and I would not feel it prudent for the Department
to spend billions of dollars without a deal secured for the
training range.
So can you please comment, and can I get your commitment to
more seriously explore alternatives for the Marine Corps firing
range?
Secretary Lynn.
Secretary Lynn. Congresswoman Bordallo, thank you for the
question. I appreciate the question. As you know, I recently
visited Guam and saw for myself the plans and the issues that
we face.
The training range is a critical issue. I agree with you.
To have the Marines move to Guam and to maintain the levels of
training that we would expect out of a Marine unit, we do need
to find some resolution of this issue. I think you correctly
described it, Pagat, that location in Pagat is the preferred
location. That was after analyzing government land and some
other options. Tinian is off island, probably appropriate for
some training, but not close enough for the small arms training
we are talking about here. We are much more interested in a
training range on Guam.
We are continuing--I understand the cultural concerns in
the Chamorro site that is there. We are continuing to work
those issues. And we are hoping that we can find a resolution
that allows the Marines to conduct their training on Guam
without compromising the cultural site. And we are going to
continue to work with you on that, and I agree it is a critical
issue for going forward.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and I do want to
get it on record to state that you are seriously looking at
alternatives.
I have another question. General Cartwright, I guess I am
following up on Congressman Wilson's questions. The
recommendations put forth are a good start on some of these to
maximize efficiencies. But as I reviewed the recommendations, I
am perplexed as to why the Department has not tackled personnel
costs. And what further frustrates me is that I don't see
anywhere where the National Guard plays a role in the
solutions. This is a frustration of mine with regards to the
buildup in Guam and now here. The Guard has demonstrated that
it can recruit and retain quality soldiers and airmen at a
significant savings over the active duty personnel.
So can I get a commitment to more adequately review this
potential efficiency?
General Cartwright. I think your reference here is more
frequent use of the Guard in lieu of the active force----
Ms. Bordallo. That is correct.
General Cartwright [continuing]. And ensuring that they are
well equipped as they go forward, and well trained and afforded
the opportunities to be well equipped.
Ms. Bordallo. And there will be savings.
General Cartwright. The Guard in itself would generate
savings. This effort will generate savings to equip the Guard
and continue to keep the Guard trained at the levels that we
have become accustomed to, which is substantially higher than
anything we have experienced in the past. So our commitment
here is to generate this savings so that we can plow it back
into that tooth, which we consider the Guard to be. How much we
get here, and then our work with the Congress will determine
the amount of money that is available to do that.
I acknowledge the fact that there are savings that we reap
from utilizing the Guard that we don't necessarily receive
utilizing active forces, but there are trades that we make
there in that area also operationally.
Ms. Bordallo. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Taylor. The chair thanks the gentlewoman. The chair now
recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, for--if you
could keep it very brief, Mr. Scott, we have only 3 minutes
remaining on the vote across the street.
Mr. Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity to get a couple things quickly on the record.
Secretary Lynn, in the QDR there was no recommendation to close
JFCOM. Is that right?
Secretary Lynn. That is correct. It didn't address command
issues.
Mr. Scott. And there was no recommendation to close JFCOM.
And during the last BRAC, JFCOM was mentioned but the decision
was made not to close JFCOM. Is that right?
Secretary Lynn. Yes.
Mr. Scott. And it was mentioned in BRAC, which suggests
that BRAC has jurisdiction, which is an interesting little
thing. In reference to your answer to my colleague from
Virginia, Mr. Forbes, you said you have given information that
supports the decision. That invites the inquiry whether there
are documents that did not support the decision that are
floating around. Are such documents--do such documents exist?
Secretary Lynn. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Scott. No document exists that gave an evaluation that
suggested that maybe it shouldn't be closed? There was no
written debate about this?
Mr. Taylor. Mr. Scott? I hate do this to you, but we are at
the 2-minute mark. Could I ask you to please submit the
remainder of your questions for the record?
Mr. Scott. If I could just get a quick answer to that, and
thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to just
get in a couple of questions.
Mr. Taylor. If you would, the gentleman is going to submit
the remainder of his questions for the record.
Secretary Lynn. Fine.
Mr. Taylor. General Cartwright, Chairman Skelton also has
some questions for you for the record. With that, I do want to
thank all three of you gentlemen for being here.
The meeting stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:37 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
September 29, 2010
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PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
September 29, 2010
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Statement of Chairman Ike Skelton
The Department of Defense's Efficiency Initiative
September 29, 2010
Welcome everyone to the House Armed Services Committee's
hearing on the Department of Defense's Efficiency Initiative.
We have with us three distinguished witnesses: Deputy Secretary
of Defense William J. Lynn, III, the Department's Chief
Management Officer; Dr. Ashton Carter, the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics; and General
James E. Cartwright, USMC, the Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
The topic they are here to discuss is one of the most
important we will consider this year. And it will be
particularly important next year when the committee reviews the
President's budget request for fiscal year 2012. That topic is
the Department's effort to wring billions of dollars of
efficiencies out of its operations.
I want to begin and end this hearing with one clear
overriding message. I think I speak for the overwhelming
majority on this committee, regardless of party, when I tell
you that I do not support cutting the defense budget at this
time. The national security challenges this Nation faces around
the world dictate that we maintain the recent growth in our
ground forces, the Army and the Marine Corps; that we modernize
our Air Force; and that we grow our Navy. To do this, we must
continue to grow the base defense budget for some time to come.
I think I can also speak for the committee in saying that
we all want to eliminate waste within the Department wherever
and whenever we find it. I commend the Secretary of Defense and
his able support team, well represented here today, for making
hard choices that have too often been avoided in the past. As
you all know, this committee hasn't agreed with every decision
made, nor should we, but we do respect the leadership being
demonstrated at the Department of Defense.
The Department's efficiency initiative is the most
comprehensive effort of its kind in almost 20 years. Across the
board, this committee stands ready to hear the Department's
case. In the area of acquisition reform, we believe the
Department's initiatives are very much aligned with policies
the committee has advocated for years and which were recently
clearly expressed in the report of our Panel on Defense
Acquisition Reform. In other areas, we look forward to better
understanding what the Department is proposing and what savings
will be achieved. When it comes to jointness, insourcing, and
information technology, this committee has longstanding
interests and concerns that may not align as clearly with the
Department's proposals.
As long as I have served in Congress, the system has worked
one way: the Administration proposes, and the Congress
disposes. This year and next will be no different. So
gentlemen, your task today is to persuade us that this
initiative is not part of an agenda to cut the defense budget,
and that it is consistent with this committee's longstanding
priorities in a number of critical areas.
Statement of Ranking Member Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon
The Department of Defense's Efficiency Initiative
September 29, 2010
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright,
good morning and welcome. We have been looking forward to your
testimony on the Department's efficiencies initiative for some
time. I hope that you will be able to provide members of this
Committee with detailed information regarding the Secretary's
proposed measures and to allay the concerns that many of us
share.
As elected officials, Members of Congress have a
responsibility to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are not wasted
on inefficient, wasteful or redundant programs. I agree with
Secretary Gates that we must scrutinize defense programs to
ensure we are generating the most bang for the buck and that we
must concentrate our limited resources on the highest-priority
programs. Furthermore, I view it as the responsibility of the
Armed Services Committee to exercise the same discipline on an
annual basis, through our defense authorization act, to shift
funds from poorly performing programs to higher national
security priorities and promising technologies for the future,
such as missile defense and means to counter anti-access
threats.
But, as with most things, the devil is in the details.
Unfortunately, although we have requested more information,
both verbally and in writing, the Department has failed to
fully respond. My first concern is where we find $20 billion a
year in cuts--in the midst of two wars--without also cutting
back on required weapons and services needed to meet the
threats of today and tomorrow. Secretary Lynn, you've already
announced that at least a third of the savings will come from
within the force structure and modernization accounts--the same
accounts the Secretary is attempting to grow. We have seen that
setting arbitrary targets for cost savings, as appears to have
happened with insourcing, can frequently not yield the expected
results. How do we avoid those pitfalls here?
Second, I am extremely concerned that no matter what the
intentions of the Secretary may be, the Administration and some
in Congress will not allow the Secretary to keep the savings.
This summer, the White House supported a teacher bailout bill
that was funded in part with defense dollars. Once these
savings from this efficiencies initiative are identified,
what's to stop them from taking this money, too?
We're already seeing impacts of this summer's cuts. For
example, some of those funds were intended to rectify an
overdraft in the Navy's military pay accounts. Once those funds
were taken, the Navy was forced to take the money from aircraft
procurement accounts. What's the result? It's going to take
longer to buy the external fuel tanks our Super Hornets and
Growlers need and to upgrade training simulators. Even worse--
it will cost the taxpayers more money to buy those fuel tanks
because we won't be able to take advantage of a negotiated bulk
buy. So much for efficiency.
Secretary Gates appears to share my concern. In August he
stated, `` . . . my greatest fear is that in economic tough
times that people will see the defense budget as the place to
solve the nation's deficit problems, to find money for other
parts of the government. I think that would be disastrous in
the world environment we see today and what we're likely to see
in the years to come.''
Third, with respect to acquisition reforms, most of these
appear to be consistent with Congressional direction. I would
like to learn more about the Department's plans to set cost
targets for new weapon systems. Congress supports analytical
trade-offs between required capabilities, time to the
warfighter, and cost. However, our requirements must be
determined by the future threat environment, not simply by our
budgets.
The Department will have to convince members of this
committee that these efforts will not weaken our nation's
defense. To that end, we must fully understand the rationale
behind each decision and potential impact of every cut. Case in
point--who within the Department of Defense will be responsible
for ensuring our commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq have the
correct number and mix of military forces, if the Department
eliminates the Joint Forces Command?
Thank you for your willingness to provide this Committee
with the information we require to conduct thorough oversight
and support the Secretary's efforts to grow our investment
accounts.
TESTIMONY OF
William J. Lynn, III
Deputy Secretary of Defense
Before the U.S. House of Representatives
Armed Services Committee
September 29, 2010
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
September 29, 2010
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING
September 29, 2010
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QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SKELTON
Mr. Skelton. Deputy Secretary Lynn, the DOD General Counsel legal
opinion is based on the concept that there will be enough United States
Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) workload reduced that the number of
civilian employees realigned will fall below thresholds for coverage
under the Base Realignment and Closure statute. What JFCOM functions
was the DOD General Counsel's office told were being eliminated in
formulating this legal opinion? If the General Counsel was not provided
with a list of workload reductions, what assumptions or factual
elements were provided in obtaining the legal opinion?
Secretary Lynn. The DOD General Counsel was told that the Secretary
was proposing the disestablishment of JFCOM and was asked to analyze
the extent to which the requirements of Section 2687 of Title 10,
United States Code might apply to that action. No specificity regarding
the functions or number of personnel positions to be eliminated was
provided, just a general statement that the Department anticipated
eliminating a significant number of functions and personnel positions.
The Office of the General Counsel therefore did a location-by-location
analysis, examining the full range of possible actions to accomplish
the disestablishment. The attached paper explains the extent to which
any such action would, or would not, trigger the requirements of
Section 2687. The paper does not assume or depend upon any specifics
regarding what functions or what number of personnel positions would be
eliminated; rather it simply explains the legal effect of the full
range of possibilities.
Mr. Skelton. Deputy Secretary Lynn, by law, the department must
manage its civilian workforce by workload and funding, rather than use
arbitrary constraints. How is the freeze consistent with the law? Why
won't the freeze lead to reductions in civilian employees without any
workload analysis?
Secretary Lynn. 10 U.S.C. Sec. 129 does not prohibit managing our
civilian workforce by any particular accounting convention, such as man
years, end strength, or full time equivalent (FTEs) targets, provided
that those conventions are based on workload or funding. In his
efficiencies roll-out speech on August 9, 2010, Secretary Gates stated
that for the past two years Department leadership has been working on
reforming the way the Pentagon does business. He referenced the fact
that sustaining the current force structure and making needed
investments in modernization will require annual real growth of 2 to 3
percent, which is 1 to 2 percent above current top-line budge
projections. He also referenced the fact that in May 2010, he ``called
on the Pentagon to take a hard, unsparing look at how the department is
staffed, organized, and operated.'' The conclusion from that study was
that the headquarters and support bureaucracies had grown cumbersome
and top-heavy, overreliant on contractors, and accustomed to operating
with little consideration to cost. Further, as he outlined his four-
track approach he made it clear that it will be incorporated in the FY
2012 budget request.
We are now in the midst of a careful evaluation of the roles and
functions of our component organizations that considers the most
effective allocation human capital--government and contract personnel
alike. Our problem is that our entire workforce has grown too large and
we must take steps to control this growth. The Department is not
conducting a civilian hiring freeze. Rather, we are halting the growth
of our workforce and reducing our reliance on service support
contractors through targeted reductions.
Mr. Skelton. Deputy Secretary Lynn, in announcing the efficiency
initiative, the Secretary has focused on examining opportunities to
reform many of the Department's business operations, such as
contracting, acquisition, and human capital. The FY08 NDAA established
the Deputy Secretary of Defense as DOD's Chief Management Officer
(CMO), established a Deputy CMO (DCMO) to assist the CMO, and
designated the service Under Secretaries as CMO for their departments.
What is your role, as the CMO, in the efficiency initiative? What
specific responsibilities have been given to the CMO and how are these
being carried out?
Secretary Lynn. As CMO, I review all recommendations from the
Efficiencies Task Force as part of the Secretary's leadership and
decisionmaking team.
The Secretary's call to cut overhead costs and transfer those
savings to force structure and modernization is effectively
accomplished through the four tracks detailed in his initiative
announcement to include:
1) Finding $100 billion in savings over the next five years that
can be reallocated to priority warfighting and modernization needs.
2) Seeking suggestions from industry, advisory boards and DOD
employees on new ideas to achieve efficiencies.
3) Reviewing how the Department is organized and operated to
identify necessary changes to how we do business.
4) Implementing 23 initiatives on defense acquisition and
contracting, such as reduction of funding for support contractors by 10
percent a year for the next three years.
These tracks are being implemented across the Department. For
example, the Secretary issued guidance to each of the Military
Departments and Defense Agencies with specific savings targets that are
to be met as part of the budget preparation process for the FY 2012
President's budget; conducted the Innovation for New Value, Efficiency
and Savings Tomorrow (INVEST) contest, which solicited cost-cutting
ideas from our workforce; and made the decision to close the Joint
Forces Command (JFCOM), the Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Networks and Information Integration and the Business
Transformation Agency (BTA). Disestablishment plans for those
organizations are under development.
Mr. Skelton. How will the task force being led by the Secretary's
chief of staff interrelate with the CMO, DCMO and military department
CMOs?
Secretary Lynn. The Secretary's Chief of Staff chairs the
Department's Efficiencies Task Force, with support from established
study groups. These groups are tasked with managing the four tracks
detailed by the Secretary in his efficiency initiative announcement. As
CMO, I review all recommendations from the Efficiencies Task Force as
part of the Secretary's leadership and decisionmaking team. The
Secretary's Chief of Staff is working with the DCMO on the closure of
BTA and the INVEST contest.
Mr. Skelton. What is the role of the Deputy CMO and military
department CMOs with respect to the efficiency initiative? What
specific responsibilities have been given to the CMO and how are these
being carried out?
Secretary Lynn. The DCMO is working with the Department's senior
leadership to ensure BTA critical skill sets and functions are
retained, but functional overlaps are eliminated. Second, the DCMO is
administering the Department's INVEST contest. This contest solicited
DOD military and civilian employees' creative ideas to save money,
avoid cost, reduce cycle time, increase agility and use resources more
effectively. The contest ran from August 9, 2010 through September 24,
2010, and 15,890 ideas were submitted. The Department is currently
evaluating these ideas.
Military Department CMOs have broad responsibility for implementing
the Secretary's efficiency initiative within their respective
organizations and achieving the Secretary's goal for each Military
Department in shifting $28.3 billion in overhead costs to force
structure and future modernization.
The Army CMO was designated as the single oversight lead for all
Army efforts in meeting objectives across the four tracks detailed in
the Secretary's announcement. In this role, the Army CMO has:
delineated specific roles and responsibilities of Army leadership for
14 specific efficiency tasks; established guidance to ensure
synchronization and integration of Army-wide initiatives affecting
adjustments to the FY 2012-2016 Program Objectives Memorandum (POM);
and expanded Army initiatives to a longer-term effort incorporating a
holistic review of major Army Enterprise programs, capability portfolio
reviews and processes to garner efficiencies in the out-years (Program
Review 2013-2017). The Army CMO also directed establishment of a
process to identify, assess and implement future DOD and Army
efficiency initiatives that leverages the Army integrated management
processes against specific metrics and efficiency targets.
The Department of the Navy (DON) CMO is tasked with tracking and
coordinating across the Navy, Marine Corps and Secretariat, all
efficiency-related pursuits with the specific goal of
institutionalizing an enterprise-wide culture of efficiency. The DON
CMO is responsible for establishing and chairing a Department of the
Navy Efficiency Implementation and Monitoring Program and leads an
efficiency working group within DON to increase awareness of efficiency
tasks, coordinate specific issues across multiple stakeholders, and by
doing so, avoid duplication of effort. The DON CMO is also leveraging
the Department of the Navy Business Transformation Council to
incorporate the efficiency initiative into the DON's overall business
transformation program.
The Air Force CMO is the lead in working with DOD's Efficiency Task
Force, and is tasked, together with the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff,
with providing final efficiency recommendations to the Secretary of the
Air Force. The Air Force CMO is aggressively working to reduce overhead
and realign savings to warfighting needs; seek proposals from the
entire Air Force; assist in the conduct of front end assessments to
inform the FY 2012 budget request; and to assist in reducing excess
duplication across the entire DOD Enterprise. To meet the Secretary of
the Air Force's direction to find $28.3B in efficiencies across the
Future Years Defense Program, the Air Force CMO and Vice Chief of
Staff, as co-chairs of the Air Force Council, are utilizing the Air
Force Corporate Structure to ensure top-level leadership and focus on
our efforts in improving warfighting capability while shedding non-
value added work and improving efficiency. In this effort, the Air
Force CMO is responsible for ensuring efficiency priorities and
objectives are integrated into Air Force business transformation and
other related strategic plans, as well as Air Force's performance
management processes.
Mr. Skelton. If not the CMO, who in the Department is accountable
for making sure that the initiative is fully implemented?
Secretary Lynn. The Secretary of Defense and the Department's
entire senior leadership team are working together to implement and
assume accountability for this initiative.
Mr. Skelton. Dr. Carter, does the Department have the human
capital, the numbers and the expertise, to truly implement the reforms
in Dr. Carter's September 14 guidance? In particular, does the
Department have the expertise to conduct should cost and will cost
management of programs?
Secretary Carter. The Department has program management, cost and
engineering capabilities within the existing acquisition workforce that
are critical to executing programs and facilitating affordability
decisions. However, the Department recognizes that the size and
composition of this existing workforce must be expanded to be able to
apply these core capabilities to meet the more detailed affordability
analysis needs of all acquisition programs and to more fully enhance
those capabilities in support of Major Defense Acquisition Programs.
The Department is committed to using disciplined program management
practices, revitalizing cost-related capabilities, and reversing a
decade-long decline in the organic workforce. To get best value for
taxpayers, DOD will enhance the cost-estimating and pricing capability
to improve program estimates and ensure we price contracts
appropriately. As reported in our April 2010 report to Congress ``The
Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Strategy FY10,'' to improve
quality, the Department is expanding and improving training programs in
this area. We have created a separate cost-estimating career path
within the Business career field, and now require 7 instead of 4 years
of experience to achieve Level III certification. Currently, the
Department has more than 900 cost-estimating positions in the DOD
acquisition workforce supporting a diverse set of technical and program
activities. The cost analysis capability at the program office level is
supported and guided by existing cost analysis organizations within
each Component acquisition product division and organizations at the
Component headquarters level that provide independent cost analyses to
support Component Acquisition Executive decisions. In the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation
organization provides an additional level of capability to provide
estimates to inform Department-level decisions on acquisition programs
and their affordability.
In terms of Engineering-related capabilities within the acquisition
workforce, the Department currently has 38,000 positions in the
``Systems Planning Research Development Engineering--SPRDE'' technical
workforce. The SPRDE workforce represents the Department's core
capabilities for executing the range of engineering trade-off studies
including life cycle cost modeling in all phases of the acquisition
process. These trade study and modeling activities are critical to
making informed choices that impact system affordability. As part of
the Organization and Capability Assessment efforts mandated by Public
Law 111-23 (Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009), the
Department is currently working with the Military Departments and
Agencies to assess the current capability of the workforce members
providing engineering-related expertise. The Department possesses the
capabilities needed at the present time by using government personnel
with augmentation from systems engineering-focused Federally Funded
Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and contractor personnel. The
transition to an indigenous organization of government technical
personnel is in progress and is anticipated to take several years.
The Department has been working closely with the Military
Departments on several Major Defense Acquisition Programs with good
results from carefully thinking through requirements, business
strategies, cost estimates and engineering trade-offs. As Secretary
Gates has said, ``There is no silver bullet'' for changing how the
Department conducts business, and it will take time to fully implement
these ideas across the Department and inculcate these practices in all
acquisition programs.
Mr. Skelton. Dr. Carter, the acquisition workforce is a critical
element in the management of acquisition--and the IMPROVE Act makes a
number of recommendations related to the acquisition workforce. Under
your efficiency initiative, the acquisition workforce is deemed a
critical area (and exempted from the billet freeze). Beyond just
increasing hiring for acquisition positions, what internal actions is
the Department taking to hire and train individuals for the acquisition
workforce? How will you ensure that the military services don't include
parts of the acquisition workforce in their ``overhead'' reductions
undertaken in track (1)?
Secretary Carter. In addition to improving hiring practices and
increasing the size of the acquisition workforce, the Department is
creating more focused acquisition career paths, strengthening
certification requirements, investing in leadership development,
assessing workforce competencies and implementing strategies to address
identified gaps, increasing acquisition training capacity, and
providing new and improved training at all levels. Components are
actively using the Defense Acquisition Workforce Development Fund for a
full spectrum of quality-enhancing workforce initiatives authorized by
10 U.S.C. 1705.
DOD efforts to strengthen the acquisition workforce in size and
quality are key to successful implementation of our acquisition reform
efforts to improve our buying methods and our buying power. The
President's FY 2011 budget request provides for continuing the
Secretary of Defense initiative to grow the acquisition workforce by
20,000 positions by 2015. Significant progress in hiring and growth
continues and is being closely monitored by the defense acquisition
workforce steering board, which is chaired by Dr. Carter, and is
composed of senior acquisition component and functional leaders.
Mr. Skelton. Dr. Carter, when you state that the Department is
cutting 10% of service support contracts, can you please clarify what
this means? Ten percent of what, and what is the basis for choosing ten
percent? What analysis is the Department using to determine which
service support contracts will be eliminated? How will you know you've
cut the ``right'' contracts?
Secretary Carter. The Department is focused on reducing its growing
reliance on support contractors that perform routine, staff support
functions. These targeted services are a subset of the Department's
Knowledge Based Services portfolio and align within Advisory and
Assistance Services (A&AS).
Examples of targeted support contractors include:
Contractors that come into a headquarters building (e.g.
the Pentagon) each day and have a desk, phone number, and computer
account; and
Contractors that perform duties such as writing memoranda
or preparing routine briefings.
Examples of support contractors not targeted include:
Contractors that orchestrate range control and monitoring
at training ranges;
Contractors that provide highly specialized technical
assistance for weapons systems; and
Contractors that provide IT support or maintain
landscaping.
In accordance with Section 807 of the FY 08 National Defense
Authorization Act, DOD submits an annual inventory of services
contracts to Congress. We admit that this inventory is not sufficiently
exact for the intended purposes of this 10% reduction. In order to
implement these reductions accurately and effectively, the Department
must first establish a more complete accounting of the targeted support
contractors. A DOD-wide survey of these support contracts is in
progress. This survey data will not only assist the Department in
reducing such support by 10% annually during the next three years, it
will provide the necessary data and management tools to better manage
this contractor support into the future.
Mr. Skelton. Dr. Carter, what is the plan going forward for
involving defense industry in the implementation of the reforms spelled
out in Dr. Carter's September 14 guidance?
Secretary Carter. Many of the initiatives in the September 14
Memorandum to Acquisition Professionals emphasize the Department's own
business practices--things that we can do directly to provide better
value to warfighters and taxpayers. We developed that list of
initiatives through intensive internal effort, looking hard at data and
lessons learned from experience, but we also drew extensively on the
best ideas submitted by industry. We expect the Efficiency Initiative
to continue to benefit from communication and cooperation with
industry. We also understand that some of our recommendations will
affect (1) our interactions with industry and (2) industry's business
practices. We specifically want to reward industry for actions that
increase efficiency and provide real value-added initiatives for the
Department.
To make sure industry understands the Initiative's goals and the
detailed implementation steps, the Department's leadership is holding a
series of meetings with CEOs and industry leaders. That process began
immediately after we published the September 14 memorandum. On
September 16, we held a public event for industry at which we explained
the initiative and answered questions, and we committed to meet
individually with defense industry leaders to hear their suggestions
and their concerns. We have carried out that promise. Additionally, my
Principal Deputy, the Service Acquisition Executives, the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Industrial Policy, and other Department
executives have held a similar series of meetings. Our goal is to
maintain an open line of communication that will smooth implementation.
We want to give industry leaders as clear a signal as possible about
our plans, and we want to give companies as much opportunity and
incentive as possible to adapt to the new acquisition environment.
We also hope to work with industry to stimulate new thinking that
will lead to follow-on steps to improve the Department's efficiency
still further. The September 14 memorandum also calls for the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Industrial Policy to involve industry further
in implementing the reforms. Industrial Policy will solicit input from
the industrial base to discover how DOD requirements of questionable
utility and inefficient DOD practices cause industry to adopt practices
that increase non-value-added costs. This input will build on the
earlier set of industry suggestions and will solicit specific,
credible, and convincing data on the non-value-added practices and the
costs that they impose. The Department will then hold a public meeting
at which industry experts can comment on the best of the suggestions,
ensuring that those suggestions are broadly relevant to industry. This
process will lead to follow-on reform proposals as part of the next
phase of Efficiency Initiative implementation.
Mr. Skelton. Dr. Carter, what exactly is the intent of your new
policy on independent research and development?
Secretary Carter. The intent is to reinvigorate industry's
independent research and development (IR&D) and protect the defense
technology base. We are reviewing how we can work with industry to
identify and eliminate impediments to innovation, provide better
feedback to industry partners on their IR&D investments, and better
define the Department's needs to our industry partners. Open
communication between industry and the Department should guide
industry's prioritization of IR&D. Results from initial inquiries
reveal that the communication between industry and DOD on specific IR&D
investments is not as strong as it could be as a result of changes made
during the 1990s to the law governing IR&D processes. I intend to take
action to improve communication between industry and government to
better align the purpose of IR&D to actual practice.
Mr. Skelton. General Cartwright, my understanding is that pursuant
to section 162 of title 10, United States Code, all forces under the
jurisdiction of a military department must be assigned to either a
unified command or a specified command that reports directly to the
Secretary of Defense. Is this also the Department's understanding of
this law? Given that today this requirement has been satisfied by the
fact that all forces in the continental United States are assigned to
United States Joint Forces Command (JFCOM), what options are being
considered to achieve this requirement once JFCOM is disestablished?
Section 162 of title 10, United States Code reads as follows:
Sec. 162. Combatant commands: assigned forces; chain of command
(a) Assignment of forces.
(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), the Secretaries of
the military departments shall assign all forces under their
jurisdiction to unified and specified combatant commands or to
the United States element of the North American Aerospace
Defense Command to perform missions assigned to those commands.
Such assignments shall be made as directed by the Secretary of
Defense, including direction as to the command to which forces
are to be assigned. The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that
such assignments are consistent with the force structure
prescribed by the President for each combatant command.
(2) Except as otherwise directed by the Secretary of
Defense, forces to be assigned by the Secretaries of the
military departments to the combatant commands or to the United
States element of the North American Aerospace Defense Command
under paragraph (1) do not include forces assigned to carry out
functions of the Secretary of a military department listed in
sections 3013(b), 5013(b), and 8013(b) of this title [10 USCS
Sec. Sec. 3013(b), 5013(b), and 8013(b)] or forces assigned to
multinational peacekeeping organizations.
(3) A force assigned to a combatant command or to the
United States element of the North American Aerospace Defense
Command under this section may be transferred from the command
to which it is assigned only--
(A) by authority of the Secretary of Defense; and
(B) under procedures prescribed by the Secretary
and approved by the President.
(4) Except as otherwise directed by the Secretary of
Defense, all forces operating within the geographic area
assigned to a unified combatant command shall be assigned to,
and under the command of, the commander of that command. The
preceding sentence applies to forces assigned to a specified
combatant command only as prescribed by the Secretary of
Defense.
(b) Chain of command. Unless otherwise directed by the President,
the chain of command to a unified or specified combatant command runs--
(1) from the President to the Secretary of Defense; and
(2) from the Secretary of Defense to the commander of the
combatant command.
General Cartwright. Section 162 of title 10, United States Code,
provides that the Secretaries of the military departments shall assign
all forces under their jurisdiction to the combatant commands or to the
U.S. element of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, as
directed by the Secretary of Defense, except for those forces assigned
to carry out the functions of the Secretary of a military department
listed in sections 3013, 5013, and 8013 of title 10 or forces assigned
to multinational peacekeeping organizations. The Department of Defense
is considering how best to effect the reassignment of those forces
currently assigned to United States Joint Forces Command if the
President disestablishes that Command.
Mr. Skelton. General Cartwright, in the past, Congress has found it
necessary to compel the Department to more aggressively pursue
jointness, most notably in the Goldwater-Nichols Act. If United States
Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) is eliminated, who within the Department
will have as their central mission the job to advocate, develop, and
disseminate joint operating concepts, doctrine, and training? Without a
central advocate for jointness, and considering that the CJCS and VCJCS
already have full time jobs, how can the Congress be assured that the
Department won't default to service-centric approaches?
General Cartwright. Since Goldwater-Nichols passed in 1986, the
Department of Defense, including Services and Combatant Commands, has
diligently pursued jointness. The U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) was
established to standardize training, develop doctrine, deliver Joint
capabilities, and improve jointness in operations and warfighting.
JFCOM has been successful in helping define, establish and compel a
Joint culture throughout the U.S. Military.
The Secretary's recommendation that the President approve the
disestablishment of U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) is based on a
review of the missions assigned to JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan
and the determination that these missions can now be accomplished
effectively and more efficiently elsewhere within the Department.
Fundamentally, the principal purpose for the creation of JFCOM in
1999--to force a reluctant service-centric military culture to embrace
joint operations and doctrine--has largely been achieved. Jointness is
a cultural and behavioral principle that is evolutionary and not easily
measured; however, there is little debate that today the United States
military has doctrinally, operationally and culturally embraced
jointness as a matter of practice and necessity. The on-going
assessment of JFCOM's functions will identify those functions which
should be sustained, and will recommend the appropriate level and
location of leadership.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. THORNBERRY
Mr. Thornberry. Deputy Secretary Lynn, in your statement you said,
``The department is seeking ideas, suggestions and proposals regarding
efficiencies from outside normal channels. We have solicited input from
experts, from think tanks, from industry and from the department's
external boards . . . The department is willing to consider any
reasonable suggestion to reduce our overhead.'' Military mail has long
been identified as a non-core function of the Defense Department and is
resource-intensive. A 2005 Defense Business Board (DBB) report strongly
recommended outsourcing military mail. Major identifiable cost factors
for military mail include Second Destination Transportation costs, air
and surface transportation costs, air terminal facilities and personnel
costs, APO/FPO facilities and personnel costs, Official Mail Center
facilities and personnel, and unit mail clerks. Potential savings of
outsourcing military mail are estimated in the hundreds of millions per
year. Have you and/or will you consider outsourcing military mail as a
reasonable suggestion to reduce overhead? If you have not, why not?
Secretary Lynn. Not only has the Department considered outsourcing
mail functions, we have progressively outsourced military mail
services. After the 2005 Defense Business Board (DBB) report and a 2007
OSD directive to outsource mail services, the Military Departments
outsourced positions at APOs/FPOs, mail terminal facilities and
official mail centers that resulted in an estimated annual savings to
DOD of approximately $60 million from FY 2005 to FY 2009. Military and
DOD civilian postal personnel are still required to: perform postal
jobs that are inherently governmental; serve as on-site postmasters at
APOs/FPOs in accordance with United States Postal Service (USPS)
policy; serve as contracting officer technical representatives; provide
postal support for theater-opening contingency operations; provide
direct support for rapid, episodic deployments; and provide support at
forward operating bases and other dangerous, austere locations.
In July 2009, the USPS completed contracts for deregulated,
international commercial air movement of mail resulting in a $34
million transportation savings for DOD during the first year. On
September 29, members of the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Logistics and Materiel Readiness and the Military Postal Service
Agency briefed the DBB on these and other outsourcing and efficiency
efforts made throughout the mail enterprise since their report in 2005.
In accordance with DOD policy, the Department continues to civilianize
and outsource mail functions, streamline the mail transportation
network, and consolidate/align mail facilities to reduce operating
costs and return personnel to warfighting functions.
Mr. Thornberry. Dr. Carter, in your statement you said, ``The
Pentagon awarded $55 billion in contracts that were supposed to be
competitive, but for which only one bid was received, usually from an
incumbent.'' Recently the Air Force issued pre-solicitation notices
seeking input from private industry for technical solutions for a
proposed counterinsurgency, ISR, and light attack aircraft. The
requirements outlined were overly proscriptive in technical details
rather than capability. As a result, an innovative crop-dusting company
in Olney, Texas, which has developed the AT-802U for counterinsurgency,
ISR, and light attack purposed for the U.S. military, was unable to
even bid. It appears that the Department wrote the requirements with an
incumbent and their preferred solution model in mind. How do you plan
to address technical requirements written so narrowly as to exclude
innovative, non-traditional, and relatively unknown entrants to the
defense industrial base? How do you plan to avoid developing
requirements that may inadvertently endorse an incumbent's preferred
solution?
Secretary Carter. Competition is the cornerstone of the acquisition
process and its benefits are well understood. To that end, we make
every effort to avoid overly prescriptive technical specifications that
hamper competition. In accordance with the requirements of the Federal
Acquisition Regulation, contracting activities are to employ market
research before developing requirements documents for an acquisition
and before soliciting offers to determine what sources are available to
meet the agency's requirements. Market research is also used to
identify the capabilities of small businesses and new entrants into the
marketplace. Contracting offices also use draft Request for Proposals
and industry days to obtain industry feedback on the technical
requirements and other aspects of solicitations. All of this is in
support of ensuring maximum competition for our requirements.
The Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology &
Logistics) in his September 14, 2010 memorandum ``Better Buying Power:
Guidance for Obtaining Greater Efficiency and Productivity in Defense
Spending'' underscored the importance of competition and removing
barriers to competition that often result in only one offer.
Mr. Thornberry. General Cartwright, in your statement you said,
``At all the COCOMs, we must consolidate functions where appropriate
and where functions are retained, move toward a construct of combined
joint interagency task force organizations and centers.'' Because
strategic communication is an inherently interagency problem and
because the need for addressing strategic communication considerations
are required both in the development and execution of policy, would you
consider establishing mission-focused Joint or Combined Joint
Interagency Task Forces for strategic communication within the
combatant commands for U.S. missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
elsewhere to be of value? If not, what would you recommend to
organizationally better address the strategic communication issue? What
roadblocks to establishing such organizations do you foresee? Does the
Department have the authority to establish such organizations under
existing authority or is legislative change required to overcome these
roadblocks?
General Cartwright. There is substantial consensus within the
Department that strategic communication (SC) is a process by which we
integrate and coordinate, rather than a collection of capabilities and
activities. The process is an enabling function that guides and informs
our decisions. Conceptualizing SC as a process allows the Department to
focus on ensuring effective coordination among components, and to
identify needed supporting capabilities, rather than designing and
resourcing new structures and organizations. The SC process supports
appropriate coordinating mechanisms at the combatant command level.
But, rather than establishing new structures and organizations, SC
leverages existing interagency organizations and capabilities to
minimize bureaucratic layers and competition for limited resources.
As referenced in the 2009 Report to the President on a National
Framework for Strategic Communication and DOD's Fiscal Year 2009 Report
on Strategic Communication to congressional defense committees, in
response to Section 1055(b) of the Duncan Hunter National Defense
Authorization Act for FY2009, interagency task forces and coordinating
bodies needed to address SC considerations currently exist. The
Combined Joint Interagency Coordination Group (C/JIACG), established at
each geographic combatant command, coordinates with the United States
Government civilian agencies to conduct operational planning. Though
the name of the organization has changed with the addition of coalition
partners, it has worked and is working today in the Afghanistan and
Iraq theaters. The C/JIACG can be leveraged to serve as a resource for
military planners seeking information and input from communication
practitioners in theater or at the national level. Furthermore, the DOD
Global Engagement Strategy Coordination Committee (GESCC) is the
Department's central body for facilitating the SC integrating process.
GESCC representatives participate in the National Security Council's
regular interagency policy committee meetings on SC and global
engagement and also work closely with the Department of State's Global
Strategic Engagement Center. Accordingly, the Department sees no need
to establish new task forces or coordinating bodies as they either
currently exist for the purpose of fulfilling interagency SC
considerations or, as in the case of the C/JIACG, can be leveraged to
support operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GARAMENDI
Mr. Garamendi. Dr. Carter, what is the status of the acquisition
program developing an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detector that
replicates the smelling sense of a canine?
Secretary Carter. This question references DARPA's basic research
program, RealNose. The RealNose goal is to model, design, and develop a
novel sensor inspired by the canine's olfactory system to include: air/
odor intake, a detector layer (which includes olfactory receptors), a
signal transduction methodology, and a signal processing/pattern
recognition methodology for the accurate detection and identification
of known and unknown chemicals and mixtures of chemicals (i.e.
explosives, chemical and biological weapons). The key to the program
concept is simulating the entire mammalian olfactory system (from air
intake to pattern recognition) to demonstrate canine-comparable
specificity, distance and detection thresholds.
The program is currently working in Phase 1A. Performers in Phase 1
developed breadboard device system-level designs but were unable to
demonstrate the ability to detect five individual chemical odors (out
of ten potential) at the canine level of detection for each molecule,
and at a probability of detection greater than or equal to 80 percent.
Stabilization of olfactory receptor proteins for use in a device became
a significant challenge that all three performers were unable to
overcome in Phase 1. Therefore, the goal of Phase 1A is to optimize the
sequence of olfactory receptors to augment stability, allowing for
consistent and reliable detection of odorants at room temperature for
greater than 48 hours. At the end of this phase, the PM will assess
whether the program is ready to proceed to Phase II.
Mr. Garamendi. Dr. Carter, how much has been spent on this
initiative?
Secretary Carter. $22.6 million from FY 2008 to FY 2010.
Mr. Garamendi. Dr. Carter, what cost-benefit analysis has gone into
determining the efficiency of this initiative vice procuring more
canines, personnel, and associated equipment?
Secretary Carter. For IEDs, there is not an applicable cost/benefit
analysis in using canines. Canines are a great detector but only for
TNT/DNT, not for homemade explosives or IEDs utilizing other materials.
Operators must carry multiple detectors to detect explosives and
chemicals. They must also use an alternate lab-based sensor(s) to
identify threats.
Mr. Garamendi. Dr. Carter, is this initiative in-line with your
guidance on gaining efficiencies through the acquisition reform? If
yes, how?
Secretary Carter. As part of the overall DARPA S&T portfolio, all
approved programs are reviewed for efficiency opportunities. RealNose
will assess the level and utility of the contractor support on the
program and the technical direction/approach as part of this review.
Mr. Garamendi. General Cartwright, does the military have adequate
satellite communication capabilities to meet theater requirements
concerning intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance (ISR)?
General Cartwright. We have adequate satellite communication
capabilities to meet current theater ISR requirements. We are procuring
additional capacity and capability to meet the forecast demand. The
Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) Communications constellation recently
deployed its third satellite over western Africa, and we expect the
fourth and fifth WGS spacecraft to be launched before the end of 2012.
This will increase the amount of capacity available to our ISR assets,
as well as other users. At the same time, we are working to ensure that
all of our reconnaissance platforms are properly equipped with
terminals that will allow them to use the new WGS network.
Mr. Garamendi. General Cartwright, do you see an increased
requirement for satellite communications to be used as a capability for
protecting troops on the battlefield? What is being done to ensure this
capability is being developed to meet the dynamic conditions of current
and future overseas contingency operations?
General Cartwright. The need for battlefield communications over
the next ten to fifteen years will continue to increase, and satellites
will remain a mainstay of the capability mix we'll deploy to support
our troops in the field. As contingencies erupt around the globe, we
will need to rapidly surge communications capabilities into a theater,
then be able to reposition that capability rapidly to meet needs that
may emerge in other theaters.
Satellite systems require significant lead time--often as long as a
decade--to design, build, test, and finally launch. Their lengthy build
schedules, coupled with complications arising from the repositioning of
geosynchronous spacecraft, are often incompatible with the need to
surge capabilities in and out of theater. For these reasons, we will
look to commercial SATCOM leasing and a deployable aerial
communications layer to augment the military space communications
backbone. A recommended capability mix is part of the outcome of an
expected Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) the Department plans to conduct
on space communications during fiscal year 2011.
Mr. Garamendi. General Cartwright, I am told there are issues with
the services communicating with each other on the battlefield due to
use of different communications platforms by the Services. What is
being done to bridge this capability gap, garner efficiencies, and
ensure a joint effort?
General Cartwright. The Department has improved the ability for
Joint forces to communicate by investing in common equipment with
interoperable technologies. However, we have not yet achieved wideband
tactical connectivity that enables full implementation of situational
awareness/information sharing at the tactical edge. Additionally, Joint
forces continue to rely on Service-specific communications equipment
and work-around tactics, techniques, and procedures to maintain
communications with other Joint and coalition forces.
Although we are able to communicate, challenges still remain and
greater efficiency can be realized. The Department is addressing these
and other issues through initiatives such as the Combined Enterprise
Regional Information Exchange System (CENTRIXS), the Joint Tactical
Radio System (JTRS) Program, and the Global Information Grid (GIG) 2.0
construct.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FORBES
Mr. Forbes. 1. Is the Department intending to terminate the
Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement with NATO SACT? If so, what
are the implications from a diplomatic perspective and the implications
from a warfighting perspective?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Acquisition and Cross Service Agreement (ACSA) with NATO SACT will
remain intact and be executed under Joint Staff oversight. The
Department currently has no plans to terminate the Acquisition and
Cross-Servicing Agreement with NATO SAC-T.
Mr. Forbes. 2. Who will manage the Foreign Liaison/Exchange Officer
agreements that are in place with 19 nations?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The new
Joint Staff Deputy Director J7, Joint and Coalition Warfighting, will
manage the FLO/Exchange Officer agreements with the 20 countries we
currently have agreements with. The intent is for remaining elements of
former JFCOM training, doctrine, lessons learned, and concept
development entities to maintain those relationships as part of the
Joint Staff.
Mr. Forbes. 3. Does the Department of Defense view the National
Security Strategy as an important document that should, in a broad
sense, drive our nation's national defense structure?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department of Defense views the National Security Strategy as a vital
document that articulates the Commander-in-Chief's national security
priorities and guidance. The National Security Staff and the Department
of Defense worked to ensure close coordination between the National
Security Strategy (NSS) and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
The 2010 QDR report is consistent with President Obama's vision on
defense issues, including: reforming acquisition; taking care of our
military personnel and families; strengthening international
relationships in the face of common challenges; and rebalancing our
forces to succeed in today's conflicts while preparing for the threats
of tomorrow.
Mr. Forbes. 4. What is your plan to ensure that our allies have
access to joint interoperability doctrine without a combatant command
to lead them?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. Part of
the JFCOM Disestablishment Plan includes the creation of a Joint Staff-
led organization focusing on Joint and Coalition Warfighting, located
in Hampton Roads, to ensure doctrine and training interoperability with
allies and coalition partners remain current. A key aspect in
developing this plan has been to ensure the close relationship with
NATO ACT is maintained. As such, General Abrial, Supreme Allied
Commander Transformation (NATO), has been an integral part in the
development of the new ``to be'' organizations and kept informed on our
progress. In this new construct, his staff will interact on a day-to-
day basis with the DDJ7 JCW in Suffolk, VA. Additionally, General
Abrial will now interact with the CJCS and VCJCS on issues involving
ACT/US interests.
Mr. Forbes. 5. Why has the Department abandoned a strategy-based
military construct and instead elected to try and protect our national
interests with a weaker and wholly illogical budget-based military?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department has not abandoned a strategy-based defense construct.
Through the Quadrennial Defense Review and related strategic
initiatives, the Department has undertaken a thorough assessment of
ongoing operations and emerging challenges. As demonstrated in the FY
2010-2012 budgets, the Department is continually improving the balance
of efforts and resources among current conflicts, preparing for future
contingencies, and preserving existing advantages.
Mr. Forbes. 6. Article 5 of the NATO charter states that:
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of
them in Europe ar North America shall be considered an attack
against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an
armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of
individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51
of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or
Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in
concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems
necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. Any such
armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall
immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures
shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the
measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace
and security.
On September 11th, 2001, NATO offered, for the first time,
assistance to the United States. Why is the Department recklessly
abandoning this partnership?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department of Defense is not abandoning the NATO Alliance. The
Department has led the way in creating a 50-nation NATO coalition with
over 40,000 troops from allied and partner countries united in
Afghanistan, so that terrorists who threaten us all have no safe haven
and so that the Afghan people can forge a more hopeful future. At the
2010 NATO Summit in Lisbon, President Obama reaffirmed our Article 5
commitment: that an attack on one is an attack on all. To ensure this
commitment has meaning, the Department of Defense, is leading the
development of a missile defense capability for NATO territory, the
phased adaptive approach, to defend against the growing threat from
ballistic missiles. This new approach to European missile defense will
be the United States's contribution to this effort and a foundation for
greater collaboration that will protect all of our allies in Europe as
well as the United States. We are also leading efforts to improve
NATO's flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness to better prepare it
to counter other new challenges in an uncertain future. For example,
the Department has led efforts to reform NATO structures and processes
to better position the Alliance to handle emerging challenges such as
malicious cyber activities and the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. (This NATO effort is analogous to the Department's plans
to streamline the U.S. military combatant command structure.) Finally,
building on our experience with NATO in Afghanistan, the Department
will continue to support building the NATO partnership beyond the Euro-
Atlantic area that will help make the Alliance a pillar of global
security.
A key aspect in developing this plan has been to ensure the close
relationship with NATO ACT is maintained. As such, General Abrial,
Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (NATO), has been an integral
part in the development of the new ``to be'' organizations and kept
informed on our progress. In this new construct, his staff will
interact on a day-to-day basis with the DDJ7 JCW in Suffolk, VA.
Additionally, General Abrial will now interact with the CJCS and VCJCS
on issues involving ACT/US interests.
Mr. Forbes. 7. Does the Department now find the research conducted
under the Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA) with
IBM, Northrop Grumman and Old Dominion University not worthy of
continuation?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. Like all
parts of JFCOM, the Cooperative Research and Development Agreements are
being reviewed and those judged effective and valuable will be retained
and re-aligned under another appropriate DOD organization.
Mr. Forbes. 8. What is your cost estimate of the termination of the
non-indefinite requirement contracts?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. As of 8
Feb 2011, JFCOM does not anticipate incurring any contract termination
costs.
Mr. Forbes. 9. If you don't have an estimate, how can the
Department in good conscience recommend the closure of a combatant
command authorized under 10 US Code 161 without first determining not
just what the indefinite contract cost may be, but the whole cost?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. See
response to #8 above.
Mr. Forbes. 10. What is your estimate for the closure of the
Suffolk and L'Enfant facilities with regards to termination of the
leases and disposal of the buildings and material?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Suffolk facility lease costs were programmed into the FY12 budget
submission. The L'Enfant lease will expire without renewal in FY11.
FY12 will be a transition year during which most facility moves and
renovations will occur. First order estimate of move/renovation/closure
costs for Hampton Roads is $25M, and for L'Enfant is $50K. These
estimates will be refined during a series of Rehearsals of Concept
during the second and third quarter of FY11. These costs should be
considered in the context of overall savings.
Mr. Forbes. 11. If no estimate exists, how can the Department in
good conscience recommend the closure of a combatant command authorized
under 10 US Code 161 without first determining not just what the
indefinite contract cost may be, but the whole cost?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. See
response to question #10.
Mr. Forbes. 12. Does the Department possess a complete listing of
all applicable Memorandums of Agreement and Understanding to ensure
that we do not inadvertently violate an agreement opening up the
government to some level of liability?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. JFCOM
continues to compile a comprehensive list of applicable instructions
and agreements across all functional areas which must be addressed
during the disestablishment. JFCOM has begun coordination on these
instructions and agreements. JFCOM has not encountered nor does it
expect to encounter any violations or difficulties in resolving.
Mr. Forbes. 13. If there exists no complete list, how can the
Department close a combatant command without full knowledge of the
agreements that may be in place and may expose the Department to
liability if not properly terminated?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. See
response to question #12.
Mr. Forbes. 14. How is the Department planning to deal with the
high number of displaced federal workers? What is the Department
planning to do to properly care for those employees who have relied
upon employment at JFCOM and now, to their detriment, are having their
livelihood taken from them with little or no notice? What is the
Department going to do beyond RIF procedures?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. DOD is
utilizing its portfolio of outplacement transition programs and tools
to mitigate any negative impact on affected employees. The Department
has and will continue to identify employment opportunities within DOD
through our Priority Placement Program and outside of DOD through the
Office of Personnel Management's Interagency Career Transition
Assistance Plan (ICTAP) and Reemployed Priority List (RPL).
Additionally, the Department is working directly with the impacted
organizations to provide transition assistance. This type of assistance
includes resume writing; workshops on transition benefits and
entitlements; referral to job assistance centers; and instructions on
how to apply for other federal jobs outside DOD. The Department may
choose to use workforce shaping tools such as Voluntary Early
Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay
(VSIP) as part of the transition process.
Mr. Forbes. 15. Deputy Secretary William J. Lynn stated that the
Department spent ``considerable time reviewing the input of his
[Secretary Gates] most senior advisors, including the Chairman and Vice
Chairman of the Joint Staff, myself, and others.'' Why has the
Department steadfastly refused to provide this input and analysis that
was developed for and relied upon by the Secretary to make his decision
despite repeated requests by multiple members of the Virginia
Delegation?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department has and continues to provide information to the VA
Delegation. Secretary Gates met with Governor McDonnell and the
Virginia Congressional Delegation in order to provide information and
receive direct input and suggestions before making final decisions on
the implementation plan for the disestablishment of JFCOM.
Additionally, the Department has met with Members of the Virginia
Congressional Delegation, including the Governor of Virginia, and
provided information both in the form of briefings and documents.
Finally, General Odierno, JFCOM Commander, and his senior staff have
been consistently engaged with Governor McDonnell and the Virginia
Congressional Delegation in an effort to effectively communicate JFCOM
disestablishment plans and be responsive to additional requests for
information.
Mr. Forbes. 16. Please provide the actual (not a summary) of the
Department's legal opinion with regards to the applicability of Title
X, 2687 Base Closure and Realignments on the JFCOM closure decision.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. As
previously provided on 24 Sep 2010, attached is the Department's legal
analysis of the applicability of Section 2687 of title 10, United
States Code. (See page 89 in the Appendix.)
Mr. Forbes. 17. Numerous documents and statements from DOD have
indicated that a plan for disestablishment of JFCOM, including a
determination of the functions that should continue to exist, should be
eliminated, or should be moved, is being developed over the next
several weeks. How does DOD justify making a decision to close JFCOM
before first carrying out such an assessment?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. As
discussed in responding to previous questions, the decision to
recommend the disestablishment of JFCOM was based on improving
operational effectiveness. JFCOM today is a redundant layer in our
processes for training joint forces and providing them to the other
combatant commanders to use operationally. A review of the missions
assigned to JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan (UCP) showed that JFCOM
functions could be carried out by other organizations within the
Department. Determining precisely which functions will go where does
not affect the fundamental rationale for the decision. Since the
Secretary's decision, the JFCOM Transition Planning Team has
systematically reviewed all JFCOM functions and identified those
functions that should be retained and transitioned elsewhere in the
Department (in whole or part), and as well as those that could be
eliminated as an efficiency.
Mr. Forbes. 18. What studies on cost savings has DOD conducted
concerning the JFCOM closure and contractor reduction? Please provide
details.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The cost-
savings, which are significant, were identified in the detailed JFCOM
transition planning. Specifically, the original JFCOM resource request
for FY11 included $988M in funding, 1,545 military personnel, 1,612
government civilians, and 2,565 Full-time Equivalent (FTE) contractors.
The transition plan calls for retaining $536M in funding, 1,131
military personnel, 1,487 government civilians, and 580 FTE contractors
for FY 11. These resources will be re-directed to the organizations
gaining the former JFCOM functions selected for reassignment.
The decision to disestablish JFCOM was also based on improving
military effectiveness by making the force generation and force
provider process more streamlined by removing layers that are redundant
or no longer necessary.
Mr. Forbes. 19. What studies on workload impacts has DOD conducted
(e.g., what are impacts on JCS of force provider function shift)?
Provide details.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. JFCOM
will prepare a detailed implementation plan in coordination with the
Joint Staff that addresses workload impacts. The Department plans for
transition of selected personnel, as appropriate, to accompany the
shift of functions from JFCOM to other organizations. Specifically, of
the 5,722 total personnel initially assigned in FY11 to JFCOM, 3,198
will be reassigned to the organizations gaining former JFCOM functions.
The majority of these reassigned personnel (more than 1,600) will be
assigned to the Joint Staff. The remainder of retained personnel will
be assigned across various other joint organizations. Of the 3,891
JFCOM personnel originally assigned to the Hampton Roads area,
approximately 1,900 will remain there after transition is completed.
Mr. Forbes. 20. Has DOD contacted contractors and civilians to
determine their intent to move locations if their functions are moved?
What impact on moving functions, and the servicemembers who receive
JFCOM training and operations support, could result from the loss of
these personnel from the workforce? What process was used to identify
JFCOM for closure and what factors were considered in proposing the
JFCOM closure? Why was it not done within the QDR completed this
spring, or as part of a BRAC realignment?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. No JFCOM
support contractors or civil servants have been contacted to determine
their intent to relocate or not relocate. As the contracts for
relocated functions are modified or new support instruments negotiated,
the contract company will determine how to position their employee
assets to perform the task. JFCOM recently hosted a meeting with
industry representatives to keep them informed of pending changes.
Additionally, JFCOM is coordinating with agencies from the Commonwealth
of Virginia as the Governor's office establishes a Workforce Transition
Center to support JFCOM's disestablishment. There is no major
anticipated impact to operations support if civil servants or
contractors do not desire to relocate.
The Secretary took an unsparing look at the Department to find ways
to increase the Department's effectiveness especially given the
likelihood of increased budgetary pressure. The QDR and BRAC
realignment were not explicitly designed for this purpose. As
referenced in previous answers, the decision to recommend the
disestablishment of JFCOM was indeed based on improving operational
effectiveness. JFCOM today is a redundant layer in our processes for
training joint forces and providing them to the other combatant
commanders to use operationally. A review of the missions assigned to
JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan (UCP) showed that JFCOM functions
could be carried out by other organizations within the Department.
Mr. Forbes. 21. What specific legal authority exists for such
strategic closures outside of BRAC? Jointness and joint
interoperability give the U.S. military a great strategic advantage.
How will such important characteristics of the modern military be met
if JFCOM closes?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. As
specified in Section 113(a) of title 10, United States Code, the
Secretary of Defense `` . . . is the principal assistant to the
President in all matters relating to the Department of Defense. Subject
to the direction of the President and to [title 10, United States Code]
and section 2 of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 401), he
has authority, direction, and control over the Department of Defense.''
In this capacity the Secretary of Defense is responsible for ensuring
that the Department of Defense operates efficiently and effectively in
the performance of its missions. Closures and realignments are often
necessary to achieve efficient and effective operations. The Secretary
of Defense has the authority to close and realign military
installations outside of the BRAC process provided that action does not
trigger the thresholds established in section 2687, or the action is
only undertaken after the Department satisfies the procedures set forth
in that provision.
The Department has identified JFCOM functions that are essential to
ensure Joint and Coalition interoperability is maintained and
sufficient resources are in place to adapt to an evolving threat
environment. Those retained, essential functions will remain but will
align under the Joint Staff, Combatant Commands, or the Military
Departments as appropriate. Some functions may remain in their present
physical location.
Mr. Forbes. 22. The modeling and simulation work done at JFCOM is a
critical low-cost test and evaluation function. How can it be done if
JFCOM closes?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. Like all
parts of JFCOM, the modeling and simulation work has been reviewed and
those elements judged effective and valuable are being retained and re-
aligned under another appropriate DOD organization. In particular,
modeling and simulation capabilities are being retained in two areas:
as part of the support to Joint Training and as part of the Joint
Concept Development and experimentation process. These capabilities
will continue to be housed in the Hampton Roads region but will be re-
aligned under the Joint Staff J7 directorate.
Mr. Forbes. 23. Did OSD review the process and decision made by the
OSD Headquarters and Support Activities Joint Cross Service Group
during the 2005 BRAC process that resulted in the recommendation that
JFCOM continue to exist and should in fact purchase its leased
facilities? How does DOD reconcile the recommendation to close JFCOM
with the 2005 BRAC recommendation?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. These two
decisions addressed different questions. BRAC was focused on facilities
and the efficient use of these; the Secretary's recommendation to
disestablish JFCOM was driven by a review of command organizations and
the desire to improve operational effectiveness of those organizations.
The analysis undertaken by the Headquarters and Support Activities
Joint Cross Service Group during the 2005 BRAC process focused only on
whether existing Headquarters activities were appropriately located and
whether the facilities in which they were located met their mission
requirements. The Headquarters and Support Activities Joint Cross
Service Group did not examine those organizations on a functional basis
to determine if those organizations should continue to exist.
Mr. Forbes. 24. Various personnel at JFCOM have been directed to
sign nondisclosure agreements relating to the review and closure
process. Why does the Department not take a transparent review and
decisionmaking process in this action?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. JFCOM
transition planning personnel initially complied with local information
handling instructions designed to prevent initial pre-decisional and
wide-ranging discussions from giving rise to premature and inaccurate
rumors and misunderstandings.
Mr. Forbes. 25. The Secretary indicated that he authorized the
services to consider additional closures, and Mr. Hale recently
indicated that no ``more'' closures would be announced until at least
February. Is DOD currently considering additional base or function
closures or realignments that would affect Virginia? If so, what are
the metrics and process being used in that review?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. As part
of our ongoing effort to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
the Department, DOD will consider all options in how we perform our
missions. There are currently no firm recommendations regarding any
future disestablishments or realignments.
Mr. Forbes. 26. If the Secretary and the military departments are
considering additional closures and realignments, does DOD believe that
another round of the BRAC process is necessary? Have specific locations
outside of Hampton Roads been identified to host any JFCOM mission that
will remain intact after the proposed disestablishment of JFCOM?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department of Defense is not currently seeking authority to undertake
another round of closures and realignments under the Defense Base
Closure and Realignment Act of 1990, as amended. The Secretary of
Defense has asked the Secretaries of the Military Departments to
examine their organizations for efficiencies. If the Secretaries of the
Military Departments identify any actions that could involve the
closure or realignment of a military installation, those actions will
only be undertaken in accordance with law.
The vast majority of retained Hampton Roads located functions will
remain in Hampton Roads. The intent for retained, re-assigned elements
of JFCOM that are located outside the Hampton Roads area is for them to
remain in their current locations. This includes: Joint Warfare
Analysis Center (JWAC) in Dahlgren, VA; Joint Personnel Recovery Agency
(JPRA) in Ft Belvoir, VA and Spokane, WA; Joint Communications Support
Element (JCSE) in Tampa, FL; Joint Fires Interoperability and
Integration Team (JFIIT) at Eglin AFB, FL; and the NATO School in
Oberammergau, GE.
Mr. Forbes. 27. Has DOD considered moving a new mission to backfill
the sudden loss of this Command in the Hampton Roads region? For
example, has DOD considered moving AFRICOM or other functions to the
region? Which locations are being considered to host AFRICOM?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department considered a range of options. That said, the Hampton Roads
region will be included in any future evaluation of options to relocate
AFRICOM's headquarters.
Mr. Forbes. 28. What specific JFCOM functions will remain in
Suffolk and Norfolk? What are the estimated civilian, uniformed, and
contract job positions at each location? Are these personnel assigned
to specific billets at each location?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. Specific
functional reconfiguration is on-going and will be codified in a
detailed Implementation Plan. In general, essential joint force
providing, joint training, doctrine and concept development, lessons-
learned, command and control integration as well as key Combat Command
support enablers are planned to remain in Hampton Roads. Approximately
1,300 military, civilian and contractor positions remain in Suffolk and
500 remain in Norfolk. Personnel alignment to retained positions will
continue over the next 6-12 months.
Mr. Forbes. 29. What is the DOD plan for use of leased space in
Suffolk? Will the leases be terminated and what are the termination
fees?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
Department is pursuing both alternative occupants for the vacated
spaces as well as potential transition from lease arrangements to
Department ownership of one or more of the Suffolk properties. Lease
costs programmed into the budget through FY12 allow the Department
ample opportunity to develop those alternatives and avoid lease
termination fees.
Mr. Forbes. 30. If similar functions to JFCOM exist within the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and other organizations, did DOD consider
consolidation of those functions to JFCOM, rather than
disestablishment? Should alternatives, such as expanding or
strengthening the JFCOM function, have been considered instead of
selecting the JFCOM closure option?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
decision to recommend the disestablishment of JFCOM was based on
several factors including improving operational effectiveness by
eliminating a redundant layer in our command and control processes for
training joint forces and providing them to the other combatant
commanders to use operationally.
Mr. Forbes. 31. For those activities that DOD determines should
continue to exist, what process will DOD use to determine whether they
should remain in place or move elsewhere? Was there consideration given
to simply reducing the number of contractors and eliminating the
duplication of missions versus eliminating the entire command?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
intent for the vast majority of retained, re-assigned elements of JFCOM
that are located in Hampton Roads is for them to remain in Hampton
Roads. Due to the significant investment in supporting technologies and
workforce, further analysis led to the recommendation for those
retained functions to remain in the Hampton Roads area. The intent for
retained, re-assigned elements of JFCOM that are located outside
Hampton Roads is for them to remain in their current locations due to
the same business case analysis rationale.
The decision to recommend the disestablishment of JFCOM was based
on several factors including improving operational effectiveness by
eliminating a redundant layer in our command and control processes for
training joint forces and providing them to the other combatant
commanders to use operationally.
Mr. Forbes. 32. Has DOD calculated the extreme economic costs to
Virginia of the contractor reduction; and what is the estimate? Where
are the displaced contractor functions going to be performed? Will the
JFCOM closure make the region eligible for base closure assistance,
including OEA grants, from the federal government?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. DOD has
not calculated costs to local areas of any of the efficiency
initiatives, including the disestablishment of JFCOM.
While all sectors of the JFCOM workforce are being scaled back, the
mission functions that are retained in Virginia will continue to be
performed by the remaining military, civil servants, and contractors or
some combination of these workforce groups.
In January 2011, the Office of Economic Adjustment (OEA) approved a
$472,180 award to provide economic adjustment assistance to the
Commonwealth of Virginia in response to the disestablishment of JFCOM.
(Please note: OEA's program of assistance to Virginia for the
disestablishment of JFCOM is ``economic adjustment assistance,'' not
``base closure assistance'' as the question indicates.)
Mr. Forbes. 33. Will the JFCOM closure result in an increase of
personnel in the National Capital Region?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. We do not
anticipate JFCOM disestablishment will have a discernable impact on the
National Capital Region workforce numbers.
Mr. Forbes. 34. What costs, and savings, are associated with the
use of defense contractor personnel at JFCOM? What costs, and savings,
are associated with the use of defense contractor personnel in the
National Capital Region? How will DOD decide which defense contractors
and contracts to cut or eliminate in order to achieve the announced
reduction?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. DOD does
not inventory contractor personnel or expenditures by geographical
region. Contractor/contracts that support those missions/functions that
are redundant will be eliminated. Those that support unique and
critical missions/functions will be retained.
JFCOM's FY11 estimated ``historical'' contract cost is $550M in
active contract instruments and funds obligated, subject to reduction
as a result of functions ending and transferring and the associated
ending or scaling of supporting contract instruments.
Mr. Forbes. 35. What studies has DOD conducted on both the short-
and long-term real cost savings by reducing the use of defense
contractors? Please include any existing examples where reducing the
use of defense contractors--either by using uniformed personnel or by
insourcing--has actually reduced costs to DOD. If the Department is
looking for efficiencies, why was the decision made to cut the
government contracting services sector rather than finding efficiencies
through the streamlining of administrative operations?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The DOD,
Congress, and GAO have observed a significant increase in the
Department's spending for contracted services, as evidenced by the
doubling of the dollars DOD has budgeted/obligated for contracted
services, to approximately $250B in FY10. While the reduction in
contracted spending as a result of in-sourcing was $900M in FY10, the
net growth in contracted services from FY09 to FY10 was still more than
$5 billion. While in-sourcing decisions may result in savings, in half
of all decisions to in-source a contracted service to date, cost has
not been the deciding factor. While at the organizational level, DOD
components are finding that they can generate savings or efficiencies
through in-sourcing certain types of previously contracted services or
functions, these savings are generally not visible at a macro level and
materialize in the form of resource realignment at the field/command
level to other priorities or requirements.
As part of improving the way DOD conducts business, DOD is ensuring
adequate in-house capability and capacity to perform inherently
governmental functions, closely associated with inherently governmental
functions, and other critical work (including increased acquisition
capabilities and contract oversight and other critical acquisition
functions that will help mitigate risk, build internal capacity, and
help meet readiness needs).
While in-sourcing these critical or necessary services may not
always generate direct savings, the overall benefits to the taxpayer
are realized through:
improved oversight of contracted service performance;
maximizing use of competitive processes for contracted
services;
improved tradecraft in services acquisition
implementing more efficient and timely acquisition
processes;
reducing fraud, waste, and abuse;
improved performance of critical cost-saving acquisition
functions to include systems engineering, contracting, cost
estimating, test;
contract pricing.
A major tenet of the Secretary's Efficiencies Initiative is to
streamline administrative operations. Sometimes this means eliminating
associated support that has been obtained by contract. OSD (including
the defense agencies and field activities) and the Combatant Commands
conducted a functional review and identified low-priority functions for
potential elimination as well as other opportunities to lower operating
costs and improve performance and agility. In addition, the Department
reduced funding for administrative support services that have
previously been obtained by contract. The Department recognizes that
the private sector is, and will continue to be, a vital source of
expertise, innovation, and support to the Department.
Mr. Forbes. 36. Upon what basis or analysis was the decision made
to reduce the use of defense contractors by a total of 30% over the
next three (3) years? Please provide a copy of any analysis conducted
by DOD that forms the basis of this action.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
reduction is in the use of a specific subset of contractors--service
support contractors. These are contracted personnel that perform staff
and administrative functions.
The goal of the Secretary's Efficiencies Initiative is to protect
current and future operational capability by streamlining overhead
functions and shifting those savings toward investments in
capabilities. The functions performed by service support contractors
typically fall into the category of overhead and therefore should
either be eliminated or performed by existing government personnel.
Mr. Forbes. 37. What universe of service will the reduction affect?
Will it be an across-the-board? If not, which categories of service
will be targeted?
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
reduction is in the use of a specific subset of contractors--service
support contractors. These are contracted personnel that perform staff
and administrative functions.
As the result of a Department-wide survey that concluded in October
2010, the Department determined that about $4B was spent on service
support contracts. This is roughly 3 percent of the value of all
service contracts. We used this baseline to calculate the 10 percent
annual reductions.
Mr. Forbes. 38. Will the reduction in the use of defense
contractors be spread equally throughout the country or will any such
reduction be confined to a specific region, such as the National
Capital Region of Northern Virginia, which appears to be hit extremely
hard by this decision.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The
reduction applies to all DOD world-wide components and its magnitude
will be a function of each component's existing use of service support
contract personnel.
Mr. Forbes. 39. Please provide a list, by position, of every
individual involved in any capacity in the JFCOM decision and
disestablishment that have been required to sign a non-disclosure
agreement.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. The non-
disclosure agreement was originally signed by 15 members of the JFCOM
Disestablishment Transition Planning Team, who did not make final
decisions affecting the disestablishment of JFCOM or the realignment of
its functions or workforce.
Mr. Forbes. 40. Describe in detail in the internal and external
actions being taken to disestablish JFCOM.
Secretary Lynn, Secretary Carter, and General Cartwright. A
detailed implementation plan has been developed to disestablish US
Joint Force Command along both functional and organizational lines. The
cornerstones of this plan include:
1) Transfer streamlined, relevant joint functions to
appropriate DOD entities;
2) Revert forces currently assigned to JFCOM back to their
appropriate Service;
3) Eliminate unnecessary or redundant functions;
Additional focus is being placed on ensuring the Department
sustains the momentum and gains in Jointness it has worked so hard to
achieve since the passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, while causing
no harm to critical interaction with NATO and other multi-national
partners.
General Odierno, JFCOM Commander, and his senior staff are
consistently engaged with Governor McDonnell and the Virginia
Congressional Delegation in an effort to effectively communicate JFCOM
disestablishment plans and be responsive to requests for information.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. BISHOP
Mr. Bishop. Dr. Carter, I have been informed recently that cuts and
reductions in cruise missile procurement and R&D programs may force
private industry to disband its design teams with this highly
specialized expertise. Is the small defense turbo fan engine industrial
base something that your office has specifically identified as a
defense industrial base concern?
Secretary Carter. Yes, the Department has specifically identified
the small turbo fan industry as an industrial base issue. My Industrial
Policy office has been actively engaged with this issue over the last 6
months and is seeking alternative strategies.
Mr. Bishop. Dr. Carter, what can we expect to see out of your
office and the DOD in the way of specific actions in the near future to
address the small turbine engine industrial base concern?
Secretary Carter. The Military Services are exploring new next
generation weapons programs that will use small turbo fan engine
technologies. To ensure these technologies are available, the
Department is actively considering the realities of the small turbo fan
industry viability on these new program timelines. DOD is investigating
ways to bridge these industrial capabilities until they are required.
Mr. Bishop. Dr. Carter, with Russia and India having announced last
year that they have jointly fielded a supersonic cruise missile, is it
wise for this Administration to pull back any further R&D funding for a
supersonic variant?
Secretary Carter. As the Department plans its next generation
systems, DOD needs to perform the appropriate analysis to determine
which capabilities and associated propulsion technologies will be
required to meet our future national security requirements and
establish the investment plans to develop and mature those
technologies.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MRS. McMORRIS RODGERS
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. I, like many of my colleagues, applaud the
Department of Defense's proactive approach to reduce unneeded
bureaucracy, rein in wasteful spending, and I concur with Chairman
Skelton and Ranking Member McKeon that now is not the time to cut the
defense budget.
However, in light of Secretary Gates's announced plans to eliminate
the U.S. Joint Forces Command, I am concerned the critical mission of
the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, a subordinate command of the U.S.
Joint Forces command, may be adversely affected if reshuffled or
reassigned to a different outpost.
Spokane, Washington, has served as the Joint Personnel Recovery
Agency home since its 1999 inception, to the end, what are the DOD's
plans with regard to the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency? Does the DOD
efficiency initiative result in closing the ``White Bluff'' Joint
Personnel Recovery Agency facility located in Spokane, Washington?
Secretary Lynn. A review of all U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM)
functions is ongoing. For functions that will be retained, several
courses of action are being analyzed with respect to their future
organizational alignment, location and resources. The disposition of
the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency will be determined as the JFCOM
disestablishment plan is completed.
______
QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. CONAWAY
Mr. Conaway. Secretary Lynn, you indicated in your testimony that
the elimination of the Business Transformation Agency would not
negatively impact the Department's ability to improve its business
processes and prepare for financial audits, and that the savings from
the elimination of BTA would only be in the form of duplicative staff
and overhead functions. As we look to ensure that there is no
degradation of these important functional capabilities currently
provided by BTA, please identify what, if any, specific non-overhead
BTA functions/personnel will be eliminated as part of the shutdown. For
each of these positions, please identify how they are duplicative in
nature and no longer necessary.
Secretary Lynn. BTA's mission is to guide transformation of
business operations throughout the Department and to deliver
Enterprise-level capabilities aligned to warfighter needs. This mission
remains valid. However, with the establishment of the position of the
DCMO as an Under Secretary of Defense-level official in the Office of
the Secretary of Defense, duplication was created. It was determined
the benefits provided by BTA could be more effectively realized through
its disestablishment and incorporation of appropriate functionality
into the Office of the DCMO. While a number of potential courses of
action are under consideration, and all aspects of the organization,
including programs, are under review, elimination of the BTA will meet
the Secretary's guidance to eliminate redundancy and reduce cost.
Efficiency will be found through elimination of overhead functions
that, while necessary in a Defense Agency regardless of size, can more
cost-effectively be provided to the DCMO through existing support
organizations within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Additionally, organizations that currently exist within the Office of
the DCMO and BTA, that perform similar or complementary functions will
be combined and streamlined. This consolidation will enable more agile
management of Departmental business transformation functions and the
ability to more effectively carry out the mission. Other functions,
that were part of BTA, but not directly related to its mission, may
transfer to other organizations within the Department or be eliminated
entirely.
We are still in the process of determining exactly which BTA
functions/personnel will be eliminated and which will be transferred.
We expect to have more information on the details of the BTA
disestablishment by January.
______
QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN
Mr. Wittman. Deputy Secretary Lynn, what quantitative and
qualitative analysis, and what data, underlie the decision to eliminate
JFCOM? Please provide the cost/benefit assessments and projected
savings with regard to keeping or eliminating JFCOM and its functions
and responsibilities.
Secretary Lynn. The decision to disestablish JFCOM was based on
improving operational effectiveness: JFCOM today is a redundant layer
in our processes for training joint forces and providing them to the
other combatant commanders to use operationally. The Secretary
considered a detailed breakdown of JFCOM's UCP missions and how they
are executed within DOD including interactions between JFCOM and other
commands. His examination of the range of functions carried out by
JFCOM concluded that many are duplicative; some are obsolete or of
questionable value; and others can be carried out just as effectively
by other existing DOD organizations.
Mr. Wittman. Deputy Secretary Lynn, who will insure the progress
made to date will continue in Joint training, doctrine, capabilities,
and operations, particularly with regard to assessing Joint lessons
learned and adapting Joint doctrine, developing integrated joint
capability solutions, and preparing the Joint force for future threats?
Will these remain command responsibilities or become staff functions of
the Chairman, the Services, the COCOM's or some other entity?
Secretary Lynn. Since Goldwater-Nichols passed in 1986, the
Department of Defense, including Services and Combatant Commands, has
diligently pursued jointness. The U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) was
established to standardize training, develop doctrine, deliver Joint
capabilities and improve jointness in operations and warfighting. JFCOM
has been successful in helping define, establish and compel a Joint
culture throughout the U.S. Military.
The Secretary's recommendation that the President approve the
disestablishment of U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) is based on a
review of the missions assigned to JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan
and the determination that these missions can be accomplished
effectively and more efficiently, elsewhere within the Department.
Fundamentally, the principal purpose for the creation of JFCOM in
1999--to force a reluctant service-centric military culture to embrace
joint operations and doctrine--has largely been achieved. Jointness is
a cultural and behavioral principle that is evolutionary and not easily
measured; however, there is little debate that today the United States
military has doctrinally, operationally and culturally embraced
jointness as a matter of practice and necessity. The on-going
assessment of JFCOM's functions will identify those functions which
need to endure, and will recommend the appropriate location of former
JFCOM functions and responsibilities as well as the appropriate level
of leadership to ensure our joint capabilities are sustained and
improved upon to meet current and future threats.
Mr. Wittman. Deputy Secretary Lynn, Allied Command Transformation
(ACT) and NATO have built strong ties to JFCOM in areas of training,
capability development, experimentation, and coalition forces
integration. How will this progress be sustained and which U.S.
commander and staff will assume counterpart responsibilities to ACT's
NATO Four-Star commander?
Secretary Lynn. We will sustain interagency and coalition
relationships. On September 7, NATO Secretary General stated that ACT
will remain in Norfolk, VA even if JFCOM is disestablished.
Mr. Wittman. Deputy Secretary Lynn, in the transfer of JFCOM
functions to Washington or elsewhere, was the cost of labor, living,
and operations factored into the analysis particularly in comparison to
Hampton Roads? For those functions retained and either transferred or
retained in place, what cost savings factored into the estimates of
cost savings from JFCOM closure?
Secretary Lynn. The Secretary did not recommend disestablishing
JFCOM to save money. His decision was based on improving operational
effectiveness. JFCOM today is a redundant layer in our processes for
training joint forces and providing them to the other combatant
commanders to use operationally. We are still working on a detailed
implementation plan. Cost savings estimates will not be available until
a more detailed implementation plan is completed.
Mr. Wittman. Deputy Secretary Lynn, with the announced intent to
reduce the growth of Pentagon overhead (support staffs, senior
positions, staffing layers), how do you foresee organizing and
supervising JFCOM functions that revert to the Joint Staff without
significant increase in staff size and space requirements? What
statutory authorities will you be requesting to increase the size of
the Joint Staff?
Secretary Lynn. A review of the functions performed by U.S. Joint
Forces Command (JFCOM), in support of its Unified Command Plan (UCP)
assigned missions, concluded that several functions are needlessly
duplicative, while others are obsolete or of questionable value. It was
also determined that the functions still required to meet UCP missions
can be accomplished effectively and more efficiently elsewhere within
the Department.
These latter functions will be transferred either to the CJCS or to
a Combatant Commander or Service Chief. To accomplish these transfers,
there will be a determination of what resources will be required by the
receiving organization to perform the functions into the future. A
final decision on the location of these functions and associated
manpower has not yet been made.
Mr. Wittman. Deputy Secretary Lynn, are there statutes that prevent
the CJCS from executing certain functions currently being done by JFCOM
in support of the COCOMs? Which commander will be assigned the missions
specifically assigned to JFCOM in the Unified Command Plan IAW the
provisions of Goldwater-Nichols?
Secretary Lynn. Chapter 5 of title 10, United States Code,
addresses the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in particular addresses the
functions of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A key
limitation on assigning functions to the Chairman is that he may not
exercise military command over the Joint Chiefs of Staff or any of the
armed forces (10 U.S.C. 152(c)). In addition, the Chairman may neither
organize nor use the Joint Staff, which is under the authority,
direction and control of the Chairman, as an overall Armed Forces
General Staff nor may the Joint Staff exercise any executive authority
(10 U.S.C. 155(e)). The Department of Defense is considering how best
to address the missions currently assigned to United States Joint
Forces Command by the President in the Unified Command Plan, if the
President disestablishes that Command.
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