described it as catastrophic. >> thank you. >> thank you, senator wicker. we're going to take a 10-minute break. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i want to add a welcome and an aloha to our panelists who considers distinguished leaders of our country, and i want to thank you very much for your timeless efforts in leading the

men and women of our navy and marines for our country. i also want to recognize and thank the military members and their families for their outstanding service. mr. secretary, it's always good to see you and speak with you. i always wish you well. in your written testimony, mr. secretary, you indicate the naval academy received nearly 7,000 minority applications for the 2014 class, and it's double the number for the class of 2010.

can you discuss what the navy is doing to receive this significant age as well as the pipeline for the offices of the navy and marine corps? >> thank you, senator, and i will return the good wishes and very good to see you. the naval academy has had an t outreach program going now for several years to make sure we get as diverse an applicant pool as is possible. we shouldn't allow -- everybody should be afforded the honor of defending this country through military service. as you pointed out, the number of minorities not only affluent has gone up dramatically.

we have, outside the academy, taken action to make sure for both the navy and marine corps that we are gathering in highly qualified, diverse background americans, not just diversity and ethnicity or national origin but also in terms of geography, in terms of backgrounds, in terms of educational experience, because we believe we will be a better fighting force having that diversity of points of view that we bring to bear on any issue. the final thing -- well, next to final thing that i would note is that we have also expanded naval rotc, returning it to some school such as harvard, yale, columbia where it has historically been but where it had been absent for almost 40 years. we are returning it -- we are bringing naval rotc to other

schools, like arizona state and rutgers to make sure that we do reach the widest population possible in that. and finally, the other thing that we've got to do in the military is not only get these young, diverse americans to sign up but also to remain and make a navy or marine corps career so that the diversity at our higher rank will mirror the ones at our lower ranks. >> thank you very much, secretary. admiral? good to see tu, too, but first i applaud the decision to fully fu fund. the navy is taking steps to

improve maintenance work. so as to mitigate problems and material redness that has come to light in recent years. admiral, can you talk about some of the -- of these improvements, how these steps of the ship may work? >> particularly we can about pearl harbor and other shipgrards as well. >>allo, senator senator. it's called the surface management nerg program, surfnep. we have this into the surface program. i'm sorry, i laying out the key and critical nens that takes the

age until we bring a fish in. it involves going into the tanked. >> those long term items and you might be temtd not to look at and when we started finding emergent coming up. then that's the discipline to see to it that when we fwet t t that -- so we have the right plan inners that needs to take shape so we're efficient when they bring the ship in. thank you very much. general lehman, on the 15-year-old policy. you also tedded service,

tracking all hazing allegations and vefrgsz. . cut funny and frew protection to adm admit. skpre, i woel a krod uns attention to this see rerts soort. can you describe some of these new probable. senator, i haven't -- it's true i signed the new order out, and when i went back to look at -- k, let me refresh this. i was a bit surprised to find out what was. did put some dwirsz required.

. but the their of hazing. you two areie rad indicated. it is like a cancer that is let's beat back and you begin to feel good about it, and if you don't keep persistent attention on the matter across the marine corps -- 142,000 moo raenz -- in that it's bin to show again because this is a. i have not set anything in motion with regards to whistle blowers accordingly. they got the me say sanl loud and two the the behavior.

and if i find out, the violator will be prosecuted in every case. >> thank you. zft, the snar. i sgus. thank you all for being here today. tisht. and your success to that country. we suggested virginia max as a back of the submarine attack force. you just said with senator reed the slipping of the production will exacerbate the shortfall we're going to see going forward. i have a couple questions for you. first, let me say that i'm very proud of the maintenance done at the portland naval shipyard, the importance of that work when we think about the role that has

the taekz. but it's my understanding -- this is obviously a very important navy, they were only able to. >> 2011; is that right. >>? so woor only control of the attacks, six out of ten kwz? >> that's right. they're adjudicated within the joint steef. and the navy has rimts, that's correct, senator. >> and where you were, and when we look the will only have 39

taeblgd sub ma feend feenz if we looked to to, 30. so we'll have a nice sta build rate that we have in this budget. >> yes, ma'am. that's the depth and there is a -- the width of that as well. >> so as i, and 90% strike volume if we allow our force to go below that level. >> i can't validate the numbers themselves, but you're in the rough border of magnitude. it would be dramatic. this was at a time, obviously, where we're shifting our focus to the asia pacific region, and,

this is a local lay pan fregs of in the middle east and area jords the. >> the asia pacific would get most of the attention, so it's the report of the world, that we would have to record, to pay enough doet in. not only speak about. isn't that trite,al miller? >> well, i'm very concerned about the proposal in the 13 budget where they will bring our production rate and this is this production rate for under the circumstancesing you ah eye.

it was all about the sum. >> it was about the numbers we handed you and nothing we would do in terms of capacity to protect -- to have a full, robust force of where we would want to be as we looked forward. isn't that right ? >> that's a concern, senator. >>. by just being handed a number by congress. are we taking on additional sh by doing this? >> there is risk, as you pensioned it the essence and capacity that is something the look ate consequence trattle to 13. i wanted to ask all of you in,

in. last year the navy announced the plands to play six 16 shipts from the frew squadron. this proposal was made at a time when ab aren you're going to do some of the stuff the niddle skpes and the at the time. in fact, general panter came to the city and said it required additional because to where we are now. three pre-positioned bords the 13, pre pole 23 r. we're going to take to poorts of

the mip and because we have the pre positioned forces ready to go there in terms of the respond. that's the area of hysteria egypt, lebanon, blue, not an area at all that we would want to focus on at the moment. was it the rereasons proposal to eliminate one of these three position quad rons. >> senator, came about the time i game the monaens before we becoming. this is where the budget is where. i looked at this thing, after. what do we really need as a nation? my in stikt were probably could

squad fin do we need we zoo we make adjustment on some of the. we're going to end up having to be r inl once we add ga r. let's make sure the two are in what i would call hands. in other words, they have some of the newer ships available. they use these not only for training but con titingency. among the two services, they work the details out where they have a pretty good plan.

that's where i know it as i'm comfortable with two, i just want to make sure they're the right makeup. >> as you know, in last year's, i asked for a certification of the readiness process, reducing it from yourself, commandant, as well as, obviously, from the chief naval operations and the secretary of the navy and then to have the secretary of defense make a certification of congress that he felt that there was acceptable readiness, posture would still be available. so i'm going to ask that the same type of certification be done if we're going to reduce this, because we're not only going from reduction but an elimination. so we need to be -- understand what additional risk we're taking on with that and whether in all of your he esteemed opins

that we're ready in terms of your readiness in that part of the world. >> we are in current nda about operating status that also applied to the removal of one squadron, and that was the report that general amos referenced that will be the certifications that will be coming. >> very good. i appreciate that. and my time is up. i can't leave, though, without saying that i'm deeply troubled, admiral, when you tell me that if we allow this congress sequestration to go forward that we are -- our fleet could be in a position where it would go from 285 capacity to 235 when we know just last year the chief of naval operations, your predecessor, had told us that the ideal capacity for our fleet to meet all of our needs is

actually 313. so i hope that we will act immediately on a bipartisan basis in congress to stop the sequestration, because when you think about our fleet going down to 235, that is an unacceptable risk to our country and our allies, and so i thank you for your testimony today, and i hope we work immediately so that this is not hanging over the heads of the department of defense for you all to have to worry about and for our military men and women to know that we are behind them and we're not going to allow this to happen. >> thank you, senator ayotte. senator? >> thank you all for being here. i think i'm the last man standing so i'll try to walk through a couple issues. or second to last man standing. i want to talk a little bit about the articus, as you can

imagine, but i want to talk about the early steps in regards to energy in research and development. i want to tell you i'm going to be a huge supporter of your efforts in the defense department. i may have some questions about some of the efforts that you're doing, but we go back to the '60s and darpa, which is the defense of advanced research project, if you go back to the '60s, everybody forgets they decided to do some simple things. they just wanted to communicate between the different facilities, and lo and behold, we had the internet. you took the initiative. you actually hired someone out of the private sector because you thought it was so important -- when i say we, collectively -- back in the '60s how important that was. the military have been the lead in many areas that have damaged this economy in many ways. i use that as an example, 1960s, when the military saw the heightened value of communication and connect

activi ivity, and most people didn't even know what we were talking about. the department spent a lot of money back then, and i'm sure there were some criticisms, but i don't know what we would have done without it. i will have some questions on some of the expenditures, and taking the lead in some of these areas is critical for a long-term national security and economic security. i was just in afghanistan, general, and, you know, i saw -- i think it was at boldack and ford operating base the power of the solar panels and the changes that had occurred through on-the-ground testing. as the marines tell me all the time, we don't want to carry a lot of junk. we want to carry what we need to do our job. when you can knock off a lot of pounds off the weight and transfer it off the backs of the marines and then they can do their job because they have better energy sources, like solar panels and utilization of the battery systems, that's

powerful. that gives us a taxable advantage, at least from my perspective. i want you to know that from a person in a state that produces a lot of oil and gas, we like what you're doing around renewable energy and alternative energy and research to help this country become more economically secure and from a national security perspective. you know, i hear this debate kind of out there because people wonder why you're in the business, well, because you're in the business of saving lives. and part of the work you do in the military is try to look at risk analysis, and you have high risk when you move those boards of diesel. if you can reduce the risk, you save lives, and that's how i look at it. it's not necessarily a comment, i just get very frustrated when i start hearing the noise out there of what's going on. so, again, i'll pause and just say thank you for the work you're doing on the ground.

i was impressed by the technology. and the marines were excited about what they were producing and how they could do things that they couldn't do before in two and three-day increments with energy source of self-sufficiency. so let me pause there, but let me get to the larger one if i can to the secretary and admiral. do you support it? >> yes. strongly. >> yes, sir, i do. >> let me also say, we had general jacoby. he was talking about the importance of one of the agreements they were working on, and i think he was about to talk about and sign an agreement of a water gap of analysis. the snow dragon, which is the icebreaker from china, an appropriate name. i can only imagine what they've painted on it and all kinds of things, but they're moving up to the arctic.

they're not messing around. they see that as an opportunity economically and militarily. can you give me your thoughts, mr. secretary, then admiral, how you view the arctic? are we prepared? i know you did a study on the arctic road map which was released by the navy through your -- i think it's task force climate change. are we prepared, and if not, what do we need to do? >> senator, you accurately pointed out we released the arctic road map in 2009 and we are following that road map. both the cno and i have recently been to canada to talk to our canadian allies about what they're doing in the arctic, what we're doing in the arctic, how we can better coordinate. the question you asked immediately before that, one of the things that would help us the most is by approving the law of the thief.

it would help us in terms of the rights of freedom ofit would al nation establish our claims in d the arctic, as you are better aware than i am, but we have different nations competing for the same resources in an arctic that is going to be increasingly ice free in the summer so that you can not only havevi you're y beginning to see that, but also extraction of sea bed resources and so i think -- first thing we could do is become a signatory to the law of the sea. and secondly, we are actively doing things like ice ax.

we operate with their operations nanook. i think our plan is to become more capable in the arctic over time as the arctic becomes more accessible over time. >> admiral? >> i think we're in line. as we organize, trade and equip, it has to be a bullet of manufacturing principle just like operating in the gulf which, unfortunately, we didn't do right the first time, so we had problems with warm water and sand and grit. likewise, we need to do exercises with the brits in the northern nations. continue with i-6 so we're comfortable operating in that domain, and that includes critical infrastructure, make sure our command and control can be supported in that area of the

world. so just as we prepare our navy, the arctic operations has to be a factor. >> one of the things i know, and i'm hoping for and maybe we could get this at a later time from you, maybe the arctic road map as you lay that out and where you think you are timewise on resources and how you're doing, because obviously i think when i see the map, and i love this map. i just want to have more numbers up here. honestly, i see china and what they're doing. they are not messing around. they see us not capable because we don't have enough ice capable vessels, so they're taking advantage of that. and we need to equalize our opportunities up there. so i would like maybe at some point kind of a here's where we're at, here's where we think we're going, here's some gaps we need to fill or potentially fill if that's possible to do in a written. let me just end. my time is up. and one other piece i would say is we should have a further

discussion on the need for a deep water port u.s. controlled in the arctic. we can have a further discussion, i think, from the variety not only militarily, but all the other activity that's going on up there, we are just a lack of a facility up there. again, thank you all very much, and as i said, i didn't mean to get my rant about alternative renewable energy. so i'm glad you guys do, too, so thank you very much. >> thank you, senator. senator blumenthal. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and thank you all three of you for your extraordinary and distinguished service to our nation, and particularly general amos, thank you for your endurance and tolerance with us. i know your back must be reaching a point of some pain, anyway, but glad to see you here as senator reed is looking like

all of us would like to look with or without that kind of surgery. let me begin also by saying how much i admire and respect the success and i underscore the success of our marines and soldiers in afghanistan where i have recently visited despite all of what we see and emphasize at the ground level in targeting high-level leadership of the taliban, the insurgents, the work done in terms of training and transition. i think the work has been just very, very impressive and i know you testified already to that effect, but i would just underscore it now. i gather that ied, the roadside bombs, continue to be a problem there, and i wonder whether you feel that we are making any progress in that area. >> senator, they continue to be the