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, kind of sense what you're doing i love this map. i just want to have more numbers up here. obviously, i see. we don't have enough, and we need to eke. here's some gaps p p. let me just end. we have the need for a not only.

all the other activity going on up there, we are just. in alaska, it will be 55% renewable energy. we understand the value of it, so i'm glad you guys do, too. thank you very much. >> senator blumenthal? >> thank you, chairman, and thank you, all three of you, for your extraordinary 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 said, looking like all of us would like to look with or without that kind of surgery. let me begin by saying also how much i add myer and respect, and

i underscore the word success of our marines. our soldiers in afghanistan i have recently covered despite all of what you see and the ground level in targeting high-level leadership, and i think the work has just been very, very impressive, and i know you testified already to that effect, but i would just underscore it now. i gather that ieds the roadside bombs, ton to be a problem tr and wonder if you feel we're making any progress in that area. >> senator, we continue to be the low-grade, high-expense, highly effective for the enemy.

they're cheap to run them. you can make something and become pretty catastrophic. we have made request. interestingly defense has differe different. interestingly enough, what we found to be the most successful had been often the human eyeball. teachi teaching. >> we've kind of gone back to the way we do business in the past. we have one fw 18 to 21 feet. it doesn't cost anything but it saves lives.

we've tried everything from ground-penetrati ground-penetrating, and they find the mines on the vehicles that we most. off the road, on tignanell. there's a series of ways we grow that experience, but nothing replaces the human eyeball. so it's tils i'll put up because of his legs today. >> and the pakistani sodium nitrate, the fertilizer that floats across the border.

>> absolutely in. it's a big agricultural air where we are. it's kind of the breadbasket of aft after. i want to a quick program very comme commendibly, in our view, the skill training, counseling, expanding and enhancing in a way you have planned to do. >> our first two beta tests were in january, the middle of january, and we're unveiling it both on the east. because this.

. the one i went through. how do we take that young marine that joined the service and make him a marine for life such that when he. then come out the other side and they greatest opportunity to learn a job, to go to cool. -- it is a significant effort, and it will take us. we probably won't see the real bin. right now i'm very optimistic. >> very exciting, and thank the marine corps for that great work. second mabus, i wonder if in

light of the navy's need for strategic dispersal of undersea warfare assets, scl the clinic could comb through and give us your assessment of the marine patrol value of the submarine base in new london. >> the submarine base in new london is one of the key components to strategy just in terms of what you pointed out, the fact that we will be keeping attack submarines in a 40-60 split, atlantic-pacific. what mr. greenert testified to a little bit earlier, that it's. where the capacity and the

meeting of these incredible warships are needed, and i also want to thank the state of connecticut is needed. they've addressed about 40 million dollar into the sub base there. so that we can maintain that base at the high operate of operational readiness after it been washed and. . . it become such an important mission, and would you agree also that with the increasing trend toward unmanned, under water vehicles and counter mine warfa warfare, that base is only increasing? >> i will agree with that, v. >> thank you. my time is up, but again, i want

to think all of you. ve very. i just have tots, listening to senator bagovitch's nart senator stevens when i was secretary of the navy jab or. . of course, at we had --. it straut back a strong nerm to me when i was sick lagt in the nef i. remember, he were visiting the u.s.s. stanley in the persian

gulf back in 1987. the first thing i would do when i would avoid ship, it came from my youngster cruise at the naval academy when i worked with the spaces with the snips. it was always good to go to the union spaces to ask them the last time their commanding offer had visited the earring spaces. they were so hot that you can't even. remembered at the end of this yee yeerg, secretary mabus. in spon to the independent study for the layout of okinawa and guam that we had mandated.

and fraps this is just a miscoordination, because i know the snot under the jurisdiction of the department of avenue, but what you said is not right. we have mandated by law that there be an independent study and they report to the marines, so they're supposed to give their report to the secretary of defense in about two weeks. then the secretary of defense has up to about 90 days after that to report to us. this is not a small thing, as you know. and we're not in any way up here attempting to kill this program. we're trying to unstick it. is the administration, plural,

administrations, have been working on this issue for 15 years now. a little more than 15 years. i've had dozens of japanese delegations visit my office just over the last year, including -- i have another one coming in this afternoon. and i have been saying to them over the last three months that there is an independent review that's going to take place in tandem with the reviews that are going on. i'm visiting japan right after the first. there would be some sort of preliminary report that apparently there hasn't even been a contract led. i hope we can clarify this. my understanding also is that -- admiral, you can clarify this for me -- that the navy has halted potentially worth of

construction projects on guam as we attempt to sell that out; schark. >> i don't know that that number is correct. in halting. the specifics and what their based on, i better check it out before i give you an answer. >> we are in a fruz probably the top 20 in january pan. i understand this, we follow it every day in my office. we'll get a number of turf battles in our office. there is a large number of proceedings despite the number

of guam. >> well -- get the right. but at the same time, you know, and general amos, i know you know. you and i have had talks about this, that one of the questions on guam was just exactly what the marine corps laydown would look like. i had my own questions about this when i first revisited guam a couple months ago because they were doing a laydown that included dependent personnel, family personnel and it was driving up infrastructure and the numbers from 8,000 to potentially more than 20 thoerks people. we know this needs to be redone. but i can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is, first of all, that the law be obeyed here. and second of all that we reached an end point on this for the good of our strategic

posture in that part of the world and also for our relations with the japanese and the people of guam. no further response required, but i just wanted to reemphasize what chairman levin and senator mccain were saying. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, senator webb. senator faheem. >> thank you, chairman for being here this morning. hopefully i am the last person that you have to hear from. i figure on this committee we always save the best for last. i actually want to begin where some of my colleagues left off, and particularly senator bagitch and that is on the issue of medicine. i want to thank you specifically, senator. the water held a field naerl.

we had a ship named after her in the mountains for us to have a hearing on. it was a nice benefit to the hearing, but it was. and it's one i wish everybody on this committee could have gone the difference that moving towards alternatives. . and the second boint. nation national.

. if we can defend ourselves against foreign oil, we're in a mch position die to tornado answer. >> the federal government is the biggest energy user within america. the department of defense is the biggest energy user within federal government. and oz you so rightly ountd i know there was an exchange earlier about the cost of biofuels, and i wonder if you could speak to the memorandum of with the department of agriculture and the department of energy, to try and moore. that is drop-in and. >> thank you, senator.

and was good to see you again, sarj. the memorandum of understanding, that mannerie, and navy that e the. it's in response to the skres, competitively priced biofuel industry for the country. na navys' contribution paid, it specifically mentions energy as one of the things that defense production act. i think it's important that the requirements, drop-in fuel, that we're not going to change the.

we have to have a fuel that will operate on the fleet we have today with the aircraft we have today. secondly, that. it. it helped this industry reach commercial viability. we have seen the cost of severe fro froerricht. we biofuels to test blue aen jelz on, the largest purchase, we believe, in american history, 450 thol. the cost has been cut in half in the last two years just in those

test amounts, and we are convinced that as the military brings a market here that the cost of biowill be competitive with existing fossil fuels and finally, one of the things that we have to talk about at the hearing is that this is one of the core things of the united states navy. we move from shale to coal in the 1850, coal to oil in the 1800s and pioneered fuel in the 1950s. every single time there were concerns about there was a navy trading one form of certain energy for another that was uncertain or more costly. every single time the change has

proven to be correct and so, i appreciate your help. the opportunity to testify on the kerr sarge, which represents the navy and the marine corps, but also the opportunity to talk about how we are going to use these biofuels in a way that we believe the cost will come down. >> thank you, and general amos, we also saw some impressive demonstration of the equipment that the marines are using out in the field in afghanistan. i asked one of your colonels who was there, what had been the reaction to the marines in the field when they were introduced to things like solar blankets and the smaller weight batteries and the generators now going into humvees and he said, well,

the first reaction wasn't so positive, but once they realized it could help them complete their mission easier and more effectively, they're sold. so i wonder if you could comment on that? >> i'd be happy to. marines are slow to change. 236 years of history unhinder red, but once we do, we get on it with, with reckless abandon. here's a case in point. those mama arenas, i remember one of our shortfalls, after we crossed the border, one of the things we worried about and struggled with were batteries. honest to goodness, i would sit at briefs with three and four-star generals and we would talk about batteries. you couldn't get them. at lunch, you had to carry them. here's a case in point where those solar panels, the ability to recharge your radio batteries

while you're pumping along a ridge line in helmand province. that's what sold it for the marines. the other thing, all of a sudden, they went from being 120 degrees outside in their shelters and now, just with a little bit of ingenuity and some of the energy initiatives, you can actually walk inside these things and it may be 87 degrees, but it might as well be, you might as well be at the north pole. that's what these kids feel like. so they have really gotten into it and it's exciting from my perspective, we're just on the cusp of it. i think there's so much more we can do and we're dedicated to doing that. >> thank you very much. my time is up, but i just want as a final comment, you'll not be surprised to hear that i'm also concerned about our four public shipyards and the fact that this year's military construction budget does not again contain much needed

dollars for the portsmouth naval shipyard and we have requests for modernization report that we, senator collins and i included in the defense authorization bill last year and it's due back by september 1st. i hope that will be on time and we will see what your commitment is to supporting our public shipyards. >> it will be on time. >> thank you. >> senator shaheen. either of my colleagues have additional questions? >> yes, mr. chairman, i appreciate the opportunity to ask one last question to really fall on senator ayottes question about the submarine force and about the possibility of going back to the two subs a year program for 2014, which i strongly support and i know we've talked about it a little

bit. i believe that going back to that program would be cost effective in the long run. and i would just like if you would, admiral green, to comment on the possibility of alternative plans and the possibilities for transitioning to that kind of 2014 two sub option. >> mr. senator, right now, of course, the submarines in 18, we are requesting a block buy starting in '14, '14 through '18. we would request that a multiprocurement authority, that gives us the opportunity to make economic order quantity buy, so buy the turbines, shafts at a much better price. the vendors are more efficient. the learning curve and workload is more efficient. everything's more efficient and we have experience in this and

that's part of the the reason these submarines are coming in under budget and on time. what we're looking for is an opportunity, using fiscal process processes, to be able to, if necessary, incrementally fund this. such that the savings we know, we will accrue in the later years, that those savings can be rolled forward, if you will, and therefore, applied to a submarine in '14. a second submarine in '14. right now, our budget request has one submarine, so we'd like to pursue that and we appreciate your willingness to help you with that. >> i am eager to help you and i thank you for that excellent answer. >> thank you, senator blumenthal. let me just close by commenting further on this energy issue, which i made reference to in my opening statement, commending you, secretary, for the initiatives that you've shone in the navy. by the way, the army was here at its pos chur hearing not too many days ago with batteries,

pointing out how much lighter the batteries are that they're not going to use and what difference that makes in terms of weight and security for our people. as well as energy independence for the nation. you're going to find a lot of support for the energy initiative taking on this committee. there may be opposition to it from some and questions from all of us, but there's basically, i believe, most of us will support, at least i hope most will support the initiatives that you've taken and that the army is now taking as well. we've seen this before. we kind of gone through this whole business before when we've tried to do take some action on energy initiatives and energy alternatives. what we saw is the argument made, well, heck, they cost more in the short run. well, of course they do. that's why we can't just rely on the private sector to produce

them. because private sector has a different goal than our military does and our government does. their goal legitimately, is profit. our goal is the nation's security. and those are not always the same. short-term profit is not always the same as planning for a nation's security. so what you have done here is taken some initiatives, which are the right way to go. they fill in a vacuum that exists in the private sector. they fill a vital need. that cannot rely on the marketplace to take these initiatives because there's a short-term loss. they're not as competitive. that's why you've got to have these test samples run and a number of other short-term production activities, so we just want to add my voice at the end of the hearing as i did at the beginning of the hearing in support for these i believe creative initiatives, which are directly aimed at enhancing the security of our country.

and if there are no further questions, we want to thank you all of you and good wishes on your recovery, general a moss. a complete guide to the 112th congress. inside, you'll find each member of the house and senate,