significance. that's a very satisfying role. >> watch sunday night at 9:00 eastern on book tv on c-span2. up next, army, navy and air force senior officials testify on defense acquisition and management, including efforts to improve military readiness and capeness through weapon and military modernization. the senate armed services committee held this hearing last month.

the senate arms services committee meets today to receive testimony on the acquisition reform efforts. we welcome our witnesses, ellen lord, mark esper, secretary of the army, heather wilson, secretary of the air force, and james gerts, assistant secretary of the navy for ak we ziglaskk

acquisition. i hope you all have seen the work by rand on this topic. that is why the department of defense needs acquisition reform, not just for efficiency or to save money. simply put, we will not be able to address the threats facing this nation with the system of organized irresponsibility that the defense acquisition enterprise has become.

we will be watching closely to make sure you do business differently and use that authority wisely. second, while we have empowered the services, that doesn't mean you can go and do whatever you like. the services must let osd set strategy and policy and do real oversight. that means being transparent, providing data to and following the guidance set by osd. again, we will be watching. this committee takes its own oversight role seriously, and we will rely on you to keep us informed so that we can do our job. third, the system must move faster. time is of the essence. the work of groups like diux,

the strategic capabilities office and the rapid capabilities offices should become standard practice, not work-arounds to the regular system. and we need these innovations from major defense acquisition programs, not just science and technology efforts. fourth, you need to be willing to take more risks and be willing to fail when you try new things. we recognize that congress can make that difficult. keep us informed of your plans so that we can work together so that we're not surprised when things don't go exactly as planned. we would rather have a small failure that teaches us something early in the acquisition process than deal with a multibillion dollar program that becomes, quote, too big to fail. fifth, invest in the acquisition

work force and empower them to succeed. too often we hear that acquisition personnel are unfamiliar with or nervous about new authorities. finally, reform your organizations and business practices to simplify and move faster. the major changes we have substitutinstitut instituted through legislation are intended to give you the opportunity to make more detailed changes in your organizations. this is an opportunity to update your organizational structures and internal processes accordingly. along those lines, if you fail, i would much rather you try and fail than do nothing, okay? and if you keep in contact with us and tell us what you're trying to do and what you're doing, we will be patient for about five minutes. [ laughter ].

>> finally, reform your organizations and businesses practice to simplify and move faster. the major changes we have institu instituted through legislation are intended to give you the opportunity to make more detailed changes this your organizations. this is an opportunity to fail. this is an opportunity to update your organizational structures and internal processes accordingly. now, you have reforms and you want to try them, come and see us, come and talk to us. we'll be glad to cooperate with you. and don't be afraid to fail. the only way we will succeed is to take the risk of failure. congress has provided you can all the tools you require.

we expect you as part of a new administration to use these tools, unlike your predecessors. as you do so, you will have a willing partner in this committee. do not hesitate to pick up the phone or come over and see any members of this committee. we have given our subcommittee chairs a great deal of latitude and a great deal of authority as we go through the decision-making process. do not hesitate to call any of them with the exception of senator reed. >> that's right. >> finally, i believe and i'll be glad -- we will be glad to hear your requirements and how we can help you do your business better in a more efficient

fashion. we expect you as part of the new administration, as i said, you'll have a willing partner in this committee. look, we had a hearing -- not a hearing, we had a briefing from the rand study that i think my friend jack reed would agree is one of the more disturbing briefings that we have had in the years that i've been a member of this committee. the dpap gap is closing. there's no doubt about it. so we'll be expecting a lot of you, but we're not going to succeed unless we have a partnership here, okay? thank you. jack? >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for holding this very important hearing. as you pointed out in your opening remarks, i want to thank the witnesses also for appearing here today. we look forward to your testimony. we have a shared goal to ensure

that our military forces are equipped with the best systems and technology that is the defense of defense builds and buys and that those systems are the most effective and efficient ways possible to protect the nation and protect particularly the men and women in our armed forces. we also have a shared goal that the pentagon should be able to access the most innovative people and technologies available. also, we owe it to the taxpayers to ensure we are buying things at reasonable prices and within reasonable budgets. this hearing will give us a chance to learn how the department is also working to make those shared goals a reality. the services should play a very important role in the research and acquisition programs that provided a vance systems and capabilities. under chairman mccain's leadership, we have spretrengthd the processes that strongly

shape where we succeed or fail. developing plans, and budgets, ensuring that programs are properly planned and budgeted. finally we play a part in nurturing careers of personnel who work in acquisition and budget fields. building on the successes of the weapons systems acquisition reform act and the pentagon's better buying power initiatives and making use of the new reforms in the recent national defense authorization acts led by chairman mccain, we are seeing some improvements in processes and outcomes today and are well positioned to make more improvements. but we must do much, much, much better. that's why you're here today. i look forward to hearing about

your efforts and i also welcome a discussion of changes that can be made to strengthen their role as appropriate with the hopes of continuing to improve acquisition outcomes and provide the best military capabilities in the nation. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i would like to say how much i appreciate the partnership that i have with senator reed, despite his educational lacking. but we are partners and the fact that the defense bill was passed through this committee without a single dissenting vote, i think, is ample testimony to the bipartisanship that characterizes our conduct of this committee, and i'm very proud to have senator reid as a partner. so we'll begin with the

honorable ellen lord, und undersecretary of defense for acquisition technology and logistics. >> chairman mccain -- >> could i just mention one thing? we may have, depending on what happens here -- there's going to be an event at 11:45 on the floor of the senate and we may have to recess until that event is completed. go ahead, please. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify today on defense acquisition and reform efforts. i'm pleased to be joined by secretary esper, secretary wilson and assistant secretary gertz. after having spent 33 years in industry, i've come to my current position during a unique period in time, one which provides a great opportunity to make a positive change.

first, the national defense authorization act for fiscal years 2016-17 have provided the direction and the tools for the department to advance the capabilities required to restore our overmatch. speed, the rate at which we field these capabilities and improve the overall affordability of our fighting forces weapons systems. secondly, secretary mattis has placed a priority of implementing these provisions and other reforms and practices required to improve the lethality and the readiness of our military. using an indan analogy, i belie we should be very lean.

at & l should be pushing the majority of the department's work back to surfaces and developing architectures and standards, interpreting law and the policies and procedures and simplifying ak wing acquisition policies. at & l needs to be the strategic body, with focus across the board driving accountability and affordability, reducing timelines and equipping services to execute their programs. given the fact that the d.o.d. average awards daily 1800 contracts and 36,000 delivery, every process improvement we make has the potential to produce significant results.

having reviewed data measuring the typical lead time following validation of a war fighter requirement, until the award of the resulting major weapons systems contract, i have concluded that we have the ability to reduce this procurement lead time but as much as 50%. some of the ways in which we plan to do this are incentivizing contractors to submit responsive proposals in 60 days or less and implementing electronic department-wide acquisition streamlining tools. furthermore congress gave us the ability to conduct ten pilot programs for foreign military sales. key to our success would be to have the same flexibility for our u.s. procurements. if we were granted the statutory authority on sole source procurement, it would allow us to use our judgment to reduce the cost and pricing data we

would require when we have cost transparency with the companies with which we do business. in my testimony, i stated that we have initiated six pilot programs that push the limits of our contracting agility. this is in order to demonstrate our ability to responsibly reduce this procurement lead time. >> tell us a couple of those programs. >> c-130 j and the japanese global hawk. our goal is to get these pilot procurements done within 210 days from the issuance of the request for proposal. >> 210 days. >> 210 days is the interim goal. we would like eventually to get to 180 days. we have the process to work down. we're going to work with you and your teams to demonstrate how we do it and we're going to come

back to you as we need additional authorities, if needed. but we believe it's really interpreting the authorities we have now, making sure you agree with them and having us move forward. so we're also prepositioning production contracts to include options for yet to be developed fms requirements. in other words, in the initial contracts, we have the language so we can almost fill in the blanks for fms sales. again, prethinking this is going to reduce the timeline and allow us to be responsive to international customers. >> so you don't need 100-page rfp for a pistol? >> absolutely correct. on the joint strike fighter program, we are determined to reduce the cost of production and sustainment. we have initiated an extensive jsf cost deep dive led jointly

by my office, atl and cape. the purpose of this cost review is to understand in detail at lockheed martin, northrup drummond and rolls royce as well as their primary subcontractors, what jsf costs, why it costs what it costs and most importantly what we can do to improve cost performance at the prime contractor and up and down the supply chain. this will be a completely transparent process with the companies involved. the knowledge gained will inform our product contract negotiations and all of our sustainment efforts on a go-forward basis and will promote more effective and timely contract negotiations. just yesterday the fy 2017

defense acquisition work force awards ceremony was held. deputy secretary shanahan and i recognized the outstanding accomplishments of 27 top d.o.d. acquisition professionals out of a work force of 165,000. a few of their accomplishments include implementing a cutting edge approach to cyber security, testing for weapons systems, accelerating the testing for defensive systems by two years, getting 3,000 casualty care units to medics and special forces operators, improving cyber security for medical facilities and reducing biological agent decontamination time by 50% to accelerate the return of equipment back to the fight. out of the 17 individual awards across requirements and

acquisition critical functions, the united states special operations command received four. our challenge is to take these pilots, these silos of excellence and scale them to the big army, the big navy and the big air force. >> how many f-18s are operational and ready to fly? >> not enough. i'll defer to my colleague mr. gertz on that one. >> okay. the numbers i require are 60% are not flying? >> operational availability across our air assets is an issue. as i talk to each of the service secretaries, it's very clear there's a lot we can do at the beginning of these programs to design in the sustainment portion and we're focusing on that and we'll come back and tell you how we're working on

it. >> and let us know who's responsible. >> absolutely. i would look forward to a small discussion in your office and we can talk about the actions we're already taking in terms of accountability with individuals. >> thank you. >> so we're also working to make use of the new rapid hiring flexibilities provided by this committee to bring in world class talent in areas like robotics, lasers, artificial intelligence, as well as new contracting specialists and test engineers. for example in 2016 our labs hired nearly 2,000 new scientists and engineers, using the hiring authorities congress provided. reforming and improving the defense acquisition system to create an agile enterprise is continuing process requiring close partnerships across the department and with congress. you have my total commitment to

the success of that partnership. i'm looking forward to working closely with the committee and the professional staffers to further implement the initiatives we have already begun. thank you for your support in this significant effort. i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you. secretary esper. >> chairman mccain, ranking member reid, distinguished members of the committee good morning. when i appeared before this committee in mid november, i stated that modernization was a top priority of mine and ensuring the future readiness of a force in a high end fight would be difficult without reform of the current system. i am even more convinced this is true and more aware of the urgency for us to modernize. i'm encouraged by the progress the army has made consistent with congressional direction to been over hauling the current system.

to be sure, a long road lies ahead. but army leadership with the support and advice of congress is fully committed to bold reform that promises to provide america's soldiers with the weapons and tools they need to fight and win our nation's wars as part of the joint force. this committee is well aware of the growing challenges our military faces around the world. rising near competitors threaten and sometimes challenge america's interests with capabilities that often match and in a few cases kpo s exceed own. in short, our failure to modernize as quickly as possible will most likely increase risk to the force. this makes reform a strategic imperative. together with leaders from the army, army national guard and army reserve, i'm approaching this endeavors through readiness. ensure the army's ability to

deploy, fight and win across the entire spectrum of conflict, especially high end. third, modernization. build greater capability and capacity in long-term to ensure clear overmatch in the future. improve the way we do business to free up time, money and man power to make the total army more lethal, capable and efficient. the army is currentliundy undertaking efforts to for unity of command, efficiency and leader accountability. first, a three star level task force is mapping out a new command, army futures command that will consolidate the services modernization enterprises under one roof second, the army is kexecuting directives to refine how we generate requirements, simplifying our contracting and

sustainment processes and evaluating our progress through metrics to enable us to deliver capabilities to soldiers faster. these directives leverage authorities contained in the ndaas. third, the army has stood up eight cross functional teams to enable our leadership to efficiently identify and manage investments across the army's six modernization priorities. these teams are charged with using expermuse ing experimentation to reduce the requirement process. this includes a threat based strategy th strategy. fifth, we are directly engaging army senior leadership as decisionmakers as directed in the fy 16 ndaa through a i

reinvigorated oversight process. other benefits are streamlined requirements and processes are being captured in a re-written army regulation policy. there's more that we can and must do. we must have predictable and stable funding to restore balance and reduce risk. we will continue to work with you and your staffs on the task before us. i fully believe you will see marked, clear progress in the coming months. you will see much more unity of effort, command, efficiency and accountability as we move forward. however, the ultimate test is on the future battlefield where we will succeed or fail based on our efforts to reform and modernize today.

i cannot help but be reminded that today is the anniversary of december 7th, when we were caught off guard at pearl harbor. in a few short years we energized the country and the american people to fight and win that war. we need to take that same sense of urgency to the challenges we face today as we did in the 1 0 1940s. thank you. >> thank you. secretary gertz. >> mr. chairman, ranking member reid and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. the department of the navy has embraced the recent acquisition reforms.

we continue to leverage the available tools to drive down costs and assist the work force. we made meaningful progress to date and will continue the efforts. our work force in particular has made progress advancing their professional and technical talents thanks to your support. further, meaningful reform must be assisted by predictable funding, timely budgets to increase funding levels would reduce market uncertainty and improve our ability to maintain schedule and costs..

>> i want to thank the committee for the authorities you've given to the services to continue to accelerate procurement and streamline capabilities of getting to the war fighter more quickly. the air force manages 470 acquisition programs of record. it's about $158 billion if you add up what we were authorized to spend over a five-year period. there are few things in the legislation that you've given us that i want to update you on. the first has to do with delegation of authorities back to the services, which was very clear guidance in the fiscal year 16 national defense authorization act. before that act came into being, 19 of 49 of the largest air force programs were actually managed and decision authority kept at the office of the secretary of defense level.

only 39% of our programs do we have a decision or authority on. >> so you see it as an improvement? >> well, today i have 76% of those programs. and last week the undersecretary delegated eight more programs to the air force to manage. last thursday secretary lord gave us authority to move out on that program. and in the last week, we have moved forward and approved a strategy amnd put out the requet for proposal. just in that one action, we have saved three months on the timeline to acquire that system. so we're taking advantage of those authorities, but we're also doing the same in the service by pushing authority down to the program managers, to the colonels who can run these programs. we haven't been change things above them in the past. they know what they're doing. let's support them and let them get after their programs. the second major change in the defense authorization act was

prototyping an intermentatioexp. you mentioned about the 100-page for request for proposal for a nine millimeter pistol. this is the letter of invitation and four-page set of requirements on the light attack aircraft. it was sent out on the 8th of march. in less than five months we had four aircraft on the ramp test. and last night i just got the test report. in less than 11 months with five pages we have tested four aircraft for a potential light attack aircraft for the united states and allies. >> what conclusions have you reached? >> senator, i was busy preparing for this hearing and didn't read the report last night. [ laughter ]. >> but it's not just the light

attack aircraft that we're experimenting with. another very promising one is something we call an adaptive engi engine. it's intended to get an increase in thrust of about 10% with a 25% increase in fuel efficiency. we've got two contractors working on that. it's not a program of record. it's an experiment, but we're trying to mature the technology, refine the requirements, reduce the timelines to get better engines that are more fuel efficient to the war fighter faster. so those prototyping and rapid fielding kinds of authorities are, i think, going to pay us big dividends, both in the short-term and the long-term. the third thing that your authorities gave us was something called the other transaction authority. we're taking advantage of that in a number of different program areas. it really targets those non-traditional d.o.d. contractors, the small innovative companies that won't

do business with the department of defense under normal circumstances because we're too hard to work with. space and missions systems just led an umbrella contract for a consortium of countries to give us space, ground, communication capabilities, particularly for our space forces. and that consortium is managing things for us under another transaction authority contract that took us three months to put together. the fourth area that i wanted to highlight for you has to do with people and the emphasis of this committee on both expedited hiring and the professionalization of our work

force. in fiscal year 17 we doubled that up to 1600. direct hiring we're even seeing more effort by the air force to take advantage of the un authorities you've given us. thank you also for the defense acquisition work force development fund. we are using those funds to enable and power, educate and train exceptional acquisition officials to be able to take advantage of the authorities that you've given them to do things differently, faster and bringing more capability. there is much more work to be done, but we're beginning to make some progress. there are areas where we're frankly not very good at buying stuff. software is one real example and is an area of continued focus and extra emphasis by the air force. not all of this will work. that's why we call them

experiments. but if we have productive failures, if we fail fast and learn for it and continue on in different vectors of technology, we have a chance of better meeting the add vversary in 203. and that's what this is all about. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, madam secretary. i thank the witnesses. i'd like to point out that it was about three years ago that we were having a hearing with the service chiefs and we were looking at the fact that the u.s.s. gerald r. ford had a $2 billion cost overrun. and i asked the secretary of the navy -- no, the chief of naval operations -- who was responsible for a $2 billion cost overrun. you know what the answer was? he didn't know. he didn't know. i mean, there's such a thing as

accountability and all of the things that were just covered by the witnesses here that there's no penalty for failure. can you tell me one or two individuals that because of the failure, for example, $6 billion future combat systems that never worked -- can you tell me an individual or individuals that paid a penalty nfor that failur? yes yes, ma'am. >> senator, i would be more than happy to have a meeting in your office and talk about some actions we've taken over the past several months to get at that very issue. >> can you illuminate us as to what? >> we as a team are working very

closely together to look at functions and individuals in osb and in the services, the duties they're required to perform and determining whether or not we have the right people in the right slots. i don't want to talk about individuals here in a broad forum. i appreciate the opportunity to do that behind closed doors with a smaller group. >> i thank you. but when i go to a town hall meeting and tell my constituents that we blew $6 billion and there's not been anyone fired or replaced or new way of doing things, they're not really very happy. so we'll be glad to hear what you have done and what you plan

on doing, but there's no reason why you shouldn't tell the american people. that's why we have hearings in the armed services committee. okay? so the next time that you come before this committee -- and you will -- i want to know what you've done besides say we don't know who's responsible. okay? >> sir, excuse me. i want to be on record. we hold people responsible and we will talk about that. >> all right. you hold people responsible. that's our system of government. who is it that's been fired? any answer? no. >> senator, i'm not aware of anyone being fired for fcs to your point. we completely agree. >> all right. senator reid.

>> thank you very much, mr. chairman. following along these lines of accountability, because i think that's probably the most critical principle, one of the practical difficulties is these programs sometimes stretch over decades and there are people who change out, retire, who are promoted, et cetera. so secretary lord and going down, any thoughts about how we can have this accountability stretch over many, many years? and as a subset of those questions, what kind of metrics can we use to make sure we're on track and the individuals will be closely associated with accountability? >> absolutely. first, there is an active discussion going on about when we rotate program managers out. it has not always been aligned with critical milestones in the program and that's somewhat problematic in terms of discontinuity. so we are looking at holding

onto program managers through key milestones or key events. i think that's one helpful issue. secondly, in the department -- i'll speak for myself here, but i know we all talk about this. i on a monthly basis roll out the 87 major defense programs' metrics. so in other words, we have 87 a cat one programs that are accountable for about 96% of our $1.9 trillion programs of record. we rack and stack those programs in terms of their performance, not only to the contract itself, but to the needs of the co-coms down range. you could look at munition guidance programs that look green, if you will, if you look at the letter of the contract.

however, we know we have short agea ages down range. we look at the metrics, where are we in terms of cost, where are we in terms of delivery, where are we in terms of quality. we review that and we roll that all the way up to secretary mattis. then i spend my time from an b osbatl point of view on these critical joint programs. an enormous amount of my time is focused on f-35s. those are some of the ways we're holding people accountability. we have war rooms we've put together. it's very transparent. you all are invited to come see. we have the metrics up on the wall, we have in terms of accountability, we have the peos and program managers' names.

i'm taking that lens that i had in industry and every month rolling the numbers up and seeing where we are, seeing where we are on delivery time and quality an doid going back making sure we have action times against those. >> i completely agree with what she said with regard to aligning the program managers' tenures with the critical milestones. there are other things on the personal side as well. i also want to address briefly what you said about the process being so long. under the concept we're developing with regard to the cross functional teams, what we envision is with the unity of effort and command add adopting a process that's enabled where we prototype, test learn fail. we are looking at reducing requirements of the development process that currently runs about five years, 60 months down

to 12. clearly one person would be in charge of that. that gives you one example of how we're trying to reduce timelines to ensure accountability. >> my time is limited. i apologize. >> yes. i agree with both. tenure is key. the navy, we have a gate review process where we're looking at these programs at milestone. and then we do annual reviews. that's a key point where we can see where the program is and assess that program manager or peo to see if they're delivering. if not, then hold them accountable at that point. another key issue, push responsibility down so it's hard to hold somebody accountable when they don't have the authority to actually make the decisions. pushing that authority down sisa key element. work force training and

certification -- if we haven't done that, it's hard to hold them accountable. >> whose fault is it that they're working 100-hour workweeks? whose responsibility is that? >> on board the ships, sir? >> on board the ships. >> that would be on the cno side through the operational command. >> when i asked the question, they said, well, we're going to do a study on this. a study as to whether our sailors and marines should be working 100-hour workweeks? we need a study to figure that out? >> yes, sir. i'm not familiar with the details of that plan. if i could take a question for you and get back with the exact strategy to get after that question i know you had previously. >> thank you. i'm sorry. >> quite all right, mr. chairman. secretary wilson, if you have any additional comments, we'd appreciate it. >> no, sir.

i think my colleagues covered it. >> thank you and thank you for your service. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me begin, secretary wilson, you mentioned the light attack aircraft and where we're moving on that. i want to compare that with the b-21 raider program which is also under development at this time and that program as you mentioned in your prepared statement, there's moving in both the oax and also in the b-21 raider program. a recently declassified audit from the pentagon inspector general praised the b-21 program's plan for meeting cost goals and requirements. i think if this trend continues, the b-21 could one day emerge as a model acquisition program. congress and the taxpayers might wonder if we could duplicate all or in part a process that has worked well in this particular program for subsequent programs. i know that the chairman had

expressed real reservations as to approve that had been proposed. and i think he's been very interested in the development and the movement forward in terms of getting this done on time and on contract. do you see some similarities between that and the light attack aircraft possibilities? and can we use the process that we've so far been successful in developing in the b-21 plan? is that something that can migrant to other plans such as the light attack aircraft as well? >> senator, we're actually using different authorities there. we used other transaction authorities or simple authorities or experimentation shorts for light attac authorities for light attack. it's being done by the rapid capabilities office, which kind of has a board of directors of senior people, including myself, the acquisition authority and things move very quickly.

we are extending that down and using that charter for the rapid capabilities office to extend that construct to our other procurements. we're going to give this a try. it's a charter for kind of a rapid capabilities process where senior leaders will allow a program manager to identify a program they want to move quickly on, set some parameters. and instead of having to walk it around the pentagon to get 20 signatures, they come to a beard meeting, make a presentation, and then we move. we are actually modeling that in the air force. >> thank you. >> secretary lloyd, there was a discussion that i had with my staff in terms of the time frame it takes to get new information and plans put together. they used as an example cell phones. straightforward, off the shelf. i can buy it, make a decision on

it, put it to use in about a week at the most from the time that i get it to the time that i can use it. acquisition time for a new piece of software and hardware combination today through the pentagon could take as much as 2 1/2 years to acquire. this is basically out of date after a year to a year and a half. my question to you, when you're all said and done using a piece of hardware and software combination available today in the general public for perhaps purchase within a one-week or two-week period of time, what's your goal for getting the acquisition process down from a 2 1/2 year time period for pentagon acquisition and issue? >> our goal is to look at where we've had successes with diux, with sko. i've asked will roper to be here with me today because we think

they've demonstrates the right kind of behaviors. frankly, as we organize atnl into anf scale the behaviors, the processes, or the lack thereof that we've seen in these different groups. and it's an issue of scalability. >> i'm going to run out of time but let me ask this one more time. what's the goal in terms of, is there a goal for cutting back acquisition times? >> 12 months for major programs. >> from two-and-a-half years to 12 months. >> correct. >> okay. >> now that's a first step, i just would like to be on record as saying. >> okay. next of all, cloud computing is here to stay. clearly the pentagon has got to be able to make decisions about how they acquire capabilities. you currently chair the cloud executive steering group or the cesg. does the membership include war fighter representation from the

military services, combat commands to include cyber command or if not, why not? >> we have pulled in all of the services and are talking to them. we put out an rfi and have gotten 52 responses. we, right now, are working on how we're going to go about that contract. we don't know how we're going to structure it yet. but absolutely, because what we're looking at is mission focus here, not backroom business systems, and it's all about getting that computing capability out to the edge. we want our war fighting systems to be able to do machine learning, to have artificial intelligence, and until we have all of our data in just a few places, it's going to be very hard to do that. so, frankly, sir, everything i do is about lethality and the war fighter. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you all for being here today. the defense federal acquisition

regulation supplement, as i know all of you know, requires that all d.o.d. contractors, including small businesses, comply with a complex series of cyber security requirements by december 31st of this year. now, i certainly think it's very important for us to address the cyber concerns and have been banging the drum on that, particularly with respect to kaspersky software. but i am concerned as a member of the small business committee in the senate, as someone who comes from a small business state, that our small businesses are very important to technological innovation and i have heard from many of them that they're very concerned that they can't comply by this deadline, that unlike some of the bigger businesses that work with the department of defense, they don't have the support to comply with these complex regulations

by this deadline. can you tell me how concerned any of you are about this, and whether there are ways in which we can do more to help small businesses comply? >> i am very, very interested in this topic, and in fact, we are concerned about being compliant and working -- worrying about risks. we heard back over a year ago that there was great concern about the difficulty of implementing these requirements, so we went and modified them, and in order to most effectively and efficiently get out to the whole community, especially the small business community, we used a forum that i have set up where quarterly, i meet with all the different components, with three industry associations, aia, ndia, and psc. they all have small business components. the professional services council, especially. in our early october meeting, we talked about this very issue, because it was brought up, and we said that clearly the only requirement for this year is to lay out what your plan is, and

that can be a very simple plan, and we can help you with that plan. we can give you a template for that plan, and then just report your compliance to it. so, we are trying to reach out very hard through the industry associations to get this word out. i think there are maybe some old information out there, and any small company that has any issue can come to us and we will help them with that. >> that's really helpful. are there guidelines that we can share with the business community in our states to let them know? >> absolutely. i will get that to your office. absolutely. >> that would be very much appreciated. secretary geurts, the virginia class submarine is one of the more successful acquisition programs. it's delivered on schedule and on budget. can you talk about what happened in that program early on that has allowed it to be so successful, and whether there are lessons that we can transfer as we're looking at the columbia class subs to ensure that they also can deliver on time and on budget? >> yes, senator.

i'm third day on the job so i was not around that program as it originated in person. >> you should know the answer to this. come on. >> yes, ma'am. i would say looking back on it, though, designing for affordability and then holding a stable design were key traits. having a -- the right government and industry team working together all through all of it, so, you know, as secretary spencer likes to say, shared risk, shared benefit, so a very good working relationship between the government and industry team. and then as we look at columbia, we're taking that philosophy and taking it to the next level. quite frankly, using any of the common equipment we can across all the submarine fleets, so we don't have to reinvent equipment and then we can get greater economic order, and then really focusing, really, on the design for affordability. secretary lord and i had a review yesterday, i think it was, very impressed with their

thought process, their discipline process of really looking at cost in the design phase, not trying to make it more affordable after it's designed. and i think those are great principles that we'll look to continue across the other parts of the department of the navy. >> well, i appreciate that, and i hope that you will take the lessons that are learned and make sure that they're incorporated. >> absolutely. >> into columbia. to go back to small businesses, as i said, and i know you all know this, that a lot of the technological innovation that we are now adopting in our military come from small businesses. the sbir program, the sttr program, have really been successful. for sbir, for every dollar spent through the air force, $12 was returned. in the navy, for every $1, $19 was returned. so these are programs that really work. can you elaborate on what more we can do to encourage the use of small business in these programs?

>> i was just speaking with raj shah at diux a couple days ago about how we can take the success they've had at duix because they've had over 60 contracts to work with small businesses who might not have worked with the department of defense otherwise. and i asked him that exact same question, and he told me that there are some constraints on some of the sbir money that doesn't allow it to flow. i don't have the specifics here, but i would love to come back to you. this answers the question of what else can this committee do to help move along towards incorporating commercial technology and so forth. i think this is one of the few cases i've seen so far where another authority or taking away some kind of legislation right now might help us. but i'd love to come back and give you specific examples. >> that would be -- >> tell us what you need. >> i will. >> yes. and also, if the small business committee also needs to do

anything, please, we can move on that, as well. >> very, very timely. i appreciate it. >> and senator, i would add to your point, small business tends to be an engine of innovation. that's something we have to preserve. the army works hard to meet and exceed its annual goals for business, and we do. i think the key thing is we talked already about the complexity of regulations, something we're working hard to deregulate, to delayer. i'd say security clearances are a big challenge for businesses. >> absolutely. >> we now have over a year-long process, and the other complexity -- the other thing i mentioned, this is preaching to the choir, i mean, clearly with crs, and the -- >> yep. >> -- the uneven funding, if you're a small mom and pop shop out there, and i'm referring to my industry experience, it's hard for them to survive in an uncertain budgetary environment and we risk losing those folks. who may over time decide they're going to get out of the defense business and go elsewhere so that's a big threat to our supply chains.

>> how would you characterize your relationship with silicon valley? >> senator, i think from an army perspective, it's a growing one. it's something we need to develop particularly when we talk about i.t. systems. as senator rounds pointed out, it's a very particular challenge, given the fact that the technology changes to quickly and now the innovation is happening mostly, if not entirely, in the commercial sector. so i think it's a relationship we have to continue to build with silicon valley and then broadly with the commercial sector and tap more -- make d.o.d. acquisition more friendly to the commercial sector. >> the relationship between the cia and dod -- >> your -- i agree with that. cia has done some great work. for instance, migrating to the cloud. to answer your question from my perspective, i'm leveraging the defense innovation board pretty significantly, and that's how

i'm tying into silicon valley. i've worked on the subject of software, where i think the most opportunity lies for the department, both from a contracting point of view as well as developing commercial techniques. so, i speak routinely with the defense innovation board about how to do things differently, and particularly eric schmidt i speak a bit with. i was just on the phone with him on monday afternoon asking him specifically what can i do differently to solve some specific issues. and that's helpful. we also are using our diux arm out there to set up round tables for me to meet with a variety of software companies, because that's where i'm focused right now. >> how long has diux been in business? >> for two or three years, perhaps. i have to get back to you on the specifics on that. i'm not smart enough to know that right now. >> that's -- that's not a lot of progress. >> i want to build on it.

>> senator ernst. >> thank you, mr. chair, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. we had a great forum this last weekend. the reagan national defense forum, and secretary lord, i'm glad you were there. secretary esper and i sat together on a wonderful, wonderful panel. i think everybody was engaged at one point or another through those discussions, and it was very helpful to see so many people that agreed on some of the challenges that we have, including the crs, as was just mentioned, sequester, our budgeting issues here in congress. and secretary lord, from this past weekend, you had mentioned the need to redirect our investments to meet the demands of a shifting world. and i agree with that as well. and we do need to invest in innovation to keep our competitive edge over near peer adversaries like china and russia and that's a topic that

secretary esper and i were engaged in on our panel. can you talk about some of the emerging capabilities the department of defense should be investing in to ensure that we are keeping that technological edge? and how do we balance those investments, then, with the need that we have to improve our readiness? >> what we're trying to do is strike that balance. we are talking about operational availability of aircraft earlier. we obviously need the readiness. what we're doing is trying to take a very federated system of labs that we have right now between the services, ffrdcs, osd and so forth, and align them in terms of modernization. what do i mean by that? instead of working on maybe hundreds of projects, we're trying to identify specific technology domains that we

agree, across the department, are critical to really reach the overmatch capability we want to have. so, specifically, what does that mean? hardened microelectronics, absolutely. hypersonics. then the whole cyber area and everybody defines "cyber" a little bit differently, but i'm talking about offensive and defensive cyber. those are three areas where we are committed, and we're looking at aligning our investments to make sure we make a step function change in our capability. >> okay. i appreciate that. >> what we're doing right now is working on the elements of that, and we'd love to come back and talk to you about that in more depth. as you know, we've just stood up cyber command, and we have a whole series of efforts. >> yes.

>> been fooling around on this issue without a strategy for the last nine years that i know of. >> yes, understood. >> yes, the chairman and senator rounds have been very passionate about making sure that we are nesting our capabilities together and understanding who is responsible in what domain. so, very, very important. and secretary lord as well, i've heard just recent reports that this distributed common ground system or dcig soft, the software that aggregates intelligence data for our special operators is problematic. it's ineffective is what i've heard from some of those operators and i also understand there are a number of commercial solutions that may be better and immediately available, and in some cases, they're already in use. at what point does the department then decide to simply cut its losses and move away from a program that they feel is ineffective? >> i don't want to comment too

specifically about that because we did have one of those contracts but il vector over to an air force program to answer the same type of question. we feel strongly when the environmental conditions and our adversaries have changed rapidly and we no longer believe that programs that we're pursuing can achieve the lethality that we wish, then we'll talk about potentially terminating programs. and in fact, general holmes and i were just here talking to hacd last week about jstar's recap. that's a perfect example of where, given the contested environments in which we're fighting, we're thinking that perhaps there might be better ways to get sensors to work closer to the adversary. so, that's an example of where we came up and said, we're strongly considering and want you to understand this is our

thought process. we want you to be thought partners with us, and these are all the reasons. it was a secret hearing so i can't get into too many details but that's an example of where we're looking at the current state of events, our current capability, a current program, and what we now know about other ways to achieve the end objectives we were trying to initially address. >> okay, so multiple factors involved in that decision making process. dollars, capabilities, overmatch. >> absolutely. and it's one that's not taken lightly and all of the different equities within the building are considered before we come and take the time of congress to say this is a serious concern of ours. >> okay. thank you very much. >> several years. for the recap.

>> have you got an idea how much we've spent? >> i don't have it here today. but i certainly could get that, yes, we do know. >> is it in the billions? >> on the recap, i don't believe it's in the billions, but i shouldn't speak without the data in front of me. we will get back to you. >> senator warren. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you to our witnesses for being here today on this important topic. i've previously asked each one of you if you would make research a priority in your work. you have all said yes. so i'm going to start with a really simple question. are you still committed to prioritizing basic and applied research, and will this commitment be reflected in the fy19 budget? i am willing to take really short answers like, yes. secretary lord. >> yes. >> secretary esper. we got this. >> yes, senator. >> yes, senator. >> yes. >> good. good. so, i have another question. in an effort to emphasize the

importance of r&d and in recognition of the span of responsibilities at at&l, that they were so big that last year this committee directed that the position that ms. lord now holds be split into two separate positions, one that focused on research and engineering, and the other that focused on acquisition and attainment. and i know you're all working hard to try to implement that. i think having a senior leader focused on future technology is incredibly important. i support that. but one of the real problems in our system right now is that we struggle to convert promising new technologies in the lab into the field, and the gap from the lab to the field is sometimes known as the valley of death. i am worried that splitting oversight of r&d from acquisition is going to make this problem even worse. so let me start with you, ms. lord. after the split, how will the

department ensure that our research and development program stays closely linked with the department's acquisition requirements and that promising technologies are actually nurtured and incorporated into our programs of record? >> this is something we're working on right now, and in fact, i've had conversations that i'm meeting with staffers next week to go over what our preliminary plans look like to have them be thought partners with us. but quite simply, what we're trying to do is put risk -- push the risk into the research and engineering side with a lot of prototyping and experimentation so that there are many, many iterations in order to understand the capabilities of new systems and the cost of new systems before pushing them over to the a&s side. >> so you're just going to get it further along while it's still in the research bucket. >> that's one piece of it. a second piece of it is we are

working on streamlined acquisition processes where you basically have a flowchart and you use the simplest methodology possible to get things on contract so that we're not held up in this do loop of you want to do something but you can't get it on contract. >> right. >> and these other transaction authorities are particularly germane here because they've helped us. thirdly, we're going to have some common resources between r&e and a&s, so it's not as if we have people that are either 100% r&e or 100% a&s. we will have a lot of those, but we're going to have some shared resources that span that gap that allow one group to understand what the other group is doing. this can't be personality dependent. it needs to be sustainable as we all move on. so, we're going to actually be experimenting, you know, prototyping and experimenting

over two years to make sure we get that right. the construct i have right now, and i'll be coming back to brief all of you on this, is we are going to do a two-year, eight-quarter transition, and we have a model for what we're going to do. and we're going to tell everyone what that is, and we'll begin moving towards that model, but we're not being rigid about it. we're experimenting and seeing what works. we're also making sure we get a lot of brains around the table to talk about all the what ifs. >> good. i really appreciate it and i appreciate the thought you're putting into this. we don't want to lose at that space. secretary esper, would you like to add to that? we're low on time. >> i would say briefly the army has begun a process of realigning its investments toward our six priority areas so for 19 to 2323 we've already rearyaned over $1.3 billion toward s & t.

and the way we're also doing that is as the cross functional teams are stood up and they're responsible for their specific capability areas with s&t aligned to that particular area, we're issued a directive that would required standardized written agreements about what is expected to be delivered from the s & t community to hand off to the actual cft leader to begin the acquisition process. >> okay. >> we're trying to do exactly what i think you were saying. >> i'm out of time so i'm going to ask the other two of you to answer this in questions for the record so we can get it in writing. but i want to say, we got to get better at this. anything that has the name, the valley of death, is not good in terms of acquisition of new, cutting edge technology. we can do all the terrific research in the world, but if we can't translate that into something that helps our war fighters, then we have failed at our essential mission. >> except for the clemson football stadium. that's known as the valley of death. >> not to me. all right. thank you. thank you.

>> what did that have to do with anything? >> thank you, mr. chair. let us bring us back to this topic here. first of all, thank you, i'm so encouraged to hear the conversation today. i heard the word, crisis, mentioned twice. i've heard, sense of urgency mentioned several times. as the next business guy in seeing this crisis, i am terribly encouraged by what you all are doing. i've met you, and we've had private conversations. secretary wilson yesterday was so gracious with her time talking about a major air force base and major piece of technology. i want to talk about something a little different. secretary esper, you mentioned first in your opening comment, in 1941, and we built up, not in years, in months, literally, we had things coming off the production lines, literally in months because we broke through everything, because we considered it a crisis.

but in 1949, just three years after we demilitarized after world war ii, we were right back in the same position. and that war was a little different, and so forth. but today, we find ourselves in crisis. i'm not going to spend time, i don't have time describing the crisis, but after 30 years of disinvestment and only one major recap and after 16 years of active combat, i believe we've got a crisis. the global situation is more dangerous than it's ever been. we've got a debt crisis here. we've got a near-rival that's now going to be a full rival that's actually spending more money than we are in real terms, adjusted for purchasing power and parity. general mattis says that there are three phases to solve this problem. and you've each spoken about it in different ways. there's a three-year term of readiness. we've got to get readiness recovered. there's a 15 to 25-year plan for new technology and recap and the full bloom of u.s. innovation and technology with regard to providing for national security.

at the same time, china is coming online. it's not going to take 15 years before a lot of their new technology is hitting. they have leapfrogged major areas of restrictions. they're bringing product online much cheaper than we do, much quicker than we do, and with far less restriction and government intervention. i'm worried about the shoulder season from year three to year 12, and i would like for you to -- i think secretary lord, if you will start with this, i'm really concerned about how do we find quick, low-cost solutions for the battlefield. i'd like a combat and commander representatives from army, navy and air force to comment on this, as well because i'm very concerned that we are -- we've got our eyes out here, we're looking at where the money is needed, and yet these high-cost solutions, flying f-35s into battle space where an a-29 might be okay, i'm not saying we're doing that, but those types of examples. jstars, you mentioned them just

a minute ago, great long-term capability. we've got a dying platform right now. technology, the battle spaces are changing. that interim period, that's a perfect example of where i don't personally see the air force or anybody else, really, moving toward that interim solution in a way that gives me comfort with a low-cost, current technology platform that's better than what we have, more cost effective than what we have but doesn't get in the way and take money away from long-term development. would you address that? >> two-part answer to the question. one, i would really like to come back and in a different setting and a classified setting -- >> that's fair. >> -- talk to you about some of the programs going on. >> i'd look forward to that. >> but secondly, what you're talking about is exactly what diux, sko, and the rapid capabilities office are doing, and we should come back and tell you about some of those successes. what we have to figure out how to do is scale that. and right now, we haven't scaled it, because probably the best meeting i go to in the pentagon

is something called the war fighters senior integration group where we sit down every two weeks and we have on vtc, afghanistan, every two weeks, and then the other two weeks, iraq, and we talk to the war fighter about what is going on today and what they need in terms of rapid capabilities. this is what has spun out an enormous amount of counter-uas squipt and that has been fast. so we can do this. but we do it on a small scale, and that's what this reorg is all about, in my mind, is getting away from the 5,000 process, other than the very complex areas where we might need some of that, but just use the little bit of process we need to get stuff out the door. >> so secretary esper it, would you comment on -- i'm out of time. i would love to have you respond to that, all of you respond to that question after the meeting. >> yes, sir, because it's a great question.

i'd just connect a couple dots from the historical example. the key here is changing culture. >> thank you. >> senator, the key is changing culture. at the end of the day, we have to change the culture. that's what came out of the 2011 decker, wagner acquisition reform report. that's the most crucial element and the way the army is getting at this is standing up the army futures command to do just that, take an approach that says let's not make the perfect the enemy the better. let's prototype, demonstrate, learn. let's fell early. let's fell cheaply, and let's go with 80% solution. get something fielded. the view is if we can stand up the organization, the command, quickly, get that unity of effort and unity of command, get some early wins under our belt, we can start changing the culture so that we're ready, position posture to begin looking simultaneously at those mid and far-term threats that you described. >> and how long have we been fooling around with future combat systems?

>> well, thank goodness it's in our rear view mirror now, mr. chairman. >> senator, in the navy, we're taking an approach with an agile acquisition office, and that whole acquisition process, which i co-chaired, there's a board, i coclaire with the cno or the command and the. it can give us a bridge or there's a problem that we need a solution for, we can't wait for the business as usual. we're seeing about a three-year acceleration for the projects we're getting through those programs on manned aerial refuel or on the carriers, one of them, some of the high-speed vessels, so that's a way to give -- again, we should have a menu of options. some needs to be rapid, exactly what we have today, buy us, sold commercially. get them in the field tonight. some need to be build a carrier, very deliberate, you want to make sure you get it right because it's going to be around

for 40 years and there's a sweet spot, and quite frankly, your committee's authorities and some of those rapid prototypes being abbreviated acquisitions really gets at that sweet spot. that's what we've been missing. and so you've given us the authorities. we've now got to go implement those. i think all of us are in the emerging stages of that and i think in the next two or three years, that's really going to get at that shoulder thing that, yeah, we can't wait for 15 years for something that's going to happen five years from now. >> senator, for the air force, we look 5 to 15 years, and you're right, the technical risk in the shoulder season is something that all of us are worried about along all of our programs, particularly those that are new ways of doing business and i know you and i have a scheduled classified session to go through some of those that are a high priority for you. >> thank you all. and mr. chairman, thank you for your courtesy and to the ranking member, thank you. i would think it would be very important if we could have this similar conversation, follow-up meeting in a classified

environment at your discretion. thank you. >> i think it's something we ought to pursue. we ought to pursue. senator donnelley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and for the witnesses, secretary wilson, i want to thank you and your staff for a unique level of prompt communication since your confirmation. we've been able to work together on some important issues to improve the readiness of our forces, and the lives of our airmen and their families. one of the challenges will be the readiness of the a-10 fleet. if the air force intends to maintain the current fleet for the foreseeable future, i'm concerned about the shortfall and funding for new wings. 130a10 fleet, more than 100 aircraft still need new wings and the air force will be forced to ground some of these next year because their current wings have reached the owned of their service life. i understand the many, many challenges the air force is up against right now. but this obviously has a very real impact.

what do you see as the air force's options on this issue, taking into account budgetary challenges, readiness requirements, and our timelines? >> senator, thank you for the question. the defense authorization bill that the senate passed and the house passed and the -- the house appropriations mark add money into the air force budget to retool and open a line for wings. it wasn't in our budget. i know the senate appropriations committee is working on that now. if that comes through, we will execute that and get our -- get that line started back up so that we can rewing. i think the amount would be the first -- it would be the tooling and the first four or five sets of wings for the a-10. you're right, we are always managing, you know, how do we -- how do we move to new platforms. at the same time, we try to maintain capability and cover missions with existing fantastic platforms and i happen to be

kind of a fan of the a-10 myself. >> thank you. secretary lord, i appreciate the hard work you are putting into getting our acquisition systems running more efficiently. it's really important to get it right, as you well know. we've discussed hypersonic systems in the past. i'd like to revisit that today. conventional prompt strike or cps is defense's most advanced hyper sonic development effort. testifying to this committee earlier this year, strategy com commander general advocated for fielding a cps capability by the mid 2020s. i believe the navy has a vital role to play in fielding cps. do you see that as a priority for the department? and if so, why? >> yes, i see it as a priority. in fact, there are two key programs going on right now, one at darpa and one within osd that are moving along so i would be more than happy to come and

have the technical lead to brief you on those. >> i was going to say, if you could provide us an update where you are with this effort. >> yes. >> senator, can i add one thing to that? >> sure, absolutely. >> on the hypersonics, there are two demonstrators where the air force and i believe the navy as well are working with darpa and it's a prototyping experimentation effort that is -- we're using the authorities that you all gave us for experimentation and testing so we didn't wait for extensive requirements kinds of things. we're moving forward on an experiment for hypersonics, and it was through the authorities you gave us. >> thank you. secretary guerts, i want to ask you about the role our defense labs play in the acquisition process. i spent a lot of time at crane navy lab in indiana. i've been struck by how integrated they are in not only innovating new capabilities to meet navy requirements but testing and evaluating and verifying systems developed for the navy by private industry throughout the acquisition process. i'd love to get your view of defense labs as a vital player in the acquisition system.

>> yes, senator. i think, you know, in coming to the navy, i'm really impressed with their warfare centers and their labs and how well they're tied. i think having an organic capability, especially as we've got this rise of commercial technology and commercial products, that organic capability to take them, test them quickly, perhaps integrate them in a different way than would be done commercially is a critical piece for us. back from my so com days, navy dahlgren does all the software for our gun ships. that's all written organically. that gave us great flexibility in special operations command to change as requirements on the battlefield game. so i think it's an absolutely critical piece and i think it's a key in us getting through the valley of death because they can help mature, you know, and immature commercial product from a small business work with them and then get it so it's in a fieldable or close to fieldable condition for us to put into the field.

>> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, you know any time we have a committee talking about acquisition, i have to bring out my favorite prop and remind everybody of the actual pages. almost 700 pages. ten years to define a handgun, next generation handgun. and i just found out with the update, good news is, we've down selected, we've got a manufacturer, and ten years from now, all the army units will actually have this gun. 20 years after it was conceived by the air force. first off, i thank you all for your service. welcome. but we know there's no logical basis for something like this for something as straightforward as a handgun. a 20-year process from concept to full deployment within the army. i don't even know what it means for the whole d.o.d. but within the army.

so, senator mccain and his opening comments said, with the exception of senator reed, he would like for you to talk with all of us. i think that's what he said. but no, in all seriousness, as somebody who's worked in procurement, as somebody who's worked in strategic sourcing and acquisition, if i were going into an organization to be retained to fix their acquisition process, i'd probably be firing quite a few people. now, we operate a little bit differently here, because you have constraints that are placed on you by congress, so we probably need to shine a mirror on us and fix some of the constraints, but shine light on that. come to people like me and others who are passionate about this issue so that the chair has empowered the subcommittees to look at this. get us on a fast track for providing you with relief. and get on a fast track for removing some of the constraints that you've placed on yourself. and i would just like you to respond to that in the remaining time.

>> senator, if i may, since the handgun was an army system, let me give you some good news. the handgun was actually fielded last week at my old unit, the 101st airborne division. that fielding has begun, and i would note since i saw him yesterday that your colleague, senator tom cotton, actually qualified on the weapon and was very pleased with it. the troops have been very happy with what we fielded. i would also note because it's important to what you're saying, after the years of going through that extended process, the chief of staff of the army took to heart what congress said, used the legislation that was in contained within the ndaa, we had stood up about 20 months ago or so, the reinvigorated army requirements oversight council, so he took that case that you're talking about, refined the requirements process and 18 months later, we got to the point that we were delivering weapons so we've managed to turn a bad news story i think into a good news story. i think that type of process, leveraging the authorities we got from congress, is the basis for which the army is heading

with regard to futures command and all the changes we plan on making to improve the acquisition process and make sure that we don't see that again. >> sir, from the navy's perspective, you guys have been very helpful. we've been doing some piloting of reducing number of critical performance parameters. you gave us the authority to try one where we only had two critical performance parameters. that's simplified the solicitation. then we could work with industry, again, getting to, as secretary wilson, a much shorter requirement, gave us a much broader look. that saved years from us going through the normal, traditional piece. so the authorities you give us, again, help us try and drive that change because ultimately, we've got to get the workforce trained and get the culture shifted from what has been to what needs to be. >> and as secretaries wilson and lord respond, we've got to keep in mind about the cumulative cost of this. i mean, we've got to take a look at, when you have to participate

in a procurement for ten years, how much cost you're building into the industrial base that we ultimately pay for. so, i also want to make sure that i'm getting a commitment from you all to come up with specific actions that we need to take to accelerate the process. secretary wilson and we'll finish with secretary lord. you can watch this senate armed services committee hearing on our website. we'll hear a talk about the national debt and u.s. economy. speaking will be the assist vice president for the committee for responsible federal budget. the national economist club is the host of this event. >> welcome to the national economist club, our first event of the year. the club was -